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Archive for the ‘feminism and romance’ Category

Currently in Sydney

Posted in Creative passion, feminism and romance, Feminist Science Fiction, new release, SF romance, The Founders' Legacy, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on July 2, 2026| Leave a Comment »

It is going to be 23 degrees C today. It’s mid-Winter and that is batshit crazy. Mind you it’s about 10 degrees in Canberra atm but even that is a bit warm for Canberra at this time of year.

I have retired from my day job (Tuesday) and have come to spread my wings in the big city for a few days as a newly freed woman. Hah! (Mostly to meet people while I have the chance).

Interesting insight into the mind here. I used to think those two days I worked the day job were such an imposition. I worked hard and I was tired after. Now though my brain says…oh two days that’s nothing. You won’t get much work done now you have those two days! You could have kept working and earning $$$. I mean what the hell brain! Don’t be stupid and play around here.

Anyway, now I have to prove my own brain wrong.

I have brought Gentleman Magician with me to start the revision after beta reader feedback. That’s what you do after you launch a book, pick up the next one. The problem I have is that I have a soggy beginning in Gentleman Magician, not surprising as it’s a kind of prequel, a solid middle and a vague, cut off ending. Which means I have a bit of work to do. I did a bit of work on the train up yesterday but right now, obviously as I’m blogging, I’m a bit unfocussed.

I am going to eat lunch out so I am dreaming about Gozleme and whether there is any fresh stuff about…I can’t have any more tea because I have enough caffeine in me that I can’t sit still for five minutes. I will probably excavate my daughter’s cupboard for snacks soon and then complain about my weight. I am nothing if not consistent.

As mentioned, I launched the ebook of The Founders’ Legacy on Tuesday. I am currently planning a physical launch but that may be in early September because I am nicking off to Singapore for five weeks soon and appearing at the Canberra Geek Expo on 18 and 19 July. And I have to arrange for books to be delivered. I tried to book a launch just after Geek Expo before I fly out but the venue is unavailable…so…September. I shall keep you posted.

I am also working on an audio book. Cringe! I hate the sound of my own voice for starters. Also, weird things happen you know. Like one of the characters is called Kai and I have in two separate recordings of chapter one mispronounced the name Kai. And not noticed until I finished the recording for the chapter. The first time I call Kai Kal, which is a mix up with the main character Tal. I thought no problem I’ll just record that bit, snip the recording, delete the offending bit and insert the new bit. But for some very strange reason I am loud and sound very different in the redone recording. I delete the whole chapter and go back to the beginning. It’s all practice right?

The next time when I am editing I noticed I have called Kai “Kate”. Kate! There is no Kate. What the hell is my brain telling my mouth. This time I do a bit of research and can alter the inserted new bit which is loud etc and smooth it in. Not sure I’ll keep it but I did manage to do that using the Audacity envelope tool and manually manipulating the wave form.

Other interesting observations about recording an audio book, beside being exhausting, is stumbling over your own tongue. Yes, the tongue twisting words. There have been a few. One I edited out. The worn brown modular lounge… That does not work in spoken lingo so it changed to “Old brown modular lounge.” Self-congratulatory. Yeah that one. Gez man. Tongue gymnastics there. Preliminary…another twister.

When you record an audio book and you don’t have the stamina, experience and perspicacity, you get tired, your mouth stops working, your lips turn to jelly and your tongue becomes like a piece of disobedient rubber. Blah! Blah! Bleargh!

However, as The Founders’ Legacy uses single pronouns I think it will be more accessible as an audio book so I will perservere.

The only thing I have achieved is an audio book cover so I can’t back out now.

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The Founders’ Legacy- Is live!

Posted in A writer's life, feminism and romance, Feminist Science Fiction, Gender queer, Genderless, new release, Non-binary, SF romance, tagged , , , , , on June 30, 2026| Leave a Comment »

I am sorry I did not write this before when I had pre orders up. I had a sudden bereavement and everything went a bit pear-shaped.

