Why Romance Novels Get No Respect

Carolyn
Jewel

Romance novels are the Rodney Dangerfield of books, they get no respect. Some people won’t admit to reading them, others confess their sin with self-conscious guilt. Others equate the Romance novel with the end of civilization. Why? Is it the lurid covers? Is it the formula plot? Do Romance novels lack all literary merit? Or might there be some other more insidious reason at work here? After all, Romance isn’t the only writing genre in existence. What about fantasy? That’s a genre with a formula. What about westerns, mysteries and thrillers?

I’ll take the elements one at a time and parse out the problem as I see it.

 

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Author, Carolyn Jewel was born on a moonless night. That darkness was seared into her soul and she became an award winning author of historical and paranormal romance. She has a very dusty car and a Master’s degree in English that proves useful at the oddest times. An avid fan of fine chocolate, finer heroines, Bollywood films, and heroism in all forms, she has three cats and a dog. Also a son. One of the cats is his.

Carolyn has written 16 novels for such publishers as St. Martin's Press, Berkley Books and Grand Central Publishing. She has self-published several backlist titles that have reverted to her as well as original works and front list titles to which she holds rights outside the US and Canada. She plans to continue her paranormal My Immortals series on her own and released Free Fall, a My Immortals novella, in April 2012. In August, 2102, she will have a novalla in Midnight Scandals, a self-published historical romance anthology with NY Times best-selling author Courtney Milan and two time RITA winner and bestselling author Sherry Thomas. Not Proper Enough will be a September, 2012 historical romance from Berkley Sensation.

Article Image  Courtesy of Stephan Coles: http://www.flickr.com/photos/stewf/1353532028/