What Even Is a Romance Novel?
I have a question.
What exactly is a romance novel?
No, really.
As readers, we love our categories. Romance. Mystery. Thriller. Historical Fiction. Women’s Fiction. Fantasy.
We slap labels on books like little library nametags and move on with our lives.
But every once in a while, a book comes along that makes me question everything.
I just finished The Night We Lost Him by Laura Dave.
If someone asked me what genre it belongs in, I’d probably say mystery.
There is an unexplained death. Clues. Questions. Family secrets. A puzzle that slowly unravels one piece at a time.
There is absolutely no spice.
Not a single shirtless hockey player.
No enemies forced to share one bed.
No billionaire who just happens to have emotional intelligence and a private jet.
And yet…
At its core, The Night We Lost Him is one of the most beautiful love stories I’ve read in a long time.
Actually, it contains several love stories.
Not the kind that dominate BookTok videos with dramatic music and highlighted passages. Not the kind that make you fan yourself while reading.
The kind that sneak up on you.
The kind that ask a different question: What does it mean to love someone over the course of an entire life?
The book explores marriages, family relationships, sacrifices, misunderstandings, and the ways people continue loving each other even when life becomes messy and complicated.
Especially when life becomes messy and complicated.
And that got me thinking.
Maybe we’ve become a little too narrow in how we define romance.
Maybe romance isn’t just about the beginning of love.
Maybe it’s also about the endurance of it.
Maybe romance isn’t the first kiss.
Maybe it’s the person who still knows your coffee order after thirty years.
Maybe it isn’t grand gestures and declarations in the rain.
Maybe it’s choosing the same person over and over again through decades of ordinary Tuesdays.
Maybe romance isn’t always found in the storyline.
Maybe it’s found in the devotion.
The commitment.
The longing.
The sacrifices we make for the people who matter most.
Some of the greatest love stories I’ve ever read weren’t shelved in the Romance section at all.
They were tucked inside historical fiction, literary fiction, fantasy, mysteries, and even children’s books.
Because love is rarely confined to a single genre.
It’s woven into everything.
Friendships.
Families.
Second chances.
Regrets.
The lives we build and the lives we almost had.
So was The Night We Lost Him a romance novel?
By traditional publishing standards, probably not.
But was it a story about love?
Absolutely.
And maybe that’s why it stayed with me long after I turned the final page.
Maybe the real question isn’t whether a book belongs in the Romance section. Maybe the question is this: Did it make you believe in love when you closed the cover?
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