Lois & Clark Forums Forums Fan Fiction Fanfic Related Hands up who reads romance novels

After reading the 'mirror characters' thread and consequently experiencing a minor light bulb moment regarding the romance genre and writing styles, I'm curious - who reads romance novels and who doesn't? How often do you read them? Are you a big fan or do they mostly leave you cold?

I'm not doing this as a poll (yet), because I want to see if there's any correlation between writing style and whether you read a lot of romance or not. Readers, by the way, are more than welcome to post as well - after all, you are the audience for all this fanfic we writers churn out so it would be nice to know what you enjoy.

Okay, to answer my own question - I hardly ever read romance novels. I've always gone for action, excitement and intrigue in my reading, so a glance at my bookshelf over the years would reveal a lot of spy books, thrillers and detective stories. However, I'm not a fan of the purest forms of these genres - I like a lot of human interest and, yes, even a touch of romance in my reading.

Yvonne
(who's already changing her mind about the poll idea...)

Hardly ever read romance novels. I do like to have a romantic plotline running through the SF Fantasy novels I read, however.

Last year, I did read a couple of Regency romance novels that were given to me and I did enjoy them. But I wouldn't go seeking any out, I don't think. With the exception of Loretta Chase, maybe - whose Lord Of Scoundrels wasn't only one of the most steamy, romantic romance novels I've read, but also the most hilarious, which literally had me LOLing as I read with its banter between hero and heroine. Of course, naturally enough, this being the case, her novels are extraordinarily rare and difficult to get hold of.


LabRat

I've been reading romance novels since the summer I was twelve when I got bored and picked up my mom's books. I kept it hidden from my dad for a few years, until my step-mom's mother brought some books over, and I confiscated them. Once I started earning my own money, I started buying my own books.

I primarily read the Harlequin novels, and look for stories with humor. I especially love the ones where the couple were friends, and then realized they were in love. (Sound familiar, anyone? )

Granted, it's not the only thing I read. My bookshelves are packed full with fantasy and "young adult" novels. Granted, a lot of them have romance in them, too, but that's usually not the reason I read them. It's just an added bonus.

Hmm...I'm responding because Yvonne is asking.

I like the idea of category romance. But the execution in product varies widely and I don't actually read a lot of it because a lot of it is poor writing. (A couple of years ago, on Zoom's boards, I was an unwitting participant in something foul by beta-reading for a plagiarist. I was doubly embarrassed, however, by the reams and reams of grammatical and punctuation corrections I sent back...only to discover they were part of the original!!!!)

Category romance actually has a few sub-areas, and different lines reflect different qualities and emphases. Net net, a good author makes all the difference. Jennifer Crusie is such an author. She's published in category romance, but if you read her stuff, it's just plain old hysterically funny...and romantic and sexy too. (I recommend Welcome to Temptation and Faking It)

I suppose I like the idea of romance because I very much like to work within formula for entertainment. By that I mean that I read things to be tranported elsewhere to relax and I don't want any surprises--like an unexpected unhappy ending--to get in the way of that. I also think it makes the author work to do something original with a formula (like the L&C formula for instance)

Sherry

I've always been a reader. Re the romance category I just finished the 12-volume (one each month) Barone set from Silhouette Desire. And over the years I have read every historical novel Catherine Coulter and Jude Devereaux have written.

*Hand shooting up*

Although free time has been rare lately, and so I haven't touched a book since last summer, I'm usually a hungry reader of Regency romance - my favourite author in that genre is Mary Balogh, but there are plenty others I've tried and (so far) enjoyed for most of their books.

Kaethel

I don't read romance novels ... used to read a lot of "young adult" romances when I was a pre-teen and young teenager but that was many, many years ago. Now my reading is almost all non-fiction or magazines; I get my fiction fix from fanfic.

Not sure if that has any coorelation with my writing or not ... if anyone has a theory, please fill me in. <g>

Kathy

I'm not a fan of romance novels generally, although I have indulged -- and even enjoyed -- a few that I have read. (My particular favourite of the limited number I have read is Thunder and Roses, by Mary-Jo Putney.)

I do have, however, a very low boredom threshold where romances are concerned. After only one or two at once, I have to seek out something completely different.

One problem is that I don't as a general rule like regency romances. I am yet to find a Georgette Heyer that I could wade through. (Sorry, all you Heyer fans out there!) Actually, I'm not much on historical novels at all, and a lot of romances put me off by the cover alone. You know the type: gaudy colours, gilt lettering, and heaving breasts in empire-line dresses. Ugh!

Another problem is that most Harlequin stuff leaves me cold. They don't have the depth I want in my reading, and some are downright badly plotted and written. Yes, there are undoubtedly some gems out there, but I don't often have the patience to go looking.

Also, has anyone else had the experience of mentioning Mills & Boon, and been subject to that condescending raised eyebrow look? In my impressionable teen-age years, that was a remarkably inhibiting factor when I tried to read one. Took me about another twenty years before I managed to pluck up the courage to buy one from the local supermarket!

