A Sort-Of Romance Conversion Kit

[oyceter]

Emphasis on the "sort of."

I got into romance back in seventh grade, and basically, I waded through the not-so-great generic stuff for years before finding the good stuff. May you not have to wade through as much dreck as I did, although now I'm sort of glad I did because man, it's a lot of fun making fun of all the cliches I've seen! Ahem. I love this genre, I really do. I just snark at it a lot.

First things first: coffee_and_ink already has a kit (see the comments), and it is of the good. It's pretty much what I used to find the good stuff, so mine is very influenced by hers. Actually, just go read hers. Wait, no, I intend to write this just to write it, plus rilina did ask a while back.

Secondly, let it be noted that I have rather peculiar tastes in romance. I'm very fond of Westerns, I like romances set in non-Regency eras (I like the Regency, but I find other eras more interesting), and I am extremely fond of things that play with gender roles and romance tropes. I also like nice heroes and tortured heroines. I'm also much more fond of romances that deal with the romance; ergo, I'm not much for the romantic suspense or paranormals or whatnot.

Off we go!

1. Connie Brockway - She tends to write Regency historicals, although she's got two Victorian-era ones. She's an interesting writer who does both angst and humor very well, but by all means avoid the trilogies. I don't think she's quite figured out how to plot a satisfying trilogy yet. I did like the last book of her second trilogy though (My Surrender), despite the horrid plotting. My absolute favorite is All Through the Night, which has a thrill-seeking female thief and very psychologically scarred characters and angst out the wazoo. I particularly like that the characters are both scarred but don't act like bastards, which seems to be a rarity in this genre. My favorite of her comedies is My Dearest Enemy because it has epistolary snark. I cannot resist epistolary snark. I also like The Bridal Season, which has a female con artist with a wonderful sense of humor and style and a very sweet hero. Other people really like her As You Desire as well (set in Egypt!), but I'm not quite so fond of it because I don't like the heroine all that much. Last I heard she was quitting romance and moving into women's fiction, sigh. I think all her books are still in print, though you may have to go to Amazon instead of a local bookstore.


2. Megan Chance - I think the best way to sum up Megan Chance would be "OMG TEH ANGST!" She usually writes American historicals, many of them set in the West, and I really like her because she almost never writes a typical romance. Her heroines are very damaged, and usually her heroes are too, and she never glosses over the damage or makes it romantic. My absolute favorite is Fall From Grace, which is about outlaws in the west. It's gritty and hard and angsty and wonderful. I also like The Portrait, on a manic-depressive artist, and Candle in the Dark, on a whore and an alcoholic travelling to Panama. And The Gentleman Caller (set in New Orleans!), but I suspect that one is more of a personal like. A Heart Divided is most definitely her weakest and most typical romance. Her romances are all out of print, I think, and she's currently writing historical fiction. I've only read her latest historical, and I don't like it quite as much as her romances.


3. Jennifer Crusie - probably the best contemporary romance writer now. Her current books are being marketed as women's fiction, but they fit the romance genre just fine, so I'm just going to keep on thinking of them as romances. Her old categories are still being reprinted; her newer ones are all in print and very easy to find. I love Crusie because she's openly feminist, funny as hell, very real, and hey, she loves Buffy! She is also not much for the genre tropes, which pleases me to no small extent. Tell Me Lies doesn't work as a romance for me, but I like it because of how it deals with grief and anger. My favorites are probably Faking It, which was the most awkward sex scenes ever, and Bet Me, because it's on food! I also like Fast Women because for once, it focuses on the internal growth of the heroine and the heroine learning to love and be in a relationship. The OOP Anyone But You is liked by a lot of people as well (I like it too, but am not sure if it's a favorite or not). My least favorite is Crazy for You, because parts of it are really creepy. However, if you don't like neurotic animals, you may want to avoid her. (She's worth it though! Really!)


4. Judy Cuevas/Judith Ivory - The Judy Cuevas books Dance and Bliss are her best, and, of course, absolute impossible to find. I ended up getting mine off eBay. Gah. They're both set in turn-of-the-century France. Bliss is good, but Dance is awesome and makes the villain of Bliss into the unlikely hero. I don't like the Judith Ivory books quite as much because Ivory tends to write very uneven gender roles, with the hero almost always dominating. But she is very good, prose-wise and characterization-wise, so if you're not as stuck on that as I am, go try. My favorite Ivory is Sleeping Beauty, which is set in late Victorian England starring an older courtesan and her younger lover. I love that it doesn't gloss over the courtesan-ness of the heroine. I think all the Ivory books are still in print, though they're not always stocked in the big chains.


