Romance fiction is an eternally popular genre with a large readership. Even early novelists such as Samuel Richardson knew that the search for love was a topic that could be used to hook his readers, and Jane Austen later came along to organize and develop what is now a well-established formula for the perfect romance novel. [...] Today's contemporary writers are well aware of Austen's romantic formula, and one Florida author who has used it successfully in a few of her books is Angela Hunt. Gentle Touch, Doesn't She Look Natural?, and Five Miles South of Peculiar are three of Hunt's novels that in some way employ the romance tradition, and all three are set in Florida. (123)
However, elsewhere in the volume Hunt says of Five Miles South of Peculiar that it is "Definitely women's fiction. A romance is a story in which the romance is the principal plot, and I don't think I've ever written a true romance" (216).
Powley writes that
However, elsewhere in the volume Hunt says of Five Miles South of Peculiar that it is "Definitely women's fiction. A romance is a story in which the romance is the principal plot, and I don't think I've ever written a true romance" (216).