Bibliography H-L

Items with the "**" have not been personally checked. This means that the details given in the entry may not be entirely accurate.

From this page you may return to the main Romance Scholarship page or go directly to

• Academics Who Write Romance
• Academic Online Essays (not published in academic journals or volumes)
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  • Bibliography A-C - the first part of our bibliography of academic articles and books about romance.
  • Bibliography D-G - the second part of our bibliography of academic articles and books about romance.
  • Bibliography M-O - the fourth part of our bibliography of academic articles and books about romance.
  • Bibliography P-S - the fifth of our bibliography of academic articles and books about romance.
  • Bibliography T-Z - the last part of our bibliography of academic articles and books about romance.
• Bibliography of Scholarship in Languages Other than English.
• Dissertation Abstracts
• Guides to the Genre
• Romance in the Media - lists news items/features items about romance.
  • Romance in the Media A-I
  • Romance in the Media J-Z
• Romance Resources for Academics - lists romance-related resources which may be of interest to academics.
• Writers on Romance - lists items written about the genre by romance authors but not published in academic journals or books.

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H

Haddad, Emily A., 2007. 

'Bound to Love: Captivity in Harlequin Sheikh Novels.' in Empowerment versus Oppression: Twenty First Century Views of Popular Romance Novels. ed. Sally Goade, (Newcastle, U.K.:Cambridge Scholars Pub.) pp. 42-64.

Hagemann, Susanne, 1996. 

"Gendering Places: Georgette Heyer's Cultural Topography." Scotland to Slovenia: European Identities and Transcultural Communication. Proceedings of the Fourth International Scottish Studies Symposium. Ed. Horst W. Drescher and Susanne Hagemann. Scottish Studies International 21. Frankfurt am Main: Lang, 1996. 187–199. [Reprinted in: Georgette Heyer: A Critical Retrospective. Ed. Mary Fahnestock-Thomas. Saraland, AL: PrinnyWorld Press, 2001. 480–492.] **

Hague, Euan, 2014. 

“Mass Market Romance Fiction and the Representation of Scotland in the United States.” The Modern Scottish Diaspora: Contemporary Debates and Perspectives. Ed. Murray Stewart Leith and Duncan Sim (Edinburgh: Edinburgh UP): 171-190.

Hague, Euan and David Stenhouse, 2007. 

"A very interesting place: representing Scotland in American romance novels, " in The Edinburgh companion to contemporary Scottish literature Ed. by Berthold Schoene-Harwood (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press): 354-361.

Hains, Maryellen, 1989. 

“Beauty and the Beast: 20th Century Romance?” Merveilles & contes 3: 75–83.** [The journal seems to go under the name Marvels & Tales now]

Hall, Glinda Fountain, 2008. 

"Inverting the Southern Belle: Romance Writers Redefine Gender Myths. " Journal of Popular Culture 41.1: 37-55.

Hall, Glinda F., 2010. 

The Creators of Women’s Popular Romance Fiction: The Authors Who Gave Women a Genre of Their Own. Edwin Mellen Press.

Hallam, Julia, 2000. 

Nursing the Image: Media, Culture and Professional Identity (London: Routledge). [See pages 62-73 for discussion of Mills & Boon medical romances and changes in women's roles in the 1950s and 1960s and page 187 for a very brief summary about Mills & Boon romances in later decades.] [Excerpts available here and here.]

Hamilton, Cristen, 2013. 

“Vindicating the Historical Romance.” Plaza: Dialogues in Language and Literature 3.2: 140-156. Abstract and PDF. [This journal only "publishes works by graduate students."]

Hammill, Faye, 2003. 

'The Republic of Love and Popular Romance,' Carol Shields, Narrative Hunger, and the Possibilities of Fiction, ed. Edward Eden and Dee Goertz (Toronto: University of Toronto Press), pp. 61-83. Excerpt

Hapgood, Lynne, 2005. 