My PhD novel is here.

I have blogged about this before so scroll back. However, I will say that I am currently working on the audio book, which I think it will make it more accessible. Reading a single non-gendered pronoun is hard enough (try writing it) but listening should be better. I shall let you know.

Also, a special introductory price of $2.99 au is in effect until 14 July, 2026 and $1.99 US

Here is the blurb

The Founders created them free and equal.

In the domed habitat of Frequil, sixteen-year-old Tal 455 is now an adult. Like every sihem—a genderless human engineered by the Founders—Tal has been raised to value harmony and the collective good, where every citizen has a place.

When Tal proposes an experiential history machine to explore Frequil’s origins, the ruling council reluctantly approves it under strict supervision. Paired with Gen 456, a certified genius, Tal begins uncovering fragments of the Founders’ world that were never meant to be seen.

Hidden among the archives are stories of men and women living in a society with different rules. Fascinated, Tal and Gen use their machine to experience a forbidden past—and begin questioning everything they have been taught about themselves.

They were created to be equal…not different.

File under YA/SF Gender queer

Links

Buy links

Google Play

Amazon.com.au

Barnes and Noble

Kobo

Apple https

My store buy direct 

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How can it possibly be June already?

Posted in A writer's life, am wrinting, Creative passion, Life, the universe and everthing, Romance fiction, tagged , on June 4, 2026| Leave a Comment »

I feel I’m in a time tunnel. Egads! It’s June already and I’m pondering what happened to May. Oh well.

Since my last post, I have sent The Founders’ Legacy off for a proofread. It’s due back later this month.

Gentleman Magician is waiting on some beta reader comments.

And I decided to publish my Regency Romance Tainted Lady, under my Dani Kristoff name as Dani’s books are more mainstream paranormal romance. I found a great cover. It features an older heroine and is a second chance romance. And being me there are feminist undertones.

I am currently restructuring Tainted Lady. I thought I had mostly restructured it but alas, I had not and I need to work through it carefully. It is only the beginning that I’ve chopped up, after feedback from a Romance Writers of Australia competition. Fab feedback btw. I also need to make a few tweaks to my hero. However, for some reason I keep getting stuck on chapter one. I mean you can rewrite a chapter one a gazillion times, you know.

In other news, I am vacating my craft room for my grandson. However, this is cathartic and important. I’ve built up a bit of a mess since I last moved back into my craft room so it is good to sort through things, find bits of patterns and work out what I want to keep handy and what can be safely stored. I have made it quite clear that everything needs to be accessible so I am labelling as well as sorting and tidying. This is a threefold problem as the garage needs to be sorted and that is long overdue. For where may I ask will the craft stuff go? I have a floor loom that needs to be moved and I may want to you know weave something. I am hoping for a garage that is tidy and accessible. I have been in there to look for a power tool and said I’m going to buy a new one as I can’t find the one we have. Yes, it is that bad. The major sorting was instigated by a collapsing ceiling in the garage and then roof repairs which has a ripple effect. The other element is rearranging the library, which is currently a dormitory, and working out where to put stuff. All very disruptive to one’s writing routine.

I am progressively going through my hard drive and will publish more things perhaps next year. It’s clean up time!

Next appearance is Newcastle Next Book Boyfriend Link here. Saturday 13 June, 2026 93.0 to 4.30

Geek Expo 18-19 July at Epic. Link here.

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Reading endeavours

Posted in A writer's life, Creative passion, Paranormal romance, reading, Regency romance, Romance fiction on March 25, 2026| Leave a Comment »

I have finished listening to Well of Ascension. I was a bit teary at the end. Old Brandon did a slight of hand at the last minute and caught me by surprise. It was a great series. Thank you Brandon Sanderson.

With my partner, Matthew, we are listening to Dead Lies Dreaming by Charlie Stross. We have motored through the Laundry Files and this book is a bit different. It’s not first person point of view and it switches point of view sometimes a bit quickly in the audio book. I miss Bob though.

