Everything I Know about Love I Learned from Romance Novels

by Sarah Wendell

  “Am I offering false hope? Well, I’ve been in the tunnel; it was a bitch to get out, but I’m on the other side. So it is possible.”

  Dodd cautions that one single conversation would never really work to clear everything up as it does in a conveniently plotted novel: “I occasionally see readers online complain about romances in which any problems between the hero and heroine could be cleared up with ‘one open, honest conversation.’ And I think, ‘You know nothing about relationships. You’ve never been in one in your life.’

  “To talk about your problems with a beloved is an act of unimaginable courage. Words are powerful things; they can create or void trust, generate joy or pain, wound or heal.”

  —CHRISTINA DODD

  “As far as I’m concerned, to say, ‘The hero and heroine can clear up their problems with one conversation,’ is simplistic. Any author worth her beans is presenting the progress of a realistic relationship. Every relationship starts with both parties pretending they’re normal, witty, healthy, whole. As the relationship progresses and the hero and heroine get to know each other, the facade breaks down and truth starts leaking through. When a person has suffered physical and emotional trauma, to speak of that trauma is an act of unbelievable bravery, especially in a new, fragile, untried relationship. It’s a talk that has to be conducted for the relationship to flourish and true love to grow, but will the person you love so deeply scoff at your trauma? Laugh? Turn away? The uncertainty, the pain, and the anguish make it easier to avoid that conversation, even to turn away from the relationship rather than say anything. To talk about your problems with a beloved is an act of unimaginable courage. Words are powerful things; they can create or void trust, generate joy or pain, wound or heal.”

  Kresley Cole says that reading about conflict and how any problem might possibly be solved can inspire readers to want more from their own relationships, and that seeing their own lives reflected in their fiction is a valuable experience for them: “They’ve thanked me for inspiring them to want—and to demand—more from their relationships. Which is a huge compliment since I take great pains to depict heroines who know what they want and refuse to settle for a ‘hero’ who hasn’t earned the title (by being truthful with her, respecting her needs, and demonstrating a willingness to make sacrifices for the sake of their partnership).”

  Repeatedly reading about courtship and the problems facing each one also allows readers to see and consider problems that are solved in myriad patterns. This is part of the reason why romance readers turn to the stories of courtship again and again.

  Painful issues that are present in modern life are also present in romance novels. Eloisa James incorporated the feelings surrounding infertility and feeling a desperate desire to have a child into her own books, which are set a few hundred years in the past, long, long ago, in a setting far, far away from modern scientific advancements: “I tend to put real grievances into the stories of my marriages, along with real fears. But I also look at my friends’ marriages. The best example is probably Your Wicked Ways. When I wrote that novel I had several close friends experiencing the pain of infertility, and going through the lengthy, painful medical processes that hope to reverse it. But their passion for motherhood was so strong that they were forging ahead, needles, hormones, and all.

  “So that made me wonder what it would be like to feel that passionately back in the Regency period—if you were separated from your husband. What about if you were not only separated, but he was living with his mistress? And what if he said the only way he would impregnate you (to put it bluntly) was if you moved in the house along with the mistress? Would my friends have done it? Yup. So Helene did as well.

  “That was a tough marriage to mend. Rees was terrible in bed and had to learn, slowly, how to actually make love as opposed to have sex. I have gotten a tremendous amount of mail about Rees over the years: many readers say it’s their favorite book; others hate him and can’t imagine why Helene fell back in love with him. A significant number have written to me about Rees’s attitude toward sex and how it parallels men they’ve met over the years.”

  Seeing bad relationships improved can also help identify bad relationships in reality. Reader MD says that she “grew up with a very dysfunctional (and conservative) family, and for a while I liked the typical ‘big misunderstanding’ plots. From my point of view, they reflected reality. Plus the bodice rippers seemed to reflect some sort of reality as well, in the sense that the woman was the ‘good girl’ overcome by a hero or her own passion.

  “The big change came for me when I started reading romance discussion boards, and heard people saying that such heroes are jerks in real life, and ‘why they don’t just talk to each other.’ Seeing these reactions from other people opened for me a new way to look at things. Eventually, it motivated me to get into therapy and learn better patterns and better relationships.”

  One thing to remember, even in the fantasy-ripe environment of romance novels, is that not all problems can be solved. Sometimes, identifying them is enough of a lesson.

  Author Sarah MacLean has a cautionary perspective. In real life, it’s not always possible to expect someone to make a huge change—though it can be done. And that possibility of hope is its own motivation, whether it’s motivation to read another page, or try another day: “Ninety percent of the time, in real life, a relationship is not going to change bad behavior. I must confess that I hold firm to the belief that, in general, leopards (or leopardesses) do not change their spots: neurotic, untrusting women will always be neurotic and untrusting; possessive, dominating men will always be dominating; laziness and lack of motivation does not go away; and cheaters will always lean toward cheating.

