A day after Valentine's Day, it seemed only appropriate to schedule the Romance genre for tonight's Reader Advisory class. My book for this week was True Confessions by Rachel Gibson. Tabloid journalist Hope Spencer moves to Gospel, Idaho, for a much needed break. Burnt out writing about aliens, Elvis sightings, and Micky the Magical Leprechaun, Hope's boss at The Weekly News of the Universe has sent her to Gospel for a six-month working vacation. With a little luck she will find inspiration in this remote mountain town and get her creative juices flowing again. What Hope doesn't count on, however, is falling for local sheriff Dylan Taber. She doesn't like keeping secrets, but once she told Dylan she was in Gospel to write a nature article everything snowballed from there. How can she admit to him that she lied and really writes for a tabloid? As it turns out, Dylan has a secret of his own that is much bigger and potentially much more devastating than the one Hope is keeping. True Confessions is a romantic comedy that all fans of contemporary romance will enjoy. The small town of Gospel, Idaho, is populated by an assortment of quirky characters that readers will find endearing. This book is recommended for anyone wanting a little laughter with their romance.

The topic for this week might be Let's Talk Romance, but it might as well be Let's Talk Sex as that is the issue plaguing me of late. I already plan on stirring the pot in tonight's discussion by using my favorite antagonize Manogirl question: Does a Romance novel have to have sex in it to be considered a Romance? After reading the recent RT article that discusses definitions for "Hot" Romances, Erotic Romance (or Romantica), and Erotica, as well as reading the posts by HelenKay Dimon and Alison Kent discussing the article, I think I'm going to have to up the discussion a bit. I'll be curious to see what my students have to say about drawing lines between Romance, Romantica, and Erotica. And to coincide with this discussion I think we will also have to delve into squick barriers and how that impacts not only how we classify stories (after all, what is hot to one person may be tepid to another) but how it impacts our collection development and patron recommendations.

Should be a fun class. :-)

--------------------------------------------------------------------