I’m reading a couple of books as well, currently on Emma Grey’s Pictures of You. And I have a queue of other books some started and some not.

I’m trying to keep a record of what I am reading and listening to, as during the year I lose track and end up wondering if I have read anything at all. So I’m trying to do less doom scrolling and more reading fiction. I must admit that hasn’t been easy the last few weeks, what with traveling and world events.

All this uncertainty and chaos upsets me and I’m sure other people too.

The Gentleman Magician draft is over 21,000 words. It’s going to be a novella so I hope to finish it this week. But tomorrow, is a sewing day. I’m helping a friend make a Regency bib fronted gown. I want to make one for me as well.

Here is a picture from the weekend at the Australian Romance Readers Romantic Rendezvous. It is quite appropriate. I’m trying not to laugh.

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Fiction and Friction Event Adelaide

Posted in A writer's life, author appearances, Author signing event, Romance, Romance fiction, Romance reader convention, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on October 17, 2024| Leave a Comment »

After a quick stay at home for one night on our return from Rarotonga and Auckland, we headed off to Adelaide by road. We were going to take the EV but given we only had two days to get there and the time added to charge and the amount of boxes, I rented a bigger car. I was hoping for a hybrid but lucked out. However, we did end up with a Subaru Outback Stationwagon which was fairly new. It was great except it was a bit gutless when overtaking on single lane highways where you have to get passed before another car comes your way.

I love the landscape as we travelled-The mallee scrub, the flat Hay plains, the silo art, the sunsets. We overnighted at Mildura on the way down. That town is huge, so flat and so spread out. There were cafes to choose from but not being local we chose by name and went to Nash Lane. That was a real happening place.

Emu in the wheat. There were lots of emus.

The Fiction and Friction event was something. It was my first dedicated independent book convention. We stopped in Murray Bridge on the way down and checked out the Fiction and Friction bookstore before heading into Adelaide. Nice!

We saw this on the way down, near Loxton I think.
Fiction and Friction shop front.
Flat plains near Hay I think

There were over 80 authors I believe and over 400 attendees, some of whom were VIPs so had early access and an afterdark function. I have never seen so many dedicated readers with trolleys. At other romance events I’ve been two there are maybe four people with trolleys. There were loads. Some people even did trips back to their cars and came in for more. I met a lot of readers, mostly due to the souvenir booklet where attendees were encouraged to get autographs. I sold books too. Not a sell out by any means, but I’m always grateful when readers buy books when they don’t know my work. I learned heaps too from the event about the scene that I didn’t know. I’ve not been to a RARE or BABE event. I’ve been wait listed for years…But I’m not well known enough and maybe not writing the right thing…However, it was a great opportunity to get my name out there and maybe acquire new readers.

Hay silo art
The river in Hay (Murrumbidgee)

What was popular is dark romance, and I’m guessing that include taboo, also explicit stories as well as Male Male romances (which have a big female readership). One reader told me she liked them because in her opinion male/female gets annoying because the female lead is meant to be strong but comes across as an idiot. A point to take note of.

The other things that are popular are special editions. Some people do all their reading with ebooks but then like to get the first book or the series as a special edition. Who knew? Well now I know right. And merchandise either as a freebie when you preorder or to buy if not. I had a preorder form up but didn’t have many preorders. An author friend said that her preorders covered the cost of her table before she sold anything there. I saw some authors with half a normal sized room with preorders laid out. The author guy next to me wrote mafia books and he had an all black special edition. People were just drawn to it. Black cover, black pages with white text and he had included some explicit images. I think special editions as objects in themselves are fascinating.

The venue was nicely decorated with a starry drape. It looked impressive but made where I was a bit dark. People couldn’t read my blurbs.

The vibe was absolutely amazing, positive, uplifting, exciting and joyful. Meeting up with other authors (known and not previously know) was such a buzz and sharing tips and bubbly was a nice ending. The after dark event was okay but many authors packed up which upset some of the VIPs who had paid to be able to chat with authors. I was a bit confused myself about what we were meant to do. There were panels and so on but mixing cold was a bit hard. I think if you do a mingle you should do speed dating or number draws to meet people and break the ice. Going up to a group of people already talking is a bit hard. However, I did get sales during the evening.

