Romance Round-Up

October 18, 2017 |

It’s been a while since I’ve read a romance novel, and I was feeling in the mood the past week, so I knocked out two from a couple of authors I tend to enjoy: Sarah MacLean and Tessa Dare.

A Scot in the Dark is the second novel in the Scandal and Scoundrel series by Sarah MacLean. The first was the similarly punny The Rogue Not Taken, and because I love a good pun (understatement of the year), I was already inclined to love this series. Nothing will ever match my love for MacLean’s Never Judge a Lady By Her Cover, but this series has been pretty solid so far.

Beautiful, orphaned, rich Lillian Hargrove met a talented artist and fell in love with him, happy to serve as his muse, thinking they would soon become engaged. She even sat for him nude; he promised the portrait would be just for them. But he lied, and he announces to the entire ton that he plans to reveal his work, “the greatest nude of our time,” at a special exhibition, at which point Lily knows she will be ruined. She’s well on her way there anyway, since all of society knows she is the subject of the painting. Then Alec, the new Duke of Warnick and still Lillian’s guardian (despite the fact that she’s well into her twenties) arrives in town, determined to help her recover from the scandal by marrying her off to a kind, respectable man. Alec is a Scot and wants nothing to do with the dukedom, which he was seventeenth in line for. Life has a way of throwing you curveballs.

Alec and Lily’s story is lovely. Lily insists on only marrying for love, and Alec insists he’s unworthy of her love, even after the two realize how they feel about each other. Like many of MacLean’s heroes, Alec has a heart-wrenching backstory that amply explains his seemingly irrational behavior. Lily herself is incredibly strong. She’s angry that she cannot just do what she wishes with her own money, and she’s angry that Alec is trying to prevent her from simply leaving the people who whisper about her and going to live somewhere else. She knows what people say about her, and she’s not entirely unashamed, but she’s also not really that apologetic about it, and she doesn’t have to be. She took a man she loved at his word, and the painting itself is truly lovely. MacLean calls this her sex-tape book, and the modern equivalent is something like that. Witnessing Lily and Alec fall in like, then love, then work through their respective troubles (sometimes apart, sometimes together) to achieve their happily ever after is incredibly satisfying. This is another winner from MacLean. (Justine Eyre narrates the audiobook, and while she’s still one of my favorite narrators, I thought her voice for Alec was pretty bad this time. I would probably recommend sticking to the print version.)

Do You Want to Start a Scandal by Tessa Dare shows that Dare just gets better with each book. Her early novels were a bit rough, but each subsequent novel has improved upon the last, and this is one of her best. It’s also one of her funniest, and I’ve always been a sucker for funny romance novels (Julia Quinn is the author who first hooked me on romance).

Charlotte Highwood has cornered Piers Brandon, the Marquess of Granville, in the library to tell him that she does not intend to marry him, despite what her notorious matchmaker mother might want. Except they are alone in the library, and when someone opens the door, Charlotte and Piers duck behind the draperies so they’re not spotted. It doesn’t matter that they were only talking; if they were discovered alone, people would assume the worst. The person who walks into the library is actually two people, and they soon commence upon a tryst upon the desk as Charlotte and Piers listen on, horrified (and amused). When a child alerts the adults at the party to the fact that there are strange noises coming from the library (“Murder!” he screams repeatedly), Charlotte and Piers are the only ones found inside, as the two lovebirds have already vacated it.

The adults know what the sounds mean, and it would seem that the only way to save Charlotte’s reputation is to marry Piers. Except that’s really not what Charlotte wants (at least not yet, as our two leads haven’t fallen in love). So she decides to find out exactly who was having a grand old time in the library, with just a couple of clues to go on: a unique perfume scent in the air and a fancy garter embroidered with a capital C. Piers had his own reasons for being in the library that evening – he’s a spy for the British crown, and while he wants to do the right thing by Charlotte and marry her (he’s falling for her, after all), he knows it would put her life in danger. But the two cannot seem to keep apart from each other, of course, and as Charlotte thinks she grows closer to the identity of the “tuppers,” there are also strange events that could be interpreted as attempts upon her life.

