Romance Fiction: Getting Dirty in Dutch Country

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Insiders insist that knitting is distinct from another ascendant microgenre: quilting.

The industry would seem challenged to find greater mundanity (bridge games? Wheel of Fortune reruns?), yet that's what the public is demanding. "More than ever, people are retreating to the home and simple pleasures of home life," says romance writer Debbie Macomber, who has sold about 75 million books, many centered on knitting, with titles such as The Shop on Blossom Street, Back on Blossom Street, Summer on Blossom Street, and A Good Yarn. Macomber recently returned from the Vancouver (B.C.) set of Call Me Mrs. Miracle, a Hallmark (CRWN) film based on her work. (It's a sequel to a Hallmark hit, Debbie Macomber's Mrs. Miracle, which starred James Van Der Beek, formerly of Dawson's Creek.) Macomber even has a successful line of companion books—Knit Along with Debbie Macomber—on the joys of the domestic arts.

Another home crafting romance writer, Marie Bostwick, topped The New York Times' mass-market fiction list in June 2009 with her novel A Thread of Truth. After publishing scores of bodice rippers, Lori Wilde's The True Love Quilting Club tells of Trixie Lynn Parks who must, says the book's publisher, choose between fame and fortune or "the one true love who has the power to mend her patchwork heart."

Such substratification might suggest, as one book agent stated privately, that readers have gone insane. However, Harlequin's Orr sees the trends as befitting the times. Amid uncertainty, she says, readers want tight-knit communities they can return to with each new installment of a series. "There is a tremendous desire for community," she says. "Somehow in this world, where everyone is constantly communicating, people have lost real friendships."

Therein may lie the secret to the rise of the romantic subgenre. Twitter feeds, author blogs, and other forms of social media are providing limitless opportunities for virtual Ya-Ya Sisterhoods of like-minded readers to develop. "These authors are all masters of social networking," says Pam Jaffee, the publicist in charge of Avon, HarperCollins' romance imprint. Macomber boasts an e-mail list of 130,000. (By comparison, Jaffee says, most successful authors have "between 3,000 and 9,000 friends" on Facebook.) Bostwick's fans have even formed an online quilting club. This fall, readers from 13 different states will tour her favorite places to quilt.

Devoted fans of Robyn Carr—who hit the jackpot in the military romance niche with her Virgin River series—find each other at the Jack's Bar chat room on her site. "There are so many people out there who have a relative or a loved one who's serving. Those people want to celebrate and honor these men and women. And they want military characters in the books they read," says Carr, a former military wife whose son is serving in Iraq.

The e-bond between authors and fans has had an undeniable impact. A recent blog post on CindyWoodsmall.com alerted readers to a recession-friendly deal from the author's publisher: Three books in her Sisters of the Quilt series—a hybrid of the Amish and quilting subgenres—would be available in one volume for $19.99. Woodsmall signed off with the word, denki. That's "thank you" in Pennsylvania Dutch.

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