(A disappointing turn for readers excited for a firefighter romance that involves an actual female firefighter.) Ten months later, Anne is working as an arson investigator, and Danny’s making a right mess of his life, chasing a death wish on the job and off. Their mission goes wrong, leaving Danny traumatized and Anne unable to be a firefighter anymore. They have a longstanding flirtation and recently slept together for the first time here, the usual fodder for the first half of a romance is relegated to back story. The book opens with the firefighters Danny Maguire and Anne Ashburn battling a blaze in an abandoned warehouse.

But in the end, the love story is still the center of things, and what surrounds it is a complex world, a context that defines the central couple as much as their love does. Ward’s CONSUMED (Gallery Books, $26.99) edges right up to the wrong side of that line. Here are four recent books that either test the boundaries or occupy the essential core of what a romance novel is.Ī romance is more than a book with a love story, it’s a book about a love story, and J.R. This is a place for happy endings, after all.) These rules give rise to a rich variety of stories, but they are constraints nonetheless. The heart of every romance is a love story, and by the last page of the book the lovers wind up together, happily ever after or at least “happily for now.” (Less codified but no less crucial is that no children or pets are harmed.

It is generic in the truest sense, a genre defined and constrained by a handful of conventions. It is comfort, escapism and reassurance in a troubling world. Romance is both loved and derided for its formulaic nature.

Rafe by rebekah weatherspoon