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108 Romance Writing Prompts & Love Story Ideas

Everybody loves a good love story – here are 108 romantic writing prompts and love story ideas to inspire you!

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Everybody loves a good love story, and with these romance writing prompts for romantic fiction, you are sure to find some inspiration to write a story for the ages.

These romantic writing prompts are free for you to take and let your imagination run wild. Use them as novel ideas, short stories, screenplays, or just try them as creative writing exercises to stretch your imagination.

Romantic Fiction Writing Prompts and Story Starters

Please note : We use the pronouns “she and he” in some of these examples, but of course you have the freedom to reverse and change genders as you see fit!

1. Their story begins on a bright summer morning when they both awake in bed together with no memory of who they are or where they came from.

2. She is determined to go on an epic road trip this summer. When her best friend bails out at the last minute, she talks one of her co-workers into joining her as a reluctant sidekick for the adventure of a lifetime.

3. Write a story where one character finds the other character in their tent while camping alone.

4. Our heroine catches the hero stealing food from the restaurant where she works. Is he a bad guy or is there more to this story? What happens when she realizes she is falling for him?

5. A mysterious stranger leaves an item at the main character’s front door with a note attached saying “For a rainy day”.

6. Our hero is a jet-setter whose father has died and just left all of his possessions to someone else. He’s about to demand the rights to his inheritance when he realizes maybe he likes this person.

7. Write a romance story about an undercover cop investigating a person for a crime they didn’t commit. As the cop learns more about them, they realize they are innocent and they might be falling in love.

8. The heroine’s father warns her that she’ll be in terrible danger if she accepts the hero’s marriage proposal.

9. Our two characters are shipwrecked after an unexpected storm. They find themselves on an island where they are forced to spend their first night together under the stars.

10. An impromptu dance competition is announced at the bar where two characters are enjoying an evening of drinks. Do they have what it takes to win the contest and at love?

11. The hero is the brother of the person our heroine has had a crush on for years – who is also her best friend.

12. Write a love story where two single parents drop their kids off at the same daycare every morning. When they run into each other, will they be ready to give love a second chance?

13. She has a secret thinking spot on the roof of a nearby building. When she goes there after learning she lost her job, she discovers someone sitting there.

14. Our characters are both recovering addicts. They both have had problems with alcohol and drugs – will they be able to stay clean long enough for true love to find them?

15. Our characters are on vacation in the countryside of a foreign country when they accidentally crash their cars into each other, resulting in them being sent to the same hospital where they share a room for a week.

16. Our hero and heroine meet in line at the grocery store almost every week. After constantly running into each other, he finally asks her out.

17. The heroine’s wedding is cancelled the day before she was supposed to walk down the aisle. She isn’t sure how to pick up the pieces so goes to the beach to sort herself out, where she finds herself falling for someone new.

18. The might be lawyers on opposite sides of many cases, but they can’t deny that there is something between them…

19. The two of them are in a band together, hoping to get their music heard by the world. They start falling for each other, but will it rip the band apart?

20. Our main characters are both struggling to find their places in the world – one feels like their parents never supported their dreams, and the other left their hometown behind without any plans to return. Together, they learn what it’s like to be true to themselves for the first time.

21. They’ve lived together in the same apartment building for years and have a somewhat passive aggressive relationship with each other. It sparks into something more when he asks her to try his new hot sauce recipe.

22. Our two characters find themselves thrown together and in love after they meet while on vacation in a tropical paradise – only to discover that they live in different countries on separate continents. Can they make it work?

23. He likes her… she likes him… but he’s a total ladies’ man. Can she ever get over this fear and see him as more than a player?

24. They are both running from something in the woods and help each other to escape and survive a dangerous situation. What are they running from and could it make them fall in love?

25. She thinks she’s found the perfect guy – until she discovers he has a secret identity. Will he tell her on his own or will she call him out for it?

26. After a mix-up with their reservations, the characters find they both booked the same rental for the week. Rather than forfeit the deposit and ruin their plans, they decide it to share the space together. Will temporarily living together spark romance or will it be a disaster?

27. The story begins with our heroine rescuing the hero from a life-threatening situation. After they meet, sparks begin to fly. What we don’t realize until much later is she’s the one who caused the accident in the first place.

28. The protagonist is a famous chef who is loved by everyone in the neighborhood – except the frustrating food critic who keeps writing terrible things about their cooking. Can the chef woo them over?

29. Our characters meet when both of their cars break down in the middle of nowhere, and they need to wait together until their cars are repaired.

30. The two of them are sharing the back seat of a limousine after a logistics mix-up at their job when things take a turn for the passionate…

31. They have been friends since they were kids vacationing together every summer – but now it’s getting serious. They might not be just friends anymore…

32. The heroine has been hired by the hero’s start-up company to test his new product for attracting love. However, the product is so effective that she finds herself falling for him!

33. He is a famous actor and she is a waitress at a restaurant he frequents – but they both know that he’s tired of the glitz and glamour and wants to settle down. Can she show him that romance is real?

34. One of them is a real estate agent and the other is a home buyer looking for the perfect house, but they end up finding so much more than either of them expected…

35. They go out on a blind date with the hopes of finding love. But what if one of them ends up being the other’s boss and part owner of the company?

36. They had a casual romance in high school, but they both went their separate ways and have both changed a lot. When fate has them meet again, will it spark the magic from their old relationship?

37. They’ve both reached fame in their careers – but when the cameras are on at all times, how can they be honest with each other and their feelings?

38. Frustrated with life on earth, our hero and heroine volunteer to go live on the space station as part of an experiment for two years. They might have escaped all their problems on earth, but can they actually make a relationship work?

39. The two main characters work together at a local animal shelter and they both have secrets to hide about themselves and their lives. When their paths cross on a daily basis, can they resist the pull to tell each other everything?

40. The story begins with two high school sweethearts who are reunited years later only to discover that they are both unhappily married to someone else. Is it too late or will their love prove to be stronger?

41. He’s a famous musician with all kinds of problem. His life is falling apart and now he starting to fall for the person who tends the gardens at his mansion.

42. They’re both on the run from the law. When they cross paths to form an unlikely bond, can they both get out of their current situations to make it work?

43. He wants his lost love back, but how can he convince her he’s changed?

44. The two of them are on a business trip in a foreign country when there is unrest in the streets – can they make it out alive?

45. A famous actor and a famous actress are both staying at the same hotel during the filming of a romantic movie. Could the sparks be more than just what’s in the script?

46. She has had a crush on him for years, but he never notices her. Will he finally realize that true love is right under his nose?

47. Our main character is always setting up their friends on dates and playing matchmaker – what happens when someone tries to match them with someone new?

48. One of them is a soldier, the other an army nurse. They meet on a helicopter ride after being evacuated from a dangerous situation.

49. They broke up years ago but then run into each other after not talking to each other anymore. When they stop and actually listen to what the other person has to say, do they realize that maybe they never really stopped loving one another?

50. Our main character’s dog is missing – but will they find love in an unexpected place instead?

51. Write a love story where one person is a tech mogul and the other person thinks technology is evil. When they start to fall for each other, will technology get in the way?

52. They are both running for mayor in their small town. Only one person can win the election – but can they both win in love?

53. Write a romance story where one character believes that love isn’t for them, so the other person must prove them wrong by showing them how wonderful love can be.

54. Two people meet after finding out they’ve both been dumped. As they try to plot their revenge on their exes, they discover maybe they have feelings for one another.

55. Our main character’s father is determined to find them a match and has arranged for them to have a new date everyday. Will they ever meet the one?

56. When two people who have never met before get into an argument, they end up trapped in the same room together for hours on end. Will this argument push them together or tear them apart?

57. Our main character finds themselves having vivid dreams that feel real about someone from their past. Use this romantic writing prompt to write a love story that transcends the test of time.

58. They are both avid readers who frequently go to the library but one of them believes they can read people’s future through their books. When they finally meet will they be able to read the other’s mind?

59. Our main character is an adrenaline junkie living life on the edge. When they meet someone who wants to tame them, will they be able to gain some balance in their life?

60. She lives in a world where men are forbidden. When she finally meets one face to face, will she be able to resist her feelings or fall into temptation?

61. Write a story where the main character is the president’s daughter. Can she have a relationship with the son of a political rival?

62. Two discover that both their horoscopes describe what their ideal mate would be like and how they will meet – and it’s each other!

63. One of them is a hard working chef and the other is a photographer who wants to take pictures in the kitchen. When they meet, they find that they have more in common than just their love of food.

64. When our main character gets a new puppy, it turns out to be more than they bargained for. After the dog tears up their neighbor’s flower bed it might just turn into romance.

65. She’s an actress and he’s a cop on location providing security for the movie – but what happens when reality mixes with fiction?

66. Two lovers forced apart by war are reunited only to discover that one of them has been injured physically and the other mentally. Can they get past their scars and move forward?

67. Two people who have gone through terrible things in life meet in a support group and learn how to live again together.

68. The Civil War has just broken out – but one of them is from the north and the other is from the south. Will the war tear them apart or bring them closer together?

69. In a post-apocalyptic world, our two characters are both on the run. When their lives cross paths, they decide teaming up could benefit them both – but does their alliance turn into something more?

70. After accidentally sending an email to a stranger, they become online pen pals. When they meet for the first time in real life, will it be love at first sight or disaster?

71. Their tempers have both gotten them in trouble in the past. When they meet at an anger management class, will they finally learn to control their anger and let love in or will it all blow up?

72. Two con artists meet and decide to team up. They have great chemistry but will they ever be able to fully trust each other?

73. After a tornado devastates a small town, our two characters are drawn together by their grief. Can they rebuild a new future together?

74. When two detective partners need to catch the bad guy, they go undercover as a married couple. Could it be more than just a ruse?

75. Write a romantic love story where two friends start having dreams about each other. Will will these dreams be prophetic or turn into a real life nightmare?

76. When our hero finds himself trapped in another dimension, he takes refuge in an abandoned warehouse only to discover that there is another guest who also happens to be beautiful.

77. The two are travelers who both stop at a diner at the same time. When they are served something otherworldly, they suddenly find themselves with the ability to see ghosts – and each other’s pasts.

78. After finding a wallet in the parking lot, the main character is determined to find out who it belongs to and return it. After a long goose chase of research, they finds themselves falling in love with them. When they finally meet, is the person everything they imagined?

79. A group of people are forced to live in a small bunker together when nuclear war breaks out. Can they find love with each other or will they all turn on each other?

80. Our main character starts seeing a vivid symbol in mysterious places. They try to brush it off as nothing until meeting a stranger who has a tattoo of the symbol. Could it be fate?

81. During their first date, two people receive terrible news. Can they still find happiness together despite all of their problems?

82. After being ditched by their friends at the prom, two loners meet and decide to spend an exciting evening together.

83. While skeptical of psychics, our protagonist is also desperate to find love. After being told of a terrible misfortune about to happen, will it turn out it makes them meet the one?

84. Two people from different social classes find themselves attracted to one another. Can they make it work or will it be torn apart by their differing backgrounds?

85. Two long-time friends find themselves thrown together by a terrible accident. Can they be there for each other or will their differences tear them apart?

86. A young couple find themselves responsible for protecting a powerful and ancient weapon. Will they be able to keep it together and stop the evil that is trying to destroy it?

87. A woman confronts her ex-boyfriend at the wedding of a mutual friend – and their hate for each other is unleashed. Can they make up or are they determined to destroy each other?

88. Our hero meets a woman who teaches him about true love and everything he’s ever dreamed of finding in a relationship. Before they can be together, however, she disappears – only to return mysteriously years later.

89. Burned out by the dating scene, two people decide it’s best to sign up for a service that sets up arranged marriages. Will they be able to make it work?

90. They might both be rich and beautiful, but they always feel like the people they date only care about their looks and money. One decides to pretend to be poor while the other wears a disguise. Have they finally met someone who loves them with no regard to money or looks or will the truth be too much to handle?

91. They just met and really hit it off but one of them has to leave for a work project overseas for the next 5 years. Can they make a long distance relationship work?

92. Two people who hate each other become stuck on the same ocean liner together and must work together to survive a violent storm.

93. He might only be 28 and has a successful career, but he’s starting to go bald. Is it too late for him to find a partner?

94. As journalists for their school’s newspaper, they are always on assignment together. Could an innocent stop for breakfast one morning turn their casual relationship into something more?

95. The older couple in a photograph she discovers looks familiar – but she doesn’t know who they are. One of the people looks a little like her, only older. Could it be a view of the future to come?

96. Two people who have known each other since childhood must fight to survive against an army of zombies that are trying to turn them into meals. Can they make it out alive or will their pasts consume them?

97. She is out of work and lives in a trailer park with her sister. She decides she will marry someone rich and sets off to win over the heart of the local millionaire. Will she learn there’s more to love than just money?

98. They have been growing apart for years – but when they each meet someone new, they realize that maybe it’s time to stop running and face the past head on.

99. When you are born, you are assigned three potential love matches. You meet them all on the same day at the same time on your 21st birthday and must choose one by the end of the night to spend the rest of your life with.

100. They are both from different cultures, but when they meet each other for the first time, they are instantly drawn to each other. Can their love survive all the forces that want to tear them apart?

101. She is kidnapped and sold into slavery, but he will do anything to find her.

102. When he ends up in prison, will she find a way to help him or will his past always be too strong for her to overcome?

103. The two of them have been best friends since they were kids, but when they go into business together, their love for each other may become more than it was before.

104. Write a romantic love story that is inspired by whatever you ate for lunch yesterday.

105. A man travels back in time to find his true love and change the way things ended.

106. She has been sent on a mission by the king to find and return the prince before something terrible happens to him.

107. He is one of the best bounty hunters in the galaxy – but when he meets someone who can be considered his greatest catch yet he realizes he is in love with them.

108. Two leaders of planets on the way to extinction decide to join forces and create a new species of people to continue their worlds. Will their attempts to play matchmaker and procreate work?

I hope these romantic writing prompts and love story ideas inspire you to write something great. If you do happen to write a story with these prompts, you know we would love to check it out so please let us know about it in the comments below!

Looking for even more great story ideas and writing prompts? Check out these other resources at ThinkWritten!

365 Creative Writing Prompts for Everyday
42 Fantasy Writing Prompts
101 Poetry Writing Prompts

Romancing the Beat: Story Structure for Romance Novels (How to Write Kissing Books Book 1)

Do you have any other romantic love story ideas to add to this list? Share your own romantic writing prompts in the comments below!

Chelle Stein wrote her first embarrassingly bad novel at the age of 14 and hasn't stopped writing since. As the founder of ThinkWritten, she enjoys encouraging writers and creatives of all types.

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How To Write A Romance Novel in 13 Easy Steps

Romance is one of the bestselling fiction genres, which means learning how to write a romance novel is a solid (and incredibly fun) business decision. In fact, in 2021, 18% of adult fiction sales were from romance alone, making it the second highest-selling category in fiction.

Readers love romance, and for good reason. Stories about love, the tension of forming relationships, and happily ever afters are aspects of life we resonate with. Who doesn’t enjoy cracking into a new novel and finding inspiration in our favorite fictional characters?

But learning how to write a novel is an entirely different animal. How do you compete with the millions of books already published?

In this article, I will cover what exactly this genre is, a few of its sub-genres, and how to write a romance novel in 13 simple steps (including how to write a romance novel outline).

Need A Fiction Book Outline?

This Guide to How to Write a Romance Novel Will Cover:

How to write a romance novel: defining the genre.

Romance novels are one of the most popular types of fiction to write , where the key plot focuses on two characters and their love story.

Jane Austen is a classic example of an author who does this well with her beloved characters. Whether it’s Mr. Darcy believing Elizabeth Bennet is beneath him, or Emma pushing herself into the love lives of those around her, romance books center on love.

The depth of focus on the topic, as well as the subplots surrounding it, define what type of romance you write.

For instance, fantasy romance books incorporate fantastical elements that add to the story, such as time travel or mythical creatures . A few classic examples of this sub-genre include The Princess Bride , Twilight , and Diana Gabaldon’s 1991 novel, Outlander .

Related: The 7 Best Fantasy Book Series Of All Time

It’s helpful to read young adult fiction books when learning how to write a romance novel. This popular sub-genre includes titles such as To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before , The Fault In Our Stars , and The Sun Is Also A Star.

A List Of Romance Sub-Genres

When learning how to write a romance novel, it’s helpful to understand that there are many sub-genres. So before we take our deep dive into the steps for how to write a romance novel, let’s make sure you have a good understanding of where your next novel fits on the shelf.

Here is a short list of romance sub-genres:

Fantasy romance (Romantasy)
Young adult romance
Dark fantasy romance
Dark romance
Historical romance
Romantic comedy
Romantic suspense
Contemporary romance
Enemies to lovers
Love triangle
Forbidden love
Medical romance
Second chance romance
Time travel romance

The list could go on, but you get the point. Romance is a massive genre filled with sub-genres and further sub-genres within those sub-genres. If you’re worried you won’t be able to master the art of how to write a romance novel, rest assured, your plot likely fits somewhere, as long as there’s a focus on love!

Related: Master List of Book Genres

How to Write a Romance Novel in 13 Simple Steps

With the foundation laid, how do you write a romance novel? What are a few practical steps that can take you from idea to final draft? Writing a successful romance novel involves several key steps to engage your readers and create a compelling love story.

First, set yourself up with novel writing software so you are ready to go. Then, here are the 13 steps you should take when learning how to write a romance novel:

1. Define your target audience

The first step in learning how to write a romance novel is deciding who your audience is. Determine the specific audience you want to cater to—contemporary romance, historical romance, young adult, LGBTQ+, etc. Understand their expectations and preferences and keep that audience in mind as you write.

2. Mindmap your novel

One of the easiest ways to learn how to write a romance novel is to start with a mindmap. This is a way to brainstorm your book and get all your ideas down on paper. It will make it much easier to learn how to write a romance novel outline afterwards.

I like to use a simple bubble method. I write down a key concept, theme, or event in the novel – such as “enemies to lovers.” Then, I create smaller bubbles around the main bubble to flesh out the concept. Why are they enemies? How did/do they meet? What prevents them from liking one another? What are the events that will start to chip away at their resolve?

You keep going and going until you have all the details you need. You can continue mindmapping your concepts until you know exactly how to write a romance novel on the topic.

3. Develop well-rounded characters

Create relatable, multi-dimensional protagonists with distinct personalities, motivations, and flaws—embodying the essence of beloved romance tropes that will keep readers rooting for their love story. Your protagonist is the hero of your story and should be the character who drives the action.

While experienced authors can make almost any types of characters in fiction a leading one (consider Suzanne Collins’ book The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes ), it’s helpful to choose the character who makes the most sense.

If Collins had written The Hunger Games from Katniss’s mother’s point-of-view, readers never would’ve entered the games or experienced the Capitol. In the same way, if Nicholas Sparks had cast Travis’s dad as the protagonist in The Choice , the love story would’ve had an entirely different feel.

Make sure that as you choose your protagonist, you keep their love interest in mind. Just as directors cast actors with good chemistry, make sure your lead and their love interest can work as a pair.

4. Develop a strong plot – and start with an outline

While romance is central when writing a romance novel, your story should have a plot beyond the romantic relationship. Include subplots, challenges, and character growth to keep readers engaged.

