This blog started, like many things do, as a dubious idea on Twitter:

The truth is, though, this idea has been knocking around in my head for a while. I love the big, swoony feelings of romance, and I love the minute, microscope-close view of detailed textual reading. Why not combine the two?

So that’s what this blog is going to do. And along the way, I hope to demonstrate what I really firmly believe: that romance deserves not to be dismissed as “empty” or “formulaic,” because it has some of the best writing currently out there. That it deserves to be read not just in terms of the character archetypes and tropes we all adore, but also, and at the same time, in terms of the rich, accomplished linguistic work it offers on the way to HEA.

I invite you to find out more about what I’m planing to do around here in the ‘Explication de texte‘ and ‘About this project‘ sections of the site. I’m also hoping to periodically intersperse shorter posts about the smaller bits of romance I love: favorite titles, favorite lines, favorite words that make up the worlds of my most beloved novels.

The first close reading will kick off next week with a passage from a book that immediately became one of my all-time favorite reads, Glitterland by Alexis Hall.

“From there we moved through a few variations too ridiculous to be recorded, I foolishly formulated glimstruck as a representation of how it felt to be around him, and then we graduated to kissing, still fully clothed like a pair of teenagers, on the wreckage of the Scrabble board.”

Glitterland, Alexis Hall, p 101.

Stay tuned!