Romance Readers Research Articles

Margo Zimmerman Gets the Girl by Brianna R. Shrum

Reviewed by: Margo Zimmerman Gets the Girl by Brianna R. Shrum Natalie Berglind Shrum, Brianna R. Margo Zimmerman Gets the Girl; written by Brianna R. Shrum and Sara Waxelbaum. Inkyard, 2023 [304p] Trade ed. ISBN 9781335453655 $19.99 E-book ed. ISBN 9780369735065 $9.99 Reviewed from digital galleys R Gr. 9-12 One fateful spin-the-bottle kiss with another girl has Margo Zimmerman dumping her quarterback boyfriend in search of the lesbian unknown. She has little reference in how to be gay, but she’s an excellent student, and as an autistic person she’s used to manually cracking social codes. Abbie Sokoloff, meanwhile, has been loudly and proudly out as bi for years and happens to be failing AP US History. So when Margo approaches Abbie to demand lessons in “Queer 101,” Abbie asks Margo for tutoring in return. The framework is set up for genre-savvy romance readers to watch these two gals turn their rocky start into a slow-building romance, full of teasing, flirting that’s just for practice (or not), and denials of obvious romantic signs. It quickly becomes apparent that there’s no right way to be gay, and even Abbie falls victim to certain assumptions, like that Margo doesn’t exude lesbianism with her femme presentation. In spite of this, not every stereotype is debunked, and the characters’ personalities sometimes come off as two-dimensional, especially illuminated with a cartoonish, biphobic lesbian villain of a best friend that Abbie clings to for no seeming reason. Still, the romance is plenty of fun, approaching rom-com territory while addressing the struggles of queer teen-hood, and readers interested in watching a Jewish lesbian and a Jewish bisexual girl falling in love have quite the indulgence ahead of them. Copyright © 2023 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

Spell Bound by F. T. Lukens

Reviewed by: Spell Bound by F. T. Lukens Natalie Berglind Lukens, F.T. Spell Bound. McElderry, 2023 [336p] Trade ed. ISBN 9781665916226 $19.99 E-book ed. ISBN 9781665916240 $10.99 Reviewed from digital galleys R Gr. 8-12 After the death of his sorcerer grandmother, non-magical Rook was cut off from his magical community—until he lands a gig doing desk work for Antonia Hex, a powerful sorcerer who runs a shop for dealing with magical hijinks. Sixteen-yearold Rook may not have magic, but he is a genius, and he's been working on a Spell Binder, a device that can detect ley lines and potentially offer him a way back into the magical world—he just has to keep it hidden from both Antonia and the Consortium that enforce the rules imposed on magic. Meanwhile, nonbinary Sun apprentices for Fable Page, a rival rule-following sorcerer to Antonia's chaotic disregard for authority. When the two pairings clash, Rook and Sun have a lively chemistry inhibited only by their masters, but it's just a matter of time before Fable finds out what Rook and Antonia are up to—teaching a non-magical person magic—and reports them. The Spire City setting is a delightful blend of the modern and the magical, positioning smart phones and cars alongside petty jinxes and devilishly cursed curtains, and the level of indulgence in magical nonsense and parody of common fantasy tropes is pure, shameless fun. Romance readers who like a little fantasy in their fare are sure to be satisfied by the grumpy/sunshine dynamic of the main duo, while Lukens' current fanbase can be assured that this book is just as fantastically entertaining as their other work. Copyright © 2023 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

Another Dimension of Us by Mike Albo

Reviewed by: Another Dimension of Us by Mike Albo April Spisak Albo, Mike Another Dimension of Us. Penguin Workshop, 2023 [320p] Trade ed. ISBN 9780593223765 $18.99 E-book ed. ISBN 9780593223789 $10.99 Reviewed from digital galleys R Gr. 9-12 In this heady sci-fi exploration of the astral plane and time travel, several teens converge to save their loved ones from a grim fate at the hands of a voracious demon. Love feels impossible in 1986, as Tommy hides his feelings about the boy he likes, afraid of the homophobia that has ramped up even more in the face of the AIDS crisis. In 2044, on the other hand, discrimination and hatred have mostly been sorted out to allow people to exist as they choose, but life is currently on hold, limited by a series of virus variants that have isolated Pris and the rest of the world. When Tommy’s crush Renaldo and Pris’ best friend Jayde become stuck on the astral plane, Tommy and Pris are left behind in their respective times to bring them back using an old guide to trans-dimensional travel (Tommy was shown it by Renaldo; Pris found it in a long-abandoned house). It’s a complex plot, made more so by the wide array of chapter perspectives from different characters, but it all comes together in a remarkably smooth way, the layers of story building to an appropriately tragic and beautifully sculpted conclusion, even down to a convergence of worlds as a character from 1986 is a teacher in 2044. A persistent thread of sympathy extends to the demon’s sister, who has been trying to stop him for years, even while she still loves him. While science fiction buffs may be the most likely audience, romance readers will also find a stunning love story within the shifting timelines. Copyright © 2022 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

