Today’s Top Ten Tuesday (at That Artsy Reader Girl) is a “love freebie” for Valentine’s Day. I should say up front I’m not a huge fan of Valentine’s Day, a holiday that leaves a lot of people out and is designed mostly to sell a lot of chocolate that many people don’t even want. That said, last week’s post got me thinking about the things I love in romances, and the things I don’t.
Romance reading is so personal. Of course I want good dialog and characters, but then the things I like and dislike are also influenced by my own personality and experiences, like how I met Mr. CG. So here are five things I love – and five things I don’t love – in books about romance.
Five romance elements that “check my boxes”:
- Complicated characters: I want to like my main characters, but I also want them to struggle, and I want them to be human. Emily Henry is very good at writing main characters with flaws. Sometimes her characters are maddening, but they eventually figure it out. Ashley Herring-Blake does this well too. My favorite romances are the ones where both people have to be better in order to get together.
- Diversity: I’m really enjoying romances that have diverse characters, whether that’s LGBTQ+, race/ethnicity, characters with disabilities or illnesses, or even just different body types. I really liked Chloe Liese’s Always Only You, with a main character who has a physical disability and is on the spectrum. Talia Hibbert’s and Jasmine Guillory’s books frequently feature biracial couples.
- Bigger story elements: I enjoy when the romance isn’t the whole story. Mhairi McFarlane is the best at this. In Just Last Night, she explores what happens to a group of friends when one of them is in a car crash. In another book she explores controlling partners. Katherine Center also tells great stories which are about more than romance.
- Steaminess: While I’m fine with a good “closed door” romance, I do like my books to be steamy, but how the sex is written is pretty important! Talia Hibbert is one of my favorites. Evie Dunmore is great too. If you want closed door, I recommend Mhairi McFarlane, Katherine Center and Mimi Matthews.
- History: I love historical fiction, but I gave up on historical romances for many years because I didn’t want to read about relationships where the woman was so greatly disadvantaged compared to the man. I grew up reading the romances of the 70’s and 80’s, which were pretty rapey. I love the books of Evie Dunmore because she doesn’t dance around the disadvantages of women, she confronts them head on, but still builds strong, complex male and female characters. I also like Mimi Matthews, Scarlett Peckham, and Courtney Milan.
And here are some things I don’t love in romances:
- Big secrets/poor communication: I don’t love a romance where the plot is built around big secrets and poor communication. If I’m internally yelling at the characters “just talk already!” I’m pretty much done. The exception is where a writer can give me a pretty good reason that secrets are being kept, or maybe things are told over time but just not all at once.
- Contrived scenarios and unrealistic coincidences: I know, this is what most romances are built around, but taken to extremes it’s just distracting. At least give me good reasons for the contrived situation.
- Insta-love, or too much emphasis on physical beauty: I’m a fan of a slow burn relationship. I want characters who get to know each other, or who already know each other really well. And I hate when writers go on and on about the bodies of the characters – attraction is great, but an excessive focus on certain body parts is repetitive, superficial and just lazy writing.
- Power imbalances: A good example is an employer/employee romance – I don’t mind co-workers but not when your job depends on the other person. I also don’t love books about celebrities falling in love with regular people. Living in a spotlight sounds awful to me (I think I’m the only person on the planet who didn’t like The Happy-Ever-After Playlist). Maybe that struggle is what’s interesting to a lot of people. I did love Katherine Center’s The Bodyguard, despite it being both employer AND celebrity. I just liked it that much.
- Perfect love interests: I know romances are fantasies, but I’m much more likely to fall for a love interest who seems human. Who wants to be with someone perfect? I don’t.
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