Romance Essays

The Wheel of Power and Privilege: A Different Way to Read Romance

We were deep into an episode about professor-student romance — specifically Kissing Tolstoy by Penny Reid — talking through everything the book got right about handling institutional consent, when the conversation turned to something the book never addressed: race....

Why Heated Rivalry? The Formula Behind Romance’s Breakout Hit

There are thousands of sports romances on the shelf right now. A meaningful chunk of those are queer. Hundreds of them are hockey. So when it comes to Heated Rivalry, why did Jacob Tierney option this one? And why, out of all of them, did this specific book set off a...