What was the golden age of romance? For some, it’s the 1980s and 1990s—the era of Judith McNaught, Julie Garwood, and Lisa Kleypas, when paperbacks ruled the checkout aisle and nobody apologized for a happy ending. Those books were big, emotional, and often hilariously–at least in retrospect–sincere. Heroines had jobs, men had feelings, and everyone had good–and big–hair.
Others reach back to the 1970s, when popular romance first caught fire. The Flame and the Flower and Sweet Savage Love weren’t subtle, but they were new—it was exhilarating to read books that put women’s desire at the center of the story. The writing was rough, the gender politics rougher, but for many readers–and I am one–it was thrilling time to be a romance reader.
And then there’s now. Romance today is wide open—funny, queer, diverse, and often angry. For readers who’ve never seen themselves on the page until now, this feels like the moment when the genre finally grew up. There’s literally a story for everyone–some of which still gives me pause–and it’s easy to read only what works for you.
Do any of these eras trump the others? Or are we in the enviable position of having three golden ages—and no wrong answer at all? Do you have a fave and, if so, why?
For me its neither of these era’s because I’m a younger millennial so I missed them era’s, have yet to read these authors. For me it was probably about 2005-to about 2015. When authors were still daring but at the same time kept to the eras sensibilities as close as possible. Writers like Meredith Duran(who’s book’s I really miss) Sherry Thomas, Cecilia Grant and Joanna Bourne. Oh I read an writer by the name of Meagan McKinney who was a very good writer she wrote in the late 80s to early 2000’s.
I find your comment very interesting. As you are younger, you put the beginning of the good books later that the majority BUT the end is more or less the same —2015. Something happened around that year that affected the genre seriously. Something has happened in these last ten years that has made really difficult to find good and satisfying romances.
These are my top authors, but I guess depending on what generation you are from you will have a different era. But yes suppose I chose the end when writers pushed the boundaries but still kept to the where they were writing restraints and rules of the time they were writing. But that possibly because I’ve not read these author’s mentioned maybe I will change my mind.
This is probably going to be an unpopular opinion, but… I can’t help thinking that it happened around the time #metoo really took off, which, according to Google, was 2016/7, so at around the time you’re talking about. I never read m/f contemporaries anyway, but I definitely noticed a difference in historicals, where authors seemed to be scrambling to write heroines Who Did Things but, in many cases, without understanding how to make them period appropriate at the same time.
As Dabney says upthread, there seems a definite drive to be “inoffensive” in romances now – and I can see that some younger readers might find the idea of a woman being required to live under conventions that didn’t equally apply to men offensive or difficult to accept or understand – even though it’s history and matter of fact.
I think it’s even deeper than that. Beginning in the early teens of this century, the idea that main characters had to be good people and that books had to be morally instructive really took hold in mainstream publishing–it’s not a coincidence that, at that same time, self-pubbed best sellers became darker. For every reader who finds morally gray far more interesting than black and white, there are a host of very loud readers who don’t want such leads and stories to ever see the light of day.
The idea that books should provide a literal “this is good, this is bad” message in a very didactic way has filtered all the way down to kindergarten. My kids had to read the most boring books where the message was the sole point of the book. No characterization, no suspense, no foreshadowing, no elegance to the wording, no playful sense of humor, symbolism like a sledgehammer. Just very, very bad, boring books.
So I’m not surprised that as kids reared on this pablum age up, their tolerance for complexity, contradiction and characters with depth is lower than it was in previous generations.
I could not agree about this more. Three women in my immediate family are/were children’s librarians so I’ve had an up-close view of the books public schools buy each year. To a book, they are teachy and often progressive. (Don’t at me about this–it’s well documented that librarians are among the most liberal of all professions in the US.) And now, we have the same push but coming from the right–this really isn’t working for me either–but, no matter what, the first goal of getting people to read should be just that: getting people to read.
Because I come from a family that prizes reading, I was determined to raise kids to be readers. The schools taught them reading–although my kids were in the horrid whole language era–but not to love reading. From first grade through twelfth, the books assigned were depression–our family joke was that the dog would always die–and assigned to teach values above all.
At the same time, video games and computer games were becoming ubiquitous and, by the time my last two were in middle school, every kid had a phone. By contrast, those entertainments were vapid and addictive. What 12 year old boy wants to read Things Fall Apart over playing Super Mario Brothers?
One thing we all should–and yes, I know she’s controversial for her beliefs!–thank J.K. Rowling for is that she returned so many kids to reading. But that reading was extra-curricular and out of our continuing norms.
I am still fuming about the time the head librarian in my kids’ elementary school wanted to pull The Little House books from her shelves for their inaccurate representation of Westward Expansion. (This, by the way, was almost twenty years ago.)
If we want people to read books–because now this non-reading trend is the reality for all–we’ve got to make them engaging first. In high school, I read East of Eden, Catcher in the Rye, Frankenstein, The Bluest Eye, Invisible Man, Pride and Prejudice, The Great Gatsby, Hemingway’s short stories and many more. These were classics but they were, comparatively, a good time.
My kids in high school were assigned The Road, Things Fall Apart (which, incredibly, had also been assigned in 8th grade), and All Quiet on the Western Front, just to name a few. By the time two of my sons had graduated from college, they disliked reading and it has taken years for them to rediscover it as a joyful thing. (My sons read Sanderson, Nix, and complain endlessly about the lack of a third Kingkiller book. My daughter reads endless fiction. Two, as adults, are in book clubs. I recently read The Way of Kings just so I could talk to them about it and I could see why they love it.)
OK–rant over. It just makes me crazy.
When my kids were little, I often took them to bookstores and libraries. They would see me reading books and/or my Kindle all the time. They’ve had different tastes from mine since they were very young. I’m a fiction reader, while my eldest consumes non-fiction like it’s candy. However, he still loves to visit the same old stores we went to when he was a kid, and every Christmas, his stocking stuffers are gift cards to all three brick-and-mortar stores in town.
School made reading a chore. If it hadn’t been for those fun trips to the used book stores back in the day, I’m not sure mine would be readers.
Again, it makes me crazy.
The curriculum has made reading in school a chore for most kids, absolutely. I remember a few years back, Ian McKellen said that teaching Shakespeare to younger secondary school kids was pointless and made most of them hate it. He’s right – so many just don’t have the skill to understand the languages or concepts – at the age of 11! – and while I’ve seen some fantastic teaching going on, for some, it’s never going to make sense and they only learn what they’re spoon-fed to pass an exam.
I think the way to teach Shakespeare is to tell the kids the summaries of the fun ones–middle schoolers love A Midsummer Night’s Dream–and start there. Even in high school, teaching the plays should always be accompanied by seeing the plays. I know several high school English teachers who swear by Luhrmann’s Romeo and Juliet as a teaching aide.
They do use all those things (I’m talking age 11 and up) and will try to take kids to see live productions if they’re able to. But there’s such pressure for kids to pass exams (because of course teachers are blamed if not enough do) – and so many of them are resistant and just don’t like reading. Our current GCSE cohort are studying A Christmas Carol, An Inspector Calls, Macbeth and a variety of poems, from Keats to Duffy – the most able are fine and some even enjoy the works. The other 75% – not so much. As we’ve said in various discussions here in recent weeks, the ability to interpret and think critically about complex texts is being lost. I saw a thing just last week about a UK university teaching students HOW TO READ TO THE END OF A BOOK. Seriously.
I totally agree with this! My first encounter with Shakespeare was “Twelfth Night” around age 11 or 12…because a friend was reading it for school, and she described the plot to me, and I thought it sounded hilarious!
I’ve had two kids’ middle school classes put it on. They loved it!
Schools’ failure to encourage a love of reading is not new. I have said for many years that I love to read DESPITE school, not because of it, and my high school years were in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The assigned reading was depressing rather than engaging, and gave me a distaste for “literature” that persists to this day.
I have always maintained that reading a play is completely different from reading a book. Plays are scripts composed almost entirely of dialog and maybe a few stage directions. They’re meant to be interpreted by actors who add emotion and action.
IMO, the way to teach plays is to watch them – watch several versions and then look at the script and talk about it. Giving kids plays to read and expecting that to foster a love of reading is a bad idea. A script is like an outline of a book, and a produced play is the finished work.
I have a degree in English lit, and to this day, I do not enjoy reading plays. In fact, an author I used to read went very minimalist in her writing and the last book of hers I read I thought “this is like reading a play” and DNF’d it.
My mom bought a book for my kids that she’d had a young child. It was Tales from Shakespeare by Charles and Mary Lamb. It was written in the early 1800’s I think, and retained some of the original language, but the prose accounts of the plays were really well done and engaging. I read them to the kids, and then they read them on their own. When they had to study Shakespeare in high school, they always came back and read the Lamb book to get the gist. My oldest went on to join a Shakespeare club in high school that put on several of the comedies.
