You might be a lover or a fighter, but there’s one thing for sure: love always wins out. And that’s why romance is the highest-grossing fiction genre on the planet, accounting for almost $1 billion each year — that’s one-third of the share of all fiction sales.
The romance genre has developed significantly over time, evolving from damsel-in-distress, strictly lights-out intimacy to modern romance subgenres where a range of spice levels is explored on the page.
This article explores the evolution of romance tropes in fiction, examines their subgenres, and discovers how heroines always get the guy.
Ready? Let’s go!
Classic Romance Novels: 18th/19th Century
It’s impossible to think of the romance genre without considering the works of Jane Austen and Emily Brontë. Pioneers of the genre, Austen and Brontë established some of the fundamental pillars of the “Morals and Manners” love stories of the 18th and 19th century, which focused on couples navigating social expectations and personal virtues on their way to true love.
Some of the classic tropes they established were:
- Enemies-to-lovers
- The gothic brooding hero
- Love triangles
Enemies-to-Lovers
Austen’s Pride and Prejudice has probably the most famous of the plot lines transforming an initial foe into the most charming of heroes. From Bingley’s misinformation to the realization that Darcy is actually a stalwart of honor, heroine Jane goes on a journey of self-discovery that leads her to the most satisfying of happy endings.
The enemies-to-lovers trope can be found across many romance subgenres.
Sally Thorne’s workplace romance, The Hating Game, follows two bickering executive assistants who confront their mutual contempt to find themselves falling for each other. The trope also crosses other romantic mediums, such as the classic cinematic romcoms: You’ve Got Mail, The Proposal, and 10 Things I Hate About You.
Other popular enemies-to-lovers books include:
- Fourth Wing (The Empyrean #1) by Rebecca Yaros
- The Cruel Prince (The Folk of the Air #1) by Holly Black
- The Unhoneymooners by Christina Lauren
- A Court of Mist and Fury (A Court of Thorns & Roses #1) by Sarah J. Maas
The Gothic Brooding Hero
While both Austen and Brontë mostly centered the story around strong female protagonists, the men in question were often fitted into the gothic brooding hero mold, defined by:
- Emotional opacity: There’s a storm beneath the surface that manifests a character who withholds, deflects, or buries their feelings.
- A troubled past: Hints of trauma, moral failings, or a secret affect the character’s present behaviors.
- A commanding presence: He changes the emotional temperature of a room just by entering. He might not necessarily be classically handsome, but he’s compelling in some way.
- Moral ambiguity: His actions may be cruel, selfish, or Neither a villain nor a saint.
- Intensity: When he finally loves, it’s absolute. Potentially, it’s also disruptive and destructive.
- Isolation: He withdraws from the community, socially or emotionally.
- A transformative arc: The heroine forces him to confront his wounds or flaws.
You can see these facets in many romantic novels of the era, with some variation in how they’re presented between Austen and Brontë.
The Gothic Hero in Austen and Brontë
In Brontë’s Wuthering Heights, Heathcliff is obsessive, rootless, passionate and cruel, yet magnetic—mirrored by the bleak moors around him. He’s a force of nature, not a marriage prospect.
While in Austen, the gothic hero is a little lighter. Darcy in Pride and Prejudice has a reserve and seriousness that’s misread as arrogance. In fact, we discover that his hidden vulnerability is his shyness, which presents as standoffishness. But unlike Heathcliff, Darcy listens, adapts, and softens.
In Austen’s Northanger Abbey, General Tilney serves as a satire of the gothic brooding hero, presented as an exaggerated, menacing patriarch. Austen punctures the gothic balloon here, revealing that he’s merely a snob, not a murderer.
Group of ladies and gentlemen enjoying dance ball in palace and walking holding hands in line
Love Triangles
The morals and manners romantic novels often used love triangles to present a conflict between a “socially sanctioned” model of love and another, more emotionally transgressive one that demands some form of growth.
