The HEA Cafe

I’m in edits this month–just finished substantives and copy edits arrived at my door. So the part of my brain that dredges up pithy blog topics is on a bit of a hiatus. So I asked my readers on my fan group what I should blog about here and received (and am still receiving) quite a few interesting ideas.

One I’ve chosen for this 11th-of-the-month offering is author Lynne Connolly’s, where she noted:

“How about … Harlequin’s recent contention that in times of trouble sales of romance books go up, because people are looking for escape?”

I admitted I was totally unaware of the supposition–edits tend to keep me nose to the keyboard, lost in world of my own making. The best I can do at those times is scan Publisher’s Lunch when it plops in my emailbox. But it’s a good topic because it highlights not only the value of reading but the resilience of the romance genre. I think it also ties into author Margaret Carter’s recent blog at Alien Romances, where she offers:

The August-September issue of SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN MIND contains an article on the importance of storytelling. Benefits of stories for human beings include expanding the capacity for empathy and learning how to function in social groups. One psychologist suggests that stories “may act as ‘flight simulators’ for social life.”

So, are romance readers escaping into flight simulators? What a thought.

I am hopeful that this readjustment of the financial markets will make people see the value of a $6.99 book as opposed to a $250 DVD player. Both are escape mechanisms but in my humble opinion, the book is one that provides a much deeper, long lasting and you-don’t-need-batteries-with-it-experience (unless you’re Kindle-ing…).

But the advantage of the romance novel (or a novel written to the romance genre’s required HEA) is the overall positive tone generated by the book. That, to me, is what makes the genre special and what also makes it powerful.

You are what you think is perhaps an overused slogan from the 1970’s but there is a lot of truth in the adage. Focusing on the negative makes you negative, or more prone to be negative. I’m not just making this stuff up out of my little blonde over-edited head; there’ve been studies done that state so. So when you have a roomful of people thinking, Ohmigod, this is awful and then a cityful of people thinking, Omigod, this is awful and then a planetful of people thinking, Omigod, this is awful…things can get pretty awful.

Hold your fire. I’m not advocating blind Pollyanna-ism. (I originally typed BLOND instead of blind…how’s that for a Freudian?) I’m advocating a realistic appraisal of your ability to choose what you want to focus on and how you want to feel.  

It’s the old glass being half-empty or half-full analogy and where romance novels come into play is they can remind us that the glass can well be half-full, if not overflowing.

Romance novels are far more than just stories of two people falling in love. They’re also stories of faith, hope, perseverance, resilience and determination. They’re an analysis of the personal dynamics between people that often transcend logic.  They’re about strength and they’re about vulnerability. They are the human drama of the heart, and perhaps there is no better time to rediscover that than when the non-human elements of politics and finances seem to overwhelm daily life.

So maybe a resurgence of interest in romance novels isn’t so much an escape as a reminder that yes, this really is what life is all about.

“you shall above all things be glad and young.
For if you’re young,whatever life you wear

it will become you;andif you’re glad
whatever’s living will yourself become…

I’d rather learn from one bird how to sing
than teach ten thousand stars how not to dance.” ~e.e. cummings (1894-1962)

 

~Linnea

HOPE’S FOLLY, Book 3 in the Gabriel’s Ghost universe, coming Feb. 2009 from RITA award-winning author, Linnea Sinclair, and Bantam Books: www.linneasinclair.com 

It’s an impossible mission on a derelict ship called HOPE’S FOLLY. A man who feels he can’t love. A woman who believes she’s unlovable. And an enemy who will stop at nothing to crush them both.

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