Let me tell you something about romance readers that the rest of the literary world has been slow to figure out.
We are not silly. We are not naive. We are not reading these books because we don't know any better or because we can't handle something more serious. We are reading them because we are smart enough to know that love is serious. That hope is serious. That a story about a woman who trusts herself at the exact moment it costs her the most — that is as serious as it gets.
I write...