It’s INSANE to me how controversial romance novels are. Romance novels. Like, being openly a fan of them immediately opens you up to people constantly coming at you like “but don’t you think it’s ~limiting- and ~juvenile~ to have a genre of books with happy endings for women?”
Like.
No?
Why is it such a big deal to want to read stories where women have sex and then don’t die at the end? Jesus Christ.
Why is the concept of female characters being happy seen as less creative than female characters suffering? (Trust me, creating a world where women win in the end takes a lot more creativity and artistic vision lmfao)
Anyway, literary bros will pry my romance novels with their happy endings from my cold dead fingers.
Or die in the very beginning of the book. But no one calls out James Patterson for writing another formulaic thriller in which a woman is horrifically killed after getting laid and then some man solves her murder. Every. Damn. Time.
But hey, those romance novels where women get happy endings are so limiting, eh?
Real talk: realizing how common it is for female characters to be punished for on-the-page sex with death was a big part of my embracing the romance genre. Once I noticed it I couldn’t unnotice it. It’s everywhere. A woman having sex in literature or non-romance genre fiction is the literary equivalent of a red shirt on Star Trek.
It’s not just the sex thing, though that’s a key element. It’s that, in romance novels, the heroine gets to be cared for the way she normally would care for everyone else. It’s wish fulfillment in that her romantic partner will do emotional labor, spend a great deal of time thinking about her, or sacrifice his desires or fortune or reputation to be with her, or spend days nursing her back to health, or risking his life to save hers. In romance novels, you’ll find men taking care of children, talking about their feelings, putting effort into their appearance—even if they are adorably bad at it. Watch how many romance novel protagonists fall in love with a man who happens to be rich or handsome, but she didn’t give in until his behavior changed and he starts mentoring her, or providing for her, or being gentle toward her, nourishing her, listening to her, appreciating her… I suspect romance novels are looked down upon not for being juvenile formulaic “beach reads” but because they paint a fantasy world that leaves men feeling uncomfortable or even emasculated. But whether you’re a Midwest housewife or a big city CEO, women who read romance novels just want to read about men loving women the way women are expected love everyone else—with a nurturing and protective form of unswerving loyalty. Great sex they don’t have to die for is also a huge bonus, but the *romance* part of the novel is genuinely more about the woman being appreciated (for her beauty or spunk or intelligence at first, and then for all of her by the end).
I was out with a friend tonight doing one of my fave things. Reading the backs of romance novels aloud. Found this gem.
This is honestly the most wild sounding romance novel I have ever seen and thought it might brighten someone’s day.
OK FOR THOSE OF YOU WHO DON’T REALIZE, SANDRA HILL IS THE WOMAN WHO WROTE “ROUGH AMD READY” ANOTHER EROTIC VIKING NOVEL. SOME OF THE MORE MEMORABLE QUOTES BEING:
“As Hilda’s buttermilk bosoms squished up against his granite abs, Torolf almost had a dick aneurysm.”
“Torolf entered her like she was a lottery. His engorged pecker pushed inside her and she felt fulfilled with sexual fulfillment.”
“Her body was like a beautiful flower that was opening and somebody was pushing their dick inside it.”
YOU DO NOT KNOW HOW MANY PEOPLE I HAVE READ THIS TO AT COLLEGE. ONE GUY COMPLETELY LOST IT FOR LIKE 10 MINUTES AFTER HEARING THE PHRASE “DICK ANEURYSM.”
I saw bits of this discussion on twitter, and it inevitably comes up every time someone decides to market a book as a “romance” even though the book has no HEA (happily ever after) or HFN (happy for now) ending. And then wonders why readers lose their shit. Then inevitably the commentary starts (almost always from non-romance readers, usually male) that happy endings aren’t realistic. This is a great response to that.
Aside from “the story must revolve around a romantic relationship”, the happy ending is the single most important element of any story in the romance genre. Period. For a book to be a romance, the story has to be about a romantic relationship of some sort, and the story has to end with all the participants of said relationship (regardless of number, gender, sexuality, etc, etc) happy and together for the foreseeable future. That’s it. If it doesn’t have both of those things, it is not a romance. (Nicholas Sparks does not write romance.)
And some writer out there ALWAYS decides they’re gonna be ‘edgy’ and write a romance with a downer ending. Seriously: do not fuck with romance readers, and do not fuck with their happy endings.
