One of the questions that Dee asked me in the ParanormalRomance.org interview (see previous post) was:  “In your opinion, how far can you go with erotic content and have it still be considered romance?”

Now, I’m going to take a step back, because right now, I want to talk about just what I think makes a romance. If I buy a book that is labeled romance, and I spend hours reading the tale, I get emotionally involved, and then I do not get my happy ending–I’m not a pleased consumer. For me, in order to be classified as a romance, a book needs to have a happy ending. Very simple. No, I’m not saying the couple in the story need to get married, but there does have to be a satisfying emotional connection that makes me think, “Ok, I can see things working for these two.”

As far as Dee’s question goes…in erotic romances today, boundaries are certainly being pushed. What do I think makes an erotic romance? First, I want a strong emotional connection between my characters–and then (you probably already guessed this) I need a happy ending. Erotic romances are highly sensual (hot!) but they do require strong character connections, just as other romances do. When I write my stories, I specifically focus on one couple–my hero and heroine. Other authors focus on different character sets. Angela Knight wrote Soul Kisses in SECRETS, VOLUME  14 which featured two heroes and a heroine. Would I still consider that tale a romance? Absolutely! Angela’s execution of the story was brilliant and the ending definitely qualified as emotionally satisfying.

But what about you? What do you think qualifies a book as a romance?

This entry was posted on Monday, November 5th, 2007 at 1:19 pm and is filed under Romance. You can follow any comments to this entry through the RSS feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.