Adriana Herrera | Shelf Love
For Adriana Herrera, romance is the only genre that promises every ending will be happy—and she is unapologetic about that. Born and raised in the Caribbean, and now residing in New York City, Herrera found herself searching for hope around the time of the 2016 elections—as a queer, immigrant, person of color—and decided to write it.
Today, not all students in public schools across America have access to diverse stories with happy endings. PEN America’s recent reports found that romance novels are increasingly censored for including sexual content. Popular romance fiction can be a great resource for teenagers to learn about love and desire, and these books can spark productive, and often pivotal, conversations about boundaries and consent. With Shelf Love, an interview series with romance authors, PEN America, in collaboration with Authors Against Book Bans is celebrating the love for writing and reading about love.
For the tenth installment, we spoke to Herrera, author of Finding Joy, On The Hustle, and most recently A Tropical Rebel Gets The Duke, among others, about why writing romances matter, the power of the erotic, and what she is currently reading.
What was the first romance novel you ever read? What is the last romance novel you read?
I can’t say with absolute certainty which one it was (it was over thirty years ago!), but I do know which was the first one I remember reading and feeling many feelings, and that is Untamed by Elizabeth Lowell. The last romance novel I read was an advance copy of Mia Sosa’s upcoming rom com, When Javi Dumped Mari which I loved.
Why do you write romance novels? Who do you write them for?
Romance has always been the place I go to for comfort and hope. It never occurred to me to write anything else. I wrote my first manuscript not long after the 2016 election. It was a time I badly needed to see people like me—immigrants, people of color, queer people—finding love and unapologetic happy endings. I write them for readers like myself who have loved this genre their whole lives and yearned to find books with characters who looked and sounded like them.
Why do you think romance novels matter?
Well for one, there is no better archive of where the culture is on consent, sexuality, and desire than romance. If you want a snapshot of our consciousness around any of those things at any given moment read a romance novel. Romance is the only genre where the reader can enter knowing that no matter what the stakes or challenges the protagonists may face there will always be a happy ending. I think this is why this genre, more than any other, is the perfect conduit to reading experiences outside our own, to read about history and other cultures, because in romance, all will be well in the end.
Why is it important for books to tackle sex and sexual desire?
In Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic As Power Audre Lorde talks about how women had been taught to suppress their understandings of their own desires. That we’ve almost been warned not to trust this source of power and information within ourselves. She says, “The erotic is a measure between the beginning of our sense of self and the chaos of our strongest feelings.”
I don’t know if there is a place in literature where that sentiment is explored with more intention and conviction than in romance. This genre, instead of turning us away from an understanding of our own pleasure and desires, no matter what they are, allows us a space to ponder them and discover parts of ourselves that would otherwise remain silent forever.
Personally, I’ve discovered more about myself from romance than almost any place else. And as a queer, Black Latina I believe writing books where bodies are not objectified, but adored and satisfied, is the work of social justice.
Why do you think the romance genre has seen such a resurgence in pop culture?
People want to have hope. People want connection. People want to believe that the world, despite how bleak and harsh it is right now, still has a soft landing for each of us. Happy endings will never go out of style.
What value does romance bring to literature writ large?
It is the only place in literature that the female gaze is not only centered but always taken seriously.
What is the most valuable lesson you have learned from your readers?
To never read reviews!
What has been the most rewarding part of being a romance writer?
That I get to write the books I always wanted to read and knowing that I do that for my readers.
A USA Today Best Selling and Audie winning author Adriana Herrera was born and raised in the Caribbean, but for the last fifteen years has let her job (and her spouse) take her all over the world. She loves writing stories about people who look and sound like her people, getting unapologetic happy endings. The New York Times once called her book “sweet, thoughtful, and delightfully filthy too.”
When she’s not dreaming up love stories, planning logistically complex vacations with her family or hunting for discount Broadway tickets, she’s a trauma therapist in New York City, working with survivors of domestic and sexual violence.
