Back in 2020 I commenced a Monday Musings subseries I called “supporting genres”. Some of the posts have, admittedly, been more form- than genre-based. Today’s however is a genre, and one I have been putting off because it’s not one I am at all familiar with. However, with Valentine’s Day looming this week, I felt it was now or never. The problem is that not only am I not familiar with this genre, but it is a huge field, so this will be basic, and more suited to the generalist like me, not specialist readers of Romance.
This is not the only problem. Defining Romance – given the multiple uses of the word through time – is a challenge, so in the interest of keeping this tight, I’m going to keep tightly to the “genre” which Wikipedia describes as follows:
A romance novel or romantic novel is a genre fiction novel that primarily focuses on the relationship and romantic love between two people, typically with an emotionally satisfying and optimistic ending. Authors who have contributed to the development of this genre include Maria Edgeworth, Samuel Richardson, Jane Austen, and Charlotte Brontë.
As with many genres, Romance fiction encompasses many subgenres – including crossovers with other genres. Sub-genres include fantasy, contemporary, historical romance, paranormal fiction, and science fiction. According to the Wikipedia link above, “women have traditionally been the primary readers of romance novels, but according to the Romance Writers of America, 16% of men read romance novels”. I certainly know some here in Oz.
Modern romance fiction has moved on from what it was in the mid-twentieth century – in variety and diversity of its characters, and in storylines. It is also not averse to grappling with significant issues in relationships, like rape. RWA (see below) is focusing on increasing inclusivity and diversity in its mission, and says its “working definition of diverse encompasses all ages, cultures, ethnicities, social backgrounds, neurodiverse and physical abilities and attributes, all genders, and all sexual identities”.
Perhaps – but don’t quote me as I’m no expert – the grand dame of romance fiction in Australia was Valerie Parv (1951-2021). You can check her out at Wikipedia, but Secrets from the Green Room podcast also did an excellent interview with her. For more writers, the Romance Writers Australia blog is a good source, with their Author Spotlight and New Release posts. The blog seems to go back to 2015, but doesn’t have the usual navigation tools (at least as far as I can see).
Organisations
There seems to be two main organisations supporting romance fiction in Australia.
Romance Writers Australia (RWA)
Describing itself as the “Home and Heart of Romance Writing in Australia”, RWA was established in Sydney around 1991, with its membership now including writers from Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, the United States and the United Kingdom. It has “become internationally recognised and respected by both category and mainstream publishers of romance”. Its aim is:
to promote excellence in romantic fiction, to help aspiring writers become published and published authors to maintain and establish their careers, to foster a safe, equitable, inclusive and diverse community, and to provide continuing support for romance writers – whatever their genre – within the romance publishing industry.
Their big event of the year is the Romance Writers of Australia Annual Conference. The 2025 conference, themed “Writer Wonderland”, will be held in Hobart from 22 to 24 August. As you can see from the program, this is clearly a conference geared more to writers than readers.
RWA also, apparently, organise “write-ins, library panels, workshops, retreats, and social gatherings in capital and regional cities”, plus other “special events and book launches”, but there were none listed on the website at the time of writing this post.
Australian Romance Readers Association Inc (ARRA)
Formed in 2007/2008, ARRA is an association “created by romance readers, for romance readers”. Starting with sixteen members, it now has well over three hundred. They outline their goals and activities on their About page.
They too run events. They held five Australian Romance Readers Conventions, with the last one being 2017. In 2019, they reinvented their convention to what they call A Romantic Rendezvous, which comprised multi-author, multi-city events, held in March 2019 in Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne and Perth. They repeated this in 2020, and then the pandemic hit. Not to be thwarted, they held a Locked Down version. They returned to annual live events in 2023, with the 2025 event now locked in (as against locked down!) You can read all about these on their site. They also have what looks like an active blog.
Awards
Romance writing seems less well-served with major awards than, say, Crime Fiction and Science Fiction, which is interesting. However, some awards are offered by and/or coordinated by the above organisations:
- Romantic Book of the Year (Ruby) Awards: According to Books+Publishing, which lists the 2024 winners, these are RWA’s awards, but I can’t find them on their site, except through a site search which retrieves random historical hits.
