Shelf Love: Romance Novel Discourse

Junior novels were early romances for young readers, published in the 1940s-1960s. Learn from expert guest Dr. Amanda K. Allen how the didactic and heteronormative messages in these novels make a lot of sense when you consider that they were created to respond to demand from librarians and schools for “bibliotherapy” texts to “teach teenage girls how to be women,” which included winning that class...

Funmi’s Beverly Jenkins collection is complete, and of course it includes the queen of Black historical romance’s young adult romances that were originally published in the short-lived Avon True Romance line in the early 2000s. We discuss Belle and the Beau and Josephine and the Soldier. Did these romances hit the spot for early aughts tweens? And why do we feel like the parental gaze is peering o...

Jess joins Shelf Love to discuss the Sunfire romance that shares her name: Jessica by Mary Francis Shura. This historical teen romance from 1984 centers on a highly-competent, independent Kansas teen in 1873 and her many suitors: is the mad man who wins her heart the right guy or is he just the one who gets along best with her bad dad? - Shelf Love: Join the Conversation on Discord: https://www.pa...

Sunfire, a historical romance series for young adults, debuted in 1982 with two books by Candice Ransom. 40 years later, Candice pulls back the curtain on her process and how Scholastic editor Ann Reit shaped the series, which was many young readers’ first taste of romance packaged in a girl’s adventure story. Shelf Love: Join the Conversation on Discord: https://www.patreon.com/ShelfLove Sign up...

A brief overview of romance for young adult readers throughout time, with a focus on the romance series boom of the 1980s and the reverberations into the early 2000s. Wildfire, Sunfire, Sweet Dreams, Oh My! But some people haven’t always been on board with young people consuming age-appropriate romance. - Shelf Love: Join the Conversation on Discord: https://www.patreon.com/ShelfLove Sign up for t...

Lucy Hargrave shares her research into the history of queer romance. While Lucy dates published narratives of fictional happy endings for queer characters back to 1906, she charts the evolution since then in 5 significant time periods with different political, cultural, and technological climates. Plus, Lucy shares some results from her quantitative research into modern readers and writers of quee...

Fangirl Jeanne answers the question: Why might people, and women in particular, find serial killers to be romantic figures in dark romance in a hetero patriarchal capitalist, racist, etc. society? We discuss the Darkly, Madly Duology by Trisha Wolfe, a dark romance with 2 serial killer main character antagonists. - Guest: Fangirl Jeanne Website | Twitter Jeanne’s tweet thread on the power fantasy...

Readers weigh in on killers in romance novels (AKA people who un-alive other people) and I challenge myself to see if the distasteful elements in the Darkly, Madly duology (discussed next episode!) showed up in less-egregious ways in texts I did enjoy. Also, more thoughts on power, gender roles, and the desire to conquer a protector. Responses from Antagonist April social media prompts: Books with...

Antagonist April: discussing killers in romance. Fangirl Jeanne is back to continue our discussion of Manacled, a dark romance fan fiction story. What is the appeal of enemies to lovers? How do readers wrestle with justification for killing in romantic stories, and how does Manacled explore a romantic relationship, not just a romantic fantasy for an individual? How does creating within communal sy...

Antagonist April: discussing killers in romance. Manacled by SenLinYu is a wildly popular dark romance fanfic with Draco Malfoy and Hermione Granger, that remixes alternate universe Harry Potter with Handmaid’s Tale. Fangirl Jeanne joins me to discuss how war is hell, what it means to be a killer in a world where there are fates worse than death, and the appeal of the murderous antagonist hero. Wh...

Data scientist Dr. Andrew Piper joins Shelf Love to share how data science can help the romance community answer the big questions that close reading can’t answer. Andrew’s the director of McGill University’s .txtlab, a laboratory that uses machine learning to ask questions like why do people enjoy the work they love? And once we empirically quantify what’s going on here, he asks us to think about...

Swan Song (2021) is a movie that forces us to confront the "After" part of Happily Ever After. Shelf Love's Sad Media Correspondent, Dame Jodie Slaughter, is here to discuss lax security at cloning facilities, the ethics of cloning, the aesthetics of the future: pretty much anything that allows us to avoid the banal truth about our own mortality. Content Note: discussion of death and mortality. -...

Do our fated lovers smell like ambrosia because of the cosmic love connection? How do romance novels use language to convey romantic love? I propose a spectrum that ranges from "fated sex mates" to "perfectly matched" using examples from 4 romance novels (not all of them recommended). Shelf Love: Join the Conversation on Discord: https://www.patreon.com/ShelfLove Sign up for the email newsletter l...

