Let's Talk Romance: What Makes a Romance Novel?

I just finished Tarzan of the Apes, and it's got me thinking about the nature of romance fiction -- what makes a romance novel?



In A Natural History of the Romance Novel, Pamela Regis defines the romance novel as "a work of prose fiction that tells the story of the courtship and betrothal of one or more heroines" (19). Using this definition, Tarzan cannot be a romance novel, since *SPOILER ALERT* Jane and Tarzan don't end up together at the end of the novel. It is also much more about Tarzan that it is about Jane, so the story does not revolve around the heroine.

However, in Conrad Sucatre's book, Old School Romance, in which he talks about romance fiction before the Harlequin boom of the 1970s, he complicates this simple definition. Using Gone with the Wind as an example, he outlines characteristics of romance fiction in the 1930s:

1: Blunt, realistic dialog.
2: A great deal of action.
3: Characters who all wear their emotions on their sleeves.
4: The story continues after marriage, rather than ending with the wedding of Scarlett and Rhett.
5: Very imperfect, very human lead characters. (11)

Note that crucial difference -- by Sucatre's definition, the romance novel doesn't need to end in marriage/betrothal. As he points out, in Gone with the Wind, arguably one of the most widely recognizable romance novels/films of Western history, the hero and heroine don't even end up together at the end.

Sucatre argues that Edgar Rice Burroughs (author of the Tarzan series) was a romance writer; in fact, Tarzan was originally subtitled A Romance of the Jungle (37). After reading it I'm more than willing to recognize it as such, despite the non-cannon ending. But I'm left wondering if there's any definition of romance fiction that will work across a wide range of tastes and interests. Here's one that works for me:

Romance fiction is fiction whose plot centers around the romantic relationship of two or more people.

That's broad enough to cover a lot of options, including non-heteronormative romances such as those featuring more than two people, same sex couplings, etc. However, it still gets to the heart of what I consider romance fiction - a work revolving around the dynamics of a romantic relationship. Hmm, it's already starting to seem problematic though, because what about novels about the dissolution of romantic relationships? Perhaps it should be "the romantic courtship" of two or more people? But I dislike the conservative connotation of "courtship." Hmm, it definitely needs thinking about...

- Regis, Pamela. A Natural History of the Romance Novel. Philadelphia: U of Penn P, 2003.
- Sucatre, Conrad. Old School Romance. Goose Creek: Vintage Romance Publishing, 2005.

Let's Talk Romance: Coming Soon

I just went nuts at Chapters and bought seven new books:


I like how it's a combination of teen fiction and erotica, with a mystery novel thrown in because I am obsessed with reading organization self-help books and online tips. With any luck I'll be reviewing some of these on here soon.

I'm really impressed with the books in the Teen section of Chapters. I haven't explored Young Adult books in a long time and I was surprised to find that tons of major adult authors are writing teen books now. Even though Companions of the Night is one of my favourite romance novels and also happens to be a young adult book, looking for romance in the Teen section just hasn't occurred to me. It makes sense though -- teen books, because of their content restrictions, are great places to find UST. They're also great places to find angst because, well, they're TEEN books. However, just because content is restricted doesn't mean they aren't as complex as adult books. There was a huge selection of dark-paranormal-romantic stuff in there and a lot of it looked more complex than anything I've found in Romance or Horror lately. I'm definitely going to be browsing that section more from now on.

Review: The Wild Hunt

Title: The Wild Hunt
Author: Jill Tattersall
Publisher: William Morrow & Company, Inc.
Original Date of Copyright: 1974
Genre/Sub-genre: Gothic Romance
Part of a Series? No

I thought this book would, as my fourth gothic romance in a row, blend with the others into obscurity, but I was pleased to find that it stands out among those of its genre. The characters were clever and amusing, the heroine especially, and the hero was as dark, satanic, and attractive as I could hope. The witchcraft makes the plot a little different and intriguing, and the Wild Hunt is very cool. The romance is great, not explicit but there are some small but satisfying hints of sex at the end and some great UST moments scattered throughout. This book is one of the best gothics I've read so far.

(I couldn't find a picture of the cover and the book is in a library up north, so you'll have to use your imagination on this one).

Review: Darkwater

Title: Darkwater
Author: Dorothy Eden
Publisher: Coward-McCann, Inc.
Original Date of Copyright: 1963
Genre/Sub-genre: Gothic Romance
Part of a Series? No

This book was a well-written, complex web of intriguing characters. Unfortunately, the most interesting characters were the peripheral ones: Lady Arabella, the alternatingly vindictive and helpful great-aunt; and Amelia, the 17-year-old cousin who has an obsession with escaped prisoners (one in particular as the novel progresses). Fanny, the heroine, was somewhat bland. Adam Marsh as a hero was okay, but not sexy or sinister enough to suit me. It is a gothic novel, after all, so I give myself carte blanche to expect a Romantic, threatening hero.

One different thing about the novel was the issue of race raised through the narrative's connection to China. There is some cynical display on behalf of the author of the racism of the flightier people in the novel -- the refusal to accept a Chinese "nurse," worry about whether or not two orphaned children would turn out to be "yellow," etc. The perfection of racism in the Victorian period is something that is more taken for granted than critiqued in most romance novels, so it was refreshing to see it called to attention.

