Romance Series - Breaking the HEA rule?

Many romance series are not in fact about the same couple but a number of couples in a workplace, town or family.

HEA is pretty much compulsary, but it can occur over a series of books with each one ending on a more HFN (happy for now) basis. But the vast majority would be HEA by the end of the book.

My favorite type of romance series has a new main character for each book, usually this person was a secondary character in the previous book, and the main characters from the previous book show up as secondary characters in the later books. Sometimes the main characters are siblings or best friends, sometimes one was the loser of a love triangle or a villain in the previous book, etc. Basically, a romance novel explores a character's thoughts and emotions in plenty of detail, leaving no mysteries of that character to explore in more books. They are "used up" as far as being a romance main character goes, unless you want to do something like the couple from the first book acquiring a third shared lover in a second book.

I hate and do not read the kind where a couple gets a happy ending in the first book only to be ripped apart at the beginning of the second book. I don't consider that to be appropriate to the romance genre.

Ditto to what the others have said. Romance series are NOT the same couple. For exactly the reason you state -- there's no conflict left after the HEA, and if there's no HEA, it's not a romance.

The few times that authors have tried same-h/h-series, even big-name authors, the sales were reputedly AWFUL. Jayne Ann Krentz and Anne Stuart both did it back in the 70s or 80s, and neither of them has ever done it again, which should tell you something. (Well, except I think JAK may have made an exception for one pairing in one of the linked series; they meet/start dating in one book, and get married in the next, or something like that, but she certainly hasn't made a habit of doing it, and she does do series.)

The JAK books where she first tried this are the Guinevere Jones series, and I read somewhere --SBTB or DA -- that they're being re-released in digital format soon if you want to check them out. I have three of the four, and essentiallly the HEA for the first one is them meeting, the second one is committing to live together, the third is getting engaged and the fourth is marriage. The thing to remember, though, is that these books are as much mystery as romance, so the bulk of the conflict comes from the mystery antagonist, not the relationship. The relationship grows in each one, as the characters get to know each other, but it's not the main source of conflict.

Even Nora Robert needed to leave the romance genre to write a series based on the same couple....

JanDarby said:

Ditto to what the others have said. Romance series are NOT the same couple.

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The JD Robb 'In Death' series isn't considered romance?

There have been a handful of paired Harlequin Presents book where exactly that happens. The H/H are together at the end of book 1 but book 2 presents them with a new conflict that threatens to destroy the relationship. I've read the Lynne Graham pair, which I didn't love, and the first of the India Grey pair which I adored and am impatiently awaiting the second.

dolores haze said:

The JD Robb 'In Death' series isn't considered romance?

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Not in terms of where it was shelved when it was first released. It is general considered suspense/romantic suspense and shelved with the thrillers and police procedurals.

dolores haze said:

The JD Robb 'In Death' series isn't considered romance?

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veinglory said:

Not in terms of where it was shelved when it was first released. It is general considered suspense/romantic suspense and shelved with the thrillers and police procedurals.

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The same applies to Lisanne Norman's Sholan Worlds series - the first volume almost could have passed as a standalone romance, so could the second, there's a lot of romance-esque content in the series, but it is science fiction because the central pair stays the same and the happy endings get unpleasantly compromised.

My favorite type of romance series has a new main character for each book, usually this person was a secondary character in the previous book, and the main characters from the previous book show up as secondary characters in the later books. Sometimes the main characters are siblings or best friends, sometimes one was the loser of a love triangle or a villain in the previous book, etc. Basically, a

romance novel explores a character's thoughts and emotions in plenty of detail, leaving no mysteries of that character to explore in more books. They are "used up" as far as being a romance main character goes, unless you want to do something like the couple from the first book acquiring a third shared lover in a second book.

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This is how I write my series.

I enjoy series romance, follow them on different category lines(Intrigue, Desire and Presents) which often involve siblings, sometimes co-workers. Also love the Black Dagger JR Ward series and Susan Elizabeth Phillips Chicago Stars series.

I write romance series, too, though for one the connection is the scifi world they live in. My other series has secondary characters finding their own HEA.

I wouldn't be interested in a series involving the main couple breaking up and getting back together several times. Sheesh, I know people like that in real life and they make me insane.

I'm working on a series at the moment.

Each story has entirely different MCs and the series spans 140 years in time. The unifying factor is the house where a narrator in each of the books is the owner/heir/whatever.

My own view is that if the MCs have an HEA in one romance, why throw them back into another book? I don't understand authors who can't seem to rest on their laurels and keep going back to the same characters dredging them up again and again with ever weaker storylines. I realise that, as writers, we get attached to our characters but it's better to leave them in a good place, rather than rely on them to carry your next story.

