Adultery in romance novels chills me to the bone. How can we expect a “happily ever after” ending when one of the lead characters has strayed? Isn’t the saying “once a cheater, always a cheater?”
I purchased a historical romance novel a year ago; it came highly recommended by a friend and received nothing but stellar reviews. It’s currently sitting on my bedroom floor, in a small “To Be Read” pile. Not since I discovered that the hero was a married man and the heroine, a prostitute he enjoys during a night out on the town, was I able to read the novel. There are obvious problems in the marital relationship that push the hero to find solace and gratification elsewhere (excuses…excuses), but the mere knowledge of his marital status was enough to chill my reading ardor. As is typical of any romance novel, the hero and heroine soon become more than part-time lovers, ’til the end of the novel when circumstances make it possible for the two to finally wed (…and they lived happily ever after). The romance is not of the syrupy sweet variety; on the contrary, its dark passion and depth make it a must read for any fan of romance…so I hear…because I still have not garnered the will to read it.
I’m not a prude, nor am I naive. I understand perfectly well that in the real world, adultery exists and sometimes circumstances will push one partner to stray from the other. I get it, but I don’t have to like it…especially in romance novels. The mere knowledge that the hero committed adultery was enough to nearly destroy my desire to read a book considered by many to be one of the author’s finest (I will not reveal the name because I do not want to spoil the book for others). I will eventually read the book, but right now it’s been one year and all the book has been doing in my life is collecting dust.
There are many things I tolerate in romance novels – virgin widows, spies, Americans in Britain, alcoholism, bodice ripping – but adultery is not one of them.
In recent years, several novels have been written with a cheating spouse (usually the hero). I’ve read a few. The writers all did an exceptional job; unfortunately, despite their best efforts, I could not completely look past the fact that someone in the relationship had cheated. I could never shake off the knowledge that the hero (let’s face it; it’s usually him depicted as the adulterer) had slept with someone other than the heroine WHILE in a relationship with the heroine! “Happily Ever After” was no longer an option for me; there would always be that lingering doubt, that underlying anger, that…gulp…sadness in their lives. For a brief moment (or maybe even a few years), the heroine simply wasn’t enough and the ultimate betrayal was committed. Would the hero stray again? The question always remained.
Perhaps I look for more romance than most when reading a romance novel. I don’t want a hero or heroine who cheats. I want someone who will be faithful to the heroine, despite the many temptations surrounding them. I don’t want a hero who will cheat on his wife and remain married while engaging in an affair with the heroine either. Call me simple. Call me innocent. Romance is romance. Reality is the last thing I want to think about. I don’t expect the lives of romance characters to be depicted as shiny and perfect; I like a good dose of trial and tribulations, like the next person, but adultery…..adultery is just not romantic. Sorry.
What do you think? Can you look past adultery in a romance novel? What novels, in your opinion, were able to win you over, despite the adultery of its lead characters? For authors, how challenging is it to write a novel in which one of the leads has strayed?
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Daniela’s love for books began as a child in her native San Francisco, where she lived a block away from her local library. The love (some call it OBSESSION) followed her to college where she studied English and History and soon developed a passion for Britain’s Victorian and Regency periods. She loves Jane Austen and considers Austen’s lesser known PERSUASION one of the greatest romances of all time. Daniela reads any chance she gets; her favorite romance authors are Lisa Kleypas (she claims to be her #1 fan), Mary Balogh, Loretta Chase, Julie Anne Long and Candace Hern.
If the author can sell it with good motivation and characterization, and show realistic consequences, I’ll read it.
I can appreciate a strong reaction against adultery in romance by those who read romance in order to “escape reality,” but I do get heartily sick of the whole “if it contains THIS, then it’s NOT ROMANCE” argument. How about just saying “I don’t care for this in the romances I read.” Do we need to defend our preferences by defining the genre so narrowly? Are we really that insecure in our own likes and dislikes?
Frankly, I think all these supposed rules limit the genre, and add to romance’s reputation as sexually explicit pablum for bored housewives.
I say bring on the adultery, and anything else an author might want to write about. If there’s an audience for it, it will sell. If there’s not, it won’t, and editors won’t purchase it again. That’s pretty much the basis for an open marketplace, isn’t it? And an open marketplace — the foundation of the American economy — is what makes any industry healthy.