The mystery in the book is a light one, and not the primary focus. It’s mainly used to generate laughs, and it excels at this goal. The solution to the mystery lovers’ identity is a lovely one and a genuine surprise; Charlotte and Piers’ happily ever after is no surprise at all. Dare’s hero and heroine aren’t nearly as tortured as MacLean’s, and this is a much lighter read as a result. There’s a bit of danger, but mainly this book is just plain fun. Highly recommended.

Grab Bag

October 19, 2016 |

My reading has been a bit eclectic lately, so this post is a grab bag of brief reviews of a few recent reads: an adult romance novel, a YA fantasy, and an adult nonfiction book.

Cold-Hearted Rake by Lisa Kleypas

Any romance reader worth her salt knows Lisa Kleypas. For the past several years she’s been writing contemporary romances (which I’ve just started getting into), but she started in historicals, and Cold-Hearted Rake marks her very welcome return to them. Like her many other fans, I was highly anticipating this one; unfortunately, I felt a little disappointed by it. Kleypas works with a few common historical romance tropes: the heroine is a young widow whose husband died in an accident, leaving the estate to his cousin; the hero is this cousin who wants nothing to do with the estate, its tenants, or the widow and her three sisters-in-law who occupy it; they fall in love after overcoming their initial mutual dislike. Kleypas is normally very good at using these tropes to create characters whose relationships with each other are complex and believable, but I feel like she fell a bit short here. I never believed that the two leads should have ever truly liked each other, much less loved each other, and the secondary storyline (which is a lead-in for this book’s sequel, Marrying Winterborne) featuring one of the sisters was pretty repellent to me – the hero seems awful and a bad kisser to boot. So not only was I not in love with this book, I don’t really have a desire to pick up the second one. Too bad. Still, it’s a Kleypas book, and even her mediocre ones are often worth checking out. Your mileage may vary.

Riverkeep by Martin Stewart

I think this title will be very hit or miss with readers. It was mostly a miss for me, though the concept is intriguing. Wulliam is 16 years old and about to inherit the job of Riverkeep from his father, which entails making sure the Danek River is free of ice and other debris, keeping the lamps lit so travelers can see at night, and fishing the occasional dead body out. It can be very challenging, lonely, and macabre, so Wull is not thrilled about it. Then one day his father falls out of the boat and is possessed by a creature from the river that can only be removed with something found in the body of a mormorach, a Moby Dick-like beast at the other end of the river. So Wull sets off to kill it, picking up a few acquaintances with their own motives along the way. Stewart’s world-building is strong in parts (the job of the Riverkeep in particular is interesting), but it often relies on lazy ideas: names of people and words for invented animals are very similar to our own names and words, just with a letter or two changed. And the characters and their adventures are really strange, like later Wizard of Oz novels to the eleventh degree, with a generous dose of gross. It felt a little like weirdness for the sake of weirdness, not for the story and its characters. It’s slowly paced and includes a lot of made-up dialect, which can be off-putting for some readers and a draw for others. What I wrote on Goodreads is a good summation for this book: “Extreme weirdness punctuated every so often by sex jokes.” More than a little incongruous and just not for me.

Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt

I am over two decades late to this, but it’s riveting pseudo-nonfiction and I can see why it was such a sensation. The main thrust of the story is the murder of a young man (rumored to be a prostitute) in Savannah, Georgia, and the (closeted gay) man accused of it, who was tried four different times before finally being acquitted. But Berendt also focuses much of his story on everyone else who lived in Savannah in the mid-90s, including most famously the Lady Chablis, a drag queen who became famous after the book was published and played herself in the movie version (she recently passed away just last month). There’s a scene where she crashes a debutante party and carefully and deliberately makes everyone there uncomfortable, including Berendt; with her actions, she completely indicts the area’s racism, homophobia/transphobia, and classism. All aspects of this book – the murder, the trials, the social and racial politics of Savannah, the odd people you’d love to meet (Chablis) and the odd people you’d run from (the man who was rumored to be planning to poison the water supply) – are fascinating. I call this pseudo-nonfiction because in Berendt’s author’s note, he acknowledges that he moved around the order of some events, placing himself in Savannah before the murder, when in fact he didn’t decide to visit the town until it had already happened and was making news. He also admits that he inserted himself into some scenes that were actually just described to him by others, making it seem like he was a part of certain conversations that he wasn’t. So the complete veracity of the dialogue and specific actions are suspect, but the book itself is fascinating, both for true crime lovers and general nonfiction readers.

My Top 10 Romance Novels, Ranked

September 21, 2016 |

Romance novel reading has always been intensely personal for me, and I think that’s true for a lot of people. Pleasure reading can be highly subjective regardless of what genre the book is, but it seems that romance readers have a particular affinity for certain tropes, characters, and situations, and will avoid others like the plague. This is one reason I almost exclusively read romances based on friends’ recommendations, not strangers’ reviews – a romance novel can be technically very well-written and just what some readers are looking for, but if it doesn’t have some of my favorite ingredients, chances are I won’t enjoy it. So consider this my top ten list of recommendations, if you are into a few of the same things I am when it comes to your romances: smart women with jobs, confident men, sex-positivism, secrets, revenge, witty banter, humor, sizzling chemistry, and at least a little overt feminism.

10. Blue-Eyed Devil by Lisa Kleypas

This is the only contemporary romance on my list, mainly because it’s one of the few that I’ve read. I’ve read a lot of Kleypas historicals, and I like most of them, but this is the first romance novel I’ve read that makes me want to read more contemporaries, which is quite a feat. It’s set in Texas but is not about cowboys, so the details of the setting were a real treat for me. It’s also the first romance novel I’ve read told entirely in first person from one person’s perspective (the heroine, Haven). The first part of the book chronicles her abusive first marriage, and it is really hard to read, but it makes her growth and ability to move beyond it and love again all the more satisfying. I really appreciated getting away from the historical romance fixation upon virginity (always something that’s annoyed me about the genre, having to marry someone because you’ve slept with them is not a trope I enjoy) and reading a love story that seemed like it could actually happen. There are some great realistic family and friend relationships as well. Kleypas also has some really great lines.

9. The Luckiest Lady in London by Sherry Thomas

Sherry Thomas’ books have some of the best writing in romance. This is quite a feat, considering English is not even her first language. With a Thomas book, you’re guaranteed to find perfectly evocative sentences and challenging word choices; hers are the most literary romances I’ve read. The Luckiest Lady in London is my favorite of hers. The conflict is an internal one (no romantic suspense here), driven by two characters learning about each other and how to love each other. It’s got Bridgerton-esque banter with a bit more of an edge, and the interactions between the hero and heroine feel taut, like at any moment they could either start shouting at each other or tearing each other’s clothes off – or maybe both. Thomas made me believe entirely in their initial attraction to each other and the love that eventually develops.

8. Any Duchess Will Do by Tessa Dare

I like most of Tessa Dare’s books that I’ve read, but it’s rare that I love one. This is my favorite of hers. It’s a common story in historical romance – titled man and untitled woman fall in love, must come to terms with their different social stations, eventually figure things out and live happily ever after. But Dare writes the journey well, and her hero has just the right amount of arrogance to be slightly annoying but not insufferable. Her heroine takes no shit and isn’t ashamed of being a serving girl. The setup for the story is also a lot of fun: Griff is being pressured by his mother to get married and agrees to pick a bride from the women in “Spinster Cove.” To taunt his mother, he picks Pauline, the serving girl, and his mother goes along with the game, agreeing to give her “duchess lessons.” Griff tells Pauline he’ll pay her a load of cash if she deliberately fails the training and his mother insists he drop her. This will allow Pauline to open a bookshop, so she agrees. Of course, they fall in love instead. This is just a fun, well-written, sex-positive romance.

