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xix Introduction It’s been more than 20 years since best-selling romance author Jayne Ann Krentz boldly announced, “Romance has arrived!” to a crowd of 700 stunned, but thrilled, librarians at the 1996 Public Library Association Conference in Portland, Oregon— and that remark is still as true today as it was then, if not more so. According to the latest statistics from Romance Writers of America (www.rwa.org/p/cm/ld/fid=580), the popular Romance genre accounted for at least 34 percent of the popular fiction market in 2015 and brought in over $1 billion in sales in 2013. The genre is defi- nitely holding its own, and considering that much of the data collected doesn’t in- clude large segments of the burgeoning indie and self-published market, it’s likely doing even better than reported. Romance is one of the most popular and widely read of all the fiction genres but for years (actually decades), it has quietly bubbled along under the literary radar, pleasing its numerous readers and often attracting attention only when it becomes the object of ridicule or scorn. There are any number of reasons, or at least opinions, as to why Romance is the most easily dismissed and maligned of the popular fiction genres, but one thing is almost certainly true—of all the fiction genres, it is the least understood by the majority of people. At its heart, the Romance is a story of a romantic relationship, and while there is obviously much more to it, it is a relationship that has its roots in one of the most basic human drives—the survival of the species. This pair bond and the related courtship and family-structure themes are key to many romances, and while the genre has evolved in recent times to become much more inclusive, a nurturing, loving relationship between the protagonists is still a foundation of the genre. (This successful relationship is as necessary to a romance as the solution of the crime is to a murder mystery.) According to the Romance Writers of America, a romance must have “a cen- tral love story and an emotionally satisfying and optimistic ending,” but that doesn’t mean that all romances are alike. There are as many different romances as there are writers, and the variety of subgenres under its broad umbrella arguably