Dangerous Men and Adventurous Women: Romance Writers on the Appeal of the Romance by Jayne Ann Krentz

 

Maggie Shayne recommended this book to me before Twitter became the bad place, and I bought it immediately and then put off reading it until I was watching TikToks and saw chels_ebooks quote Anne Stuart's essay from this very collection and basically fell in love.

DANGEROUS MEN AND ADVENTUROUS WOMEN is a very dated collection of essays. It's from the early 90s, and as other readers have pointed out, it's both heteronormative and white. And yet, despite all of that, it's very interesting how many of the gripes that plague Romancelandia as hot takes now were still as hotly debated twenty-plus years ago: romance makes big money but isn't taken seriously, people don't realize that the rape elements of bodice-rippers and romances with forced seductions are a form of CNC because the act of reading is itself consensual, and perhaps most infuriatingly, outsiders to the genre refuse to understand the genre conventions or what makes the books appealing. I also thought it was interesting how many of these authors claimed that the heroines really didn't matter as much as the hero, because based on many criticisms I've seen of contemporary romances now, that seems to be true. Readers are far more likely to write off the heroine as irrelevant; it's the hero's actions that drive an MF romance.

Anne Stuart's essay was an easy five stars. It made me realize that I would happily read an entire collection of essays from that woman herself. She, more than any contemporary author I've read, understands the appeal of the villain and what drives women to want to tame the seductive menace of a man who really doesn't mean them any good. Some of the essays I liked less, although I found it interesting how important virginity is to these authors (and their readers). One of the authors said that when she started writing non-virgin heroines, one of her readers actually took the time to write into her and complain. I also found it interesting how against "the feminists" some of these authors were, because it mirrors the hostility that so many dark and spicy romance authors and readers have now towards "the purists," who are busily shaming people for reading and enjoying spice as if it were some sort of moral deficit. According to some of these authors, feminists are doing the same. I guess it just goes to show about how "tHeY'rE rUiNiNg ThE gEnRe" is always going to be the rallying cry whenever there's change, and how sexism itself is far more insidious and long-lasting than most people would probably be willing to admit.

P.S. Anne Stuart, please write a collection of essays about romance. I would buy the shit out of it.

3 to 3.5 out of 5 stars