From The Mobile Register (Mobile, Ala.)
ROMANCE ON THE COAST
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
By ROBERT McCLENDON
Staff Reporter
Fabio is on the dust jacket, puffy shirt ripped open to reveal rippling pecs. Sometimes a buxom heroine is draped over him, but she's optional. Usually they are posed standing in front of a castle.
That's the image many folks conjure up when asked to picture a romance novel, but that stereotype is out of date. Romantic fiction is now a booming business with myriad subgenres -- many of which have nothing to do with pirates, highwaymen or rogues of any kind.
The largest genre in fiction, annual sales for romance novels totaled about $1.4 billion in 2005.
And there are lots of romance writers, too. Many of them right here on the Gulf Coast, which boasts its own chapter of the national organization Romance Writers of America.
The work of Cynthia Eden, a young writer from Mobile, is an example of the romance genre's diversity. Instead of brash pirates and temporarily chaste maidens, her novels are populated by lusty vampires and shape-shifting private detectives. Her latest work, "Hotter After Midnight," features a psychologist who must track down a serial killer with supernatural powers. It's due for release in 2008 by New York -based Kensington Publishing Corp.
As a writer of paranormal romance and erotic romance, Eden's work has no shortage of saucy bits -- detailed love scenes -- but there are plenty of writers in the romance world who keep it PG.
In fact, there are really only two rules in romance writing, at least as far as RWA is concerned: There must by a love connection between two main characters and they've got to get together in the end, no maudlin it-wasn't-meant-to-be endings allowed. After that, anything goes.
Sheri Cobb South, who has had a number of books distributed by various publishing houses, is one of those whose writing isn't meant to steam your windows but does aim to get your pulse racing. She writes mystery romance now, but she used to write Regency novels, books set in the England of Jane Austen in the early 1800s.
Cobb South, of Chunchula, swapped genres because every business has its trends, and romance is no different. Regency writing is about as out of style today as the high-waisted, lace-trimmed dresses that typified the period.
Said Cobb South, quoting another artist's advice to her: "Write what you love, but love a lot of things."
Another chapter member, Don McNair, of Foley and the group's only male writer, has apparently taken that motto to heart. While he does write romance, he recently published his first novel, "The Long Hunter," a book based in colonial America about a young man searching for his sister.
Though the Gulf Coast Chapter of RWA counts several published authors among its ranks, many of the writers in the group are working on their first novel and have yet to find a home for their work. For information, you can visit their Web site at www.gccrwa.com. The group meets on the first Saturday of each month.
The group also hosts a conference each year and invites agents and editors from major publishing houses speak on panels and meet new writers.