Three Kisses, One Midnight by Roshani Chokshi

Reviewed by: Three Kisses, One Midnight by Roshani Chokshi Aaren Tucker Chokshi, Roshani Three Kisses, One Midnight; by Roshani Chokshi, Evelyn Skye, and Sandhya Menon. Wednesday/St. Martin's, 2022 [288p] Trade ed. ISBN 9781250797230 $18.99 E-book ed. ISBN 9781250797247 $10.99 Reviewed from digital galleys Ad Gr. 7-12 In the town of Moon Ridge, the quadricentennial Halloween is a special night, when the Lady of Moon Ridge (actually a star) descends from the sky to help young lovers find their way. Witchy Onny brews a love potion to share with her perfect star-sign match, but her annoying lab partner keeps getting in the way. Shy Ash has a crush on the girl next door, but he will have to overcome his anxieties to win her heart. Practical True, meanwhile, is afraid of getting hurt again; can she embrace her true self and open her heart to find love with someone new? These three novellas are united by a shared setting and characters but lack the cohesion needed to live up to the label of "novel." Early plot points are abandoned completely, mostly out of narrative convenience, and each story has a noticeably different tone: Onny's story is full of cozy fall magic; Ash's is a sweet, realistic romance; and True's leans into the thrills of Halloween horror. However, the tone difference could be a feature rather than a bug, and the stories eventually unite around a theme of letting go of the past and accepting what life has to offer, making this a uniquely structured treat for romance readers. [End Page 348] Copyright © 2022 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

Black, Scott. Without the Novel: Romance and the History of Prose Fiction.

Black, Scott. <i>Without the Novel: Romance and the History of Prose Fiction</i>.

Roberto Arlt and the Readers of Romance

This essay examines the role of female readership in the work of the Argentine writer Roberto Arlt. I argue that the conflicted and embodied status of the reading public in Arlt’s work is crystallized in the female (or feminized) reader of romances. Through this figure, the Arltian text reveals the pervasiveness of normative sentimental discourse, and narrates how this discourse circulates, impacts, and is absorbed by the bodies of its readers. These critiques emerge quite clearly in Arlt’s novels, where the author enjoys greater freedom of expression. However, his periodical publications and theater necessarily employ a more oblique critical strategy. Focusing on his aguafuertes, the short story “Eugenio Delmonte y los 1300 novios” and the play Trescientos millones, I show how Arlt interpolates his readers as readers of romance while also enacting a rupture in the boundary between the work and the medium in which it appears, encouraging the reader’s awareness of the influence of those media in her daily life. &#x0D;

The History Bubble

The History Bubble

On the Edges of Gothic Parody: The Neglected Work of Mrs F.C. Patrick and Sarah Green

This article examines two novels that parody popular, late eighteenth-century fiction: Mrs F.C. Patrick, More Ghosts! (1798) and Sarah Green, Romance Readers and Romance Writers (1810). Both texts embrace and resist elements of gothic romance through intertextuality and generic instability. These two novels are marked by dynamic ambivalence: the writers overtly disavow the gothic genre, yet fail to abandon gothic sympathies for a consistent parody. Dynamic ambivalence empowers the reader to take multiple, conflicting positions within and against the plot. Both authors warn readers that in order to strengthen one’s mind, one must be insensible to melodrama and resist romantic extravagances; nevertheless, each exposes this stance as a façade. Using comic elements to deflect criticism and satire to establish their moral vision, Patrick and Green aim to elicit sympathy for female characters, even when they are foolish, deceived, or debauched. More Ghosts! and Romance Readers offer a cultural critique, embedded in parody, which challenges the contradictions inherent in women’s position in that era.

The Romance Publishing Industry and Its Reputation

Romance has always had a negative reputation, but is this reputation justified? This study examines the negative stigma surrounding the billion dollar romance publishing industry in the USA and UK. The potential causes are discussed, and testimonials from contemporary romance readers and writers provide a basis for the case that this judgemental stance should be removed.

Reconnaissance of ‘Difference’ in Cognitive Maps: Authenticating Happily Ever After in Julia Quinn’s To Sir Philip with Love

This study explores differences in individual cognitive mapping of the protagonists in Julia Quinn’s novel, To Sir Philip with Love. A qualitative analysis of the maps, cartographed on physiological and psychological planes, finds them to be diverse in nature. A “difference” is developed, step by step, in the mental cognitive mapping of the female protagonist of Eloise and in the physical cognitive maps of the character the male protagonist, Philip. Nonetheless, the thesis lies in the inherent creativity caused by the collision of two varied cognitions. Analysis of these cognitions involves the creation of these characters according to the basic cognitive structure of the romance readers as well. After an investigation of the ‘mindscaping’ model, developed primarily around the main characters in To Sir Philip with Love, it is concluded that the positivity in the conflicting maps is established because of the genre of the novel, in which there is a need to channel the individual cognition towards the creation of a larger cognitive map for the readers, with authentication of Happily Ever After as its goal. Furthermore, this paper also locates the status of these findings within the romance narrative; authentication of HEA, works as a major building force in molding and constructing the authorial, fictional and reader cognition.

Dark and Deepest Red by Anna-Marie McLemore

Reviewed by: Dark and Deepest Red by Anna-Marie McLemore Kate Quealy-Gainer, Assistant Editor Errata McLemore, Anna-Marie Dark and Deepest Red. Feiwel, 2020 [320p] Trade ed. ISBN 978-1-250-16274-8 $17.99 E-book ed. ISBN 978-1-250-16273-1 $9.99 Reviewed from galleys R Gr. 7-10 Every October, the "glimmer," a mysterious magic, comes to Briar Meadow and leaves a wonder in its wake, like rose-flavored icicles, shape-changing brambles, clouds of bats and hummingbirds, or, this year, red shoes that inspire a bold brazenness in their wearer. For Rosella, however, the shoes are a menace, sealing themselves to her feet and forcing her to dance uncontrollably. Elsewhere in Briar Meadow, Emil is having strange visions of his Romani family's past, specifically of a dancing and then screaming girl. A third narrative strand follows Lala, a Romani girl accused of witchcraft during the dancing fever that took Strasbourg, France in the sixteenth century, and Alifair, the trans boy whom she loves. Eventually, the time strands come together, and all three protagonists must reckon with their deepest fears if Lala and Alifair are to be saved from their accusers and Rosella to be freed from the shoes. McLemore's prose is effectively muted here, and though the world is still lush with surreal magic and enticing fantasy, the plot is realistically grounded in cultural commentary on gender, queerness, and the legacies of virulent racism and sexism and their current iterations. The inner turmoil of the characters is the focus, with each coming to terms with the how they have given up heritage and cultural identity for conformity and safety, and what they have lost in the process. Emil and Rosella's romance has both heat and dreamy-eyed sentiment, while Lala and Alifair's relationship is authentically complicated but nonetheless lovely, giving romance readers plenty to swoon over. Fans of McLemore will know just what they're getting here, and they'll appreciate her consistent ability to bring an intersectionality to romance and maintain the genre's sensuality. Copyright © 2019 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

Kiss and Sell: Is There a Market for Erotica in 18- to 25-year-olds?

This paper proposes that there is an underserved market for published erotica in 18- to 25-year-olds. The study begins with a discussion of the definition of erotica and traces its history as a genre in conjunction with romance. It also discusses the perceived and real impact of E. L. James’ Fifty Shades of Grey on conversations around erotica and the acceptability of women consuming sexually explicit material. The study builds on the findings of recent surveys that indicate that the average age of romance readers is in decline and that younger readers are inclined towards erotica. The research finds that 18- to 25-year-olds generally hold a negative view of erotica, which in turn has a negative effect on active readership. It also finds that while most 18- to 25-year-olds have at least some exposure to erotica, its consumption is more prevalent in women. The study concludes that there is a market for published erotica in 18- to 25-year-olds, though it faces challenges such as overcoming stigma and competing with other sexually explicit media including pornography. To appeal to this age group, erotica must be representative of a diverse range of genders, races, sexualities and sexual practices.