Margins of Desire: The Suburbs in Fiction and Culture, 1880-1925 (Manchester: Manchester UP). [See Chapter 5, 'The feminine suburb/1: Women readers and romance fiction' and Chapter 6, 'The feminine suburb/2: Sophie Cole, Alice Askew, Louise Gerard, Mary Hamilton'. Excerpt.]

Harders, Robin, 2012. 

'Borderlands of Desire: Captivity, Romance, and the Revolutionary Power of Love,' New Approaches to Popular Romance Fiction: Critical Essays, ed. Sarah S. G. Frantz and Eric Murphy Selinger (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland), pp. 133-152.

Harris, Marlene, 2013. 

"A New Breed of Romance." Library Journal 138.17: 49-49. ["Romance authors who find themselves publishing via both traditional contracts and the new world of the self-published are living a hybrid life"]

Hashim, Ruzy Suliza, and Shahizah Ismail Hamdan. 2010. 

"Facets of Women in Malay Romance Fiction." Kunapipi: Journal of Postcolonial Writing 32, no. 1-2: 67.

Hassencahl, Fran, 1980. 

"Persecutors, Victims and Rescuers in Harlequin Romances." Paper presented at the combined Annual Meeting of the Midwest Popular Culture Association and the Midwest American Culture Association (Kalamazoo, MI, October 23-25, 1980). 20 pgs. ERIC document ED207086.

Haynsworth, Leslie, 2008. 

'Janet Evanovich', Teaching American Literature: A Journal of Theory and Practice 2.2/3. [Formerly at [1]. This link no longer works but a pdf of the entire issue can be downloaded from [2]].

Hazen, Helen, 1983. 

Endless Rapture; Rape, Romance, and the Female Imagination. New York:: Scribner's. (Chapter 1 - Romance Novels)

Heinecken, Dawn, 1999. 

'Changing Ideologies in Romance Fiction', in Romantic Conventions, see below, pp. 149-72.

Heller, Tamar, 1997. 

'Having It All: Consumption and Ideological Tension in an Innovative Romance Novel.' Genre: Forms of Discourse and Culture 30.3:243-264. [The article focuses on Free Spirit by Fern Michael]

Herendeen, Ann, 2012. 

“The Upper-Class Bisexual Top as Romantic Hero: (Pre)dominant in the Social Structure and in the Bedroom,” Journal of Popular Romance Studies 3.1.[3]

Hermes, Joke, 1992. 

‘Sexuality in Lesbian Romance Fiction’, Feminist Review, 42: 49-66. Excerpts

Hermes, Joke, 1992. 

'Entertainment or Enlightenment - Sexuality In Lesbian Romance Novels', Argument, 34.3:389-402.

Hey, Valerie, 1983. 

The Necessity of Romance, Women’s Studies Occasional Papers, 3 (Canterbury: University of Kent).

Hinnant, Charles H., 2003.

"Desire and the Marketplace: A Reading of Kathleen Woodiwiss's The Flame and the Flower," in Doubled Plots: Romance and History, see above, pp. 147-164. Excerpt

Hipsky, Martin, 2011. 

Modernism and the Women’s Popular Romance in Britain, 1885–1925 (Ohio University Press). [More details and a blog post by Hipsky about the book.]

Hollows, Joanne, 2000. 

Feminism, Femininity and Popular Culture (Manchester: Manchester University Press). [Chapter 4 is about "Reading Romantic Fiction."]

Holmes, Diana, 2003. 

'Decadent Love: Rachilde and the Popular Romance', Dix-Neuf: Journal of the Society of Dix-Neuviémistes, 1: 16-28. pdf available here [Holmes argues that Rachilde's work, particularly Le Dessous (1904), 'performs the feat of providing simultaneously the pleasures of romance and a derisive critique of the genre']

Holmes, Diana, 2005. 

"The Return to Romance: Love Stories in Recent French Women's Writing." Esprit Créateur 45, no. 1: 97-109.

Holmes, Diana, 2006. 

Romance and Readership in Twentieth-Century France; Love Stories. (Oxford: Oxford University Press). Description and pdf of the first chapter. Description and more excerpts.

