Secret romance readers?

Oh man, romances are my guilty secret. And I don't just read regular romances, I read Harlequin Presents romances, the trashiest of trashy. Even the titles are embarrassing. ("What am I reading? Oh, it's called The Multi-Millionaire's Virgin Mistress. I'm thinking of suggesting it for book club.")

I dunno, I've read them on and off since I was ten and they're like a comfort item to me. I usually don't even bother reading the entire thing. I read the end and then work backwards to the dramatic parts. And there had better be some drama. I love authors like Lynne Graham and Michelle Reid because they always have heroes who are autocratic control freaks who cause lots of trauma-drama. These guys would drive me crazy in real-life, but for some reason they're my favourite Harlequin archetype.

I was pleased to see that Harlequin has starting publishing electronic versions of their books. I'd rather have the titles discreetly stored on a hard-drive than sitting out on my bookshelves. E-books = less clutter too, so that's another plus in my book. (Har!)

Was just thinking some more about Harlequin archetypes and how it's interesting to see how they've changed over the years. Romances, unlike other kinds of fiction, reflect idealized personas and therefore can be a mirror for the times they were written in. So it's really fascinating to read old romances and to infer what was considered appropriate/ideal back in the day.

I recently read some Harlequins from the seventies and eighties and I was struck by the huge age differences between the heroes and heroines. Apparently it wasn't a big deal back then to have eighteen year old girls and middle-aged men hooking up.

The casual violence was also bizarre. The heroes would slap the heroines in the face and the heroines would just take it in stride. One infamous Sally Wentworth romance had the hero HOLDING THE HEROINE'S HEAD UNDERWATER just to show her that she should be scared of him. Her crime? Not being a virgin. (She actually was, of course. Harlequin of yesteryear wasn't going to have some non-virgin skank starring as their heroine, nosirree!)

It'll be interesting to see what people think of today's contemporary romances in another decade or so.