There are several reasons why outlining can help you learn how to write a romance novel and, better yet, learn how to write romance in a way that draws your readers in. An outline helps you to:

Write your book faster – When you choose to spend time upfront crafting an outline, you greatly cut the amount of time it takes to write the actual scenes. Instead of finishing a chapter and wondering where to go next, simply reference your outline and keep writing.
Know how your story ends – Writing toward an ending helps keep you on track. Additionally, when you know how your story ends you can drop hints throughout your chapters leading up, a type of easter egg to keep the reader turning pages.
Eliminate writer’s block – Part of learning how to write a romance novel comes down to making sure you actually write . Outlining, and maybe even using a book title generator to come up with a working title, provides you with a rough map for when you feel your creative energy is lacking.

Types of romance novel outlines

There are many helpful methods for writing your book and various ones to choose from. You can determine what works for you by simply trying several of the options below and then sticking with the one that’s most helpful.

Finding the right method is crucial when learning how to write a romance novel. Remember, these methods are meant to help you toward your end goal of completing your draft, so refuse to get stuck on a method that’s not helpful to you.

Simple table outline

One of the most efficient tools to aid you in writing your draft is via a simple table created in an Excel spreadsheet. A table outline is extremely helpful if you have a difficult timeline or perhaps two overlapping timelines.

For example, Nicholas Sparks’ book, The Longest Ride , combines many shifting elements. If your romance book falls into a similar category, you may want to try a table to keep track of any moving pieces.

Remember that the point of a table outline is to help keep you moving as you draft your manuscript. The quicker you can get your initial draft down, the more likely you are to stick with edits and publish!

Post-it note method

Discovering how to write a romance novel efficiently can be difficult. This is where the tried and true post-it note method comes into play. Post-it notes are an extremely visual, interactive way to plan out your various love stories.

If your story focuses on a love triangle, you may want to try out the post-it note method. This method allows you to easily structure and move post-its around. If you want your protagonist to fall in love sooner rather than later, or introduce the third player in the triangle a bit sooner, simply move your post-it note up the line.

Snowflake method

Randy Ingermanson is responsible for what we know as the snowflake method . Writers often design great plots and draft compelling drafts from this method.

Put simply, the snowflake method builds off each element of your story. Start with a line, build to a paragraph, chapter, and so forth, until you complete your rough draft.

If you prefer to write as a pantser, this is the most minimalistic, basic method and will likely work perfectly for you. Simply plan out your chapters, write down a few bullet points of the main ideas and supporting events taking place within the chapter, and then get to writing.

Related: What is a Rough Draft?

Template method

You may want to browse various templates or research your favorite romance authors and see which method they use. Open your favorite search engine and look up “how to write a romance novel template” or “ book outline template .”

Many, many different methods should pop up at your fingertips, including what you should include in acts one, two, and three of your romance novel.

Reverse outline

Alright creatives, I see you. If the above methods seem too straightforward or you want to give yourself a different type of challenge, you should attempt the reverse outline. As the name implies, when you use a reverse outline you start at the end of your novel and work backward.

This type of planning allows you to make both your plot and your characters even more complex. Because you know X falls in love with Y at the end, you can develop their character arcs accordingly, drop hints, and craft character journeys you wouldn’t be able to otherwise.

5. Build sexual tension

Slowly develop the attraction and chemistry between your main characters. Use subtle gestures, dialogue, and emotions to create anticipation. The build-up is one of the best parts of a romance novel!

Introduce obstacles and conflicts that keep the lovers apart or make their relationship challenging. This can include external and internal conflicts.

6. Show, don’t tell

Use descriptive language and sensory details to immerse readers in the characters’ experiences and emotions. Allow them to feel the love and passion between the characters. This is important when writing ANY book, not just when learning how to write a romance novel.

7. Remember that dialogue matters

When learning how to write a romance novel, practice crafting authentic and engaging dialogue that reveals the characters’ personalities and furthers the plot. Conversations should be natural and meaningful. Keep reworking them until they feel right.

You should consider which types of tones you should use to convey the correct mood and personality for each scene.

Explore the emotional journey of your characters. Show their vulnerabilities, fears, and growth as they navigate the ups and downs of love.

8. Resolve conflicts believably

While romance novels typically end with a happy ending, make sure the resolution feels earned and realistic. Avoid clichés or overly contrived solutions.

When learning how to write a romance novel, remember that the ending of your story should be emotionally satisfying and leave a lasting impression. You want your readers to have a book hangover when they slide out of those pages!

Tie up loose ends and show how the characters have evolved throughout the story.

9. Self-edit

Learning how to write a romance novel doesn’t actually end with writing. You have to edit your book, too! Revise your manuscript multiple times to eliminate errors and refine your writing. You can do this on your own at first, but once you think your manuscript is in top shape, it’s time to get someone else’s eyes on it.

10. Hire a professional editor

The next step in learning how to write a romance novel is seeking feedback from an outside source. You can find some beta readers, and hopefully a professional book editor . A book editor will catch issues with flow, grammar, and readability that you yourself have been blind to.

Editors know all about what sells in the publishing industry, so while you ultimately have creative freedom when it comes to your work, consider their advice seriously when learning how to write a romance novel.

11. Create a title and book cover

Once your manuscript is in top shape, it’s time for the finishing touches. While you might have thought up a book title before you even started writing, it’s time to examine if that title is still actually the best fit now that all is said and done. Get your editor’s opinion, and don’t let yourself get attached to a title that isn’t doing you any favors.

You should also consider hiring a book cover designer to help you create a cover that is truly eye-catching and does justice to your story.

12. Format your book

Formatting your book should not be overlooked. Book formatting ensures your font is easy to read and there is nothing that visually takes your readers out of the story. You can use free book formatting software , but for most people, it makes more sense to hire a professional book formatter to get this taken care of promptly.

13. Market your novel and get ready for book launch!

Now comes the most important part of learning how to write a romance novel – book marketing . If you don’t properly market your book, no one is going to find it to read it!

One of the best ways to get attention quickly after book launch is to have a big launch team. I recommend gathering around 100 people from your email list, social media channels, work network, etc. These people will be given an advanced reader copy of your eBook for free in return for an honest review of your novel.

This is SO important when learning how to write a romance novel. Having reviews straight away on Amazon will boost your visibility and make potential readers more likely to snatch up your book.

You should also make sure you have a professional author website set up, as well as a social media presence and an active email list .

Marketing will make or break your book sales come launch day! If you are concerned about how to market or set up a launch team, our Author Advantage Elite program comes with your first authentic Amazon reviews guaranteed!

Examples Of Successful Romance Books

Now that you’ve learned the steps for how to write a romance novel, it’s time to look at concrete examples of successful romance books.

People We Meet On Vacation by Emily Henry

Emily Henry’s People We Meet On Vacation is one of the best in the Contemporary Romance genre. Here are a few things Emily does well that we can all learn from.

First, she casts two unlikely characters in leading roles: Poppy and Alex. They are completely different from each other (a common romantic trope), but she highlights their differences with concrete details. These details are a second aspect she does well.

Emily Henry’s characters feel human, relatable, and even whimsical, yet she puts them both on a one-week timeframe. The clock is ticking, and readers have to keep turning pages. This added tension sets her book apart.

The Fault in Our Stars by John Green

John Green’s instant bestseller, The Fault In Our Stars , went on to sell over 23 million copies worldwide. Despite incredibly tragic circumstances, both of Green’s main characters share a comedic optimism that reminds readers of the importance of hope.

Another compelling facet of this romance novel is its writing style. If you want to learn how to write a romance novel, read John Green.

Redeeming Love by Francine Rivers

Francine Rivers is best known for her romance novel, Redeeming Love , although she has written many other books as well. Redeeming Love was originally published in 1991, but became so beloved by readers that it was made into a feature film in 2022.

What makes Rivers’ book so iconic is both its references to the Biblical characters in the book of Hosea, but also her unflinching description of her protagonist’s experiences.

Price and Prejudice by Jane Austen

We can’t discuss historical romance without mentioning Jane Austen. Her classic novel, Pride and Prejudice , has hit the screen twice, in 1995 and in 2005, and her characters feel like they belong in a history book. So, what did she do so well?

Austen’s characters embodied the culture of their time:

They battle the tension of class
Struggle through the proper etiquette of courtship
Work with their own strong feelings both against, and ultimately for, each other

In fact, the love story of Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy is similar to an enemies-to-lovers novel, showing that romance writers can mix sub-genres for an original take on classic plots.

The Witness by Nora Roberts

New York Times bestselling author, Nora Roberts, paves the way in romantic suspense with her 200th book, The Witness . Her fascinating plot reveals the unromantic perspective of Abigail Lowery, paired with the local police chief’s interest in not just her, but her past.

If you want to stay up all night reading, taking notes on how to write this genre well, and keeping the light on, pick up a Nora Roberts novel.

Start Writing A Romance Novel Today!

No matter what romantic sub-genre you choose to write, if you create at least a brief outline, follow the process that works best for you, and take notes from the leading authors in romantic fiction, your first draft will hold a quality few first drafts can rival.

It takes daily commitment to learn how to write a romance novel and finish your manuscript, but we’re here to provide you with all the resources you need.

Feel free to check out the below resource to help you start on your outline. Even the most simple outline can empower you to finish your first draft. Happy romance writing!

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30+ Romance Writing Prompts [Free to Copy]

Romance is a highly sought-after genre of fiction as it dives into one of the most desired things among the human race: love. Creating a romance can be a real whirlwind of an experience, so it’s a good thing there are so many great romance writing prompts out there.

Even those who claim to only read horror, or the totally die-hard, all-in, Comicon-every-weekend sci-fi fans, are secretly a sucker for a good romance once in a while. Writing an authentic, believable romance novel requires you to dig deep inside yourself and pull out some emotions. It requires vulnerability which can be scary to some writers, causing them to avoid it altogether.

Writing romance isn’t for everyone, but it is a good skill to have. Even if your main plot is as far away from romance as one could ever imagine, you may want to include a romantic subplot. Or, at least have a little love triangle going on. If you’re looking for plot inspiration try our writing prompt generator .

People crave love. Adding some love to your book, regardless of the main genre, is often a smart move. It is one more thing that keeps readers engaged and has them emotionally investing in the characters. So, whether you are looking to write the world’s next big love story or you just want to spice up your supernatural thriller, here are some great romance writing prompts to get you started.

Romance Writing Prompts for a Romance Novel

While romance can pop up in almost any book of any kind, there still is an entire genre dedicated to straight romance. Here are some romance writing prompts to get your epic tale of crazy love started.

Character Driven Romance Writing Prompts

These prompts are simple, character-centered base ideas that can be taken in any direction you want. These plot starters are at the center of many successful romance novels:

Best Friends . The characters start out as best friends but eventually decide to start a relationship. This can either be a happily ever after or a terrible idea.
Enemies. The characters begin as enemies. At some point, they are forced to spend time together and begin falling in love.
Unhappy Ending. Two people are crazy for each other, but can’t ever be together due to circumstances out of their control.
The Break-Up. A couple that has broken up realize that they may have made a mistake – but is it too late?
Broken Tradition . Create a couple where all gender role and relationship expectations are turned upside down. What does this romance look like?
Bad Timing . Two people know they are perfect for each other, but the timing is just never right.

Plot-Driven Romance Writing Prompts

Sometimes a romance is driven purely by chance or circumstance. Use some of these simple plot ideas to bring your lovers together.

The Tourist. A tourist travels abroad and doesn’t know the language. They become infatuated with a local.
The Arrangement . Two people within an arranged marriage actually fall in love – after getting married.
The Campaign. Two people are fighting for the same spot in an election. Could be anything from a true political campaign to high school class president.
A Life Changed. Two lives are changed forever when they embark on a short but sweet love affair.
Lies . A major lie is what brings two people together – what happens when one or both of them find out the truth?

When Love Starts with Conflict

Make the love affair interesting and have it start with some intense conflict. Conflict drives every story, and romance is no exception. This works best when the two lovers really hate each other in the beginning. Any of these can have the male/female roles reversed.

He has already been ruled out. She made up her mind long ago that she would never date a man with his title (doctor, biker, lawyer, etc.)

She already broke his heart once. He pursued her once in the past and was brutally rejected. She has realized how stupid she was and is desperate for another chance.

He was faking it at first. perhaps he made a bet that he could get her, or he pretended that he liked her so he could manipulate her and reveal all her secrets. Oops, now he loves her.

She has moral concerns. She is his boss/professor/teacher/captor and it would not be appropriate, no matter how badly she wants to do it.

He is a suspect. He is suspected of a major crime (murder, large scale robbery, etc) and she is wary of the implications.

The first impressions were terrible. Their first meeting was awkward and horrible. Neither of them left with a good first impression. They have a difficult time finding their way back to each other.

These are just a few examples of an initial conflict that can set the stage for a rocky but interesting romance!

Now that you have some ideas for the base concept of your novel, here are some specific plot ideas to get your creative juices flowing.

Vanished Love

Your main character shares a wildly exciting and romantic week with the man she has always loved. They express their feelings for each other, and he tells her of his desire to stay with her forever and build a life together. They fall asleep one night in complete and utter bliss. The next morning, he is gone. He cannot be found or reached. She is heartbroken and must begin the process of rebuilding. Five years later, he returns. What happened?

Eye for an Eye

Your main character’s boring, predictable life is shaken when they discover a stranger dying in an alley. They want to call 911 but the person begs them not to. They decide to take the person back to their place to fix them up. Once the mysterious stranger is better and feels stronger, they reveal that they are actually a supernatural being. Their species holds strongly to the “eye for an eye” and that includes saving lives. Your protagonist is now stuck with this being as their sidekick until they are able to save their life. At first, this is annoying, until feelings start to develop.

He is an art fanatic with a desire for constant perfection. No one has ever gotten close to him because no one is ever as perfect as the artwork. The sculptures. The portraits. The beautiful scenes of perfect women frozen in time. He works in a busy office which is kept in pristine condition, until one day they hire a new intern. She is unfashionable and unkempt with messy hair and a constantly disorganized workspace. He is driven mad nearly every day… so why can he simply not stand the thought of her leaving at the end of her term?

Romance Writing Prompts for Genre Crossovers

One of the greatest things about romance is that it can be found anywhere. Regardless of the kind of book you are writing, you can add some romance for some extra spice. Romantic side plots can be found in almost any genre. Romance can even still be the main theme within a different type of story. There are many ways to mix romance with everything else.

Supernatural Romance

This one is pretty straightforward but can go in any possible direction. Write a story about any supernatural species – vampires, werewolves, aliens, or something you make up yourself. Write a romance either between the species or between a supernatural and a human. More often than not these are forbidden and/or dangerous romances but the characters go after it anyway.

Romance and Horror

It may not be the most likely pairing, but a little romance in between the spooks and creeps never hurt anyone!

Nightmare Love

Your main character is a vivid dreamer. Some are wonderful experiences and others are horrible nightmares. Suddenly, the terrible people and events from their dreams start appearing in real life. Their partner then dies suddenly in a tragic way. They are devastated but hopeful because their dead partner starts appearing in their dreams. They spiral into the tragic existence of frantically searching for their partner in the real world during every waking moment.

Thrilling Romance

Thrillers are exciting, fast-paced, intense, and often deeply psychological. They are often not for the faint of heart, and what better way to bring to people together than to throw them into an adventure together?

Two people on the run from the law find each other. Of course, they are wary of each other but they eventually build trust and fall madly in love. They help each other hide from police and they pool their knowledge of life on the streets. The two work together to steal cash and essentials – food, water, clothing. They share several near-death experiences until finally one gets caught, and the other doesn’t.

The Kiss of Death

When your protagonist grows up and begins dating, she discovers a terrifying fact about herself. As soon as she kisses the man she’s developed a relationship with, he mysteriously dies! She chalks it up to bad luck at first but soon she can’t deny that it is a pattern. Refusing to accept the fate of loneliness, she sets out to discover the origin of her condition.

Possible plot twist: her single mother placed the curse on her because she was afraid of being alone and didn’t want her daughter to leave her.

Romance in History

A well written historical romance can a beautiful and touching tale as people are often intrigued by the allure of the past.

Embrace the Era

Choose an era to set your story in, and really embrace it. Research everything you need to know. The fashion, the attitudes, the employment situations, the political atmosphere… everything. And then immerse your characters in the culture. Write a whimsical, emotional, and heart-wrenching romance between two characters of that time. Transport your readers to a different place and you will have them hooked the whole time.

Time Travel

Time travel is a theme that has been explored over and over again throughout the history of storytelling, but it never seems to get old. Perhaps this is because of the completely endless options you have with the idea. Write about a protagonist who travels through time and meets the love of their life in a different era. They are clearly meant to be, but one of them refuses because of where the protagonist is from.

Romance Writing Prompts for Side Plots

Sometimes the plot of your novel focuses on something else, but you want to develop a little romantic side plot or a love triangle. This can be a great way to get readers emotionally invested in your characters.

Romantic subplots can work well in your favor, but you must remember that they are subplots. Never shift or remove focus from your main theme and storyline. Romantic subplots should be subtle and should not overpower.

The Survival

Your novel takes place in a post-apocalyptic world and your characters are just trying to survive. Your main focus is their survival attempts and the man vs. earth conflict you’ve created.

The group travels together, and two of the men are in love with the same women. One knows her from the past, the other only met her after the destruction happened. Both are constantly working to impress her and put the other down. One day they stumble upon another group of surviving people and they team up. The woman becomes interested in one of the new men.

Criminal Love

A young police officer is working on a serial killer case. They are on his trail but haven’t caught him yet. The officer begins to develop feelings for one of the suspects’ friends/family/witnesses. The tension builds as they need this person more and more for the investigation, but the officer knows they must wait until the case is over to pursue anything. No one knows how long this case will last.

Romance is Versatile

Whether the focus of your plot or just a little fling on the side, romance is a fantastic way to weave some drama and emotion into any story. The romance writing prompts found here are simply some ideas to get your wheels turning. Don’t feel restricted by the details – feel free to tweak and change them as much as you please.

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BEST ROMANCE WRITING PROMPTS

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Overcoming obstacles with writers ink, write a story about two people who aren't admitting their true feelings for one another, despite it being obvious to outsiders., write about two characters who meet and/or fall in love in a museum., start or end your story with a character finding out the love of their life is actually royalty., write a story in which a character cooks up something to impress someone., write a story about two characters who like each other but don’t get a happily-ever-after..

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Set your story on a warm summer evening with a full moon, when everything feels magnetic and your character’s about to meet someone important.

Write a story about two opposites finding themselves surprisingly attracted to one another., end your story with a kiss at midnight., write about a character who must confess their true feelings by midnight, or risk losing it all., write about two solo travelers who keep bumping into each other in the most unexpected of places., subscribe to our prompts newsletter.

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Write about a character who risks everything to pursue their heart’s desires.

Write about somebody looking for love on a reality tv show., write about a relationship, either romantic or platonic, that is being affected by jealousy., write a story — romantic or not — about two characters who can’t find the right timing., write a story about somebody in love with someone from their past..

Write a story that includes (or subverts) the enemies-to-lovers trope.

Write about someone asking out an old crush, only to realize their crush doesn’t remember they’ve ever met before.

Start your story with one character setting up a romantic dinner, and end it with them looking at a framed wedding photo..

Write about a first date that surprises both people, but in different ways.

Write a love story about an older couple who’ve been together since they were teenagers.