Like Yvonne, I like action. However, I don't like action at the expense of characterisation, so I can get bored of thrillers pretty quickly, too.

I guess that means I like variety.

Chris

I read the Barone continuity too. Look at the dedication in book #1.

I'd never read a romance novel until that unfortunate incident referenced by Sherry. Foul as that was, I consider it a serendipity in my life because it led me to where I am now and the array of new friends I have. I usually read 5-6 category books each month with a single title thrown in here and there.

I'll be interested to see who says they read romance novels and who doesn't because a lot of writing around here (most commonly the nfic) appears to me to be influenced by the overall style of category romance.

I've never read a romance novel. There I said it. Never. When I was younger, 8 or 9 I think, and probably would have started reading them because I had read everything else at the library, my mom set a limit on what I could read. If she wouldn't let me read Jean M Auel after Clan of the Cave Bear, she certainly wasn't going to let me read anything from the special shelves!

So when I got to Junior High and stopped reading all together, I never ended up reading a romance novel <shrug>. Now my bookshelves are filled with textbooks and printouts of scientific articles.

Well, to be honest, I would have been one of those people raising the eyebrow. The only time I read one was when I was staying in Orkney one weekend in an old lady's house, about twenty years ago. I was desperate for something to read, and this doctor/nurse Mills & Boon pamphlet (you could hardly call it a book, it was so thin) was the only thing she had which looked remotely interesting - and that was only because I'd been reading a lot of stories about doctors working in war situations. I guess I was also curious to find out what a Mills & Boon was like, so I read it. I remember picking it up each time thinking 'Oh, no, I'm reading Mills & Boon!' <g>. Anyway, it was better than I expected, but didn't really whet my appetite for more of the same.

Yvonne

In case you're interested, here are some Romance Statistics .

And here's another article from 2001.

Crap, well maybe I should start writing Romance novels then!<g> j/k I have read a few over the years but not nearly as much as Action, Fiction, Science Fiction and Spiritual books. I just finished 3 of Dan Brown's. Very Good. Fast paced and exciting, "The Da Vinci Codes", "Angels and Demons" and "Deception Point". And my favorite of all time is LOTR of course. Romance tends to be too sappy for me. I'd rather see a romantic movie. However if anyone knows of a romantic story that doesn't follow the sappy mold, do tell! Laura

Define "sappy mold."

You might check the MIRA line of books. It is mainstream women's fiction encompasses mainstream contemporary and historical romance, romantic suspense, thrillers, family sagas and relationship novels. I just read one that was a romantic suspense -- FLASHPOINT by Metsy Hingle.

At this point, I don’t think it’s going to surprise anyone if I say I regularly read romances. I do but not nearly as many as the “average” romance reader. I probably read 3-5 new-to-me romances a month and reread about the same number of previous reads. Occasionally, a couple of mysteries or fantasies will be included in that mix but, yes, the base of my fiction reading diet IS romance.

It will probably surprise everyone that I absolutely agree with the above statement. There is a lot of drek out there in romance-land. No argument. However, the thing that most people don’t take into consideration is the sheer number of romances sold each month. (Thanks, Marilyn for posting that article with actual numbers because I didn’t have anything handy to use. ) Romance truly is the cash cow of publishing and there are quite a few publishers that would literally and immediately go bankrupt on the spot if the romance market dried up. So, yes, there are “more” bad romances out there but, proportionally, there’s just as much drek in the other genres and just as many good romances as the rest, too. The problem is that one has to wade through so much more to find the brilliant ones in romances.

One other thing that I have observed, though, in the thirty odd years that I’ve been reading the genre is that there also seems to be proportionally more romances that fall into that solid middle ground between drek and brilliance than is routinely found in other genres. The sheer number of consistently above average, satisfying and entertaining reads that the industry is able to produce is mind-boggling. A large part of that is because 1) publishers do know and respect their audience in a way that isn’t found elsewhere, 2) romance authors are generally romance readers first and foremost, and 3) and most importantly romance publishers like Harlequin/Silhouette spend quite a bit of time and money “growing” their authors by teaching in them how to be consistent, solid storytellers. Brilliance or drek tendencies are up to their individual talents but it is intriguing to note that many of the current “superstars” of the genre who are also making their mark outside the genre with crossover novels started as series authors. Those books show the same consistently strong storytelling that they learned in the genre. Examples are Nora Roberts/J. D. Robb & Jayne Ann Krentz to name just two but I could name a dozen or more. (Even Evanovich started as a series romance author . . . )

Oh, and there is one other thing that I’d like to mention since this thread is specifically about romance novels. NEVER call them “bodice rippers” to modern, devoted romance readers because you might just be taking your life in your hands. There are several reasons behind and facets to this gentle warning that would take too long to get into in this post but if anyone IS interested I’d be happy to expound on the theme later in another post.