  “Romance novels help with perspective: ‘Yes, my husband’s out of work, but at least my virginity was never wagered by a wastrel father in a card game!’”

  —COURTNEY MILAN

  “Of course, romance novels are built on the idea that love conquers all and that a great relationship can evolve a hero or a heroine out of bad behavior and into the light—reformed rakes make the best husbands, do they not?

  “And the truth is that we all have these people in our lives—the reformed rake who found love and monogamy, the slacker who found love and a career, the domineering alpha who is now a pussycat, the untrusting girl who, through love, has come to believe in herself and her appeal. These obstacles (however insurmountable) have been tackled; these stories (however rare) are real. And they give us hope. Which is perhaps why they make such excellent reads.”

  “I also think that romance novels are valuable not just for the romantic relationship, but for the value that they place on community and friendship and belonging.”

  —COURTNEY MILAN

  Romances also serve as a lovely reality check, as author Courtney Milan explains: “Romance novels help with perspective: ‘Yes, my husband’s out of work, but at least my virginity was never wagered by a wastrel father in a card game!’

  “I also think that romance novels are valuable not just for the romantic relationship, but for the value that they place on community and friendship and belonging. In our world, it’s so easy to just disappear and be alone, and it’s always important to have the reminder that no matter how bad things seem, it will always be better with good friends and family.”

  Kidnapping and dukes aside, when real and painful issues are addressed in romances, it can be terribly reassuring and comforting, as reader Teshara can attest: “This Is All I Ask by Lynn Kurland is the first romance I read in my adult life and it really did change my outlook on relationships.

  “It’s OK to be traumatized. It’s OK to have PTSD. It’s OK to have flashbacks. It’s OK to be broken. It’s OK to be afraid of life. And it’s OK to not be able to change these things on your own. It’s OK to question your motivation for loving another person. It’s OK to question why that person loves you.

  “And the person you end up being with doesn’t have to be ‘normal.’ Someti
mes you can only trust people that have been through what you have, and you end up growing strong together instead of having to go it alone.”

  Romances provide hope and comfort that when things are really awful in the present, they will get better. Alpha Lyra writes that romances served a very crucial purpose in her life: “I didn’t start reading romance until after my twelve-year marriage fell apart due to my husband’s infidelity. Those years during the deterioration of the marriage and the divorce proceedings were horrible. Night after night, I cried myself to sleep.

  “Romance novels not only gave me comfort during these awful times; I think they helped shield me from becoming cynical about love and thinking that all guys will eventually betray me. They made me willing to try again. So I’m still looking for my real HEA.”

  “It’s OK to be traumatized. It’s OK to have PTSD. It’s OK to have flashbacks. It’s OK to be broken. It’s OK to be afraid of life. And it’s OK to not be able to change these things on your own. It’s OK to question your motivation for loving another person. It’s OK to question why that person loves you.”—TESHARA, A READER

  You’d think all the happily-ever-after would be irritating to those facing or witnessing divorce, but Lyra isn’t the only one who has used romances to face painful separations. Zisu writes, “In my teens, romance novels helped me deal with my disappointment in and sadness surrounding my parents’ divorce and continued unpleasant relationship. They helped me believe in the possibility of an HEA, and escape from the disaster-EA I was part of.”

  Jessi credits romances with giving her a happy fantasy that contrasted enough with the painful reality of her parents’ divorce that she was able to recognize potentially destructive habits: “My parents were divorced when I was five, and from that time on, every influential person in my life was divorced and excessively bitter. I also had some pretty extensive daddy issues due to my own father’s frequent absences. However, I started reading romance when I was probably eleven or twelve (in secret, of course) and I truly believe that my obsession with the genre helped build my own belief in love and in the fact that not all men are dicks who should die a painful and prolonged death.

  “Romance novels not only gave me comfort during these awful times [after my divorce]; I think they helped shield me from becoming cynical about love and thinking that all guys will eventually betray me.”—ALPHA LYRA, A READER

  “Romance novels allowed me to imagine being loved by a man and thus to begin to see value in myself and demand that others see it as well. I grew up in a small town and almost all of my friends got married very early and now have lots of kids and a good number are divorced. I have managed to escape that life, find a profession that I love and which I am amazing at (I’m a librarian), and find the love of my life (we’ve been together eight years now). I attribute my success, my faith in myself, and my faith in love to my rabid reading habits in general and to the romance genre in particular. A little imagination goes a long way in overcoming most of life’s problems.”

  Eloisa James has also written about how painful it can be to truly get to know someone intimately: “In my Affair Before Christmas, the young married couple are estranged because they simply don’t understand each other in bed at all. And neither one has been totally honest with each other. I had to untangle a lot of family history in order to get them to a place where they could not only be in love, but make love. I think the key there was that the hero simply decided he loved his wife so much that he would be faithful to her, even if he never had sex again. That kind of faithfulness gave her the ability to trust him—and then to fall truly in love with him.

