The First Rule of Romance During the “Bollywood Basics” panel at the 35th annual Romance Writers of America meeting (July 23-26, New York City), Sonali Dev (A Bollywood Affair), Suleikha Snyder (Opening Act), and Nisha Sharma (My So-Called Bollywood Life, forthcoming) play a clip from the 2013 film Goliyon Ki Raasleela Ram-Leela. A gloriously ripped and shirtless Ranveer Singh, clad in diaphanous pants, smolders at Deepika Padukone as she prowls toward him carrying a steaming goblet. Audience members…
Mindy Hung's previous work for The Toast can be found here. When a woman is famous, the focus is often on her body—her butt, her post-baby body, if and with whom she’s doing it. Recent romance novels provide an interesting space to explore women, fame, and notoriety, not only because of how often the arcs of these books play out over headlines, but also because they offer a way for these narratives to be critiqued or…
In the publishing world, the romance novel reigns -- at times an underappreciated, resented, and mocked monarch, but the sales numbers don’t lie. Historical romances are among the most popular books in the genre -- the queen’s crown jewels, so to speak -- pulling readers in since the very beginning. Although much has changed over the years in historical romance, including the rise of heroines who are more likely to save themselves than wait around for a…
It’s a little-known fact that various literary heavyweights (and Ayn Rand) once tried their esteemed writerly hands at penning pulp romance novels. Certain great works of fiction and the occasional piece of non-fiction actually had their first incarnations as Mills and Boon-style sagas replete with winsome heroines (well, aside from Stephen Crane’s The Red Badge of Coitus, which proved to be a commercial flop due to its awkward lack of any
1. You are either a virgin or a sad and lovely widow whose husband was lost at sea. You are spirited, but still passing ladylike.
2. Your father is away in the colonies protecting his tobacco interests, or a bumbling idiot, or a gambler. His character flaws lead to you becoming betrothed to a man you’ve never met.
Mindy Hung’s previous bodice-ripping work for The Toast can be found here. Most recently: All the Sporty Ladies. Today’s Wealthy Romance Heroine is a serious creature, pulling on gumboots to launch herself on philanthropic missions, or donning tailored mansuits to protect her family’s business interests. Unlike her popular counterpart, the Billionaire Hero, who spends a considerable portion of his income on sex dungeons and—I don’t know!—floggers woven from the pelts of Komodo dragons, the…
Mindy Hung's previous bodice-ripping work for The Toast can be found here. Most recently: Love in Colour: Multicultural and Interracial Romance Novels. Just how does the average wealthy, workaholic male romance novel protagonist find time to lovingly hone the ridges of his rectus abdominis? If the gentleman is a sports star, then that’s easy: The six pack is simply part of his job. But what happens when a heroine is the athlete? Fewer…
Solace Ames and Suleikha Snyder are both writers of erotic romance in their thirties. Suleikha is known for her Bollywood romances with Samhain Publishing, and Solace Ames has a series of BDSM erotic romances coming out with Carina Press. They’ve been writing and playing the erotic field for several years. Solace Ames: Suleikha, how did you come to be a romance…
Previously: bad sex in romance novels. In romance novels, it seems easier for a person of colour to get a date with a were-lion than with a non-shifting human being. I guess if a reader is down with leonine loving, then stories featuring sex with Asian people aren’t so scary. Here’s the crux: As Alyssa Cole notes in the September, 2013, RT Book Reviews, mainstream romance novels featuring non-Caucasian characters generally do not sell…
Not all romance novels feature multi-orgasmic brides and perpetually tumescent men coupling in positions of dubious feasibility. Depictions of sex in the genre have come a long way since the days of questionable consent and improbable enthusiasm. Jennifer Crusie's Welcome to Temptation and Faking It, published in the early aughts, contain classic examples of hilarious (and very edifying) failed sex.* But perhaps you read romance because you want to read about beautiful people doing wonderful…
I don’t think my anxiety would have spun out of control quite as quickly had my family been more conscientious about their health. Or, to be more accurate, if my father had actually gone to the doctor more than once in the past decade. He’s young, for a father of a 25-year-old (only 52), but his family history is riddled with cancer and heart disease, and his nightly wine consumption doesn’t exactly do his liver…
Recent historical romances featuring cross-dressing heroines (and heroes) show that bodice rippers can be more than prettified, corset-bound wank material.
Cross-dressing is one of my favorite tropes of historical romance. When a historical romance novel features a woman disguised as a man, I am ON IT like pair of buff-colored breeches on a deliciously rounded female bottom. It’s easy to see why authors and readers find cross-dressing appealing. The heroines can punch, cuss, and…
