The fact that for the most part, the entirety of the romance genre is so outlandish and far-fetched is what makes them so addictive to read. They’re not real. They’re never going to be real. Real men do not look like Fabio. Shoot, Fabio doesn’t even look like Fabio! And that’s why I proudly read super cheesy romance novels. BECAUSE they’re not real.
Romance novels, the ones you can buy in the grocery store with titles like: “The Sheik’s Virgin Blackmailed Pregnant Bride” or “The Billionaire Cowboy’s Secret Twin’s Virgin Mother”, are books that will never win the Nobel Prize for Literature. They’re not even books that you would admit to reading on your e-reader. And that’s a shame. Because, while they may not be the next Anna Karenina or Moby Dick, they are feel-good books that people like me (and I’m willing to bet you) run to when the world gets too dark.
Backstory: my baby had kidney surgery a few weeks ago and while the surgery was a success, it’s been a very complicated and rough recovery. When I was sitting in Children’s National Hospital, listening to my infant’s IV pumps beeping and the sound of babies crying down the hall, I didn’t want to finish the ghost-thriller story I’m reading. I didn’t want to go on Facebook and see everyone’s good days or even worse how they’d complain about something menial. I wanted to escape. I wanted to be anywhere than where I was but also at the same time I didn’t want to be anywhere than where I was.
Enter the over-the-top romance novel. Reading about a poor overworked waitress trying to save up money to save her mother’s house from being foreclosed on and then being whisked off her feet by a charming billionaire who just needs an heir to secure his controlling shares of the company his father left him but ends up loving the waitress more than he thought his blackened heart was capable of and they get married and live happily ever after, was the perfect amount of escapism. That’s not actually the book I read. I made that book up, but it could EASILY be a cheesy romance novel you’d buy in the grocery store or one you could get on Amazon Prime Unlimited. Books with storylines that are outlandish, with heroes that are as brutish as they are charming. Those books are what keep women like me going when the going gets tough.
(I read and reviewed Lady Pirate, check it out here!)
So here’s to you romance novel writer, you distracter from the too-real things we have to deal with every day. You are the true MVP to people like me who just want to imagine for a hot second that the widower cowboy is actually a secret billionaire and that he has been secretly in love with his kid’s nanny for years and they get married and live happily ever after.
