Shhhh! If you promise not to tell, I’ll let you in on a little literary secret. You promise?
Okay……
I love romance novels. They are my literary guilty pleasure. Now, I’m not talking about books by Nora Roberts or Debbie Macomber (though I do have quite a few of those on my shelves as well). No, I’m talking about the Harlequin books, the ones you get for $5 at the grocery store or Target.
There are the number of different imprints under the Harlequin name, but I’m partial to Silhouette Desire and Silhouette Special Edition books. They have ridiculously outrageous titles like Ruthless Billionaire, Forbidden Baby and Marrying the Virgin Nanny. The men are almost always impossibly handsome, independently wealthy, arrogant, demanding, and stubborn. The women are beautiful and lonely, just waiting for some nice man to come along and save them from a life of dreariness. The men want sex; the women want love. And in just a few short chapters, usually after a few minor mishaps and misunderstandings along the way, they all live happily ever after.
These are not “literary” books by any means. The publishers churn out multiple titles a month and while many authors return again and again (often times writing a series of books with cross-over characters), none of the names are well-known outside of the romance novel world. I’ve even found grammatical typos in a few books, which probably points to harried editors. These books are fluff, pure and simple. But they are absolutely irresistible fluff.
Sometimes, I don’t want to focus on plotlines or character development. Sometimes, I just want to read. I don’t want anything complicated or strenuous. I just want to get lost in someone else’s life – however unrealistic – for awhile. That’s when I read the Harlequin books. I read a lot and these romance novels are not the staple of my reading diet, by any means. But just like any other diet, sometimes you need a sweet treat.
What about you, bookworms? What’s your literary guilty pleasure?
[Photo Credit: eHarlequin.com]
