Romance novelists will talk about their genre and craft

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Las Vegas can be a pretty romantic place if you know where to look.

There’s a passel of wedding chapels here for lovebirds wishing to tie the knot. Romantic places — Bellagio’s fountains, for instance — to elicit sighs of contentment from the severely smitten. Scenic landscapes — at Red Rock Canyon and Mount Charleston, for instance — to serve as backdrops for romantic meetings.

But the Las Vegas Valley’s already considerable romance quotient will rise significantly Saturday when seven best-selling romance authors come to town for “The Romance of Words,” a reading, book signing and discussion sponsored by the Vegas Valley Book Festival.

The program begins at 9 p.m. at the Chapel of the Flowers, 1717 Las Vegas Blvd. South. (Because of limited parking, organizers urge attendees to carpool.)

Scheduled to appear are authors Ann Aguirre, Zoe Archer, Vivian Arend, Lauren Dane, Tessa Dare, Megan Hart and Courtney Milan, all of whom will read excerpts from their work.

The authors also served as judges of a writing competition in which local couples were asked to describe their most romantic Las Vegas date, either real or imagined. The winning couple will renew their vows at the Chapel of the Flowers and receive other wedding-day goodies and signed copies of the authors’ books.

The authors are also scheduled to sign copies of their books for fans and attend a reception at the chapel’s Glass Gardens.

“I think it will be a fun event,” says Eileen Horn, chairwoman of the Vegas Valley Book Festival’s literary committee. “We have a number of (romance) book clubs and writers’ groups in the valley who have requested over the last few years that we have an event with romance authors.”

Saturday’s event will pay tribute to what some have characterized as the most popular writing genre in America today.

“I’m not sure what the statistics are, but I would say most of the reports I read say that, out of all of the different genres of fiction, romances are the most popular,” Archer said during a recent phone interview.

One reason, Archer suspects, is that romance readers are “extremely voracious. So a dedicated reader can read several books a week as opposed to, say, a literary work that people don’t get through as fast.”

For many fans, there’s also the primary appeal of a romance novel: a guaranteed happy ending, no matter how tough the journey beforehand might have been.

Those who aren’t fans of the genre may “think romance is just about a man meeting a woman,” Milan says. “But I think it’s a very broad genre that has a lot to do with people finding a place and belonging, and not just about belonging to another person, but also having meaning in your life and having family, friends and a larger community accept you.

“I think that’s something that resonates with a lot of people and something they want to read about. You finish (a romance) and you’re both entertained and you feel good.”

Aguirre says knowing it’s going to end well is her favorite thing about romance novels.

“Frankly, life can be grim,” Aguirre says. “Real life can give you enough drama. Sometimes, it’s comforting to curl up with a book and know that a huge rock is not going to fall on anybody at the end.”

The trick, of course, is in making the journey to that point seem not at all certain.

Ideally, Aguirre says, “even though you know deep down everything’s going to be OK, you don’t have any clue how the author is going to pull off that happy ending and you kind of panic a little bit.”

Yet, romance also may be the most diverse — and, thus, the most interesting — literary genre in America today. From historical to contemporary, from erotic to Amish, from paranormal to horror, the romance genre encompasses numerous subgenres in which the basics can be tweaked into just about anything a reader — and a skilled author — might find intriguing.

Aguirre, for example, writes in several genres including science fiction, urban fantasy and young adult. With author Carrie Lofty — and writing as Ellen Connor — she even writes in a genre she calls “apocalyptic paranormal romance.”

A friend who, Aguirre says, writes “pretty hard-core military” novels once voiced doubt about “how that could work. I was, like, ‘Know what, I’ll just send you the first book.’

“He read it and he’s, like, ‘My god. It’s like Stephen King with more romance. That’s so hot, and I can’t believe you know that about guys.’ “

Milan says she tends to write about “characters who are overcoming some serious issues, so I tend to hear from people who find that particularly meaningful.

“For example, I write historical romances, and I wrote about a hero who was dyslexic in a period when nobody knew what dyslexia was,” Milan says.

Archer also enjoys doing things that sort of cross genres and is particularly fond of “badass heroines.”

“I’ve always been a huge fan of Indiana Jones movies and that sort of big-adventure kind of narrative of heroes and heroines, often in exotic locations, having crazy fun adventures,” she says. “I always thought it would be great to put them in that context of a romance novel, but it hadn’t seemed to have been done in a way that I was satisfied with.”

So, by combining, say, paranormal elements with historical romance, “I’m able to have more physically and psychologically and emotionally active heroines,” Archer says.

Despite such diversity, romance isn’t a genre that nonfans necessarily take seriously.

“I think a lot of people have a very skewed perception” of romances, Archer says, thinking back to books of “the ’70s or ’80s, where the woman is falling out of her dress and everybody saw Fabio on the cover, and it’s always bodice-rippery and ‘punishing kisses’ and things like that.”

“I think the respect level has risen, on average,” Milan says. “But I think there are always going to be people who have a certain image of it, no matter what happens.

“But I think it has become, just, more acceptable to say, ‘I like reading romances’ and not have to feel like I have to apologize to anyone.”

The authors all say they’ve been to Las Vegas before and look forward to returning for Saturday’s event. But when it comes to finding romance in Las Vegas, Aguirre’s story takes the prize: She and her husband were married here in 1999.

“We went down to the courthouse to get our license, and there’s a little chapel within walking distance,” she recalls. “It was really sweet.”

Contact reporter John Przybys at
jprzybys@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0280.