- RWA Contests: RWA seems to offer a variety of contests which they say offer not only a “wonderful way” for writers to “showcase” their talent but also a “chance to receive valuable feedback from experienced judges and industry experts”. The contests cater for different experience levels as well as a broad range of romance genres. Current contests can be found on this page.
- ARR (Australian Romance Readers) Awards: ARRA offers awards for the best romance books in several categories, and are voted for by ARRA members. The 2024 awards will be announced at a dinner in Melbourne on 28 March 2025. You can see a list of Previous Winners on their site. How do you like this for an award category, “Best Banter in a Romance”? What fun.
Publishers
As with awards, I found fewer specialist romance publishers in Australia, than for science fiction, but the best known romance publisher of all, Mills and Boon, does have an Australian arm. Last year ABC News wrote that while the company launched in 1908, “it wasn’t until 1974 that it set hearts aflutter among Australian readers in its first venture outside of Britain and North America”. This makes it now 50 years old in Australia. According to the ABC, “there’s a growing appetite for romance novels”, which they support by sharing Books+Publishing’s report in late 2023 that sales of romance fiction were up 37 per cent in Austra last year in Australia.
- Hot Tree Publishing: Established in 2015 HTPubs seems to specialise in diverse romance. Their Submissions page states that they “are currently seeking M/F+, M/M+, and F/F+ series novels in the following CONTEMPORARY and PARANORMAL subgenres”. This is “not a restrictive list and exceptional stand-alones may be considered” but they are not “open to historical romances” (accessed: 10 February 2025).
- Mills and Boon Australia: Established in Australia in 1974. Currently, according to their website, there are over 75 Australian and New Zealand authors amongst their 1,300+ authors.
Of course, most of the general publishing houses also publish romance. It is a well-served field.
Romance and me
While I understand the attraction of romance fiction, I don’t seek the genre. However, I do read many books containing romance. After all, love and relationships underpin most of our lives. What did the Beatles say – yes, “all you need is love … love … love is all you need”.
My first romance novels were, of course, Jane Austen’s (see all my Austen posts). When I first read them in my teens, my biggest interest was, as I recollect, the romance component. But since then, it’s not the romance that sets my heart aflutter, but Austen’s wit and her timeless insights into humanity, into how we think and why we behave the way we do.
However, since blogging, I have read some romance fiction – mostly what the industry calls chick-lit – Anita Heiss’s choc-lit novel, Paris dreaming (my post), Tony Jordan’s Addition (my review) and Fall girl (my review), and Graeme Simsion’s The Rosie project (my review). These books attracted me because they reflected that trend I mentioned above, including more diverse characters – First Nations, neurodiverse, and so on.
Do you like romance fiction and, if so, care to share why?
Previous supporting genre posts: 1. Historical fiction; 2. Short stories; 3. Biography; 4. Literary nonfiction; 5. Crime; 6. Novellas; 7. Poetry; 8. Science Fiction
Whispering Gums 
Come now, ST – surely you mean Burt Bacharach !!!(?)
Haha MR, now that’s a blast from our past!
“What the world needs now
Is love, sweet love:
That’s the only thing that we’ve just too little of …”
Bacharach
“All you need is love
All you need us love
All you need is love … love … love is all you need.”
Lennon | McCartney
Oh sorry … what a silly billy I am! I’d better fix that!
Miles Franklin had a novel published by Mills and Boon, The Net of Circumstance (1915). Whether it was a romance I don’t know, but maybe it was, she didn’t use her own name as author.
Millie and I read Mills & Boon in the late 1970s and thought about writing for them. If I want romance these days I read Georgette Heyer.
I’m sure you are aware Walter Scott wrote romances, by which he meant adventures.
Yes, Bill, I do re Scott, that’s why I didn’t want to go into the whole history of “romance” and its uses. My mum briefly thought about trying to write for Mills and Boon too.
I’ve been reading a few romances each year for a few years now; I’m picky about them (I want a certain amount of predictability but too much of it puts me off) so once I find an author I enjoy I tend to read through them. Because so much of my reading has a darker side to it, I am glad to have a book in my stack that I can take to bed with me and not have it show up in my dreams (in my nightmares, I should say).
