Laura Vivanco
@lauravivanco.bsky.social
Independent scholar of popular romance fiction https://www.vivanco.me.uk/ On the Editorial Board of the Journal of Popular Romance Studies https://www.jprstudies.org/
My database of scholarship about romances: https://rsdb.vivanco.me.uk
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My database of scholarship about romances: https://rsdb.vivanco.me.uk
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Laura Vivanco
@lauravivanco.bsky.social
· Sep 24
I thought I'd try out making a starter pack. So here's one of romance scholars. Please let me know if you've spotted an omission.
That's like the UCU (University and College Union) members holding banners saying "Knowledge is Power" 😭
Members of UCU Scotland hold a banner that reads "Knowledge is power"...
Members of UCU Scotland hold a banner that reads "Knowledge is power" and listen to a speaker as they rally outside the Scottish Parliament against threatened job cuts on January 29, 2025 in...
www.gettyimages.co.uk
January 7, 2026 at 3:22 PM
That's like the UCU (University and College Union) members holding banners saying "Knowledge is Power" 😭
There have been a couple of high-profile examples of product placement in books (for things other than books), but it does seem rare.
Literature’s long love affair with product placement
Best-selling novelist William Boyd’s decision to take a commission from Land Rover to write a short story might strike some as a sell-out of the highest order. Indeed, some publishers and writers clai...
theconversation.com
January 7, 2026 at 3:14 PM
There have been a couple of high-profile examples of product placement in books (for things other than books), but it does seem rare.
Oh, I just posted a link. Here you go:
Welcome to Noraville, the Small Maryland Town Rebuilt by Nora Roberts
Welcome to Noraville, the Small Maryland Town Rebuilt by Nora Roberts
www.jezebel.com
January 6, 2026 at 11:18 PM
Oh, I just posted a link. Here you go:
In case anyone's curious and hasn't heard of Boonsboro, here's an article about it (although the article's a bit old now):
Welcome to Noraville, the Small Maryland Town Rebuilt by Nora Roberts
Welcome to Noraville, the Small Maryland Town Rebuilt by Nora Roberts
www.jezebel.com
January 6, 2026 at 11:18 PM
In case anyone's curious and hasn't heard of Boonsboro, here's an article about it (although the article's a bit old now):
Unfortunately, it seems likely the US is interested in Greenland's minerals (and won't care about environmental protection)
The mineral riches hiding under Greenland's ice
The treasures beneath Greenland's icy terrain have been coveted for more than a century. But as Donald Trump becomes the latest to eye this wealth, accessing them remains a challenge.
www.bbc.co.uk
January 6, 2026 at 8:16 PM
Unfortunately, it seems likely the US is interested in Greenland's minerals (and won't care about environmental protection)
So the oatcake didn't involve sugar, at least. Are they cheap there? I don't think of them as super-expensive (when I was a student, I'd eat 2 packets i.e. 12 oatcakes) for lunch, but 4 packets = roughly the cost of a standard supermarket pre-sliced bread, so they're not super-cheap either.
January 6, 2026 at 6:04 PM
So the oatcake didn't involve sugar, at least. Are they cheap there? I don't think of them as super-expensive (when I was a student, I'd eat 2 packets i.e. 12 oatcakes) for lunch, but 4 packets = roughly the cost of a standard supermarket pre-sliced bread, so they're not super-cheap either.
I'm guessing Canadian oatcakes are not like Scottish ones?
Scottish oatcakes
Forget shop-bought and make your own oatcakes. Perfect for serving with cheese or your favourite dips, they're easy to make, with a just a few simple ingredients
www.bbcgoodfood.com
January 6, 2026 at 3:53 PM
I'm guessing Canadian oatcakes are not like Scottish ones?
You don't have to give them your data. I sometimes get a pop-up asking me to do things, but you can click to minimise it and then click on something else to make it go away completely. (Sorry, that's not very descriptive, but it wasn't appearing for me just now, so I couldn't check the details.)
January 6, 2026 at 10:08 AM
You don't have to give them your data. I sometimes get a pop-up asking me to do things, but you can click to minimise it and then click on something else to make it go away completely. (Sorry, that's not very descriptive, but it wasn't appearing for me just now, so I couldn't check the details.)