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The best romance writing prompts

Sometimes you just want to read a book that gives you the comforting knowledge that there will be a Happily Ever After — and that’s one of the defining characteristics of the romance genre. Everyone enjoys a little romance in their life, whether it’s steamy and passionate, or sweet and PG-thirteen-rated. If you’d like to write your own love story, we hope these romance prompts will help you!

Here are a few types of romance stories you might consider writing:

Historical romance. Classified as any romance novel that takes place before 1950. Perhaps your heroine is a young woman, waiting to hear back from her wartime sweetheart who is away fighting. Will they end up together forever, or will the difficult times they’re living through keep them apart?
YA. This is a romance that usually takes place in a high school setting, and features the life and loves of teenage characters. Maybe your character realizes they’ve got chemistry with their dreamy lab partner in science class.
Contemporary. Any romance novel that takes place after 1950. This might be where you’d find your friends to lovers (or enemies to lovers) arcs, or stories about the trials and tribulations of online dating.
Paranormal. Romance stories with elements of fantasy or science fiction. Think: a passionate prince falling in love with a powerful witch, or a gorgeous vampire finding romance with a seductive werewolf.
Suspense. When love stories become intertwined with gritty plots. Caught up in some bigger conflict or mystery, our lovers find comfort in one another’s embrace.
Erotic. The Romance Writers Association defines this as “Novels in which strong, often explicit, sexual interaction is an inherent part of the love story, character growth and relationships and could not be removed without damaging the storyline.” This kind of writing requires careful handling of intimate scenes and a great understanding of what makes characters tick.
LGBTQ. Romance stories that specifically center around queer characters. Maybe your hero uncovers their own sexuality as they fall in love with their best friend, or perhaps they have always known, but haven't quite managed to find joy with the right partner — until now.
Romantic comedy. This subgenre is what it says on the tin — dreamy romance, that also makes you laugh. Perhaps we follow your protagonist on a series of calamitous dates, or we watch as they try to find happiness despite the interferences of a meddling family.

Keen to get started? Here are our top ten romance writing prompts:

"I think I've fallen in love with my self-professed mortal enemy."
You have a crush on a coworker, and that crush is somehow revealed during a company-wide meeting.
Write a story that involves love at first sight.
Write a story about unrequited love.
Write a story about a road trip between two old friends that turns into something more.
Write a romance where the characters pretend to be dating each other in order to win a reality show.
The lives of two people are changed forever when they coincidentally meet and engage in a weekend-long affair.
A meet-cute ends in a terrible date, or a disastrous meeting ends in a great one.

For more tips on how to write romance with soul, check out some of our free resources below:

How to Write an Irresistible Romance (free course) — Your ultimate guide to writing heart-stopping, pulse-raising romance is here. Whatever the subgenre, our free course teaches you how to get readers on board and invested in your love story.
13 Beloved Romance Tropes Every Reader Will Recognize (blog post) — Your trope bible, this post breaks down the tried-and-true romance formulas and even suggests ideas for how to make them your own.

Want more help learning how to write a short romance? Check out How to Write a Short Story That Gets Published — a free, ten-day course guiding you through the process of short story writing by Laura Mae Isaacman, a full-time editor who runs a book editing company in Brooklyn.

Ready to start writing? Check out Reedsy’s weekly short story contest , for the chance of winning $250 , plus potential publication in our literary magazine, Prompted ! You can also check out our list of writing contests or our directory of literary magazines for more opportunities to submit your story.

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180 Romance Writing Prompts to Kick Off Your Next Love Story.

Are you stuck trying to figure out what happens next in your current WIP? Or maybe you’re just looking for some fresh inspiration for your next romance novel. Whatever the case may be, don’t worry—we’ve got you covered.

If you’re a writer of romance novels , then you know how difficult it can be to find inspiration. Ideas are often limited and it’s not easy coming up with new settings, characters, or problems that keep the story going. This is why so many writers have their own list of go-to writing prompts whenever they feel stuck. These prompts are great for anyone who is working on a new project and needs a little help getting their creative juices flowing again. So if you’re ready to get inspired once more and can’t wait to dive into one (or all!) of these prompts, keep reading...

"Speak softly love," he whispers in your ear. But when you turn in surprise, there is nothing there but a bust of a handsome young man staring back at you. You continue walking down the dark corridor.

"You can't go in there," you tell him, before he informs you that he owns the museum and can go anywhere he pleases. Since you're a museum guide, he asks for a tour, and you both recognize a spark happening.

A billionaire mogul loses much of his wealth in a legal battle with your family. To your mutual surprise, what begins as hatred turns into romance as you find a way to give him back the fortune he lost.

A chance encounter brings you on the radar of a tortured young billionaire who can't forget the abusive past he endured at the hands of his father. You have a similar past—can you move past it together?

A couple has been dating for about three years, and the man still hasn't proposed. The woman is getting impatient, and after a drunken night out on the town, she proposes to him. He loves her—but he says no—owing to his belief that it's a man's job to propose. This awkward moment leads the pair down a path neither expected.

A deep voice sings each night, a haunting song unlike any you've heard at the recording studio where you work. Each night, you listen and fall in love until one moonless night you seek its origin, finding a handsome ghost who wishes he had tasted love before death stole him away.

A deeply religious Christian couple fails to resist temptation and engage in premarital sex. The next morning, they are unsure how to deal with their actions. The man is willing to ask God for forgiveness. The woman is devastated, and doesn't think they can continue their relationship. She feels that she has failed God, and needs to find a way to seek God's forgiveness and forgive herself.

A difficult home life has led you to make choices that have given you a bad reputation in your small town. Embracing this image, you have grown into a reckless troublemaker with a stony heart. At the town's annual fair, you hear an angelic voice singing a hymn that gives you goosebumps. You follow the voice and discover it belongs to the preacher's daughter, who you know is devoted to her faith. You are the last man she'd be interested in, but you can't ignore the attraction you feel to her. As you pursue her, she challenges you at every turn. Over time, your stony heart softens as the light of her love and faith fill your life.

A few years ago, your friend and her husband decided to buy a 300-year-old castle in Ireland to renovate it from the ground up. You thought they were crazy. "If I sold my company," you thought, "the last thing I would do with that money is make a spooky castle my home." Now their castle renovation project is complete, and they invite you to fly over and check it out. Of course, the property is stunning. It seems like they spared no expense. After looking around the first floor, your friends invite you into the basement to see their wine room and to have an impromptu wine tasting. You agree wholeheartedly, needing a break from the "look at all of the pretty things I have" tour. As you sip your first glass, you feel woozy, then suddenly collapse. You wake up and find yourself chained to the wall. On the other side of the room is a man in his 20s. "What's going on?" you ask. He responds in an Irish brogue: "I was one of the contractors they hired. They didn't want to pay my bill, so they put me in this dungeon." He points to a key close to you. "If you can reach that somehow, we can get out of here." "But why are we here?" you ask. "Because the castle feeds on our suffering."

A handsome cowboy is injured while tending to a wild horse he's rescued miles from town. You're on the run, and can't afford to stop on your way to Mexico – but you can't ignore the wounded man when you see him, and decide to help him despite the personal risk.

A handsome new associate in your father's crime syndicate catches your eye. You know there are rules about this sort of thing but you can't help falling for each other. When it turns out that he is actually an undercover FBI agent, you must decide between love and loyalty.

A handsome widower moves into town and becomes active in the church as a channel for his grief. You become friends and try to help him heal and learn to love again. Friendship quickly turns into romance; however, the widower's faith and commitment are questioned when the father of his late wife visits and learns of the budding romance. His father-in-law believes that starting a new relationship is disrespectful to his deceased daughter. You must bridge the gap between these two grief-stricken men and prove that the new love you have established is not a betrayal of the late daughter's memory.

A music industry mogul hears your voice on a demo album that he receives and signs you to his label. Your troubled life and past keep him at bay for a while as his friends warn him against it, but true love can't be held back for long.

A quiet stranger moves to town and joins your grief group. As a widow, you're open about your struggles and how the church has been there for you. The new man never says anything but attends every meeting and every Sunday service. Despite his stoicism, you find yourself drawn to him. God works in mysterious ways, you've learned, and there's nothing quite as mysterious as the stranger in your parish.

A recently divorced woman leaves New York to move back to her hometown. Depressed and unhappy with small-town life, she has a change of heart when she meets someone from her past – and can suddenly imagine a future again.

A reclusive billionaire without family or friends is in a wreck and develops temporary amnesia from the injuries. Without any identification, he falls in love with you, the nurse who nurses him back to health. As his memory slowly returns, he realizes that friendship and love have been missing from his life, and he has found both in you.

A sniper is part of a special security mission for a US ambassador in a war zone. You're the ambassador's daughter he can't help but fall for, no matter how much distance he tries to put between you. But a dangerous situation requires him to decide to save you, or the ambassador.

A soldier home from deployment moves into the house next door to you. He befriends your dog after experiencing a PTSD panic attack one night. He's closed off, but gradually opens up to you.

A year ago, your sister married a wealthy man who seemed a bit strange to you. After the wedding, her new husband whisked her away to his stately mansion by the sea, and you haven't seen her since. At first, she sent you letters, but gradually the communication became less and less. Now it's been a couple months with no communication from her at all, and you're worried about her. You set off to find her, bringing the handsome young man who was always your sister's best friend as your travel companion. When the two of you arrive at the location where you thought she lived, you find that the mansion has been abandoned for years.

After a lifetime of running from your family's traditional expectations, you find yourself in the one place you never thought you'd be: the sanctuary of a church. You've got nowhere else to go and no one to turn to—except, maybe, the one thing you've been avoiding. The handsome pastor promises to help you find your way again. You slowly realize that sometimes the road less travelled is the one you were always meant to go down. With the promise of love, faith, and happiness on the horizon, you have to ask yourself: Can this be your home now?

After a nasty divorce, you begin dating again by using apps. You meet a seemingly flawless man, but after a few months of blissful dating, you have an encounter with an FBI agent who is investigating him and wants your help. The agent asks you to do some digging into your boyfriend's personal papers to determine if this is the guy the FBI has been hunting for. The more you uncover, the more suspicious you get, and you find that he may be as dangerous as the agent believes. As you do your best to help, you grow closer to the agent, finding that—despite all his flaws—he is an incredible man.

After an acrimonious divorce, you leave your hometown to work overseas as a missionary for a year. You meet another missionary who catches your eye, but he doesn't speak your language. You will have to find a way to bridge the communication gap for love to grow.

After witnessing a mafia murder, you are accepted into the U.S. Federal Witness Protection Program and relocated to a small farming community in the Midwest. You meet a handsome local farmer, and you begin to develop feelings for each other—until he discovers that you have not been honest with him about your past. Things get even more complicated when the mafia learns of your location.

After your divorce from a star NFL quarterback, you've sworn off relationships with athletes. In fact, you've sworn off relationships altogether. Then you meet the quarterback for the biggest rival of your ex's team at a local bookstore, where he is signing copies of his new memoir. He recognizes you from various industry events, and you discover he's everything your ex never was.

After your fiancé up and leaves with no trace, you go through the usual process: disbelief, grief, anger, and, finally, something sort of acceptance. You return all the wedding gifts you'd already received and cancel every part of the wedding that you can, but the wedding venue—a castle that hidden in the hills of Scotland—refuses to return your money. You've paid in full to ensure that yours was the first wedding scheduled after the castle was renovated. You decide not to waste the money, wedding or no. But when you arrive at the grounds, it looks nothing like the pictures. It is decrepit and dirty, and when you venture inside, it's completely empty. The castle is straight out of a nightmare. You hear a noise. Convincing yourself it is the owner who can answer your questions, you follow the sound down a flight of stairs, then two, and then you hear the crystal-clear sound of a voice saying your name. But not any voice—it's him, your fiancé. You race after him, desperate for answers, when suddenly the door slams shut behind you and the lights go out. You scream, and from the dark corner someone begs you to be quiet. "They'll hear you," he says. You scramble away and trip over something firm. "Who?" You question. The man you still can't see lets out a shuddering breath. "The monsters that live here."

An intriguing character across the beer garden keeps staring at you and finally walks over. "Ten euros," the stranger says, putting a freshly sketched portrait of you on the table. It's a good likeness. You wonder why the artist chose you as a subject. You reach for your wallet, saying, "Only if you stay for a drink."

An overweight billionaire hires you to be his fitness coach. You get his blood pumping in more ways than one and the healthier he gets, the more you're attracted to him.

As a nature photographer out on an assignment in the woods, you witness a man burying a body. You snap a photo and quickly turn to leave. However, you trip over a tree root, and the man hears you fall. He drops his shovel to chase you. You run from the unknown killer, going deeper into the woods. As evening comes, you find a tiny ramshackle hunter's cabin and stop to hide. The ruggedly handsome hunter who catches you breaking in offers to help you.

As a recent widower with two young children, you aren't interested in finding a new wife. Your mother, however, strongly disagrees and wants you to remarry as soon as possible, securing an even greater income for the family. From your perspective, you have retained a curtesy in all your late wife's land, so there is little need to remarry for wealth. All you want is someone to care for your two young children, who are in desperate need of a mother-like figure. When you request a nurse from the agency, expecting a dour, middle-aged, no-nonsense spinster, and are quite shocked when you get quite the opposite: a young, whimsical, and quite attractive woman. You are skeptical of her abilities and her teaching methods are a little suspect, but her credentials are impeccable, and the children seem to love her from the start. Over time, you find yourself drawn to her as well, rekindling feelings you never thought you'd have again.

As a recently retired detective, you are surprised to receive a call from your former captain asking you to come into the station to help question the suspects in a murder investigation connected to one of your old cases. At the station, the captain briefs you on the details: A man was killed by blunt force trauma. There is no sign of a murder weapon. There are two suspects: the man's wife and his mistress. As you interview each suspect, you are drawn to the mistress, who is beautiful and has a brilliant mind. Your bias could be affecting you, but you are sure she is innocent.

As a senior detective in the special victims crimes unit, you are hunting down a serial killer who targets young college women. The clues lead you to a reclusive billionaire with a "devil-may-care" attitude. But something is off. It's just too neat when all fingers point to him. However, you can't help but question your motives as you find yourself drawn to him in ways you've never felt before. Can you put aside your own desires to find out if he's really a serial killer or will your passion get in the way of doing your job?

As the youngest of seven sisters, you are told to wait your turn for marriage, but you can't help but fall for a handsome gentleman who comes to town on business. You decide to pursue him even though your mother has been eyeing him for sister number five.

As you walk through the abandoned castle, you have a strange feeling that someone is watching you. Then, up ahead, you see a painting on the wall of a fine young gentleman from the 1800's. As you look closer, you notice that the eyes of the gentleman are following your every movement. You stand there and stare at the painting, petrified with fear. Then, one of the eyes winks at you.

Attending preschool functions as a single dad makes you the only man in a romper room of pretty, attention-starved, flirtatious moms. Their playground games range from helpful and sweet to saucy and brazen. You must choose between your desires and what is best for your kid.

Being an NFL cheerleader is not nearly the glamorous job everyone thinks, but you love the sport and the athleticism of cheering, plus it gives you some part-time income that you desperately need. What you don't love is the objectification and occasional disrespect you receive from both fans and players. When a loudmouth fan throws his hot dog at you during one of your dance routines, a rookie quarterback comes to your defense and gets the fan ejected from the stadium. After the game, the player comes over to introduce himself. You thank him for the help and exchange numbers. The following week, he texts you to ask you out. Dating football players is frowned upon in the NFL, but you say yes anyways.

Despising the stringent restraints that being a lady of society requires, you delight in exhibiting reckless and audacious behavior at every turn to spite your parents. You turn your nose up at the suitors who wish for your favor, as you know they do not have your best interests at heart. They only want the dowry you bring. One night at a dinner party you bump into a dashing young man who, like you, wants nothing to do with high society and openly mocks it whenever possible. Both of you decide to team up and, over time, you fall in love.

Despite being widowed a decade earlier when your husband died of a heart attack, you're still sure of three things in your life: family, faith, and football. But when a football accident leaves your son in a coma, you lose it all in an instant. As a single parent, you spend all your time split between the hospital and work. You're angry with the coach, with the other team, with God—and with a handsome preacher who seemingly, infuriatingly, is everywhere. From the hospital hallways to the checkout line at the gas station, he's the one constant you've got in the world while your son lies unconscious in the ICU. The only problem? He wants you to forgive. As your faith dwindles, the preacher remains steadfast in his mission: to help you see God's will in your life, even when it hurts. As your son starts to heal, you realize it's not just your family and faith healing. Your heart is healing, too.

Devout your whole life, you're dedicated to preaching and spreading the gospel. But when a new man moves to town with a dark and mysterious past—and no patience for the community you've built—you're faced with your toughest challenge yet: love and cherish a man who is against everything you stand for. With a burly exterior and matching attitude, he tries to fight against your efforts to draw him closer until suddenly you both realize there's more at stake than just a religious conversion. To be together, there's always a give and take, but can you get through to the man you're developing feelings for? Or is love not in the cards?

During a business conference in the Greek islands, you hear a sweet and soft song floating on the air from a distance. You walk down the beach, following the sound, and find a woman in the water beckoning you to come closer. You move closer before sitting down on the beach to listen to her voice. Days pass and you become too weak to stand. Nevertheless, you remained entranced by this creature. Suddenly her singing shifts to crying, and she tells you that, although she is the last of her kind, she cannot bear to devour another victim. You vow to help her, not knowing if the love you have for her is true or is a result of the siren's curse.

During the Victorian era, a man has been falsely accused of murdering his neighbor. His wife, desperate to prove his innocence, conducts her own investigation into the crime. Venturing into the castle ruins where the murder took place, she finds both clues and assistance from the long-dead residents of the castle.

During your early morning jog, you find a child crouched in the bushes, half frozen. He says he is hiding from his foster family, and the last thing you want is for him to be sent back because he seems so scared. You take him home with you, but he convinces you not to call the police yet. That night, a noise wakes you up. When you get up to check on the boy, you discover that he is gone, along with most of your valuables. Your attractive next-door neighbor knocks on your door, saying he saw someone fleeing from your home. He has the first few letters of their license plate. The two of you team up to find the robbers and the boy, who you know is being used unjustly.

Ever since you were a child, you've loved the big old house on the outskirts of town. You dreamed of living there and obsessed over every detail of the house. Your second-grade teacher was even concerned about your obsession, especially considering that every picture you drew in class was of that large house on the hill. As an adult, you come into some money, so when the house comes on the market, you quickly call up the seller and agree to buy it. It is what you always wanted, and now you can finally live there and slowly renovate it over time. The man selling the house recently inherited it from his deceased grandmother. When he gives you the keys, he tells you that the house has a funny effect on people, so he'll stop by to check on you later. You find him a little odd, but charming in a sort of endearing way. Yet that night you begin to understand what he meant when you hear a whisper coming from the hallway. You get out of bed and put your ear close to the bedroom door, but all you can make out is: "Welcome home. We missed you."

Everything is going exactly to plan. Your three daughters are all in season and are extremely popular; their dance cards are always full, and you've been approached for several proposals. You're eager to marry them off—not because you don't love them, but because you very much do. When your husband died more than ten years ago, you learned just how terribly lonely it can be without a partner. You want your daughters to be happy. You've given up on happiness for yourself, happiness like that, but you're okay with your decision because you know your daughters will be happy. You've told yourself this so many times that you almost believe it. Then you meet him. A dashing rake with a reputation so big, it's stretched all the way over to you. You warn your daughters to stay away from him. He's older and likely uninterested, but you can never be too safe. But when you meet him, everything changes.

