Romance novel
A work of fiction centered on a romantic relationship, typically ending with the couple forming a lasting union or achieving a hopeful future.
Happily Ever After: A narrative ending in which central characters attain enduring happiness, often through marriage or lasting partnership. A lasting union or hopeful future is the genre’s defining promise.
Literary Fiction: Fiction that foregrounds aesthetic form, psychological depth, or social inquiry, often without fixed genre conventions. Romance prioritizes the relationship’s hopeful resolution more consistently than literary fiction does.
Ancient Greek Romance: A prose-fiction tradition featuring separated lovers, travel, danger, and eventual reunion. Its separation-and-reunion plots anticipate enduring romance-novel patterns.
Historical Romance: Romance fiction set in a historical period earlier than the author’s present. Historical settings turn social customs and constraints into obstacles to intimacy.
Romance Writers of America: A professional organization founded in 1980 to support romance authors and the genre’s publishing community. Its work helped define romance as a professional category and organize its writers.
Romantic Love: A form of intimate attachment marked by affection, desire, and the wish for a committed relationship. The relationship at the center of the novel is usually romantic love.
Tragedy: A dramatic form in which grave conflict leads to suffering, downfall, or death. Tragedy reverses romance’s customary movement toward a hopeful couple-centered ending.
Medieval Romance: A medieval narrative tradition centered on quests, courtly love, and extraordinary deeds. It shaped later ideals of love tested by adventure and social barriers.
Contemporary Romance: Romance fiction set in the period in which it is written, using contemporary social life and conventions. It stages courtship amid present-day work, technology, and relationships.
Bodice Ripper: A label for sensational historical romances, especially those depicting coercive or aggressive sexual encounters. The term marks contentious portrayals of consent in parts of the genre’s publishing history.