Over at Presenting Lenore, Lenore has requested romance novel recommendations. She wants to try out the genre, since it’s not in her comfort zone. Seems like an opportune time to make the same request, albeit with some different caveats. So, please recommend some romance novels for me.
Here’s the caveats:
- It’s gotta be something a guy would like. I know that’s kinda nebulous. I have no real idea what I mean by that even, other than this: Romance is read and written mostly by women and there’s reasons for that. I don’t know enough about the romance genre to know what reasons those are. But I am most assuredly not immune from whatever cultural bias keeps men from liking most romance novels, as I have been proven to have most other biases common to men. So make your best judgment, those of you who have read romance and liked it. (Particularly any guys who have read romance and stumble across this entry.)
- One of the things that’s kept me from reading romance is a presumption on my part that the female characters in such novels don’t have much agency, nor do they make particularly good decisions (e.g., picking loser men). I could be totally wrong about that. But rest assured, if the female characters fall into one or both of those categories, I won’t like the book.
- I rarely like Victorian era settings, or really any upper-crust novel of manners. Regency romance is probably going to just irritate me.
At some point in the future, I’m not sure when, I will pick something generally called a romance and read it. Once I’ve picked one to read, I’ll close comments on this entry. So recommend away!
Photo Dorchester cover shoot with Mr. Romance by Flickr user rtbookreviews is used under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives 2.0 license.
I’d like to try one too, so I think I’ll be stealing ideas from yours and Lenore’s comments. I’m completely with you on specification #2.
Oooh! I am interested to see what books people consider to be “man-friendly”. I love that you are doing this too!
This is sooo tough. I’m not much of a romance reader. Of all the one’s…okay the few, I’ve read this year, Crossed Wires by Rosy Thornton was the best.
Man-friendly? I think so. The woman in the story has her difficulties, but is very independent about handling them on her own. Both the male and female character are single parents, which I liked as I was one until my son was 12.
In fact, the relationshipis developed through phone conversations. They don’t physcially meet until near the end of the book, which I liked because many times romance comes from well developed friendships.
Will be thinking more about this , so I’m probably going to be watching to see what the other suggestions are rather than do much suggesting myself.
Good luck!