This week some comments at AAR got me thinking about dark romance. The sub-genre is a broad one but, in general, dark romances have, duh, dark themes. They often traffic in kidnapping, non-con or dub con sex, violence, rape, and stalking. They are wildly popular–on the current romance best seller list, Emily Henry’s contemporary romance Funny Story has a little over 13K reviews, the dark romance Haunting Adeline has 98K! The Never King which Jenna just reviewed has 41K reviews. That’s more than many of the Bridgerton books!
Dark romance seems to me to be a direct descendent of the romances I cut my teeth on in the 70s. Rosemary Rogers, Kathleen Woodiwiss, and many others wrote love stories in which a woman’s life was completely upended by a dangerous man whom she had to completely submit to. (Steve Morgan, I am looking at you.)
I’ve argued for years that the fantasy of the lover who overwhelms is understandably appealing to many because it imagines great sex that takes no effort on the part of the (typically) woman. And yet, the one time I read a truly dark romance–Pennies by Pepper Winters–I was horrified. For me, there’s a definitive line between being overwhelmed and being brutalized.
I’m guessing (and hoping) that most of the dark romance that is so popular today has women enjoying the sex forced on them but, honestly, I wouldn’t know.
So, for those of you who read dark romance, what is the appeal for you? How dark do you like your dark romance? Are there books you’d recommend I give a whirl?
You are absolutely right that there’s a direct line from 1970s/1980s bodice-rippers to the dark romances of today; but you are also right that many dark romances cross the line into brutality and cruelty. I do read dark romance, and—just as I’m in a different reading frame of mind when I read, say, psychological suspense or a murder-mystery than when I read regular (that is, not dark) romance—I’m in a different reading frame of mind when I start a dark romance book: I know I’m probably going to be reading about abduction, captivity, non-con/dub-con sexual activity, etc. I’m not always in the mood to read it, but when I do, I want a strong heroine with a determined spirit to do what she needs to do to change her situation. I’d recommend any of Natasha Knight’s various mafia or arranged marriage books, A. Zavarelli’s Boston Underworld series, the mafia romances Knight & Zavarelli wrote together, or Eve Dangerfield’s Snow White retelling (3 books with the Why Choose? trope).
I remember, Dabney, you telling me that dark romance is really popular, going by numbers on Amazon. Personally, it’s not for me. I reviewed a Mafia romance here a few years back and… nope (and it was a pretty mainstream one!) I am definitely interested to know what the attraction is for those who love dark romance, though.
For me, it’s about the grovel. There’s a way to write any tropes but you’ve gotta convince me they’ll work longterm.
Here, here! LOVE a good grovel.
I don’t read it but it catches my attention to read reviews and see what YouTubers that I like say about popular books because the truth is that I can understand the morbidity, the interest in knowing that something horrible is going to happen but continue reading as in a thriller or movie horror but many of the people who read dark romance read it LIKE ROMANCE, they like heroes and the relationship they have with the heroine.
What strikes me the most is that from what I have seen in many of these books it is not “oh yes he kidnaps her but treats her like a queen and keeps her safe” “or yes he forces her to have sex with him but she enjoys it from the first time” “or if she is a sex slave but she loves the idea and is happy” Sometimes it’s not even “oh well he’s horrible at showing it to her but he loves her a lot” or “well they’re both happy in the end” I’m sure there are books like that out there but I would say that dark romance is not the case that most of them are like that.
Many of these books are “she was a normal and happy girl and she is kidnapped, badly treated and is miserable and she gives up on the situation and doesn’t enjoy it” “he only wants sex with her and doesn’t love her the HEA is that she surrenders to the fact that it is now his” “she is raped and does not enjoy it, she screams and cries every time” on whether the protagonist accepts her new situation or does not enjoy it but stays where she is because she can no longer be the woman she was before.
In fact, I have noticed that when a dark romance hero is more loving or traditionally tender with his heroine, regular readers of the genre may complain that “the book became vanilla.” In any case, I think that Pepper Winters has about two duologies where everything is dark but the hero and the heroine have relationships of mutual care and some sagas where the heroine is as crazy as the hero so the relationship is more equal, there is a special reddit for dark romance where someone interested in investigating can search. Popular books also appear on romance.io.
I have only researched the subject and read extracts from some books. I am afraid that getting fully into the world of these books would be too much for me… I know that there is a book out there where the hero has sex with the heroine while she is in danger of being eaten by a shark…too much for me
Did I read the last sentence right? There’s a stalking shark (bad, bad shark!) and the hero must have sex–in the ocean, too? This is clearly an upgrade to having sex in a public place where they may be seen, although you never know. Maybe the shark is a voyeur.