Not sure what you mean by "data stealing wall" but there's a link in the Guardian article to an article by the scientist here:
Heritage railway volunteers show how deep friendships can be formed without discussing emotions
People can develop intimate and caring relationships, without naming emotions.
theconversation.com
January 6, 2026 at 9:36 AM
Not sure what you mean by "data stealing wall" but there's a link in the Guardian article to an article by the scientist here:
Here are the quotes as they appear in Beer doi.org/10.4324/9781... , with a bit more context around them:
January 5, 2026 at 8:37 PM
Here are the quotes as they appear in Beer doi.org/10.4324/9781... , with a bit more context around them:
Yes! Just went off to check that for you and it turns out Fluck (muse.jhu.edu/article/24308 ) has got a nice amalgamation of key quotes from Beer:
January 5, 2026 at 8:29 PM
Yes! Just went off to check that for you and it turns out Fluck (muse.jhu.edu/article/24308 ) has got a nice amalgamation of key quotes from Beer:
I wonder if that's what Parrinder's getting at when saying that romance is individualised utopia?
January 5, 2026 at 7:58 PM
I wonder if that's what Parrinder's getting at when saying that romance is individualised utopia?
And here's something from Robert Louis Stevenson's "A Gossip on Romance" www.online-literature.com/stevenson/es... (where it means more "adventure" than necessarily about love):
January 5, 2026 at 7:38 PM
And here's something from Robert Louis Stevenson's "A Gossip on Romance" www.online-literature.com/stevenson/es... (where it means more "adventure" than necessarily about love):
That's not part of a definition of popular/genre romance that I've come across. However, I think that it sounds like the utopia-associated ideas about romance here (I can only see one page, though). Depends which texts are meant by "romance", of course: ancient Greek, chivalric, etc
The Cambridge Companion to Utopian Literature
Since the publication of Thomas More's genre-defining work Utopia in 1516, the field of utopian literature has evolved into an ever-expanding domain. This Companion presents an extensive historical su...
books.google.co.uk
January 5, 2026 at 7:38 PM
That's not part of a definition of popular/genre romance that I've come across. However, I think that it sounds like the utopia-associated ideas about romance here (I can only see one page, though). Depends which texts are meant by "romance", of course: ancient Greek, chivalric, etc
Oh, now you've reminded me of
‘Ghost resorts’: as hundreds of ski slopes lie abandoned, will nature reclaim the Alps?
With the snow line edging higher, 186 French ski resorts have shut, while global heating threatens dozens more
www.theguardian.com
January 5, 2026 at 3:42 PM
Oh, now you've reminded me of
Deane argues that romance readers sought a bit of respectability by rejecting the "bodice rippers" of the past, but the dark romance subgenre brings back elements of that past, for the 21st century.
![Perhaps no popular genre has been placed so consistently in a defensive position as has romance fiction. Romance novels have been dismissed as poorly written escapist texts at best and anti-feminist propaganda at worst; romance readers, accordingly, must suffer from poor taste or poor morals. Under this microscope, when not ignored entirely, many in the romance fiction community have embraced the idea that the genre itself could find a happy ending – with ‘[problematic] tropes’ left to the genre’s history, rather than its present or future (Watson 2022, 69). One critical front of this modernization has been in the importance of establishing clear, affirmative sexual consent between a book’s protagonists, helping distinguish between what bloggers Sarah Wendell and Candy Tan (2009) have called the ‘Old Skool’ and the ‘New Skool’ romance novel. But if the mainstream of the genre has seen the decline of non-consensual bodice-ripping, the last decades’ renewed push to write into existence a world of healthy heterosexual courtship is complicated by the rise of dark romance. Emerging as a self-published genre in the early 2010s, dark romance novels regularly stage those forced seductions now scarce in the cartoon-cover contemporaries on romance bookstore shelves.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:ikadhhfrxdg37gwzniqglnxn/bafkreif3ohitrqniyku25eciucfchdbcyshzd4el3dj7x7ts6smm5whhkm@jpeg)
January 5, 2026 at 1:48 PM
Deane argues that romance readers sought a bit of respectability by rejecting the "bodice rippers" of the past, but the dark romance subgenre brings back elements of that past, for the 21st century.
A new publication by Katie Deane, on dark romance, is the first work of romance scholarship of 2026. And it's open access!
Dark romance: an introduction
This article examines the rise of dark romance from the fringes of self-publishing to a bestselling genre. After surveying definitions of dark romance, the article provides a detailed chronology of...
doi.org
January 5, 2026 at 1:48 PM
A new publication by Katie Deane, on dark romance, is the first work of romance scholarship of 2026. And it's open access!
I did check the webpage but I couldn't see an answer. I'm getting the impression that the grid (of wood?) on top of the brickwork is there all the time but is it an original part of the structure? Is it wood that plants grow up? Or is it there to help preserve the building?