An Introduction to Elinor Glyn: Her Life and Legacy

This special issue of Women: A Cultural Review re-evaluates an author who was once a household name, beloved by readers of romance, and whose films were distributed widely in Europe and the Americas. Elinor Glyn (1864–1943) was a British author of romantic fiction who went to Hollywood and became famous for her movies. She was a celebrity figure of the 1920s, and wrote constantly in Hearst's press. She wrote racy stories which were turned into films—most famously, Three Weeks (1924) and It (1927). These were viewed by the judiciary as scandalous, but by others—Hollywood and the Spanish Catholic Church—as acceptably conservative. Glyn has become a peripheral figure in histories of this period, marginalized in accounts of the youth-centred ‘flapper era’. Decades on, the idea of the ‘It Girl’ continues to have great pertinence in the post-feminist discourses of the twenty-first century. The 1910s and 1920s saw the development of intermodal networks between print, sound and screen cultures. This introduction to Glyn's life and legacy reviews the cross-disciplinary debate sparked by renewed interest in Glyn by film scholars and literary and feminist historians, and offers a range of views of Glyn's cultural and historical significance and areas for future research.

Marriage and Sexuality in Pearl Abraham’s The Romance Reader and Hush by Judy Brown

This article examines two authors’ perspectives on marriage and sexuality in Hasidic Judaism through the leading female characters in their semi-autobiographical novels: The Romance Reader by Pearl Abraham and Hush by Judy Brown. Each novel features an adolescent woman on her path to marriage and their experience of matrimony and sexuality within their respective Hasidic communities. The aim of the article is to analyse and compare their views in order to gain a better understanding of the female experience of sexuality and marriage within contemporary Hasidic Judaism. Furthermore, this article discusses the treatment of sexual abuse within a particular Hasidic group. It employs a methodology of close reading combined with a discussion of Talmudic, theological, sociological and ethnographic commentaries on the subject.

The Necropolitics of New World Nativism

This essay outlines the necropolitical structure of the national romance in North and South America, tracing the ways in which the heirs of colonial violence and occupation rewrite themselves as native patriots through rituals of mourning in national culture. Connecting the lament of the Vanishing American in the United States to the celebratory Creole patriot movement in Spanish America, it argues for the centrality of mourning to the work of imagining the nation. Nativist mourning is not only an acknowledgment of loss but also an affirmative materialism through which the mourner emerges as a national subject by rendering impossible a Native American present and presence. This affective economy of the national romance legitimizes Creole nationalism as an indigenous patriotism, a birthright claimed through the sighs and tears of the romance's reader that evoke simultaneously a feeling in common with always-historical Native American figures and the exceptional position of the survivor, the one who remains to mourn.

Probable Impossibilities: Historical Romance Readers Talk Back

Probable Impossibilities:Historical Romance Readers Talk Back Suzanne Keen (bio) I take as my starting point Phelan's conception of narrative progression: "the synthesis of textual dynamics and readerly dynamics" (12). I accept Phelan's claim that "[t]extual dynamics are the internal processes by which narratives move from beginning through middle to ending, and readerly dynamics are the corresponding cognitive, affective, ethical, and aesthetic responses of the audience to those textual dynamics" (13). The responses of readers are hard to get at, but collaboration between rhetorical narrative theory that admits a role for audiences (narrative, authorial, and actual) and reader research is desirable. To illuminate the bridging "interpretive, ethical, and aesthetic judgments" (13) enacted by readers in response to narrative encoding, I consider a small sampling of the copious social media and paratextual evidence of readerly dynamics in responses to Diana Gabaldon's as yet unfinished time-slip historical romance sequence, the Outlander novels (1990–2014).1 My response underscores the efficacy of Phelan's model by showing that it illuminates the vital role of audiences of [End Page 127] narratives quite different from those he presents (passing a fundamental test for a proposed theory, which should work as well to account for popular as for scholarly readerships). If, as Phelan argues, the authorial audience has attributes "assigned by the author but on the basis of the author's assumptions about likely readers," then the author's communication with her diverse actual readers (in this case, by means of her blog and through her published commentary, The Outlandish Companion) highlights some of those assumptions. Some methodological challenges arise from a commitment to considering readerly dynamics that allows actual audiences onto Phelan's chart. Gabaldon's readers are legion: she commands a worldwide audience for books that have sold more than twenty million copies and have been translated into thirty-eight languages.2 The New York Times bestselling novels have received a boost from their adaptation into a popular Starz television series. Though most of Gabaldon's readers are presumed to be women, the millions of viewers of her television series include many men: the series premiere, "Sassenach," drew equal proportions of men and women in the strongest multiplatform debut of a new series in the history of the network (West).3 With a potential authorial audience of that scale, we must assume recruitment from an actual audience of great diversity. Authorial audience members, as inferred from among other data points on her Website and those reproduced in The Outlandish Companion (369–95), enjoy reading very lengthy novels (9,073 paperback pages so far), sustain interest in a fiction delivered serially, and tolerate fairly long gaps between installments—though potentially they require the "methadone" of Gabaldon's book recommendations to tide them over (571–77). Whether they read for the sex scenes, for the historical reconstructions of events, because they find eighteenth-century medicine fascinating, or simply to follow familiar characters, can and must vary. That Gabaldon engages with her readers shows in her acknowledgement of "… the Readers, who both instigated this book and supplied me with a great deal of its content by asking questions, suggesting Things They Would Like to Know, and providing all sorts of interesting miscellanea" (Outlandish Companion v). Though Gabaldon tries to teach these readers about the error of presentism (343), their responses include passionate presentist denunciations of her representational choices, which (valuing plausibility and verisimilitude) she defends as influenced by the historical period and not under her own control at all (129, 191, 341).4 The author [End Page 128] meets her readers more than partway, blithely admitting minor errors and oversights caught by readers (136, 374), but she stoutly defends her rights as a maker. Rather than joining in the self-deprecating assessment of Gabaldon readers as Obsessenachs, who turn to fan sites to endure Droughtlander periods between novels, I suggest that Gabaldon's real audience talks back and the real author engages with them, within limits. The fictional world of Outlander consists on the one hand of a rigorously researched eighteenth century (with persuasively rendered locations and episodes in the Scottish Highlands, Paris, the Caribbean, coastal and mountain colonial North Carolina, and...