Handsome, wealthy, and well-respected amongst your peers, you are one of the ton's most eligible bachelors in all of society. Known far and wide for your shrewd business deals, cunning intelligence, and irreproachable character, mothers and fathers alike throw their eligible daughters at your feet. Sure, they are all beyond beautiful and come from respectable families, but you know their "desire" for you is manufactured. Not a one strikes your fancy—that is, until you meet the delightful and mysterious Lady Midnight. She is both stunning and sassy and ignites a flame within. The only problem is, she is a courtesan.

He is formidable in the rink and, when he is out of it, he is surrounded by a flock of adoring female fans. As the star hockey player of the decade, you are certain he has an ego, but when he walks into the bar where you work, you are surprised by how down-to-earth he is. As the night goes on and he starts buying you drinks, the electric connection between you is undeniable. When a drunken kiss between you is photographed, you are not prepared for the media storm that hits.

He ran his hand through your hair, commenting on its softness, and from that moment you were hooked. You had no idea he owned a vast empire of real estate and was looking to find the perfect lady to settle down with.

He's a handsome, recently-returned vet dealing with PTSD and you're a nurse working at a VA hospital. You grew up watching your father struggle with his own memories of Vietnam and always regretted being unable to help him. You extend your hand in friendship, hoping you can make a difference.

He's a reclusive billionaire and you are a model hired to be his guest for the evening at a local charity function. He initially has nothing to say to you, but begins to admire you for who you really are inside. Romantic sparks ensue.

He's a writer who has bestsellers and movies based on those bestsellers, but he has run into horrible writer's block. You're an adventure guide and you know exactly what he needs for his inspiration to return.

How do you start small talk on a date with a famous footballer? Do you admit that you have about a million posters and jerseys at home or pretend you've never watched a game in your life? No more time to think—your date has just arrived.

If there's one thing you know, it's that good faith models after good practice. So you do your best to always set a good example of the life you're meant to live for your family and your community. But when a betrayal comes to light and your marriage is threatened, you have to ask yourself if you are sticking with tradition and good faith or following your heart and what you believe God asks. Although you know in your heart that faith trumps family, you find yourself on the outskirts of your community when your ex-husband refutes blame and tries to sully your reputation. When it seems impossible to come back, a new parishioner sees you in a way you stopped thinking was possible long ago. With his support, and your firm belief in your mission, you learn that sometimes following faith isn't the easiest path, but it is always the right one—and that hearts can heal no matter how deep the break.

In a world of angels and demons, humans are a rare commodity, and any who survived The Great War are in hiding. Now, years after the war started, your little brother has gone missing. The elders forbid you from searching for him, claiming it is too dangerous, too volatile. You leave anyway, only to run face first into a handsome renegade angel, with a sword in hand and death in his eyes. He sees your desperation, your humanity, and promises you one thing: He will help you on your journey or die trying. With your brother missing and humans being sold to the highest supernatural bidder, you don't have time to be wary. It's you and one broken angel against a whole world.

In WWI Russia, you believe your lover is going to propose marriage. Instead he suddenly departs with the army, leaving you with no plan for a future. Should you embrace the nearest friend in this war-torn world? Or wait, fanning the faint hope that your true love is alive somewhere and will return.

It has been a decade since you began working for a notorious crime boss, and now you want out of the game. When he gives you the task of acquiring a collection of rare paintings and switching them with counterfeits, you tell yourself this is your last con. Your job is to pose as an art dealer so you can get close to the owner of the paintings and make the switch before anyone notices. When you arrive at the home of the owner, you discover she is a beautiful, young widow who has inherited her husband's estate. Over several meetings, you develop feelings for her, which causes you to doubt whether you can deceive her and carry out the con.

It is hard for an aspiring witch when the black cat you have loved for 10 years suddenly dies. While burying him out in the garden, a spirit approaches you, informing you that he has been trapped within the cat for the entire decade. When you look closer at him, you realize that it is your ex-boyfriend, who disappeared during high school. Everyone just assumed that he dropped out of school and ran away. He was always the rebellious type, after all. He tells you that there is a way to bring him back to life as a human, but you'll have to dabble in some black magic to make it happen.

It's a fairy tale romance: boy soldier meets girl soldier on base, falls in love, and marries the girl. You've been with your spouse for three years now and, even though the war rages on and you're in combat, you're together. Then a run-of-the-mill raid goes sour, and your spouse is declared missing in action. Before you can get any information, you're called to the frontlines. Now you have a choice to make: follow your duties and commander or become insubordinate, abandon your post, and search for your spouse. For you, it's really no choice at all. You leave, with nothing more than a pack on your back, while two armies continue fighting to the death and you an enemy to both. Your spouse might be dead for all you know, but one thing's for certain: You're not leaving this place alone.

It's been a long journey from the small town where you were raised to the big city where your burgeoning PR business is making a name for itself. But there's one complication you never could have planned for: the boy who shows up claiming to be your son. When his mother rushes in after him, you realize that, although you might leave your home, it never really leaves you. The preacher's daughter is as beautiful as she was at nineteen. You turned your back on her and her faith when you left the town ten years ago. But now, as you get to know the son you never knew you had and re-meet the woman you'd tried to forget, you realize that sometimes God's plans for you are a little more complicated than you'd ever guess.

It's been years since you've travelled to the city. The last time must've been when you were socializing at the ton to support your younger sisters. You didn't find a wife in London, but that didn't really upset you much as you are never going to marry. You enjoy your quiet country life too much. Even your mother has long since stopped trying to convince you to find a bride and family. Still, you dutifully support her and your unmarried siblings, so when your sister comes to call and begs you for help, you say yes, of course. Her husband's cousin needs a place to hide from a laudanum-addled ex-suitor and requests to stay with you. Although skeptical at first, you can't turn the young girl away any easier than you could tell your sister no. After all, it's not like it's going to change your life if a woman lives with you—right?

It's the height of the witching hour, risky for an ambush, but it's your job as a witch hunter to take risks. Suddenly, you're frozen by magic. You see a familiar face, only to hear, "I'm sorry. I do love you." The world goes black.

It's tough being taken seriously as a female soccer player, but as the star of the team, you are determined to win the world championship series. When your coach of several years passes away suddenly and a new younger coach is assigned to train your team, you must fight your growing feelings for him because he is exactly the kind of distraction you don't need at the most important point in your professional career.

It's your first season in London, and you're not sure if you're more nervous or annoyed. The ton isn't exactly your scene. Despite feeling ready for marriage, you are uncertain you're ready for the season of romance. You're tired of the preening and the monotony, and you know the other girls are, too, although they hide it better. The one exception is the Duke of Essex's daughter. It's her third season, which is almost unheard of for someone so well-connected and beautiful. You find yourself drawn to her. She sees through the same boredom that you do, and you are both surprised by the instant connection. When an aristocrat offers her marriage and she considers it, you're shocked by your own jealousy. You wonder if you have found love at the ton after all, but with her—a woman.

Life is hard, especially for a single mother, but you've made the best of it and took a new job as the secretary for a billionaire. A terrible tragedy rocks his world and you're there as a shoulder to cry on as he heals (and falls in love with you).

Many years ago, you were invited to stay at your uncle's castle. Although you didn't like it at first, the place grew on you and, eventually, you couldn't think of any other place that you would like to live. Today, a new guest arrives at the estate, and you are excited to see him. It has been a long time since someone has visited. His clothes are somewhat odd, yet you find him quite attractive. You began talking to him, but he just ignores you. You follow him from room to room, but he doesn't seem to care as he is busy measuring the walls. When you have had enough—you are a duchess, after all, and no one should treat you so rudely, no matter how cute they are—you confront him, cornering him in the kitchen, grabbing his shoulders, and yelling, "Can you hear me? What is your problem?!" His eyes go wide as if he's looking at a ghost.

Mistaken as a "lady of the night," you are accosted by an English nobleman. You are able to fight off his advances and end up knocking him out, but in the process you lose your coin purse and your footman runs off. Now you have no choice but to "borrow" some coin from the brute who attacked you to get a ride home. You tell no one about the incident, as you are not supposed to be out unaccompanied. Several weeks later, at a seasonal ball, you see none other than the brute who attacked you. Only now, you realize he is not riff-raff, but one of the wealthiest men of the town, and he's interested in your hand in marriage! How do you explain your aversion to the advances of the most eligible bachelor in town without giving away what happened? It doesn't help that his version of events is that he was attacked and robbed, and now the local authorities are looking to make an arrest.

Moving into the retirement community felt like taking a seat in heaven's waiting room. Then who should roll up in a golf cart? Under the gray hair and wrinkled skin, you recognize the twinkling eyes of your high school crush.

On the moors of England in the 19th century, you take a job as governess to the small children of a reclusive lord. The lord tells you the rules of the house, including that it is forbidden to enter the east wing; indeed, the door to that section of the house will always be locked. One day the children run away from you. You look for them and eventually hear them on the other side of the east wing door. Unable to open it, you ask the handsome groundskeeper for help. He uses his skeleton key to open the door, and you find only a dark corridor on the other side. The children suddenly appear behind you. You ask them where they were, and they tell you that they were playing in the kitchen. Then the groundskeeper pulls you aside and warns you that this house is not what it appears to be, and you should be wary of your surroundings. Just as he finishes his warning, the east wing door slams shut.

One night while walking home, you're attacked by a person hiding in an alleyway. A mystery man comes to your rescue. You later learn that he is a prominent MMA fighter. Your would-be attacker learns this as well and plays up his injuries to press charges against the fighter. As an up-and-coming attorney, you take on the fighter's case, defending him just as he defended you. Little do you know that this will be the start of a true romance.

Recently returned from war, you've been told by the doctors that you might never see again. Then you meet someone who seems more broken than you are, and you unite in your shared pain to help each other find meaning in a world that doesn't make sense anymore.

Something about the new guy in school intrigues you. A loner yourself, you can't fight the magnetic draw you feel to him whenever you lock eyes. One rainy night, while driving home, lightning pierces the sky, enveloping the new guy as he stands on a hill. Worried that he may be hurt, you race up the hill to find his body crackling with electricity. He is overcome with emotion and reveals that he is a Nephilim. The reason you feel connected to him is because you have loved each other for years. His father, the God of all Gods, wiped your memory to keep you apart because it is prophesied that together you will have a powerful child who will rule the Heavens.

The last thing you remember is being shot down on the battlefield. When you wake up, you are standing in the middle of a crowd of people with a bomb strapped to your body and your hand fastened to the trigger. You scream for help, but everyone thinks you are a terrorist, except for one woman, who sees the truth in your eyes. Together, you seek help.

The love of your life is bitten by a werewolf and doomed to spend his life turning at every full moon each month. After consulting with a witch, your love acquires the "cure," which he drinks just before he turns. It "cures" him all right, trapping him in the werewolf's body forever.

The new guy you have been dating has invited you to his house for a home-cooked Italian meal. You put on your cutest outfit and head over in anticipation of some cannoli and canoodling. He invites you in and offers you a drink, and then his mother walks out of the kitchen with a tray of antipasti and a scowl.

The night of a full moon is one that you dread every single month. After losing your fiancé to a tragic accident a year ago, you're wary of the moon and the animals that seem to prowl each time it fills. The police call you hysterical in your grief, but you know that something doesn't add up with the so-called dog attack. Something happens in the woods of your town each month, and you're determined to find answers. You're alone in the woods when you hear it: loud, vibrating howling, followed by the sound of animals running toward you. You try to run away only to trip, and then the dog is on you. It's big, huge, a wolf like none other you've ever seen. The wolf stops, a paw on your chest, staring down at you. There's something familiar about its eyes. Suddenly you understand. Contrary to what the police told you, your fiancé's body wasn't too shredded to identify because this wolf—somehow, someway—is your fiancé. As the sun rises while you sit there, staring at him, you see the wolf's body ripple and change until your fiancé is sitting naked before you. The only thing you hear before passing out is him saying your name.

The quiet guy who lives next door to you hardly seems to notice you, but you can't help but notice him—he's gorgeous. You've given up all hope of striking up a conversation until he comes to your rescue one night after your ex shows up to your house, drunk and looking to take you back, whether you want him or not.

The son of a wealthy industrialist is in the midst of a very public and nasty divorce from his notoriously dreadful wife. You are a reporter hired to find dirt on him for a story. You are surprised to discover that he is actually a wonderful man, and you begin to fall in love with him.

The train you're on to travel across England suddenly derails and crashes. Luckily the young man you've been sitting next to and chatting with during the entire trip saves your life, but then he vanishes. When you ask about him later, you're told there was no passenger by that name or description on the train. You return to the scene of the crash, looking for any clues about his identity, but after several unfruitful hours, you walk back toward your car, frustrated and tired. From the parking lot, you see the ruins of a castle in the distance and notice the young man standing in front of it. You rub your eyes and look again, but he is gone. You decide to investigate further.

There used to be only three things you need in life to be happy: money, baseball, and your freedom. Now that you're playing pro, you have everything you ever wanted—but feel that something is still missing. Could your gorgeous new physical therapist be the key to your happiness?

There's been a rash of break-ins at your store. The police officer they keep sending is gorgeous, funny, and kind. Everything you're looking for, but how do you make the first move? You keep tripping the alarms! Great plan, until you find out it's totally illegal, and you're about to be arrested by the handsome cop.

They say that these old ruins are haunted. That no one should ever go there at night. Well, after your girlfriend goes missing, you go to that place. The one place that everybody said was the last place you should look for her. You hope to find your love, but you may find more than you bargained for.

When you dreamed of becoming a television writer, you never expected you'd end up wasting your time writing for a vapid dating quiz show, but a job's a job. One night, your very charming, very single boss asks why you're working late; you mumble something about new truth-or-dare questions. "Great," he replies with a smile. "Ask me one."

When you receive word that your friend needs help with a cattle drive, you don't think twice about agreeing. You're not needed on your family's ranch right now, not with all your brothers to pick up the slack, so you pack a bag and head over first thing. When you arrive, though, it's clear that this is a tougher challenge than you expected as just yourself, your friend, and his cousin have to complete a difficult journey—not to mention how irritating this cousin is. He scoffs at the fact that you are a woman and proclaims that cowboys are "boys" for a reason. He's smarmy and conceited and, yes, the handsomest man this side of the Mississippi. You resent your attraction to him and how seemingly unimpressed he is with you. But when a camping mishap has you injured and him racing to your rescue, you see a different side of him: caring, attentive, and generous. He risks everything to take care of you. As you realize the depth of your feelings, you wonder if you two can find love together.

When you wake up one morning to find 100 text messages and several missed calls on your phone, you know something bad has happened. In fact, bad is an understatement. It turns out your star NBA player fiancé was caught making out with numerous women in a club last night. Now facing a PR disaster as your face is splashed across every tabloid magazine in the country, you're not sure if your life will ever return to normal. Somehow, you get through the toughest weeks of your life, but just when you feel like you are in a good place, your cheating ex shows up on your doorstep.

When you were young, you were friends with a neighborhood boy who liked the same things as you. Both of you were dirt poor, but it didn't seem to matter; as long as you had each other, there was always a make-believe adventure right around the corner. He grew up to be a star basketball player and, now that he's wealthy beyond imagination, seems to have forgotten where he came from. You haven't talked to him in years, but a death in the family brings him back to the old neighborhood, where you reconnect and reintroduce him to the life he left behind.

When your father is transferred west to open a bank in a newly settled area, it's a much rougher life than you had in the big, bustling city. Luckily, you love every minute of it. The local sheriff teaches you how to shoot a gun, and the bank is doing great business. Then the small town is rocked by a devastating attack from some local bandits. You manage to shoot one of them in the leg and, as the others flee, disarm the injured bandit only to discover that she's a young woman. You grow to love her as she recovers and tells you about the hard life she has led.

When your fiancé is killed in a car accident, you struggle to cope with the loss. One day, in a therapy session, you do a role-playing exercise where you speak with your fiancé and talk about the future that you never got to share. After the session, he follows you home and helps you grieve until you are ready to let go.

When your great aunt from Scotland passes away, she leaves her old castle to you. As the castle in in disrepair, you plan to fix it up to sell. You aren't prepared for the ghosts of your aunt's past that you find there, or discovering her mysterious romantic history.

When your spouse returns from Afghanistan, you are elated. You were so fearful for his safety and feel relieved that the worst is over. However, you are unprepared for how much PTSD and culture shock would isolate your loved one from everyone once he returned home. You struggle to show your love and find ways to connect.

When your wife and child die during childbirth, you vow to never marry again. What you had with her was real love, not a marriage of convenience. She was the love of your life. You close the manor and send away all but the minimal staff possible—you aren't able to look at any of them, watch them mourn your wife as you do. When your wife's cousin shows up in need of help, you want to turn her away—you really do—but you can't. She comes in and opens the curtains, and you hate her. You hate her because she reminds you of your wife and also because she's nothing like your wife. You keep hating her until you don't. But can any amount of feelings overcome the guilt?

While hiking through some unfamiliar woods, you realize you are miserably lost. As the darkness sets in and the temperature drops, you stumble upon a cabin deep in the forest and find that it belongs to a handsome writer who lives alone. There is something electric between the two of you, and you connect on a level you have never experienced before. When someone pounds on the door the next morning, the cabin owner pushes you behind him and motions for you to stay quiet.

While visiting your grandmother in her nursing home, she tells you that her high school sweetheart, who broke her heart by marrying someone else before she met your grandfather, just moved into a room down the hall. One day, you meet the man's grandson, who has been told a different version of what happened between them. You compare notes over lunch, and as you fall in love, you help your grandparents rekindle their own romance.

While you are attending an elegant soiree at an old mansion, a servant runs out of the kitchen screaming that the house is on fire. You turn to run, but you can't find a way through all the people and smoke. Just as part of a wall is about to fall on you, a handsome stranger saves your life, sacrificing his own in the process. Afterward, the stranger appears to you in your dreams and begs you to come back to what is left of the mansion.

With no family money to speak of, no title, and no longer considered of marriageable age, you are about to be cast out of the only home you've ever known. Desperation forces you to decide between options you never thought you would have to consider: either work at the brothel as a common prostitute or try to secure your place as a wealthy lord's mistress. Selling the last of your family's silver, you commission a dress for the final ball of the season—a masquerade ball. Without a formal invitation, you must sneak your way in, but you are determined to succeed as you have only this one night to secure your future.

Working as a paranormal hunter is hard enough without throwing romance into the mix, but when a fairy you recently banished starts stalking you on the job, you realize something has gone wrong. In your overworked state, you messed up the pronunciation of a single word that turned your banishing spell into a binding contract of marriage in ancient fairy lore. To break the unwanted union, you and your new spouse must travel to the fairy world, where you encounter all the fairy you banished—who now want revenge.

Yes, you used to be in love with a vampire, but you were just seventeen and emotions were running high. You broke it off with him before you left for college and, although it was weird to go back to the real world, you knew it was the right thing to do. But then students at your college begin to go missing. Bodies are found on campus drained of blood. When your roommate disappears and then your new boyfriend, you've had enough. It's time to put on some garlic, grab a stake, and end this relationship once and for all. You just hope you can resist his irresistible charms.

