Historical romance, with no apologies

I wrote five historical romance novels. Not historical fiction. Not women's fiction. Not literary fiction. And my genre is every bit as legitimate as the aforementioned.

Historical romance--or any romance fiction--has a romantic relationship at the core of the story. Yes, the novels can be painstakingly researched, they can feature strong, heroic women, and they can be just as beautifully-written as a high-brow piece of literature. But at the heart of the story is love.

Romance novels have been ridiculed since, well, forever. Perhaps because some novels in this genre really don't have a love relationship at the core: it's more about steamy sex scenes with covers that feature lots of female cleavage, fancy dresses, and male abs. Perhaps the derision comes from the fact that some of these novels are overtly about a man's control over a woman, body and soul. The writing may be atrocious, even in best-selling romances that have been made into movies. I support all of those novels and writers: they offer escape, and they have a big readership. More power to them.

Ultimately, the genre of historical romance, or any romance novel, is delegitimized because these novels are written by women, about women, and read by women.

My genre for the Bailey Rose, M.D. is tricky to define. Historical magical realism paranormal inspirational medical romance? That really wasn't an option on Amazon. My goal was to create an authentic world inhabited by people who feel so real that you want to have lunch with them and talk about your crappy Monday. You root for them and really, really want the happy ending payoff at the end, but you also want plot twists that you just don't see coming. I think I've achieved that, and I'm proud to say that I'm a historical romance writer, at least for this series (I'm halfway done with a young adult paranormal thriller, but that's for another day.)