Things We Hide From the Light

Score is one of the most prolific and successful contemporary romance writers, who have embraced a literary genre long dismissed by establishment critics, academics, and readers of so-called serious fiction as trivial escapism. These writers have tapped into the popularity of the genre, but have repackaged it to appeal to the largest growing demographic of readers: Millennials and Gen Z.

The romance genre has a reputation heavy on misogyny—in the male critical imagination, it is the favorite of “sex-starved” housewives. Because romance novels often rely on tropes and formulas—much like most of genre fiction, including science fiction, fantasy, and detective stories—and tend to have a primarily female readership, they have been written off as idealized nonsense about mismatched and star-crossed lovers finding their way to inevitable happy endings where love works out, sex drives are always in sync, and misfortune inevitably surrenders to benevolent fate. However, female critics have long held up romance novels as worthy of study and as reflections of the particular preoccupations of a large part of the US populace.

Contemporary romance writers are reclaiming this long-maligned genre by creating work that speaks to younger, issue-conscious readers. Thus, post-millennium romances feature storylines with real-world issues that are not always tidily resolved. Characters are given emotional and (as is this case here) psychological depth that make the love they find more complex, therapeutic, and compelling. For instance, the protagonists of Things We Hide from the Light are wrestling with weighty problems such as PTSD, health concerns, and the relationship between the police and the populace. Other novels reflect real-world problems such as crime, substance misuse, gun violence, racism, environmental destruction, economic inequities, underfunded education, domestic abuse, cyberbullying, and rape. Their endings are not always happily-ever-after. That these titles dominate New York Times and Amazon best-seller lists and have become the seed-projects for mainstream theatrical releases and limited-run television series indicates that readers respond to the fusion of reality and fantasy.