Have you ever wished you could just escape the anxieties and mundanity of modern life by traveling back to Qing Dynasty China? How does time travel romance create a simulacra of a “glorious and wealthy feudal past” that allows audiences to “effortlessly become a love interest and an admired woman through the male gaze shaped by multiple admirers”? Shelf Love: Join the Conversation on Discord: http...

The Hunger Games may have featured a prominent love triangle, but are those the relationships teen girl audiences care most about? Dr. Tina Benigno shares her research about how the teen romance narrative for the extra-ordinary girl in some ways reinforces neoliberal feminist or popular feminist messages around empowerment discourses, on the heels of postfeminism. Discussed: The Hunger Games, The...

Romance-Friendly Bookstores with Copper Dog Books (and everything about the supply chain you've never thought to ask)! Copper Dog Books is an independently-owned, genre-inclusive bookstore in Beverly, MA and co-owners Julie Karaganis & Meg Wasmer join Shelf Love to share the joys, challenges, and future possibilities for romance in brick and mortar bookstores.  Guests: Copper Dog Books: co-owners...

Love & Marriage...and The Simpsons. Join me & my IRL love partner to celebrate what "ever after" looks like this Valentine's Day. We discuss how romantic love, infidelity, & marriage are portrayed in The Simpsons. Reader...I married him and he DID eventually redo my website. Shelf Love: Join the Conversation on Discord: https://www.patreon.com/ShelfLove Sign up for the email newsletter list  |  We...

Mary Fisher lived in a palace by the sea, and like all romance novelists, just needs love to complete her idyllic rose-colored life. Too bad the man she wants is married to bored housewife Ruth, who embarks on a journey of revenge. But who is the titular She-Devil in this 1989 film starring Meryl Streep and Roseanne Barr? What does this film imagine is worse than being a bored housewife? Whom do w...

Normal People by Sally Rooney (and the Hulu adaptation) is a love story that may or may not be a romance novel, a story that might be hopeful even if it’s bleak, but who could say if it represents all millennials, who live in a post-love, post-Tumblr society? Shelf Love’s Youth Culture Media Correspondent Dame Jodie Slaughter helps me decipher what Normal People has to say about love, romance, mar...

Is true love real or fiction? Is romantic love in fiction unreal but not untrue? How do romance novels play with fiction and reality, and how do some other disciplines explore similar questions in their own fields? Guest: Dr. Eric Selinger Romancelandia Holiday Fairies 2021: bit.ly/romancelandia Shelf Love: Join the Conversation on Discord: https://www.patreon.com/ShelfLove Sign up for the email n...

This episode is about feelings, and Murderbot, and romance novels, and hope, and anger, and powerlessness, the year 2020....and 2021. Romancelandia Holiday Fairies 2021: bit.ly/romancelandia Shelf Love: Join the Conversation on Discord: https://www.patreon.com/ShelfLove Sign up for the email newsletter list  |  Website  |  Patreon  |  Twitter  |  Instagram  |  YouTube Email:  Andrea@shelflovepodca...

Seven souls gave romance novels a try as a result of the Bridgerton adaptation and bravely came to speak with me about what they thought of romance readers before, what it took for them to pick up a romance, and how or if they've had a change of heart about the genre and what it means to be a romance reader. Shelf Love: Join the Conversation on Discord: https://www.patreon.com/ShelfLove Sign up fo...

Stories from Shelf Love listeners who have reexamined romantic stories that they used to love and found that their relationship has gone from unconditional love to questioning the value of their relationship. Outlander. The Cosby Show. Harry Potter. Gilmore Girls. We hate to love you! - Shelf Love: Join the Conversation on Discord: https://www.patreon.com/ShelfLove Sign up for the email newsletter...

Dr. Maria DeBlassie joins me to discuss engaging with banned media, and dealing with the discomfort and joy of growth. Is Gone With the Wind watchable with context? What happens when I force myself to watch it and realize how far into the present its influence reaches? And, I finally read Lord of Scoundrels by Loretta Chase and see what the fuss is about: but am I allowed to enjoy it? Content note...

Is it real love or fantasy TV? I hope you're here for the right reasons: to learn how The Bachelor franchise produces a fantasy of romantic love. We cover the lingo (Rose Ceremony, Fantasy Suite, Frankenbiting), the scandals, the couples, and all of the commercially-viable aesthetically romantic gestures that construct "romantic love" on The Bachelor.  Tell Me About is a series that introduces me...