But this isn’t the place to have that conversation, nor am I the one qualified to lead it. At some point a discussion needs to be had about privilege, and who gets to feel safe reading and writing these books given their subject matter. Though there are many dark romance books out there, there is a noticeable dearth of authors of color writing in this category. Whatever the reason that readers keep reading, this category has been going strong for years now, and shows little sign of stopping.Ī final note: This list is shorter than I originally intended. I don’t necessarily agree with that, but it’s an opinion and everyone has one. Certainly dark romance has enough critics, whose main argument is that it fetishizes violence against women, among other things. Maybe for others it’s just the titillation of the taboo. Dark romance, in the true nature of fiction that allows us to experience things beyond our scope of knowing, is for many readers and emotional release valve.

To which, really, I have only one reply: Catharsis beautiful, beautiful catharsis that reaches deep down and, for a short while, scrapes up all the things a reader is afraid of, lays them out on a page, and allows the reader to face them in absolute safety. By signing up you agree to our terms of use Thank you for signing up! Keep an eye on your inbox. Depending on who you ask, they can be anything from a standard romance novel with dark tones or themes (as with something like Eve Silver’s Dark Gothic series), to a black sheep cousin of New Adult, to a subset of Erotic Romance that indulges itself in all things frightening and taboo. To get technical, dark romance books are not romances in the strictest sense of the word. And while I’d love to see an actual horror romance novel some day, no that’s not exactly what a dark romance is, either. So what is a dark romance? Ultimately the category falls into an awkward area between romance, erotica, and horror. No two discussions I’ve seen of the category ever seem to reach the same consensus as to what dark romance books are, and where they belong.

There are a number of things that we don’t have clear cut definitions for in the genre, and dark romance is a good example. Because the genre is so large, and because it both overlaps with other genres, and possesses sub-genres that overlap with each other, there are many areas where definitions get vague and borders begin to blur. I love digging into the hazy, grey areas of the romance genre.

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