Romance novels sell like hotcakes.  There has to be a reason for it.  I wonder what it is?

Once again, I return to Wikipedia to explore the intricacies of a genre. According to Wiki, a Romance novel is defined as:

A literary genre developed in Western culture, mainly in English-speaking countries. Novels in this genre place their primary focus on the relationship and romantic love between two people, and must have an “emotionally satisfying and optimistic ending.”

The same article goes on to explain that Romance novels are the most popular fiction genre in North America.

Let’s just stop for a minute and consider the underlying premise.  Two people, probably a man and a woman, enter a romantic relationship which results in an emotionally satisfying and optimistic ending.

If that were the way life worked, country singers would be out of work.  But country music is booming.

Something else must be at work.

Is it lust?

Heaven forbid.  If that were so, Christian Romance novels wouldn’t exist, would they?

Okay, so it’s not truth or lust.

Maybe it is because women love romance and most book buyers are women.

Yet another example of why I can’t understand this genre.

It must be something about X and Y chromosomes.

Here are the top five finalists for Best Indie Book of 2012 in the Romance genre.  This coming Monday, Oct. 1, the Kindle Book Review will announce the winner.  Good luck to all these fine books.

(Stephen Woodfin, attorney and author of legal thrillers, has  X and Y chromosomes.)