The three-hand romantic entanglement had cast a spotlight on class and morality, as well as on gender expectations and their effects on personal freedom.
Essentially, a love triangle offered the author a way to challenge the heroine’s ability to distinguish between surface charm (Bingley in Pride and Prejudice) and true virtue (Darcy).
The Love Triangle in Action
In Pride and Prejudice, Wickham’s charisma shields the truth of his past. He gets to Elizabeth first and bad-mouths Darcy, presenting Darcy’s taciturnity as arrogance and pride. But, of course, we learn later in the novel that Elizabeth was wrong to so willingly believe Wickham’s account of Darcy. Indeed, Wickham is the “villain” of the triangle.
The love triangle was a means by which a woman could make a choice that drove the plot, which was appealing to readers because women of the era had so few choices in their own destiny.
This underpins the essence of romantic novelization and may explain the romance genre’s enduring popularity. These novels offer an escapist fantasy with a female protagonist who navigates the possibilities of love and (mostly) a happy ending.
Category Romance Formula Era (Harlequin/Mills & Boon)
The 20th century effectively industrialized the romance novel. Mills & Boon in the UK and Harlequin in the US are generally considered more than mere publishers, but genres in their own right.
Mills & Boon recognized that placing paperbacks in supermarkets was the ideal way to put escapist romance novels in the hands of housewives, and they developed a recognizable formula that rewarded a global readership with tropes that reshaped what “romance” meant for 20th-century readers.
Indeed, category romance took the broad literary tradition of the genre and codified it with trope-driven, commercially engineered stories with predictable emotional beats and a satisfying happily ever after (HEA).
The Standardization of Romance
Harlequin/Mills & Boon developed a repeatable structure that promised escapist drama with an obligatory HEA.
The romance novels of this era promised:
- A heroine with a vulnerability that made her relatable.
- A powerful hero, often of high status or emotional opacity.
- A central conflict exploring class difference, forced proximity, or misunderstanding.
- A reverse climax where the relationship feels utterly doomed to fail.
- A guaranteed HEA
Of course, this is just about stories following recognizable structures. For example, the 3-Act structure follows the protagonist’s initial success in overcoming the central problem, the realization that the issue runs deeper and lies within themselves, plunging them into despair, then mobilizing them toward a new perspective that ultimately wins out.
So, a formula is a valuable framework that offers readers what they’re really looking for in a story.
Category Romance Tropes
The key tropes of category romance were borrowed from former eras but named, refined, and popularized.
The key tropes were:
- Enemies-to-lovers
- Grumpy–sunshine
- Secret baby
- Marriage of convenience
- Billionaire boss
- Workplace romance: nurse/doctor, secretary/boss, governess/tycoon
- Brooding alpha hero
- “Sweetheart” heroine
- Mediterranean/Sheikh/Greek tycoon/part of a royal line
Readers made their purchasing decisions based on these tropes, and it was a hugely popular (and profitable) way to define a book’s contents.
The Global Romance Market
Harlequin made the romance genre global through international distribution outlets, such as supermarkets, pharmacies, and airports, and publishing each novel in multiple languages.
They also developed immediately recognizable branding for their publications, stylized through the books’ covers, spines, and titles.
It was a hugely successful venture, making romance novels the most commercially lucrative genre in the world.
The Alpha Hero
A new masculine ideal emerged through the category romance era, crystallizing the alpha hero as emotionally closed, yet financially, socially, and/or physically powerful.
Their brooding arrogance was defrosted by the heroine’s attention and ultimately emerged at the end of the novel as protective and loyal.
You can see how this draws on the past while still dominating many romantic subgenres today.
The Heroine’s Arc
The heroines of this era were effectively the reader’s emotional surrogate in the fantasy—emotionally open and morally grounded, often with precarious economic independence.
The category romance heroine was professionally competent but ultimately capable of penetrating the hero’s emotional armor.
