What is a romance novel/how much romantic content is in this book

[kissmequick]

You know what might be useful? Rather that get caught up in definitions? (Which are pretty arbitrary anyway)

A little 'how to spot a PNR'. Or 'How to spot a book which has too much romance for me'? It won't be infallible. But it might help. We could all add things we've noted about PNR books before we read them (or after we read them and realised they were an indicator). Now some things are just a 'more likely to be', but the more you see....

Shall I start?

1 - Cover. Given the cover art threads, it should come as no shock to know that a good part of the purpose of a cover is to indicate what sort of book it is. If it has a couple in some sort of clinch on the front, or a bare chested guy, it's probably PNR (or some sort of romance), or at least aiming for that readership. However, plenty of PNR books have other covers. Things that 'may' indicate PNR - woman in a provocative, and often anatomically uncomfortable, pose. Sometimes with skin tight leather/tattoos. Now, true, this cover may in fact be on the front of a less romantic type book (just because it has a female on teh cover doesn't make it PNR). In which case...


2 - The back jacket copy. For me, the best indicator. In PNR, often - but not always - the main POV will be female, which will be indicated in the copy. If the copy emphasises some guy as 'hot' or 'dark and mysterious' etc, and is taken up with how Our Heroine must deal with him as well as the vamps, or if it tells us about the 'developing relationship/attraction'...it may well be PNR, because the plot is about the romance.

Examples:

PNR (Lover Unleashed, JR Ward - hey the clue is in the title!!)

In the darkest corners of the night in Caldwell, New York, a conflict like no other rages. The city is home to a band of brothers born to defend their race: The warrior vampires of the Black Dagger Brotherhood. Payne, twin sister of the Vicious, is cut from the same dark, seductive cloth as her vampire brother. Imprisoned for eons by their mother, the Scribe Virgin, she finally frees herself - only to face a devastating injury. Manuel Manello, MD, is drafted by the Brotherhood to save her as only he can - but when the human surgeon and the vampire warrior meet, their worlds collide in the face of their undeniable passion. With so much working against them, can love prove stronger than the birthright and the biology that separate them?

Note the use of seductive, passion, worlds collide when they meet, can love prove stronger etc.

Not PNR (Three Days to Dead, Kelly Meding. Good book, I recommend it!)

They’ll never see her coming. . . .

When Evangeline Stone wakes up naked and bruised on a cold slab at the morgue—in a stranger’s body, with no memory of who she is and how she got there—her troubles are only just beginning. Before that night she and the two other members of her Triad were the city’s star bounty hunters, mercilessly cleansing the city of the murderous creatures living in the shadows, from vampires to shape-shifters to trolls. Then something terrible happened that not only cost all three of them their lives but also convinced the city’s other Hunters that Evy was a traitor—and she can’t even remember what it was.

Now she’s a fugitive, piecing together her memory, trying to deal some serious justice—and discovering that she has only three days to solve her own murder before the reincarnation spell wears off. Because in three days Evy will die again—but this time there’s no second chance. . .

No seductive language, no mention of men she meets and must overcome/succumb to etc. Clear mystery plot description.


3 - Additional indicators

As described above, if a series has a changing set of protags for each book (as with say JR Ward example above), that's a good indicator that it is PNR. (not infallible, either way, but an indicator)

Check which imprint publishes it. If it's at the romance imprint rather than the SFF imprint, that's a big ol' hint!

Of course, if you are still unsure, or you think you have a UF but you;re not sure how much romantic content there may be regardless (like all fantasy sub genres, the amount of sex differs greatly) reviews are always a good place to go, because they will often mention romantic content.

[Contrarius]

2 - The back jacket copy. For me, the best indicator.

I think this is the one that amazes me most -- that people seem to ignore the blurbs so much! Everybody and their mother seems to want a sexy book cover these days, so I can see how that would be confusing -- but, really, most of the time the copy on the cover (or in the online blurb, if you're shopping online) is going to give you at least a fairly good idea about how romantic and/or sexy the book is going to be. And if not that, then the book reviews at places like Amazon or Goodreads will probably do the job.