Holmes, D. 2010. 

"The comfortable reader: Romantic bestsellers and critical disdain." French Cultural Studies 21, (4): 287-296. Abstract.

Hubbard, Rita C., 1983. 

'The Changing-Unchanging Heroines and Heroes of Harlequin Romances, 1950-1979. in The Hero in Transition.,ed. Ray B. Browne and Marshall W. Fishwick, (Bowling Green, OH: Popular), pp. 171-179. Excerpt

Hubbard, Rita C., 1985. 

'Relationship Styles in Popular Romance Novels, 1950-1983', Communication Quarterly, 33.2: 113-25.** Republished in Methods of Rhetorical Criticism: A Twentieth-Century Perspective, ed. Bernard L. Brock, Robert L. Scott and James W. Chesebro, Third Edition, Revised, 1990 (Detroit: Wayne State University Press), pp. 223-233. Excerpt

Hubbard, Rita C., 1992. 

'Magic and Transformation: Relationships in Popular Romance Novels, 1950 to the 1980s', in Popular Culture: An Introductory Text, ed. Kevin Lause & Jack Nachbar (Bowling Green, OH: Bowling Green State University Popular Press), pp. 476-488. ** Excerpt Abstract. [In the excerpt it is stated that "A slightly different version of this essay appeared in Communication Quarterly 33 (Spring 1985)" (476). More precise bibliographical details for that item are given in the entry above this one.]

Hughes, Helen, 1993. 

The Historical Romance. (London:Routledge) Synopsis. Abstract and Excerpts

Huntwork, Mary M., 1990. 

"Why Girls Flock to Sweet Valley High." School Library Journal 36.3 : 137-140.

Huq, Maimuna, 1999. 

“From Piety to Romance: Islam-Oriented Texts in Bangladesh.” New Media in the Muslim World: The Emerging Public Sphere, ed. Dale F. Eickelman and Jon W. Anderson. (Bloomington, IN: Indiana UP), pp. 133-161.

Hurst, Rochelle, 2009. 

“The Barrister’s Bedmate: Harlequin Mills & Boon and the Bridget Jones Debate” Australian Feminist Studies 24.62: 453-468. [Feminist critique of Harlequin Mills & Boons (especially a selection by Emma Darcy) and comparison with Helen Fielding's Bridget Jones novels. For a discussion of why many aspects of this essay's methodology are troubling, from an academic perspective, see this article by Jessica at Read React Review].

I

Iesue, Renata. 1990. 

"Romance and Reality: Popular Writing by Nigerian Women." Commonwealth Essays and Studies 13, no. 1: 28-37.

Illouz, Eva. 2014. 

Hard-Core Romance: "Fifty Shades of Grey," Best-Sellers, and Society. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Iqbal, Kundan, 2014. 

"The impact of romance novels on women's sexual and reproductive health." Journal of Family Planning & Reproductive Health Care. Margaret Jackson Prize Essay 2014. Published Online First: 17 July 2014. Excerpt

J

Jackson, Elaine, 2008. 

'Sievier’s Monthly (1909): Pseudonyms and Readership in Early Twentieth Century Popular Fiction,' Book Trade Connections from the Seventeenth to the Twentieth Centuries, ed. John Hinks and Catherine Armstrong (Newcastle, Delaware: Oak Knoll Press), pp. 245-???. [In the introduction to the volume Catherine Armstrong writes that 'In the final chapter of this volume, Elaine Jackson explores the colourful publishing career of Marguerite Jervis, known variously under pseudonyms such as Countess Barcynska and Oliver Sandys. Her contributions of popular fiction to journals in the early twentieth century are surveyed, as are the techniques she used to convey sexually and politically suggestive material' (viii). In Jackson's PhD thesis she wrote about "the production and distribution of popular romance between the two World Wars" and focused on three authors, one of whom was Marguerite Jervis.]

Jackson, Stevi, 1995. 