Beverly :-)
http://www.booksanctuary.com

Yeah, what she said.

Seriously, though, there is literally such a large variety out there in romances that I'd first have to know what someone "thinks" romances are about and therefore wants to avoid before I could point anyone to the type of romances they might actually like that don't fit that "mold".

Beverly
http://www.booksanctuary.com

I don't tend to read romance novels. I've picked one up on occasion, but I don't find them fulfilling enough. So, after I've read one, I can go years and years without reading another one.

Probably I'm that way because I grew up reading the Brontes, Jane Austen, Hardy ( I could go through the list but you get the idea) and I found that the depth of character and situation, the richness of language, metaphor and symbols. (Okay, I ended up majoring in English literature :rolleyes: ). Somehow, reading romances doesn't fill my inner needs.

Over the last 20 years or so, I've immersed myself in Canadian literature which I find very challenging, multicultural, and enjoyable. My favourite authors include Margaret Laurence, Margaret Atwood, Rohinton Mistry, Mordechai Richler, Gabrielle Roi, Roberston Davies and many others. (Do I get a Canada Council Grant for advertising all these wonderful writers? )

Anyway, that's my kind of reading.

So why do I read Lois and Clark? I don't know except that I love the characters and the romance!

gerry/whose going back to bed because this flu is tiring her out.

Frankly, the closest thing to a romance novel that I've ever read was Jane Eyre. I read L&C fanfiction and that's really more than enough.

But romance novels never held any appeal for me- I mean, I see them on display in the stores all the time, but I never even wanted to pick one up. I get my quotia of romantic fiction from a) L&C fanfic and b)TV.

Julie

Yes, I read romance novels, though I don't read anything and everything in the genre. While I do sometimes read series romances (Harlequin/Mills and Boon), these aren't by any means my favourite read. I find the shorter ones far too unsatisfying and very formulaic. When I do read them, it's mostly as 'throwaway reads' - ie for when I'm on long journeys or on holiday. In that case, they are books I don't intend to take home with me!

Like Kaethel, my favourite within the romance genre is historical romance. There, too, I'm very fussy, and will avoid like the plague authors who sacrifice historical authenticity on the altar of sexual explicitness. So where characters in books set in eighteenth-century London (England!) sound like contemporary Americans, I'm jerked out of the story. The kiss of death for me is an author who cannot do elementary research - so anyone who writes an 18th or 19th century woman divorcing her husband, for instance, goes on my 'avoid like the plague' list. I kept waiting for the real hero to arrive and rescue her... but it turned out that the rapist was the hero.

My favourite authors in the genre include people like Mary Balogh, Carla Kelly, Edith Layton, Jo Beverley and - thanks to a recommendation from Ann McBride - Mary Jo Putney. These authors, apart from getting the period detail as accurate as possible and, especially in the case of Beverley, explaining why they depart from it, just write the kind of stories I like to read. They're all different - no formulas there, apart from the obligatory happy ending. <g> They also include internal narrative - some of us really do like to know what the characters are thinking!

And this brings me back to 'formulaic' - it really irritates me when publishers take it upon themselves to decide what readers should like. I don't want to be told what to read, and I don't want my favourite authors constrained by some editor who really has no idea what readers enjoy. Take one of Mary Balogh's recent novels, More Than A Mistress. Loved it... but there was an element of closure missing near the end. I was far from the only reader to think so: this point was mentioned in Amazon reviews and also on Mary's email list. Mary herself posted to tell us that she had actually written the scene whose absence we were all bemoaning, but her editor had advised that it should be removed.

But we're all different, and people's tastes in reading matter do vary enormously. Take Jo Beverley's Devilish, in my opinion one of her very best. I was puzzled by a review on Amazon claiming that the story didn't start until p. 166 - and when I read my own copy and got to p. 166, what I saw was a love scene! Clearly, for that reader, the 'courtship' is irrelevant... for me, it's the whole point.

Do I write in 'romance novel formula'? I guess I'm not really the best person to answer that! Though I'd add that I do read other fiction; I enjoy political novels, such as Michael Dobbs' excellent House of Cards series, and contemporary women's fiction which doesn't necessarily fit into the romance categorisation.

Dunno if this ramble answers your question, necessarily, Yvonne...


Wendy

I read some romance novels, specifically those by Jo Beverley, Mary Jo Putney, Georgette Heyer, and occasionally Mary Balogh. (I must admit that the reams of circular introspection in some of Mary Balogh's books is a turn-off for me.) I still like the mystery/romance novels by Mary Stewart, but could never get into the Arthurian books she wrote. Not a year goes by that I don't reread Pride and Prejudice. I have also occasionally read a Silhoutte/Harlequin, but like Wendy, they are "throw away books" for me. They just don't have enough character development or depth of plot for my taste to reread them. I can't help but think that most of them could have been improved by adding something.

That said, I also love humorous essay-type books like those of Dave Barry.

And for what it's worth, I was a literature major in college and graduate school.

Schoolmarm