You always thought of death as just a vast nothingness, a rest that was eternal. When you actually die, however, you find that this isn't the case at all. You wake up—exhausted—and realize that you're still on Earth. You're incorporeal, and no one can see or hear you. You are a ghost. You get over the shock quickly enough, and then boredom sets in. In fact, you're absolutely out of your mind with boredom. Years and then decades pass as you roam the streets. One day, many years after you first awoke to this pitiful excuse of an afterlife, someone looks at you—not through you, but at you. Then he speaks. He can see you. You're determined to know why. As you get to know him, for the first time in ages, you feel love.

You and he are ruthless competitors at a bank. You are both constantly trying to outdo each other and compete for the assistant manager's position. One day, you get into a heated argument in the supply closet that ends up turning into heated passion. After the encounter in the closet, the competition gets complicated.

You and your fiancé have been blessed to be propelled on the path to missionary stardom after being chosen as the fresh young couple to lead your faith in educating and welcoming youths across the world. From brochures to posters to video interviews, you and your love have become a symbol of inspiration. However, the stress of public life has been a constant challenge, and your relationship with each other as well as with God has suffered as a result. How will you handle the fame and pressure that comes with spreading God's word?

You and your friend are in different relationships that are unhealthy. When you get together, you are constantly sharing stories about how miserable you are. Finally, it dawns on one of you that you should be with each other because you have much more in common with each other than with your partners.

You and your neighbor have been dating for more than a year, and you have fallen in love with him. When he offers to cook you a beautiful meal at his house, you think he's going to pop the question. You are ready to commit to him. When it's finally time for dessert, you can tell the magical moment is about to happen. Then you notice the red laser lights focused on him. Confused, you point them out to him. He glances down and pulls you both out of the way just as a stream of bullets shatter the window. Under the cover of the dining table he tells you he is a contract killer and his agency is here to terminate him.

You are a busy bank clerk with no social life but a great love for reading fiction. One day you read a book about a fairy. As you keep reading, you find yourself gradually falling in love with her. One day she flutters into your bank.

You are a dog walker with little interest in anyone with fewer than four feet. Your new client, the handsome owner of a goofy, flatulent French bulldog, changes all of that when you begin to bond over your loveable new charge.

You are a jewel thief trying to get out of the business, but you agree to take one last job before going straight. The money seems too good to be true—enough to set you up for life—so you can't turn it down. However, there's a catch. You need to steal the jewels from an auction house where your former lover is the head of security. It's been more than ten years, but the pain of his betrayal is still very real. Your plan is to get close to him again to learn the ins and outs of the auction's security system. You didn't plan on falling back in love with him.

You are a middle-class silver-fork novel author, fictionalizing aristocratic life for the masses. You often pose as an aristocrat for research purposes, getting gossip as a member of the inner circle. One day your own "secret" affair becomes the talk of the town. What will you do?

You are a personal chef hired by the coach to cook exclusively for a star NFL player, who turns out to be an extremely picky eater. Basically, what he ate as a child is the only things he eats as an adult. What starts out as a trying working relationship quickly leads to fun in the kitchen and romance.

You are a prosthetist working at Walter Reed, and your newest patient is a hard case: a handsome young veteran who lost both of his legs in a roadside IED explosion. He is so depressed that he can barely even look at you during his first appointment, and he tells you that he hasn't felt like a whole man since losing his legs. As you get to know him better, you begin to develop feelings for him. You realize you want to give him more than a new set of prosthetic legs. You want to give him your heart.

You are a rich merchant in medieval England and hire a servant girl to work in your shop. You fall for her and plan to propose to her but rumors are she is a practicing witch. You don't believe it until you discover strange objects such as melted wax and bird feathers under your bed.

You are a single mother who works as a waitress at a nightclub to make ends meet. The one thing you can't stand are people who get everything handed to them, like the rich, snooty patrons you have to wait on night after night. However, when a handsome and charming clubgoer becomes smitten with you, you find yourself drawn to his enigmatic way. After a few coffee dates, you wonder if this could be the one, but then you learn that he's actually the club's billionaire party boy owner—a man you've heard about and hated from afar for years. He swears he's changed and that he has fallen for you, but you're not convinced: Can you trust him to leave his partying lifestyle behind to become a family man?

You are a single parent with eight children. Eight. And he's the first person to take an interest in years. You have to deal with two grown children who think he's a creep, younger children who don't want him to replace your late partner, and your own reluctance to invest in a new relationship.

You are a sports psychologist on staff with a professional basketball team. You are passionate about your job, but have very strict rules about never getting personally involved. Your resolve is threatened when you meet someone who makes you question everything, and you have a decision to make.

You are a stand-up comic, and have spent most of your life making people laugh. You were on the verge of signing a major television deal to have your own prime time comedy show, when tragedy struck and you found yourself struggling to laugh again. Then you meet someone who changes everything.

You are a successful career woman who's become a bit jaded, returning to your old hometown to try to find something you have lost along the way. You run into a high school crush who is now an unmarried pastor, and the reunion allows you to reconnect as you find that some things never change. This rekindled romance allows you to get your old self back, finding that faith and love were what you were missing all along.

You are a successful singer, a tabloid favorite and a judge in a national TV singing contest. An attractive and charming contestant fails badly during his performance. You want to approach him and express your feelings but you are afraid of negative attention from the press like last time. Yet you have to do something or you'll never see him again.

You are a werewolf slayer whose duty it is to protect humanity from the Lycan hoard. However, you never anticipated that your true love would become the one thing you were trained to kill. You didn't get to her in time, and she was bitten before you could intervene. Yet the law is the law. She must be slayed before she harms others. There is no chance of her changing back. But you just can't bring yourself to do it. Now you must protect the one you were sworn to destroy.

You are a white-collar criminal who has embezzled a fortune, and your secretary has accidentally downloaded evidence of the crime. You go to her house to cover your tracks, but end up falling for her instead.

You are a young girl on a student scholarship at a very high-profile British university. One day at the uni pub you meet a handsome young man with whom you feel in love at first sight. Next day, you open the newspaper only to discover you have been out with a crown prince.

You are a young woman living near an American military base in Japan during the post-WWII occupation. You have met and fallen in love with a handsome GI who wants to marry you and take you to live in his hometown in Indiana when his tour ends. You love him, but you are reluctant to leave Japan and everything you have ever known. Things get even more complicated when your family threatens to disown you if you leave.

You are instantly attracted to the well-dressed person sharing your elevator, but could never think how to initiate a conversation. So the two of you ignore each other as the elevator pumps up New York's Chrysler building. Slowing to a stop on the 117th floor, there's a blackout!

You are lost in the middle of the jungle with your clumsy and absent-minded co-worker. Under these adverse circumstances, you get closer than you ever thought you would.

You are mad at the world and he's an eternal optimist. While on a business trip, you get stranded in the same hotel room (thanks to a hurricane) and the ensuing hilarious encounters convince you to join him in romance (and optimism).

You are moving to a large house in the South to take care of your aging grandmother. Once there, you encounter family secrets and lies that have torn the family apart, along with your childhood sweetheart who helps keep you safe when the secrets turn deadly.

You are new in town and determined to blend in and keep a low profile. After securing a job at a local coffee shop, you manage to convince everyone that you are a normal human and not an incubus with a dark past. When a human regular at the coffee shop starts taking an interest in you, you can't help falling for her. Just when you become comfortable in your new routine, an unwelcome reminder in the form of your succubus ex struts back into your life. Before she can blow your cover, you must reveal the truth about yourself to the woman you love.

You are on a blind date, and the guy turns out to be a total jerk. Increasingly uncomfortable, but too polite to get up and leave, you are grateful to be rescued by a handsome stranger who comes over and gives you an out.

You are taking a break behind the catering truck with the other extras, when the star of the movie, a major celebrity, asks you for a light. In that moment, more than a cigarette is lit up, and the whole film production goes sideways.

You are the daughter of the Earl of Devonshire, a once respected and sought-after man of wealth and stature. However, a scandal has thrown his reputation into disrepair, and you have almost given up any hope of marriage until you meet the impossibly handsome Earl of Castleberry, your father's new business partner. The Earl is not just a savior to your father's fortune and reputation; he is everything you have dreamed a gentleman can be and it looks like he has eyes only for you. However, after you marry, you discover that your Earl has secrets of his own that threaten to shatter not just your trust, but also your heart.

You are the maid of honor in your best friend's destination wedding, but you are single and feeling depressed about having to attend solo. Stressed and grumpy on the long flight there, you have a few too many drinks and pass out, drooling, on the shoulder of your seatmate. When you arrive at the wedding, you are mortified to discover that your handsome seatmate is the best man, and you spend the rest of the wedding weekend trying to avoid him.

You are the wife of a soldier who is missing in action and presumed dead. His best friend, who survived the war, offered you comfort and companionship, and over time love blossomed. A year later, you learn that your husband is alive and is coming home. Now you must confess to him that you have moved on—or have you?

You are tired of the obligations that society places on you, the Duke's daughter. Although you are already betrothed, you are still expected to attend social events, which bore you to tears. You can barely contain your irritation when forced to make small talk and gossip with the other ladies of the ton, who are still trying to find their perfect matches. You are comfortable with your engagement to the affable and amenable viscount. He may not be the most urbane catch, but he is kind and will take good care of you. You do not worry that he is not a love match, like the other silly girls dream of. You have no wish to be swept off your feet with the silly feelings of romance. Then you meet the viscount's brother. As dashing as he is daring, he takes your breath away and makes you second-guess your decision to settle for comfortable.

You are trapped in the elevator of your office building with a handsome executive when the power goes out in the city for a few hours. You get to know each other a little during that time, and the attraction is strong. He's evasive about what he does for the company, and it's not until power is restored and you're back at your desk that you realize he's the billionaire CEO's son…and he's emailing to ask you on a date.

You are working deep undercover to infiltrate a drug ring. While walking down the street with one of the traffickers you are trying to bust, you run into your ex, who greets you by your real name. The trafficker immediately assumes you are a narc and pulls his gun on you. You manage to jump out of the way and escape with your ex in tow. Now that your cover is blown, you have no choice but to keep yourself and your ex alive.

You awaken handcuffed to your bed, with your wife of 10 years standing over you wearing a witch's hat. She is saying some sort of incantation as she sprinkles something over your body. You feel woozy and fall back asleep. When you wake up, it is Saturday morning, and your wife greets you with a big smile and a kiss. You have a hard time remembering what happened last night, but everything rushes back to you when you notice a witch's hat stuffed into a duffel bag in the corner of the bedroom.

You come home after filming on set all day to discover a pool of blood on the floor of your mansion and your wife missing. The police arrest you. Once the media gets wind of the situation, you know their stories will ruin the reputations of you and your wife—both famous movie stars. You reluctantly call in a favor to your ex, who works in the DA's office. You hope she's forgiven you for cheating on her with the woman who eventually became your missing wife because she might be your only chance to prove your innocence.

You encounter your high school sweetheart on the weekend you are set to marry another woman (who is spoiled, selfish, and cruel to others). Your best friends work earnestly to thwart the wedding and convince you that your first love is the right one for you.

You fall in love with an adventurous, fun-loving mountain climber. Little does he know that you are afraid of heights and have never slept outside. He invites you on one of his expeditions, to your dismay. You really want to impress him, so you pack your hair dryer and try to make the best of it.

You hate his materialistic ways but a billionaire's charm wins you over when, following an airplane crash, you are stranded for weeks on his family's private island.

You have been dubbed the "Ice Princess" for your unwillingness to accept any suitor's hand in marriage—and there have been plenty. Many have been excellent matches from prominent and wealthy families, but you have not been even remotely interested in any of them. However, time is running out, and your father has finally put his foot down, demanding that you marry to secure the family's position, both financially and in society. Instead of giving you the option to choose, he has now chosen for you, and his choice is none other than your worst nightmare. This viscount has been a thorn in your side since your first coming out season. You've always found him to be quite high-handed, arrogant, and utterly distasteful despite his incredibly good looks.

You have been having sleepwalking episodes ever since you moved into an old fixer upper and you constantly wake up exhausted. You install a camera and try to see what you do while you are asleep. You are surprised to discover you have been going out of your bedroom and having a relationship with a mystery man that appears to live in your house. Who is he?

You have no desire to wed—now or ever—but your mother has other plans. Tired of her constant matchmaking and not-so-veiled "chance meetings" with eligible ton ladies, you decide to go against her wishes and embarrass her in the process. During one of your mother's huge soirees, you propose to a quiet mousy serving girl in front of everyone your mother deems important. You have no intention of actually going through with it, but hope the shock of the fake engagement will end your mother's ridiculous attempts. You never planned on actually falling in love with the lass.

You have spent the majority of your life living in the shadow of your gorgeous and vibrant younger sister Charlotte, who is everything your parents had hoped you would be: beautiful, outgoing, graceful—society's perfect darling. You, on the other hand, are introverted and clumsy, and you prefer to have your nose in a book rather than interact with society's elite. When asked to teach literature at an all-girls boarding school in Dansbury, you jump at the chance. Out of society's eye, you are free to be yourself without worrying about what others think of you. Unfortunately, you find that there is one person's opinion you can't help but want to impress. Master William Hattenburg, the dean of the school, has captured more than just your attention. He has stolen your heart as well.

You just scored a spot on a major competition TV show that makes its participants do the craziest things. You're partnered up with a handsome but over-confident stranger who, you decide, you instantly despise. Can you work together to win the day and the huge prize?

You know absolutely nothing about modern cowboy life other than what you see in movies and TV shows. You've never even seen a horse up close. But that's not what your fiancé thinks. You have been telling him for years that you know a thing or two about horses. It's not like you've been lying, just pretending that you know more. However, when he asks you to visit his family's ranch, you have to either come clean or do a crash course in riding 101. You choose the latter and hire an honest-to-God ranch hand with cowboy boots and a Stetson to teach you the basics before your trip. He's ridiculous, but also kind and handsome, and soon you find yourself looking forward to your secret lessons with him. As your lessons draw to an end, you find yourself sadder than you expected. You express this to him, and he gets serious, telling you that he's in love with you. You're shocked—not only at his admission, but also at your own feelings about it. Do you stay with the man you already agreed to marry or follow your heart to this cowboy?

You love them both, but they're married, to each other.

You make a great team – one is the driver, the other takes the money, and you are the lookout. The three of you have been successful bank robbers for six jobs now. As the police begin closing in, you find yourselves in conflict—one never wants to stop, the other wants out of the game, and they are both in love with you.

You meet your online dating match at a craft brewery, expecting a face that looks nothing like the profile picture. But when you lock eyes it's electric and you talk for hours. You start to think he has relationship potential…but then he tells you about his extensive doll collection.

You never learned to swim, but signed up for adult swimming lessons despite your misgivings. Your instructor is a drill sergeant-type who seems to think you're training for the Olympics, but the only other student helps lighten the mood. You begin to grow fond of the student.

You own a flower shop, and every week for the past year, a handsome guy has come in to order a dozen roses to be sent to his girlfriend. One day, another man comes in to send a dozen roses…to the same woman. Now you are left with a dilemma: tell the first customer, or let him find out on his own.

You own the best saloon for a hundred miles. You're no nonsense and good at your job: The saloon is clean, the barmaids are treated well, and the patrons are happy. But when an outlaw bursts in with guns blazing, your happy little saloon is at risk. A brawl breaks out, and one of your barmaids gets hit across the face. You pull your own gun from behind the counter to get everyone to stop. The outlaw points his gun at you, and you balk. This isn't just any outlaw; this is the famed bank robber, wanted dead or alive by every sheriff in the west. More importantly, he is your ex—the first and only man you've ever loved. The outlaw recognizes you at the same time as you do him.

You promised your high school sweetheart that you'd support him throughout his pro football career, and now, seven years later, he is the poster child for the NFL. You are doing your best to remain by his side, but you are also forging your own path as a personal trainer. As the two of you start to drift apart, will your relationship survive the pressure or will fame get to him?

You pull the head off the heavy mascot costume, sighing as a cool breeze from a fan chills your flushed cheeks. As you step out of the rest of the costume, you notice one of the basketball players standing behind you. Number 4. "I didn't realize you were a girl," he says. "Or pretty."

You receive the news every spouse dreads: Your wife is missing in action and presumed dead. The Chinook helicopter she was piloting crashed in Zabul province within the Spin Ghar mountain range. So far, no one can approach the wreckage due to adverse weather conditions, but you can feel that she's still alive, somewhere nearby that location. You are determined to find her, so you gather your mountain climbing equipment and take the next flight to Afghanistan.

You receive word that your husband has been injured and is in a coma. He is a POW in a country where the Geneva Convention is an afterthought and women have limited rights. Despite all of this, you must reach him because you are a surgeon with a significant amount of experience treating his specific type of injury. You believe you and you alone can save him. Against all odds, you weave your way into the country so you can perform the surgery before it is too late.

You sign up at eighteen. At nineteen, you leave for special training. By twenty, you're the youngest Navy SEAL on your team. They call you baby and kid, but you don't mind because you know why you're there: do the job, protect your country, have your team members' backs. They have yours, too. But then you're sent on a CIA covert operation without them, with no one to have your back, and you start to question just how you're ever going to pull this one off. When all hope seems lost and you question whether you will even be able to complete your mission, you meet her. She's perfect—sweet, pretty, and, best of all, the daughter of the man you've been sent to kill. Perhaps she will be the ticket to get you in the same room with your target so you can complete your mission. But when you fall for her, you have to decide between your country and your love.

You spent the last five years living through hell together as soldiers, with only a few brief moments apart. Now you're in your respective homes, halfway across the country and you can't help but think that what you had together might have been something more.

You travel to England and stay in a castle that's been converted into a B&B. You enjoy your time there and find the other guests downright charming, especially the man you bumped into in at the airport who surprisingly was staying at the same B&B. One day at breakfast, one of the guests starts chatting about how he used to be a lamplighter in Bristol. "A lamplighter? You must be well over a hundred years old, or maybe electricity isn't in fashion in Bristol," you joke. All of the guests at the breakfast table suddenly stop what they are doing to stare at you. Then, the lady who runs the B&B slowly approaches and whispers in your ear: "You are upsetting my patrons." You apologize and get up to leave, but she pushes you back down into your chair. "I'm sorry, love, but leaving is not an option." The room goes black. A person from the other side of the table lights a match. It is the handsome man from the airport. You ask what is going on, but he knows as much as you do. Together you look for a way out.

You visit a beautiful old hotel near the sea that has been rumored to be a home for ghosts searching for their unrequited love. While there, you encounter a handsome ghost hunter who is there to speak with his grandmother, who has been dead for 15 years.

You wake up in the dark. Being one of the first female soldiers to attend the Special Forces Qualification Course, you thought you were ready for anything. However, nothing has prepared you for this. You remember that you were scaling a ridge on a solo mission. Something happened, and now you can't make out anything in the darkness. As your eyes adjust, you see a man in the distance, but you have no idea if he is a friend or foe. When you hear his voice, a smile comes across your face.

You wake up one day, alone in the desert, with no memories, no keepsake, and no name. The heat only intensifies, and the questions follow suit, but you never find any answers. You eventually decide that it's okay to live like this, so you find a job, a house, and a name that works well enough in a village you've never even heard of before. Years pass, uneventfully. Then one day you see him, and a lifetime of memories rush back. Not all of them are good. The love for your beloved is almost as sweet as the biting pain from your time in the war. To save a child and his pregnant mother, you defied orders and became a criminal to your own country. Do you go back to that life, with a man you love but a history you'd sooner forget, or keep living the simple life you've built from the ground up? You've always believed true love conquers all. Now it's time to put that belief to the test.

