Category: True Romance
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Do People Fall in Love Out of Gratitude?
What’s going on here? A romance novel is seriously making the hero fall for a girl simply because she adored him first? “[T]hough Henry was now sincerely attached to her, though he felt and delighted in all the excellencies of her character and truly loved her society, I must confess that his affection originated in…
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In Jane Austen, Nice Guys Finish First
Girls go for the bad guys, they say, and nice guys finish last. If so, then Jane Austen has achieved an amazing feat of literature by creating nice guys you want to cheer for. Nice guys many females claim they’d like to date. Nice guys who aren’t boring, but actually readable. I realized this while…
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How to Catch a Man 101: Show More Affection Than You Feel
AKA Dating Advice from Dear Jane Austen “There are very few of us who have heart enough to be really in love without encouragement,” [said Charlotte]. “In nine cases out of ten, a woman had better show more affection than she feels. Bingley likes your sister undoubtedly; but he may never do more than like…
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Real-life Romance: The Scholarly Professor and Edith
Real life is better than fiction sometimes. More unbelievable than fiction too, but that’s another topic. This post is the second of four to mesh two of my favourite blog topics: romance and history. Because I realized, when I thought about it, that I knew at few stories from history that were eventful enough to…
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Secret Admirers Don’t Exist
“I have a secret secret admirer. Not only is her identity a secret—but so is the fact that she admires me.” ― Jarod Kintz, This Book Title is Invisible It’s a bit of an awkward admission to make, but every once in a while, I need to give up on a guy more quickly. I…
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Let’s Just Blame the Plot on Someone’s Sex Drive
The Problems with Leaving Romance up to “Overwhelming Attraction” You know what I hate? I hate when romantic comedies or romance novels set up a perfectly good antagonistic relationship between two main characters (you know, where they take an instant dislike to each other, like in the beginning of Pride and Prejudice), and then easily…
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Why Some Girls Like Mr. Darcy
Maybe this post should actually be called ‘why I like Mr. Darcy,’ but I flatter myself these reasons might be shared by other females. Mr. Darcy gets a lot of flak from guys. He’s just some woman’s imagination of the perfect guy, no real guy acts like that, women in general should just grow up…
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No Thanks, to the Guy Reciting Poetry Under My Balcony
Or, Romantic Reality vs. Fiction If some of the things that happen in romance novels happened to me in real life, I’d probably run the other way. It might make sense in the tightly structured, well-plotted world of the novel, but in the messy real world, not so much. After all, real life doesn’t have…
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The Missing Ingredient in Too Many Romance Novels
The Over-stated Role of Attraction There are a couple typical plots for romance novels, but most of them go something like this: Girl is frustrated at being single/sick of dating jerks/doesn’t have time for romance. Girl and Guy meet cute. Girl and Guy hate each other for some contrived reason (usually one of them…
Hmm... 