When I started reading romance novels, oh, more than thirty years ago now, it seemed like they were all M/F stories, told solely from the female point of view.
But, somewhere along the way, readers decided they liked the idea of getting some insight into the male perspective, and the tide turned in favour of dual POV.
Nowadays, depending on the sub-genre you’re working in, either single or dual POV can be acceptable. I’d say the vast majority of romances are written from dual perspectives, but that doesn’t mean single POV is dead.
So, if anything goes, how do writers choose which approach to use? What are the advantages and disadvantages of each? And, is dual POV actually better than single POV??
I loved books, as a kid. The first book I remember loving was The Robber’s Daughter by Astrid Lindgren. After I read it and we returned it, whenever we visited the library, I would walk by the shelf where it was housed, feeling like it was this special, secret gem, this thing no one else knew about or understood.
I felt the same way about the Harper Hall books by Anne McCaffrey. I was fairly young when I read them (maybe grade 5), and to me they were these fantastical things.
That love is what planted the writing seed for me. I wanted to write something that made people feel that way.
When I was growing up, my mother read romance novels. There were often piles of them lying around the house — mostly Harlequin Presents or Harlequin Superromance, but you could find the occasional single-title, Silhouette Special Edition, or Harlequin Desire.
I’ve always kind of wondered how she had the budget for it, since my father was in charge of the money and he could be a bit ‘tight-pursed’. (Is there a polite way of saying that?) But I guess romance novels are easy to hide on a grocery bill.
I, too, loved to read — maybe in part from her example. And around age ten, I got really into the Sweet Valley High series. Everyone was reading them. Gorgeous, blonde, blue-green-eyed, Californian identical twin sixteen-year olds (with perfect size-six figures!), getting into adventures?
Sheikh Khalid bin Nasrallah Al Tariq loves his free-wheeling, globe-trotting, bachelor life, as long as he’s allowed to forget that he’s heir to the throne of Sarab.
What he doesn’t love is the meddling of his manipulative father, the Emir of Sarab. So, when his father orders him back home to meet some important dignitaries, Khalid is furious to learn those ‘dignitaries’ are in fact a pop singer — set to perform a concert in their tiny Arab kingdom — and her stick-in-the-mud sister.
Penny Lucas has followed her superstar sister Lex around the world for seven years. But, she’s getting tired of people viewing her as nothing more than her sister’s lackey, and is nearly ready to follow her own path in life. If she can just figure out what that path is…