The Desert Sheik, by Anne Hampson
This 1977 novel, published by Harlequin, is frequently cited as the height of the “sheik romance” boom, helping define the category romance formula with an alpha hero and a heroine whose arc follows the path described above.
The hero is powerful, emotionally closed, socially dominant, and unyielding in his brooding nature—the alpha who the emotionally open, professionally competent heroine will soften and humanize.
The book popularized the “exotic location and power imbalance” dynamic, offering an escapist desert setting, a culture clash, and forced proximity, and became a staple of the Harlequin Presents line.
The Structure of The Desert Sheik
The book follows a structure now widely used in romantic novels:
- The initial clash: Diana Mayo travels alone across the desert. Sheik Rashid al Kharim considers her independence as reckless and inappropriate for a woman.
- Forced proximity: Rashid kidnaps Diana, holding her in a desert stronghold. Diana resists him strongly, while Rashid struggles with a growing desire that conflicts with his rigid sense of honor.
- Emotional thawing: Diana’s courage, intelligence, and moral clarity force Rashid to re-evaluate his assumptions about women and Westerners. The connection shifts from hostility to attraction, and both try to fight it.
- Reverse climax rooted in misunderstanding, emotional rupture, or betrayal: When Rashid makes protective decisions for Diana, she interprets it as proof that he sees her as a possession, not an equal. She believes he wants control; he believes he’s demonstrating commitment. Diana asserts her independence; Rashid responds with wounded pride, leading them to think that the other can’t love them in the way they need. She tries to escape, leading Rashid to believe she doesn’t love him.
- The hero’s transformation: The rupture forces him to confront his personal shortcomings, realizing that if he is ever to win Diana back, he must change.
- Happily Ever After: Rashid seeks the escaped Diana and professes his love based on respect and partnership.
The Bodice Ripper Boom (1970s)
The first real move from the morals and manners approach to romantic storytelling to something altogether steamier came during the so-called Bodice Ripper Boom of the 1970s. This wave of hugely popular historical novels combined high-intensity passion with violent or coercive sexual dynamics.
Culturally controversial, they changed the romance genre with high-stakes sexual explicitness never before seen in mainstream, commercial romance novels.
Where Mills & Boon famously would have turned the lights out, the Bodice Ripper subgenre presented sexually explicit scenes under a spotlight, with high-stakes, high-drama storylines in sweeping historical settings, such as pirate ships, plantations, castles, and Regency England.
Bodice Ripper Tropes
The male tropes in this genre largely remained powerful and brooding alphas, while the female characters became young, inexperienced, socially vulnerable tropes who were kidnapped, sold, or trapped. This is where they gained emotional strength and a degree of sexual agency that they used to “tame” the hero.
Compared with category romance novels, which were relatively short compared with modern novels—typically topping out at 50,000 words—bodice rippers were epics, between 500 and 700 pages. The novels spanned multiple settings, battles, betrayals, and dramatic reunions.
The genre also balanced explicit sexual encounters in sweeping historical settings with high-stakes emotional drama. Additionally, power imbalances were often manifested as captive or forced proximity scenarios.
However, it’s worth noting that it was often the female protagonist who eventually overpowered the foe and turned the tables.
The Controversy
A modern audience might consider the bodice rippers of the 70s and 80s controversial—the coercive or forced encounters were thought to reinforce patriarchal fantasies.
Nonetheless, the genre played a significant role in the development of romance fiction.
The Glitz and Glamor of 70s Romance Fiction
You can’t talk about the 1970s without mentioning the glitz and glamor novels of Jackie Collins and Harold Robbins. Their novels explored the high-stakes world of business and showbiz, where money and power were the protagonists’ main objectives.
Barbara Cartland, a stalwart of the category romance era, describedas “nasty, filthy, and disgusting.” That review doubtlessly went some way to highlight its spice levels and helped boost the novel’s popularity.