  “Romance novels allowed me to imagine being loved by a man and thus to begin to see value in myself and demand that others see it as well.”—JESSI, A READER

  “One thing that people don’t do all that often is talk about male virgins. In When the Duke Returns, both the hero and heroine are virgins. Their first time, and second, aren’t great. Because sex isn’t all that great in the beginning. I got loads of funny mail about this, some of which was from women who’d slept with virgins (one had slept with four virgins, as I recall).”

  While it’s not always possible to cure jealous or suspicious men of their insecurities, it is possible to see that people can change and escape, for a time, people who do more harm than good, even without meaning to. James received a fan letter from a writer who said that one of her favorite parts of writing romance is that she is able to “repair those toxic people and relationships—even if it’s only on paper.”

  Anna Campbell agrees: “Actually one of the things I love about a great romance is that it offers hope for overcoming seemingly impossible obstacles.” Seeing those obstacles in other people’s lives can also help create appreciation of the strengths of one’s own relationships when they are tested: “I suspect romance has contributed to my belief that if respect is lacking between me and my other, the relationship has no hope. Does that come from romance novels or from parents who brought me up to value myself? Who knows? It’s certainly a good principle!”

  Interestingly, Campbell’s books include characters who start off on the opposite side of that spectrum—they usually believe themselves undeserving of happiness at all: “I think all my books include either a hero or a heroine, and sometimes both, who believe themselves unable to sustain a healthy relationship. Lone wolves lured back to the warmth of the campfire proliferate in Campbellandia. For example, in Captive of Sin, Sir Gideon Trevithick is convinced he’s condemned to a life of pain, madness, and solitude. A normal life is forever out of reach. But when he enters a marriage of convenience with Charis Weston to save her from her greedy, vicious stepbrothers, she drags him kicking and screaming back into the human race.”

  Campbell has much better fan mail than Eloisa James, I’m amazed to say: “I’ve had several emails from readers kidnapped by Scottish dukes who have thanked me for my advice.”

  (She’s kidding. I think.)

  Nora Roberts also sees her own life through the lens of romance at times: “Writing romance novels has certainly helped me learn, discover, understand all sorts of angles and quirks in love, relationships, and men. While fictionalized, and by nature romanticized, a romance novel is a story about people and their emotional journeys. They can provide a great deal of insight into human nature, and the human heart.

  “Honestly, every book I write, and certainly most I read and enjoy, teaches me a little bit more about relationships. How different people with different traits, backgrounds, needs, flaws, and so on come together, deal with problems, celebrate joys, handle all the ups and downs.”

  “Honestly, every book I write, and certainly most I read and enjoy, teaches me a little bit more about relationships. How different people with different traits, backgrounds, needs, flaws, and so on come together, deal with problems, celebrate joys, handle all the ups and downs.”

  —NORA ROBERTS

  Author Nalini Singh says that great romance is based on the idea that happiness is not impossible: “I think the crux of a great romance is the belief that nothing is impossible. I’ve read about traumatized heroes and heroines, and I’ve read about paranormal worlds torn apart by war where the characters find love—for me, it is not so much the ‘impossible obstacle’ that is important, but whether the writer is able to make me believe in the outcome.”

  Reading romances and taking them literally is definitely not the path to everlasting happiness. There are some crazy over-the-top plots that would never fly in the real world. Just listen to Courtney Milan on this: “For any men who may be reading this, I don’t generally advise looking to romance novels as an ideal way to woo a woman—if you like a girl, I suggest asking her out on a date, in preference to threatening to turn her ecologically sound tourism location into a strip mall.”

  But believing that the happy-ever-after and the happy-right-now are possible can create a powerful motivation to creating that happiness for oneself. The belief that things will get better is
self-fulfilling. In a romance novel, things will always be OK in the end, and if they’re not okay, it’s not the end. The same can be said of real life: there is a second chance, another day, another opportunity to try again and make everything a little bit better, because happy endings take work.

  We Know How to Ask for What We Want

  Without a doubt, some of the most emotionally touching and satisfying scenes in a romance novel are when one character declares how he or she feels, either through words or actions. Here are some of the favorite scenes of well-read romance fans:

  JUST ONE OF THE GUYS

  BY KRISTAN HIGGINS

  (HQN/Harlequin Ltd., 2008)

  Suggested by Diane N.

  “Chastity,” he says quietly. “I can’t live without you for another minute.”

  The mike falls to the dance floor with a thunk as I cover my mouth with both hands. Tears spill out of my eyes, and I can’t seem to draw a breath. The room is absolutely silent.

  “I’ve loved you my whole life, Chas, from that first day you took me home after Michelle died. And I’m terrified you’ll leave me or you’ll stop loving me or even worse, something will happen to you. But I can’t be without you anymore.”