Over-45 blogger Janga, while admitting that she enjoyed romance novels with heroines in their 20s, lamented the lack of older heroines. While romances featuring young women always seem to sell, there’s a real hunger among midlife female fans for heroines their own age.

It’s clear that the publishers of romance novels are seriously out of touch with their biggest audience! romance novels is 24 to 26, according to. The genre these midlife women chose most often? Romance! The retailer reported that unit sales in romance was more than twice the number of unit sales in the second most popular category, general fiction.īut there seems to be a serious disconnect between midlife female romance novel fans and the publishers of the books they love. According to research by ebook retailer Kobo, 75% of the most active e-readers are women over 45. Furthermore, the e-book revolution has been dominated by middle-aged female fans of romance novels. A readership survey by the Romance Writers of America (RWA) stated that most of the women devouring these books are 30 to 54 years of age. Surprisingly, the answer to that question is a resounding YES. are these midlife women the exact same people who are snapping up romance novels? Many of them are remarrying and getting a second (or third) chance at love. Okay, so there are a lot of single, horny, midlife women out there who love romance. In 1960, 55% of previously married adults in that age group had remarried by 2013, that figure had swelled to 67%. In fact, remarriage among Americans aged 55 to 64 is a growing trend, thanks to increasing life spans and the greater incidence of divorce, as the Pew Research Center discovered. Respondents said that they needed a sexual partner and regular intercourse (once a week or more) to be satisfied.Īnd midlifers’ keen interest in romance and sex often leads to remarriage. In fact, AARP’s 2009 survey of nearly 1,700 Americans age 45 and older, “Sex, Romance and Relationships,” found that midlife Americans value it highly. The Institute of Marriage and Family, Canada found that in 2008, the median age of women divorcing in Canada was 41 years old.ĭespite these disheartening statistics, there is little evidence that midlifers have lost their appetite for romance. divorce rate for people ages 65 and older has roughly tripled since 1990 in 2015, it was 6 people per 1,000 married persons. adults aged 50 and older has roughly doubled since the 1990s. The Pew Research Center discovered that the divorce rate for U.S. And that growing pool of divorced people is graying. The 2006 Canadian census found that 4 in 10 first marriages in Canada end in divorce. More of them are getting divorced according to the American Psychological Association, about 40 to 50 percent of married couples in the U.S. In the real world, there are more midlife women in the dating pool than ever before. If they’re no longer interested in it, it’s news to them. Mid-life women-defined, for these purposes as women over 40-actually do care about romance. At least not in the real world we mere mortals live in. Where Are the Midlife Heroines in Romance Novels?Įrr, no.

At least not in the real world we mere mortals live in… Why? Because, dear reader, everyone knows that romance for women ends at 30. For the most part, readers accept this old-fashioned convention uncritically. The great majority of romance novels concern the love lives of gorgeous young women. And young, really young, never over the age of 30-and usually under 25 or even 20. Novel after novel, they’re all the same: flawlessly beautiful, impeccably dressed, sweet, naïve. Where Are the Midlife Heroines in Romance Novels? By Kathleen Jones, The Quirky Novelist Where Are the Midlife Heroines in Romance Novels?-Kathleen Jones

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