romance novel

romance novel, a fiction book that focuses on the themes of love and romantic relationships. More specifically, the Romance Writers of America (RWA) defines a romance novel as a fictional narrative that contains two particular elements:

• a central love story involving individuals falling in love and struggling to make their relationship work
• an emotionally satisfying and optimistic ending, in which the lovers overcome the risks and struggles of their relationship and are rewarded with unconditional love

Best-selling contemporary romance novelists include Danielle Steel, Barbara Cartland, Rebecca Yarros, Beverly Jenkins, Jackie Collins, Colleen Hoover, Nora Roberts, Elin Hilderbrand, Ali Hazelwood, Kevin Kwan, Terry McMillan, John Green, Debbie Macomber, Nicholas Sparks, E.L. James, Sarah J. Maas, and Diana Gabaldon. Contemporary romances encompass a wide range of subgenres, such as young adult, beach reads, romantic comedies (rom-coms), historical romance, erotica, and romantasy (a blend of romance and fantasy).

Popularity

The romance genre is typically classified as popular literature—books that are read, or are intended to be read, by a mass audience. Indeed, romance is a hugely successful publishing market. Sales of print romance books more than doubled between 2020 and 2023, jumping from 18 million copies to 39 million copies, even as overall print sales declined. Both romance and romantasy have dominated best-seller lists. In 2024, for example, 7 of the top 10 bestsellers were romance or romantasy novels, according to Publishers Weekly.

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Romance tropes

Many romance novels are told in the first person and feature a self-reliant, strong-willed female protagonist who is not afraid to challenge social conventions by taking charge of her life and relishing her sexuality. Ultimately, she ends up with the love of her life, feeling secure and happy. Often accused of being formulaic, romance novels are typically expected to end “happily ever after,” or at least “happy for now.”

A common term for romance novels, especially those that feature gothic, erotic, or historical elements, is bodice ripper. Some romance authors and fans consider the term (and the subgenre itself) derogatory, in part because it connotes violence and sexual scenes that lack characters’ consent. Some fans and scholars, however, defend the term, arguing that the bodice rippers of the past help contemporary readers understand how women’s roles and expectations of love and sex have changed over the years.

Romance novels are frequently built on tropes (common literary devices and themes) that are used to shape character dynamics and develop plots. The use of tropes is sometimes criticized for encouraging clichés in storytelling or producing uninspired writing. However, some writing coaches argue that tropes are valuable tools to help writers craft compelling stories that satisfy their readers’ expectations. In particular, they help readers identify novels that feature their favorite elements. Some popular romance novel tropes include the following:

• Friends to lovers: Two characters who are “just” friends, typically since childhood, end up as lovers; romance may also develop from a friends with benefits arrangement (another popular trope).
• Enemies to lovers: Two characters who are sworn enemies end up as lovers.
• Love triangle: Three characters vie for each other’s love, typically resulting in two of them pairing off while the other is rejected or finds love elsewhere.
• Forbidden love: Two characters who are forbidden from being in a relationship stop at nothing to be together.
• Different worlds or opposites attract: Two characters who have nothing in common or come from different social classes, ethnic backgrounds, religions, or (literally) worlds fall in love with each other.
• First love: Two characters, typically young, experience love together for the first time.
• Second chance: A character who has been burned in a previous relationship gets another shot at true love, sometimes with someone who is also a second chancer, or two former lovers give their relationship another try.
• Fake relationship: Two characters who have engaged in a fake relationship (such as in a marriage of convenience or as actors in a movie or play) find themselves falling in love for real.
• Stuck together: Two characters who are in a situation of forced proximity (such as being snowed in at a secluded cabin) end up becoming lovers.

Popular romance subgenres

The romance genre has spawned many subgenres, each with distinctive themes, settings, and characters. Many romance novels, however, meet the characteristics of more than one subgenre. For example, E. Lynn Harris’s best-selling novel Any Way the Wind Blows (2001), featuring both closeted and openly gay and bisexual Black male characters, has been classified as general romance, African American (or urban) romance, LGBTQ fiction, and general fiction.