The Lamb is great. We read that one and, for younger kids, this one.
I’m not sure if it is purely the curriculum or if it is the fact that the subject is often approached as a chore. When one of my son’s teachers broke her leg and needed to stay off her feet, I asked if there were any books I could pick up for her. She told me she didn’t like to read. Many of his teachers had that attitude over the years. My kids saw me reading and realized that was an entertainment option, not just something you had to do for school. In fact, when my younger son wanted to get me out of stores, he would often throw a book in the shopping cart, as if to say, “Look, lady, just grab one and go. No need to be fussy about which one.” I can remember my eldest reading The Good Earth in junior high and me telling him excitedly about the whole series. He went to school and shared the information about the author and series I had shared with him. His teacher knew none of it. Not a judgment on her, just saying that when you treat books like something to just get through for the sake of the curriculum, the kids tend to have the same attitude toward them. So it’s not the what, imo, so much as the how.
I suspect both are true. As long as this nation, in general, pays teachers poorly, holds them accountable for remedying complex social inequities, and asks them to constantly change curriculums, I think it unlikely we’ll have many who have the time, energy, and inclination to love their academic subjects.
Yes to all of that. It’s the same in the UK, and we’re paid considerably less than teachers in the US A teacher with 6 years experience earns around £43K at the moment. To earn more, you have to “apply” to move to the Upper Pay Scale (which starts around £46K), and there’s no guarantee you’ll get it. I left full-time teaching ten years ago, with around eight years experience and was earning just under £33K.
I always had my nose in a book – I have no idea where that came from because nobody in my family is a bookworm. Aged 11, my English teacher, a wonderful diminutive Scottish lady – gave me a long list of authors to try – back then, were was no such thing as YA; you had books for kids books and books for adults, and I’d pretty much exhausted the children’s section of the local library! She’s the one who got me into Plaidy, Holt etc. I find it so sad that, with such a plethora of great books written for kids, tweens and teens, so few actually like to read. Whenever I have a class where they have to read – whether it’s an hour in the library or 10 minutes quiet reading, there will only be 3 or 4 kids who actually have a book with them and are happy to sit and read it.
I am pleased to say that, in my 20+ years as a teacher, I’ve never met an English teacher who was anything but enthusiastic about books.
My state, North Carolina, has banned all phones in all public schools in all classes. My friends who teach are very hopeful-they can already see kids more engaged in class. Here’s hoping…..
The UK has a much higher reading for pleasure level than the US. I think that could contribute to your encountering enthusiastic readers among teachers.
Also – to do an English degree here you have to READ. And to teach in state schools you must have a degree in your subject (even though most of us end up teaching other subject, too!) I can’t think that someone who didn’t enjoy reading would want to do an English degree – it’s a LOT of reading!
The US is far more about education degrees–I am not a big fan–than it is subject degrees. Those requirements vary by state–some states require Master’s Degrees in the subject you teach, others don’t require anything but an education degree.
B.Eds are available here, but if you’re going to teach at secondary school (11-18) you have to have a degree in the subject you’re going to teach. For primary school (4-11) you still need a degree but the subject is less important as primary teachers teach a bit of everything.
Romances, like all entertainment, reflect their time periods. We had tons of books in the past with heroines and their search for a mate, but “The Flame and Flower” was the first modern romance. If “Gone with the Wind” examined the effects of the Civil War, “The Flame and the Flower” examined premarital sex that was exciting and the woman didn’t die or go into a convent to repent, afterwards.
Woodiweiss and romance writer for over a decade (I can say this because I read them all) decided that yes, women could have sex outside of marriage, but only if: it was with her future husband (who didn’t realized he loved her, but, of course, we knew) and if he, driven crazy with lust or misled about her status (Heather is assumed to be a prostitute), he rapes her. Romances of the time were just a series of rape-interruptus and rape-completed. (I am not kidding.)
I remember devouring these books, but oh, how I wished that the heroes were nicer to the heroine and that, for once, could we peek into his thoughts? No, we couldn’t. Men were terra incognita and stayed that way for at least a decade.
These romances reflected America’s trying to reconcile that “good girls” could have sex outside of marriage.
Now, when I read a romance, I just assume that if the heroine is over 12, she’s had sex.
The pill changed everything.
