Home > Topic > Romance novels
1 " Romance novels are birthday cake and life is often peanut butter and jelly. I think everyone should have lots of delicious romance novels lying around for those times when the peanut butter of life gets stuck to the roof of your mouth. "
― Janet Evanovich
2 " You'd think the very thought of a romance writer would bring a smile to people's lips. Ah, how nice. Love. Making love. Laughter. Kissing. But no, the world is upside down as far as I can see, and romances and their writers are ridiculed, hisses and generally spat upon. For what reason? One of my favorites is that women who read them might get mixed up about reality and imagine a man is going to rescue them from Life. According to this theory, women are so stupid that they can't tell a story from reality. Is anyone worried that the MEN who read spy thrillers are going to go after their neighbors with an automatic weapon? No, I don't remember anyone thinking that. Nor do I remember anyone worrying about murder mysteries or science fiction. It just seems to be dumb ol' women who might think some gorgeous, thoughtful, giving hunk is going to rescue them. Honey, if any woman thought a gorgeous hunk was going to rescue her, romance novels wouldn’t be forty percent of the publishing industry. "
― Jude Deveraux , Remembrance
3 " For readers worldwide, the attraction of romance novels seems to be that they provide hope, strength, and the assurance that happy endings are possible. Romance makes the promise that no matter how bleak things sometimes look, in the end everything will turn out right and true love will triumph -- and in an uncertain world, that's very comforting. "
― Leigh Michaels , On Writing Romance: How to Craft a Novel That Sells
4 " Fantasy novels reveal “emergency escape routes” from reality. Romance novels dish out a banquet of Eye Candy. Otherworldly passion erupts when the two collide in an epic novel of unforgettable characters and dire circumstances. "
5 " Love hurts.Think back over romance novels you’ve loved or the genre-defining books that drive our industry. The most unforgettable stories and characters spring from crushing opposition. What we remember about romance novels is the darkness that drives them. Three hundred pages of folks being happy together makes for a hefty sleeping pill, but three hundred pages of a couple finding a way to be happy in the face of impossible odds makes our hearts soar. In darkness, we are all alone.So don’t just make love, make anguish for your characters. As you structure a story, don’t satisfy your hero’s desires, thwart them. Make sure your solutions create new problems. Nurture your characters doubts and despair. Make them earn the happy ending they want, even better…make them deserve it. Delay and disappointment charge situations and validate character growth. Misery accompanies love. It’s no accident that many of the stories we think of as timeless romances in Western Literature are fiercely tragic: Romeo and Juliet, Tristan and Isolde, Cupid and Psyche… the pain in them drags us back again and again, hoping that this time we’ll find a way out of the dark.Only if you let your characters get lost will we get lost in them. And that, more than anything else, is what romance can and should do for its protagonists and its readers: lead us through the labyrinth, skirt the monstrous despair roaming its halls, and find our way into daylight. "
― Damon Suede
6 " No matter how troubled a character's history, romance novels tell us, love can be built upon it, and happily-ever-after can result. What's more, the darker the past, the brighter the future - and the better the read. "
― Sarah MacLean
7 " Contrary to what we read in romance novels or see in Disney movies, the purpose of marriage is not to " complete you" or to " find your other half." If your goal in seeking marriage is to fill a void in yourself, you are only setting yourself up for disappointment. "
8 " I'm not going to force you into anything you don't want. But I'm also not going to take a vow of chastity and pine away for you, or whatever the hell it is that men do in romance novels these days. I have needs. I'd rather satisfy them with you, but if you don't want me I suppose I'll just have to find someone else. Might take me a while, but I'll make do. I always have before. "
― Nenia Campbell , Armed and Dangerous (The IMA, #2)
9 " Women are huntresses until the day we die. Our perpetual thirst for the chase endures until our last breath. It remains while we are too focused on our careers to pursue love, when we have been burned by past relationships, and even when we are simply enjoying the freedom of being single. It does not miraculously vanish once we are settled down in a monogamous relationship – we merely make the conscious decision to remain faithful. But a lioness in a zoo is still a lioness. Romance novels are the remedy for our restless hearts. They invite us to explore and experiment within the safety of their pages. Every book is an opportunity to satisfy our unending desire to fall in love. They allow us to experience it all over again, right from the start: The intoxicating newness. The thrill of the hunt. The exhilaration of the game. The building anticipation. The worsening hunger. And finally, the fulfillment of a much-needed release. Each book offers a chance to achieve a state of blissful, glowing contentment… Until the next one catches our eye, that is. "
10 " I still read romance, and I read suspense. I read them both. And part of it is, I like stories with strong characters, and I like stories where there's closure at the end. And I like stories where there's hope. That's a kind of empowerment. I think romance novels are very empowering, and I think suspense novels are, too. "
11 " It's true that romance novels do detail the courtship phase of a relationship. We usually write 'And they lived happily ever after' before our heroine starts snoring or our hero starts tossing his socks over the hamper. "