7. An Offer From a Gentleman by Julia Quinn

This is Julia Quinn’s take on Cinderella, always my favorite fairy tale, and it’s just wonderful. I appreciate the fact that Benedict, the hero, doesn’t decide right away to give his society the middle finger and marry Sophie, the servant he’s fallen in love with. Initially, he wants her to be his mistress, which does make him look like a dick – but it also grounds the book a bit in its time period, making it less of a fantasy and more of a story where the characters have to grapple with real situations and problems. Of course, there is the marriage and happily ever after in the end.

6. The Heiress Effect by Courtney Milan

Jane Fairfield is socially awkward, wears outrageous clothes, and has a laugh that makes people want to cover their ears. She does all this on purpose – she wants to make sure anyone interested in marrying her stays far, far away. She has her reasons. Oliver Marshall is politically ambitious, and when a powerful person tells him to humiliate Jane in return for a political favor, he takes the bait – at least initially. These are two complex characters – Jane exaggerates her social awkwardness, but she also does have an astonishing laugh and loves her ridiculous clothes, and she’s in real danger; Oliver wants desperately to use the political system to make poorer people’s lives better, but he’s at risk of compromising his ideals to do so. This is a historical romance novel with almost as much history as romance (Oliver’s political troubles mirror what was really going on at the time), and it has a lovely B-romance featuring a man of Indian descent. It’s also one of Milan’s funniest books – Jane’s deliberate social missteps are a riot.

5. Eleven Scandals to Start to Win a Duke’s Heart by Sarah MacLean

Juliana Fiorini is considered a walking scandal in rules-conscious upper-crust British Victorian society. She’s of Italian ancestry with an Italian accent, so she started off at a disadvantage. She tried to fit in for a while, but eventually decided it was pointless. Her hero in this novel is Simon, a Duke who disdains anyone who cannot follow the rules – like Juliana. In fact, he’s called the Duke of Disdain because this is what he is known for. He makes appearances in the previous novels in this series, and he does not come off looking good. This is a common trope in romance novels – opposites attract; the two leads find in each other exactly what they thought they didn’t want. MacLean writes it really well. I appreciated this novel for the heroine who accepts who she is (eventually) and the hero who is more than what he seems on the surface – there’s a reason for the disdain. The heroine doesn’t change him, but she does bring out the better parts of his nature. In a good partnership, that’s what should happen. Like all MacLean books, there are misunderstandings and other stumbling blocks on the way to happiness, but the journey is a joy to read and the happily ever after eminently satisfying.

4. A Kiss for Midwinter by Courtney Milan (novella)

I normally stay away from novellas, but this one is so good. I read it during my initial Courtney Milan kick, when I was devouring everything she had written that I could find. Milan’s books are some of the most obviously feminist and this gem of a novella is no exception. Jonas Grantham is a doctor who advocates for birth control in a time when such things were considered obscene. Lydia Grantham is a young woman who saw Grantham’s mentor-doctor when she was a pregnant teen; this older doctor gave her medicine that ended her pregnancy against her wishes, and Lydia remembers the younger doctor who sat by and did nothing. Now, Jonas is overcome with feelings of guilt, and Lydia strives to put on a cheerful front, and of course when the two meet again, they fall in love – after significant misunderstandings and forgiveness. It’s a story about reproductive rights without being message-driven, and the romance is just lovely.