'Women and Heterosexual Love: Complicity, Resistance and Change', in Romance Revisited , ed. Jackie Stacey and Lynne Pearce (New York: New York UP), pp. 49-62.

Jarmakani, Amira, 2010. 

'“The Sheik Who Loved Me”: Romancing the War on Terror', Signs 35.4: 993-1017. Abstract

Jarmakani, Amira. 2011. 

"Desiring the Big Bad Blade: Racing the Sheikh in Desert Romances." American Quarterly 63, no. 4: 895-928. Abstract

Jarvis, Christine, 1995. 

'Romancing the Curriculum: Empowerment through Popular Culture',Convergence, 28.3: 71-7. Abstract

Jarvis, Christine, 1999. 

'Love Changes Everything: The Transformative Potential of Popular Romantic Fiction', Studies in the Education of Adults, 31.2:109-122. Abstract

Jarvis, Christine, 2000. 

'Hungry Heroines: The Exploration of a "Generative Theme" in Romantic Fiction,' Consuming for Pleasure: Selected Essays on Popular Fiction ed. Julia Hallam and Nickianne Moody (Liverpool: Liverpool John Moores University; Association for Research in Popular Fictions), pp. 171-???.

Jenkins, Jacqueline, 2004. 

'Reading Women Reading: Feminism, Culture, and Memory', Maistresse of My Wit: Medieval Women, Modern Scholars, ed. Louise D'Arcens and Juanita Feros Ruys (Turnhout: Brepols), pp. 317-334. ["Jenkins first debates the fascinating possibility of a cultural memory, a number of shared common norms, conventions, and practices that would link the otherwise non-contiguous reading experiences of medieval and contemporary women. Drawing on the results of modern romance studies, she wonders if the otherwise forbidden self-realization of women through the reading of romances could not also be the cause of the popularity of vernacular devotional literature among high-status women in the Middle Ages. In the end, however, she considers the sobering possibility that she might have accepted the results of modern romance studies precisely because of her (formerly unrecognized) investment in attributing some form of resistance to the medieval women readers of devotional texts." (Review by Richard Utz)]

Jensen, Margaret Ann, 1984. 

Love's $weet Return: The Harlequin Story (Toronto: Women's Educational Press, 1984). [Excerpts (possibly from different publisher, as details on Google Books say it was published by the Popular Press)]

Joannou, Maroula, 2012. 

Women's Writing, Englishness and National and Cultural Identity: The Mobile Woman and the Migrant Voice, 1938-1962 (Houndmills, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan). Excerpt [See pages 75, 76, 77, 78, 79 and 80 for the section on Georgette Heyer.]

Johnson, Naomi R., 2010. 

'Consuming Desires: Consumption, Romance, and Sexuality in Best-Selling Teen Romance Novels', Women's Studies in Communication 33.1: 54-73. Abstract

Johnson-Kurek, Rosemary E., 1999. 

' "I Am Not a Bimbo": Persona, Promotion, and the Fabulous Fabio', in Romantic Conventions, see below, pp. 35-50. Excerpt

Johnson-Kurek, Rosemary E., 1999. 

'Leading Us into Temptation: The Language of Sex and the Power of Love', in Romantic Conventions, see below, pp. 113-48. Excerpt

Johnson-Woods, Toni, 2004. 

Pulp: A Collector's Book of Australian Pulp Fiction Covers (Canberra: National Library of Australia). One chapter is on romance covers.

Johnson-Woods, T., 2005. 

'From Australia With Love: A History Of Modern Australian Popular Romance Novels,' Australian Literary Studies, 22.1:119-120. [This is a book review of Juliet Flesch's book, listed elsewhere in this bibliography]

Jones, Ann Rosalind, 1986. 

‘Mills & Boon Meets Feminism’, in The Progress of Romance: The Politics of Popular Fiction, ed. Jean Radford (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul), pp. 195-218. Excerpt

Joshi, S. T. 2009. 

