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[ritaxis]

Well, I've taken a side trip into the modern regular mass-market romance. I'm not sure why, because they irritate me. I think they irritate me even more now that they have redeeming features as a rule than they did twenty years ago when they didn't generally. I know what irritates me about them, anyway. It's the way they handle gender and sex

Comments

[coffeeandink]

Many romance readers skip the sex scenes. For me it depends on the writer, the book, and my mood.

Do you want recommendations or is that just missing the point?

[ritaxis]

Definitely not missing the point -- I don't go into this deciding I'm superior to the genre: I want to have fun with it, and that's why every so often I go back and try reading them again. Every time I go back the books have more of the thisness I want them to have, but they persist in thinking that an attractive man looks like Fabio with a short haircut and wears a brand-name suit and drives a Tundra or a BMW. And it's worse when they go for folksy.

So, yeah, bring on the recommendations. At the worst. I'll be no worse off.

[marykaykare]

I grew up in a small town in Red State America. Shudder. Nobody who writes about the honesty and simplicity and joy of the places knows what the hell they're talking about.

MKK

[julesjones]

I may just bookmark this thread so that I can point at it the next time someone asks me

a) why I read/write that {sharp intake of breath} *gay* romance

b) I write romance but don't read mass market romance.

Actually, I read quite a lot of romance, but it's usually being sold as science fiction or mystery, because when it's being sold under those labels it's usually free of the problems you describe so well. An overdose of Mills and Boon (Harlequin) one weekend in my teens when I was trapped in a house that had nothing else to read put me off the whole genre for years, and even now I am disinclined to read anything that doesn't come recommended by other sf or mystery fen. On the other hand, I have this very large stack of Heyer bought purely on spec because half of rasfc adore her, and no regrets at all from the couple I've read so far. :-)