I’ve noticed a trend in gay male romance recently, and I’m curious about others’ experiences with this issue.
To me, “series” romance means “category” romance (Harlequin, Mills & Boon, Loveswept, Silhouette, etc.). There are other series, of course, because the term is very loose, and this “looseness” is precisely what I’m interested in. Because “series” can also mean mainstream novels that are connected in some way.
Nora Roberts’ Chesapeake Bay series, where the heroes are adopted brothers, is the one that springs immediately to mind. Traditionally, series like this are connected by characters who are relatives and we’ll meet a hero or heroine of a future book, but not their future partner. But these types of series usually have a fixed end, of course, because the family runs out eventually, no matter how many cousins come out of the woodwork.
In the last ten years, of course, “series” also refers to on-going series like Suzanne Brockmann’s Troubleshooters series or J.R. Ward’s Black Dagger Brotherhood series, where each book tells the romance of a different hero and heroine, but characters not only show up in books both before and after their own HEA book, they might start the HEA relationship before their actual book. And the series is generally open-ended.
Then, uniquely, perhaps, there’s J.D. Robb’s Eve and Roarke series, where the narrative focus of the book is the mystery, but the heart of the series is the continuing relationship between the two main characters.
And it is this last one that I’m seeing more of, specifically in gay male romance, but with a twist. While we follow the characters in these stories from their Happy For Now in their first story, through relationship maturation in further stories, both the narrative and emotional focus of the books is the relationship. Unlike mystery series, which we follow for both the continuation of the relationship AND the new mystery in every book, these series focus just on the same relationship, book after book.
Part of the twist in this new (?) phenomenon is that the happy ending of the first book is sometimes not fully satisfying. It’s very obvious that it’s the beginning of the relationship, rather than the happy culmination. Of course, all the HEAs we read are the beginning of a hopefully life-long relationship, but these new “series” seem to deal with a…well, a series of Happy For Nows, rather than a true, complete Happy Ever After.
So, thoughts on this phenomenon? Is this new or have I just missed it? Is it something to be found elsewhere? Thinking about it now, Diana Gabaldon is the obvious example of this happening elsewhere, but Gabaldon herself has always chafed at the “romance” label. And does anyone else reading these series find the HFNs slightly unsatisfying and find the trend that a book labeled a romance might not have a strong HEA rather troubling?
No related posts.
I think m/m readers and writers have a higher tolerance of the HFN ending for a few reasons. One, the genesis in fanfiction, where you are fighting against a heteronormative set up mostly, and often with characters in jobs/situations which militate against an open, honest, durable relationship. Getting the guys together credibly is usually enough for the ‘awwww’ factor.
Two, the reality of gay existence and the lack of civil rights means the sparkling bluebirds and wedding scene isn’t usually going to work.
And three, many people perceive gay men as being less capable of commitment, so it’s a minor triumph to pull off a convincing ‘I love you’ at the end of a story. Of course many gay men *are* capable of commitment and live monogamous, happily married lives. But many relish the lack of expectation of fidelity and marriage, and that trickles through to the m/m genre, fantasy though it is.
In a m/m the permanence of the relationship isn’t as crucial for the future happiness of the couple, because you’re not talking about children and the need for stability. So there’s going to be less emphasis on how long a relationship will last, and more on the quality- often expressed through sexual compatability – of the partnership.
Nonetheless, most m/m stories end with a more or less HEA, though fewer of them do so than in m/f stories. Even if the characters don’t crave permanence, their female creators often do
It’s definitely been happening for a while. Jo Beverley’s Company of Rogues books was a non-family series starting back in the eighties, and it’s still going on, luckily for those of us who love them. Heck, at this point the guys she’s writing about aren’t even technically Rogues anymore, not that I care.