(And before anybody yells about ‘there’s no suspense because you always know the ending’, the tension in a romance novel is driven by the reader’s emotional involvement, and by not knowing how the happy ending will come about or what it will look like. It’s the writer’s job to make the happy ending seem all but impossible, and then pull it off.)
I’m gonna give you some drama, but there’s an HEA…
Oh, I’m firmly in the “readers need to be challenged” camp.
Specifically, they need to be shown that stories do not have to be set in nihilist grimdark dystopias where everyone is raped, tortured and abused; they need to be shown that characters can be kind and that this is not a sign of weakness, but strength; they need to be shown that there is hope and that the world can be made better without sacrificing morals, integrity, or, yes, kindness.
I want to show the shitty edgelords that their misanthropy is myopic, that there is a happily ever after to aspire to for characters, societies, and species.
… Can you write the next star wars film please Orjan?
You’ve been seeing different comedians than me. When Richard Pryor devoted part of his standup to riffing on deliberately setting himself ON FIRE he had me laughing and sobbing at the same time. Comedy is usually based on pain. Listen to John Mulaney as he talks about being small, odd and anxiety ridden as a kid.
Readers should be challenged by boring endings? Have you seen the third movie in the “Divergent” series? NO, you haven’t. The second movie was so boring they actually dropped the series!!
Yeesh
I haven’t seen Divergent at all. But I know I’m getting really sick of the ‘oh let’s KILL EVEYYONE that’s so clever and edgy!’ thing that’s got hold of everyone at the moment. I want to come out of the cinema happier than I went into it. That’s not happening much right now.
I agree with that @icantbearsedtothinkofone. I had been seeing the series with a kid who was desperate to see them and no one wanted to watch with him. I knew what that was like so I volunteered. The second film put us both to sleep. It redefined boring and the only challenge it presented was staying awake.
I am really over the dark, miserable films. I want to have a respite from sadness.
There’s room for sad and challenging films and books, sure. But they need to stay in their fucking lane. The thing with a romance or a cheesy action film or a comics adaptation etc is that it’s like a roller-coaster at the zoo. You’re go on it to have a lot of twists and ups and downs and excitement *while knowing you’re going to be OK at the end*. Not dropped into the crocodile pit. Feels like we’re being offered a lot of crocodile pits right now. And it’s not doing great things to my mental health.
You know what’s really hard to find in good quality?
Pirate romance.
So, here is my list of pirate romance and love stories that actually do justice to pirates, ladies, and don’t involve any (God bless it) cringe-y Treasure Island “pirate speak.”
Frenchman’s Creek – Daphne DuMaurier
Jaded by the numbing politeness of Restoration London, Lady Dona St. Columb revolts against high society. She rides into the countryside, guided only by her restlessness and her longing to escape.
But when chance leads her to meet a French pirate, hidden within Cornwall’s shadowy forests, Dona discovers that her passions and thirst for adventure have never been more aroused. Together, they embark upon a quest rife with danger and glory, one which bestows upon Dona the ultimate choice: sacrifice her lover to certain death or risk her own life to save him.
DuMaurier is often credited with the early stirrings of the modern day romance novel, but Frenchman’s Creek is without a doubt a love story, not a romance novel. If you’re looking for a HEA, this is not going to be your cup of tea.
Her prose is moody and ethereal – a perfect match to the windswept isolated countryside setting. It’s a story about an unhappy woman’s personal and sexual awakening in the arms of the ultimate gentleman pirate. Almost everything happens off-page, but DuMaurier does manage to make the removal of a single earring painfully erotic.
Dona is complicated and often unlikable in her decisions, but she never backs down from who she is and when it matters, she makes the right choices. Jean Aubrey is fun, interesting, and thoughtful without needing to be in the finest clothes or the smartest man in the room. He has a tic for drawing birds, which softens him from being a scary pirate without turning him into a teddy bear.
Siren – Cheryl Sawyer
Jean Laffite is a pirate with a brutal reputation.
A black-eyed sea gypsy, he is legendary for his plundering of ships and seduction of women.
Léonore Roncival, a pirate’s daughter, is mistress of the Caribbean island of San Stefan. Léonore, too, inspires whispered innuendo. Her island is rumoured to be awash in treasure. Her beauty is said to lure men to the peaks of ecstasy–and to their doom. Even the ruthless Jean Laffite can’t ignore her call …
Determined to eliminate this rival on the high seas, Laffite comes to raid her home. There he faces a battle of wits that he never foresaw, and risks his heart.
