Genre Confusion

Romance, erotica and erotic romance. Touchy subject, but let's be clear: One is not the other and each have their places and I don't feel anyone should be judged for reading any of it. Read whatever you want! It's a free country and no one should judge you on your reading habits.

Anyways, onward...

Over the last few years I've had people tell me all romance is just porn. For those folks, romance is a story about emotions and building a relationship between character. If the story focuses on the relationship more than the sex, it's romance, graphic scenes or not. I've had people say the romance of today is just fluffy erotica or, yep, porn. Again, romance is about emotions and relationships. Deal with it. You don't have to read it if you don't want to, but at least understand it before trying to talk about it. 

Now, on to erotica. Erotica is a story that is meant to arouse the reader. It puts them in a sexy fantasy style of story. There is nothing wrong with reading erotica, but if it isn't your cup of tea it's just not for you. I have found some erotica stories that were really well written. They took the reader into the fantasy and euphoric bless was achieved. With that said, at least learn the difference between the genres.

Finally, erotic romance. This is an odd ball in my post. Erotic romance is defined differently by different readers, authors, publishers and whoever else may feel like defining it. Some people will say it's just really steamy romance. That could work for a nice definition. So could the definition that it's a story that focuses on emotions, the relationship and graphic sex helps that relationship move along. I've read books that do this. Some of them good some of them not so much. Personally, it depends on the author's ability and style. 

These are blurry times we live in. A genre could prove to sell really well and you have authors that rush to take advantage of that genre. This leads to some great books and some crappy books. However, no matter how popular a genre becomes that does not, REPEAT, does not change the genre. Learn the differences before jumping into a conversation, because a romance author may not enjoy hearing romance novels being called erotica. And an erotica author may not enjoy the ranting a raving of a reviewer who grabbed up their book expecting a Happily Ever After.

Peace and love! 


PS: Just Beyond Daybreak, my steamy witchy romance novella, is now available on Amazon!