Junk fiction: America's obsession with bestsellers. [Rockville, MD]: Borgo Press. Chapter on "Queens of romance: Danielle Steele, Barbara Taylor Bradford, and Nora Roberts." Excerpt

Juhasz, Suzanne, 1988. 

‘Texts to Grow On: Reading Women’s Romance Fiction’, Tulsa Studies in Women’s Literature, 7:2: 239-259.

Juhasz, Suzanne, 1998. 

'Lesbian Romance Fiction and the Plotting of Desire: Narrative Theory, Lesbian Identity, and Reading Practice', Tulsa Studies in Women's Literature, 17.1: 65-82. [Rptd. in Ostrov Weisser, Women and Romance, pp. 276-291. **]

K

Kaler, Anne K., 2000. 

"Dysfunctional Detectives and Romantic P. I.s: Impediments to the Happy Marriage of Mystery and Romance." Clues: A Journal of Detection, 21.1: 61-72.

Kaler, Anne K., 1999. 

'Conventions of Captivity in Romance Novels', in Romantic Conventions, see below, pp. 86-99. Excerpt

Kaler, Anne K., 1999. 

' Hero, Heroine, or HERA: A New Name for an Old Problem', in Romantic Conventions, see below, pp. 187-92. Excerpt

Kamble, Jayashree, 2007. 

'Female Enfranchisement and the Popular Romance: Employing an Indian Perspective.' in Empowerment versus Oppression: Twenty First Century Views of Popular Romance Novels. ed. Sally Goade, (Newcastle, U.K.:Cambridge Scholars Pub.) pp. 148-173.

Kamble, Jayashree, 2012. 

'Patriotism, Passion, and PTSD: The Critique of War in Popular Romance Fiction,' New Approaches to Popular Romance Fiction: Critical Essays, ed. Sarah S. G. Frantz and Eric Murphy Selinger (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland), pp. 153-163.

Kamble, Jayashree, 2013. 

'How to Tame a Dragon: Ten years after A Natural History of the Romance Novel', Journal of Popular Romance Studies 3.2 [4] [Also available as a pdf.]

Kamble, Jayashree, 2014. 

Making Meaning in Popular Romance Fiction: An Epistemology. ???: Palgrave Macmillan. Abstract

Kanerick, Caroline, 2010. 

" 'A Jazzed and Patchwork Modern': 'future' girls and modern masculinities in the early popular romances of Berta Ruck", Women's History Review 19.5: 685-702. Abstract

Kania, Richard R. E., 2014. 

"Pirates and Piracy in American Popular Culture." Romanian Journal of English Studies 11.1: 183–194. Abstract and Pdf available here. [Includes a section on "Daphné du Maurier and the Romance Novel Pirate"]

Kapell, Matthew, and Suzanne Becker., 2005. 

'Patriarchy, the Christian Romance Novel, and the 'Ecosystem of Sex'.' Popular Culture Review 16.1:147-155.

Kapila, Shuchi, 2010. 

Educating Seeta: The Anglo-Indian Family Romance and the Poetics of Indirect Rule (Columbus, Ohio: Ohio State UP). Excerpt

Kaplan, Deborah, 2012. 

' "Why would any woman want to read such stories?": The Distinctions Between Genre Romances and Slash Fiction,' New Approaches to Popular Romance Fiction: Critical Essays, ed. Sarah S. G. Frantz and Eric Murphy Selinger (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland), pp. 121-132.

Kebadze, Nino, 2009. 

Romance and Exemplarity in Post-War Spanish Women's Narratives (Woodbridge, Suffolk: Tamesis). [Abstract and link to excerpt. Discusses novels by Luisa-María Linares, Concha Linares-Becerra, Carmen de Icaza and María Mercedes Ortoll.]

Kelly, Brendan D., 2007. 

“Medical Romance.” The Lancet 370.9597: 1482.

Kelso, Sylvia, 1997. 

'Stitching Time: Feminism(s) and Thirty Years of Gothic Romance,' Paradoxa: Studies in World Literary Genres 3.1-2: 164-179.