As the aftershocks of Napoleonic war reach America, the passionate conflict between Jean and Léonore drives them between two nations, into the Battle of New Orleans …
I loved this. Sawyer is thorough in her historical details and seamlessly weaves the absolutely true story of American pirate Lafitte with the fictional Roncival and her story. They are both pirates, though Roncival commands an island instead of a ship, and they have independent stories. Siren is a solid study in two independent people choosing to support each other, which is so satisfying.
Sawyer doesn’t hold back on one of the ugliest parts of piracy: the role of pirates in the slave trade. Lafitte is no hero, but he does evolve and grow with the narrative.
Siren had twists and turns that I did not see coming, and kept me turning the pages.
The Blue Diamond – P.S. Bartlett
Ivory Shepard didn’t want to be a pirate when she grew up but she didn’t plan on being orphaned and alone at thirteen with her three cousins either.
After a Spanish raid in Charles Towne left them with nothing, Ivory held her cousins together, trained them to fight for their lives and led them to a life of quiet refuge on the banks of the Ashley River. Out of reach of the hands of unscrupulous men, they found life on the farm a tolerable substitute for the traditional alternatives life would force onto them—until the night the pirates showed up.
Setting foot on that first pirate ship was nothing compared to the life of freedom and adventure awaiting them, once Ivory and the girls were through playing nice. Only one man believes he can stop her and he won’t need a ship full of guns to do it.
Not a perfect novel, but a fun story that features a quad of badass ladies leading the way. There is a strong balance of action (that good high seas pirate stuff I love), female friendships, and romance without ever veering too long in any one area. I like action *with* romance, and this book delivered.
Maddox is sort of the stereotypical romance novel pirate – something of an overdressed fop, which is a trend that I understand but don’t really care for. BUT the relationship between Ivory and Maddox is entertaining. It waivers on clunky at times, but when it’s natural, it’s so natural it almost gives me flutters.
TW: implied rape in flashbacks
Cinnamon and Gunpowder – Eli Brown
The year is 1819, and the renowned chef Owen Wedgwood has been kidnapped by the ruthless pirate Mad Hannah Mabbot. He will be spared, she tells him, as long as he puts exquisite food in front of her every Sunday without fail. To appease the red-haired captain, Wedgwood gets cracking with the meager supplies on board. His first triumph at sea is actual bread, made from a sourdough starter that he leavens in a tin under his shirt throughout a roaring battle, as men are cutlassed all around him. Soon he’s making tea-smoked eel and brewing pineapple-banana cider. But Mabbot—who exerts a curious draw on the chef—is under siege. Hunted by a deadly privateer and plagued by a saboteur hidden on her ship, she pushes her crew past exhaustion in her search for the notorious Brass Fox. As Wedgwood begins to sense a method to Mabbot’s madness, he must rely on the bizarre crewmembers he once feared: Mr. Apples, the fearsome giant who loves to knit; Feng and Bai, martial arts masters sworn to defend their captain; and Joshua, the deaf cabin boy who becomes the son Wedgwood never had.
I got this on a recommendation and what a recommendation. Like Frenchman’s Creek, Cinnamon and Gunpowder is not a romance novel. It is however a beautiful love story that left me ugly crying.
One of the best parts of a good pirate novel is the squad of diverse malcontents and misfits that is the crew, and boy oh boy does this novel deliver. I fell in love with each member of Mabbot’s crew and they’ve all left an impression on me.
Written in the first person as a journal, the style was a bit hard for me to dig into, but the writing is so strong it didn’t take long for me to become fully invested. If you like food and sailing, this novel will hit all your happy places. The story is exciting and emotionally compelling from start to finish, complete with well developed, messy, sympathetic characters.
For the record: middle aged-to-older eccentric lady pirate captain? Who is also allowed to be in a romantic relationship? Sign me the frak up.
The Rebel Pirate – Donna Thorland
1775, Boston Harbor. James Sparhawk, Master and Commander in the British Navy, knows trouble when he sees it. The ship he’s boarded is carrying ammunition and gold…into a country on the knife’s edge of war. Sparhawk’s duty is clear: confiscate the cargo, impound the vessel and seize the crew. But when one of the ship’s boys turns out to be a lovely girl, with a loaded pistol and dead-shot aim, Sparhawk finds himself held hostage aboard a Rebel privateer.
