I’ve been a romance reader since I discovered the widely successful Bridgerton series by Julia Quinn at 15 (excitingly it’s coming to Netflix on Christmas Day). I’m now 27 and doing an English Literature PhD focusing on how the romance genre has been queered in the 21st century.
I think it would be fair to say that I know what I’m talking about when it comes to the romance genre. I’ve been reading it consistently for 12 years and I’ve read all the sub-genres from romantic suspense (not my jam: too much blood) to the hugely popular regency romance (pretty great to be honest) and even a few gay Christian romances (yes, they’re a thing).
I’ve taken multiple university courses on the romance genre and even wrote my MA dissertation on the representation of female heterosexuality in romance novels of the 1990s. Janice Radway and Pamela Regis are critics on my keeper shelves who I often refer back to when working on my PhD thesis.
The romance reading community is passionate, diverse and opinionated. Readers often become writers, writers regularly talk to their readers, romance academics often started life as passionate romance readers. In recent years the romance community has crowdfunded The Ripped Bodice, the first romance only bookshop in America, they’ve criticised and boycotted their own institutions over racism and lack of pay (RWA and Dreamspinner Press), they’ve demanded greater diversity in the romance novels being published and are starting to see a change.
The community of people reading, writing and publishing romance books are smart, active and politically engaged. Most importantly the romance community knows what a romance should be. When they purchase a book advertised as a romance they have certain expectations of what the book will do.
Ultimately to be considered a romance a novel must:
Focus on a central relationship
Deliver a happy ending for that relationship (the HEA)
The book could be about a non-binary humanoid T-Rex falling in love with their human workaholic boss in an alternate version of earth where dinosaurs and humans co-exist. It would be completely ridiculous – I can’t guarantee it would sell many copies - but as long as it focused on the central relationship and ended happily it’s a romance.
When readers pick it up they know they’ll get an emotionally satisfying ending where the T-Rex and the workaholic boss can hold hands and walk into the sunset towards their happily ever after. Or at least with the promise of a happy relationship for the foreseeable future (the Happy For Now aka the HFN)
Yet every year the romance community is told, usually by a man, that a romance doesn’t need to have a happy ever after. I could give you article, after article, after article from romance readers, writers and/or bloggers defending the HEA from this criticism. It happens every year like clockwork.
I’m sure romance isn’t alone in facing external criticism from people who don’t understand the genre. Yet it is hard not to read an element of sexism in the continued and sustained criticism romance receives. It is a genre predominantly written about women, for women, by women, although this is changing with the popularity of queer romances. It has historically privileged the heroine’s journey with the concerns and daily challenges of the heroine often being at the forefront of the story. Of course, the heroes are also important and some critics would argue they are idolised over the heroines. The romance genre is after all one place where the female gaze is more powerful than the male gaze (whether that is right or wrong is another debate). Yet the romance genre is ultimately female-centric and has made millions, if not billions, by prioritising the female experience – whether she is the reader, the writer, or the central character.
The happy ending of a romance novel is a moment of triumph for both the reader and the central relationship. It is when challenges have been overcome, societies reshaped and hope springs eternal – something currently lacking in our own reality.
So the next time someone from outside of the community wants to comment on the predictability of the genre’s ending, I suggest they spend a few weeks educating themselves first. They could even start with the points below:
If your novel contains a central love story but doesn’t end with HEA or HFN it isn’t romance.
Writing a tragic love story does not make your novel a revolutionary romance – Shakespeare published Romeo and Juliet in 1597 it’s a tragic love story. You’ve similarly written a tragedy, not a romance.
Marketing your novel as a romance when it doesn’t end happily will only result in numerous bad reviews from romance readers saying: ‘this isn’t a romance!’
Trying to tell the romance community what a romance novel should be, when you’ve never written or read one, just makes you look uninformed and ignorant.
Finally before criticising the romance genre for its predictable and repetitive plots I’d be curious to know what you think of crime novels. After all don’t they always focus on solving a crime and catching a criminal?
Written by Lucy Hargrave