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#Harlequin romance novels published 1970 series#
Each category romance is published in a series or line that has a particular narrative profile. 5 The precise narrative profile of a line is stipulated in the so-called “writing guidelines”, which (.)ħThe system of lines defines the category romance format in many ways and is perhaps more intricate than it seems at first sight.
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This image, known within the romance community as the “clinch”, has become an iconic visual marker for popular romance in our culture and renders the novel’s generic identity unmistakable (McKnight-Trontz 17 Wendell and Tan 170). The front cover is traditionally also dominated by the eye-catching image of a couple (often partially undressed) locked in a passionate embrace. Series membership traditionally determines a large part of the category romance’s identity, which is reflected in the prominent place the series imprint takes up on the category romance’s front cover (see figure 1). 3 Examples of category romance lines include the Blaze series (featuring sensual romances), the Intrigue line (featuring romances with a suspense subplot) or the Medical Romance imprint (featuring romances set in a medical context).
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As the name implies, category romances are popular romance novels that are published in a category or series (also called line or imprint), which groups together similar types of romance stories.
#Harlequin romance novels published 1970 free#
2 Underlying this disregard is, I believe, the tacit assumption that the romance novel’s materiality, which even more than other aspects of the genre is imbued with stereotypes and conventions, is a relatively simplistic and straightforward aspect of the genre that is free of the interpretative complexities romance scholars now regularly (and, notably, against the cultural grain) uncover in the genre’s texts.ĤIn this paper I examine if this tacit assumption remains valid when the romance novel’s materiality is subjected to in-depth analysis. Somewhat surprisingly, a similar mechanism plays out within the developing field of popular romance studies with regard to the genre’s materiality. As a result, the popular romance genre is largely ignored by academics, who deem books that are supposedly all the same unworthy of their critical attention.
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Although academics are generally taught to be critical of cultural stereotypes, in the case of the popular romance novel the academy seems to overwhelmingly buy into – and frequently even be at the origin of – the ingrained stereotypes of conventionality, formula and simplicity that surround the genre.