5. Laura Kinsale - I have absolutely no idea how to describe a Laura Kinsale book. They are on crack. They are larger than life, with absolutely insane plots, but I love them anyway. My absolute favorite of hers is Shadowheart, which has a lot of fun blowing romance tropes out of the water, has an assassin hero, sex scenes that are actually a part of the characterization, and insane Italian politics. It's the sequel to For My Lady's Heart, but you don't have to read one to enjoy the other. I also like The Prince of Midnight because of the supremely tortured heroine and the way Kinsale breaks the rake mold with her hero, but most people don't like this one. Most people love The Shadow and the Star, but I only got halfway through it and didn't like it. (I told you I had odd taste.) Flowers From the Storm is pretty good as well (the hero suffers from a stroke and is nursed to health by a Quaker), but I still slightly resent the ending. I think all her books are coming back into print since Shadowheart was published last year. This is of the good, because her older covers were really, really bad.

I have other recced authors, but I haven't read enough of them to have them up there as favorites.


I didn't include books by my favorite authors in here for fear of repeating myself.

1. Shana Abe, The Secret Swan - Actually, I suspect this is more a me thing than a generally liked thing, but I like it anyway. It's rather angsty. I like that it's about second chances and getting to know people, and I am also a sucker for childhood crush angstiness.


2. Loretta Chase, Mr. Impossible - Regency Egypt! W00t. Also, a hieroglyphic-loving heroine and the hero who loves her for it. This book has most standard romance elements that I tend to dislike, but Chase is so funny and her characters are so good-hearted that it was impossible not to love this book.


3. Patricia Gaffney, To Have and to Hold - part of her Wyckerley trilogy, set in Victorian England. Stars a ex-con. That would be the heroine. Really angsty, with a rake hero who is most definitely dissolute and nasty.


4. Patricia Gaffney, Wild at Heart - a turn-of-the-century American historical set on the west coast, about a wild man taken in and taught to speak, etc. etc. I love the sweetness in the book and the quietness of it.


5. Pam Rosenthal, Almost a Gentleman - gender-bending Regency historical! Also, Rosenthal takes on the notion that men can be rakes and women can't, with bonus points for a hilarious conversation on romance names for sex organs.

All these should still be in print, though I've almost never seen Abe in a bookstore.


For fairly good but not stupendous reads, Nora Roberts tends to be my fallback. She's written a lot, so there's a bit of sameness running through a lot of them, but she's usually feminist and her gender roles don't make me want to chuck her books against a wall, which is more than I can say for most authors.

The two books I have actually literally thrown at a wall are Patricia Gaffney's Crooked Hearts, which started out good but rapidly went bad, and Mary Jo Putney's The China Bride, both for their really stupid portrayals of Chinese culture and/or Chinese people.

Elizabeth Lowell, Judith McNaught, Joanna Lindsey and Katherine E. Woodiwiss are all incredibly popular authors, but their gender roles incite a whole lot of rage in me. If I never meet a childlike, innocent heroine who cures the love-fearing, woman-hating hero again, it would be too soon. I'm sure there are many other romance authors with this kind of gender stereotyping going on, but I've stopped randomly picking up romances once I've found people on LJ to get recs from.

I haven't read Georgette Heyer yet (I know, I am lacking!). I've only read one Carla Kelly, but she comes highly recommended.

I also just reread this list and realized that it is very limited =(. Le sigh. Well, I suppose this is what happens when most of the good stuff you've read comes from LJ recs ;). Not that the recs are limited! But I realized that I don't venture out much anymore, and there aren't many LJ people reading romances. Any more recs are extremely, extremely welcome on my end!


(I'm too lazy to hunt down all the reviews I've done and link to them, but they can be found here.)

Comments

[oyceter]

Ooh, ok. Yeah, the movie was wretched! The sequel was even worse, too! I thought it was not possible, and yet, it was.

I shall have to admit that I don't think I've even read that many romances! At least, not ones that I found memorable. I think almost all the contemporaries I've read have been Judith McNaught and Nora Roberts... Though I used to read a ton of those teen romances as well. Obviously, I was slated for this genre ;).

[chi-zu.livejournal.com]

Agreed. I haven't read as many as other people I know, but perhaps more than most lit snobs. I do tend to prefer teen fare and contemporaries.

Nora Roberts bores me. She'll do in a pinch, but I have to be pretty desperate.