Romance novels offer sweet release from the real world

It begins on the banks of the Rappahannock. Our auburn-haired heroine, Cassie Blakewell, looks out over the quick-moving water of the river as it floats toward the Chesapeake. In the distance, she sees the slave boat trundling upstream. Her good heart hates the slave trade — she shivers at the thought of the soul drivers on board — but she needs slaves to work her father's plantation, a responsibility that has fallen to her during her father's prolonged illness. When the captain unloads the cargo for inspection, Cassie's eyes fall on a tall Englishman, an outlaw sentenced to indentured servitude.

"What are his crimes?" she asks.

"He's a defiler of womenfolk," the trader answers. He moves down the line of slaves as Cassie stops to examine the captive. "They'd all make good studs, if your father's looking for breeding stock."

Cassie gasps at his words, her eyes fixed on the stranger's face. "How much?" she asks.

What Cassie doesn't realize — but will come to find out over the long, hot summer — is that this "slave" is really a wealthy English gentleman, falsely accused and shipped off to the colonies. Can he prove his true identity to the young and beautiful Cassie? Will he earn his freedom? And her love? Most importantly, will there be enough torrid sex to fill 374 pages?

(The answers, of course, are all yes.)

Storylines like this one — from Pamela Clare's "Sweet Release," printed under the Leisure Historical Romance imprint of Dorchester Publishing — are surging in popularity as political and economic pundits prophesy doom. In fact, Harlequin — the romance mega-publisher — posted a 13.5 percent increase in revenue for the first quarter of 2009 at a time when everybody but Wal-Mart and McDonald's was taking a nose dive.

Why the sudden fondness for sappy love stories? In the same way that moviegoers turn out in record numbers during a down economy

— according to a New York Times

article from February, theater attendance was up 16 percent in '09 — readers immerse themselves in light fiction when things in the real world look bleak.

Which is fine by me. Except, I worry why we are turning specifically to romantic escapism. True, the stock market was in a tailspin, and the rise in unemployment has probably affected someone you know, but that doesn't point to love stories. In fact, I would think it points to a different genre entirely.

Perhaps the reason we're fixated on romance novels is because our personal lives — like the economy — have tanked. Why else would books like "The Sex-Starved Marriage" make the best seller list or Rabbi Shmuley report on "Extra" that only one in three married couples is having sex?

What's especially disconcerting is that the plot lines in most romance novels aren't that far-fetched. True, the whole Englishgentleman as-falsely-accused-indenturedservant is tough to swallow, but the premise behind the story is universal. Everyone wants to be loved.

"Sweet Release" actually ends on a mundane note, with Alec — the gentleman — cradling both Cassie and their infant son against his chest.

"I love you, Alec," she says. "And I you, my sweet." Is that so hard to imagine in real life?

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