Book Genre Spotlight: Romance

Welcome back to another blog post! Today I’m continuing the book genre spotlight, and today’s focus is the romance genre. This genre has quite a few subplots so let’s begin!

Romance fiction is defined as a novel that focuses on a relationship between two characters, and typically ends on a happy note (although this varies by subgenre and author).

The first subgenre is the most popular: contemporary romance. This genre is set in the “real world” and follows a character as they go through their life. Some cliches from this genre include love at first sight (which a lot of readers don’t like, including me), opposites attract, and a fake dating dynamic. Some examples of this genre are Happy Place by Emily Henry, Part of Your World by Abby Jimenez, and The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid.

The second most popular subgrenre of romance is young adult romance. It’s exactly what it sounds like: romance books for the young adult audience (12-18). Young adult romance books often follow similar cliches from the contemporary subgenre, but it can appear differently to fit the young adult audience. Some examples of this genre include Better Than the Movies by Lynn Painter, The Summer of Broken Rules by K. L. Walther, and Red, White, and Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston.

Another popular subgenre of romance is historical romance, which is typically set before World War II. There are historical fiction novels for both the young adult and adult audiences. Some popular books from this genre include Anatomy by Dana Schwartz, Stalking Jack the Ripper by Kerri Maniscalco, and The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller.

There are many more subgenres under the romance genre, but that’s it for today’s post! Thank you for reading and I’ll see you next week!