Romance Novels: What's Wrong with a Little Bodice Ripping?

Okay, let's face it. Romance novels have not always had the best reputation. For me, the image of the Fabio type model ravenously drooling over a panting woman in a long gown with a bodice that pushes her breasts up to her eyeballs is the image that deterred me from romance novels for so long. The term bodice ripper was coined for good reason.

Years ago, romance novels were nothing more than torn clothing, cheesy dialogue, and a lot of smut. Today, romance novels still have a heavy dose of smut, but with the popularity of contemporary romantic authors like Jennifer Crusie, Lori Foster, and Susan Elizabeth Phillips, all who write funny, romantic, intelligent, stories to go along with the moments of heavy breathing; a new, much more respected era of romance novels has been born.

As an avid reader, I have over the years been a member of different book clubs both online and in real life. In 2004, I joined an online mailing list for the author Janet Evanovich. Janet writes a book series about a bounty hunter named Stephanie Plum. The series is funny, suspenseful, and does have a dose of romance, but it can in no way be considered a romance novel.

Many readers of the Plum series also tend to read romance, and some of the members of the mailing list were also serious romance readers. They talked about several different books and authors that wrote contemporary, paranormal, and historical romance and suggested on many occasions that I try some of these authors out. I put the task off as long as I could, really afraid I'd just be wasting my time. But, the more my buddies talked about some of these books, the more intrigued I got until I finally had to bite the bullet and test the waters.

The first romance novel I read was Bet Me by Jennifer Crusie. Bet Me is about a woman named Min Dobbs who overhears her ex-boyfriend David and one of his friends, Cal, make a bet that Cal cannot get Min in to bed within a month. Or, at least that is what Min thinks she hears. The book is about the development of Cal and Min's relationship based on this bet. From the minute I started reading I could not put the book down! It was definitely romance with a heavy dose of smut, but it was also hilariously funny, tender, sweet, sometimes sad, and incredibly witty. I was hooked on Jennifer Crusie from that moment and she remains a favorite author.

After reading Bet Me, I started to warm up to a few more contemporary romantic authors but still steered clear of historicals because I had that bodice ripper image in my mind, and it made me cringe to think about it. Of course, my friends again had other ideas for me and raved to high heaven about The Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon until I had no choice but to read the darn book.

Outlander takes place in both 1945 and 1743. It's a historical book with a time travel element and a very strong and passionate romance between the hero and heroine. In addition to being worried about bodice ripping, I also wasn't a fan of sci-fi and worried that the time travel thing would be silly. Wow was I wrong! The book is an incredible mix of romance, laughter, suspense, passion, and quite a bit of violence that was hard to take but necessary to tell the story. I was intrigued and fascinated immediately and ran to bookstore to get the rest of the six book series. I devoured them all in less than six months, and with the books being about 1,000 pages in length on average, that was pretty impressive for me.

Once I read Outlander and realized that even romance novels with bodices involved could be well written, I began to open myself up to a variety of different types of books, most notably paranormal romance. It is amazing what a following vampires, witches, and demons have in world of romance. I love these types of books because they take me away to a world of complete fantasy where anything goes.

For the last six months I have been reviewing romance novels and have come across some fantastic authors and series', not all of them for the new romance reader. If someone with a bad image of romance novels is contemplating giving the genre a try, my recommendation would be to start not in the fantasy realm but in contemporary romance where life is depicted more realistically and the reader can relate to the situations in the story.

My author recommendations for new romance readers are Susan Elizabeth Phillips; most notably her Chicago Stars series, Jennifer Crusie (I would start with Fast Women or Bet Me but all are fantastic) and Susan Donovan (She Loves Lucy and Knock Me Off My Feet are her best, but again, all brilliant). With these books and authors, the reader will get romance, mystery, and comedy all wrapped in one and written by extremely talented authors. And, by no means are these the only romance writers worth reading. Lori Foster, Carly Phillips, and Susan Andersen are a few more of the many wonderful authors who write great contemporary romance.

If you're feeling daring and want to venture in to historical or paranormal, start with Alyssa Day, Sherrilyn Kenyon, Diana Gabaldon (who writes the above mentioned Outlander series) and Amanda Quick/Jayne Anne Krentz. Again just a few of the many brilliant authors to grace the shelves of your favorite bookstores. Don't be embarrassed, either. Romance readers are slowly coming out of the closet and seeing the light. You will be in good company!