Readers' Advisory: Bad Boy Romances: Biker Boys and Mobster Royalty

There is no question that the romance genre continues to grow in popularity. In part, this is because romance writers have been quick to explore new avenues for their stories. Here, column editor Laurel Tarulli takes a look at one of the newest trends in romance fiction: bad boy romances. While there have always been some dodgy romance heroes, Tarulli notes the rapid rise of bikers and Mafiosi as romance leads. Tarulli discusses the elements of this increasingly popular subgenre of romance and offers the readers’ advisor some sound advice on working with romance readers.—Barry Trott, RUSQ editor

Three Sides of a Heart: Stories About Love Triangles ed. by Natalie C. Parker

Reviewed by: Three Sides of a Heart: Stories About Love Triangles ed. by Natalie C. Parker Kate Quealy-Gainer Parker, Natalie C., ed. Three Sides of a Heart: Stories About Love Triangles. HarperTeen/HarperCollins, 2017 [448p] Trade ed. ISBN 978-0-06-242447-1 $17.99 E-book ed. ISBN 978-0-06-242449-5 $8.99 Reviewed from galleys Ad Gr. 7-12 Young adult literature has, according to Parker's introduction, become "ground zero for love triangles," so she gathers sixteen authors (including herself) to bring new spins on the tried and true romance trope. There are a few standouts: Rae Carson's [End Page 172] "Omega Ship" interrogates female agency and reproductive rights in a futuristic space story; a trio of girls brought together by their love of comics is torn apart by the death of one of the friends in Veronica Roth's "Vim and Vigor"; a girl, a boy, and a city tangle together in Brenna Yovanoff's brilliant take on toxic relationships, "Vega." Unfortunately, most of the stories lack originality, and several are not even stories of triangles but merely tales of forbidden love. The book does bring a strong element of representation to an often heteronormative and white genre: the fluidity of sexual orientation is presented in many of the pieces and there is a broad range of racial and ethnic identities. Romance readers looking for something beyond the love triangle might not be totally satisfied, but they'll appreciate the diversity offered here. KQG Copyright © 2017 Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

Infected by Sophie Littlefield (review)

Reviewed by: Infected by Sophie Littlefield April Spisak Littlefield, Sophie Infected. Delacorte, 2015 [256p] Library ed. ISBN 978-0-375-98983-4 $20.99 Trade ed. ISBN 978-0-385-74106-4 $17.99 E-book ed. ISBN 978-0-375-98357-3 $10.99 Reviewed from galleys Ad Gr. 8-10 Carina has lost all of her family after her mother and, years later, her uncle die, both in suspicious accidents. She still has her boyfriend, but her connections to a corrupt security organization through her family (connections she only recently learned the truth about) soon put him in danger as well. In fact, the two have been infected with something that seems to be enhancing their senses, but if they don’t find an antidote soon, they will die. High-speed chases ensue with various bad guys, and the lightning-fast pace keeps things moving. Unfortunately, there’s little that hasn’t been seen before, from the “love you forever” teen romance between physically perfect characters to the Eastern European villains waiting in the wings to the top-secret research that lands in the wrong hands. In addition, awkward metaphors and stiff dialogue break the flow of the technology thriller core. Given the too-familiar plot, the likeliest audience will be die-hard romance readers who get weak in the knees at the idea of a first love that only grows stronger through adversity and does indeed seem fated to last forever. [End Page 319] Copyright © 2015 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

