On the Subgenres of Romance Novels

By: Trinity Cogan

From my observations, romance novels over the last few years have become quite popular, popular in a way they hadn’t been in the past. Gone is the sweet, cheesy romance with a kiss here and there. Now you see a wide variety of subgenres within romance, (sports romances, dark romance, etc.) some that divide people on the internet every day over their tropes and concepts.

For example, the novel Icebreaker by Hannah Grace, a spicy sports romance, was huge a few years back, and pioneered an entire subgenre that people to this day can point out from a mile away based on the cover alone. By this I mean that it’s a questionable, predictable, spicy romance book with bright colors and cartoonish characters on the cover. Many books published afterwards mimicked this style (see The Deal by Elle Kennedy or any of her other books). These books feature explicit content, which is not apparent when first seeing the cover. Not that it has to be obvious, but unfortunately due to the style of these covers, people who are underage got their hands on them thinking it was nothing more than a sweet romance. People on the Internet, specifically moms, were furious, posting PSA’s to other parents, warning them not to buy those books on accident.

On the other hand, you have another subgenre of spicy romances that announces itself very quickly. Haunting Adeline is usually the first to appear on people’s radar when searching for dark romance. The concepts within are divisive and very explicit, but it has generated a large following since the pandemic, similar to the sports romances. Authors have begun self-publishing these books left and right, generating more and more readers who are being drawn to these darker themes of kidnapping and forced circumstances.

So overall, it becomes very clear that the days of Jane Austen are behind us, and that the romance genre has expanded. But as dividing as these books can be, it is worth celebrating how vast the genre has become. You can read a paranormal dark romance book with ghosts and vampires one day and read a sappy college sports romance book with a hockey player and an English student the next. People who love to read can sink their teeth into new themes they haven’t come across before and that’s what books are supposed to be (though they definitely need to be advertised correctly). So, despite what you may think or what I may think of books like Icebreaker or Haunting Adeline, we can agree that the romance genre has exploded, for better or for worse.