Romantic fiction was originally developed in the West, mainly in English-speaking countries. Contemporary romantic fiction refers to the romantic fiction of modern times.
Contemporary romantic fictions are written keeping in mind the matured adult readers. A novel should adhere to the following criteria (developed according to readers need) to be classified as a contemporary romantic novel:
- the story must focus on the romantic love between two people
- the story must have an optimistic ending or a happy ending
- neither hero nor the heroine should commit adultery in the course of their relationship (according to readers need)
Categories of contemporary romantic fiction:
Romance novels are classified into two groups. They are as follows:
- category romances or series romances
- single title romances
Category romances are short (usually within 250 pages) and have a low price when compared to other fiction books. Their other name, series romances , is derived from the sequential numbers printed on the books. They are again classified among different lines. A line is a series of books with certain uniqueness. The books belonging to a certain line may have similar settings, background, time periods, emotions, conflict.
Single title romance s are longer than the category romances and are around 350 to 400 pages.
Popularity of romantic fiction
Romantic fiction novels are most popular in the United States and Canada . Romantic fictions are the best-selling books there. In North America in 2002, sales of romantic fiction novels comprised 34.6% of all popular fiction sold in comparison the general fiction comprised 24.1% and mystery, detective and suspense fiction comprised 23.1%. Records revealed that over 2000 romance novels were published and it was estimated that there were 51.1 million romantic fiction novel readers.
