Here's a damaging confession: Every once in a while, I'm in the mood for romance. I'm talking about reading. Not mysteries or thrillers, not the latest best-seller, but a book about two people failing in love and ending up together. There are times when an I want is a spunky heroine and an older powerful man, a few lovers' quarrels and a guaranteed happy ending.
I used to get my fix from Georgette Heyer, queen of the Regency romance. Her light-as-air love stories, set around the turn of the 18th century, glitter with repartee and ooze repressed sex ("I wish I had the mounting of you," one hero tells the heroine, ostensibly discussing horses) But Heyer is dead, and by now I've read and reread every romance she ever wrote. I haven't looked at Frederica for a couple of years, but I can't find a copy anywhere. To satisfy my itch for vicarious romance, I would have to leap into the unknown. Somewhere out there lay a world beyond Heyer -- and I went in search of it.
The author searches for something which will replicate the experience of reading Georgette Heyer but doesn't find it. However, she finds out quite a lot about Harlequin romances, including:
Strange Bedpersons, by Jennifer Crusie, was a revelation. Its heroine is a radical teacher mismatched with a conservative lawyer, and it's one of the funniest things I've read in years. The climax is the ultimate dinner party from her, culminating when the heroine's best friend vomits all over the shoes of her mother-in-law-to-be. I laughed until it hurt.
Here are the opening paragraphs. :
The author searches for something which will replicate the experience of reading Georgette Heyer but doesn't find it. However, she finds out quite a lot about Harlequin romances, including: