Romantic book lovers enjoy an evening in Rosebank
A night of romantic chit chat was enjoyed by attendees of Every Kind of Romance at Rosebank Exclusive Books.
All things romantic were discussed and dissected at the Every Kind of Romance event held at Exclusive Books in Rosebank.
Author and event MC Jo Watson said this was a first-of-its-kind event where the genre of romance and the country’s most successful romance writers were celebrated.
“Romance has historically been stigmatised and generally not welcomed well by the literary world. Tides are gradually changing.
Thanks to BookTok, romance has been pulled out of the dark pariah and brought into the mainstream,” said Watson.
She added her six author colleagues present were surprisingly famous in other countries outside of South Africa and among the seven of them had sold 2m books.
Watson said Natasha Anders, the queen of angst romance, had sold 450 thousand copies of The Unwanted Wife. “I enjoyed writing it. I do love my characters who seem to appeal to a broad spectrum of readers. The book is impactful to most people,” Anders said.
Alissa Baxter who specialises in regency romance novels said she wasn’t able to do much research in SA until she had access to PDFs, so she researched about the old era and wrote about women who were overlooked back then and gave them a voice.
Busisekile Khumalo who is famous for her books Harvard Wife and Nomaswazi writes about powerful African women. She said,
“Whenever one hears about the strength of black women, it’s about perseverance of all manner of toxic relationships. So I write about how it’s okay to break as a woman and redefine strength.”
Romy Sommer who founded the Romance writers Organisation of South Africa said at first, they felt like they were the only romance writers in the country. “I researched and found other writers then registered and began a committee. There are about 100 members now.”
Forbidden love is what Charlene Namdhari tackles in her steamy interracial romances. She said readers liked these books because they provided escapism and they enjoyed the sex scenes as well.
The most followed author on TikTok, Dominique Wolf who has only been in the industry for two years, writes adult books. She said, “I have learnt that there is an audience for everyone, you just have to find it and remain consistent in engaging with readers on social media.”
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