I appreciate your point, but I have to respectfully disagree. In The Flame and the Flower, Heather was raped repeatedly and then forced to marry Brandon, whom she (at the time) despised. I wouldn’t call it an “examination of premarital sex that was exciting” (she didn’t enjoy it), and while she didn’t “die or go into a convent”, she was forced to marry as a result of her subsequent pregnancy. I just reread the start, and what I got from it was, “Don’t leave home, girls. At worst, you’ll be raped and sold by some rando, at best you’ll be raped and married by a rich, abusive rando.” Most of Woodiwiss’s books reinforced the idea that marriage needed to follow sex or preferably, precede it. I give her full points, though, for being among the first to show women enjoying that aspect of their marriage. In fact, as far as a literary sexual revolution, I would say that Woodiwiss’s books were the first to throw open the bedroom door. Up until then, throughout the 50s and 60s, there were Mills & Boon novels, which often featured stewardesses, nurses, or secretaries, alongside authors such as Mary Stewart, M.M. Kaye, Emily Loring, Victoria Holt, and Barbara Cartland. Most of them hinted at sex at best or firmly closed the door behind a married couple. Woodiwiss and her “Bodice Ripper” revolution invited women into the most intimate moments between the h/H. They showed publishers that women wanted sex in their novels that gave the perspective of women. I would argue that few of those books showed a bright, positive sensuality. More dark, seductive, and dangerous, which certainly seemed to meet a demand.
I’m wondering if you were thinking perhaps of Rosemary Rogers? Sweet, Savage Love certainly seemed to carry more of the tone you are describing.
Regarding YA, I’ve only read six this year, but none had 12-year-olds who were sexually active or even older teens who did much more than kiss. Recently, I’ve found a lot more YA that leans towards that than more explicit works. YMMV, of course.
It’s interesting to discuss this, though, and see that my favorite era wasn’t the reign of the Bodice Ripper (1970s and 80s), although I can certainly remember consuming them; rather, it was the two decades that followed.
I would say MM Kaye’s view of sexuality between the protagonists isn’t especially dark (except for maybe Trade Winds).
I would agree that aside from Shadow of the Moon and Trade Winds her books didn’t delve too deeply into darkness, but my post was meant to lump her in with the 1960s authors, who weren’t explicit in their sensuality. Sorry that my post made that unclear.
You may want to re-read The Flame and the Flower. Heather was raped once by Brandon, on board his ship. She was a virgin when he raped her. They did not have sex again until sometime after their baby Beau was born 9 months later. Heather was never raped by any other men in the book, and she didn’t willingly have sex with any other men.
Just double checked. Heather was picked up by William Court, who planned to sell her to a brothel. He tries to rape her that first night. He’s a brief portion of that scene:
He pressed her backward over the table, enfolding her in a bone-crushing grip. His lips, wet and sticky with wine, sank to her throat, and a sick feeling of nausea rose within her. She struggled with him, but her strength was no match for his. As his lips traveled upward she strained her face from him and tried to kick out, but his weight increased, pinning her legs against the table. She was held in an iron grip that left her breathless, and she wondered if her ribs could stand the pressure without cracking.
So that was sexual assault number one, with the intention to rape, but she winds up stabbing him with a fruit knife, believes she killed him, runs away, and is picked up by Brandon’s men. Brandon rapes her that evening, then again in the morning after she says, “No, please no. Not again. Don’t hurt me again. Just let me go.” Then a third time after she tries to escape. She does eventually make it out of his cabin after he manhandles her a few more times, pressing kisses on her naked form against her will. Then she is returned to him when it’s discovered she’s pregnant. On their honeymoon, she is almost kidnapped by two thugs and sold to a Duke, but Brandon manages to save her.
Kindle Unlimited has the book for free if you’re interested.
Based on my favorite authors, my golden age was the 1990s/early 2000s. That’s when SEP was publishing her Chicgo Stars books, Linda Howard did some of her best work in Romantic Suspense, Tami Hoag was still writing Romantic Suspense, Nora Roberts was writing some super series (Dream, Mackade Brothers, Chesapeake Bay, and my fave The Concannon Sisters), Amanda Quick began publishing some superb historicals, Pamela Morsi burst on to the scene and delivered some terrifice American historicals, Mary Balogh did a lot of her biggest series during those eras (Precious Jewel, Dark Angel, Bedawyns). Robyn Carr did some great Historical Romance during the late 80s, but it was her contemporary work in the early Nones that really impressed me, especially her standalone title Blue Skies.