The starry ceiling as people were setting up
I forgot to switch my watch to local time so turned up half hour early for a mingle. I was directed by staff to enjoy the river.
My table set up. The theme was gardens so I went for it.
Keri Arthur was my neighbour on one side. Love the branding on the banner.

Overall a very worthwhile experience. My big takeaway is that I need to do more with my pen name Dani Kristoff and also do some branding like Keri’s as I think it was confusing to only have my Donna Maree Hanson banner but I sold mostly Dani Kristoff books there.

It was also very valuable to get an insight in this indy convention thing. There are a lot of dedicated readers out there not reading traditionally published books.

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Back from the long holiday

Posted in A writer's life, Burn out, Creative passion, feminism and romance, phd, Trying to focus, tagged , , , , on November 19, 2023| Leave a Comment »

We’ve been to Bali, Singapore and drove through Victoria and spent a number of weeks in Tasmania. We tested positive for Covid on arriving in Hobart. Luckily we were still able to do our Terror Australis Writers Retreat because they let us, and we had a sefl-contained unit and our meals could be delivered. I got out of isolation in time to have my fan girl moment with Ann Cleeves.

This is not a detailed travelogue. Something even more exciting to me!

You see for nearly a year now I have not wanted to be in my office. Instead of finding it hard to get me out of there and off my computer, I just didn’t want to go in there. I thought perhaps I had burn out from the PhD. I’ve dabbled and so on. I got a few things done but the joy wasn’t there…just little glimpses of hope when I achieved something.

On Thursday, I decided I was going to work on an academic article based on my research. This has been on my to do list for about 2 years…and it kept getting pushed down the list so far down it wasn’t even on my radar. Along with my PhD novel I might add. I started doing some preliminary work. Reading some articles, checking out the formatting requirements for the journal I want to submit to etc. Today, Sunday, I started on it. I haven’t put a lot into it yet. What I felt, though ,is what amazed me. I felt joy. Absolute joy. And well that surprised me.

This is why only now looking back to I see that it was most likely burn out, now that it has lifted. I think the holiday helped because you know 6 weeks of being away from home, a free routine mostly. We got Bali Belly, I had a cough sore throat (non-covid) before I left and then go Covid for reals and now I’m coming good. I feel really good physically and mentally. I’m so grateful for that.

I’ve got a short window to focus on the article and the novel to be honest as we head overseas to the UK in December for 2.5 months and there’s a lot to do before we go and not as much time as you’d think to write while away.

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Romance survey and PhD update

Posted in feminism and romance, Romance, Romance reader survey PHD, Romance scholarship, Romance Writer Survey PHD, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on April 27, 2017| Leave a Comment »

I am back on campus after sick leave. I was AWOL for over a month but all good now. This has put back my PhD project timetable unfortunately.

I thought I’d provide an update on the romance survey. It is still running but I will close it off at the end of May as that is when I am scheduled to deliver my confirmation seminar and be confirmed in my PhD. It’s a formality I have to go through. Then I’ll be starting the interviews. So if you are interested in completing the survey you still have time as a reader or a writer. Links below.

Looking at Survey Monkey today I have received 682 responses from romance readers. That is absolutely fantastic. It’s an international survey and I’ve received responses from Europe, USA, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, UK etc. Brilliant. I’m so thrilled.

The number of skips. Skip are where respondents abandon a survey or skip questions or miss questions. I haven’t done the analysis yet on which questions were skipped so I’m only giving total numbers here. The skips for readers vary from 14 to over two hundred and some questions it’s about 184 skips. From a quick scan a lot of the responses that required the reader to type a response had the highest number of skips. Overall I don’t have a problem with the skipping. Romance readers have been very generous with their answers and there’s very little abandoning the survey before finishing it.