Kemppinen, Anne, 1989. 

“Translation for Popular Literature with Special Reference to Harlequin Books and their Finnish Translation”, in Empirical Studies in Translation and Linguistics, Studies in Languages, nº 17, ed. Sonja Tirkkonen-Condit & Stephen Condit (Savonlinna: University of Joensuu, Faculty of Arts), pp. 25-36.**

Killing, Peter, 1978. 

Harlequin Enterprises Limited: Case Material of the Western School of Business Administration (London, Ontario: University of Western Ontario). **

Kloester, Jennifer V., 2004. 

"Images of England: Georgette Heyer's Regency World in the Dominions," in Exploring the British World: Identity, Cultural Production, Institutions, Ed. Kate Darian-Smith, Patricia Grimshaw, Kiera Lindsey, and Stuart Mcintyre (Melbourne: RMIT Publishing): 598-608.[5]

Kloester, Jennifer, 2006. 

"Georgette Heyer and the Great Jane," Sensibilities 32: 101-117. Excerpt

Kokkola, L. 2011. 

"Virtuous vampires and voluptuous vamps: Romance conventions reconsidered in Stephenie Meyer's "Twilight" series." Children's Literature in Education 42.2 : 165-179.

Koski, Patricia, Lori Holyfield, and Marcella Thompson, 1997. 

"Romance Novels as Women's Myths." Paradoxa: Studies in World Literary Genres 3.1-2: 219-232.

Kramer, Daniela & Moore, Michael, 2001. 

‘Gender Roles, Romantic Fiction and Family Therapy’, Psycoloquy 12,#24 [6]

Kramer, Daniela & Moore, Michael, 2001. 

'Family Myths in Romantic Fiction', Psychological Reports, 88.1:29-41.

Kramer, Kyra, 2011. 

"Raising Veils and other Bold Acts: The Heroine's Agency in Female Gothic Novels." Studies in Gothic Fiction 1.2: 24-37. Pdf of whole issue. Kramer argues that "Female Gothic novels that have been written in the last thirty or so years are often labeled and sold as «romances» or «romantic suspense»" and focuses on a number of novels by Elizabeth Lowell.]

Kramer, Kyra, 2012. 

'Getting Laid, Getting Old, and Getting Fed: The Cultural Resistance of Jennifer Crusie’s Romance Heroines', Journal of Popular Romance Studies 2.2.[7]

Kray, Susan. 1987. 

"Deconstructive Laughter: Romance Author as Subject, The Pleasure of Writing the Text." Journal of Communication Inquiry 11.2: 26-46.

Krentz, Jayne Ann, Ed. 

Dangerous Men and Adventurous Women: Romance Writers on the Appeal of the Romance (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1992). Contents and Excerpts via Google Books

Kress, Gunther, 1988. 

“Textual Matters: The Social Effectiveness of Style.” Functions of Style. Ed. David Birch and Michael O’Toole. London: Pinter Publishers. 126-141. [Kress exploration of style is "organized around (excerpts from) two texts: the first is part of an advertising brochure for medical practitioners, describing the drug Fluphenazine; the second is from a Mills and Boon novel, a doctor-nurse romance entitled A Candle In The Dark" (127). More details are not given about this novel, but it seems likely that it is the one listed here as Doctor Nurse Romance #137 - A Candle In The Dark - Grace Read, November 1982.]

Kroeg, Susan M. 2012. 

"'Truly Our Contemporary Jane Austen': Thinking Like an Austen Fan about Regency Romances." Kentucky Philological Review 27, 50-58.

Kundin, Susan G., 1985. 

"Romance versus Reality: A Look at YA Romantic Fiction." Top of the News 41.4: 361-368.

Kustritz, Anne, 2003. 

"Slashing the Romance Narrative." The Journal of American Culture 26.3: 371-384.Excerpt.

Kutzer, M. Daphne, 1986. 

""I Won't Grow up"—Yet: Teen Formula Romance." Children's Literature Association Quarterly 11.2: 90-95. Abstract

Kuznets, Lois and Eve Zarin, 1982. 

