The Magic Circle: The Fantastical Family Lives of Romance Authors
By Tess Redman (2024)
In this Industry Report, I explore the family lives of romance authors who were active members of the American romance fiction industry in the 1990s. I argue that these authors publicly presented their family lives as if they were living out the happily ever afters (HEAs) they wrote about in their novels. I will use evidence from the April/May 1990, February/March 1991, and June through October 1991 issues of Romantic Times (RT), a magazine primarily dedicated to reviewing romance novels, as well as advertising upcoming novels and sharing news about the romance industry. To contextualize RT’s historical relevance, I will utilize a newspaper article from 1996, the subject of which is Romantic Times. I will also use insights gained in interviews I conducted with romance authors Beverly Jenkins and Deborah Gonzales (pen name: Sabrina Jeffries), two successful romance authors who were writing in the 1990s. Using evidence from all of these sources, I will show that romance authors during that decade overwhelmingly describe their loved ones as supportive and that said descriptions draw parallels between the authors’ lives and their novels. Furthermore, the expectation to present their family lives as congruent with the HEAs in their novels came from within the romance fiction industry.
In the 1990s, Romantic Times offered a platform for select authors with upcoming novels to self-advertise through articles about their books – and frequently their personal lives, too. These articles often contained anecdotes about the authors’ supportive husbands. Charlotte Louise Dolan’s husband responded to his wife’s “addiction” to reading romance by encouraging her to write a novel of her own, “as husbands are inclined to do.”[1] Dolan’s last claim indicates a perceived pattern among romance authors, at least during the early 1990s. Jeanne Carmichael’s husband Mike had a similar attitude to Dolan’s: he “encouraged me [Carmichael] to take a year off from work in order to try my hand at writing,” and after her first short story sold, Mike “told everyone in the state of Florida that his wife was a writer.” Carmichael’s husband supported her in other ways too: “He understands, fortunately, that I am frequently lost in the world of 1810, and accepts it as normal that I “forgot” to take something out of the freezer for dinner…He has adjusted, wonderfully, to deadlines and the laundry piling up. I think I love him more with each passing day.”[2]
A New York Times (NYT) article from 1996 about RT can help us contextualize these anecdotes as a marketing tactic for romance novels. When this article was written, RT was selling 150,000 copies monthly. The article details how founder and publisher of RT, Kathyrn Falk, made herself an indispensable part of the romance fiction industry: “Many romance writers viewed Ms. Falk as having the power to make or break a novel. For years, Romantic Times was the only place that would review their books.” Katherine Orr, the vice president of public relations at Harlequin when this article was written, called Falk “a phenomenal promoter.”[3] One example of what Orr means is in Falk’s publisher’s note from the July 1991 issue of RT, in which Falk pitches the Booklovers’ Convention to her readers: “Start discussing plans with your spouse or best friend.” She goes on to mention accommodations for single participants, indicating a hierarchy of interpersonal relationships, with romantic partners at the top. Falk’s note also emphasizes the family-friendly nature of the convention: “The kids can be stowed away at Kamp Hyatt, and there are always the health club facilities, heated pools, and jacuzzis to keep the family occupied.”[4] This publisher’s note suggests that Falk assumes her readership – including romance authors – has happy and supportive family lives, an assumption that said authors corroborated in their RT features.