For funny ladies besisdes SEP, there was Rachel Gibson, Robin Wells, Kristin Higgins, and Emily Carmichael.
I have no doubt I’ve not listed several of my faves but that’s enough to start with. Romance is a huge and constantly evolving genre, but if I am going to list the time I could try new authors and be practically guaranteed a good, if not great, read, it would be the decades of the 90s and 2000s.
Wow, this makes me want to do some re-reads. That was definitely my era as well.
When I was writing it, I kept thinking, “I need to reread the Concannon books, I should reread the Bedawyns,” etc.
This is something I have been thinking about lately, as it’s more and more difficult for me to find good new novels. I think that the Golden Era goes from the beginning of the 1990s to the end of the 2000s, 1990-2010, more or less.
I’ve just finished the last novel by Tal Bauer –and enjoyed each of its 810 pages. I’d like to add to my previous comment, that the only thing new in these last years that didn’t exist in the Golden Era and have got amazing novels and great authors, is the male/male romance. It’s the only kind of novel in which you can still recognise something fresh and romantic and powerful. I think that MF romance, generally speaking, is staled.
All I can do is agree with you on that one 🙂
I suspect the sense that M/F romance has stalled is a generational one.
So which generation feels that m/f is stale? (stalled?)
Over 50.
Which covers us three and Bona (I think?) 🙂 Maybe because we’ve been reading romance for a long time so it becomes harder to find things that feel fresh and different, but also, as per your comment below, we want something with depth and complexity and characters who aren’t black or white.
Agreed.
Tie the question to thoughts about the full process of getting a story to a reader. An author creates a story.
Decades ago, agents and editors and proofreaders helped the author polish the story, publishers manufactured the printed story, distributors shipped the story to stores, and marketers promoted the story. Every step after the author created the story added gatekeepers and decision-makers who affected whether the story reached readers and what the final story looked like. Publisher decisions created and destroyed whole sub-genres. As one example, the era of the Signet Regencies (and other imprints) gave readers who liked the Regency sub-genre reliable sources of the stories they liked until publishers killed those lines.
Now, with ebooks, an author can make a story they wrote available electronically with no involvement of any gatekeepers and decision-makers. This opens the world to an incredible diversity previously blocked by gatekeepers, but adds burdens that many authors can’t handle well. Many (most?) people can’t do good editing of their own writing. Many people aren’t good at marketing or promoting their own work. Handling the BUSINESS of writing is a completely different set of skills from writing original stories.
I know there are author organizations and small publishers that aren’t as number-driven as the global behemoths, but is there anything widely available to authors that supplies them with the editing, production, and marketing services that publishers used to provide without the negatives of gatekeepers?
I would agree that we have swapped one set of problems for another.
I remember the romances I read in the 1970s fondly. I cut my teeth on Victoria Holt (who also wrote as Jean Plaidy and Phillippa Carr), and Mary Stewart, as well as others like Daphne DuMaurier and Anya Seton, who many consider more historical or woman’s fiction today, but at the time were classified as Romance. I also enjoyed a lot of Gothic Romance. I don’t think there is a golden age of Romance. I enjoyed what I was reading in the 1970s just as much as what I’m reading today. But if you consider either Rosemary Roger’s or KathIeen Woodiwiss (along with Shirlee Busbee, Catherine Coulter, and Johanna Lindsey) as the first modern romance writers, I would say that I agree with others here who like the books from the 1990s. I really love the authors who came out with some of their best stuff in the 1990s and early 2000s, like Mary Balogh, Mary Jo Putney, Anita Mills, Jennifer Blake, Ellen Tanner Marsh, Jo Beverly, etc.
I will say that one of the things that changed between now and then was the depiction of sex and the sex act. In the 1970s sex and sexual orientation were usually behind a closed door. There were LBGTQ characters, just usually not the main character. There were also books featuring people of color as the main character. Jubilee (1966) by Margaret Walker was very popular, as was Sacagewea (1979) by Anna Lee Waldo. What has really changed is the definition of what makes a book a Romance. There are conventions, like always having a HEA, that in my humble opinion, actually make the genre a little less interesting.
I dunno. I’m fine with romances having an HEA–I grew up reading lots of books with romances in them but didn’t end happily: Anna Karenina, Scruples, Trinity, Love Story, The Thorn Birds, and more. When I discovered romances, I loved that I wasn’t going to be saddened by the end of these love stories.
