Tracy Farnsworth

In Defense of Harlequin Romances

By Mellanie Crowther

From the moment I first learned to make sense of the squiggles on the printed page, I read anything I could get my hands on.  Nothing was forbidden to me, and I worked my way through an eclectic range of subject matter.  But the event that changed my life occurred when I was twelve years old and recovering from a tonsillectomy, my aunt brought me a bag of Harlequin Romances to read during my recuperation.  On that day, I began what has been a lifelong love affair with romantic fiction.

Over the past twenty years, I've read just about every type of romantic fiction in print.  I devour novels the way other people gobble up chocolates.  I've watched romantic fiction grow into the best-selling genre in the country, and I've seen how the stereotypical love story has evolved over the years.  Romance novels have grown far beyond the formulaic boy-meets-girl stories of the past into stories whose only predictable feature is that the hero and heroine will end up together on the final page.

When romantic fiction comes up in conversation, almost everyone thinks "Harlequin".  People think they know what a Harlequin Romance is, but those who are most vocal in condemning Harlequins as trashy or formulaic have rarely bothered to read one.  Harlequins are perceived as printed soap opera, containing a lot of sex and glamour and not much else.  They are dismissed as catering to the lowest common denominator of readers, when the opposite is actually the case.

According to the 1994 edition of Writer's Market, "Harlequin's readership comprises a wide variety of ages, backgrounds, income and education levels.  The audience is predominantly female.  Because of the high competition in women's fiction [of 10,000 annual submissions, Harlequin accepts only 780 manuscripts for publication], readers are becoming very discriminating.  They look for a quality read." (p. 232)

Harlequin demands that quality from its authors, but also affords a unique opportunity for fledgling writers.  Ten percent of Harlequin's annual publications are by first-time authors, and 25% are by authors who do not have a literary agent.  Some of Harlequin's best writers -- authors as talented as LaVyrle Spencer and Nora Roberts -- have gone on to mass-market fiction and hardcover success.

Harlequin Enterprises Ltd. was established in 1949 as the American distributor of novels by Mills & Boon, a British publisher that featured sweet love stories in contemporary settings.  These were the predictable Cinderella stories with the happily-ever-after endings that people came to associate with Harlequin.  They may have been trite, but they were a major innovation at the time.  Prior to Mills & Boon, it had never occurred to anyone to print stories about everyday women living out every woman's (then) fantasy:  to find true love, happiness, and wealth with Mr. Right.

There were problems in packaging British books for a US audience:  some aspects of English life did not translate well across the Atlantic , rendering entire elements of stories incomprehensible to the American contingent of readers.  Harlequin addressed this problem by publishing Janet Dailey's " Americana " series, one novel for each state of the union.  Reader response was overwhelmingly positive.  Dailey's success paved the way for other American authors, who embraced the genre whole-heartedly and helped modern romantic fiction evolve into a unique literary form.

The remarkable thing about Harlequin is its ability (and willingness) to re-invent the category romance according to changing times and reader demand.  Harlequin does contemporary romance better than everyone else, and its domination of romance sales proves that.  Silhouette Romances was Harlequin's only serious competition, and ended up being taken over by its rival.  Both companies have been uniquely responsive to reader requests for particular types of stories.  Between them, Harlequin and Silhouette have thirteen imprints, each carefully tailored to a specific audience.

The basic Harlequin or Silhouette Romance is a fairly short, mostly chaste love story.  Harlequin Presents and Silhouette Desire feature a spicier relationship between hero and heroine, and a dash of glamour in the form of a wealthy hero or an exciting setting or profession.  Harlequin Regencies focus on early nineteenth-century British aristocracy, while Harlequin Historicals may be set in any pre-twentieth century time period and location.  Silhouette Intimate Moments are longer stories with fewer characters and an element of mystery or suspense.  Silhouette Shadows is a recent imprint developed for fans of gothic romance.  Harlequin Superromances favor timely social issues, but in a longer length than Harlequin Americans, where characters are average people from Anytown , USA .  Harlequin Intrigues appeal to former Nancy Drew fans, and the Temptation imprint was created for readers who like a little story with their sex.