However, if you are a respondent on the reader survey and would like to send me your thoughts on the survey and any issues you had then they would be most welcome. Overall, it’s an amazing response. Either reply or send me an email through the contact page or use Twitter or Facebook.

Survey responses from writers so far are 377, which is also amazing and I’m very grateful for these. Also international and that’s been mind blowing really. Writers though appear to have difficulty with the survey with a very high number of skips and people leaving the survey.

From what I can see about 136 people just stopped the survey just after the start and I don’t know why. The rate of skips is fairly consistent so the real response rate is closer to 241.

Early reports from respondents indicated that they had tried to use the survey on the phone and had technical issues. Some of those skipping have come back in and completed the survey but as I’m no tech guru I don’t know.

If there was a reason you as a romance writer dropped out of the survey please let me know if you can. It will help me to understand what issues there were and if I can answer your questions then you still have time to participate if you want. The survey can be completed anonymously. I only ask for contact details if you want to be included in follow up interviews. I will not be interviewing that many people so I can’t say who will be interviewed as yet.

The first part of the survey contains the compulsory questions I must include as this is an authorised survey through the University of Canberra, complete with ethics approval. You need to agree to me using the data you provide or you will be exited from the survey at the beginning. All data will be kept in accordance with the University of Canberra’s data retention and privacy requirements. I will not be using any email addresses or contact details other than contacting those volunteering to be interviewed. The only info I see is the IP address, which I’m no guru so I wouldn’t know how to identify you. No unselling or stuff like that. This is entirely aboveboard. There is even a complaints process outlined in the information materials.

So help out if you can.

Let’s see if we can get the overall response over 1000! Come on. We can do it!

Romance READER survey  link to Survey Monkey. Here.

Romance WRITER survey link to Survey Monkey. Here.

 

Couple Love Beach Romance Togetherness Concept

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Testing clickable images

Posted in feminism and romance, Romance reader survey PHD, Uncategorized, tagged , , on March 9, 2017| 1 Comment »

I was trying to come up with a nifty way to encourage romance readers to respond to my survey for my Phd. So I’m putting this here so I can test it. Smile!

survey ad readers

 

So here is the one for writers.

writers of romance fiction

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More on those passive heroines with a focus on Georgette Heyer

Posted in feminism and romance, phd, Regency romance, Romance, Romance scholarship, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on November 15, 2016| 4 Comments »

Since my previous post I’ve mulling over the so-called ‘passive’ heroine in romance novels. The stories I mentioned that didn’t have passive heroines in the previous post are fairly recent, say from the 1990 onwards. Also, the heroine I believe must be considered in context. The heroine in the Barbara Cartland novel discussed was an historical heroine. Would that account for her apparently passivity? Maybe. Then I thought of Georgette Heyer’s work and thought not so.

I have a weakness for Georgette Heyer’s Georgian/Regency romances.(Heyer died in 1974 so her works are much earlier than 1990s)  They don’t have sex scenes all, but they evoke a period in time reminiscent of the great and wonderful Jane Austen. A fantasy world, I suppose, with particular tropes. (I am equally weak at the knees for Scottish historials with Lairds in them. Totally non-realistic. Yes, I know it’s all fantasy, right?).

So four books that I have been listening to on Audible a lot lately are, Venetia (abridged), Sylvester (abridged), The Quiet Gentleman and the Grand Sophy. I have lots of Heyer’s books in print, but these just happen to be on my Audible account and I replay them a lot. Venetia and Sylvester are read by Richard Armitage. Enough said. He does a brilliant job. Those two books got me breaking my Audible rule. I set out not wanting to buy books on Audible that I own in print. I confess I spanked myself thoroughly when I broke the rule, but you know…Richard Armitage!!%$$$###???

Then I decided I didn’t like the abridged books, so I bought The Quiet Gentleman (almost romantic suspense) and The Grand Sophy because they were heaps longer and I could go away into another world while driving long distances.