We’re not in Kansas any more, are we?
That is….something.
Hahahaha this made me laugh imagining some kind of dark romance parody where the hero and heroine are blackmailed into having sex on a small boat while being stalked by a voyeuristic shark I don’t think anyone has invented the “dark romcom” yet.
But no, it was in an enemies to lovers type book where the hero, in his stage of hating the heroine, puts her head in a tank with sharks and while she drowns and fears that one of those sharks will kill her, the “hero” rapes her from behind.
That’s why I said it was too much for me.
That is AWFUL. Ugh.
I think I’d start rooting for the shark if I read that one.
I guess I should be curious but I’m mostly horrified by the brutality of some of these books, and it makes me worry about the women, like the ones you quoted, who rationalize the man’s behavior. With the news today reporting on the growing trend towards patriarchal marriages/ideas getting more mainstream, it actually doesn’t feel like escapist fantasy.
What women?
Not you. Amy. Sorry
Apparently the whole TikTok tradwife thing is a thing, but on the other hand that recent expose that got published showed – surprise! – it still doesn’t work and the women are depressed, miserable and suicidal.
Well, the tradwife thing on social media may make women miserable but it’s a consistent finding that women who are conservative and have more traditional values are happier than their more liberal counterparts.
There are tradwives, like me who wanted to stay home and raise my kids, and teach them at home because I loved being at home and setting my own schedule. Then there’s the tradwives on social that cede their autonomy to their husbands, and I’m very skeptical that’s altogether healthy. I was in conservative churces for years, and no, these women aren’t any happier than their non-churched counterparts, believe me. I garauntee you the real conservative christian wives aren’t allowed to take any polls without their husband’s permission and probably supervision. They are just really good at talking in fundy baby voices and parroting what they’ve been told should be their opinions. Women in fundy churches aren’t actually allowed to have their own opinions. I could find you the video of a pastor saying as head of house, he not only controls what everyone wears, reads or watches, he controls what and when they eat and when they get to go to the bathroom. He brags about it. And unfortunately, it’s really not as rare as you’d think or hope. I saw it in my own relatively sane evangelical church, and I have several friends who got out of the fundy lifestyle after being repeatedly physically abused and being told by the church elders they had to stay and “submit.” One of these friend escaped with her four children in the middle of the night and had to go into hiding for months. Many of these women aren’t even allowed to vote, or if they are, they have to go with their husbands so the husband can make sure they vote the “right” way.
If you aren’t in the know about these large superfundy communities, the ones driving the super restrictive abortion laws and anti-LGBTQ laws, then it’s easy to underestimate their influence in our country right now. They are the driving force behind Christian Nationalism we are seeing and hearing so much about in conservative state legislatures and the House.
If anyone’s interested to know more, they could look up Tia Leavings, Writer on FB and look at her videos. She’s a friend and the person who ran with her four children years ago.
You can also watch this very short video of a pastor “jokingly” telling women what to do on “his” wedding night.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoW9ffWn23I
And then there’s the yearly “Strong Man Conference” that is a multiday celebration of patriarchy and their rightful power over women. You should read this entire article, in Baptist News no less, about what happened this year and what the conference is about. It shocked me, and I’ve heard and seen a lot.
https://baptistnews.com/article/what-happened-when-mark-driscoll-and-josh-howerton-showed-up-at-the-stronger-mens-conference-this-weekend/
That sector of the population is very worrisome.
Y E P. This is what I’m thinking of. All of this.
Could you please link a nonbiased source for these studies? Because the only result I’m getting are from conservative think tanks like The Institute for Family Studies, which I think actually ran it and obviously have a toe in promoting values like that.
Even in the study I read – “Conservatives rate their well-being higher than liberals because conservatives more readily support and rationalize the status quo, thus, believing that socioeconomic hardships are a result of individual shortcomings. [..] Some scientists have argued that it can be attributed to personality differences between the two groups or different thinking styles—that conservatives are more likely to rationalize inequality.”
If we break things down by, say, does the traditional married state mean happiness, Yale published a study in 2019 stating that single women are happier and less depressed, and recent findings suggest that while married men are happier and live longer than their single counterparts, women do and are not:
https://archive-yaleglobal.yale.edu/content/should-women-stay-single
https://torontosun.com/health/married-men-live-longer-married-women-not-so-much-study
There are a slew of studies mentioned here about how conservatives are happier than liberals.
