Romance novels

Talk about the genre and anything to do with it. Prompted by the passing of Kathleen Woodiwiss, who apparently reset the genre's focus in the seventies, thus:

Before Woodiwiss' first novel, "The Flame and the Flower," was published in 1972, romance fiction was wrapped around suspense or gothic tales. The romance part was demure and suggestive, the books relatively short.

In developing a new category, Woodiwiss crafted more complex plots with somewhat controversial relationships. Her stories twist and turn for 500 pages or more before their happy endings.

"Kathleen's books focus on the relationship between a heroine and a hero," said Nicole Kennedy, a spokeswoman for the Romance Writers of America, in an interview with The Times. "Until Kathleen came along, there was nothing like it out there."

A number of Woodiwiss' titles, including "Ashes in the Wind" (1979), raced to the top of the New York Times paperback bestsellers list.

She set her dramas against Medieval England, colonial America and other familiar backgrounds and wrote sex scenes in such complete detail that she became known as a pioneer of the "erotic historical" novel. She didn't appreciate it.

"I'm insulted when my books are called erotic," Woodiwiss said in a 1978 interview with Cosmopolitan magazine. "I write love stories, with a little spice."

Some of said spice:

"She moved her arm out of the way, and Brandon paled as she moved guilelessly between his knees. There was an ugly scratch marring the white skin of her underarm, and a long vicious-looking pin protruded from the material at the side of her breast, but the head of the pin was inside her gown and it couldn’t be freed from without. Most reluctantly he reached up and slid two fingers inside her bodice against the soft warm flesh of her breast as she stood obediently motionless and watched him with trusting eyes. His gaze caught hers for a second, and amazingly his face flushed red.

" ‘What the hell!’ he thought angrily. ‘She has me blushing like an unsullied virgin!’ "