I was hoping that Kelly Faircloth would take a stab at rebutting Gottleib’s piece and I am SO happy. 

Virgin heroes and why I love them

I’ve made no secret of my appreciation for virgin romance novel heroes on this blog and I have no intention of that ever changing. But, you might wonder what it is I love about the virgin hero and therefore I’m going to beat you to your question and simply offer you a bunch of reasons completely unprompted. Now, I don’t have anything against experienced heroes - I appreciate sluttiness wherever I can get it - but virgin heroes just provide a freshness that you don’t see much in romancelandia. It forces the author to deal with our conceptions of what makes a man, what masculinity is and, more importantly, what it can be.  It usually involves a sexually experienced heroine (which I also love) and it sort of follows naturally for the hero to be more fleshed out and realized as a person when he can’t use his sexual prowess as a crutch. The author also needs to find other solutions to the heros feelings other than “maybe if I fuck her these feelings I can’t name will go away?” You still get the “this is a brand new and exciting experience” BUT we get to experience it through this person’s POV but without all the baggage of the last millennia of controlling women’s sexuality. So - neat! It also (usually) makes the woman lead the dance between the sheets, which is also something you don’t see every day if you mostly read historicals (like yours truly). It’s not about dominance, it’s about guidance and taking the lead and more often than not - that sexy communication.  The author is forced to seek out another source for the hero’s confidence  and it’s always exciting to see where the author draws that from. It’s also fun how sexual inexperience can stump the heroine and force her (and us as readers) to question our own ideas of what masculinity is, what our own biases are and so on.  And this is why I love virgin heroes.

I read my first virgin hero book a few weeks ago, and let me tell you what, it hit all the right feels. Thank you for posting this!

truth

(@romancingthebookworm)

As I read along a romance book I noticed: all romance books I’ve read have supported the woman being small and curvy while the men are huge and practically dwarf them. Where are the books with short guys and tall girls? Need to see me some of that.

I can’t think of a single one. I’ve read some where the heights match, I’ve definitely read romance novels with tall women, but I can’t think of a single one where the hero is shorter than the heroine. 

Anyone else?

As a short woman myself, I have always had a really hard time picturing a relationship with a shorter man… probably because I’ve almost never met any. But obviously that’s not the case for tall women. There is, of course, a strong cultural bias toward pairing women with men taller than themselves, but there are real-life exceptions, so you would think there would be exceptions in fiction, too. 

There absolutely is a cultural bias of the men being taller - both in romance as a genre and society as a whole - and I can attest to that first hand, being 6,1". (My partner is 6,0″ and I call him “Shawty” sometimes in a T-Pain voice)  And I do feel super bummed that this idea that the man has to be bigger is so pervasive. Coming from a family of amazon women (all my closest female relatives are my height or slightly shorter) I know how deeply rooted this idea is and how intertwined it is with the idea of women not taking up much space. I can relate to plus sized heroines in that way as they often deal with the expectaion of “smallness” too. But there is something special in seeing yourself in media and I do have a Goodreads bookshelf with tall heroines (the hero being shorter isn’t a guarantee, so I just list the heroines that are tall) and SBTB did a rec league recently on the subject, check that out too! There are some recs on this old post too! 

YESSSSS YESSSSS YESSSSSSS On Alyssa Cole!

Also, may I add When A Scot Ties the Knot by Tessa Dare? A girl writes letters to an imaginary beau for years and years only to be surprised when he literally shows up at her door. It’s a fun (and funny) romance and my instant-recommend for new romance readers

Mr Impossible and Last night’s scandal by Loretta Chase are both delightful, historical romps with most of your requirements!

If writing “trashy” romance novels is so easy and so damn lucrative - why doesn’t everyone do it?

#could it be because it’s actually work#just like any other kind of writing#could it?#could it be because writing is actually fucking hard?#and a skill#and a damn craft#romance novels#books#romance writers

As a fairly new member of the romance community (I’ve only been reading romance novels for about three years) that fact that people complain about romance novels being formulaic - which is a correct statement - they are, is a bit baffling to me. There’s a sorts of “paint by numbers”-dismissal of romance novels (other formulaic genres are ignored for some reason. Wonder why that is…) But they don’t seem to consider just how difficult it must be to work within that rigid framework? Like, romance is LITTERED with unspoken rules.  As a reader without much talent for writing, I’m surprised constantly of the skill it takes to take a bunch of well worn tropes and make them feel brand new. And consuming a lot of romance novels, I also know how many that can’t do that. And what makes a great romance novel stand out from a so-so romance novel - what sets them apart - it almost seems like witchcraft to me, in the sense that I don’t know how it’s done, that I don’t understand how a small change can affect the outsome so much OR how intent plays into it. I’m only there to admire (or be underwhelmed) by the results.  I mean, I know that 90% of the dismissal and belittling of romance novels are done by people who haven’t actually taken the time to get a grasp of them. I just wish that they would. 

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If the review says “nice book except for the cursing and explicit sex.”