I get nostalgic about the romances I read in the 1970s when the definition of what makes a book a romance was much broader. Rosemary Roger’s is actually a transitional author. Sweet Savage Love was the first book in a series (I believe 6 in all) that told Steve and Ginnie’s story. The first book ended with a HEA, but some of the others didn’t. I read these over 40 years ago, but I think book 3 ended with Steve and Ginnie separated and with different love interests. Definitely wouldn’t fly today. Anyhow, I’ve seen the changes to the genre and, while I enjoy a well earned HEA, sometimes I wish an author would break out of the mold and surprise me.
This is a fun article about Rogers. And, ultimately Steve and Ginny did end up together in the last book!
Then it wouldn’t be a genre romance. It can be a love story without an HEA, but genre romance requries one. This is an argument that rages often and long, but it’s the genre convention, just as unmasking the villain is the genre convention of a mystery.
Romance readers are loyal and vocal about what they expect and what they want, and authors who try to break that mold don’t stick around for very long. There was an MC series about a decade ago that was marketed as having an “unconventional HEA” – it certainly was, because IIRC, both leads died in the end. Let’s just say that readers Were Not Pleased, and that author’s name was mud.
I’m not saying your desire for something a bit different is invalid – there are a LOT of pretty dull romances out there these days – just that you’re unlikely to find it in genre romance.
It’s a language thing. I agree with Karen that we all want writers that surprise us. It’s just that in a romance, that surprise can’t be that there isn’t an HEA. I read lots of books with romantic elements that don’t have an HEA and I enjoy those. And I am easily bored with romances that everything in them seems telegraphed.
I agree – I was just attempting to clarify the terminology 🙂
I’m in the camp that Women’s Fiction novels can be deeply romantic and enjoyable. We were talking down thread about M.M. Kaye, and I loved her WF novels. But they aren’t romances. For me, I need that HEA. That doesn’t mean a book without one isn’t good or romantic; it’s just not a romance.
I really enjoy a happy-sad ending. Like the couple is together, but they had to abandon their entire community. Or the couple survives, but the second beloved character dies. Etc. So for me, books like The Far Pavilions (minus that entire 5th book) really hit home. I think these are categorized differently now. Or they’re happy, but they’re going to go through more rough patches that we know are coming in the next book.
Love is still ascendant but the grittiness of the real world isn’t ignored.
I’ve been intensely reading and reviewing romance for nearly three years now and as a broad generalisation, I’d say the most emotionally satisfying books are those that were written in the early 2000s. They are open door but it still felt fresh, and emotional arcs were essential. I’m thinking Mary Balogh, Lisa Kleypas etc. Most recent writers with that emotional payoff I think of are Emily Henry, Ali Hazelwood and some of the Indies. It’s hard to summarise though as I haven’t been reading romance over my lifetime. The ones I read in the 1980s were category romances and I remember as all closed door with emotionally unavailable men, poor communication until the second last page and nothing to help a reading teenager looking for models of love. Sigh.
I didn’t start reading romance in a big way until the advent of the Kindle in the early 2000s – before that most of my reading was literary classics and historical fiction. I grew up reading Jean Plaidy – historical fiction – and her alter ego, Victoria Holt, who wrote gothic romances – Anya Seton, Norah Lofts (both mostly hist fic) some Phyllis A Whitney, Daphne du Maurier… most of those had an element of romance, I suppose, but I rarely read a book that was ‘just’ a romance. In the late 80s, I picked up Stella Riley’s A Splendid Defiance and The Marigold Chain and they remain 2 of my favourite HRs to this day. I read almost all Georgette Heyer’s regencies in the late 80s/early 90s.
So I missed the era of the bodice rippers and rape-y heroes, although I’ve picked up some as they’ve become available in audio, and – just no. The 2000-2010s brought me Julia Quinn, Cecilia Grant, Sherry Thomas, Meredith Duran, Caroline Linden, Lisa Kleypas, Mary Balogh – books I was often only able to get thanks to Amazon because even then, many were not published in paperback in the UK and had to be imported.
To be fair, if you grew up reading in the bodice ripper era, you might have a different take on its rapey heroes. For me, they were part and parcel of the books that taught be that sexual pleasure was a must. The first time I really learned about oral sex–at age 12–was through a copy of Sweet Savage Love our family’s babysitter snuck me. When Steve pleasures Ginny in that way, her response is to nearly faint with pleasure. This, it became clear to me, was a worthy rule: Just say no to men who don’t wish to make women feel this way. The fact that Steve is such a rapey hero just didn’t strike me as the point.