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Some popular romance subgenres include the following:

• A contemporary romance is set from about 1950 to the present; it reflects the conventions of the time and often depicts the trials, emotions, and nuances of modern love.
• A historical romance is set in the past; it incorporates the historical facts and technology of the time and often features historic events and figures. This genre includes novels published before 1950.
• A gothic romance is characterized by a dark, foreboding atmosphere that often deals with grotesque events and characters.
• A paranormal or speculative romance has science-fiction, supernatural, paranormal, futuristic, or fantastic elements and often features otherworldly creatures such as vampires, werewolves, ghosts, and shape-shifters.
• A romantasy blends elements of romance and fantasy but with a plot that prioritizes the romance element.
• A romantic suspense is a romance in which a relationship develops between two people as they work together to solve a crime or a mystery.
• An erotic romance is characterized by sexually frank or risqué language and frequent sexual interaction between two people as they work to form a stable relationship. In this subgenre the sexual interaction is inherent to the plot.
• A young adult (YA) romance features adolescent characters as they try to find their place in the world while balancing school, family, and friendships with their newfound interest in romantic love.
• An LGBTQ+ romance features LGBTQ+ protagonists and explores themes of sexual identity.
• A Black, African American, or urban romance features Black or African American protagonists in a contemporary setting. African American historical romance is another subgenre.
• A spiritual, inspirational, or Christian romance features characters who ascribe to a particular faith or belief system and whose relationship typically abides by the moral values of their faith.

Steamy covers and spice levels

Romance novels are known for their “clinch covers,” which feature scantily dressed lovers in a passionate embrace. Modern romance covers originated with the British Mills & Boon books of the early 20th century and the rise of cheap, mass-produced paperbacks during World War II (1939–45). The covers of this era were relatively tame, but they became more steamy during the sexual revolution of the 1960s and ’70s.

Fabio

Italian model and actor Fabio Lanzoni appeared on the cover of more than 3,000 romance novels. Known simply as Fabio to his fans, he embodied the stereotypical image of a long-haired, chiseled-featured romantic hero and became a household name in the 1990s.

Beverly Jenkins’s Night Song (1994) was the first clinch cover in mainstream publishing to feature all Black models. Gradually, romance novel representation diversified to depict lovers of different ethnic backgrounds and body types, as well as same-sex couples and older adults posing on the cover.

Changing tastes led some publishers to simplify their romance cover designs in the 1980s and ’90s, depicting landscapes, flowers, or only the title and the author’s name. This trend continued in the 21st century: the cover of Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight (2005) shows two hands holding an apple, and E.L. James’s Fifty Shades of Grey (2011) simply shows a necktie. As publishing budgets changed with the rise of e-books, some publishers turned to cover designs that relied on graphics and illustration instead of models to convey the plots within.

Heat (also called steam or spice) levels are another standard feature of contemporary romance novels. Many publishers market their romance books by describing them in terms that convey the book’s level of sensuality (e.g., mild, hot, scorching) and explicit sexual content. Categories and lingo vary from publisher to publisher, but they generally range as follows:

• Clean, wholesome, or sweet: This category indicates that the book has no sex scenes or that sensuality is limited to kissing, lingering glances, or sexual touching with clothes on; plots of these novels usually do not involve premarital or extramarital sex.
• Steamy or spicy: The plots of these novels include several sex scenes and more graphic descriptions of sensuality.
• Erotic or smutty: These novels have plots that blend equal parts romance and sexual content or focus more on sexual content than romance; they contain explicit descriptions of sensuality with no euphemisms.

Other common expressions used to describe a romance novel’s spice level include “closed door” and “fade to black,” which indicate that sensuality that is implied but not described on the page, and “open door,” which indicates that readers can expect to find descriptions of sex scenes.

History

The earliest known romance novel is Ninus, written on papyrus probably in the 1st century bce in Greece. Named for a mythical Assyrian king, it tells the story of Ninus and Semiramis, a young couple (ages 17 and 13, respectively) who fall in love and marry. Only part of the novel is extant.