3. The Countess Conspiracy by Courtney Milan

This is a book about a smart woman who is only able to do the work she does by allowing the credit to be taken by a man (the novel that occupies the top spot on this list has this trope as well, after a fashion; clearly it’s one that resonates with me). Violet is a countess from a bad marriage; thankfully her husband is now dead. She’s had a long-term partnership with her good friend Sebastian, who takes the credit for her scientific research so it can be published and taken seriously. He has intense feelings of guilt over this. Like in all my favorite romance novels, the hero genuinely respects the heroine’s mind and wishes the rest of the world would, too. Violet knows that Sebastian harbors romantic feelings for her beyond their friendship, but due to damage from her marriage and Sebastian’s reputation, she doesn’t let herself develop the same feelings (at least in the beginning; this is a romance novel, after all). Like the other heroes from my top five romance novels, Sebastian is an alpha without being domineering – he’s assertive, confident, respectful, and a listener. And I love that Milan has written us a historical romance novel featuring a female scientist (her book is dedicated to several of these real-life women).

2. When He Was Wicked by Julia Quinn

While my number one book takes its top spot fairly easily, this is not a distant second. I don’t think it’s necessary to be able to relate to a character to really enjoy a novel, but in romance, I always love the books most where I can see at least a part of myself in the heroine. Francesca Bridgerton was married to a man she loved, and then he died, and When He Was Wicked is the story about her grief, recovery, and finding love again. Normally I avoid really sad romances (and this one is sad; Francesca genuinely loved her first husband), and I didn’t love this one much when I first read it as a teenager. But as an adult, it really resonated with me. Not because of the loss, but rather because of how Francesca handles her emotions. She’s more closed-off than the rest of her siblings, who tend to be pretty verbose and demonstrative and open. She feels things just as deeply, but she prefers to keep these feelings a bit more under wraps. She’s not a sharer. It can be harder to get to know who she really is. As readers, of course, we’re privy to her innermost thoughts and feelings, but it can be tricky for other characters to know. As someone who occasionally comes across as cold, I get Francesca. And of course, the romance between her and Michael is lovely – they’ve been friends for ages, and Michael has loved her for ages, but he’s her first husband’s cousin and there are so many guilty feelings swirling over their developing affection. When Francesca finally allows herself to love him and admit that she loves him, it is one of the best scenes Julia Quinn has ever written.

1. Never Judge a Lady By Her Cover by Sarah MacLean

While some of the other books may drop further down (or off) the list at some point, I think this one will always remain in the number one position. It is a practically perfect romance novel that ticks all of my boxes. It features a heroine with an incredible amount of power – but power she must keep hidden, power she must pretend belongs to someone who doesn’t actually exist. She’s underestimated and overlooked. She’s known only for her biggest mistake, but she’s stronger than anyone realizes. So this book is about pushing back against society’s strictures, but also pushing back against your own personal limitations. It’s about being strong enough to be on your own, but also wanting someone to share your life. The hero is staggeringly non-judgmental for his time (he falls in love with the heroine when he believes she is a prostitute), respects her decisions, but also is far from a beta. The storyline features revenge and mistaken identities and great male-female friendships and hot sex. It is a perfect book.

Romance Roundup – Eloisa James Edition

August 25, 2015 |

An author whose writing is such that I will listen to her books despite a narrator I dislike is rare. Fortunately for me, Eloisa James is such an author. Most of her books are quite good, almost good enough that I can ignore the annoyances in the narration. Susan Duerden narrates all four of the books below, and while I’m sure many listeners quite enjoy her work (otherwise audiobook producers wouldn’t keep hiring her), she is distinctly not my cup of tea. Every line she reads comes out sing-song, like a teacher trying to get a student to understand the rhythm of iambic pentameter. Oh it is grating. But the books! They are almost all good. I love that many of her heroines have careers, or at least useful passions that occupy a lot of their time (one is a novelist, another is an interior designer) and that she incorporates real historical events into her novels – and not just passing mentions of big wars and the like. In fact, most of them include an author’s note where she expands upon what history is real and what history she tweaked for the purposes of her story. Historical romances with historical author’s notes are my jam.

