notes on my first year of the romance genre

[schmerica]

1. My enjoyment of a romance is directly related to how much I like the protaganists.

1a. I really appreciate nice characters. Dare I say 'likable'?

1b. Dark, brooding, angsty and/or cruel alpha heroes are omg teh boring. Exceptions are made if I like the author enough (would I be reading Shadowheart, based on its description, if it were anyone but Kinsale? No.)

2. Sex scenes are almost always boring.*

3. The only contemporaries I've ever gotten more than a chapter into have been Jennifer Crusie.

4. Wit and humor = happy me.

5. As with soap operas, often the most enjoyment comes from the books that sound most ridiculous when described out loud.

6. Exotic locales get you bonus points. As does geekiness.

*Actually, the least boring romance novel sex scene I have read in quite a while was in the novel I was reading yesterday. La la la kissing la la la foreplay la la la passion and need and etc, the hero is stroking and caressing the heroine, she's climaxing, and oh, the hero can't take it anymore, he can't restrain himself, he's poised to enter -- and then the heroine reaches down and touches his penis, and he shoots his wad all over her belly. Heh. This also had the heroine aged 31 (to the hero's 29), which I also appreciated. Also, when they *do* have intercourse, she is that rarest of breeds, omg, a virgin who didn't bleed.

Two links that don't really have much to do with this at all:

The Bad Sex in Fiction award nominees, which I promised spes a link to

and Resonant's How to Write a Sex Scene lessons, which I think everyone who plans on writing smutty fanfiction should be reading, because she's brilliant.

Comments

[coffeeandink.livejournal.com]

I am greedy. I want to hear more, with details or at least authors and titles, of books you liked and didn't like.

Not that I am the boss of you. But if you were thinking about writing more and wanted encouragement, I encourage you.

The realization that sex scenes were often boring was one of the things that made me decide romance and porn were different genres with potential overlap, rather than one being a subset of the other, as I'd previously thought.

[pearl-o.livejournal.com]

Heh. Okay, first, my mother and sister have been reading romance novels for years, but I was being a genre snob about them the entire time. And then they lent me Crusie's Bet Me, and I ended up reading all her non-category stuff within a month or two.

For historicals, I have been mainly going with author recs I've picked up either on lj (your memory sections were helpful for this) and around the internet. I think the first thing I actually sat down with was Flowers from the Storm, which I thought was great; I've loved everything I've read by Kinsale so far, though it's just that one, Midsummer Moon, Seize the Fire, and the first hundred pages of Shadowheart so far.

Lisa Kleypas I didn't really care for -- I tried two of hers, Somewhere I'll Find You and Dreaming of You and found them kind of shallow and not very well written.

Mary Jo Putney I've had a really mixed bag with. A Kiss of Fate and Uncommon Vows I disliked -- the first was just boring, I think, and the latter I disliked both the hero and heroine. On the other hand, One Perfect Rose was pleasant enough, and Silk and Secrets (the estranged married Victorian couple goes gallivanting through Central Asia!) I liked a lot.

I've really enjoyed Jo Beverley's Malloren novels -- I've only read the first two so far, and Chastity and Cyn were much more interesting than Bright and Portia, but I have the next in that series waiting on my stack of unread books. On the other hand, the recent Regency I read by her last week was a little meh (http://www.livejournal.com/users/pearl_o/631424.html).

Loretta Chase's Miss Wonderful is the novel I refer in the entry above ; I've only read this one and Mr. Impossible by her, but I liked them both. Nothing deep or impression-making, but fun, definitely. Mr Impossible has the exotic locale bonus points, too, and the Egyptology scholar heroine.

I've only read one by Christina Dodd (My Fair Temptress), which was incredibly lightweight, but likable nonetheless.

I keep seeing recs for Carla Kelly, but all I've been able to find by her is The Wedding Journey, which I did like a lot; it definitely fit into the nice characters thing I mention above. Wild at Heart by Patricia Gaffney had that, too, I think, and I also thought that one had a nice depth to the secondary characters.

(I am going through my list of completed books, so this is rather weighted towards stuff I liked, as I can't remember the stuff I started and was too bored to finish.)

[coffeeandink.livejournal.com]

Hee. I'm not sure I have anyone to recommend who's not already in my Memories; I haven't been reading a lot of romance in the past couple of years.

The people in my bedroom shelves of romance (as opposed to the kitchen cabinets) are Kinsale, Kelly, Heyer, and Crusie. I definitely recommend seeking out Kelly; I think she will suit your "nice people" kink wonderfully. (It seems so odd to call that a kink.) I think you might also like Tracy Grant's Daughter of the Game--not for that reason, but because it is somewhat reminiscent of Kinsale. I wish I had someone reminiscent of Crusie to recommend.

And Shadowheart doesn't have an alpha hero. It has an alpha heroine, although this comes as a surprise to her.

I haven't read Dodd or Kleypas, and they don't sound promising. I think Jo Beverley started going downhill midway through the Mallorens and never quite recovered, but I do like non-Mallorens Forbidden (not Forbidden Magic) and The Shattered Rose quite a lot.

Mary Jo Putney is variable, but I liked all of her India trilogy and many of her Fallen Angels series, especially Dancing in the Wind and Shattered Rainbows.

I like Judy Cuevas/Judith Ivory a lot, but her heroes may be too domineering and assholish for you; she works for me because her heroines, unusually, give as good as they get.

For contemporaries/series books, I think you'd like some of Ruth Wind aka Barbara Samuel, but she is very variable; I've been really bored by some of her books. But at her best she writes very good decent and well-meaning characters.

Megan Chance does really thoughtful, complex books, although the characters aren't always sympathetic.

Teresa Medeiros' last few have disappointed me terribly, but you might try Once An Angel or Heather and Velvet.

[speshope.livejournal.com]

Medeiros *has* been disapointing lately, and I loved so much of her stuff.

[pearl-o.livejournal.com]

Well, I think the "good writing" is even more important than anything else, really, and I'm willing to give anyone a try for a book or two. Plus, I find whether or not I like the heroine to be even more important than whether I like the hero; I can put up with a lot if I like her enough.

I think most of your recommendations are on my "authors to look for" list, but specific books to start are always helpful -- there does seem to be a combination of huge backlists and variable quality going on for a lot of the authors.

[speshope.livejournal.com]

I have Heather and Velvet in my bookshelf, for a place to start.

[pearl-o.livejournal.com]

I will probably take you up on that, then! I think I have enough to read to get me through to the end of finals, so maybe when I get back to Eugene later this month.

[speshope.livejournal.com]

It's amazing that the two Lisa Kleypas books you've read are the ones I haven't considering I collect her stuff. I love her, but I'm unabashedly shallow, so it all makes sense! *g*

[pearl-o.livejournal.com]

Heeeee. I found her stuff entertaining enough, but the writing quality actively distracts me. I put them in the "fun trash" category.

[speshope.livejournal.com]

That's where most of the books I read go. I'm not looking for literary wonderment in Romance Novels. I'm looking for fun.

[callmesandy.livejournal.com]

You were just reading Loretta Chase's Miss Wonderful, weren't you? I recognize that sex scene!!

[pearl-o.livejournal.com]

Hahahaha, it TOTALLY WAS.

(Also, I love your icon. Aw.)