Romance novels have been around since 1740, and it has remained one of the most popular genres. Despite the genre having always been popular, the publishing industry has recently seen a huge boom in romance novels. Although good romance novels aren’t hard to find anymore, most of the popular books feature white characters and are written by white authors.
Barnes & Noble’s best romance books of 2023 include books such as “Happy Place” by Emily Henry and “Love, Theoretically” by Ali Hazelwood, two books in which the main characters are pictured as white on the cover. The romance industry is also overwhelmingly filled with white authors. In 2023, 10.2% of romance books published were written by people of color.
It isn’t that there is a lack of non-white romance authors, it is they are not getting the attention they deserve. Brenda Jackson, a black romance author, had her first book published in 1995 and will have 150 romance books published by 2025. Other authors of color are actively publishing romance books. Part of the problem is those books are not being marketed correctly. Non-white romances are often marketed towards non-white audiences, which is perfectly fine, but those books need to be marketed to white audiences as well.
A popular subgenre of romance is sports romance, which often features a white quarterback or point guard, when in the real world the leagues are majority people of color. In the NFL, just over 53% of players are Black. In the NBA, 82.5% of players are people of color.
A lot of those books take place in a college setting, because of this people can argue that they are at a primarily white university. This is no excuse for not creating non-white main characters. In the Football Bowl Subdivision, which consists of 11 different conferences, 44.7% of student-athletes are Black, and in Division One basketball, 52.4% of players are Black. If statistics say those sports are made up of people of color, then the books based on the sports should represent this diversity.
That is not to say newer books have no representation at all; however, diverse characters are often not the main characters in books, but rather side characters whom we learn next to nothing about. White authors may be afraid to write about people of color, due to fear of appropriation. However, if authors are well informed and have no ill-will there is room for them to write about different backgrounds. After all, fiction is all about writing things that aren’t always true and do not have to be based on your own experiences.
Romance books are not going away anytime soon, so they should be more diverse. Publishers and book creators need to do a better job of promoting non-white romance stories.
Some amazing love stories that feature people of color are: “Seven Days in June” by Tia Williams, “Before I Let Go” by Kennedy Ryan, “The Brown Sisters” trilogy by Talia Hibbert, “All I’ve Wanted All I’ve Needed” by A. E. Valdez and the “Mendell Hawks” series by Deanna Grey.
Cassie is a junior studying communications at Ohio University. Please note the views expressed in this column do not reflect those of The Post. Want to talk to Cassie? Email her at cb086021@ohio.edu.