Sarah Ward never set out to break the law. Before Boston became a powder keg, she was poised to escape the stigma of being a notorious pirate’s daughter by wedding Micah Wild, one of Salem’s most successful merchants. Then a Patriot mob destroyed her fortune and Wild played her false by marrying her best friend and smuggling a chest of Rebel gold aboard her family’s ship.
Now branded a pirate herself, Sarah will do what she must to secure her family’s safety and her own future. Even if that means taking part in the cat and mouse game unfolding in Boston Harbor, the desperate naval fight between British and Rebel forces for the materiel of war—and pitting herself against James Sparhawk, the one man she cannot resist.
Pirates and spies and family drama, oh my. This is a fun read that featured action on ship and on land during the American Revolution.
Thorland put in work researching the time and setting (on and off land) and it shows. The subplots and supporting characters are well developed and interesting without overpowering the plot. Thorland does an excellent job fleshing these stories out and using them to further the primary story rather than distract from it. It even features a secondary LGBTQ character with a complete storyline, which is an important part of history – ESPECIALLY naval history – that is often overlooked, ignored, or glossed over.
Fic recs:
I would be remiss to not include these two stories, especially since the first one is also the read that got me scrambling to find more pirate-themed romance once I knew what I was missing.
These are both Black Sails fanfiction and both about the ship that was never to sail, Billy Bones/Abigail Ashe. You don’t have to be a fan of the show however to appreciate the high quality romance on display here. These stories are so well-written, they honestly put 90% of the pirate romance genre to shame. I consider them better than most of the published novels on this list.
I would, however, seriously recommend googling Tom Hopper as Billy Bones in Black Sails. This is not the weird smelly old guy you’re picturing if you’ve only seen Treasure Island.
As I said above, pirate romance has a tendency to write heroes who are overdressed and effeminate. While I understand that that’s appealing to a large portion of readers, it isn’t *to me*. I live for the rough, overdue for a bath and a shave, dressed for function and calloused to match heroes. The Black Sails corner of fanfiction is rife with that.
“My point being, unless my crew decides that they don’t want to give me up for dead, and if what you say is true and no one will come looking for you, then we are very much stranded on this island.”
Abigail Ashe awakens to find herself shipwrecked on an island. However, she is not alone.
Shipwrecked! is easily one of my favorite tropes, and the author gets all the details you’ve ever wanted about surviving that scenario without crossing into a grim survivalist story. The relationship develops naturally and is so pure™ it could scrub a deck. It’s watching two people I really, really like get something they both deserve, and it’s infinitely satisfying.
Pretty independent lady who sacrificed her standing in society to do the right thing shipwrecked alongside her long-ago crush, a handsome, honorable, pirate with a code of morals that puts Arthurian knights to shame (let’s pretend that fourth season didn’t happen, k)? Just kill me. Bury me in the sand.
This is, tragically, on hiatus, however she did put the writing on pause at a natural break in the story. There’s no happy ending (yet!) but the leave off feels natural and their time on the island is resolved.
I’d never demand an update, but I am patiently holding out hope that one day she’ll pick this up again. It’s seriously one of my favorites and I find myself re-opening this story and re-reading it when I really, really want a good happy pirate love story.
When word reaches Nassau that Captain Derrick of the Nemo has kidnapped Abigail Ashe, daughter of the Lord Governor of the Carolinas, and intends to sell her to the pirate crew offering the highest bid, Captain Flint and his crew take matters into their own hands and mount a rescue.
Though she is no longer a prisoner, Abigail’s journey is far from over.
This story is a break from Black Sails, and dear God it’s a good break. Prim and well-bread Abigail Ashe ends up a prisoner on a pirate ship, then rescued by the only pirates scarier than her current captors. In order to protect themselves, they take her back to Nassau until they can arrange to return her to her father. Living with these men her father called monsters first on their ship – where she learns the ins and outs of sailing! – then in their homes forever alters Abigail’s view of the world. She cannot return to her old life knowing that everything her father has fought for is wrong. Her inevitable return is made all the more complicated by her growing feelings for a certain tall boatswain assigned to watch after her on the ship and on land.
This writing team knows their stuff about sailing. All the details are there without it being an overwhelming infodump. It’s all worked seamlessly into the story. They have stayed simultaneously true to the show and true to the mores of the time period, which has lent itself to being the ultimate slow burn. It’s so well written and the Romeo and Juliet angst of a pirate falling in love with a territorial governor’s daughter is poignant. There is no need to reach for reasons to keep these characters apart, so the conflict never feels forced or contrived.
The conclusion is still to come in the third part, Setting the Stormsails, and I cannot wait to read it.
