[Crystal]

Okay, for those who want to get started in/have an interest in romance studies, it seems like there should be a must-read list for a romance scholar. I'm going to do one post for the fiction works, and one for the academic works that discuss the fiction.

For fiction, here's what I have...please feel free to reply on this thread and I'll add to the list in this post. Or we can debate/dispute/discuss the importance of a book before it gets added to the list. We are academics, right? We live to discuss!

Here's a few to start us off (in no particular order--should we do chronological, by subgenre, or alphabetical by author name?):

Jane Austen: um...everything?
E.M. Hull: The Sheik
Georgette Heyer: The Devil's Club, The Grand Sophy
Kathleen Woodiwiss: The Flame and the Flower
Nora Roberts/JD Robb: Midnight Bayou, In Death series
Laura Kinsale: Flowers from the Storm
Jennifer Crusie: Bet Me, Anyone But You
Suzanne Brockmann: Troubleshooters series

[Angela Toscano]

I would also add:

Jane Eyre
The works of Barbara Cartland
The Mistress of Mellyn by Victoria Holt
Anne Radcliffe's The Mysteries of Udolpho
Pamelaby Samuel Richardson

[Tessa]

@Crystal

A question about the Nora Roberts pick - why would you say that Midnight Bayou is her seminal work? This particular selection took me by surprise, as it is not what I think of as typical of her work, if there can be such a thing with her range. What were your reasons for picking this title? I am super curious.

[Jennifer Crowley]

Tessa, on 11 July 2009 - 03:30 PM, said:

@Crystal

A question about the Nora Roberts pick - why would you say that Midnight Bayou is her seminal work? This particular selection took me by surprise, as it is not what I think of as typical of her work, if there can be such a thing with her range. What were your reasons for picking this title? I am super curious.

I would choose it because she plays with gender and what makes a hero. Declan in his previous life was a woman, and I think she really starts to poke at both gender, what it takes to be a hero (as opposed to an alpha male, which I would say Declan is not) in a romance novel.

Personally, I think you could make an entire course based entirely upon Robert's books. Oh, I'd love a 300 level course like that!

[Crystal]

Tessa, on 11 July 2009 - 12:30 PM, said:

@Crystal

A question about the Nora Roberts pick - why would you say that Midnight Bayou is her seminal work? This particular selection took me by surprise, as it is not what I think of as typical of her work, if there can be such a thing with her range. What were your reasons for picking this title? I am super curious.

Jennifer Crowley, on 11 July 2009 - 12:36 PM, said:

I would choose it because she plays with gender and what makes a hero. Declan in his previous life was a woman, and I think she really starts to poke at both gender, what it takes to be a hero (as opposed to an alpha male, which I would say Declan is not) in a romance novel.

Personally, I think you could make an entire course based entirely upon Robert's books. Oh, I'd love a 300 level course like that!

Exactly what Jennifer said. Also, I was simply adding a single book I thought was important to a list I knew was sure to grow. In no way do I think this is Roberts' seminal work because I'm the first to admit I've only read a handful of her books. If anyone has any suggestions for her books (or anyone else's) that they think are important to understanding the foundation/growth of the genre, please post!

I don't even have much for paranormal or erotic genres...anyone want to take a stab at who the founders for those subgenres are?

Also, a friend said the Temporary Wife by Mary Balogh for Regency. Anyone agree?

[Eric Selinger]

In terms of Roberts, I'm facing this decision even as we speak! Fall book orders are long overdue, and I've wanted to add one of NR's novels ever since I started teaching the course. The problem is, I don't know the body of work, and so many get recommended! Glad to have not only the name, but the reasons for it, for this one. Other suggestions, and reasons?

[Bronwyn Parry]

From a non-US point of view, I'd suggest a sample from the early 1970s Mills and Boons 'sexy' books, where the bedroom door not only stayed open, but was often forcibly thrown open by the hero :-) At the same time that Woodiwiss and others had the alpha hero/forced seduction etc in historical romance, UK writers were writing him in a contemporary context - I think there's a lot of potential there for a fascinating comparison. Anne Mather's The Leopard in the Snow comes to mind, but it's been a decade or three since I read that, so I'm hazy on the plot details. Violet Winspear is another UK author who wrote more sexually explicit category romances in the 1970s, set in contemporary settings.

