The Roar of Romance

YES! Thanks to novelist Jayne Ann Krentz and your writer, Ben Yagoda, for shedding light on the “trashy romance” myth (“Steamy Nights. Lusty Loins. Burning Passions. Brainy Romance.” (May 14). Romance novels are not a lesser form of fiction but simply another form of fiction. And it suffers from the same variety of evils that all fiction suffers from and enjoys the same kind of excellence that all fiction enjoys.

It’s not a question of good, bad, right or wrong; it’s only a question of individuals making choices about what they like to read.

So now that The Times has printed such a positive, eye-opening article about the merits of the romance genre in the magazine, when will reviews of romance novels be published in the Book Review? For those of us who read these books, that kind of service--equal to what’s already afforded the mystery, Western and science fiction genres--is long overdue.

Mary Spencer Liming

Duarte

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Yagoda failed to emphasize why romance novels are so popular with women: They appeal to their spirit of adventure, which other genres seldom address. As a girl, I loved the adventure novels of Robert Louis Stevenson, Alexandre Dumas, Walter Scott and the like. But I was frustrated that the people who had all the fun were men, and women generally stayed at home with their needlework, waiting patiently for their men to return.

Romance novels, in which the heroine seizes the day and directs her own fate, filled the void for me, and for countless other female readers, even further back than the Bronte sisters’ novels, beginning with authors such as Anne Radcliffe in the late 18th Century.

Such a spirit is not gender-related; women possess it as frequently as men. It’s time for publishers, critics and studio executives to take serious the female quest for adventure.

Kate Marciniak

Los Angeles

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As extensively published authors and co-presidents of the Orange County chapter of the Romance Writers of America, the nation’s largest, we tip our pens to Yagoda’s thorough and informed presentation. He has presented the truth to that portion of the public critical of the genre.

The immensely popular romance novels are about the empowerment of women--through compassion, compromise and commitment--in a lasting relationship between two people.

Women don’t read trash, and we, the authors, don’t write trash.

Amy J. Fetzer

Patricia Thayer Wright

Yorba Linda

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As a romance writer (a k a Katherine Sinclair, Amanda York and Katherine Kent), I must question Jayne Ann Krentz’s statement that the period from 1811 to 1820 in Regency England was a great time for romance writers because it was a period when “basically nothing was happening.” Perhaps nothing was happening in the drawing rooms of the handful of English bluebloods who populate the so-called Regency romances, but the rest of England was battling the greatest dictator the world had ever known, Napoleon Bonaparte. There was also the small matter of the War of 1812 with the United States.

Believe it or not, readers of historical romances are exposed to well-researched backgrounds and events, along with the steamy nights, lusty loins and burning passions mentioned in Yagoda’s excellent article.

Joan Dial

Lake Elsinore

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Most media portray women as cardboard characters who use love to manipulate others; life happens to them. Romance is the only genre in which women are consistently active creators of their own lives. In romances, both hero and heroine are honorable, intelligent sexual and nurturing. Love is the positive force that brings out their best qualities.

Thanks to writers like Krentz, I’ll continue reading romances.

Karen Steele

Simi Valley

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While other forms of entertainment--heavy-metal music, slasher movies and soap operas--are covered extensively by the media, the most popular form of fiction in the United States today has, until now, been virtually ignored.

Thanks for Yagoda’s article. It’s about time.

Angie Ray

Orange