The Allure of the Contemporary Novel

By: Marcia King-Gamble
www.lovemarcia.com


I grew up reading  mostly historicals and loved them. Most were set in the UK and featured dukes, duchesses, and nobility on the whole, usually in exotic settings. Meaning - castles, ballrooms, highlands. These characters were people who hobnobbed with the "Ton," Through reading, I entered a world I didn't know existed and learned some fancy words.

For someone  like me, born on a tiny Caribbean island,  theses books were 'Calgon Take me Away' moments, or "Lounge in the tub with Aromatherapy" moments. Makes you wonder how in the world  I made the shift to contemporary romance reading and writing.

Well, I also read Mills and Boon, Harlequin, and Silhouette romances, and this was way before sex came into play in any of these books. Hero and heroine usually exchanged a few dry mouthed kisses and the readers imagination went wild.  These stories dealt with fantasy and strayed far from reality. Overall,  they were feel good books with satisfying endings. We all drooled over the brooding hero, and applauded the besotted heroine, often poorer than the proverbial church mouse. Falling in love with the rich, powerful hero was her way out. He was her savior, and despite all odds, they got together because love conquered all.

I was a true believer. I wanted that great love. I wanted someone who would make my limbs quiver and my mouth go dry, and so apparently did the rest of the world which is why romances are still around, albeit in a different form.

Over the years,  reality crept more and more into these stories, and flawed characters emerged. Today we have heroines that suffered from bulimia and incarcerated heroes given a second chance to redeem themselves. We have powerful white collar women falling for blue collar men making far less then them.  We read about people like you and me. People we can relate to in everyday settings. Most aren't even rich.

What remains constant are the happy endings and  readers wanting to be swept away. They want to believe in forever love.  Despite what the divorce statistics  are telling them, they want relatable characters placed in impossible situations who fell in love. They want to root for these characters when adversity hits. They want to believe their prince and princess will come along. Wasn't that evidenced by the number of people up at an ungodly hour this spring  as the Duke of Sussex married a commoner; and  a woman of color at that. Talk about reality hitting home, and mirroring the real world. It was and is a contemporary dream.

So when did my contemporary  bug bite?  The seed was planted years ago when I had the good fortune to be hired as a freelance reader for Harlequin/Silhouette. What that means is you get sent submissions from the slush pile; meaning unsolicited manuscripts to evaluate. Thousands of these manuscripts come in from unpublished authors hoping to realize their dream. In order to keep up with the volume, the publisher  is forced to hire laypeople like me. After you were done reading, you returned your two page questionnaire with an overall summary of the book, and that was the last you heard, until the next batch of manuscripts arrived.

I read diligently for seven years, and evaluated thousands of submissions, then one day the light bulb came on.  I could do this. Contemporary was what I enjoyed. Fortunately,  a brand new  line was opening up with characters who looked like me. People of color had been for years spending a small fortune on books, and someone realized the untapped revenue stream. Presto, Kensington's Arabesque Line was launched.

One rejection later I was published.

My first book,  Remembrance, later renamed,  Truly Mine is still a reader favorite. To my mind it has flaws, but it was an endeavor written from the heart, and there was that happily ever after as the woman finally got her guy.  The storyline was that of a college reunion set on a cruise ship. There the heroine bumps into the man who has always had her heart.  The sequel, A Reason to love,  later retitled, Mine Forever, followed.

Twenty years, and forty plus books later, I am still writing about love in the contemporary world. All my books still have  happy or at least promising endings. And somewhere along the way I got pigeon-holed as a writer of multi-cultural books; a euphemism for stories written about people of color for people of color. Nothing is further from the truth.  I write for readers of every color and I've written about characters that look like me, and some that don't, but isn't that the real world?  A good story is a good story. Now to convince the publishers to market these books like others, and  not in the "African American Interest" section of the stores.

Still, isn't it nice to know that in a world of depressing media stories, one can still pick up a contemporary novel and escape to a world  where true love is still possible, and happily after endings abound.

About Marcia King-Gamble

Romance writer, Marcia King-Gamble originally hails from a sunny Caribbean island where the sky and ocean are the same mesmerizing shade of blue. This former travel industry executive and current world traveler has spent most of life in the United States. A National Bestselling author, Marcia has penned over 34 books and 8 novellas. Her free time is spent at the gym, traveling to exotic locales, and caring for her animal family.

Visit Marcia at www.lovemarcia.com or “friend” her on Facebook: http://bit.ly/1MlnrIS