Romance Category
Canadian Content
Most
major genre fiction publishers are located in either New York or London. Romance is a bit of an exception: Harlequin Books, the world's largest publisher of romance, is headquartered in Toronto. Nor is the Canadian flag absent on the authorial side. There are Canadian
romance writers from coast to coast, many of whom have huge
international followings. One of my favourites is Mary Balogh. Her
story, like that of so many other Canadians, starts elsewhere.
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Now vs. Then
Generally speaking, Romances are divided into two broad groups: contemporary and historical. Those distinctions are somewhat fluid. For instance, although it used to refer to anything set after 1900, ‘contemporary’ now encompasses anything set after World War II. ‘Historical’, meanwhile, covers everything else.
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Wolf In The Door
I think the adage about not judging a book by its cover was probably invented by publishers’ marketing departments. They spend a surprising amount of time and effort on covers, and don’t want that time to be wasted, so you're told to judge a book its prose. I can get behind that. As a bookseller, I always recommend that people searching for new authors should try a page or two. Nine times out of ten, you can tell if you’re going to like a book after only a few pages.
Of course, that tenth time is a humdinger.
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All I Want For Christmas Is A Few Good Books
In the spirit of the season, here are ten, in alphabetical order by author.
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It's the End of the World as we Know It
Remember Y2K? All those pre-New Year’s warnings about what might happen to the world’s computer systems? People were pretty calm about it, but many thought, hey, better safe than sorry, and stocked up on toilet paper and non-perishables. But as it happened, the giant looming what if turned out to be nothing, and the world was utterly uninterrupted. There were some spectacular fireworks, sure, but there were also white sales, air traffic control, and neo-natal care. Life, in short, went on as usual.
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Money For Nothing
Most writers get into the Romance genre because they read it, and they read it because they love it. Each writer is drawn to the genre for different reasons, of course. Whether the concentration on character; the focus on primary relationships; or the essence of the triumph of hope, the many appeals of the happy ending hook writers the same way they hook readers. Elizabeth Lowell, on the other hand, got into it for the money.
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Squeeze Play
Romance
and sports don’t mix. That’s the conventional wisdom, anyway.
It’s one of those weird rules, hidden and unarticulated, that seem
to underly any given genre. It’s a tenet that gets passed down to
new writers, not as gospel so much as in the form of a mild warning.
It’s not that books about athletes are uninteresting, the wisdom
would have it; it’s that they’re unsellable. Readers won’t
care about them, so editors won’t buy them.
Unlessyou’re Susan Elizabeth Phillips. Then all bets are off.
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It Takes Two
If I had a dime for every time I’ve heard that writing is a lonely profession I would (to misquote Stephen Colbert) have a hell of a lot of hypothetical money. But phrases don’t become cliches without reason, and the truth is that many writers spend a great deal of their time inside their own heads. Too much time? Maybe for some. But what it all comes down to is the battle between the writer and the empty page. Writing is not a team sport*. Except, of course, when it is.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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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In the run-up to, and wake of, the release of Watchmen, it has become common currency to say that adapting Zach Snyder, et al undertook a massive challenge in adapting Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ complex, sprawling medium- and genre-defining work for the screen.
We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
A scrappy rebellion, a victory against an evil overlord, leftover spaceships in the dark outer reaches of the galaxy, warriors with extraordinary powers (nearly wiped out), now on the verge of a comeback. Laughs, thrills, moments of sadness, moments of sheer action. Exciting stuff! And oh yeah, it's a Star Wars tie-in novel.