I thought about the heroines and about whether they were passive or not. There is definitely a spectrum here. Sophia Stanton-Lacey is the strongest, least passive and positively feminist heroine, in some regards. She is the centre of a whirlwind. The first time I read this book I quite missed that it was a romance, or meant to be. I had to read it again. I missed something. It’s quite a wonderful satire. Now more recently listening to it many times. I can’t  count them. I’m weak. What can I say? Sophy stands up for herself. She locks horns. Charles her cousin gets quite riled with her. He is probably the most aggressive out of the heroes in these four novels. Mind you he has to be or he’d be pulp on the bottom of Sophy’s shoes. I could go into the plot a bit more but why spoil it for you. Just read the damn thing or listen to it.

Venetia on the other hand has lived a very retiring life. She pretends to be passive but she’s got steel in her, resisting the boring neighbour who wants to marry her. She falls in love with a rake. Who might be a libertine but is not overly aggressive. They form a lovely friendship until they are separated by interfering relatives. But when she finds out about her past, which has been kept for her, she just goes for the goal. She makes the rake propose to her, against his will. I wouldn’t call that passive.

Sylvester features Phoebe, who runs away when she thinks she’s going to be forced to marry Sylvester, a duke, who snubbed her. I wouldn’t say she was feisty exactly but she’s very unusual and when they are thrown together her magic explodes. She laughs at the duke, tells him what she thinks (a bit like Margaret in North and South) and she’s quite clever. They have an accord. Sylvester is not aggressive at all. He’s a gentle man, but very capable of fixing mishaps. Phoebe also has courage and gets into scrapes trying to do the right thing, to right the wrongs she has done.

In The Quiet Gentleman there is no aggressive hero. He’s so laid back, he’s almost effeminate. In fact, he doesn’t think much of Drusilla at all. She’s quite plain, short and plump. She isn’t trying to win him either. There’s is a slow and gentle coming together.Drusilla is practical and also quite determined to prevent, St Erth being murdered. It is really quite interesting really. I have listened (as well as read) this story and I don’t know when the transition occurs. It’s just a slow warming of him to her. Apparently he’s so gorgeous he was out of her league in the romance stakes and yet…without trying in any way to fix him, he falls for her. While Drusilla seems a bit laid back, she rears up at the end and tells them all what’s what. I don’t consider Drusilla passive, but realistic. This story is also an excellent satire and Heyer is great with her character descriptions. What a gifted writer.

So I don’t think historical heroines in romance novels are passive either. Of course, there are some. But don’t say they are all PASSIVE. You’re wrong!

If you are a romance reader or writer, please consider taking my survey. It’s for my PhD on Feminism in popular romance fiction. Just click here for more details.

 

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The not so passive popular romance fiction

Posted in Paranormal romance, phd, Romance fiction, Romance reader survey PHD, Romance scholarship, Romance Writer Survey PHD, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on November 11, 2016| 3 Comments »

I’m back on the PhD with a vengeance lately. This means I’m reading some academic papers that get me angry with their generalisations.

‘the ideal heroine in a romance is passive…’ Mary Ellen Ryder

‘Romance’s generic requirement that the hero should be volatile in his affections and sexually intimidating…’ Doreen Thierauf

These are throw away lines in articles that have some good in then but the stuff mentioned above makes me scribble ‘bullshit!’ in the white space.

Ryder in particular made me growl this week.I get strange looks from other PhD candidates. Ryder read some Barbara Cartland. Each to its own I suppose, but her greatest flaw was saying that because Cartland published 24 books when she was 93 she obviously wrote to formula…’which means that examining just one of her books should reveal a great deal about the whole romance genre.’ For godssake, the whole fucking genre, really? I wouldn’t say one book from any author would allow me to talk about all their works, let alone the whole genre.

Her actual analysis of the text was really quite interesting but why put that tripe at the beginning of her paper?  And it was a gothic bloody romance to boot.

I pull my hair out and shout why, why, why?

