more romance

[psocoptera]

When A Scot Ties The Knot, Tessa Dare. Het historical romance with a fun premise and one standout laugh-out-loud scene that failed to stick the landing for me. The premise is that when the agoraphobic heroine is 16, she invents a military fiance to avoid having to come out into society, writing "him" dozens of letters until she eventually claims he was killed in battle and retires to a life of quiet mourning and employment doing nature illustration, her passion. Until eight years later, when he shows up, with the letters. That's pretty good, right? And the funny scene involves his military buddies giving him advice on how to seduce her and a hilarious genre-aware suggestion to set up a naked swimming scene - "and then you rise up out of the water. Like a dolphin. Or a mermaid. Shooting up through the mist and pushing your hair back with both hands..."

It lost me at the end though. There's been a running thing about some illustrations she's been commissioned to do of lobsters (do we care about spoilers for random romance novels? I'm thinking no?) and how one of them is supposed to be of the lobsters mating, and she's been worried about missing it, and, let me tell you, I was invested in these lobsters, I was more eager to hear about the lobsters getting it on than the couple and heck knows we got plenty of pages of that, and then the dude gets injured and she's taking care of him and when he's finally through the worst of the fever he's like "so how are the lobsters" and she's *missed it*, and I guess we're supposed to think it's sweet that she was so devoted to taking care of him, but I was so disappointed. And *then* she gets hired as the illustrator on an expedition to Bermuda, which is a huge chance for her, and is going to be gone for six months, and the hero is encouraging her to go, and I was *so excited* that I was reading a romance novel that was so overtly encouraging the pursuit of her dreams and letting time apart be part of an HEA, and then after she's left he's like, no, wait, I'll go with her! and I was like "aaaaugh you're going to *crash her expedition by surprise after she's already boldly gone*??" and *then* she comes back and was like "oh I didn't really want to go to Bermuda after all, what I really wanted was this job doing encyclopedia illustrations that will conveniently let me stay here with youuu" and, okay, yes, the encyclopedia job had been set up, but I thought they were portraying it as strictly less cool than the Bermuda job.

The thing is, the thing I am thinking about in response to this and why I bothered to explain all that is that people talk a lot about romance as a wish-fulfillment genre, and I think that's right, or, at least, I think the reason (a reason?) I like romance so much (at least in theory) is that I like to read about people getting what they want, and particularly women getting what they want. It's just that the wishes I find it absolutely most gratifying to see get fulfilled aren't the husband-and-kids ones (perhaps because I myself was able to stumble into those) but the lets-do-Science! ones (perhaps because I botched my own shot at those), or, I guess more generally, the pursuit of whatever personal goals, happy endings that aren't just about love but also freedom and integrity and accomplishment and that sort of thing. In that sense, something like Ocean's 8 or Ghostbusters, that isn't actually a romance at all (except by reading in), is closer to what I want in a romance novel than something where the HEA feels like a compromise of a more exciting possibility.

Or maybe what I mean is "don't dangle Science! in front of me unless you're prepared to go full Countess Conspiracy and pay it off in spades." (Or maybe what I mean is "as previously discussed, queer historical romance often substitutes professional partnership (plus romance) for domestic partnership and that sounds pretty good right now for the next romance novel I read", hmm.)

Comments

[glynhogen]

I am now imagining a scene, in a book I have never read about people and lobsters I don't care about, where she answers the how are the lobsters question by whipping out exquisite lobster porn so he doesn't completely miss out.

[psocoptera]

Obviously the best solution :)

[jedusor]

let me tell you, I was invested in these lobsters, I was more eager to hear about the lobsters getting it on than the couple

choked on my own spit laughing at this

[oracne]

I am now pondering your comments on wish-fulfillment, which are of relevance because my backbrain has been working for like three years on what I want to write next.