Have you ever not wanted to admit out loud that you read romance novels?
Have you ever told yourself you're not reading romance novels, you're reading fantasy or sci-fi or some other genre that just somehow happens to always have romance in it?
Chances are, the answer to one or both is either "yes" or "not me, but I know someone who does."
Heck, I was years into writing romance before I stopped thinking, "Oh, I don't write romance, I write fantasy." (Cue the "why not both?" meme.)
If you start typing "why are romance novels" into Google, it suggests "so popular," "so bad" and "so looked down upon" as the most common ways to finish the thought.
Romance novels are very popular: That's a fact backed up by sales data.
Why, then, is there such widespread stigma around enjoying them?
Sure, there are always some people who think popular must equal lousy, which probably reveals as much about their views on humanity as their opinion on popularity. And yes, some people will read a single book in a genre, dislike it and assume sight unseen that they'll dislike all the rest.
But.
Romance novels are written predominantly by women, read predominantly by women and focus predominantly on women. Women finding happiness, usually with people who (in some cases immediately, in other cases after Learning an Important Lesson) treat them well.
Romance author Maya Rodale, who also wrote "Dangerous Books for Girls: The Bad Reputation of Romance Novels, Explained," argues that the stigma has nothing to do with relative quality and "everything to do with the dangers of empowering women to live and love as they please."
I second that argument.
But there's more: In both M/F and M/M books, the leading men in romance novels get blissfully happy endings, too. Same goes for romances with main characters who are trans or genderqueer. HEAs for everyone! Really, the message of romance novels is that you, personally, deserve happiness ... and that you get to define what will make you happy.
Not society.
You.
That's a subversive manifesto.
What do you think drives the stigma? How has it affected you? Hit reply to tell me.
P.S. Thank you all for sharing your thoughts last time about the gaslamp genre! More on that later.
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More cool & bookish things
First, here's the book I'm gobbling up as an early reader — it's on sale for 99 cents right now, so it's a good time to grab if you want to gobble it, too.
The Crow Games in a few words: Defy the gods. Win the games. Trust no one with your heart.
When Maven's desperate plan to make the gods pay for killing her little sister backfires, the avenging witch is captured by Death himself. Her sentence: compete in a gritty, gaslit Otherworld for the amusement of the divines. As she assembles a coven of misfits to fight back, can she avoid falling for a tempting reaper who wears his secrets like a cloak?
Secondly: Even before the various boycott-Amazon pushes, some authors have always wanted to make their books available in all the places ... and if an ebook is available in Kindle Unlimited, it can't be anywhere else.
Kobo Plus is the same type of subscription, except authors can sell wherever else they want so readers have choices. Plus there's an all-you-can-listen audiobook option. (And a first-month-free.)
A bunch of fantasy romance authors organized a promotion so it's easier to find fun reads there — like Jacquelyn Benson's Empire of Shadows, Stephanie Burgis' Scales and Sensibility and Marie Cardno's How to Get a Girlfriend (When You're a Terrifying Monster). My ebook Into the Bargain and the audiobooks of the Clandestine Magic trilogy are there, too.
Here's where you can find them and a bunch more right now ⬇️
You made it to the end! You're awesome. (Of course.) And oh hey, here are my latest books and here are all my book gifts to you.
If this bookish newsletter you signed up for is no longer your cup of tea, just hit unsubscribe below. ⬇️
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