Wendy asked Pippa Grant:

I just finished Stud in the Stacks and the stodgy NYT article reminded me of a real article I read a while back. I had to find it to read it again. Is the article in the book inspired by any article in particular? The one I found was by Robert Gottlieb called A Round of the Season's Romance Novels, and it made waves in the romance community in 2017. Just a coincidence?

Pippa Grant Hi, Wendy! :-) For as long as I've been a reader (and writer) on social media, the romance genre has always been a favorite target of people in the book world who don't read them. I see at least 3-4 articles a year poo-pooing our favorite books, so the article in STUD wasn't based on any article in particular. More just a response to the regular commentary that romance-lovers are faced with from people who've never bothered to delve deep into understanding how important love stories are for the world, and into how much craft, talent, and hard work goes into creating stories that touch people's hearts. :-)

flag