*climbs off soapbox*

Speaking generally here, Romance genre is not a 'love story' with a happy ending. Romance genre is a 'courtship story' with a happy ending.

Gabaldon's Outlander, JD Robb's Naked in Death, and Bujold's A Civil Campaign could, arguably, be Romance genre. They're courtship stories. But because the other books in those series, are not about the period of courtship; because these authors are shelved in Mystery or General Fiction or SF; the courtship books are not considered genre Romance.

Genre is not about what's in the book. Genre is where they shelve the book and which part of the publishing company handles it. Genre is a marketing term.

Most series in the Romance genre visit the same fictive world with new H&Hs. c.f. Jo Beverley's Mallorens. Quinn's Bridgertons. This is what I do.
There are series Romance that do the courtship thing with the same heroine. Golon's Angelique and Angelique in Love; Gellis' Alinor and Roselynde.

If you want to write a series of books about the same protagonists, you may need to move into another genre.

Oh, I'd forgotten about Roberta Gellis's two books with the same heroine. I loved them! And the brilliance of the way Roberta Gellis used the first relationship to complicate the second relationship without making the first hubby evil in any way.

She does that pair of books so beautifully on so many levels. Just a wonderful HFN. Gellis faces the dilemma Heyer presents for Leonie in These Old Shades and deals with it.

It can't have been easy. You'll notice Gellis never does it again.

I'm in the m/m genre and there are a few series romances in that genre that follow the same couple. Josh Lanyon has more than one. Charlie Cochrane's Cambridge fellows series is another. I'm just about to write what I hope will be the first of a series myself. The books usually have enough of a happy for now ending to fit the romance genre requirement, but they leave things open. They aren't settling down happy ever after and knitting baby booties, there's still clearly plenty of scope for exploring the relationship.

Series books often seem to be cross-genre too. Mysteries especially seems to be popular. So each book will have the self contained story of whatever mystery it is the heroes are solving, along with further developments in their relationship.

Maybe m/m has more scope for following a couple on after the initial happy ending of the first story. I've said it before that same-sex couples can face so many challenges to be together (especially if it's in a historical setting like Charlie Cochrane's) then their getting together is not the end of the story, just the start of a new one. People have asked me for more about the couple in my most recent one and I could see me at least doing a short piece about them. Characters do tend to stay with me even after their story is supposedly done.

But a series where characters who were supporting ones in previous books, or who are all generally linked in some way is just as valid, and very common.

I have an M/M series that follows the same couple. In the first book, they have an HFN, but it's made clear that there are still threats. (The love interest is the pack alpha, and homosexuality is seen as weakness in an alpha, as is actually being in love with your mate; there are enemies that want to destroy the pack; etc.) So they're happy at the end of the first book, but it's clear that it's a "for now" and they still have a ways to go to get to their "ever after". My editor was the one who asked me to make this couple's story into a series, so apparently the publisher thinks it will work.

On a different editor's request, I'm working on another series with the same couple, but that one's more erotica than romance. It's about a married couple who have put each other aside to focus on careers and are now trying to rekindle the spark in their marriage.

If you mean the Adrien English stories i would consider them Mystery not romance or at least that shelf I bought them off back in the day. M/M like any parring can occur in genres other than romance.

veinglory said:

If you mean the Adrien English stories i would consider them Mystery not romance or at least that shelf I bought them off back in the day. M/M like any parring can occur in genres other than romance.

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I was thinking more of the Dangerous Ground series, actually. (Possibly as I've just been reading that.) It's sold as "romantic suspense". So is his Holmes and Moriarty series. Though Josh's books definitely often live in the grey areas of classification.

I'm working on a m/m space opera series that ends the first two with HFN, and a lot of challenges before the characters can reach something approaching HEA in the last book.

I just find HEA unrealistic, I guess.

Nothing wrong with having a love story that is not HEA, it just probably isn't in the romance genre.

Some authors and/or publishers seem to want to appeal to the large romance market without meeting its needs--that tends to not go well in the long run.

M/M has this unfortunate history of being required to have unhappy endings for social acceptability, I don't think it's fully escaped that yet, and combined with the general shortage of published M/M love stories, I think that's the only reason the rules for what constitutes an M/M romance are less strict than for straight romance. I think this will change over the next decade or two, with M/M romance coming more and more in line with straight romance rules.

I think that labeling non-HEA as romance could impede M/M getting accepted as romance at all. And there is at least one publisher doing that. Yes we can sell M/M as romance online, but I;d liked to see it shelved as romance in stores too.