I know we see gender roles through a much different lens today, but I am, for one, am grateful to have had my sexual expectations for pleasure set so high!
Yes, I think the lens through which we view such things is important. Had I read those books when I was in my teens and twenties, I might have a softer spot for them now (I read Whitney My Love when I was in my forties – I mostly enjoyed it but could see how problematic it was).
Well, Whitney My Love is awful no matter what the time!
I missed reading the older romances since I didn’t start reading genre romances until the 2000’s. I spent most of my time reading mysteries, and it was romantic mysteries that played a big part in my switch to romances as a genre. Georgette Heyer was another big influence. I have no desire to go backwards since gender politics is why I mainly read LGBTQ romances and I don’t think reading the old bodice rippers would be at all enjoyable for me.
I don’t have a time period which I think was the best. Some books that I loved when I first read them haven’t held up well at all for me. I’ve basically stopped relistening to older books because of this. SEP really hasn’t held up well for me, and neither has Amanda Quick, along with others. But I have favorites from all the years I’ve read romances, so I guess that replaces a single decade or whatever from being a Golden Age for me. It’s like music. I’ll always be a Classic Rock fan, but I have ride-or-die favorites from every decade since the 60’s, and my kids keep introducing me to new (usually indie) artists that I love.
I guess that’s why I appreciate review sites. Good reviews introduce me to new (to me) authors, many of which are indie, and that’s so valuable.
For historical romances, I’d say the 1990s to early 2000s were the best. You could still find books with sweeping historical scenes, but without the problematic bits from bodice rippers. This is not to say I didn’t find enjoyable reads after that – both Sherry Thomas and Meredith Duran had their debuts in 2008 and became my favorite authors. But something definitely shifted: the publishers, it seems, were more interested in very formulaic, Regency-based fare, which I think was a turnoff for those of us who wanted more meat with the story (even if it meant accepting darker realities of the time). I hoped the success of Outlander and Bridgerton would see a renaissance of HR, but for once, publishers didn’t even try to capitalize on that. As far as contemporaries/RS, I think the majority of the books seem to cater to the younger millennials/Gen Z crowd, so suddenly First Person POV became the norm, which I’m not the biggest fan of. But at least there’s more variety, and I can still find books I like. Certainly, romantasy and paranormals are booming even if folks are starting to complain about the overreliance on tropes. I guess every era has its winners and losers…
I’ll go out on a limb and say that time coincided with the increasing demand the culture had for art that was more inclusive and inoffensive. There are good things that came with that era but it definitely meant novels that didn’t hew to these standards were often so criticized that publishers and writers moved towards books that didn’t incite such fury.
I’m an optimist so I think the best is yet to come. Traditional publishing has ceded ground to independent — and even crowd-funded — publishing. And these changes have opened doors to new possibilities. Also, I think we tend to view the past with rose-colored glasses. At least for me, many older books have not aged well. Change is constant so it is good to embrace it and see what unfolds…
That’s a great perspective! And, really, there’s a huge difference between saying “this is the era I liked best” and saying “this is the best era.” I tend to agree with you that embracing change is the way to go!
RE: the discussion at the bottom of the page on teachers, education and reading. The Atlantic Magazine had a really good article today covering education in the US, and it was eye-opening for me. Did anyone else know that the 4 states doing the best with reading achievements are all in the south? With Mississippi being called the “Mississippi Miracle.” The article is titled “America is Sliding Towards Illiteracy.” I hope this link works:
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/10/education-decline-low-expectations/684526/?gift=mU0BbKZXDzLn5XHNGiiYpfhR-cHt7R3ca1JFFjxlrSQ&utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share
Hidden in that rather long article was a throw-away comment that the schools that are improving were using phonics. I’ve been part of the argument on that since the early 2000s. When my eldest son was in kindergarten, he was behind in reading. I bought Hooked on Phonics and taught him at home. By the time he was in second grade, he tested above average in reading. It remained that way throughout his school years.
I’ll add that when I took him to get tested for kindergarten, I watched a parent be told her daughter wasn’t ready. The school didn’t teach colors, shapes, numbers, or the alphabet. The child had to enter knowing those things. I recall learning the alphabet in first grade with alphabet cards and a series of stories that the teacher read to us. I hate being the one to say this, but we need to go back to how we taught before. A lot of what we are doing now just doesn’t work.
