Readers, not to mention academics and publishers, wrangle endlessly about the definition of “women’s fiction.” Well, here’s mine: I think women’s fiction roughly distinguishes itself from romance because all its heroines are flawed. As a practitioner of romance, and one who loves it dearly, I read very few romances in which the heroine is truly flawed. Yes, there are some who are TSTL (too stupid to live, for non-techies), but they generally balance that flaw with their gorgeous locks and utterly cheerful demeanors. And there are some who have concealed their babies in an utterly inadvisable way, but they almost always have some sort of youthful foolishness type of reason for it.
Romance heroines may be silly, but they employ the little wits they have in a remarkably intelligent way (I’m thinking of Garwood’s early heroines, in case anyone’s wondering). The majority of romance heroines are not at all silly, being snappy, fun, intelligent and assertive. What’s more, they’re mostly gorgeous and often very rich.
In women’s fiction, on the other hand, I’m finding a lot of romance, but the heroines are not “romance heroines.” Let’s take Karen White’s Learning to Breathe as an example. I happen to adore Karen’s books. I’ve been reading them from the first few she wrote, there’s a glorious tearjerker in the early group that made me cry happily for hours. This novel is classic KW: the heroine of Learning to Breathe is flawed. I mean: Brenna isreally flawed.
Now what I do not mean is that she’s a husband-beater or a kleptomaniac. She’s entirely likable. But she’s made some serious mistakes in her life, and her life is a complicated web that has grown from things she’s done and not done. It’s hard to explain without wrecking the plot, but here’s a snippet from the first chapter: the boy she adored in high school returns to town to help his father tie up the bits of his life. When he walks into her sister’s store, she happens to be sitting there covered with cold cream (bummer!), but there he is, grown to a man. And she’s about to get engaged to someone else. The rest of the novel spreads from that situation. In a romance, it would be a question of unraveling the plot threads that kept them apart and that’s true here as well. But the really important reasons for that situation lie in Brenna and her character.
Learning to Breathe is a fascinating book — if you’re sick of golden-haired perfection, Brenna is a dose of fresh air!
-Eloisa
I don’t read many celebrity kiss-and-tell biographies. Frankly, as someone who doesn’t watch much TV, I’m often in the dark about who the big celebrities are, and so why would I be interested in reading about their bed-time adventures? But when it comes to big names…
It’s In His Kiss opens with a prologue from the hero’s point of view, which is absolutely appropriate because after reading this book, I ended up thinking it was one of the funniest portraits of a man I’ve ever read. Gareth is a guy—a real guy. How unusual is that in romance these days? I read far too many books about men who aren’t men at all — either because they are really werewolves (all very well in their own way, but with little relevance to my home life), or they are pure alpha male with the surprising ability to convert overnight into a sensitive, loving beta (alas, also irrelevant to my home life). In fact, almost all the heroes I read about are shape-shifters of one sort or another.
