Romance Book Club

Whether you are Team Edward or Team Jacob (or even anti-Twilight), you have to admit that Stephenie Meyer had a great idea when she pitted vampire against werewolf in the most memorable love triangle of all time.  Although the reader never really has any doubt as to which boy Bella will end up with, Meyer's ultra-popular series seems to have triggered a whole bunch of romantic dark fiction -- especially in the YA genre -- with a similar theme.

For example, in Matched and Crossed, the first two books in a trilogy of dystopian novels by Ally Condie, Cassia is caught between two boys she has known since childhood and loves in very different ways: Xander, whom she has been officially matched with, and Ky, a misfit in their well-ordered society.  The love triangle is so masterfully written that the reader finds themselves sometimes rooting for Xander, and sometimes for Ky, depending on what is going on at the time.

Another example that most people will recognize, because of the movie that is due out in less than a week, is The Hunger Games Trilogy.  Although Katniss says time after time that she has no interest in a romantic relationship -- with anyone -- there are two very different boys in love with her: Gale, her best friend and the only person she has been able to rely on since her father died, and Peeta, a fellow tribute in the Games whose love may even have the power to save her life.

I find these types of romances to be extremely compelling when they are well-written, so that both potential love interests have good reasons for the reader to root for them, and so that the author is able to build the romantic suspense while making you wonder which one the heroine will choose!

A couple of nights ago, when my other half and I were trying to decide on a movie to watch, I noticed Sense and Sensibility in our Netflix cue.  I saw the movie a long time ago, in college actually, during a class on women's literature.  Since one of my goals for the year is to read one of the Jane Austen books I haven't gotten to yet, I decided this would be a great movie to watch again.

First of all, I was reminded of how much better I liked this book than Austen's other really popular one, Pride and Prejudice.  I always found the sisters' romances much more compelling than that of Elizabeth Bennett and Mr. Darcy.  A couple that starts out always quarreling with one another, and ends up falling in love, is a pretty tired theme in romance, I think -- even if it may not have been in Jane Austen's day.

Which actually makes me wonder -- how much of modern romance stems from classics of the genre, such as Jane Austen, the Bronte sisters, and more recent classics such as Georgette Heyer's books?  Was it Pride and Prejudice that introduced that idea of a man and woman who claim to hate one another becoming lovers?  What other themes in modern-day romance began in classics such as Jane Austen's novels?

I'll actually be reading Emma next month sometime, and it will be the first time I've read an Austen novel since college.  Perhaps I will find other themes that have been repeated and developed in the romance genre over the years!

I went back and forth as to whether I liked Victoria Alexander's His Mistress by Christmas.  The Publishers Weekly review calls it "inconsistent," and I think that's probably the best way to describe it -- and to explain my vascillating opinion of the book.

On one hand, the story seems promising.  Having been raised by independent-minded women, Veronica is an extremely liberated Victorian widow who values her independence.  But she is lonely, so she decides that the best option is to take a lover, without the loss of rights and independence that she would suffer if she married.

Great idea, right?  But the characters constantly act contrary to their, well, characters.  Sebastian, the reputed ladies man she chooses as her lover, apparently suffers love at first sight and decides he must marry Veronica, despite his long history of love affairs.  Veronica tries to seduce him, he rebuffs her and proposes, she turns him down.

Seems promising, right?  Wrong.  It became apparent that there was an ulterior motive here: No sex before marriage.  (That might have something to do with the fact that the book was put out by a Christian publisher, but still, it's not much fun in a romance novel.)  So about the same time as Sebastian decides to seduce Veronica and then convince her to marry him, she decides to hold out.

They finally get down to business in the last 20 or 30 pages of the novel, once they've both agreed to marry, of course -- and it's a pretty steamy scene, possibly in an attempt to make up for the lack of action earlier on.  Sometimes I really liked the endless plotting and teasing that went into their little game, and other times it really annoyed me because it seemed like such a transparent message (sex before message = really, really bad).  But ultimately, the biggest problem was that the characters and their decisions just weren't believable.  I don't think a woman truly as concerned about losing her rights as Veronica initially was would decide love was worthy of sacrificing her independence, and I found Sebastian's abrupt reform hard to believe, too!

Most romance novels end "happily ever after," but you never get to see what that "ever after" is like.  This, in fact, is a huge criticism of the genre -- that they are all about the infatuation and formative stages of the relationship, but never show the reality of an ongoing relationship.

Your Wicked Ways was surprisingly different.  It begins after Helene and Rees have been estranged for years.  They eloped when they were young, and promptly found that neither was suited for marriage (this being a Regency romance, mind you).  With lots of hurt feelings all around, they separated.

Now Helene has decided that she wants a child, and when she discovers that she has her pick of gentlemen to have an affair with, Rees steps in and demands that she have the child with him.  He insists that she move back into his house, but unfortunately for Helene, refuses to make his mistress move out as part of the bargain.

It turns out that part of the reason for their separation was that he was pretty lousy in bed, and neither of them realized that was why their sex life sucked.  Helene and Rees eventually remember that when they first eloped, it was because they loved each other, even if they had no clue what to do in the bedroom, so they learn to fix that.

The fact that Your Wicked Ways is about not only repairing longtime problem relationship, but about two people who really have no clue what to do in the bedroom, makes it stand out as fairly original.  (Usually the hero has oodles of natural skill in that area, enough to make up for the heroine's innocence.)  The side story, about Rees's brother Tom, was fun too.  Definitely a good romance novel to pick up if you want something a little different!