It’s February and with Valentine’s Day giving the month a romantic flavour, it’s a good time to talk about romance in fiction.

I’m not a Romance reader, but shhh! That wasn’t always so. As a teenager, I used to enjoy a good Romance story and if I’m honest with myself, I still do. Far be it from me to insult a genre or a reader who enjoys it!

The thing is, for me to call a Romance story a good Romance story, it has to satisfy the criteria for a good story. I don’t make allowances for genre. And quite honestly, Romance stories that focus exclusively on the romance aspects of the story don’t often qualify for the standards I set for any genre.

We’ve all heard of the imprints that churn out simplistic stories to feed a hungry readership for a quick emotional romantic fix. Let’s call them H…