"Sweet Dreams for Sleeping Beauties: Pre-Teen Romances." Children's Literature Association Quarterly 7.1: 28-32. Abstract

L

Labanyi, Jo, 2004. 

'Romancing the Early Franco Regime: the Novelas Románticas of Concha Linares-Becerra and Luisa-María Linares', Institute of European Studies: Occasional Papers, Working Paper OP-13 (March 5, 2004). [8]

Lamprinou, Artemis, 2011. 

“Translated Romances: the Effect of Cultural Textual Norms on the Communication of Emotions.” Journal of Popular Romance Studies 2.1.[9]

Lang, Miriam. 2003. 

"Taiwanese Romance: San Mao and Qiong Yao." In The Columbia Companion to Modern East Asian Literature, 515-519. New York, NY: Columbia UP, 2003.

Laquintano, Timothy, 2013. 

"The Legacy of the Vanity Press and Digital Transitions," The Journal of Electronic Publishing 16.1.[10] [This includes a description of Harlequin's attempt to set up Harlequin Horizons and the backlash against this proposed vanity press.]

Larcombe, Wendy, 2005. 

Compelling Engagements : Feminism, Rape Law and Romance Fiction. (Annandale, N.S.W. : Federation Press) Description and Contents and Excerpt via Google Books

Larrier, Renée. 2007. 

"'Quand la lecture devient passion': Romance Novels and Literacy in Abidjan." In African Literatures at the Millennium, ed. Arthur D. Drayton, Omofolabo Ajayi-Soyinka & I. Peter Ukpokodu: 315-324. Trenton, NJ: Africa World.

Lawrence, Kelli-an and Edward S. Herold, 1988. 

"Women's Attitudes toward and Experience with Sexually Explicit Materials." Journal of Sex Research 24:161-169. Excerpt

Leavenworth, Maria Lindgren. 2009. 

"Lover Revamped: Sexualities and Romance in the Black Dagger Brotherhood and Slash Fan Fiction." Extrapolation: A Journal of Science Fiction and Fantasy 50, no. 3: 442-462.

Ledford-Miller, Linda, 2011. 

'Gender and Genre Bending: The Futuristic Detective Fiction of J.D. Robb.' Reconstruction 11.3.[11]

Lee, Amy, 2007. 

'Forming a Local Identity: Romance Novels in Hong Kong.' in Empowerment versus Oppression: Twenty First Century Views of Popular Romance Novels. ed. Sally Goade, (Newcastle, U.K.:Cambridge Scholars Pub.) pp. 174-197.

Lee, Linda J., 2008. 

'Guilty Pleasures: Reading Romance Novels as Reworked Fairy Tales,' Marvels & Tales, 22.1: 52-66. Abstract

Leedy, Helen, 1985. 

'The Portrayal of Women in Romance Novels, Michigan Sociological Review 1:61-71. **

Lennard, John, 2007. 

'Of Pseudonyms and Sentiment: Nora Roberts, J. D. Robb, and the Imperative Mood', Of Modern Dragons and other essays on Genre Fiction, Tirril: Humanities-Ebooks, pp. 56-86. [The essay on Nora Roberts/J.D. Robb is Chapter 3 of the book] [Another excerpt from the book, though not from this chapter, is available via the publisher.]

Lennard, John, 2010. 

Of Sex and Faerie: Further Essays on Genre Fiction, Tirril: Humanities-Ebooks. [Includes a chapter on "Lois McMaster Bujold and the Several Lives of Lord Miles Naismith Vorkosigan" and on Laurell K. Hamilton’s "Meredith Gentry’s Improbable Code of Orgasm and other Paranormal Romance."]

Levina, Mariia, 2003-4. 