You were a rebellious teenager who fell in with a bad crowd far too young to understand the consequences. After years of struggling with addiction, you leave rehab looking for a new way to go about your life. You find resolve in your faith and depend on the pastor of your church for moral support. He knows everything about your past, but still embraces you as an important part of the community. One day while helping set up a food drive, you bump into the pastor's son. You instantly fall for him. However, you believe that the pastor would never let you two get close as he knows too much about your sordid past. At first you keep your feelings to yourself, but over time things begin to blossom between you and the son. You just hope that when his father learns of your relationship, he will have enough forgiveness in his heart to let your love continue.

You were in love with him since high school but he never returned your feelings. You get happily married and get a job as a flight attendant. During one of your business trips you spot him on board, handsome and clearly impressed by the new you. He actually asks you out when landing.

You whisper to him that he is the love of your life. He backs away, looks into your eyes, and tells you that no one has been alive here in over a hundred years.

You work in a corporate office in a mid-level professional position. One day, you accidentally receive an email from the VP, the son of the company's CEO, that's meant for someone else with your last name. Then, you begin an ongoing email correspondence wherein you begin to develop feelings for each other.

You work in an office with a co-worker who annoys you with his political views that you disagree with. You complete a profile on a dating site and it pairs you with him. At first, you laugh at this, but realize that you are attracted to him despite his political leanings. You end up going on a date and having a lot more in common than you suspected you would.

You'd never have an affair with a married man, except he promises he is divorcing his wife. When you see them together at a gallery opening you are faced with stunning realization. You look identical to her, except that you're twenty-five years younger.

You're a city slicker now, but you'll always be a country girl at heart. A family illness calls you back to the ranch. You run into your old friend from childhood, who's now all grown up and a handsome cowboy. Your reunion isn't exactly sweet, since he thinks you haven't been true to your roots.

You're a detective solving a slew of murders. Your head is throbbing from the sleepless nights. Just then a stunning woman walks through your office door. She says she has something that could change the case and your life.

You're a down-on-your-luck lawman looking for a new job in the Wild West. Since being fired from your last position after refusing to charge an innocent man, you have been unable to find steady work. When a wealthy railroad tycoon overhears you telling your woes to a bartender, he offers you a job: Bring the person who killed his son to justice and receive a sizeable reward. You never thought of yourself as bounty hunter, but you can't decline the opportunity. A month later, you track down the killer only to discover that it is a woman who killed the son in self-defense. She's been on the run ever since. After hearing her story, you decide not to fulfill your contract and instead protect her from the tycoon hell-bent on revenge. You know that someday he will send more men to finish what you have started. You stay with her to make sure that this never happens, growing closer with each passing day.

You're a famous gospel singer, spreading the word of the Lord with your God-given ability to sing. Your gift has brought you around the world and back again, but it's also brought you a busy and lonely life. One day, you are overjoyed when you accidentally bump into a member of your church hundreds of miles from home. You talk about memories of your hometown and, when he admits that he has always had a thing for you, you smile and tell him that you feel the same way. You believe this was meant to be. However, your faith and love are challenged when it is time to go to your next gig. Will you stay with your one true love or continue spreading the word?

You're a hopeless romantic. Although the ton can be tiring and you're not exactly pleased to be on your second season, you're trying to maintain a positive attitude. After all, your dance card is always full, and you've received two separate proposals. Thankfully, your parents agreed that neither match was advantageous enough to warrant your displeasure. But you've barely got a week left of this season, and no one has your eye. You're worried you'll be forced into a marriage that you don't want just because you're aging out. One suitor is nice enough, but there's no spark. Still, when he asks for your hand, you feel forced to say yes, deciding that perhaps a love story is just not in the cards for you. Yet during one visiting, you meet his cousin, the dashing Duke of Essex. The spark is instant—as well as the trouble you find yourself in.

You're a practicing atheist, which means you avoid all churches, spectacles, and other religious nonsense that rages on around you. But when a freak storm traps you and the pastor in a cabin with nothing but a fire and conversation, you realize that things might not be as they've always seemed. Maybe, just maybe, there's something to what the woman is saying. The light of day seems too bright, and a promise to attend worship with her brings doubt, but you've got to try. You realize that a connection this deep has to count for something.

You're a publicist secretly in love with your famous client, but his agent thinks you should cook up a story about him and his co-star to generate buzz for their upcoming movie. This involves arranging dates and photo ops for the two of them, but you can't help but notice he seems more interested in you.

You're a reporter investigating claims of violent crimes inside the ruins of an old house on the outskirts of town. Before you go, your father insists that you bring along a police officer he knows. After you begrudgingly agree, you meet up with this officer outside the house. You and the officer scale the chain link fence that surrounds the property and open the front door. The interior is surprisingly clean. There is no graffiti, no dirt, and not even a smidgeon of dust. There was just empty room after empty room with the occasional piece of furniture blanketed with a white cloth. You make it to the second floor and find an antique full-length mirror in one of the bedrooms. As you gaze at it, you notice in the reflection that the officer is walking around behind you. The guy is pretty attractive. Maybe you'll invite him for drinks after this. You look back at yourself in the mirror, but you don't see your reflection. Suddenly, a sheet that covered the bed behind you grabs the officer by the ankle and drags him under the bed. You turn around and the officer is gone.

You're a single mom who works two full-time jobs to make ends meet. The new manager at your second job asks you out on a date. He's hot, kind, and perfect, but your son hates him and shows that in many humorous ways. Will love blossom or wither under his disapproving gaze?

You're a teacher who loves her job and her students. However, when your contract isn't renewed due to budget cuts in your district, you find yourself at a loss. Luckily, a friend of yours knows of someone looking to hire a tutor with just your qualifications. You go to the interview and realize the job is to tutor and mentor the son of a renowned tech billionaire. The son has had behavioral problems in school and was threatened with expulsion, so the single father decided to hire a trained professional to assist in his son's issues. The more time you spend with the small family, the more you realize that the son's behavioral problems stem from his poor relationship with his father. The billionaire is smart, innovative, clever, handsome, and stubborn. He initially disagrees with your analysis, but then eventually gives way to your advice. The longer you spend in the role of caregiver to both father and son, the more you start to feel like this is where you belong.

You're a teacher, and you get a new student in your class – a shy little girl who needs some extra help with reading. You offer to tutor her after school, and you discover that she lives with her divorced father, who is struggling to balance single fatherhood with his work as a police officer. You offer to help out where you can, and romance blooms.

You're a third-generation soldier, proudly decorated and always ready to serve your country and your people. After three tours in Afghanistan, you barely think twice before signing up for a fourth. But then you meet her. She's everything you've ever wanted and a million things you never even dreamt possible. As you prepare to ship out in a week, the woman you love promises to write. Unfortunately, when you arrive back on base, things aren't quite as they seem. You discover a conspiracy involving your commander and certain members in your regiment, and now you face your most difficult challenge yet: Do you get in line, do your work, and go to home to the one you love or do you investigate your commander and find the evidence that will expose the conspiracy? One thing is for certain: If your commander discovers your investigation, everyone in your life will be at risk, including the love of your life.

You're a woman fleeing an abusive marriage and you meet your husband's billionaire boss. You fall in love and your husband learns the hard way that abusers don't win.

You're already having the worst day ever, and a fender bender on the way to an important client meeting is the last thing you need. Even the attractive guy you hit doesn't cheer you up…until he does.

You're an ambitious investigative reporter determined to uncover who's behind a string of jewel heists in the city. You find yourself in the wrong place at the wrong time one night, and a handsome detective has to come to your rescue in order to save your life. The problem is, those behind the crimes now know who you are.

You're an orthopedic surgeon assigned to help a star basketball player get back on his feet after a sidelining injury. He's not exactly your favorite patient, but over time, you realize there's more to him than the arrogant front he shows the media.

You're an overworked accountant with little time for a love life. Desperate for a break, you join your girlfriends on vacation at a dude ranch. The handsome ranch owner is rough around the edges, and so are his books. He's about to lose the ranch and everything he's worked for. Will you extend your stay to help him out?

You're an up-and-coming chef whose culinary talent is getting a lot of attention in your city. You agree to compete on a new cooking game show that will give you national exposure and possibly prize money that will help you fulfill your dream of opening your own restaurant. But you are shocked to discover that your competition isn't just any old cook, but rather a charming, cocky, talented sous-chef you might have met before. Although you try to hide it from the producers, it's obvious that you two have history and chemistry off the charts—and the competition has just gotten that much more complicated.

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How to Create a Romance Novel Outline

By Hannah Yang

How to create an outline for your romance novel

So you’ve got an idea for a romance novel. You’ve come up with the core premise, identified your main characters, and maybe even envisioned some of the key scenes that you know readers are going to love.

Now you need to turn this jumble of ideas into an actual book.

How do you put it all together?

If you’re a plotter, like me, you’re probably excited to build a plot outline for your novel so you can plan out the story. But even if you aren’t a plotter and prefer to make things up as you go, story structure is still important to understand.

The romance genre has many conventions and tropes. Your readers will expect certain things from your novel at different parts of the story—tension, drama, heartbreak, and more.

By starting with the right plot outline, you set yourself up to fulfill those expectations and craft a satisfying romance novel that both new and experienced readers will love.

This article will give you a complete blueprint for writing a romance novel that will make readers keep turning the pages.

What Is Three-Act Story Structure?

What should i include in act one of a romance novel, what should i include in act two of a romance novel, what should i include in act three of a romance novel, final words about writing a romance-novel outline.

There are many story structures you can use to create a plot outline, from Blake Snyder’s “Save the Cat” beat sheets to Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey.

In this article, we’ll be using one of the most popular outline templates: the three-act story structure.

The three-act story structure is one of my favorites. It’s simple enough to work for almost any novel-length story, but still detailed enough to give you specific scenes to work with.

If you’re new to the concept, check out our article on how to use the three-act story structure for a novel of any genre.

Essentially, the three-act story structure involves splitting your romance novel into a beginning, middle, and end. Each of these sections include core plot points to keep up the tension and keep your reader turning the pages.

Here’s an overview of the three acts we’ll be splitting your romance novel into:

Act One: The Setup (0-25%)
Act Two: The Confrontation (25-75%)
Act Three: The Resolution (75-100%)

So how do you take this plot outline and apply it specifically to the romance genre? Read on for a detailed blueprint for building an irresistible romance novel.

We start with Act One—the setup stage of the story.

This act encompasses the first quarter of your novel. Your focus in Act One should be to lay all the groundwork you’ll need for the rest of the novel.

You need to introduce readers to your cast of characters, establish the setting, and set up the promise of what the narrative arc will be.

As early as possible, introduce the two main characters and make them feel like real people outside of their romantic lives.

Give the two characters external goals that have nothing to do with the relationship itself—such as starting a business, succeeding in a new job, or winning a competition.

Show that each character has fears and flaws that might make it hard for a long-term relationship to work out unless they’re willing to grow as a person.

Choose a Unique Meet-Cute

Around 1-12% of the way into the novel, we get to the first story beat in your plot outline: the inciting incident, which sets off the entire chain of events that follows.

In a romance novel, this is the meet-cute—the moment your two main characters meet.

A meet-cute is a necessity for any romance novel. You should establish the possibility for attraction without making it instantaneous. Leave the reader wanting more.

There are countless meet-cutes out there, and it’s a lot of fun to come up with your own. It could be as mundane as having your two characters sit next to each other on the bus, or it could be as dramatic as having one rescue the other from mortal peril.

If your characters already know each other—for example, if they’re childhood best friends, or if they’re ex-lovers yearning for a second chance—this scene should be the first time we see them together on the page. If they don't know each other yet, this should be the first time they meet.

Keep the Protagonist Thinking About the Love Interest

No matter what the meet-cute is, there must be some challenge that stops the two love interests from getting together right away. Love can’t come easy in a romance novel. To keep readers turning the page, you need to build tension and suspense.

After the inciting incident, the protagonist should agonize over whether or not they actually want to take the next step forward. It’s important to set the stage for the conflict that will get in their way.

The protagonist might deny that they’re attracted to their love interest to protect themselves from the possibility of rejection. Or they might assume they can’t be together because of some kind of external conflict.

It is important to get the pacing right at this crucial point in your novel. Too quick and readers will not have developed a strong enough emotional attachment to your protagonist.

Too slow and they may become bored and— gasp —stop reading. To avoid disasters, try out ProWritingAid's Pacing Report , which highlights slow paragraphs and suggests that you do not have too many in a row.

In spite of this conflict, however, the protagonist can’t stop thinking about the love interest and wondering if there might be a way to make it work. This brings us to the first plot point.

Force the Protagonist to Make a Choice

After all this internal debate, your protagonist will accept the call of the meet-cute and agree to take the next step forward. This plot point should happen around a quarter of the way into the novel.

Whatever this next step is, it means the protagonist and their love interest will be seeing a lot more of each other.

This is a good time to consider which tropes you want to use in your story, since many tropes come with a built-in first plot point. If you're looking for romance-plot ideas, these tropes can definitely help spark your imagination.

Here are some examples of tropes that all romance writers should know:

The fake-dating trope: the protagonist decides to pretend they’re in a relationship with the love interest
The rivals-to-lovers trope: the protagonist agrees to enter a competition in which the love interest is a rival contestant
The friends-to-lovers trope: the protagonist decides to accept a job, new house, or other external circumstance that will bring them into close proximity to the love interest

While the inciting incident could be something that happens out of the blue, the first plot point should usually be an active choice for the protagonist, even if they still have their reservations.

Until now, they could always walk away. But after this, there will be no turning back.

This decision will push the story into Act Two.

Act Two is the meat of the story, where you bring the two love interests together and enjoy the drama that ensues.

This act is where you build momentum for the relationship. Now that your two love interests are stuck in the same place and forced to get to know each other better, the romantic tension should begin to pick up.

You want to deepen the attraction and the conflict at the same time, hand-in-hand. They key is to make the reader think “Will they be able to end up together?” without us giving a definitive answer until Act Three.

Build the Romantic Tension

This section of the story is your chance to fulfill the expectations that made readers pick up your book in the first place. Different sub-genres will have different expectations they need to fulfill. These can help you understand what your readers expect.

In a Western romance novel, readers will want to see rodeo shows, ranching events, and/or other traditionally Western activities
In a Regency romance novel, readers will want to see ballroom dances, gossip and scandal, and/or strict social rules
In a paranormal romance novel, readers will want to see a hidden magical academy, a dystopian society, and/or paranormal creatures

Fulfilling these reader expectations has the added benefit of giving you more romance plot ideas. With all of these sub-genre conventions as the backdrop, the action should steadily rise until you get to the midpoint.

As the two characters get to know each other more, they learn to trust each other and to like each other in a deeper way. The romantic attraction should simmer and build.

Give them ample opportunity to spend time together. Perhaps they share secrets about themselves or begin to reveal vulnerabilities. One way or another, they begin to see each other in a new light.

In spite of the attraction growing between them, at least one of the two characters needs to be hesitant to jump into the relationship. All romance novels need conflict. Otherwise, you get to your happy ending too early.

As the two characters get to know each other better, they also deepen the fundamental conflict that might make it impossible for them to be together.

Here are some examples of external conflicts you can use:

Friends or family who disapprove
Ex-lovers who try to interfere
A job or other external obligation that physically keeps them apart

And here are some examples of internal conflicts you can use:

Secrets and misunderstandings between the two characters
Past baggage that prevents the two characters from fully trusting each other
An inability to commit to a real relationship

Shake Things Up at the Midpoint

In the middle of your story, you get to the midpoint reversal.

This scene is a new turn of events that feels like either a false victory or a false defeat.

If it’s a false victory, you want the reader to think that the two main characters are close to their “happily ever after.”

A false victory might be the point when the two characters finally declare their affection for each other. They might share their first kiss, or even their first night together, depending on the spice level of your novel.

If it’s a false defeat, on the other hand, you want the reader to think that the two characters can’t be together after all. Some crisis arises that makes them deny their feelings or wonder if this was all a mistake.

Either way, it’s false, because the story isn’t over yet. If it’s a false victory, make sure to bring the conflict back into the budding relationship as soon as the midpoint is over. If it’s a false defeat, give us hope again.

After this, the two characters will be forced to be make decisions about what they really want. If they truly want to be together, they’ll need to find their way back to a middle ground.

It’s time to turn up the pressure and force the main characters to confront the problems they’re facing, both internal and external.

Don’t fully resolve the conflict yet. Save your trump card for the end.

Teach the Protagonist a Lesson

The process of the two characters finding their way back to each other should continue until the 75% mark, when you get to the second plot point.

The second plot point is when your protagonist looks deep inside themselves and realizes that their own flaw has been holding them back. If they want love, they need to confront their own flaw or misbelief first.

This should tie back to the inner conflict you've established throughout the story so far.

Even if you're using an external conflict, you should make sure it relates to the character's internal growth—for example, by being willing to stand up to their disapproving family.

Character growth is a huge part of what makes a novel captivating. If you nail this story beat, you’ll be able to tug at readers’ heartstrings while also imparting a nugget of wisdom.

Here are some examples of lessons learned:

The protagonist was too afraid of commitment to let the relationship evolve, and now they realize they need to stop making decisions out of fear
The protagonist always believed they needed to choose between falling in love and succeeding in their career, and now they realize they need to put in the work to have both at once
The protagonist was pining after the wrong person because they thought they needed love to make them complete, and now they realize they need to put themselves first

Once the main characters learn this crucial lesson, they can finally move forward into the third act.

In the final act of the story, the two main characters will come back stronger—this time, armed with the new lessons they’ve learned along the way.

If your novel has a Happily Ever After (HEA), this act will end with the two protagonists falling in love.

If not, it will end with the two protagonist parting ways, having learned something new about themselves in the process.

Let The Protagonist Fall in Love

Between 75-90% of your romance novel, the two characters will finally admit they’re falling in love with each other. They’ve learned their lessons, faced their own flaws, and decided they want to be together.

This section is a good time for the romantic and even physical intimacy to escalate. It’s finally time to dial up the spice.

Make the reader feel almost certain that it will all work out—but then, almost at the last minute, take us to the climax and bring the conflict back with a vengeance.

Give Us a Climactic Breakup

In the climax, the conflict that’s been getting in the two main characters’ way should finally come to a head.

This scene is when you play your trump card—the terrible obstacle between them that we all knew was coming but tried to ignore anyway.

The reader should question whether the two main characters even have a future together. The climax usually involves a breakup, a moment when the reader truly thinks it’s over. Everything should appear hopeless.

To figure out what your climax should be, examine the faults and flaws of each character. What would get in the way of their happy ending if they aren’t willing to grow and change?

Here are some examples you could use:

A disapproving parent steps in and tells the protagonist they will never approve of this relationship
An ex-lover declares their undying love and makes the protagonist question if they’re with the right person at all
The love interest discovers that the protagonist’s been keeping a big secret from them and feels blindsided and betrayed

Make sure the crisis is believable and grounded in what you’ve established throughout the entire novel so far. This shouldn’t be a bolt of lightning out of a clear sky—it should come out of flaws that we already knew would get in the way.