Making the Invisible Visible: Lesbian Romance Comics for Women

Feminist Studies 41, no. 2. © 2015 by Feminist Studies, Inc. 293 Andrea Wood Making the Invisible Visible: Lesbian Romance Comics for Women In 2012, romance novels generated $1.35 billion in sales, making romance the top-grossing genre in the North American publishing industry.1 While clearly among the most successful of popular genres, it still remains one of the most reviled forms of literature. Feminist critics in the 1980s made significant strides in establishing the validity of the genre as a subject of academic inquiry while skillfully repudiating the historically masculine tendency to denigrate romance and its readership as silly and frivolous, part of a longer patriarchal tradition of dismissing women’s writing as lacking literary value and being unworthy of critical inquiry. However, despite their efforts to recoup romance as having something meaningful to say about women’s experiences in culture, early feminist studies nonetheless codified the genre and its readers as exclusively heterosexual. Although research on lesbian romance novels has emerged over the years, often attempting to redress the normativizing tendencies of previous scholars, broader studies of the genre have yet to integrate critical engagement with lesbian or other GBTQ romance texts. As a result, feminist research on romance literature reifies a resolutely heterosexual episteme and has not progressed significantly since 1. Deirdre Donahue, “Romance Genre Sweeps Readers Off Their Feet,” USA Today.com, July 28, 2010, http://www.usatoday.com/life/books/news/201007 -29-buzzplus29_ST_N.htm. 294 Andrea Wood the 1980s—in point of fact, Tania Modleski’s and Janice Radway’s 1980s studies on the genre remain the definitive texts in the field.2 While the work of Modleski and Radway is still significant, it cannot adequately account for changes occurring in the genre and among romance readers. Even Modleski has acknowledged that future romance research must take into account “the enormous changes that necessitate ever more sophisticated, challenging, and wide-ranging approaches to popular culture in the mass-mediated global economy.”3 Yet, as Modleski also notes, in the current feminist debates on romance, “thoughts about methodology have waned among certain relatively youthful portions of the population .”4 I would add to this the fact that queer theoretical concepts, which can offer productive intersections with feminist methodological approaches, have remained conspicuously absent from most studies of the genre as a whole, although Lisa Fletcher’s Historical Romance Fiction: Heterosexuality and Performativity is a notable exception.5 At the same time, feminist research on romance remains statically orthodox in its almost exclusive eye on the mass-market paperback as the epitomizing marker of the genre. Limiting critical considerations of romance to Harlequin Romance novels and their ilk imposes yet another exclusionary boundary that ignores how changing media practices and modes of consumption are affecting the genre and its readers today. I do not want to suggest that studying mass-market paperbacks (or even eBooks) is no longer relevant; however, I do argue that expanding our scope of assessment to adequately account for the protean nature of romance and its currently evolving multimedia dimensions is critically imperative. Consequently, this article engages with and builds upon feminist methodological approaches to popular romance to analyze the ways in which women artists use the medium of indie comics, defined here as comics published by independent or small presses, to 2. Tania Modleski, Loving with a Vengeance: Mass-Produced Fantasies for Women (Hamden, CT: Archon, 1982); Janice A. Radway, Reading the Romance: Women, Patriarchy, and Popular Literature (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1984). 3. Tania Modleski, Loving with a Vengeance: Mass-Produced Fantasies for Women, 2nd ed. (New York: Routledge, 2008), xii. 4. Ibid., xxi. 5. Lisa Fletcher, Historical Romance Fiction: Heterosexuality and Performativity (London: Ashgate, 2008). Andrea Wood 295 craft different visions of lesbian romance through a medium that intersects and overlaps the written and the visual. Like the work of Thierry Groensteen, my analysis of lesbian romance comics focuses on “the primacy of the image” and comics as “a predominantly visual narrative form” (italics in original).6 We live in a visual culture, which, as Nicholas Mirzoeff argues, “does not depend on pictures themselves but the modern tendency to picture or visualize existence.”7 Lesbian...