[Laura Vivanco]

Bronwyn Parry, on 12 July 2009 - 07:10 AM, said:

From a non-US point of view, I'd suggest a sample from the early 1970s Mills and Boons 'sexy' books, where the bedroom door not only stayed open, but was often forcibly thrown open by the hero :-)

Charlotte Lamb's another very important M&B author who was writing in that period. The short biography of her at Harlequin describes her like this:

Quote

Charlotte was a true revolutionary in the field of romance writing. One of the first writers to explore the boundaries of sexual desire, her novels often reflected the forefront of the "sexual revolution" of the 1970s. Her books touched on then-taboo subjects such as child abuse and rape, and she created sexually confident—even dominant—heroines. She was also one of the first to create a modern romantic heroine: independent, imperfect, and perfectly capable of initiating a sexual or romantic relationship.

A prolific author, Charlotte penned more than 160 novels, most of them for Mills & Boon.

[An Goris]

Eric Selinger, on 11 July 2009 - 11:20 PM, said:

In terms of Roberts, I'm facing this decision even as we speak! Fall book orders are long overdue, and I've wanted to add one of NR's novels ever since I started teaching the course. The problem is, I don't know the body of work, and so many get recommended! Glad to have not only the name, but the reasons for it, for this one. Other suggestions, and reasons?

Eric and I have been discussing this over e-mail.
As someone who has read nearly all of Roberts' novels, I would first remark it's basically impossible to pick a single work that is representative of her oeuvre or her contributions to the romance genre. Still, when faced with the challenge of teaching only one or two of her books in a survey course, some of the titles I would recommend are:
- Montana Sky: it touches upon many of the themes/tropes important in Roberts' work (female bonding, sense of community, generic hybridity, family, suspense, murder and mayhem, different types of heroes and heroines, etc.). Moreover, it was her 100th novel and originally released with a huge publicity campaign, signalling her increasing importance as an individual author within the romance genre as well as within (American) popular literature/culture at large - and, it has been made into a film (not a very good one, if you ask me, but still), so that could be interesting in terms of comparison across media.
- the Born In trilogy for a sense of her different heroines and the Chesapeake quartet for the heroes. These books are also representative of the whole connected-books thing, which I'm thinking Roberts was one of the early authors to experiment with.
- the MacKade and Stanislaki series as representative of early 90s, contemporary category romance.
- Dance of Dreams, Irish Thoroughbred and Hot Ice for (early) Roberts in the 80s
- other interesting single titles: Public Secrets, The Reef, Three Fates, The Villa, etc.

Even as I'm trying to compile this list, I'm struck with how impossible it is to characterize Roberts on the basis of a limited number of books... the challenge I face in my work everyday. Hope I can come up with a better answer a few years down the line

[Eric Selinger]

So An (and this is relevant more broadly, hence the public message), if you were going to work with me on prepping one of these for the classroom--say, 3 hours of class time, across a couple of days--would it be Montana Sky? Not thinking of fairness to Roberts or whether the book is representative, but simply of your own interest & enjoyment. I have two other romance classes in subsequent quarters, so if one book doesn't go well, we can try another later, so there's no real pressure involved. I'm just thinking that adding you into the equation might help solve it, at least temporarily.

--E

[Eric Selinger]

On another matter (re: seminal works), the fact that HQN has brought out a line of "famous firsts" does put some of those 1980s texts back into circulation for teaching. I'll need to go read them before I can say which ones lend themselves to what. Hmmm... Maybe we need to start a Teaching forum or discussion, too. Will do.

[Crystal]

Eric Selinger, on 12 July 2009 - 06:27 AM, said:

On another matter (re: seminal works), the fact that HQN has brought out a line of "famous firsts" does put some of those 1980s texts back into circulation for teaching. I'll need to go read them before I can say which ones lend themselves to what. Hmmm... Maybe we need to start a Teaching forum or discussion, too. Will do.

Ask and ye shall receive. I created a Teaching forum here in the Discussion subsection. Have fun!