Put in the Work to Rebuild Their Relationship

The climax also shouldn’t be an easy solve. Whatever the problem is, it should be severe enough that it will take multiple chapters for the two main characters to overcome the issue to rebuild the relationship.

In the chapters following the climax, one or both of the two characters must make a choice. They must decide to sacrifice something in order to be together.

Here are some examples:

If the climax was caused by the disapproving parent, the protagonist may need to stand up to their parents and sacrifice their family’s approval
If the climax was caused by the ex-lover, the protagonist may need to turn down the offer and sacrifice the love they used to crave in the past
If the climax was caused by the big secret, the protagonist may need to show more vulnerability and sacrifice their emotional shields and barriers

Whatever this choice is, it should prove that the main characters have grown throughout the story and are ready to make a true commitment to one another.

Afterwards, the relationship will come out even stronger for it.

Give Us a Taste of Their Happily Ever After

Now that the final conflict has been solved, it’s time to wrap up your plot outline.

If you’re writing a romance with a happy ending, this will usually involve a declaration of love.

Keep the denouement short and sweet—don’t draw it out so much that you lose the romantic tension you’ve worked so hard to build.

You can end with a snapshot of the couple together—perhaps as an epilogue, a year or two down the line. Tie up loose ends and give the reader a hint at how the couple could make a long-term relationship work.

If you’re writing a romance novel with a tearjerker ending, you should make sure some of the protagonist’s other goals are achieved instead. The reader should still feel some amount of satisfaction, even through their tears.

If you can hit all these plot points, congratulations—you'll have a fantastic plot outline for your romance story.

What are your favorite romance novels? Do they fit into this three-act story structure? Let us know in the comments.

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Hannah Yang

Hannah Yang is a speculative fiction writer who writes about all things strange and surreal. Her work has appeared in Analog Science Fiction, Apex Magazine, The Dark, and elsewhere, and two of her stories have been finalists for the Locus Award. Her favorite hobbies include watercolor painting, playing guitar, and rock climbing. You can follow her work on hannahyang.com, or subscribe to her newsletter for publication updates.

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Why You Should Be Reading Romance Novels

Valentine’s Day is, at its best, an excuse to do what you want. Go on a fancy date, spend all night having sex, buy a bunch of sale chocolate to eat alone in the bath. And though it’s hardly the only time of year to celebrate romance novels (I personally find romance better for lazy summer days), it’s our excuse for it, so here we are.

I don’t want to spend too much time on romance’s bad reputation, which is born of misogyny, snobbishness, bias against small paperbacks, misogyny, and a lack of appreciation for delightfully cheesy book covers. But if you’re thinking, Bad reputation is right, and fairly earned! , then please just keep reading. Because if that’s what you think, odds are you haven’t read any romance, at least not recently, and February 14 is my excuse to tell you how much you’re missing out on, and why you might consider a change of heart.

Sad and challenging books have their place in the world, but there is plenty of room on your bookshelves. Romance is written to be enjoyed. Romance is a genre overwhelmingly written by and for women, where women’s desires, experiences, and rich inner lives are given value, center stage. It is fun, smart, savvy, increasingly inclusive, and a guaranteed good time. (And I wrote you a guide of five books to get started with right here!)

To clarify: I’m not talking about love stories here, or romantic books. I’m not talking about erotica, either. I’m talking about the genre of romance, which you may associate with Fabio’s bared chest or Fifty Shades of Grey . It includes those. But it also includes worlds and worlds more. If you give it a chance, you might — sorry, it’s Valentine’s Day! — fall in love.

Most romance readers grew up reading romance. They grabbed a paperback off of mom’s shelf, or squirreled one away to a quiet corner of a library, and thus a lifelong habit was formed. The fact that for many readers this happens when they were 12 or 14 probably makes you think it was about the sex. It probably was, in part. Reading about sex when you’re a teenager is pretty exciting.

But beyond that, think about what you were reading when you were 14. An approximated, reconstructed ninth-grade syllabus: Catcher in the Rye , An Separate Peace , The Great Gatsby , Lord of the Flies , Romeo and Juliet . Boys, boys, boys, boys, a dead girl. Maybe you read outside of school, too. When I was 15 I read the entire Dune series. (No one had warned me, as I warn everyone, to stop after book three.) What I was missing out on, and maybe you were, too, was books about women and girls.

After growing up on Madeleine L’Engle or Louisa May Alcott and graduating into a high-school canon so dominated by men, imagine the relief and delight to read about women . And to read about such adult things — not adult as in sex, but adult concerns, like love and courtship and family strife. To see in those pages possible paths forward, worlds and happy endings to imagine yourself into.

That’s not a thing we stop needing when we grow up. But it can take deliberate effort to diversify our reading lists beyond straight white men. You might not be missing women from your shelves today. You might have, like many people I know, devoted yourself to reading more or only women (and authors of color), especially in the last few years. If we aren’t acquiring editors at a publishing house, we work to change this with our book-buying dollars and with our eyes.

Women have been historically excluded from the canon, and that carries on through to publishing today. Women’s voices and stories — as authors and characters — have been systematically devalued in literature. We see how a man’s thinly veiled autobiographical musings are hailed as revolutionary, but a woman’s are dismissed. How male authors write women who only serve their male characters’ journeys and are lauded for the bare minimum beyond that. How sex, in literary fiction, is rarely actually fun, and if it is then someone must pay the price.

Romance is full of women’s voices and women’s stories. There are male and nonbinary authors, too (and not all romances pair a man and a woman), but romance authorship may be the arena least dominated by straight men in the entire world. “But wait,” you, my straw man, might say. “Romance reduces women’s lives to love stories. That’s not empowering; that’s practically telling them to get back in the kitchen!” Straw man, I promise you, romance makes no such reductions. These books show women finding love, sure, but even the thinnest hypothetical opponent that I’ve conjured up to make my point wouldn’t object to that being a part of a person’s life, right? And while women in romance are falling in love, they’re also coming more fully into themselves, discovering strength and independence, or vulnerability and honesty, or the bravery to stand up to their parents or fight a war or be proud of who they are. And, almost more important than these women falling in love, is them being fallen in love with. For being strong, independent, vulnerable, honest, brave, smart, funny, and stubborn. Those are stories about women that I think are extremely worth reading.

I’m not going to try to convince you that you should read books about women. I’m just going to tell you that if that’s a thing you care about, read romance.

I didn’t start reading romance when I was 14. I was too busy digging into Frank Herbert’s back catalogue, and I don’t have a time machine to remedy that now. I started reading romance when I was in my early 30s, working at a website where romance was a major focus. Well, I figured, if I’m going to be editing people writing about romance, I should know what’s going on.

I started for work, but I kept going because it was 2016. It wasn’t November yet, and of course now, looking back, however bad that summer felt, after November was worse. But soon enough it was, of course, November, and then it was 2017, and I left that job, and the world kept finding new ways to be bad. And I wasn’t going to not read books, but there was so much I couldn’t handle or just didn’t want to in my time of escape from the manic news cycles of the world. I remember reading one book and needing to DM the author to find out if anything bad happened to the delicate dog who was traipsing through the pages.

So there were two problems: bad things happening in books and the anticipation that they might.

One of the best things about romance is tied up in one of the things it’s most derided for: predictability. Romance, like any other genre, has its genre conventions. That’s what generic means. For a romance to be a romance, two criteria must be met: The central plot must be a love (or lust, or like) story, which is resolved by the book’s end, and the ending must be happy. It can be “happily ever after” or “happily for now,” but it is happy. (Rule 2.1, then, is that while the main characters may suffer, they and their closest loved ones don’t die. 2.2: neither do any pets.) This is why not every love story is a romance, and it’s why romance is the perfect genre for 2019.

There is great power in a happy ending. For women, people of color, queer people — the stories we see, in the world and in fiction, very often promise suffering and despair. Lots of that suffering is real, though some of it is baked into narrative tropes .

The best thing about romance is knowing how it will end. Or rather, knowing where it will end up — with the main characters happily together. Because what you still don’t know is how they will get there. What obstacles will they face? How will they overcome them? What will they do or say? It’s the same pleasure we get from mysteries, Marvel movies, and rewatching movies we’ve already seen. Romance, with its prescribed endings, lets you enjoy the journey without worrying about the destination.

And those journeys, I discovered once I started reading romance, are extremely good. They’re full of banter and barely suppressed longing . They’re full of beautiful dresses and people sincerely working through their shit , full of fantasy and the emotional realities of trying to connect with another person . They’re full of millionaires and dukes and strippers with hearts of gold . And, yes, sometimes they are full of sex.

People love to demean romance as “smut,” as if the only thing worse than women writing stories about women is women writing stories about women having sex. But if you’re just looking for titillation you are going to be very disappointed with all the pages spent on things like plot and character development. Some romances end with a chaste kiss. Some demurely fade to black when a couple makes their way to the bedroom. Some are euphemistic. Some are explicit. And some are fun and hot! Because here’s one thing that hasn’t really changed since we were 14: Reading about sex is fun. Or it can be, when the sex itself is fun. Literary fiction has plenty of sex, but it’s rarely about the characters’ pleasure. Literary sex tends to be sad or gross, often enough presaging a character’s tragedy, as if she’s a promiscuous teen in a horror movie. In romance, people get to have sex, and it’s good.

Let us also not forget that in 2019 it is still, somehow, politically daring to say that good sex — for pleasure, love, or connection — should be a part of a woman’s life if she wants it to be. I will never forget that in the first romance I read, the heroine had three orgasms — two, I believe, by cunnilingus — before her partner even got his dick out. As good as the sex may be, it’s not there (only) to titillate. These are stories about love, after all. And sex can be an important part of that. In books and in life, sex is part of a story. It advances plot, it reveals character.

Books don’t need to be sad or challenging to be worthwhile. Sometimes you need to replenish your stores of good feelings, to remind yourself that stories can end happily, that people can fall in love, that a guy can want to get you off three times before he takes off his own pants.

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[Essay] Romance novels have taught me more about people than any other genre

Hello everyone! I'm new to this sub and was told by someone over on r/romancebooks that my essay might be a good fit for a post here. I've read the rules and the stickied post and it seems they were right! That being said, if this is not deemed a good fit, I'll remove the post.

As always, I am open to discussion on my views. Cheers!

Essay: Romance novels have taught me more about people than any other genre

I am fairly new to the adult romance genre. I started seriously reading adult romances just a few years ago, despite always being drawn to romantic stories. Some of this was because of my implicit bias against romance and my internalized shame about liking kissing books. But ever since starting reading romance novels, I’ve discovered something absolutely wonderful. Romance books are not just books about kissing, they’re books about people . In fact, I would say most romance books out there—especially the exceptional ones—are first and foremost about people and internal conflicts than they are about kissing. That is to say, the wonder of romance novels is that they put readers into countless situations, all while teaching important lessons in compassion and humanity.

As both a romance writer and reader, I feel uniquely positioned on the topic of romance novels. I have seen the incredible good they can do, as well as the incredible backlash against them, and the dismissal of them as ‘girl books’ (and some other very dismissive and disgusting terms). But romance novels undeniably do something amazing: they allow you to step into the shoes of people from all backgrounds. This is, of course, something that could happen in any genre. Disabled characters can appear in any genre, as can queer characters. But romance does something that no other genre does. It ensures a happy ending.

This is, in a way, a clever maneuver on the part of romance novelists. When you pick up a romance novel as a reader, you know that the main characters will end up happy together. This simple understanding not only sets the tone for the genre, it also forces the reader to connect with the characters. It forces readers to be compassionate and connect with the characters’ situations, because an effective happy ending relies on the connection and empathy and understanding of the reader to the characters. Simply put, romance novels rely on you feeling the same compassion for the characters that the characters feel for each other.

Romance is the only genre that dictates a happy ending. And because of this, it’s the only genre where every main character is deserving of love, regardless of social status, neurodiversity, race, age, gender, ability, mental health, sexual identity, and every other unique factor that makes specific people who they are. Further to that effect, romance novels are heavily about humanity. The message is simple—everyone deserves love (their own kind of love), and everyone deserves to be treated with respect. Even in subgenres like dark romance, in which dub-con and non-con is common, characters generally end up right where they want to be, because that’s what romance novels are all about.

By teaching us these things, it also teaches us to be more considerate human beings, and to be more considerate of other people’s feelings and wants instead of just our own.

Furthermore, romance is easily the most feminist genre I have ever read, which is certainly worthy of noting. The romance genre has always been about women, and about the desires of women—not just sexually, but socially. Romance has always been deeply feminist, in that it has always displayed the want that women have to be respected, empowered, and in control of their lives, their work, and their desires. Some of this is sexual, yes, but sex is a powerful thing not to be discounted, and sexual desire has always been a point of derision against women, so it makes perfect sense that the revolution started there. Were bodice rippers the most feminist books out there? Not by today’s definition—definitely not. But those books represented a sort of sexual revolution for a lot of women. And while I haven’t read many bodice rippers, I can understand that much of the appeal is that those books said yes, your desires are valid and human and normal, just as much as men’s desires are valid and human and normal.

In a way, romance is very much a concept. It can exist anywhere, in any time, in any universe, and in any genre. But the dedicated genre of romance is not just about this concept, it’s also about what it means to be human, and what it means to give and receive love—not just romantic love, but familial love and friendship, as well.

Do we have a ways to go? Absolutely. Romance has only recently become much more diverse, both in authors and characters, and this is a trend I can only see becoming more prevalent over time, which is very exciting for me. I have been very vocal in the past about how romance novels can sometimes reinforce negative stereotypes despite trying to be inclusive. And yes, these are stereotypes I would prefer not to see reinforced, but what this also shows me is that authors are willing and wanting to engage in discussion and change the negative culture around some of these issues.

In conclusion, romance is one of—if not the most—criticized and looked down upon genres. But this holier-than-thou attitude about the genre grossly underestimates its unique power: the power to bring people together and teach compassion in a way no other genre can, all while advancing our understanding of people different from us, and providing us with unique insights to our own lives and the world around us.

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The Unexpectedly Subversive World of Romance Novels

Helen taylor on books that truly embrace female autonomy and desire.

In the 1980s, feminist academics (including myself) became intrigued by romance reading, partly because—paradoxically—the rise of the women’s movement in the 1970s was matched by significant growth in sales of romantic fiction. Aware of dismissive or hostile attitudes to the genre, Marxist, Freudian and feminist psychoanalytic critics debated issues around mass readership, cultural representations of desire and fantasy, and the conservative or transgressive nature of popular fiction. This was also the shoulder-pads decade of career feminism and the UK’s first woman Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher.

Throughout the 1980s, the British were captivated by the doomed marriage in 1981 of 33-year-old Prince [“Charming”] Charles and 20-year-old Lady [“Cinderella”] Diana, step-granddaughter of “Queen of Romance” Barbara Cartland. Diana was believed to read little except her step-grandmother’s novels which—as Cartland later admitted—did her little good. Cartland herself became a much-parodied figure coloring public perceptions of romantic fiction: as romance writer Veronica Henry suggested, “[romance] has suffered from the clichéd image of the eccentric novelist dressed in pink dictating her novels from the chaise longue.”

This decade produced a new batch of bestselling blockbusters which I have called “the sexy greedy saga,” by writers such as Susan Howatch, Jackie Collins, Shirley Conran, and Zoe Fairbairns. Strong, career-driven female characters have many a sexual relationship, but this no longer defines them—and a healthy bank balance makes up for lost love. The 1980s also saw re-imaginings or pastiches of romance by writers like Margaret Atwood ( Lady Oracle , 1976), Marilyn French ( The Bleeding Heart, 1980) and Jeanette Winterson et.al. (Passion Fruit: Romantic Fiction with a Twist, 1986), with lesbian characters and themes entering the scene. Critical studies of romance by American critics such as Tania Modleski and Janice A. Radway, and British academics Alison Light, Cora Kaplan and Jean Radford, signaled a new serious attention to the genre, and put the subject on the academic curriculum and thus national cultural agenda.

Critics have suggested the romance provides women with the opportunity for self-transcendence, to imagine being ravished, adored, protected and loved. It also enables women imaginatively to resist the constraints and excesses of a male-dominated society, and to find a cathartic space in which to explore fear and guilt, as well as revenge fantasies, around fathers and husbands. Radway’s Reading the Romance analyzed the romance reading habits and preferences of 42 women in a small US town, and confirmed what critics had argued about the complexities of romance reading.

As I too discovered when discussing Gone With the Wind with readers, women gregariously swap romance books, memories and ideas; exchange with each other on and offline favorite lines, narratives, and playful comments on characters and endings. Women can be fierce critics but also enjoy banter and erotic fantasies around the stories. Readers devour romances actively, discriminating between texts and having a shrewd sense of how to find stories and characters that appeal—often via recommendation from friends or family members.

Gone With the Wind enthusiasts were acutely aware of the shortcomings of the central characters, and were able both to understand and also criticize the flawed heroine Scarlett O’Hara, and they spent many a long hour debating with other girls and women whether Scarlett ever gets back bad boy Rhett Butler (and if not, why not). Romance, it seems, allows a declaration of independence (this is “my space, my time, my choice of books”).

The romance story is owned in a special way by women—in novelist Violet Winspear’s words, “a dream world for women only. An escape from the ironing board and the frying pan.” Books of simple plots with single narrative strands and strong central characters can be picked up and put down between bouts of housework, breastfeeding, demands of a job or caring, chemotherapy and more. Three of my correspondents summarized the self-deprecatory or sardonic attitude to this kind of reading.

Amy W (aged 26) told me of her mum, “A large body of free escapism has lured her into Mills and Boon… something you can read and be absorbed in without engaging the brain.” Sixty-year-old Lucy M’s enthusiasm for romantic fiction “waxes and wanes. It’s never been a substitute for the real thing, and when a relationship is going well, I don’t need to retreat into a book.” Liisa [sic] O (36) wrote to me, “I read a lot of what I call trashy fiction, something that takes me out of the real world and into the dreamy world of happy endings…I read more women [Sophie Kinsella, Susan Lewis] as they tend to write the soppy romances I enjoy.”

Successful romantic novelist Katie Fforde told me she read romances obsessively while a young mother, when all she could talk about was nappies, and so her reading was “a place to be away from [my] own life.” Although she was “addicted” to these books, she claimed that the fantasy of a powerful man sweeping her up and taking her away from all this was a pleasurable fantasy. “I’d say most women know the difference between these and their real lives and I don’t think they think they’ll marry a millionaire. They know the difference between fantasy and reality.” For her, these novels were a “prop, like anything that’s easy to digest”—but she admitted that eventually “you get fed up with junk food.”

As I’ve already suggested, the “escape” element of reading is often equated with secretive indulgence in sweet things, the easy palate-pleasing power of forbidden (“junk”) rather than improving food. As one woman commented online, “Reading a general fiction book is like a five course meal with dessert afterward. A romance novel is like a tub of ice-cream eaten when no one’s looking.” The greedy pleasure, guilt, and slight self-disgust, women feel as binge-eaters and romance readers are a reminder of the ambivalent attitudes women have towards “naughty but nice” food and fiction.