According to some authors, husbands went above and beyond merely acting supportive of their romance writer wives. Robin Lee Hatcher’s husband helped her pick her initial pen name, Robin Leigh.[5] In an article about author Janelle Taylor by a Romantic Times staff member, Taylor discusses her husband’s involvement in her writing career: “He now works as my assistant and business manager, and also takes care of most household chores, shopping, and errands… This allows me to focus my energy on writing novels.” The article further assures the reader that Michael – Taylor’s husband – “has been totally supportive… is genuinely proud of his wife’s accomplishments, and serves as her invaluable sounding board.”[6] Cynthia Wright’s husband Jim was even more hands-on with her writing: “He read every day’s work when it was finished, encouraging me and offering suggestions. When I was stuck, Jim helped me find the way out. He wrote the love scenes with me, urging me to take risks… Jim’s help and feedback make my work much easier and more enjoyable.”[7] In an interview, Deborah Gonzales told me that her husband Rene supported her by not sharing the responsibility of taking care of their son, Nick – something a “typical man” would not do (in Gonzales’s words). Rene also helped her with the business side of romance writing.[8]
By presenting their husbands as supportive, romance authors are also drawing parallels to their novels. Jade McKay and Elizabeth Parsons analyzed 150 romance novels from 1990-2004 and found that “many of them [the heroines] insist on sharing domestic duties and child-rearing responsibilities.”[9] In the RT article mentioned in the previous paragraph, Taylor is quoted calling her husband, “a wonderful man – strong, confident, romantic…we share everything, and we’re best friends…He has the best characteristics of my heroes.” Barbara Ankrum uses the ever-cliched adjectives of “tall, dark, and handsome” to describe her husband David.[10] Julie Callie claims that her own “tall, dark, and handsome husband…taught me the true meaning of “the sardonic curl to the lip.””[11] Helen Mittermeyer calls her husband an “exceptional man…my dearest friend, my lover and pal. In his company I flower because he makes me laugh and love.”[12]
An article by Brenda Joyce entitled “New Husband, New Contract! Brenda Joyce Lives Happily Ever After…” talked about Joyce’s novel Dark Fires (1991), which she was writing when she met a “real-life hero”: her future husband Elie. She wrote that, “true to my fictitious storylines, before a happy-ever-after ending, there is a major disaster keeping hero and heroine apart.” She described a relationship-ending fight with her Elie as “just like my novels” and stated that in Dark Fires, “there were parallel developments to my own love life.”[13] Scholar Jayetta Bagchi argues that this “not too subtle information” is a ploy “to suggest they have a right to write about ideal marriage because they are so experienced. They themselves live in the magic circle.”[14] By repeatedly drawing direct parallels between her life, Joyce gives herself credibility as a romance author, enticing readers.
More examples of direct parallels are found in RT. Jeanne Carmichael “unconsciously imbued my hero with a great many of my husband’s characteristics.”[15] Joy Tucker informed readers that the setting of her novel Wild Card Bride (1991) is “the setting of my own love story as well. My husband and I met and fell in love there, and after fourteen years, he’s still the man every woman wishes she’d married.”[16] Cynthia Wright asserted that she and her husband Jim share “the same kind of happiness and love I gave the characters I created…The romances I create are grounded less in fantasy and more in the reality I’ve discovered with Jim.”[17] Peg Sutherland compared the hero of her novel Abracadabra (1991) to her husband and claims that she “wrote my personal happy ending last February” when they were married.[18] Beverly Jenkins and Deborah Gonzales said similar things in our interviews. Jenkins told me that “the stellar qualities of my heroes are a reflection of my late husband.” Some of the “stellar qualities” she listed were “the support, the humor, the trendiness.”[19] Gonzales described meeting her husband as a “meet-cute” and confirmed that she “takes little bits of our life together” for her novels.[20]
Beverly Barton referred to her father and grandfathers as “macho men” who taught her “the positive side of male strength. All the men in my life, from my grandfathers to my husband and son, believe that a real man loves, cherishes, and protects the women in his life…I knew my heroine, Beck Kendrick [from Out of Danger (1991)], needed a man like mine. All my heroes share these common qualities of strength and gentleness, rugged masculinity and loving compassion.”[21] Here, Barton was leaning into the myths of “Gender Stereotypes” and “Male Domination” proposed by scholars Daniela Kramer and Michael Moore, which were based off a random sample of 150 romance novels from the 1990s to identify myths about traditional family values, spousal relationships, and love.[22] Granted, Kramer and Moore’s definition of these myths are more violent than Barton describes, but the key is the stereotypicality, indicated by the cliched term “macho.”
Although less frequently, romance authors talk about their kids as well. Mittermeyer stated that her kids “dredged out of me all the love one person can have for another.”[23] In an article about her novel This Side of Heaven (1991), Karen Robards gushed about her family life. Although it is hardly perfect, in her own words, “Even misadventures…are funny. Mommy gingerly clutching golden-haired, squirmy, stinky little Christopher [one of her sons] while the limousine driver hunts for a grocery…makes one more Kodak moment.” She also mentioned that This Side of Heaven features “a family of men and boys with one lone woman trying to keep them in order” – a family “so much like mine.”[24] Robards’ testimony in particular aligns with the myth of “Motherhood” that shows up in ‘90s romance novels.[25] She claims that the so-called “Kodak moment” is worth all the “misadventures” – being a mother is worth anything.
