What is romance, really?

I am known to be a romantic. I love Jane Austen movies and books with happy endings. In fact, I somehow ended up in the business of romance. In the Mormon book world, I’m called the queen of romance, and I’ve been touted as the number one best-selling LDS romance author for about 15 years now.

The truth is that I am definitely a romantic. I won’t deny it. However, I’m not especially fond of romance novels. I set out to contradict a lot of the stereotypes of romance novels — at least the kind that most people think of when they hear the term. I prefer to call it “relationship fiction,” but there’s no such section in any bookstore.

After researching and writing more than 50 books with relationships at the heart of them, I’ve learned a thing or two about what works and what doesn’t. I write about people who fall in love, usually under the duress of horrible conflict. But more than that, I write about people staying in love as the struggles of life persist. More than half of my books are about people who are already married and facing new challenges together.

You could say that I’m passionate about romance, but I learned a long time ago that real romance doesn’t have much to do with the stereotypical ideas that are swirling in the media. Falling in love is just the beginning. A true happily ever after comes when two people stick it out together and continue to keep love alive through whatever life may throw at them.

It’s always been my hope that through my stories readers can actually learn something about improving their communication skills, overcoming typical differences between men and women and finding out what true love really means.

I believe in love at first sight, but I don’t believe in acting on it until the important factors of a relationship are put to the test. I believe in heart-stopping gazes and intense attraction, but they need to be coupled with common sense and wisdom. And I believe in happy endings. In fact, I guarantee happy endings. Some cynical readers have criticized me for this, stating that we don’t always get happy endings in this world. Well, my answer to that is simply that if you’re standing there talking to me, it isn’t over yet.

Life can be hard, yes. But the truth is that most of the population of the world believes in life after death and that this is not the end. So how can our own happy endings really be determined at this point? I believe that we all have romance in store for us if we live for those blessings.