Chariton’s Chaereas and Callirhoë, written in Greece in the 1st century ce, is believed to be the earliest complete romance text in Western literature. The book follows a beautiful young noblewoman who is kidnapped by pirates and taken by sea from Syracuse (Sicily) to Asia Minor (Anatolia). Eventually she is rescued by her handsome lover.

Samuel Richardson’s Pamela; or, Virtue Rewarded (1740) is cited by some scholars as the first popular romance novel. It was also the first novel to be written solely from the perspective of a female protagonist and the first love story to feature a standard “happily ever after” ending. Using letters written by the 15-year-old heroine Pamela as a narrative form (i.e., an epistolary novel), the book recounts her experiences as a maidservant who is subject to the sexual advances and threats of her employer. She withstands his assaults and maintains her virtue. In the end her employer reforms and marries her, and she becomes a member of upper-class society.

Other early romance novels that helped define the genre and contributed to its growth include Frances Burney’s Cecilia; or, Memoirs of an Heiress (1782), Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility (1811), and Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre (1847). These books focus on marriage plots and address the expectations placed on women at the time of the novels’ publication. The novels vary in tone, however; Burney and Austen are known for their deft social satire, while Brontë’s masterpiece features more melodrama.

In 1908 two English entrepreneurs, Gerald Mills and Charles Boon, founded Mills & Boon as a general fiction publisher. The company’s first title was a romance book: Arrows from the Dark (1909) by Sophie Cole. It was several years before the founders realized that the bulk of their readership and aspiring authors were women. In the 1920s Mills & Boon turned to specializing in hardback romances, which had begun to feature colorful covers depicting the novel’s hero and heroine in passionate poses. By the 1930s Mills & Boon romances were selling between 6,000 and 8,000 copies each.

Other popular titles of this era include Margaret Mitchell’s historical novel Gone with the Wind (1936) and Daphne du Maurier’s gothic suspense novel Rebecca (1938), both of which have love stories at their center and were made into critically acclaimed films.

Harlequin Books, the world’s largest romance publisher, was cofounded by former Arctic explorer Richard H.G. Bonnycastle in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, in 1949. The company originally published westerns and detective stories as well as other fiction and nonfiction. Harlequin moved into the romance realm in the 1950s after Mary Bonnycastle, a Harlequin editor and Richard H.G. Bonnycastle’s wife, acquired the paperback rights to some Mills & Boon titles. Under her direction, any sexually explicit content was removed, and Harlequin became noted for books with less-racy plots than Mills & Boon novels. Harlequin expanded in the 1970s by partnering with supermarkets and department stores in Canada and the United States. In a clever marketing scheme, free Harlequins were often given away to customers who purchased household items.

Harlequin acquired Mills & Boon in 1971 and began to allow more explicit content in its books. By the end of the 20th century Harlequins were available in more than 100 countries and 30 languages. In 2014 the company became a division of American publisher HarperCollins.

In the latter half of the 20th century romance plots evolved to reflect changes in society. As more women entered the workforce, romance heroines were also more likely to have careers. Some novels began featuring female protagonists who had been divorced. Books with central lesbian, gay, and biracial characters were being marketed by mainstream publishers by the 1970s. Some romance books not only described sex in more explicit terms, mirroring the new mores of the sexual revolution, but also included discussions of condom usage, a nonexistent detail in earlier books. Judy Blume’s teen romance Forever (1975) was groundbreaking (and controversial) for portraying a young heroine who visits a clinic to obtain birth control pills.

By the 21st century many more romances featured Latino, Asian, and transgender protagonists, and more romance novels flirted with other genres such as paranormal fiction. Landmark titles of the early 21st century include:

• Irresistible Forces (2008) by Brenda Jackson, the first African American romance to appear on The New York Times best-seller list
• Crazy Rich Asians (2013) by Kevin Kwan, a rom-com about wealthy Asians and Asian Americans that was adapted into a 2018 film that became the highest-grossing romantic comedy of the 2010s
• Onyx Storm (2025) by Rebecca Yarros, a romantasy that sold nearly 3 million copies in its first week, becoming the fastest-selling adult fiction book of the past 20 years