To me, “series” and “category” aren’t and never have been interchangeable. A category romance is one of a set defined by the publisher, written by many different authors, unrelated within the context of the stories, but alike in things like length, theme, character types, plot types, explicitness of sex, and whatever else the publisher can come up with that they think they can market as a commodity to the readers. A series of books, whether romances or not, are books usually (although not always) by one author which are related within the context of the stories. They all take place in the same fictional universe, and we know all the characters could meet even if they don’t. I remember reading one of Constance O’Day Flannery’s time travel romances where the (modern) heroine of a later book heard someone in a crowd mention Philly soft pretzels and went nuts trying to find that person because it had to be someone else from the 20th century. It was, and the readers knew it, but IIRC the characters never did meet. That counts as a series to me, even if the books aren’t specifically linked via characters or plotlines.
And yes, I love the fact that the m/m side of the house is still so flexible.
The rules seem to have been getting tighter and tighter on the het side over the decades that I’ve been reading romances, and it’s great to be able to find something fundamentally new and different, stories which push the boundaries and would be unpublishable on the het side, but which are fun and enjoyable and fresh, over on the m/m side.
Angie
I’m not a fan of HFN series.
I like to continue the romance in my brain
after I finish a romance novel
so reading the author’s interpretation doesn’t interest me.
Plus I have a poor memory
and I read a romance novel a day.
I don’t want to have to reread a novel
in order to read the next one.
HFN vs HEA is a really interesting head-to-head battle. Up until now, I would have only classified HEA as romances – to me that is the defining point of the genre. But HFNs are intriguing, because we might get to see a little more of the nitty-gritty or can-I-really-live-with-somone-who-drops-their-wet-towel-on-the-bed side of the relationship process, which we tend to take for granted with HEA.
Ultimately, I think it would come down to the characters themselves as to whether you could call a HFN a romance. If the reader is left with a clear sense that, while it’s a potentially messy HFN, it definately will blossom in say another one or two books into a HEA, I say catagorize it as romance. If the ending is too messy, and the reader is left feeling that somone may call it quits in the gap between book one and two, then I don’t believe it should be a romance.
This is not unique to NR’s “in Death” series. It’s fairly common in the other types of genre lit (mystery, science fiction, etc.). And in most bookstores I’ve been in, the “in Death” books aren’t shelved in Romance.
I don’t mind a series which follows one relationship as the characters mature and face challenges in living with each other. I would not like a series which follows the main character as s/he hops from partner to partner, bed to bed. As my great grandmother told my grandma when she came crying home shortly after she married my grandpa–”You married him, you live with him!” (and, lest you think ill of my grandpa, they actually ended up being very happy).
I read a lot of mystery series, and the continuing relationships are what keep me coming back. I usually get two reads out of those books: one to see what’s going on with the characters (Spenser and Susan, or Peter Decker and Rina Lazarus, or even Stephanie Plum and Joe — or Ranger), and then again to focus on the mystery plot.
I can think of at least two series published as romance where the first book ends with the hero either killed or leaving.
In one, the second book reveals that the “true” hero was actually a secondary male character and the heroine married a farce; the other, the hero comes back after several years, with a vengeance.
(I actually quite liked the second series. Still not sure what to make of the first.)
Honestly, these are not “Romance” to me. They’re fantasy with romantic elements. The brunt of the book does not revolve around the romance, but external conflicts, and the conclusion of the romance is a multi-book affair — much like early Anita Blake and Jean Claude, actually.
“Romance” has an implicit promise of a HEA. I don’t mind “HFN” because, particularly in paranormals (outside of the mystical soulbond trope), it’s not realistic for them to promise “forever.” Promising “for now” is good enough for me. It’s the books where the hero leaves, is killed, or the heroine shuns……. sorry, that’s not romance. It might be a great urban fantasy, and the series as a whole might have a great romantic arc… but it is not a romance, and please don’t try to pass it off as such.
The fact that it’s a gay series w/o mysteries doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s HFN instead of HEA. For example, Sean Micheal has a series which has now gotten fairly long that is strictly about the ups & downs of a gay couple, which eventually becomes a threesome, over quite a number of years. There’s no question of a break up, ever, so each story is just what’s happening with those people at that time.