Overall, Darkwater was better than I expected. I only made a concentrated effort to read it because I wanted to finish just one more novel before New Year's Day and I had to finish my "Books Read, 2007" list, so I wasn't expecting much. However, it did turn out to be tolerable, even enjoyable, though I would have been much more interested in a book about Amelia and her passion for criminals. I should force myself to finish books more often.

Review: Falconridge

Title: Falconridge
Author: Edwina Marlow
Publisher: Ace Publishing Corporation
Original Date of Copyright: 1969
Genre/Sub-genre: Gothic Romance
Part of a Series? No

Like The Chaperone, this book was better-written than a contemporary novel of the same quality would be. It was also similar in its lack of sensuality, though the hero, Norman Wade, was quite a bit more attractive and sinister. Here's the excerpt, on the first page after the cover:

Several minutes passed and I was suddenly aware of my own fear. Something was wrong. It was silent, and the silence was terrifying. I whirled around. He was leaning in the doorway, his thumb hooked in his belt. He looked menacing as he stood there, casually blocking the door. I stepped back, and the boards creaked. The water behind me slapped loudly against the wood.

"Two more steps back," he said quietly, "and you would be in the water. It would carry you out to sea. No one would ever know what had happened to you."

I stood on the edge of the platform, my knees weak. He put his hands on my shoulders. His fingers gripped my flesh.

"Or someone could push you," he said. "Just one little shove and you would be gone. You could never swim in those skirts, not in this water. It would be so easy." His voice was beautifully modulated; it seemed to caress the air. "So very easy..."

It was a little like Wuthering Heights or Jane Eyre, shorter, less complex, and completely derivative, of course, but interesting and readable.

Review: The Chaperone

Title: The Chaperone
Author: Ethel Gordon
Publisher: Dell Publishing Co., Inc.
Original Date of Copyright: 1973
Genre/Sub-genre: Gothic Romance
Part of a Series? No

I was impressed by the quality of the writing in this book, and by the fact that the author made the heroine self-possessed and not entirely wholesome. For an example of both the writing and the heroine's character, here is the first paragraph of the novel:

I received Miss Millicent Waldron's letter on the last day of school. It was the day of the annual farewell party for the faculty of the Burns Junior College for Women, and the Burns sisters who owned and headed the school had acceded to the times at last and allowed gin to be served. I'd had two martinis, but by the time I reached my apartment the elation of the alcohol was evaporating, my head was pounding, and my spirits were unaccountably low. (5)

However, in the end I was disappointed by the romance, which was flat, passionless and not described in a satisfying way. The hero, while dark and brooding, was not as attractive a figure as I had hoped, being too realistically flawed, as the hapless owner of a crumbling hotel, having gambled away his and his brother's money. The expression of sensuality was also entirely lacking.

Review: The Vampire Shrink

Title: The Vampire Shrink
Author: Lynda Hilburn
Publisher: Medallion Press
Original Date of Copyright: 2007
Genre/Sub-genre: Paranormal/Horror Romance
Part of a Series? I think so...there is a second book coming out which also features Kismet Knight as the heroine

This novel was okay, and I really like the premise of a psychologist who encounters vampires, but overall I thought the horror possibilities of this book were not sufficiently developed, and that both the psychology and the vampirism in this book were used as mere plot devices instead of becoming the meaningful explorations they could have been.

The heroine is way too narrow-minded to effectively practice psychology (two examples: she bashes psychics and thinks it's impossible to be sexually attracted to more than one man at a time), and she uses cliched psychological terms like "inner child" more than once in the novel. The hero is well-adjusted and nice instead of brooding and dangerous like I was hoping. The romance was developed too quickly so there was little of that satisfying tension I so love. Beyond all this, however, there was a light-hearted tone to the book that I found disappointing and at times almost offensive.

Certainly The Vampire Shrink discusses dark topics, but the first-person narrative of the heroine is plucky and discordantly chipper considering the things she goes through -- being attacked, harassed in gruesome ways, torn between two men, etc. I just didn't get the dark torture vibe I hoped for, and sometimes the lightness gets almost offensive. For example:

"Playtime's over. Let's go back upstairs."
The woman on the floor had stopped screaming and was clearly dead.
The crowd actually applauded.
Vampires suck. In more ways that one. (365-66)

A woman just died. I know it's fantasy, but is that really an appropriate or plausible response? I know people laugh at funerals and things like that, but this degree of flippancy just seemed stupid to me.

Think of the psychological complexity and darkness of the Thomas Harris novels (e.g. Silence of the Lambs) combined with the best of the paranormal romances (those by J.R. Ward perhaps) or even Anne Rice's novels -- that's what this book could have been, with an idea this exciting. I don't understand why someone would want to write a totally conventional romance novel that just happens to have vampires in it and completely ignore all the amazing emotional/psychological dimensions that the vampire myth can add to a romance. One thing that Anne Rice does brilliantly is bring religious and psychological issues such as guilt, damnation, loneliness, etc. to vampirism, and these really make the myth rich and meaningful. I feel vampires are misused in this book, especially since it uses the field/practice of psychology to distinguish itself. Vampires have so much more to offer than is available in The Vampire Shrink.