Women's Fiction in Romance #MSWL
I read a lot of Romance novels. It's my not-so-guilty pleasure and one I'm never ashamed to speak about or seen enjoying but it wasn't always the case. While living at home (with my very religious mother), I had to sneak my romance novels (and any horror or suspense books) into my room or leave them in my band locker to read during lunch or between class periods and band practice so my mother wouldn't throw them away. But many of the Women's Fiction titles I'd bring home, my mother simply glanced at the cover and "paid me no mind." What's interesting is that some of the WF titles I'd read in the late eighties/early nineties while in school were steamier (and sometimes scarier) than some of the romance novels, horror books and suspense titles I'd be shamed for reading at home. In Women's Fiction, as a young woman, I'd find more main characters that looked like me where romance was still very much about the love and pleasure of...