January 5, 2026 at 12:46 PM
I did check the webpage but I couldn't see an answer. I'm getting the impression that the grid (of wood?) on top of the brickwork is there all the time but is it an original part of the structure? Is it wood that plants grow up? Or is it there to help preserve the building?
Your link seems broken so I'm adding this: guardian.ctdonate.org?utm_medium=s...
(but "across the country" does seem mainly to = "in England")
(but "across the country" does seem mainly to = "in England")
The Guardian Charity Appeal 2025
guardian.ctdonate.org
January 4, 2026 at 1:07 PM
Your link seems broken so I'm adding this: guardian.ctdonate.org?utm_medium=s...
(but "across the country" does seem mainly to = "in England")
(but "across the country" does seem mainly to = "in England")
I wonder if he has some extremely distant cousins who had an acquaintance with the timbers used for this 🐸🌳⚓
Thought Boaty McBoatface was a funny name?
Meet the Mary Rose's sister ship, the Peter Pomegranate.
maryrose.org/discover/his...
Meet the Mary Rose's sister ship, the Peter Pomegranate.
maryrose.org/discover/his...
January 4, 2026 at 12:15 PM
I wonder if he has some extremely distant cousins who had an acquaintance with the timbers used for this 🐸🌳⚓
And the historical context to all this, summarised by The Guardian:
‘Naked imperialism’: how Trump intervention in Venezuela is a return to form for the US
Most of the Americas have suffered from interference from their powerful northern neighbour – and are usually the worse off for it
www.theguardian.com
January 4, 2026 at 8:38 AM
And the historical context to all this, summarised by The Guardian:
Here's Nattie Golubov on paramilitary romance (p348, www.academia.edu/64129752/The... or paywalled at doi.org/10.4324/9781... :
January 3, 2026 at 4:54 PM
Here's Nattie Golubov on paramilitary romance (p348, www.academia.edu/64129752/The... or paywalled at doi.org/10.4324/9781... :
Today's news about Venezuela is reminding me of my feelings about Suzanne Brockmann's Get Lucky (2000). Not really trying to single that novel/author out, just using it as an example of how the US was/is portrayed in a lot of contemporary romance, I assume reflecting a lot of US self-perception.
![Lucky’s narrative paints the US as a land of freedom and contrasts it with the states in “Central America” which “people were leaving […] in droves” (155) in the 1970s. Lucky’s step-father:
would tell about these horrible human rights violations he’d witnessed in his home country. […] “He told me to value my freedom as an American above all else. [...]” (157)
Although Lucky does admit that “there’s a lot wrong with this
country,” he quickly adds that “there’s also a lot right” (158) and in
his narrative the US’s involvement in the lives of Central American
refugees is depicted as wholly benign: it provides refuge to those
who have “managed to escape” (155) from oppression.
This portrayal of the relationship between the US and its ‘backyard’
may, however, seem a little odd when one considers the:
clear and persistent pattern of U.S. influence over the political violence conducted by Latin American states. In some cases, Latin American governments enthusiastically received U.S. support for their campaigns of terror, and in other cases U.S. state agencies pressured “weaker” states to undertake such campaigns. (Menjívar and Rodríguez, “State” 4–5)
While it is possible that Brockmann was unaware of US support for,
and encouragement of, governments which “would drag us into the
street and put bullets in our heads simply for something we believed in”, it was in 1994, long before the publication of Brockmann’s novel, that the US mainstream media began to offer:
a clear presentation of the links between the United States and Guatemalan right-wing violence […], in this […] coverage a clear and consistent link was made between long-term U.S. policies and Guatemalan security forces and death squads. (Livingston and Eachus 431)](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:ikadhhfrxdg37gwzniqglnxn/bafkreigzbr3ebosbtbbuczjte4tjjc24imb4xguevgcrp5snndknesnkty@jpeg)
January 3, 2026 at 4:54 PM
Today's news about Venezuela is reminding me of my feelings about Suzanne Brockmann's Get Lucky (2000). Not really trying to single that novel/author out, just using it as an example of how the US was/is portrayed in a lot of contemporary romance, I assume reflecting a lot of US self-perception.
Yes, writing "when everybody — gay men or straight women — is discouraged from thinking more critically about the media they consume, nobody wins" is ironic given the first paragraph's insistence, as you say, on "the smut" and the insistence that the show "only has glimpses of true complexity".
January 2, 2026 at 8:42 PM
Yes, writing "when everybody — gay men or straight women — is discouraged from thinking more critically about the media they consume, nobody wins" is ironic given the first paragraph's insistence, as you say, on "the smut" and the insistence that the show "only has glimpses of true complexity".