Three Weeks With Lady X by Eloisa James

Lady Xenobia India is an interior designer, though she’s never referred to by that phrase (I’m assuming because such a thing didn’t really have a name at this point in time). She needed to find a way to to earn money after her parents died, and she has a knack for design and a way of transforming huge, run-down estates into gleaming, modern palaces. Her most recent client is Thorn Dautry, a bastard son of a duke who is in need of sprucing up his image so as to convince the stuck-up mother of the very respectable and sweet Leticia (who is dyslexic but merely thought to be stupid) that he should be allowed to marry her. Thorn has hired India to make over the estate he has purchased, which previously belonged to a man we’d call a party animal in this century. There are lots of leftover X-rated paintings and statuary, for example. The two strike up a flirtation which deepens into true friendship, and then into love. It’s a lovely progression that feels natural, and the bumps in their path to happily ever after are organic. There’s plenty of banter plus a really nice secondary love story between Leticia and another man, which makes the fact that Thorn pursued her and then fell in love with someone else a softer blow. The epilogue to this one even made me tear up a little.

Four Nights With the Duke by Eloisa James

This one features a novelist as the heroine! When she was a child, Mia had a tremendous crush on Evander Brody and wrote a poem about him, which she meant to keep completely secret. Of course it didn’t remain that way, and Vander got a hold of it – or rather his friends did, and they teased him mercilessly about it. To save face, he mocked Mia in return, and of course she was there and overheard. Instant enmity. Flash forward a decade or so and Mia needs a husband for reasons too complicated to get into in this short review. But she doesn’t need just any husband – she needs to marry Vander. Not for long, just for a few weeks, and then she’ll secure an annulment. He’s hardly likely to marry her of his own volition – he’s holding out for a love match – so she blackmails him. Not a great start to a marriage. The premise is a bit contrived, but the emotions are genuine. James does a good job of bringing these two together in love when it seems like it wouldn’t ever be possible. Vander is angry, as he should be, and it provides a believable way for him to act like an asshole without actually being an asshole (unlike some other romance “heroes”). And Mia is awesome. Each chapter begins with her work-in-progress on her newest novel, which is giving her more than a bit of trouble. James drops a couple names of her own writer friends as Mia’s colleagues, and she provides an author’s note that describes in greater detail what the landscape for gothic romances like Mia’s were during that time. This is a love letter to romance novels – those from Mia’s time and those from our own.

Duchess By Night by Eloisa James

Cross-dressing romances are usually pretty fun. Sarah MacLean did one of my favorites, Nine Rules to Break When Romancing a Rake, and I had high hopes for this one (especially after listening to James’ other books above). Harriet is a duchess, a widow whose husband killed himself after a bad game of chess (he loved chess more than he loved her). One of her husband’s responsibilities when he was alive was to help decide court cases, and now it’s fallen her to decide them – like that of a woman who had married five men consecutively and wasn’t quite sure which one was her legal husband. There’s a male judge there who is the “official” decider, but he’s drunk and passed out most of the time, and what she says goes. This is a really interesting bit of history that James elaborates upon in her author’s note, but it doesn’t have a huge amount to do with the romance (aside from character development, I suppose). Harriet is tired of being the staid widow and decides to have a little fun, which is where the cross-dressing comes in. She accompanies one of her female friends to the house of Julian Strange, a notorious partier. Her friend is female and dresses as such, but she decides to go as a man – the better to experience all that the party house has to offer, I suppose. Again, it’s pretty contrived, but it’s good fun. Strange is an OK hero, not terribly memorable but at least he’s not an asshole. When he discovers she’s a woman, it’s pretty funny (most of James’ novels have a good bit of humor in them). I didn’t enjoy this one quite as much as the previous two, but it was still a worthwhile read.

