Before I started reading Courtney Milan’s This Wicked Gift, I had never picked up a romance where a character was literally counting pennies. Until then, money just hadn’t seemed very relevant to the characters in romances. When it was, perhaps the hero had to marry an heiress, or the heroine had to save her family’s business, but there was never a sense of these characters being so poor that they had to reuse tea leaves.
But Milan’s novella begins with the heroine, who runs a lending library, deciding that today she can set aside a whole six pennies from the till to add to her savings for a good Christmas meal for her family. I was completely absorbed by the dire financial straits both the heroine and the hero were in – no Cinderella romance, this one – and while both of them are in very improved circumstances at the end, Milan doesn’t shy away from the reality of poverty.
Ever since I read it, I’ve been fascinated by stories where the characters are struggling
financially. One of the many heartwarming moments in LaVyrle Spencer’s Morning Glory is when the hero, who has only a few dollars to his name, buys candy for the heroine’s sons and a glass bluebird for her. This was meaningful in a way a diamond from a billionaire might not have been. That said, the escapist appeal of rich characters in romance is understandable. One of my guilty pleasures is reading lavish, luxurious descriptions of shopping sprees, fancy clothes, and fine meals, though I usually go to women’s fiction rather than romance for these. And if you don’t have to go to work, there’s that much more time to spend on building a relationship.
Still, I steer clear of billionaire romances, because ‘billionaire’ is usually short for ‘doesn’t have to put in time at the office, drives a fancy car, owns a helicopter, wears expensive suits and lives in a mansion’. I feel like I’ve read this hundreds of times already. It would be interesting to see a different take on the billionaire, such as someone who funds environmental causes, endangered animal conservation and so on.
One of the outcomes I like most in riches-to-rags scenarios is when characters get creative and discover or exercise their talents. In Judith Michael’s Possessions, a sheltered housewife’s husband disappears, leaving her with lots of debts and no explanations. She becomes a jewelry designer and ends up rubbing shoulders with the rich and famous, but I always had the sense that she worked hard for this. And another interesting development for me is when characters resort to desperate measures (“If I have to lie, cheat, steal or kill, as God is my witness, I’ll never be hungry again!”). Especially sex work, though I want this to be a continuing source of conflict rather than being resolved easily because the heroine’s first ever client is the handsome hero who makes the experience wonderful and is so taken by her that he quickly suggests a permanent arrangement.
I also eat it up when money – or the lengths people will go to get it – leads them into
serious difficulties. That said, this sort of plot isn’t to everyone’s tastes, and poverty can be a pretty sad or disturbing topic, especially when it crosses the line from financial problems which can be overcome to crushing, relentless destitution. Though there are still plenty of romances in which the characters are homeless (such as in Kaje Harper’s Impurrfections), which is a great example of how diverse the genre can be, and how it balances both escapism and realism.
Speaking of realism, our views on money have changed over time. You don’t see many romances with “millionaire” in the title these days. And recently, when a reader of historical fiction critiqued the start of a historical romance I’m working on, they said it was unrealistic that the heroine’s parents offered the hero a dowry of £100,000, since the Duke of Devonshire’s eldest daughter’s dowry was £30,000 and this was considered astronomical. I had no doubt that this reader knew their history, but my gut feeling is that in current historical romance, 30K wouldn’t be much, especially since my hero knew he was not getting a bargain wife-wise. In Lorraine Heath’s Just Wicked Enough, the heroine’s dowry is five million pounds upfront, with more to come in the future. Maybe the book should have been called Just Wealthy Enough.
What are your thoughts on poverty in romance (and its opposite)? Do you also find it intriguing when characters are dealing with serious financial issues? And when the hero has the biggest bank balance ever, does that increase liquidity?