Christian romance 🙂
On one hand, I love Christian romance and I’m always looking for my next great read, there are times when the stories can all start to feel a little samey, a little to formulaic.
Also, Christian romance is a broad genre—more than half of the Christian fiction published is romance in one from of another, from Biblical romance to Regency romance, from Amish romance to contemporary romantic suspense.
If I had to choose one subgenre, I’d have to say contemporary Christian romance.
Why? Because it’s always changing as the world around us changes. Twenty years ago, characters were just getting mobile phones and learning to text. Ten years ago, they got phones with cameras. Now everyone has a smartphone, complete with email and social media.
Online connection means a lot of the plots that used to work and that I used to enjoy (like the secret baby trope I mentioned last week) have fallen out of favour because they don’t work any more. Instead, we have dozens of billionaire romances (because apparently any guy with a six-pack can earn a cool billion by developing some cool new app. No matter that there are so many free apps that I’ve yet to pay for one).
What I like about a great contemporary Christian romance is that it reinforces the importance of real-life connection—with other people, and with God. Great contemporary Christian romance also features flawed Christian characters doing their best to live a godly life in an ungodly world.
And, of course, there’s the romance.
Christian romance is (or should be) focused on the meeting of minds and the development of a three-strand relationship, not on the physical attraction that categorises so many general market (and real-life) relationships. Finally, contemporary Christian romance models romantic relationships built on a firm foundation, and built to last.
