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Their ability to kick ass and to kiss each other are equally important, because if they don’t work their shit out, the planet might blow up.
the “happy ending” is actually right now.
Romances are one of the few genres in which the woman really matters.
a romance hero—Courage, a Heart, a Brain
All the characters are imperfect, but in the course of their journey, they bring out the best in one another. As a team, they become a sum greater than the parts.
When the hero and heroine commit to their relationship, it’s like a homecoming: one finds one’s heart’s home in the loved one.
the hero and heroine of a romance novel—or any genre novel—need to be larger than life.
make all my heroes tall and hot (at least to the heroine).
The heroine doesn’t have to be attractive—except to him—but we need to understand what draws him to her.
sexual fidelity is crucial to the idealized friendship of a romance hero and heroine.
faithful applies in other ways: He is or becomes the kind of man a woman can count on.
But part of the myth belonging to romance is this element of healing, with love being the balm.
the great book about two people learning to have a healthy relationship is, I believe, Pride and Prejudice. The change happens by degrees, and it takes time,
romance is found in how we treat ourselves.
Women comprise just over 90 percent of the romance readership.
The majority of the readership in the United States is women ages thirty-one to forty-nine.
Most romance readers are currently in a romant...
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the three main things that we romance readers receive from our fiction-reading. The first is rather obvious: escape and relaxation
Romance specifically creates a sense of hope and hopefulness that a romantic situation can and does exist.
Second, romance readers find ways to temporarily leave their present situations
The value of romance-reading, as Harlequin has found with its reader focus groups, is not so much in what the romance novel offers as an escape destination, but what reading offers as a temporary rest from the present stress and demands of life.
the validation of seeing their lives, their stresses, their beliefs, and their values reflected in fictional narratives.
the validation of the belief and the desire for a happy ending, and the idea of a perfect someone who will create happiness in tandem.
that feeling of falling in love is something we have all experienced and for many of us, that falling in love has turned to companionable love. Yet the feeling of falling is something we want to experience again, and I think readers can do that safely in a book and keep the love without giving up the love we have.
one thing she enjoys “about romance novels is the [depiction of a] woman struggling for independence in a world that does not recognize her value.
By acting out things in [my] imagination, I prepared for real life.
UNVEILED BY COURTNEY MILAN,
Romance shows us that you have to look out for yourself first, and place the quest for someone else as a secondary concern to your own happiness.
we aren’t that impressed with novels featuring women who do nothing until the hero shows up.
Romance novels often feature women who are already accomplished and men who are relatively happy in their own lives as well.
Romances can also help readers fix some not-so-attractive habits.
I also think you can’t underestimate the role of redemption in romance novels, with their message that we all get things wrong and must consciously work on fixing what is broken.”
Some people are very skilled at dampening their own emotions, and the safe harbor of reading romance and knowing that the emotional response you might feel for the characters or the story will end happily and without loss or grief is an equally safe space to explore emotions one might not otherwise want to feel at all.
romances taught me was that it was OK to feel and have positive emotions, to be an optimist not just about love, but about anything.
romance novels teach women to be confident in our strengths.
Most romance readers are happy already—and their reading material increases their joy and allows them to bring it to others.
the care-giving alpha male, “who is all kinds of dominant, but spends pretty much every moment after meeting the heroine trying to take care of her
wicked, smart-ass sense of humor
early romances of the ’70s and ’80s, more commonly referred to as “bodice rippers”—so named because often, a bodice was ripped in the course of unwilling seduction)
heroes have to complete their own emotional journey and be active participants in the creation of the happy ending.
WHAT MAKES AN EXCELLENT ALPHA MALE HERO? • Strength • Compassion • Confidence • Moral code • Commitment • Loyalty
the ones who have issues of their own. But also those who are willing to do something about it and who have a bit of a problem confronting the idea that they depend on someone else for their happiness.
Troubled, but willing to recover, and caring
nerds in fiction, so guys like Carter from the first book of Nora Roberts Bride Quartet, Vision in White, is totally squee-worthy.
Lawful Good or Chaotic Good Guys—people intent on helping others or making the world a better place.
heroes “who appear to be bad boys in the beginning, but whom the heroines discover are unusually caring and gentle, even if they’re not the most sensitive of beings.
confidence in himself and in his heroine.
like the guy who respects a woman’s abilities, and thinks it’s hot that she can kick ass. Plus I think these character types tend to have a more equitable/trusting relationship, which makes me more likely to believe in their happily-ever-after.”
the hero who isn’t what he appears to be.
Heroes like these allow the reader to see more beneath the superficial disguise presented to the world of the novel.
