romancingthebookworm: mariaslozak:fishgoddess:I love romance novels, especially historical ones.
romancingthebookworm: mariaslozak: fishgoddess: I love romance novels, especially historical ones. But my biggest problem is that a whole lot of authors think rape is sexy or appealing to readers. How is it sexy to read about a character being held down and forced to give up her virginity? How is it sexy to read about a character going through a horrifying experience? And then the author turns it around to say that she basically enjoyed it. NO ONE ENJOYS RAPE. RAPE IS DISGUSTING. Also, what’s up with authors being obsessed with virgins and middle aged guys together? It’s so gross to read about a character forced into a marriage with a guy that’s basically her father. Where’s the good romances at where two people of the same age love each other? Where’s the normal stuff at??? The book you’re showing here was originally published in 1978 - in other words, forty years ago, well before many of the current crop of authors and readers were even born. Lindsey is considered heavily old-school now, and best approached with a thorough understanding of the history of the genre (why things were written a certain way back then, and how attitudes and concerns and themes gradually changed). Like every other genre out there, not to mention society itself, the romance genre has grown and evolved tremendously since the seventies. None of the issues you bring up are found in mainstream romances of this day and age. In many areas, such as the current discourse about consent, the genre is frequently ahead of other media. My suggestion would be to focus your search on romances released within the last five years or so. Just a few popular names for up-to-date historicals written within that time frame would be Sarah MacLean, Tessa Dare, Eloisa James, Courtney Milan, Loretta Chase, Alyssa Cole, Mary Balogh, and Elizabeth Hoyt. You should be in safe hands with them :-) I would just add to this that the rape-esque sex scene of the old school romance wasn’t about titillation, or violence against women (or atleast not simply about either of those things). It had a narrative purpose, grounded in society’s unwillingness to allow women to BE sexual beings. I suggest reading Angela Toscano’s excellent paper “A Parody of Love: the Narrative Uses of Rape in Popular Romance” from the Journal of Popular Romance Studies - it’s one of the bettr examinations of this subject that I’ve read. -- source link
#romance novels