Writers like Fforde get irritated by the “massive snobbery” of critics towards the genre, while one romance writer I contacted (whose website is scattered with references to her long- and short-listing for romantic novel awards) claimed defensively neither to write nor read romance, and instead to be a writer of “contemporary novels for women.” Most romantic novel writers use pseudonyms, perhaps as a way of distancing themselves from what they know to be a discredited literary form. Emily Murdoch (a pseudonym) told me she describes herself to women as a romance writer, while to men , a writer of historical fiction. Veronica Henry, on the other hand, claims that people are coming round to the notion that romance “boasts some of the best writing around,” and observes wryly “there will always be prejudice against anything that has commercial success. Who’s laughing, though?”

Along with erotica, the only fictional genre written by women for women, modern romance puts women at the center of the narrative, addresses our deepest desires for love, committed and sustained relationships, and also speaks strongly to us about our dreams and fantasies (two words that crop up repeatedly). In real life the Second Sex, in romance women are never just someone’s daughter, wife or mother. Instead they are the central drivers—and in Emily Murdoch’s words, “the prize.” Although a woman reads a romance alone, often in secret away from male family members and workmates, she joins a virtual communal realm of female readers who share experiences and thus understand one another’s responses.

On the AllAboutRomance.com website, a retired rabbi and marriage counsellor (sounding like Woman’s Own circa 1958) claims that women love romance because “it made them anticipate sex/caring/love in a fictional context” and neuroscientists and many agony aunts claim that the anticipation of sex is more erotic than sex itself. Cultural historian Alison Light wrote wittily, “The reader is left in a permanent state of foreplay, but I would guess that for many women this is the best heterosexual sex they ever get.”

Given the plethora of sexologists’ accounts of female disappointment with sexual partners (usually around an inability to achieve orgasm), and women’s increasing knowledge about their bodies and sexual potential, it’s not surprising readers are turned on by narratives of male characters who understand, and know how to excite and satisfy, women’s bodies. Benedict Nightingale suggested that the fantasies in these books were “actually complaints about men,” so here is a unique space in which a woman can voice such complaints to herself and others, and dream of the ideal partner who will—in the HEA—appreciate her for everything she is and cater to her every physical and emotional need.

And of all genres, romance (like romcom films) allows women a form of expression associated most closely with femininity—namely, crying. My own research on Gone With the Wind found many women referring to it as a “twelve-hankie” book and film, while the blurbs inside Jojo Moyes’ dystopian bestseller Me Before You praise it as “a real weepie,” with reviewers urging readers to devour it “like candy, between tears” and to “Make sure you have a box of tissues to hand!” This emphasis on great romances (often with gothic themes or subtexts) as “weepies” suggests they’re designed to arouse in women bittersweet emotions and internal conflicts, best indulged in private away from the real people in our lives.

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Embrace Your Love for Romance Novels. It’s Good for You

E arlier this year, I worked with a coaching client who was struggling with sex in her marriage. There was a tension between her and her husband each time he wanted to have sex. She rarely found herself in the mood to participate and had slipped into a pattern of obligatory and unenthusiastic sex with him.

She wanted this to change, and in one of our sessions she confessed that, after having her first child, she didn’t know who she was as a sexual person. That, in fact, she really had never considered her own sexual needs or desires and didn’t know how to be “sexy.” When I asked her if she had noticed any times when her sexual interest was piqued, she quickly answered: “Do you watch Bridgerton ?”

My client’s interest in the show—which was adapted from the immensely popular Julia Quinn historical romance book series , including the New York Times bestselling installments The Duke and I and The Viscount Who Loved Me —helped us both to understand what she found sexy. We discussed the romantic setting, the focus on courtship, and how she was drawn to the tension that was created when two people’s sexual desire for each other had to be tempered due to societal decorum. It was a different kind of tension from what she felt in her marriage, and she finally had a way to describe how it was different. She needed to feel less needed and more desired, a subtle but important distinction. She didn’t want to just play a role in her husband’s desire, she wanted him to take an interest in hers, even if that meant planning intentionally romantic dates. And she decided to look into more Bridgerton -like books to help get her in the mood when they had date nights.

It’s a truth universally known that romance novels provide an important window into our desires, sometimes stoking them and helping us connect to our unique longings. And these days, modern romance novels have been shaped by such diverse voices that we now have a genre that is as elegant and engaging as it is smutty—and as imaginative as it is reflective of the deep romantic lives of people today.

Read More: Romance Novels Are Literature

Romance novels can help boost responsive desire , which is when our minds get turned on and then create sexual arousal in our bodies. This differs from spontaneous desire, which occurs when we randomly feel the desire for sex in our bodies first. Romance novels help people get into a mindset that is conducive to engaging in sex, either solo or with a partner through their imaginations. That’s why reading or listening to a tale of a young woman being romantically torn between the steadfast love of a werewolf and the achingly dangerous seduction of a vampire, could be just the thing to ignite your sex life (I’m looking at you, Twilight ). You are transported out of the predictable patterns of everyday life and into a story whose sole purpose is to bring two (or more) characters together through love, longing, lust, and desire. It switches on a part of us that often gets dulled by having to compartmentalize our love lives in favor of more pressing matters.

More importantly, romance novels allow our brains to exist in worlds that are hopelessly romantic, erotic, and safe to explore. That headspace creates the perfect conditions for sexual interest, especially when you find novels that speak to who you are and the themes you find stimulating. Over time, I’ve compiled a list of romance novels and short stories to share with my clients who need something to help their responsive desire. Many of them mention that porn is of no interest to them because they can get turned off by what they see, or the actions depicted just don’t arouse them. We discuss what they fantasize about or what has turned them on in the past. Having this knowledge is a great jumping off point for knowing what will instigate responsive desire. Whether it’s themes of forbidden love or interplanetary star-crossed lovers, knowing what specifically fuels your interest in sexual connection can help you select romance novels you’ll love and avoid ones that don’t meet your needs.

Desires are incredibly complex and the amount of subgenres within the romance genre reflect this. There’s everything from classic romance and romantic comedy to dark romance and paranormal romance. There are now more romance novels centering people of color, LGBTQIA+ people, and people with disabilities. And the tropes include everything from “meet cutes” and “love triangles” to “enemies to lovers,” all universal themes that gain specificity from the perspective of their authors. This wide range of subject matter and relationship dynamics benefits from the recent attempts to diversify the books landscape, as well as the publishing industry . With more diverse voices come more diverse love stories. This is so important for readers who have historically been left out of romance novels. Reading about characters who have the same cultural practices or who resemble you, further intensifies how much you identify with the characters and all of the emotions they express on their quest for love. Books like You Made a Fool of Death With Your Beauty by Akwaeke Emezi , which features a Black female protagonist who is widowed and finds herself in a queer relationship, show the complexities of identity and romance and open the door for new romance readers to reap the sexual sparks they ignite.

Read more: The 50 Best Romance Novels to Read Right Now

Romance novels are a place to both escape reality and dive deep into something so real we can feel it in our bodies. Stories of love and longing are universal, but how they are felt depends on how that love is constructed by the author. When we read romance novels that speak directly to who we are, or who we want to be, it allows us to become the characters and live through their stories. It also helps us know ourselves more by highlighting aspects of love that are particularly important to us.

The state of romance novels today is such that anyone can find something that resonates with who they are and how they want to explore themes of love, sex, desire and belonging. These books are valuable resources for anyone who has struggled to understand how to tap into their sexual curiosity, or who needs a break from the rigors of day-to-day life (or dating!) to enjoy stories of romantic entanglements. There’s so much more to the genre than bodice-ripping, though that’s a steamy part of it. The stories may take place hundreds of years ago or thousands of years in the future. But the feelings are timeless.

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Mental Health

I Highly Recommend Romance Novels If You’re Really Going Through It Right Now

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A friend gifted me Royal Holiday by Jasmine Guillory when it came out in late 2019, and when I finally picked it up in March 2020, I had no idea a heartwarming Christmas romance was about to change my life. The last time I had read a romance novel before this was in high school, when I inherited a stack of bodice-rippers from my older cousin. Holiday ’s charming pink and mint green cover looked different from the busty books I’d read years ago, though. I knew I couldn’t handle my typical harrowing fare—memoirs, psychological thrillers, and self-help—and wanted something fun and light to help me feel good. And I wasn’t the only one turning to rom-com novels during the dark early days of the pandemic: From January through May 2020, 16.2 million romance e-books and print books were sold, and sales continue to soar .

The same day I started reading Royal Holiday , I wrote about why calling COVID-19 the “Chinese Virus” and “Kung Flu” was deeply harmful to the Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI) community. Social media trolls told me it wasn’t racist to use those terms. At that point, my four-year-old twins, my husband, and I had been in lockdown for five days. It felt like five months.

At night, I dove into Guillory’s novel. The charming romance, set in modern-day England and complete with freshly baked scones and leisurely strolls on the green grounds of a castle, was the perfect place to escape my overwhelming reality. Under stay-at-home orders in Los Angeles, I felt squeezed on all sides as a mother, a writer, and an Asian American. I was constantly caregiving —searching for activities to keep my kids entertained, cooking meals, and tending to a sick dog. My brain felt like Swiss cheese by my children’s bedtime. But when I got lost in the sweet love story between an American mom and a debonair British gentleman who works for the queen, I felt swept away from the chaos of my life.

Over the next few months, as the world continued to feel upside down, I went on a romance novel binge. I blew through all of Guillory’s books, then dove into Talia Hibbert and Helen Hoang . Reading these stories was my spot of sunshine amid the doom and gloom of the news . When I had trouble sleeping, my comfort reads lulled me into relaxation. And though I’m no longer feeling as emotionally drained as I did in 2020, I haven’t quit my habit.

Here’s exactly how romance novels helped my mental health through the first year of the pandemic—and why I continue to rely on them to bring me pleasure.

Reading happily-ever-afters brought me comfort.

According to Stop Asian Hate , a coalition of three AAPI social service organizations, 6,600 hate incidents were reported from March 2020 to March 2021. AAPI women and girls were more than twice as likely than men to report a verbal or physical assault. I read countless headlines about Asian seniors being beaten. My worst day was reading a local New York news story about an elderly Asian woman who was set on fire (her shirt was burned, but she managed to avoid serious injury). This woman reminded me of my grandmother who always walked to get groceries. I cried while writing at my desk.

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At night, I eagerly looked forward to reading the romances I downloaded from the Los Angeles Public Library. Some I devoured in three nights. Others I turned to when anxiety woke me up at 4 a.m. There was safety in the routine of knowing that every story I read ended happily; I didn’t have to wonder if the people I read about were hurting.

Romance novels also helped me with anxiety, depression, and loneliness.

As the height of the pandemic wore on, I slipped into depression. At first, I dismissed my symptoms —irritability, hopelessness, and physical exhaustion—as caregiver burnout mixed with stress from writing about the rapid rise in anti-Asian sentiments . I tried melatonin and meditation to help me relax, but reading romance worked better and seemed to pause the constant anxiety loop in my brain. To be clear, romance novels are not a substitute for mental health treatment—it ultimately took a combination of medication and therapy to help me manage my depression and anxiety —but the stories I read did help me unwind at a time when I desperately needed it.

It turns out, there’s some science to support the mental boost I got from my fictional companions. A 2022 study in the American Journal of Emergency Medicine found that reading books was an effective coping strategy for emergency health care workers during the pandemic, reducing feelings of stress, anxiety, and depression. I would never compare my situation to theirs, and, again, you can’t read your way out of a mental health condition, but it’s encouraging to know that books can, in fact, make you feel a bit better when life gets dark and overwhelming.

And romance novels may be particularly helpful when it comes to loneliness and isolation. In a 2013 study in the journal Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts , researchers talked to readers of specific book genres—domestic fiction, romance, science fiction/fantasy, and suspense/thriller—to understand how they might pick up on social and emotional nonverbal cues. Participants were asked to “decode emotions from black-and-white cropped images of people’s eyes” and the researchers found that romance readers “tended to perform better on picking up social cues” compared to readers of other genres.

Translation: Reading romantic novels might help make you feel more connected to other people, Katrina Fong, PhD , a researcher of social and personality psychology and the lead author of the study, tells SELF. And it’s not all that surprising, considering that romance, more than other genres, focuses so heavily on relationships. “Reading stories and connecting to the characters can help meet our personal psychological needs,” Dr. Fong explains. “It's possible that connecting to fictional characters can create a sense of closeness that staves off loneliness, especially if characters feel like real people to readers.”

Of course, this is just one study, and it didn’t specifically look at whether romance stories made readers feel less lonely or isolated. But it does suggest that the strong sense of connectedness I felt when I got to hang out with my romance-novel characters may have been the reason these books eased my loneliness during a very isolating time.

I felt emotionally validated by the characters.

Unlike the romance novels I read as a teen, my new reads had relatable characters. I saw myself in Chloe, the perpetual planner in Get a Life, Chloe Brown by Talia Hibbert. As someone who married her BFF, I understood Alex and Poppy’s best-friends-to-lovers relationship in Emily Henry’s People We Meet on Vacation . And as I was grappling with caregiver burnout and depression, I felt understood by Helen Hoang’s The Heart Principle , a deeply vulnerable novel centered on Anna Sun, a young woman who is caring for her sick mother, and a guy she meets for a one-night stand.

When Anna felt guilty for wanting alone time in the midst of tending to her sick mother, I felt seen. Anna’s dilemmas, exhaustion , parental guilt, and depression mirrored my life in 2020. To see Anna speak up for herself allowed me to feel validated in meeting my own needs. “You may think you’re the only person who's experiencing something, but being able to see somebody else in a similar situation, coping with the same feelings, can help you feel less alone,” Dr. Fong says.

I spoke with Hoang about her experience drafting The Heart Principle while going through depression (which she details in her author’s note at the end of the book), and it was affirming for her too. “Writing about my personal experience made me cry. A lot. There were certain scenes that were so difficult to relive that I spiraled into bouts of depression after writing them,” Hoang tells SELF. “But as challenging as that was, I think that type of confrontation and self-reflection was healing as well. It was catharsis and validation. Through the power of storytelling, I was able to not only explain but show everyone what it was like to walk in my shoes.” Perhaps I was picking up on that too—Hoang’s own healing through her character’s stories. I was seeing and being seen, and therefore felt less alone.

It’s been nearly three years since I first cracked open Royal Holiday late at night while my kids and husband slept (oh, wonderful silence!), and I’ve been reading and loving romance novels ever since. I credit Red, White, & Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston for getting me through my dog’s cancer diagnosis at the end of 2020, and dozens of other stories have helped me cope with hard times, restore my happiness, and express my needs. The joy in reading romance novels—however small it may seem—kept me anchored during a time when I felt like I was floating away in hopelessness, and now my to-be-read pile is more colorful and hopeful than it's ever been.

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SELF does not provide medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Any information published on this website or by this brand is not intended as a substitute for medical advice, and you should not take any action before consulting with a healthcare professional.

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108 Romance Writing Prompts & Love Story Ideas
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149+ Romance Story Prompts And Love Story Ideas
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Writing a successful romance novel involves several key steps to engage your readers and create a compelling love story. First, set yourself up with novel writing software so you are ready to go. Then, here are the 13 steps you should take when learning how to write a romance novel: 1. Define your target audience.
Page 1: How to Start Your Romance Novel
1. Start with one of your two main characters. Readers expect the first character they meet in the story to be either the hero or the heroine (and most often it is the heroine), and they're immediately prepared to care about this person. Leigh Michaels. Dec 1, 2009. Here on the blog, I don't spend too much time talking about craft, simply ...
30+ Romance Writing Prompts [Free to Copy]
30+ Romance Writing Prompts [Free to Copy]
How to Write a Romance Novel: The Complete Guide
Well, if you plan on marketing your love story as a romance novel, there are some basic guidelines that avid romance readers expect. The typical plot structure of a romance novel, in its most basic form, looks something like this: 1) Meet cute. 2) Building of romantic tension.
81 Romance Writing Prompts to Kickstart Your Romance Novel
81 Romance Writing Prompts to Kickstart Your Romance Novel. By Krystal N. Craiker. Content Manager and Indie Author. One of the biggest hurdles in writing a romance novel is figuring out what to write. It can be hard to find a plot idea or figure out how to open your story. If you need some fresh ideas for your next love story, check out these ...
Best Romance Writing Prompts of 2023
The best romance writing prompts. Sometimes you just want to read a book that gives you the comforting knowledge that there will be a Happily Ever After — and that's one of the defining characteristics of the romance genre. Everyone enjoys a little romance in their life, whether it's steamy and passionate, or sweet and PG-thirteen-rated ...
180 Romance Writing Prompts to Kick Off Your Next Love Story
It's a fairy tale romance: boy soldier meets girl soldier on base, falls in love, and marries the girl. You've been with your spouse for three years now and, even though the war rages on and you're in combat, you're together. Then a run-of-the-mill raid goes sour, and your spouse is declared missing in action.
How to Write a Romance Novel: 5 Tips for Writing a Successful Romance
How to Write a Romance Novel: 5 Tips for ...
How to Write an Irresistible Romance (Free Course)
Brought to you by Kate Studer. With over a decade of experience working in romance publishing, Kate Studer is a full-time editor and writer based out of Southwestern Ontario, Canada. As a freelancer, she's had the pleasure of helping craft a variety of manuscripts from indie authors to New York Times and USA Today bestsellers. She loves collaborating on stories readers can't put down and ...
Your Complete Blueprint for Writing a Romance Novel
How to Create a Romance Novel Outline
Writing 101: What Is a Romance Novel? Learn About the ...
Writing 101: What Is a Romance Novel? Learn About the ...
Why You Should Be Reading Romance Novels
Romance is written to be enjoyed. Romance is a genre overwhelmingly written by and for women, where women's desires, experiences, and rich inner lives are given value, center stage. It is fun ...
[Essay] Romance novels have taught me more about people than ...
Essay: Romance novels have taught me more about people than any other genre. I am fairly new to the adult romance genre. I started seriously reading adult romances just a few years ago, despite always being drawn to romantic stories. Some of this was because of my implicit bias against romance and my internalized shame about liking kissing books.
Romance Romance Essay
810 Words. 4 Pages. Open Document. Romance begins with an attraction between two people and grows into an emotional attachment called love. Affection, acts of kindness, words of affirmation, quality time, and sacrifice all exemplify ways to show love. According to Webster's, romance defines as a love story especially in the form of a novel.
Romance Novels Are Literature
In an essay, author Casey McQuiston demands that the romance genre be taken seriously. ... The romance novel is so present in American life—nearly a quarter of adult print fiction sold—that ...
The 60 Best Romance Novels of All Time
The 60 Best Romance Novels of All Time
The Unexpectedly Subversive World of Romance Novels
The romance story is owned in a special way by women—in novelist Violet Winspear's words, "a dream world for women only. An escape from the ironing board and the frying pan.". Books of simple plots with single narrative strands and strong central characters can be picked up and put down between bouts of housework, breastfeeding, demands ...
Embrace Your Love for Romance Novels. It's Good for You
Read More: Romance Novels Are Literature. Romance novels can help boost responsive desire, which is when our minds get turned on and then create sexual arousal in our bodies. This differs from ...
How Reading Romance Novels Helped Save My Mental Health
How Reading Romance Novels Helped Save My Mental ...
Free Essays Examples on Romance Novel Genre
These novels have stood the test of time and continue to be widely read and loved by many. While there are many different subgenres within the romance novel genre, these three classics exemplify the depth of emotion and timeless love stories that are at the heart of what makes a good romance novel. How to Write Romance Novel genre Essays. The ...