I honestly didn’t think that comment was throw-away. It jumped out at me. I thought it was at the heart of the issues being pointed out, especially since they also said most failing schools were still using the whole language approach that doesn’t have good scientific backing.
I started homeschooling my oldest in 1989 when they were 4. Phonics was hugely popular and was pushed by most educators in the homeschooling world, and that’s how I taught all my kids to read. One of the keys is to give the child easy, below grade level books to practice on, and allow them to reread books over and over. Knowing the story allows for building greater reading fluency. When they were younger I also did things like get audiobooks of children’s books, and let them read along to the audio. This helped with vocabulary and sight words.
One of the reasons I shared the article was the fact it was calling for a return to evidenced-based teaching and the need for raising expectations. Along with that, however, we do need to have programs designed to help those from disadvantaged backgrounds catch up. The article pointed out how much of the money sent to school districts to bolster learning earlier this century had no strings attached, and was used for building improvements, etc, and not direct instruction or materials.
I called it a throwaway because phonics was specifically mentioned only once. I’ve felt so strongly on this subject for so many years that I felt a bit more hammering it home would have been useful.:-)
You and I were fortunate to be able to teach our kids ourselves, whereas many cannot due to job constraints or feeling inadequate for the task. I’ve remembered that scene with the kindergarten mom for two decades because I recall how overwhelmed she looked when told she had to teach her daughter all that to qualify for school. She clearly felt out of her depth, and the tester’s only helpful comment was to sign up for preschool and hold her daughter back for a year. Yikes!
I agree that evidence-based teaching is called for, although I would add that the other side has numerous studies to point to as well. Whole language (or sight reading, as it was called when my son was in school) works well for specific segments of the population, especially preschool-aged children and those with special needs. The primary issue is that it restricts growth. You can only sight-read so many words, whereas with phonics, you learn the skills that allow you to keep gaining vocabulary. It’s been a long fight to get it back in school. I really hope that it gains traction now.
This is an interesting article about phonics and how the US teaches. I went to college with Dan and have followed his work for years. It seems pretty clear that without phonics instruction, whole language simply doesn’t teach kids how to fluently read.
We’ve been teaching phonics for some time – my kids were taught a mixture of phonics and sight-reading and they’re 23 and 26 now.
Although one advantage they had over many of their classmates is that they come from a “reading culture” – a house full of books and a mum who frequently has her nose in one!
I think having a reading environment is very important. I was stunned as to how downright hostile many people are to reading. My in-laws actually argued with me over having my “nose constantly in a book.”
We used a literature based curriculum during elementary and middle school ages in our homeschool. The kids read or had read to them dozens of books each year based around historical time periods. It also included biographies and non-fiction, especially about science and scientist. In high school they were taught Lit by another homeschooling Mom with and English (and Spanish) degree. She used whole books for her classes in American Lit, English Lit, and World Lit. They all loved reading in school.
Will reads non-stop, and I generally have a book and an audiobook going, so they’ve always seen us read. The thing is, only one of the five is an avid reader now. I’m not sure why. They all read some, and are always learning, but tend to mostly do podcasts and documentaries. I makes me a bit sad.
Thanks for sharing the article. It is a tad depressing to me that this has been such a fight. I understand using sight words in preschool, such as having kids memorize their own names so they can find their cubby, or memorize color and shape names. It can be a good introduction to how language works in reading. IE: This is the color blue, and this word represents that color. However, I don’t understand the insistence on maintaining sight reading/whole language programs in elementary schools, given that years of research have proven phonics to be more effective. I understand it will be expensive to overhaul the system, but it has to be done. And we haven’t even discussed the horror show that are our math and science programs.
In my opinion, the successful formula is a combination of sight words + phonics + reading a lot to your kids from an early age to develop a love of reading.
Phonics are essential for all populations.
But the English language has so many exceptions that phonics alone are frustrating and useless in decoding many exception words — for example, think about the difference between tough and though. Or eight, light, when, people…the list goes on. There are so many words which are not pronounced like they are spelled that memorization is the best way to learn them.
Young children seem predisposed to be able to memorize and learn sight words even when you are not actively trying to teach them. I read to mine from when they were babies, and by the time they were 2 and 3, they had memorized favorite books word for word so that they could “read” them. This was not me trying to get them to learn sight words; this just happened organically.
Phonics alone may work fine for some languages, like Spanish, which are spelled exactly how they are pronounced. But for other languages like English rote memorization is also important. Some languages (like Japanese) require significant rote memorization for literacy.