[An Goris]

Eric Selinger, on 12 July 2009 - 03:19 PM, said:

So An (and this is relevant more broadly, hence the public message), if you were going to work with me on prepping one of these for the classroom--say, 3 hours of class time, across a couple of days--would it be Montana Sky? Not thinking of fairness to Roberts or whether the book is representative, but simply of your own interest & enjoyment. I have two other romance classes in subsequent quarters, so if one book doesn't go well, we can try another later, so there's no real pressure involved. I'm just thinking that adding you into the equation might help solve it, at least temporarily.

--E

Yes, Eric, I think Montana Sky would definately be a fun book to teach.

[Laura Vivanco]

Crystal, on 12 July 2009 - 03:54 PM, said:

Ask and ye shall receive. I created a Teaching forum here in the Discussion subsection. Have fun!

I'm not in a position to be doing any teaching myself, but it occurs to me that perhaps it would be better to give the Teaching forum a little bit more privacy by moving it out of the Discussion subsection and into the IASPR Members section. I assume no-one would want to post insulting things about their students' interests and abilities, but nonetheless I suspect that being able to read discussions about how their curriculum was chosen might affect students' attitude towards those texts in unintended ways. If students were interested enough in the genre or curious enough to want to read the discussions about teaching, then they can pay to join IASPR.

The other reason why I thought that perhaps the Teaching forum should go in the IASPR Members' Section is that it seems to me it would complement the forum there dedicated to "Professionalization."

[Tessa]

@ Jennifer & Crystal

Thanks for clarifying!

Jennifer Crowley, on 11 July 2009 - 02:36 PM, said:

I would choose it because she plays with gender and what makes a hero. Declan in his previous life was a woman, and I think she really starts to poke at both gender, what it takes to be a hero (as opposed to an alpha male, which I would say Declan is not) in a romance novel.Personally, I think you could make an entire course based entirely upon Robert's books. Oh, I'd love a 300 level course like that!

This is not necessarily something I had thought about in regards to Midnight Bayou But it is a good point. I personally enjoy how she plays with gender roles in other works esp. her In Death series, which is why I didn't immediately make that connection with Midnight Bayou. I think that I agree with the general consensus that choosing one Nora book as representative is so hard, maybe impossible, because the scope of her work is so huge.

I do love the idea of an entire course on her works, but even then I think it would be hard to choose.

[Laura Vivanco]

Tessa, on 13 July 2009 - 03:37 PM, said:

This is not necessarily something I had thought about in regards to Midnight Bayou But it is a good point. I personally enjoy how she plays with gender roles in other works esp. her In Death series, which is why I didn't immediately make that connection with Midnight Bayou.

Since it seems relevant to the discussion, I thought I'd mention that a while ago Sarah Frantz wrote a short post on Midnight Bayou for Teach Me Tonight. She looked at gender and responded to Eric Selinger's question about "whether paranormal romance lends itself to allegorical reading, or at least metafictional reading."

[Eric Selinger]

Off to the library, then--in search of Midnight Bayou and Montana Sky, among other things. Thanks!

E

[BevBB]

I can't believe no one mentioned Lord of Scoundrels by Loretta Chase. I can't believe I'm mentioning it. I'm just so shocked none of you did. Have you all been taken over by aliens or something?

Oh, and while I'm at it, as a reader, to me nothing says core romance more than Krentz. Any AKA. Greatest or best? No. But solid satisfation and consistency. Oh, yes. Just don't ask me to pick one. 'Casuse it would be the same problem as with Roberts.

[Jacqueline Wilson]

BevBB, on 16 July 2009 - 01:50 PM, said:

I can't believe no one mentioned Lord of Scoundrels by Loretta Chase. I can't believe I'm mentioning it. I'm just so shocked none of you did. Have you all been taken over by aliens or something?

Oh, and while I'm at it, as a reader, to me nothing says core romance more than Krentz. Any AKA. Greatest or best? No. But solid satisfation and consistency. Oh, yes. Just don't ask me to pick one. 'Casuse it would be the same problem as with Roberts.

This is so true. but when I first started reading romance, the first author to be put on my keeper's shelf was Iris Johansen. I still buy all her books 'tho she has basically moved to "suspense".