While romance is the driving force behind a Harlequin's plot, it would be a mistake to assume that the relationship is the only focus of the book.  Current subject matter includes alcoholism, abusive ex-spouses, and terminal illness.  Harlequin heroines struggle to provide for their children and care for their aging parents; and they share the problems of contemporary women.  Romance authors have made safe sex an expected part of any love scene between unmarried protagonists.  In keeping with the times, heroines are no longer required to be virginal, but fidelity is mandatory for the lead characters.

Changes in theme and plot trends are directly attributable to reader input, through sales trends and through letters to authors as well as to the publishers.  Romance devotees tend to make their preferences known, and they won't buy books by authors who rely on tired plot devices.  They expect a more complex storyline than boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl.  Gone are the days of the bitchy other woman (a character similar to the villain in an old-time melodrama), whose ruthless machinations foil the course of true love:  heroines are much too smart to be manipulated by malicious lies.  Plots no longer hinge on a simple misunderstanding that could be cleared up in just a few minutes of honest communication.  Women nowadays take a more active approach to their lives, and readers are too sophisticated to accept such amateur plotting.

These days, the hero and heroine are as likely to have been involved in a relationship of long standing as to meet in the opening chapters of a book.  The central conflict may not even concern whether or not the lead couple are in love with each other, but whether they can compromise on philosophical differences or work their way through an obstacle such as infertility or the birth of a handicapped child.  By popular demand, today's plots are about real people trying to cope in an ever-changing world.

Harlequin has been innovative in accommodating readers’ diverse interests and testing the limits of the genre.  Romance readers tend to have eclectic tastes, and will willingly accompany an author on all sorts of fantasies as long as there's at least a sprinkle of romance tossed into the adventure.  Plotlines as varied as time travel, amnesia, psychics, ghosts, and vampires are currently in vogue.  The American Indian is the hot new character:  usually of mixed blood, only sometimes the female lead, and always paired with a white character, Indians appear frequently in historical and contemporary novels.  The racial diversity of characters is growing, too, although leading characters of color are rare.  (My prediction is that this will be the next big development in romance publishing, because there is a huge audience of women of color who read a lot, and it seems almost criminal not to have stories that they can relate to directly.)

Romance authors are skilled at working their research into their stories so cleverly that readers learn history almost by osmosis.  Readers are quick to spot anachronisms, and authors are careful to point out when they've taken liberties with history.  Humor is also an important element in romance, whether it's snappy repartee reminiscent of those old Hepburn and Tracy movies or sheer slapstick a la Goldie Hawn.  Readers love it when the lead characters don't take themselves too seriously.

Another device that makes romantic fiction so popular is that writers bring back well-loved characters in subsequent books, either by design (as in Rachel Lee's " Conard County " series), or because readers like a secondary character in a particular book and clamor for his or her story.

In The Romance Reader's Handbook, Kathryn Falk maintains that the "average" romance reader is intensely loyal to her favorite authors, above average in intelligence, and an ardent bibliophile.  She will buy a book with no other recommendation than the blurb on the back cover or the author's name above the title.  Every issue of "Romantic Times" features photographs of romance fans surrounded by their book collections, which often take up an entire room of their homes and are housed on custom-made bookshelves.

These are not stupid people.  They know that they can count on a Harlequin Romance to be well written and to tell an interesting story.  Not every romance is a "keeper", a book that will be added to a private library, recommended to friends, and re-read from time to time; but there are enough memorable stories to make periodic culling a painful but necessary chore.

The novels of Dickens, Twain, and other classic writers reflect the history of their time.  Romance novels do the same.  Anyone who wants to know what the average American woman is thinking about or worrying over need only pick up a Harlequin Romance:  there's a lot more going on than just a love story.