There are also tons of studies showing married people are happier. Here’s a recent one from Gallup, a good article about that in The Atlantic, and a paper from the University of Chicago to get you started.
Nothing to do with being married or not, but in the UK, the ‘liberals’ are miserable because our effing useless, corrupt government has bled us dry and is continuing to do so without even attempting to disguise it. The rivers and seas are full of shit, food and energy prices are astronomical and Brexit, the gift that keeps on giving (not) continues to make everything many times worse. Convervatives – as in tories – are happy because they have all the money while us plebs are scrabbling for every penny,
I venture to suggest that conservatives are happier because they’re benefiting from the status quo, and in the case of the kind of women you’re talking about, because they’re purposefully kept ignorant.
We lost so many comments here but yeah, you know how I feel about the methodology in these by now!
Well, I can keep showing you sources!
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/talking-apes/202112/does-getting-married-really-make-us-happier#:~:text=Decades%20of%20research%20have%20shown,than%20those%20who%20are%20not.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/08/does-marriage-make-you-happier/675145/
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4508123
“Marriage makes us happier is a LOT different than “conservatism makes us happer” in my opinion, which is what was mentioned before.I’ve read articles like this in the past, and commited relationships (like my sister’s 20+ years with her partner) are often indistinguishable from marriage as far as impact on our lives. As someone who lived this, and got out, marriages that are unsettled and contentious don’t make anyone actually happy.
Well, conservatives in the US consistently poll as happier than liberals.
I honestly don’t think people are answering honestly. Or maybe it’s as honestly as they know how. They can’t admit their exhausted and angry so much of the time. I lived and worked among conservatives for decades, went to church with them, etc. An angrier, more reactive group of people I’ve never been around. But they’ll swear to you they’re happy because of “god.” And then there’s all the women I’ve known (because I lived in this community) that have literally had to escape from authoritarian marriages based on physical punishment. To say “conservatives” are happier is way, way too broad. And like I said before you cannot underestimate the intimidation in the very conservative families. Many women don’t do or say anything without permission. There are churches like this around the corner from you in CH. I’ve atteneded more than one, and one for many years. Like I said, these polls are missing huge swathes of people.
I’m reminded of a line from Women Talking : “She once explained to me that, as a Molotschnan, she had everything she wanted; all she had to do was convince herself that she wanted very little.”
That’s the thing people don’t seem to get with repressive environments – women are encouraged to smile, nod, say they’re happy, and agree the husband’s right. The results skew in that manner in polls like this. Some people genuinely ARE happy, and good on them, as long as they’re not impinging on my right to be me I’m cool with it, but there’s much nuance afoot.
Yeah, we’ve gotten way afield of the topic here, and everything you’re saying.
I can keep showing you sources in return but yeah, these are about marriage making you happier in general versus being conservative.
I am heroine centric so the heroes in romance books have one job, not lose my respect… dark romance heroes would FAIL.
My girlfriend browbeat me into finishing a Kleypas, Love in the Afternoon? after I stopped at a forced kiss.
You got me thinking, and reading samples.
Two (bigger) thoughts came up:
1.
For me, things work if they are about the sexy adventure /game times, not the whole life.
I mean:
A heroine who has a professional life, a career, a family, a vocation… who accepts the sexual darkness due to blackmail, discovers that it works for her and continues to live like that. Or abduction by aliens, loads of sex, and on to become an important part of their family / society.
Joey W Hill, some Jackie Ashenden, a few older Lauren Dane series (Brown family), Beth Kery, Marie Harte (Talson series), Michele Zurlo, are in my bookshelf. R. Cooper wrote a few mm like that, A Suitable Captive has an amazing dynamic.
All of them are erotica in my mind, since the darkness is mostly in the sex area.
A helpless uneducated woman becoming someone’s drudge plus hot sex does not work. Utter powerlessness does not. I cannot buy into this, also because these men are only good protectors until they get older/ killed by a stronger rival, so the paranoia of their life will never end, and these women will never have a HEA that works for me.
2.
Thinking about it, I think it is also an age thing.
I have reached a point in my life where the expectation of someone turning up and taking away all my fears and worries in exchange for obedient submission has lost its appeal. When I met my husband – 40 years ago ! – I still had a fantasy / might have wanted that magic solution, and my reading reflected that. I could also imagine him being much more dominant and me more led by him. Did not work that way IRL, at all!
But as a fantasy, for a longish while, I read more darkness (also since it works for me occasionally as a theoretical erotic device- not IRL !!!) in the books I liked: bodice rippers, long term submission etc.