"Readers of Mass Literature, 1994-200: From Paternalism to Individualism?" Russian Studies in Literature 40.1: 79-95. ["This article is based on surveys conducted throughout Russia by the Russian Center for Public Opinion Research (VTsIOM) in 1994, 1997, and 2000; on an analysis of approximately one hundred detective, adventure, and romance novels from Russian publishers’ most popular series; and on four years of market research for a leading Russian publishing house. That research involved, among other things, focus groups of, and in-depth interviews with, readers of romance and detective novels and expert opinion surveys distributed to booksellers (both wholesale and retail)" (79).]

Liffen, Jane, 2008. 

""A very Glamorized Picture, that": Images of Scottish Female Herring Workers on Romance Novel Covers." Social Semiotics 18.3: 349-61. Abstract

Light, Alison. 1984. 

‘Returning to Manderley – Romance Fiction, Female Sexuality and Class’, Feminist Review, 16: 7-25.

Lindfors, Bernth, 1993. 

"Romances for the Office Worker: Aubrey Kalitera and Malawi's White-Collar Reading Public" in Major Minorities: English Literatures in Transit, ed. Raoul Granqvist (Amsterdam: Rodopi): pp. 77-88. [Sizeable excerpt available via Rodopi's webpage. Click on the "Google Preview" button. Using the link from the index within the book may take you to the beginning of the next essay in the volume. You may need to scroll back. This would appear to be almost identical to Lindfors, Bernth. 2002. : "Romances for the Office Worker: Aubrey Kalitera and Malawi's White-Collar Reading Public." In Readings in African Popular Fiction, 89-94. London, England: International African Institute with Indiana UP. It is stated there that the essay was also published in Loaded Vehicles: Studies in African Literary Media. Trenton, N.J.: Africa World Press, 1996. pp. 73-90.]

Linke, Gabriele, 1997.

"Local Color in Contemporary Harlequin and Silhouette Romances: Popular Imagery of the American South and West." Mid-Atlantic Almanack: The Journal of the Mid-Atlantic Popular/American Culture Association 6: 14-30

Linke, Gabriele, 1997. 

"Contemporary Mass Market Romances as National and International Culture: A Comparative Study of Mills & Boon and Harlequin Romances." Paradoxa: Studies in World Literary Genres 3.1-2: 195-213.

Linke, Gabriele, 2000. 

"Visions and Versions of Parenthood in British and American Series Romances". Diegesis: Journal of the Association for Research in Popular Fictions, No. 6 (Spring 2000), 18-29.

Litton, Joyce A., 1994. 

'From Seventeenth Summer to Miss Teen Sweet Valley: Female and Male Sex Roles in Teen Romances, 1942-91', in Images of the Child, ed. Harry Eiss (Bowling Green, OH: Bowling Green State University Popular Press), pp. 19-34. Excerpt

Livingston, Eric, 2006. 

"The Textuality of Pleasure." New Literary History: A Journal of Theory and Interpretation 37.3: 655-672.(narrative technique; relationship to reading; pleasure; compared to Wilkins, Gina: Seductively Yours (2000) Harlequin Temptation #792) Abstract and excerpt

Lutz, Deborah, 2003. 

“The Erotics of Ontology: Failed Presence in Heidegger and the Mass-Market Romance.” Comparative Literature and Culture 5.3, 2003. Abstract and pdf.

Lutz, Deborah, 2006. 

The Dangerous Lover; Gothic Villains, Byronism, and the Nineteenth-Century Seduction Narrative.(Columbus, OH: Ohio State University Press). [Includes a chapter on the contemporary historical romance, which is available in pdf format, along with the introduction and bibliographical matter here ]

Lutz, Deborah, 2007. 

'The Haunted Space of the Mind: The Revival of the Gothic Romance in the Twenty-First Century.' in Empowerment versus Oppression: Twenty First Century Views of Popular Romance Novels. ed. Sally Goade, (Newcastle, U.K.:Cambridge Scholars Pub.) pp. 81-92.

Lynch, Katherine E., Ruth E. Sternglantz, and Len Barot, 2012. 

“Queering the Romantic Heroine: Where Her Power Lies,” Journal of Popular Romance Studies 3.1.[12]