Romance Novels

Romance novels are defined as novels that narrate the story of a courtship and have a happy ending. These novels are regarded specifically as a woman's genre. Its readership consists largely of women, and it is written mostly by female authors.

The core of the book is the relationship between the hero and the heroine. The story tells the courtship of these two characters, who overcome all the obstacles that separate them, and in the end they find happiness in each other's arms. The novel's primary focus is on the presentation of the characters’ emotions. The story is usually told from the heroine's point of view, either in first or third person.

The narrative is driven forward by the barriers between the two lovers. According to Pamela Reggis (2003), the story unfolds through several main elements: the meeting, the barrier, the attraction, the declaration, the point of ritual death, the recognition, and the betrothal. At the beginning, there is the meeting between the two main characters, which includes setting the social scenery of the novel. Their meeting also discloses the barriers separating them. In novels written in the 18th and 19th centuries, the barrier mainly lies in their different social status. In novels written in the 20th and 21st centuries, the barrier changes from external reasons such as social and economic status to internal reasons. One or both of the characters typically have some emotional reason that makes their union impossible.

There are several scenes in which the hero and heroine's attraction to each other is disclosed to the reader. This attraction is expressed in the declaration by one of the characters. The happy ending seems to be the farthest from realization at the point of ritual [Page 1255]death, when hero and heroine's communion becomes impossible. This ritual death, however, leads to the recognition of their inseparableness, which is marked by the betrothal. Romantic novels’ plot follows this pattern of elements with different variations. The variations have led to the development of several subgenres. Some of the main subgenres are contemporary romance, historical romance, romantic suspense, science fiction romance, paranormal romance, erotic romance, and fantasy romance.