Romance Category

Alpha Bits

It kind of goes without saying that the Romance genre is full of tropes and archetypes (though just to be clear: the happy ending is not archetype, but architecture).  Some come in plot form: the rags-to-riches story, for instance, a modern take on the Cinderella mythos.  Sometimes they pertain to character:  the driven career woman forced to reassess her priorities, or the survivor of a bad marriage learning to trust again.  Occasionally character archetypes can read less like original patterns than faded photocopies, and stock characters become exhausted pastiches.  One character archetype that’s occasionally misrepresented and often misunderstood - though never out of favour - is the character of the alpha male.

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Mysterious Lady

We have saying in our bookstore: Frontlist may bring customers through the door, but it's the backlist that brings them back. Book lovers are completists.  Bookstores that can fill the gaps in their ever-increasing collections quickly become favourite stops.  There’s nothing quite like the satisfaction of putting it all together, of finally finally owning all the books by a much-loved author.  Of course, neither is there any pleasure to equal the joy in the discovery of a new favourite.  Like, say, one of the recent additions to my pantheon of must-haves: Tamara Lejeune.

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Peanut Butter and Jayne

No matter the genre or subject, every reader has her Absolute Favourite writers.  The ones whose books she’ll charge the stores to get, and drop everything to read.  Diving into those books is a particularly edifying treat, a gourmet of literary delight.  But there’s more than one kind of favourite. Sometimes a reader wants plain and simple -- sometimes the hankering for peanut butter wins out over a new gustatory adventure.  Occasionally, you just want something comforting, familiar, and, though it may not be the fanciest item to ever hit the palate, a taste you know you’ll like.
   
That’s pretty much how I feel about Jayne Ann Krentz.

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No Thanks, I've Had Enough

There’s lots to enjoy about romance novels.  The arc of character development.  The layered emotional content.  The rare and welcome sense of success (otherwise known as the happy ending).  A good romance novel is a singular pleasure. 

A bad one, on the other hand, can be excruciating. 

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The Lady's Got Class

I once heard a reader dismiss a particular romance novel - and, in fact, the author’s entire writing career - because she felt the writer had no grasp of history.  Her complaint?  In the book, a character used a zipper several weeks  before it was invented in real life.  Now, I’m aware that historical errors can be very distracting, but it’s also possible to pay too much attention to the nicities of historical detail at the expense of the actual story.  More important, and thus more damaging when done wrong, is historical anachronism pertaining to character.
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It Was A Dark And Stormy Night

There’s a scene at the end of the film of Jane Austen’s Persuasion (the Ciaran Hines version, natch) that I love.  In it, the hero holds out his hand, and the heroine takes it.  That’s it, just two people holding hands.  What makes it so powerful is what led up to that quiet moment - the pain, regrets and misunderstandings are all behind them now, and from that moment forward, the two of them will move on together.  Romance fans love this scene, despite its sweet placidity:  it is profound, has the emotional impact of a battering ram and, given that the hero is even wearing gloves, is entirely, utterly tame. Continue reading...

Oh What Fools Immortals Be

It’s an old story, ancient, even, but you know it.  The young lovers, tragically separated by death.  The hero’s terrifying journey into the Underworld to find his love.  The dark moment of sacrifice, and the intercession of the gods.  The long, fraught trip back to the world above.  And then, just before they emerge, Alice says...

... “Er,” you say.  “Alice?”

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Southern Comfort

I’ve never been much of a fan of Southern Literature.  Partly because I was force-fed too much of it in school (though I don’t include To Kill A Mockingbird in that), but partly because, well, you know that whole ‘Eden lost’ ethos that flavours so much of it?  Yeah, spare me.  That may not be a mature response, but it runs deep and strong.  Which makes it all the more amazing that I’ll drop just about anything to read a new book by Deborah Smith, who is Capital S Southern. Continue reading...

Ten To Read

I always enjoy the 'Best Of' lists that come out this time of year.  Seems to me that kind of potted commentary, however limited, offers a great starting place.  So in the spirit of year-end helpfulness, here's a list of ten romances worth reading.  Historical and modern; sexy and mild:  they run the gamut.  I'm not claiming these are the best of any particular sub-genre, just that they're worth reading. Continue reading...

A Fine Pursuit: Loretta Chase

Some months back I wrote a column about Georgette Heyer, who re-imagined Jane Austen’s Regency era and popularized it for modern audiences.  The Regency period, 1811-1820, refers to the years of King George III's insanity, when his son, the Prince of Wales, was Regent of England in his father’s stead.  Given the similarity of style and tastes (and the continuing figure of the former Prince as King) the period is often extended to mean the years between 1800-1830. 

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And Now For Someone Completely Different...

I worked in my local library all through junior high and high school.  One of the lingering benefits was that for years I knew where all the brand new books were kept:  after they were entered into the system, but before they were put on the shelf.  It was like being an explorer.  Not only were the books pristine and untouched, but there was also the chance that I might make some fabulous discovery before anyone else.
   
    Then one day in 1993, I did.
  
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Dangerous Men and Adventurous Women

C’mon, admit it.

You thought that title was going to lead to some sort of evaluation of a romance novel - flowery, overwrought and probably twee as hell. In fact, it’s the title of an essay collection: Dangerous Men and Adventurous Women; Romance Writers on the Appeal of the Romance , edited by Jayne Ann Krentz (University of Pennsylvania Press, 1992).

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Everybody's Hero

The Harry Potter books are an oddity in the book world. Not just because they sell so well, but because of how they sell - or rather, when. Each book has a strangely limited shelf life. Rowling's newest title might sell three-quarters of a million copies in 24 hours, but then, well, it's pretty much over. Sales fall off the map. Each of her books is the Best-Selling Book Evar!, but only for a week. Every other week, every other day, the best-selling author in the world is Nora Roberts.

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Mary, Queen Of Hearts

Despite being a rapacious reader of just about everything, during my formative years I managed to miss any number of writers who are the bedrock of their particular genres. For instance, I read Terry Brooks long before Tolkien (and yes, I'm aware of the gravity of that mistake). I didn't discover Diana Wynne Jones until my mid-twenties, around about the same time I found Georgette Heyer. Another standard bearer I missed during my younger years, one who had a huge impact on many Romance writers who followed her, is Mary Stewart.

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She's The One

Like authors in every genre, romance writers cover a broad spectrum of imaginative ground. They come from a variety of backgrounds, and write to any number of inner aesthetics. Each one has a preferred archetype. From the bewilderingly naive traditional to the often bloody thriller, and every permutation in between, romance authors write to their personal tastes in in terms of pace, mood and degree of modernity. But if you were to get a group of romance writers together and ask them about their formative influences, the vast majority will mention one name: Georgette Heyer.

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The Better To Bite You With

When it come to romance novels, the trend today is for stories with teeth. And I mean teeth: long, white, sharp, and dangerous. Said teeth might belong to a werewolf, or a shapeshifting tiger, but most often, they're the fangs of a vampire.

Just what is the appeal of the vampire romance? Bram Stoker made the modern western vampire a figure of both attraction and repulsion. Dracula's titular villian was a creature of unmitigated evil, but he, and the book, also seethed with repressed sexuality. That's the beginning of the appeal, though not all of it.

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