The Duke is Mine by Eloisa James

While the three novels above are all worth a read (and the first two are highly recommended), this one was a total dud. I love the concept of it – it’s a re-working of the Princess and the Pea – but the execution is terrible. I gave up about halfway through, and I never quite figured out exactly how it related to the fairy tale. Perhaps it would have become apparent later, but I wasn’t inclined to stick around long enough to find out. The heroine, Olivia, has been engaged to a man five years younger than her since his birth. Unfortunately, something happened during his birth that damaged his brain, and he never matured beyond the intellect and understanding of a child. Olivia isn’t thrilled to be marrying him, but she’s resigned to it. When her future father in law encourages them to consummate the relationship before her fiance goes off to war (because if she got pregnant the baby would be considered legitimate and he’d have an heir even though his son was dead, which seems specious to me), they both agree. The resulting scene is painful. And not in a funny awkward way. This man is 18 but acts like he’s 8 and he obviously can’t do anything in the bedroom. Just thinking about this scene makes me feel icky. But I persevered (why, I do not know), finally getting to the part where Olivia meets the hero. And he’s supremely boring and is bad at sex. I gave up.

All books borrowed from my local library.

Read a Romance Month

August 19, 2015 |

I just learned last week that August is Read a Romance Month! If you know my reading habits, you know that I’ve been reading romances no matter the month’s designation. (That website is chock-full of awesome posts from romance authors, I highly recommend checking it out.) I had planned on doing a romance round-up this week, but I decided that first, I’d dedicate a post to speaking briefly about how much richer my reading life has become thanks to romance.

I’ve always read romances. When I was a teen, I wouldn’t pick up a book unless I was pretty sure there was some kissing in it (this started my habit of skipping to the end), even if that storyline wasn’t the main one. Even now I prefer at least a little romance in my books, though it’s no longer a strict requirement (and it’s less of a preference for the YA I read).

It wasn’t until just a couple of years ago, though, that I really started to embrace being a romance-reader, when I finally came to the realization that one of the main reasons romance as a genre is so disparaged is because of how female-centric it is. Women are its primary readers and its primary writers (not to mention most of the protagonists are women). The books are written by people like me for people like me, and that is the reason they’re looked down upon. They’re seen as wish-fulfillment for bored women (They’re not! They’re just as well-written, engaging, and meaningful as any other sort of book out there). But here’s the thing: I can name a dozen critically-acclaimed, award-winning books that are clearly wish-fulfillment for straight white men without thinking too hard about it. The idea that romances are “unrealistic” implies that other genres (i.e. those written by and for men) are realistic, which is laughable. I could go on and on – and others have, much more eloquently. Tessa Dare, for example:

Once I realized all of this, I got angry about it. And I stopped being embarrassed about liking romance.

The increase in the amount of romance I’ve read within the past few years has led me to pay more attention to the romance-writing world. I follow a few of my favorite authors on Twitter and through them, I’ve come to learn that the romance publishing world’s problems mirror a lot of those in YA (and publishing in general). I’ve learned about the We Need Diverse Romance movement, which sprang from the more general We Need Diverse Books initiative. I learned about the RITA finalist For Such a Time and through that, how the RITA awards work (and how a genre that celebrates women can also take a decidedly opposite tack when it comes to other marginalized groups).

I’ve learned about self-publishing and how to pick the good ones, and now some of my favorite romances are self-published ones. I read a lot more novellas and short stories. I read a lot more e-books, too! I wouldn’t touch any of that just a few years ago, and now it’s not uncommon for me to open up a self-published (edited and vetted) romance novella on my phone for my evening reading.

Reading romance has absolutely strengthened my feminism and helped fortify my talking points. I’ve learned how to better stand up not just for the genre, but also for anything that women like and participate in, and by extension, women themselves. I’ve been able to bolster my arguments in support of romance, but have ultimately discovered that the best argument is no argument at all – it’s simply telling the other person to Grow Up.