The typical romance story (if there can be said to be one) features idealized behavior. And since infidelity is not an ideal, of course it isn’t part of the normal pantheon of behaviors in a romance. Yes, infidelity happens in real life, and yes, talented writers can make stories featuring infidelity–of all sorts–accessible, moving, etc. But your basic romance is about relationships that work, not about relationships that do not work.
My experience of romance is different from yours, Poison Ivy. In my experience, romance is about relationships that DON’T work for some reason. Hence the conflict upon which the story is based. Either the hero has issues, or the heroine has issues, or there are outside forces colluding to keep the two apart. The story is then about how the pair overcome the issues to get together. Without conflict — without the part that doesn’t work — you have no story.
I see adultery as another potential “issue” or “obstacle” in the creation of a story.
Some people hate that obstacle. Other people hate the “big misunderstanding.”
I, for one, dislike overly-idealized behavior in romance. I’m much more likely to put a book down that features characters to whom I can’t relate, and I can’t relate to perfection or near-perfection.
I write what I like to read, which includes a nice dose of reality-based behavior. Haven’t written a story that includes adultery, but I’m not ruling it out based on what I see as an artificial “rule.”
Romances are about relationships that don’t work? Well, that’s an interesting take. But in the end, they all do work, even if the heroine’s friends have to lock her up with the hero in a room together to make it happen. This is ideal compared to real life, in which the friends can’t help, the fights end in divorce, the reunion with the first love doesn’t happen, and the secret baby remains a secret. So I believe that romances are about relationships that, however challenged, do work. Which makes them, au fond, idealized.
I don’t relate to perfection or near, but I like reading about women who embody some idealized qualities. These include but are not limited to natural skinniness, a bland ethnic background, and no addictions. It’s pleasant to read about someone who isn’t always thinking about the next diet, or about her problematic interface with the mass of our culture, or about her hoarding fixation. Romance heroines do have emotional baggage, but it’s usually very limited and specific and the story resolves the key issue.
The whole point of reading genre is to read within a structure. Readers have a legitimate expectation within genre that there will be rules, that certain lines won’t be crossed. Sometimes they are, with exciting results. But sometimes that becomes a false path leading away from the core genre reading experience, which basically promises safety. I am convinced that there are only two approaches to reading: either “Surprise me!” or “Don’t surprise me.” And genre is the second approach. So, no, I don’t want to read about infidelity because that’s not a safe romantic issue.
I think we’ll have to agree to disagree – strongly – on this issue, Poison Ivy.
I do think genre conventions are important. A mystery needs a “whodunnit” and a solution. A work of science fiction needs fictional science.
As far as I can tell, a romance needs a love story that ends happily. All other “rules” are trends and fashion, because there isn’t anything that hasn’t been done – and done well – and sold well, for that matter. Perhaps adultery isn’t a HUGE seller as a plot device within romance, but ten years ago, neither were vampires. Or werewolves. Or BDSM.
As I said, I haven’t written anything that includes adultery, but I chafe at what I consider artificial rules and contructs that limit an already limiting genre, simply by virtue of it BEING genre fiction.
And as an inveterate storyteller at heart, I have to re-state that I believe romance is about relationships that don’t work – at least at the beginning. The journey from “not working” to “working” is what makes the story after all.
BTW – not all of us voluptous, ethnically-non-bland ladies spend all our time worrying about diet or how society mistreats us. Sometimes we can be “ideal,” too.
[...] There are two competing threads that took place last week amongst the romance circles. The first discussion arose out of a post by Daniela A, a reader blogger, who wrote that she did not like books featuring adultery. Some readers felt it was written in stone that infidelity could not occur. Others felt that in certain books, it could work. [...]
I have to agree with you… I prefer both H&H to be unmarried when they meet, and don’t mind if one is widow/widower, or if one was divorced because that one’s spouse was unfaithful; but I well not tolerate that either H or H themselves be the ones doing the cheating
great blog btw, so glad I found it!
~EK
oddly, in several of my books I use a reocurring maine character, who never stays with any one woman; his reputation is one of a rather unbridled and very wild… of course he is a male Siren (not a human) so I can pull it off (I guess you can tell my genre is sci-fi/fantasy rather than stricyly romance)
~~EK