Monday, July 7, 2025

Huh?

I just saw Lord of Hawkfell Island by Catherine Coulter centered in one of those book graphics and an arrow pointing at it saying Historical Rom-com.


Granted, I read this sometime in the mid 90s but, rom-com??? 
This is the one where the MMC is a Viking who takes the FMC Viking captive and his family is trying kill her?

I understand nothing about new marketing deployment of terms and how people are using/understanding them.

Any wild ones (you felt anyway) other readers have seen out there?

11 comments:

  1. excuse the fuck out of me

    rom...COM? A Catherine Coulter historical angst and red-flag fest written and published in 1993????

    ::rendered speechless::

    Do people understand words?

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    1. I knew you'd get this 😭

      I spun out when I saw it, then open-minded myself to well maybe The Sherbrooke Bride could be rom-com and maybe I'm not remembering this quite right, then thought maybe my brains fell out because I was too open-minding, wrestled with commenting to ask how they thought it was funny but held myself back because I'm done trying to talk with people I don't really know for fear of it becoming A Thing, but had to talk this out somewhere.

      I don't think anyone has a clear cut idea what rom-com means anymore, I certainly don't, but maybe its weird but I feel like I know what it isn't and from what I remember of this, NOT funny hahaha in the least.

      I really feel like people who don't write long reviews feel like they can only use 10 key/buzz words or phrases and everything must/does fit into them. People like rom-coms=people will look at my post and Like it.

      I am twisting myself around thinking if Sherbrooke Bride could be considered rom-com now. I'm on the road to madness!

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    2. I mean...

      Rom-com is a subgenre, and those graphics usually are used for tropes, aren't they? ("grumpy/sunshine", "one bed" and so on) So whoever made the graphic doesn't know the genre at all, or doesn't understand the difference between tropes and subgenres, or hasn't actually read the book and therefore doesn't give the first fuck.

      Whichever it is, I think you are correct that it's all about getting engagement of some kind.

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    3. If I remember right, this person was using the graphic as her Book Review, it had those tropes and then some of what she though of the story.
      It's just weird for me to be old enough now to see a new generation of reader and how they're approaching the romance genre. The on social media aspect just warps it even more.

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  2. I am seeing a lot of older books rebranded as either RomCom or Romantasy. *SMH*

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    1. It's like the new generation of romance readers just can't comprehend anything else??? I've seen some paranormal romance called romantasy and I was just like "sure." lol

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    2. It feels like making the vast umbrella of genre romance into a smaller one, where only a couple of subgenres are allowed.

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    3. This is why it bothers me, romance has so many subgenres! Why are we whittling down when we should be expanding/broadening?!

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    4. I have seen so many PNRs called Romantasy. I hate that term. I'm a crotchety old woman. LOL.

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    5. It's because some newer readers act like they're reinventing the wheel, lol

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