The Lure of Romance (novels, that is)

The Wall Street Journal has a piece today on the surge in sales of romance novels, particularly the more spicy ones, due to the popularity of electronic readers. Women, it seems, like to read the books, they just don't like strangers to know what they're reading because of the cheesy covers many of the books seem to have. (I've always thought there was a market for fake covers with headlines proclaiming the book inside was a finalist for the Pulitzer or Booker prizes to solve the problem. Who would have thought the answer was a reading machine?)

This is of great interest to me because I am about to have my first romance novel published. I wouldn't have predicted this would be where my writing would lead me. I started out writing a couple mystery novels both of which got flattering rejections--that was back in the day when rejections came by mail and were personalized. You know, five years ago.

Anyway, I always assumed I'd follow in the footsteps of my favorite mystery writers. I've been reading in this genre since I was very young--starting with Nancy Drew like a billion other females. As an adult I've enjoyed Sue Grafton's alphabet, Elizabeth George's handsome hero, Tony Hillerman's knowledge of SW Native American culture, Diane Mott Davidson's recipes and Janet Evanovich's cupcake (okay, okay, okay. Not the cupcake heroine. Morelli and Ranger. There. Are you satisfied?)

Of course I've read romances, too. The ones by the Brontes and Jane Austen that masquerade as literature,  the ones my mother read by Nora Roberts, the ones my mother would never read by Sandra Brown. But write one? Nah, not my thing.

Then something interesting happened. Two people began to live in my head, a beautiful woman and a drop-dead gorgeous man. I started writing character sketches about them, began to collect magazine and catalog pictures of what they would wear, what their homes would look like. In other words, they obsessed me. So I wrote about them. And, since they were young and beautiful/gorgeous, it became a romance.

That's when I realized what I like about romances. It's not just the "happily-ever-after." With mysteries you get much the same thing only it's justice being done. What I like about romances, at least the good ones, is the characters. The quirks, qualities and problems of humanity. The way we relate to each other, screw it up and then, with luck and a little effort, make it all work out in the end.

That's the lure of romance novels for me. That and a love scene that reads as if the writer actually understands anatomy. But that's a topic for another day.