Why I Love Category Romance

This is my first post on the Indulgence blog, so I’d better introduce myself. I’m Nina croft, I’m English, but I live on an almond farm in the mountains of southern Spain with my husband and a whole load of animals, including the newest recruit –Piggles, a three-legged Vietnamese potbellied pig.

It’s a wonderful place for reading and writing, and I do a great deal of both–mainly romance and usually involving an element of paranormal or science fiction or both. But I also have a soft spot for contemporary category romance. It started me, at about the age of twelve or thirteen, on what has turned out to be a lifetime love of romances of all kinds, historical, paranormal, science-fiction…

But I still return to category at regular intervals and often re-read old favorites. I also had my first category romance published earlier this year: Blackmailed by the Italian Billionaire, was released by Entangled in March. My second is due in December.

So here’s Wikipedia’s definition of category romance:

 “Category romances are short, usually no more than 200 pages, or about 55,000 words. The books are published in clearly delineated lines, with a certain number of books published in each line every month. In many cases, the books are numbered sequentially within the line….

…category romance lines each have a distinct identity, which may involve similar settings, characters, time periods, levels of sensuality, or types of conflict.”

 

So what do I love about category romance and why has my love affair lasted so long? Here are a few things that come to mind:

• I know what I’m going to get. Within a particularly line I can be guaranteed certain things. If I’m in the mood for sweet romance, I know which line to go for. While if I’m in the mood for an alpha male and some sizzling love scenes, then there are lines for that too. Something for every mood.
• Gorgeous heroes and exotic locations…
• While the basic stories remain the same, category romances are in fact always evolving, they’re current, and up to date, and actually constantly changing as the readers change.
• They’re short and can be read at one sitting—I love reading books in one go.
• They’re pure romance. I love most genres of books, but sometimes I just want the romance! Because of the relatively short word counts of category books, there’s no room in them for complex sub-plots, so the focus always remains on the hero and heroine’s relationship—they can be very intense.
• Every month there are new stories coming out.
• And of course—most important—I always get a happy ever after.

So what do you love best about category romance?