Maybe as a young woman we like this fantasy more?
Your last sentence, Lieselotte, seems probably quite true. And honest. In my own life I have seen enough problems with mental health issues, alcoholism, drug addition, uninterested fathers, gambling problems, etc. These things were either part of my early family life (affecting other family members, not me, thankfully!) and through voluntary work with The Samaritans. I don’t want awful, dark, nasty things to happen in my romance reading. Occasionally these things crop up in other reading matter but, in the main, they are the things that keep me away from a lot of literary fiction. I do like angst: there are a few romance authors who do this rather well and it can enhance a story, make for really wonderful characters. I guess in my dotage, having seen a lot of life, the dark fantasies are not for me now. Sometimes I am embarrassed at the bodice rippers I started out with, reading my mother’s Rosemary Rogers, Kathleen Woodiwiss, etc. But, at the time, one had to start somewhere!!
Yeah, I’ll never be embarrassed. It was what we we offered. I read Rosemary Rogers AND Judy Blume and, for that matter, Tolstoy all in junior high. All were interesting to me in different ways. (I mean, it was VERY clear to me Anna Karenina made horrible decisions and lived in a crap era for women.)
In my life, I’ve read a few things I wish I hadn’t (this is one). But I’ve never read anything I’m ashamed of.
Not everyone liked this kind of book when younger. I don’t even go there when it’s m/m. For Real by Alexis Hall is dark enough for me. And while I enjoyed it, it’s not one I’ll ever go back an reread, and is far from my favorite of his. It worked on some level due to it’s focus on need and consent. Dub-con/non-con just don’t work for me, and I don’t think it ever has, even when no one was talking about it.
People cite (correctly) the “dark” romances of Rogers and Woodiweiss, but they were the only romances out there at the time. Yeah, you could get Barbara Cartland (step-grandmother I think to Princess Diana), but they were bland, always with the same plot and absolutely no sex.
Romances in the 70’s were trying to work out what women’s new sex role was with the pill and people living together. Having a forceful, dominant man who made all decisions, a man who actually loved the heroine, and a heroine who loved not only the sex but the man was the perfect solution. She could say, “Oh, I was a virgin until Steve, overcome by my beauty, just had to have me.” and remain virtuous.
I like the idea of dark romance — but not the idea that the books so often have to include non-con, dub-con, bullying, and things like that. (I’ll give you this. At least many dark romance authors seem to be good about warning their readers if their books contain those things — just like fanfic writers.)
There are so many other ways a romance can be “dark” without harking back to the Steve Morgan days. A hero can be “dark” without being a jerk. The whole world of Gothic romance is out there. I’d love to see more modern takes on a Gothic romance that is truly dark — without having a hero who is hateful to the heroine. I’d rather read something like that rather than what seems to be the typical dark romance plotline.
What does “dark” mean to you?
I think stories like the ones Amy mentions — where the couple has trauma — but they survive and bond over it rather than letting it turn them into excuses for abuse. There’s one dark romance where the hero and heroine (who are rivals) are kidnapped, chained up, and forced to do horrible things — but they bond over that. (Does it work? I still have to read it to find out.) But that intrigues me more than so many of the other plots.
There’s a meme out there where a demon possesses someone with chronic anxiety — and then instantly realizes how that person has it. The demon is ready to give them a hug. In a few lines of text, you realize that this demon was probably more sympathetic than their doctors, family, etc. I’d love to read a dark romance with that “vibe.” 🙂
But if readers like the freaky stuff, I understand that, too. 🙂
Koreans know this quite well, I like webtoons and there are several “dark” stories where the hero and heroine go through horrible things, have traumas or are even very bad at showing their love, becoming what would be called “toxic” dependent, etc, in their relationship. But they love each other and do not harm each other.
In several of them, the hero or heroine ends up in an HEA where the boy accepts that he needs therapy if he does not want to harm the woman in the future.
I also like that they tend to be stories with low sexual content so I have all the psychological weight of the relationship of “I shouldn’t love this person” “Is this obsession or love?” “I’m suffering from Stockholm syndrome because he treats me well even though he doesn’t let me go out?” but without the excuse of “well but the sex is incredible.”
I guess the opposite of some comments where they want the dark as a game or in the erotic part but not all the time I want the “dark” manifested as trauma in the characters’ lives or questionable/terrible situations but without the erotic having weight in the plot or what the heroine decides or how the relationship is built.
Literally, wouldn’t Mimi Matthews want to write that gothic retteling of Little Red Riding Hood and the werewolf that she said a while ago?
Interesting. Thank you!
