When I was 12 my aunt bought me a three-pack of Mills & Boon novels for my birthday. I don't know what she was thinking—maybe she matched my love of books with my newfound 'adulthood' and came up with M&B. I read two of the three books. I sort of liked one of them (it was more romance than raunch) and didn't read the third because I didn't like the look of the girl on the cover or the main character's name or something superficial like that.
I was 19 before I encountered a romance novel again. I took a cultural studies class on writing genre fiction and we had to write analysis reports on the book we'd read that week. One of the genres was romance. I read a nurse/doctor romance novel and wrote my report on the different subcategories in the romance genre. Do you believe there's a subcategory for sheikhs?!?
Anyway, when I saw today's meme topic I thought I could probably take the broader view of a romance novel, which is the simple Shakespearean-style romance: boy/girl meets boy/girl, boy/girl can't have boy/girl due to circumstances beyond their control, the couple overcome the obstacle and marry and/or live happily ever after. This arc includes everything from Jane Austen's books to chick lit.
Turns out I probably don't need to take the broader view because the title that comes to mind is 'Bat', a short story in Tremble: Sensual Tales Of The Mystical And Sinister by Tobsha Learner, although her style isn't all that easy to read (it's a bit jolting—this probably explains why I'm too scared to read The Witch of Cologne, a very thick book).
I read a proof copy of Tremble for a magazine review (our audience was a bit too mainstream, however, so the review never made it into print) and didn't really like most of it because, as I mentioned, the writing style was hard-going for me. But for some reason I really liked 'Bat'—so much so that I ended up cutting it out of the proof and saving it somewhere. Somewhere very safe, I'm sure. All I will say is that it's speculative fiction and a romance between two guys set during wartime.
Another title that popped into my head is Friendly Fire by Patrick Gale, but I can't remember whether that has a happy ending. Good book, anyway, he has a subtle way of revealing things that seems to give the events in the book more weight than a less skilled writer might have been able to achieve.
Incidentally, my favourite Shakespearean romance is Twelfth Night and I have a soft spot for Beatrice and Benedick in Much Ado About Nothing.
Day 21 – Favourite book from your childhood
Day 22 – Favourite book you own
Day 23 – A book you've wanted to read for a long time but still haven’t
Day 24 – A book that you wish more people would’ve read
Day 25 – A character who you can relate to the most
Day 26 – A book that changed your opinion about something
Day 27 – The most surprising plot twist or ending
Day 28 – Favourite title
Day 29 – A book everyone hated but you liked
Day 30 – Your favourite book of all time
I'd like to thank Sarah Jansen for her tweet about this, as well as The Literary Gothamite and Confessions of a Book Lush for the good idea.
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