Series romance books are not all the same

When people who don’t read romance think of the genre, they generally think either of series romances — the ones often found on the “10 for $1” table at a garage sale — or historical romances with the half-dressed embracing couple on the cover.

Both varieties are still alive and well, although the half-dressed couple covers are somewhat on the wane, but they do not in any way encompass the whole of the romance genre.

Nor can romance be lumped together as “those trashy books that are nothing but sex.” Many romances do have fully-consummated love scenes, and many of those are getting hotter, but not all, by any means.

The two fastest growing subgenres of romance are erotic romance and inspirational romance — one with the very hottest of love scenes and the other with only “closed-door” sex.

According to Romance Writers of America, “Two basic elements comprise every romance novel: a central love story and an emotionally-satisfying and optimistic ending.”

The main plot of the story is the romance, and it has a happy — or at least a non-depressing — ending. Period. That’s all that’s required for a romance.

I want to talk about series romances first. RWA defines them: “Series or ‘category’ romances are books issued under a common imprint/series name that are usually numbered sequentially and released at regular intervals, usually monthly, with the same number of releases each time. These books are most commonly published by Harlequin/Silhouette.”

At one time, nearly every publisher had a series romance line. Dell had its Candlelight Romance series imprint in the ’80s. Silhouette Romance was an independent publisher, until it was bought out by Harlequin/Mills & Boon in 1984.

Now, Harlequin Enterprises Ltd. is the only publisher of series romance. They publish nearly 110 titles each month in 27 languages. There are 10 Harlequin category romance lines, five Silhouette lines and three Steeple Hill Inspirational Romance lines.

The nice thing about series romance is each line is distinctly defined. The reader knows what she is getting when she picks up a Harlequin Presents, which is not at all the same as a Silhouette Special Edition.

Right now, my favorite lines are Silhouette Special Edition and Harlequin Historical. I like some Silhouette Desire books, especially those written by my friends, and I’ve enjoyed a lot of Harlequin Superromance.

Like any other genre, including the literary, some series romance books and some authors are better than others, and not every line appeals to every reader.

There are similarities between the books, just like there are between one mystery and the next, but don’t ever think “read one, read them all.” They’re not all alike.

Gail Shelton’s first two published books were Silhouette Desire novels, one of which was just published as a manga (graphic novel) in Japan. She lives in Galveston.