Relatable and Grounded Romance (1990s)
The world’s social temperature changed in the 1990s. The excesses of the 80s felt tired, and house music had people dancing in fields until the sun rose and beyond. There was a growing optimism in the air—the Cold War was over, and the second Summer of Love was on its way.
And so the romance genre evolved, reflecting the change in the times, and stories began to feel more relatable and grounding, with more balanced relationship dynamics and more career-focused heroines.
However, some classic tropes prevailed while taking on a modern edge. Friends-to-lovers remained a favorite, while second chance romance became popular, such as Paradise by Judith McNaught and Whispered Promises by Brenda Jackson. Enemies-to-lovers evolved into modern settings.
90s Romance Tropes
Second chance romances became loved for their heavily angst-focused heroines. Miscommunication was explored, especially as new forms of communication became more widely available, such as pagers, cell phones, and email.
The heroes were intense alphas with deep-seated emotional baggage, and the dramatic reunions often occurred several years after a painful separation, when time had changed them and smoothed out the previously jagged edges.
Spiciness on the Page
While the bodice rippers effectively normalized explicit sex on the page, “spiciness” levels varied during the 90s and early 2000s.
And, it was usually without the power imbalance found in the 70s and 80s, giving the female characters more agency and control over what happened and how.
Modern Romance (2010-present)
Modern romance has grown into a more diverse and inclusive genre, offering a broader spectrum of experiences for the reader to enjoy. Spice levels range from light-hearted, closed-door intimacy to more explicit.
The tropes have developed into specific niches, including:
- Reverse harem: Also known as “why choose,” featuring a female protagonist who is pursued by multiple lovers who all share a relationship with her, e.g., Faking with Benefits, by Lily Gold.
- Omegaverse: Worlds of social hierarchy of alpha, beta, and omega characters in contemporary and fantasy settings make up the core dynamics (less common are the enigma and sigma), with tropes such as mate-bonds, knotting, and physiological “heats,” e.g., Lola & The Millionaires, by Kathryn Moon.
- Mafia romance: Blending organized crime and power dynamics with arranged marriages, enemies-to-lovers, and possessive antiheroes, e.g., Sinners Anonymous, by Somme Sketcher.
- Sports romance: Featuring characters in sports-based scenarios, such as ice hockey, football, Formula 1, and tennis. The stakes are high between high-profile rivals in workplaces or on college campuses, e.g., Icebreaker by Hannah Grace.
- Paranormal and shifter romance: Exploring magical and supernatural elements with deep, emotional love. Commonly found are shape-shifters, wolf packs, dragons, vampires, and witches, e.g., Psy-Changeling Series, by Nalina Singh.
- Small town romance: Secret romances in tight-knit communities where the locals are fond of gossiping and knowing each other’s business. There’s a number of sub-tropes associated with small town romance, including cozy & quaint, grumpy & sunshine, wilderness & healing, and celebrities & countryside.
Tropes as Shorthand, Not Shortcuts
It might feel like romance novelists have it all laid out for them—pick a trope and follow the cliches until you’ve written 70k words.
But the tropes are frameworks, not hard-and-fast rules. They’re there to offer shape, but the characters need to feel real, relatable, and believable.
With all genres, it’s the characters that bring the story to life. Authors who have fun with the tropes often discover fresh perspectives. So, the tropes offer inspiration rather than a paint-by-numbers approach to writing.
However, it’s worth bearing in mind that this is a brief overview of romance tropes in fiction and doesn’t set out to be a complete review. There’s plenty more to be said on the subject, so perhaps stay tuned for the next instalment.
Relay Publishing would love to meet you
We love the romance genre at Relay Publishing. We’ve published hundreds of beloved romance novels and maintain a thriving backlist as well as publish new releases every year. And we’re always on the lookout for romance ghostwriters and editors to join our friendly company.
So, if you think you have what it takes to become the next great contributor to the genre, get in touch. Check our recruitment pages and get applying today.
We can’t wait to meet you.