PS: For websites featuring romance reviews and community that are still going strong, don't miss allaboutromance.com and smartbitchestrashybooks.com. If there are others I missed, please leave them in a comment!
Mazel tov, Maya. This was the first book of yours I read because I was dazzled by the idea that someone would write about romance and what it meant to its readers. You did not disappoint. I still revisit it occasionally. I also thoroughly appreciated: Romance will thrive on diversity and inclusivity; I think it will falter without it. Not only romance. Civilization. Anything of value needs diversity and inclusivity to thrive--even if it's just our own thoughts!
I was a little shocked when you called for more diverse male leads because I haven't read an alpha outside of JAK in years. (I love her paranormal take so I can't quit her.) Granted, I predominately read witchy romance, with a side of STEM and writer heroines in all time periods. Then again, I make a point of searching out diverse books.
I do worry about what will happen to romance if the US government gets to the part of Project 2025 that bans porn. We've seen too many people giving that label to romance, predominantly because women have sex and enjoy it! I would hope that we outside the US would hold fast but most of our publishers have been bought by the big dogs, so who knows what will happen.
I'm glad your experience with heroes these days includes more diversity in the heroes! I do think alpha's have fallen out of favor, but I still noticed a lot of physical perfection in our heroes, that's all. I also haven't read a ton in the last year, so you probably know better than me.
Ugh, project 2025! And romance! I share your concern. I can absolutely imagine they will try to go for it and something important will be lost. But I also think about how Hollywood wrote sex after the Hayes code--it showed up as dancing. As witty banter. There's a way to still portray the feelings. I also think about all the erotica in the Victorian era. They can try to ban stuff all they want, but people want to see sex on the page and on the screen and there's just no way to stop it. We may have to go back to where we started--all the paperbacks on mom's bookshelf :-)
Congratulations on ten years!! Dangerous Books For Girls was formative reading for me when I got into romance and helped me deprogram my internalized snobbery about the genre. I love your question about expanding the HEA — I'm doing my best to poke at that on my podcast Rebel Ever After. There's been a nice shift in corners of contemporary romance toward HEAs that don't default to epilogue proposals and babies, especially in queer romance. But I'm worried that progress will roll back now that publishers are playing it safe/conservative in acquisitions...
PS: For websites featuring romance reviews and community that are still going strong, don't miss allaboutromance.com and smartbitchestrashybooks.com. If there are others I missed, please leave them in a comment!
Mazel tov, Maya. This was the first book of yours I read because I was dazzled by the idea that someone would write about romance and what it meant to its readers. You did not disappoint. I still revisit it occasionally. I also thoroughly appreciated: Romance will thrive on diversity and inclusivity; I think it will falter without it. Not only romance. Civilization. Anything of value needs diversity and inclusivity to thrive--even if it's just our own thoughts!
Wow thank you! :-) I couldn't agree with you more that romance, civilization, nature, anything and everything, thrives on diversity.
Love your recap on the last decade. I also couldn't have predicted the rise of romance-focused indie bookstores but I'm loving it!
I never saw it coming and I love it so much!
I was a little shocked when you called for more diverse male leads because I haven't read an alpha outside of JAK in years. (I love her paranormal take so I can't quit her.) Granted, I predominately read witchy romance, with a side of STEM and writer heroines in all time periods. Then again, I make a point of searching out diverse books.
I do worry about what will happen to romance if the US government gets to the part of Project 2025 that bans porn. We've seen too many people giving that label to romance, predominantly because women have sex and enjoy it! I would hope that we outside the US would hold fast but most of our publishers have been bought by the big dogs, so who knows what will happen.
I'm glad your experience with heroes these days includes more diversity in the heroes! I do think alpha's have fallen out of favor, but I still noticed a lot of physical perfection in our heroes, that's all. I also haven't read a ton in the last year, so you probably know better than me.
Ugh, project 2025! And romance! I share your concern. I can absolutely imagine they will try to go for it and something important will be lost. But I also think about how Hollywood wrote sex after the Hayes code--it showed up as dancing. As witty banter. There's a way to still portray the feelings. I also think about all the erotica in the Victorian era. They can try to ban stuff all they want, but people want to see sex on the page and on the screen and there's just no way to stop it. We may have to go back to where we started--all the paperbacks on mom's bookshelf :-)
Fascinating!!!!
Congratulations on ten years!! Dangerous Books For Girls was formative reading for me when I got into romance and helped me deprogram my internalized snobbery about the genre. I love your question about expanding the HEA — I'm doing my best to poke at that on my podcast Rebel Ever After. There's been a nice shift in corners of contemporary romance toward HEAs that don't default to epilogue proposals and babies, especially in queer romance. But I'm worried that progress will roll back now that publishers are playing it safe/conservative in acquisitions...
Thank you! It's always wonderful to hear stories about how the book had an effect on folks--very glad it helped you get into romance!
It will be incredibly interesting to track the progress of the genre against today's lurch toward olden times conservative values.