Time to Embrace the....Romance?

I make a big show of how inadvertent the romance in my stories is....but I'm a terrible liar.

"Hi, my name is Frances and I write Romance stories."

Makes me think of that scene in the Colombian jungle... "I'm a Romance novelist..." except a young Michael Douglas isn't around to hack the foliage out of my way, or customize my expensive shoes.
If I had them. Which would be a bad idea in Seattle, where they KILL cute shoes on principle.

Still feeling snarky about the shoes.

Anyway... I write Romance. I do. I'm not pretending anymore. It may be Speculative Romance, but there it is. Romance. sigh.

It gets worse, but I'll get to that in a minute. First let me say that I don't ONLY write Romance...which is a half lie, because my non-romance, speculative, straight un-girly-ish, fiction often still has wisps of flirtation in it. I can't stop myself, really. It's shameful.
I also don't write Erotica...because of the blushing. You know me.

But I do write Romance. Shameless, sighing, trembling, happily ever after Romance. With Speculative tendencies. I mean, I like Space... a lot.

Phew. I feel better now. But it gets worse, remember?

I read it too. (gasping from the crowd) Not only do I enjoy reading romance (even the blushy stuff--don't tell) I think maybe, secretly, I always have. :-O

Let me explain. Once upon a time, there was a lot of romance hiding in the science fiction and fantasy section. There was. You see, they didn't have a category for it, and you'll remember from my Genre Wars rant, that shelving is all about the correct category.

In my day we only had four genres....and we were Happy to have them.

hehehe Okay, well we didn't have Paranormal Romance, or Futuristic Romance, or even Urban Fantasy. ( I know, I know...settle down) But we did really. I mean the romance part. We had it. We just shelved it amidst all the other Speculative stuff, and nobody was ever the wiser.

Until last week. Last week I went on Goodreads and tried to update my books. I felt ashamed at my paltry twenty something listed titles, and I began to methodically add almost every book I'd ever read--at least every one I'd read and loved. That's when I figured it out.

Most of these books were romances cleverly disguised as Speculative Fiction. I mean, I liked Andre Norton a great deal, but somehow managed to only read her "romantic" volumes. I liked Anne McCaffery, Tanith Lee, LeQuin and Lackey, and... hmmm. Not all the books were romances, agreed. But here's the kicker... all my favorites were.

oops.

My bad. So here it is folks. I'm coming out of the Romance addicts closet. Yes, I was alone in there...as far as you know.
Nobody who knows me should be surprised by this at all, right? I mean, the chocolate thing is a dead give-away.

Ah, la 'amour

still pissed about my shoes,
Frances