Luckily there were some good articles, like from Mairead Owen and possibly Laura Struve (I’m still pondering it). I guess I’m learning to be critical. Step one for me.

Also, I find that when academics talk about Twilight and Fifty Shades of Grey they lose their shit when it comes to romance. They may be blockbusters but that doesn’t mean they are the typical romance novel.

Actually, I don’t think there is a typical romance novel. There are key features of a popular romance novel but I won’t go into that. Others like Pamela Regis have already done that.

My current fiction reading though has run counter to what these people are saying about passive heroines and violent and volatile heroes. I’m reading some vintage, retro if you like, Amanda Carpenter. I’ve mentioned her before in past posts. The Great Escape (1984) and The Passage of the Night (1990). (Amanda Carpenter writes as Thea Harrison these days.). These book are examples of her early works. She’s a damn fine writer and I think has a great mind to boot. I can certainly tell she had the chops for paranormal writing in those early days. (I’ve read four of her books so far. They have been very different from each other!)

(possible spoiler)

The Great Escape features a 17 year old protagonist. She’s an heiress, unhappy but quite clever. She escapes from her guardians and is pursued by a PI, whom she outsmarts. In this book, she drugs the PI, she punches him, she seduces him and then after they fall in love, she gives away all her money without consulting him once about it. She hates the money. It defines her too much. If this book had been published later, I suspect it would have been a romantic suspense because someone is trying to kill the heroine.

So in this 1984 story, the heroine is not passive and has agency.

The Passage of the Night is also very interesting. The heroine kidnaps the tycoon hero at gunpoint, she drugs him and then takes him to a mountain top in Vermont. The reason she has kidnapped him is to save her sister, but the hero isn’t anything like her sister said he was. He’s angry at being kidnapped, of course, but he is never aggressive or violent. He chops wood continuously to ‘sublimate’. He’s not going to have her charged. He voluntarily stays with her and then she flies him back because she can’t justify her actions anymore. She’s a helicopter pilot and plane pilot and her family has a bit of money. She’s also loyal and brave.  He’s on seven figures. She sees his life and doesn’t like the long hours etc. She doesn’t demand he change his lifestyle but she’s walking out until he sorts his priorities. In the end, he gives up his job.  I think that about reverses the tropes.

I’m not done with the Carpenter read through yet. It’s fascinating.

Other fiction reading, Full Moon Rising, Keri Arthur. I’m sorry. Riley Jensen kicks butt. It’s urban fantasy on the’ boil the coffee over’ end of the spectrum but mmm…not much passivity there.

I’ve started rereading JD Robb’s …In Death series. I’m on book five so far (it’s been a week?) and there’s no sign of passivity there.

The In Death series is harder to peg. It’s futuristic urban fantasy with romantic elements or romantic suspense or just SF crime with romance. The heroine and the hero are the same couple all the way through (very well done by the way) and for me the series discusses child sex abuse all the way through, even peels it back to a very stark and dark root that makes me blanch. But I applaud JD Robb for doing it (JD Robb is Nora Roberts btw) and I think she’s brilliant.

In my reading of retro Mills & Boon, there are occasionally passive heroines and other times not. I’ve not read everything. No one will be able to. I’m not as well read in romance as people I know, but I know enough not to generalize about it.

But I’m happy to get angry at people who do and blog about it…maybe…

 

BTW I still have my survey going for my PHD study. If you write or read popular romance fiction, please check out my survey. I’d really appreciate the contribution. See blog post here.

Articles cited

Owen, M, Re-Inventing Romance: Reading Popular Romance Fiction, Women’s Studies International Forum, Vol. 20. No. 4, pp.537-546, 1997

Ryder, M. E, Smoke and mirrors: Event patterns in the discourse structure of a romance novel, Journal of Pragmatics, 31 (1991) pp. 1067-1080

Struve, L, Sisters of Sorts: Reading Romantic Fiction and the Bonds Among Female Readers, The Journal of Popular Culture, Vol. 44, No. 6, 2011.

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