RT staff peddled the same parallels as the romance authors they feature. A Romantic Times staff member wrote that author Sue Rich “married her very own “hero,” Jim Rich.”[26] Another staff member described Taylor’s marriage as “one of mutual respect, commitment, and trust, as well as love. This strong feeling and passion is reflected in Janelle Taylor’s novels.”[27] Flavia Knightsbridge, writer of community news and gossip column “Under the Covers,” refers to Patricia Hagan’s “gorgeous husband” and Barbara Faith’s “handsome, matador husband.” In addition, she referred to Sharon DeVita and husband Tony as a “romantic couple.”[28] Anne Sullivan wrote that Anita Gordon was married to “a real-life romantic hero;” even better, she had three children and one grandchild as of August 1991.[29] All of these parallels suggest that the RT staff assumed readers would prefer if their favorite authors’ lives resembled the HEAs within romance novels. While it is unclear if that assumption originated with RT and romance authors followed suit, or vice versa, the popularity of the magazine indicates that readers responded favorably. Scholar Jayne Ann Krentz identifies the theme of celebrating life that is found within romance fiction, arguing that “all [readers] respond to romance tales that celebrate the male-female bond that will bring forth new life.”[30] That bond is the essence of a happily ever after.
In this Industry Report, I have proposed that romance authors who were writing in the 1990s publicly presented their family lives as if they were living out the happily ever afters (HEAs) they wrote about in their novels. I demonstrated that romance authors during that decade overwhelmingly describe their loved ones as supportive and that said descriptions draw parallels between the authors’ lives and their novels. Furthermore, the expectation to present their family lives as congruent with the HEAs in their novels came from within the romance fiction industry, specifically marketing tools like Romantic Times and the readers of the magazine and romance fiction generally. In Patricia Rice’s words, “it is the goal of every writer to offer a glimpse of understanding, a prospect for the future.”[31] I do not have enough evidence to claim that these authors were outright lying about their family lives, nor do I believe that. However, the evidence does suggest that a romance author’s primary motivation in sharing anecdotes about their family lives is to present an idealized version of the truth, one that would resonate with lovers of romance.
Endnotes
[1] Kathyrn Falk, Romantic Times, October 1991, 37.
[2] Kathyrn Falk, Romantic Times, August 1991. 33.
[3] Barbara Stewart, “Swooning Women, Bare-Chested Men: A Magazine for Romance Novels And the Women Who Love Them,” New York Times (New York, NY), Dec. 10, 1996.
[4] Kathyrn Falk, Romantic Times, July 1991, 5.
[5] Kathryn Falk, Romantic Times, February/March, 21.
[6] Kathyrn Falk, Romantic Times, June 1991, 12-13.
[7] Kathyrn Falk, Romantic Times, April/May 1990, 17.
[8] Deborah Gonzales (romance author), in discussion with the author, April 2024.
[9] Jade McKay and Elizabeth Parsons, “Out of wedlock: the consummation and consumption of marriage in contemporary romance fiction,” Genders, no. 50 (2009), Gale Academic OneFile, accessed April 13, 2024, https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A214102510/AONE?u=duke_perkins&sid=summon&xid=15e45f4e.
[10] Kathyrn Falk, Romantic Times, July 1991, 36.
[11] Kathyrn Falk, Romantic Times, April/May 1990, 87.
[12] Kathyrn Falk, Romantic Times, August 1991, 34.
[13] Kathyrn Falk, Romantic Times, June 1991, 10.
[14] Jayetta Bagchi, “Looking for Reality in Romance,” Social Scientist, no. 3/4 (March-April 2000): 34, https://doi.org/10.2307/3518188.
[15] Kathyrn Falk, Romantic Times, August 1991. 33.
[16] Kathyrn Falk, Romantic Times, October 1991, 39.
[17] Kathyrn Falk, Romantic Times, October 1991, 10-11.
[18] Kathyrn Falk, Romantic Times, October 1991, 36.
[19] Beverly Jenkins (romance author), in discussion with the author, April 2024.
[20] Deborah Gonzales (romance author), in discussion with the author, April 2024.
[21] Kathyrn Falk, Romantic Times, September 1991, 27.
[22] Daniela Kramer and Michael Moore, “Family Myths in Romance Fiction.” Psychological Reports 88 (2001): 29, accessed April 13, 2024, https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.2466/pr0.2001.88.1.29.
[23] Kathyrn Falk, Romantic Times, August 1991, 34.
[24] Kathyrn Falk, Romantic Times, August 1991, 11.
[25] Daniela Kramer and Michael Moore, “Family Myths in Romance Fiction.” Psychological Reports 88 (2001): 29, accessed April 13, 2024, https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.2466/pr0.2001.88.1.29.
[26] Kathyrn Falk, Romantic Times, September 1991, 27.
[27] Kathyrn Falk, Romantic Times, June 1991, 13.
[28] Kathyrn Falk, Romantic Times, April/May 1990, 8.
[29] Kathyrn Falk, Romantic Times, August 1991, 17.
[30] Jayne A. Krentz, Dangerous Men and Adventurous Women: Romance Writers on the Appeal of the Romance (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1992), 7.
[31] Kathyrn Falk, Romantic Times, October 1991, 21.
Bibliography
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