I have very limited experience with reading Dark Romance–the Vicious Lost Boys series I’m currently reviewing is my first–but I have watched many reviews of other Dark Romance titles that give me the impression they are all much the same. My issue with them is that too often, the heroine is not making decisions about what is happening to her. She is kidnapped, against her will. She is made to have sex, either completely against her will or it’s definitely iffy. She is degraded, and not in a consensual BDSM way. And unlike so many of the old skool bodice rippers of my youth, the hero never comes around with the regrets and the grovel or changes in any way. It’s just presented as he is this way, and she loves it. Throw in books that involved incest (The Wild, Credence) and we turn a corner into unfathomable that such a thing is considered acceptable much less romantic. It’s the most negative of scenarios and messages – a woman with zero agency being represented as loving her situation and accepting it as an expression of love from the hero.
When I told my mid-twenties something daughter about reading and reviewing Dark Romance, she wondered if there wasn’t something unethical about doing so on such a widely viewed forum. As in, is this the kind of situation we should be promoting as “romantic” when it is, in fact, so abusive, toxic and dysfunctional. I don’t have an answer to that. And while I never judge anyone for their reading preferences, I do find it interesting that so many young people rave about these stories. For me, they cross too many lines.
Wait–incest?!?!?
Yeah, that’s absolutely a thing in some dark romances. Just scanning Amazon I’ve seen cousin couplings.
Don’t forget ‘twincest’.
If that is a thing, I NEVER want to read it.
Wait, twincest has escaped the bounds of AO3 and made it into romantica?! Things I did not know.
I’m pretty sure I’ve seen it in the odd book blurb. Ick.
After first cousins, I’m not concerned. But first cousins and closer is a serious genetic baddie.
It’s very much Not My Thing for all the obvious reasons.
I think the couple in Rebecca Brandewyne’s Desire in Disguise are cousins, but it’s been a while since I read the book.
First cousin marriage is also legal in Sri Lanka, so it doesn’t squick me out, although I would personally never even consider it (my male cousins are all significantly younger than me and pretty traditional).
I just tried to read Wanderlust by Skye Warren and it was so not for me. Like so not for me that it made me nauseous.
Has anyone else read this?
I see we’re just flat-out doing Stockholm Syndrome romances now, icks.
I was going to say, I feel like this is a backlash against the beta hero craze and, like all pendulum swings and the one that got us to that trend in the first place, we’re going too far in one direction again.
Hmmmm….. I can see that.
I’m a bit late chiming in here, but when I think of dark romance, I think of things like Jo Goodman’s Compass Club series, where the heroines suffer some pretty bad stuff, but not at the hands of the heroes, who don’t so much save them as make it possible for them to save themselves. When it comes to abusive heroes, I think of Anne Stuart, and after one loathsome fellow, I never returned.
Judging from what I’ve read here, Dark Romance is definitely not my cup of tea.
Good point – Anne Stuart is already too much for me, too!
Agreed, I gave up on Anne Stuart partway through Ice Storm.
Ice Storm is my least favorite Ice book. But I do love the first three in that series.
My bad! I got mixed up with the similar titles. It was actually Ice Blue. I’ve always been afraid of drowning, so the scene where the hero deliberately pushes the heroine underwater and knocks her unconscious at the same time turned me off completely.
The tub scene, though brief, is upsetting. I guess I feel like with Bastien, Peter, and Taka (the male leads of the first three books in the Ice series) Stuart does a great job of showing you why they are murderous men. It’s all in the service of a great good–ala James Bond–and they are very redeemed by the books’ ends.
I’m sure there are men who murder women/attempt to murder women because they believe they’re doing it in the service of a greater good. The questions for me are whether the end justifies the means and whether everything else about those men is compelling enough for me to stick it out until I know for certain that they no longer are a danger to these women.
I guess dark romances, or even semi-dark romances like these, just don’t work for me! That said, I do have the first two Ice books on my keeper shelf, but that’s because I admire Stuart’s writing style and sex scenes so much that it compensates for what the heroes do at the start. With the third book, I’m afraid nothing could compensate.
It’s a weaker book than the first two, for sure.
Oh, I think Anne Stuart’s stuff is positively mild compared to what is termed “dark” nowadays!
The last book in the Compass series is GRIM but so are two of the books in the Lady Rivendale series. But the heroes are always so great that I don’t mind them.
Anne Stuart doesn’t always work from me–neither does Linda Howard–but sometimes she nails perfectly the bad man redeemed trope for me.
Yeah, Jo Goodman does create some great heroes.