The changing face of romance novels
| Source: | Stateline South Australia |
|---|---|
| Published: | Friday, August 27, 2010 9:44 AEST |
| Expires: | Thursday, November 25, 2010 9:44 AEST |
South Australian writer Kath Holland is off to the romance writers' annual Ruby Awards to see if her love story will win first prize.
IAN HENSCHKE, PRESENTER: Well, according to publishing giant Mills and Boon, romance is the most popular of fiction genres. Every five seconds someone somewhere in the world buys one of their books, so the company says, but until relatively recently in Australia, romance writers have gone unrecognised.
Now they have their own literary awards called the Rubies and Simon Royal's been following the fortunes of an Adelaide romance writer nominated for an award and he's also been looking at the changing face of romance novels.
SIMON ROYAL, REPORTER: As William Shakespeare once said, love comforteth like sunshine after the rain. So perhaps on this miserable Adelaide morning that's a good omen for Kath Holland.
She's off to Sydney for the romance writer's annual Ruby awards to see if her love story will earn a place in the sun. A book called Wanted a Father for Her Twins.
KATH HOLLAND, AUTHOR: It's story of Rosy who is the guardian for her brother's twins so they have 8-year-old twins and he and his wife are killed and she has to leave Canberra and move back to Sydney and she struggles with the fact that suddenly she's inherited this family that she feels quite ill equipped to manage.
SIMON ROYAL: Kath Holland specialises in writing romances with a medical theme for Mills and Boon. She is in fact one half of a writing team. Six years ago Stateline reported on her and her sister Belinda O'Callahan.
At that time the young mums were just setting out on their romantic notion of becoming writers in their spare time. They pen their tales under the name of their late grandmother, Emily Forbes.
BELINDA O'CALLAGHAN (2004): She would have been very proud. She died when we were very little. She would have been very proud of her granddaughters.
KATH HOLLAND: She would have read our books.
SIMON ROYAL: Belinda O'Callahan is not making the trip to Sydney and potential glory because even romance writers have to deal with the realities of kids and colds.
Emily Forbes has turned out to be a success, publishing almost a dozen books in English, Italian, French, German and Afrikaans, 26 languages in all.
But Kath Holland says in any tongue there's little celebration of romance writers.
KATH HOLLAND: It's like our Oscars so it's a recognition from the industry which is really, really quite lovely. I think a lot of people don't really take what we do seriously.
VOICE OVER, LITTLE BRITAIN (BRITISH COMEDY): This is the home of romantic novelist Dame Sally Markham.
SIMON ROYAL: Indeed many people don't take it seriously which, while galling for romance writers, is hilarious on shows like Little Britain.
THE LAZY LADY, LITTLE BRITAIN CHARACTER (excerpt from show): Then they watched a very long television program which took up lots of pages.
SIMON ROYAL: The Lazy Lady was a thinly disguised take-off of the late perhaps great Dame Barbara Cartland, the doyenne of romance writers.
THE LAZY LADY: Let's start another one. The Lady in Mauve. Chapter one. The end.
SIMON ROYAL: But even if romance novels won't shake Shakespeare in his grave, Cristina Lee says writing a good one isn't a matter of lying back and thinking of England.
CRISTINA LEE, HARLEQUIN MILLS AND BOON: I think people think it is. I think it's actually quite hard to write a romance novel. At the end, what's at the heart of a romance novel is a good story and it's the story that hooks the reader into reading romance novels.
SIMON ROYAL: And true love is proving remarkably resilient.
Kath Holland says there are 130 million romance novels sold a year and it not only survived but thrived during the global financial crisis.
The golden rule in writing a romance is there must be a happy ending, the heroine ends up with her man, but that doesn't necessarily mean there will be wedding bells, nor does it necessarily mean there'll be sex.
For heros and heroines whose preferences lie elsewhere, these days there's a happy ending for them too.
KATH HOLLAND: There's a gay line in the States, of all places, which quite astounds me that American market has a genre for Mills and Boon that's a gay genre.
SIMON ROYAL: One thing though doesn't change, overwhelmingly its women who read romance. Men, including Kath Holland's husband, tend not to be interested even when the book is dedicated to them.
KATH HOLLAND: To my very own drop-dead gorgeous husband and romantic inspiration James and our two gorgeous boys and Ned and Finn.
SIMON ROYAL: That's all he's read of this book?
KATH HOLLAND: So far. I'd like to think that he might get a bit further.
JAMES HOLLAND, HUSBAND: Generally I like to read autobiographies or biographies and we know the characters. Currently I'm rereading The Coach, a season with Ron Barassi. I've just finished reading a Jack Reacher book.
SIMON ROYAL: While all tales of romance have a happy ending, real life doesn't always go that way. For Kath Holland it was close but no cigar. The Emily Forbes book won second prize.
KATH HOLLAND: It was a little bit disappointing. For us actually we still get the perks because our book is being reprinted still so they've reprinted six of the best love stories of 2010 they call it and one of them is ours.
SIMON ROYAL: And so Kath Holland and her sister will keep writing, hoping for another nomination next year. As for the cash from the book reprints, well, money may not buy love but it does make the world go round.
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