And no doubt, some general-market romance novels feature steamy scenes that fit this description. Romance novels celebrate love in a way no other genre does. Romance novels also celebrate life, exhibiting a deep-rooted optimism. Romance author Catherine Palmer admits that she once held to that prejudice. But after studying the genre more carefully, she changed her mind.
Romance novels deal with the gritty areas of life.
But they are also about hope and beauty, about love and the family. Maybe the formula is actually the attraction. A man loves a woman, the woman resists his love, and things fall apart at the beginning. But he pursues her relentlessly, and in the end he saves her by his love. This is not just the stuff of fairy tales.