So, did I forget anything? Leave off a novel or story you think is a classic? Reblog and let me know! I live for good recommendations!
Very honoured that we’ve made this list! And also crying over the price of ebooks because I want to read a couple of these now but I just… can’t afford. I really want authors to be paid fairly but I also don’t want to spend €12-13 on a digital file I guess that’s why I mostly read fanfic…
A love story where the two protagonists just refuse to fall for each other even though the plot keeps pushing for it.
As Sergio saw Cate across the crowded ballroom, their eyes met for just one moment, one shining moment where time stood still and–
“Ugh,” grumbled Sergio, “Not this shit again.” The dashing Castilian swordsman nabbed a glass of champagne from a passing tray held by a servant, downed it in one swig, and grabbed another in one fluid motion. An instant later, he chugged a third.
On the other end of the ballroom, Cate ground her teeth. All this month, she’d run into this one Spanish duelist over and over again in a number of increasingly contrived seeming coincidences. So far, she’d not been the least impressed by his lithe, muscular build or his silky-smooth Iberian accent; likewise, he wasn’t at all enraptured by her smoky, come-hither eyes or her hair, which cascaded down her back in fiery red tress–
“Oh, please, by all the saints, shut up!” snapped Cate, startling a nearby baron and his courtesan. The portly nobleman loomed affronted for a moment before Cate demurely curtseyed and said, “Apologies, monsieur, but the Narrator, he…”
She was unsure of how to finish the sentence. The baron, however, seemed to understand. “Think nothing of it, madame,” he said, smirking, “Last week I had to deal with a pack of rowdy Musketeers, a smuggler, and a handsome Scotsman. I understand how he can be.”
The ungrateful, ugly pig of a baron went back to his booze and his strumpet, wallowing in the indulgence that an oppressed populace had squeezed from the–
“What?!” exclaimed Sergio, somewhat offended, “Don’t take your feelings out on the Baron le Croix! He’s a fair man, by all accounts, and a quite generous ruler, at that. Just because I haven’t bedded that English girl–”
All at once, his thoughts returned to that rainy night at the Chateaux, sheltered under an awning in the rose garden, her sodden garments clinging to her heaving bos–
“No! They are surely not returning to that awful, damp, evening!” snapped Sergio at the air. Cate had somehow managed to be pushed, by the strange Brownian motion of parties, next to Sergio. She seemed to remember the indignities of huddling together during a thunderstorm and flushed. Sergio coughed nervously and averted his eyes. His gorgeous, dark eye–
“It’s not going to happen,” muttered Cate, into her third glass of champagne, “So stop pushing for it.”
Look, this is supposed to be a love story. I have one job to do in this lousy tale, it’s stupid, but I’m going to do it. Okay? Now can we all just get with the program and fall in love with each other?
“No!“ exclaimed both star-crossed unlovers. Sergio immediately slapped his forehead. “By God, this is intolerable,” he said, “I beg your pardon, milady, but I’m simply not interested.”
“No, no, it’s fine, I assure you, sir,” said Cate, giving him a flatly sympathetic look, “I’m betrothed already, anyway.”
“Oh? To whom?”
To an evil, vain, awful textile merchant who’ll treat her like prop–
“To a kind, intelligent man with good business sense,” said Cate through gritted teeth. “Harry does obsess over his hair, but…honestly I think that’s rather cute. My parents arranged the marriage when our estate’s finances fell through. We’ve gotten to know each other since, and I believe we both find it a rather agreeable pairing.”
“Ah! Well, then, best of luck to you,” said Sergio, relieved.
This isn’t right. This isn’t fair. All hard work trying to get you two to fall in love: the shipwreck, the highwaymen, the rival suitors–
“Yes, because that’s the best way to kindle love: repeated physical and psychological trauma,” snarked Sergio, around a mouthful of hors d’ouvres.
Quiet, you. This is my best shot at being promoted out of trashy romance stories–
“Trashy!?” exclaimed Cate, offended.
Sorry, sorry, not….trashy, per se, more….popularly acceptable–
“I’m not trashy…”
Oh Lord, this is going nowhere. Look, whatever, you two, go off to your boring, humdrum lives doing whatever it is you were before I tried to inject a little passion into your meaningless existence, alright? I don’t care anymore. I give up. I’m gonna go make two new protagonists. Maybe these ones won’t whine so much.
I guess that’s why I mostly read fanfic…
Steel Phoenix Studios 