Ah thanks Marcie … I understand that. Do you mostly read Canadian? And do you look for diverse characters or does that not really matter for you for this nighttime reading?
Hi Sue, the gremlins have disappeared, and it now seems I can reply. Anyway, like you I do not seek out ‘romance novels”. Though when young I did read them. I remember mum had some FJ Thwaites novels, and I still have some. I was at the library today, and their display was romance novels, none of them I knew. Yet, at the same time I do seek out character driven novels, and many do have romance them.
So maybe I am a hypocrite.
Haha … yes but let’s say that we don’t seek the romance genre but we are happy if a bit of romance comes our way!
When I was a teen one of my older cousins read a lot of Mills and Boon, and when she was done with them, she would hand them over to me. I devoured them purely for the romance/sex scenes. I also loved mum’s Catherine Gaskin novels where the romance was nicely wrapped up in historical fiction. And I guess that’s how I would consume any readerly romance these days, is via another genre that happens to have a love match or relationship issues at its heart.
The booktok bestselling books that are just romance do not appeal to me at all, but I might be tempted to try some of the new romantasy as I used to love fantasy books in my younger days too. It’s a good combo, I think, to get young people hooked on reading (again).
I enjoyed this insight into your reading history Brona. I remember Catherine Gaskin being very popular with my school friends but I wasn’t much into historical fiction. They liked Jean Plaidy and Georgette Heyer too. I did enjoy romance but I would look for more contemporary novels. Probably the oldest ones I read would’ve been Nevil Shute’s World War II ones. There was also a South African writer who wrote novels about contemporary South Africa. Probably white farmers now that I think about it. She usually had romances. I never liked fantasy so romantasy wouldn’t suit me. But I don’t mind romance appearing in the literary fiction I read usually because there are other things going on. Rachel Mathews Never give up – I think that’s the title – is probably the most recent I read.
During the late 1980s, I worked in technical support for a company that made typesetting systems on Data General minicomputers. One of our customers was a large and well-known publisher of romance novels. A co-worker was unable to take them through a maintenance task over the phone, so I was sent to to the site. I took them through the task in a very few minutes, them being the head of the typesetting department and her assistant.
The head’s boss had her take me and the assistant to dinner on a company credit card. Over dinner, the head remarked that the publisher had a new CEO; this man was a graduate of Harvard, and seemed to have a bit of a bad conscience about the product. The head said that the business as it was was a gold mine, and she hoped the the CEO’s scruples would not damage the business. As far as I know, they didn’t.
I do not read romance novels. Sixteen percent is almost one in seven, and at that rate I’d expect to have known some men who read them. But I haven’t. I have known plenty of men who read pretty sorry stuff, but it tends to be writing about warfare, science fiction, crime, horror, and so on.
One cannot always read demanding work. According to a professor I knew, T.S. Eliot said that he could read Magritte’s novels when he was too tired to read anything else. My own resort seems to be more history or memoirs that I have read before.
Oh great story George … and I did t know that about TS Eliot either. Magritte sounds like a good option. I know a couple of men not averse to chicklit. For one it’s his main reading, while for the other it’s easy reading between the more challenging books he reads. I probably go for classics or short stories or literary bios or what looks like more straightforward literary fiction if I’m tired. I don’t read escapist stuff. That’s what the TV is for. I can escape in an hour rather than spend hours reading an escapist book – and while I’m watching TV I can multitask on my computer because escapism rarely needs the full brain I find.
By the way, today’s New York Times has an article about fans of the novelist Nicholas Spark flocking to New Bern, North Carolina, where he lives. The article identified Sparks a romance novelist. My impression was always that the genre was always much more about novels than novelists, but perhaps not.
Thanks George for this tidbit. I think he might be the exception that proves the rule? I think some romance novelists break through to the general commercial best seller world and become names in the way most don’t.
I like Jenny Holiday because she often writes characters I wouldn’t expect, like people who work in adult films or trying to maintain their health, etc. Right now, the hugely popular subgenre in the US is romantasy, which even got it’s own award category on Goodreads.
Thanks Melanie … I hadn’t heard of romantasy until Brona mentioned it here.