When the daughter of Bluebeard the pirate-husband of six vanished wives-leaves home to open a psychiatry clinic for paranormals, her love life is headed for some pretty hairy situations.

A comprehensive guide that defines the literature and the outlines the best-selling genre of all time: romance fiction. More than 2,000 romances are published annually, making it difficult for fans and the librarians who advise them to keep pace with new titles, emerging authors, and constant evolution of this dynamic genre. Fortunately, romance expert and librarian Kristin Ramsdell provides a definitive guide to this fiction genre that serves as an indispensible resource for those interested in it—including fans searching for reading material—as well as for library staff, scholars, and romance writers themselves. This title updates the last edition of Romance Fiction: A Guide to the Genre, published in 1999.While the emphasis is on newer titles, many of the important older classics are retained, keeping the focus of the book on the entire genre, instead of only those titles published during the last decade. Specific changes include new chapters on linked and continuing romances, a new section on "Chick Lit" in the Contemporary Romance chapter, an expansion of coverage on the alternative reality subset. This is THE romance genre guide to have.

This project provides an in-depth study of narratives about Bluebeard and his wives, or narratives with identifiable Bluebeard motifs, and the intertextual and extratextual personal, political, literary, and sociocultural factors that have made the tale a particularly fertile ground for an author’s adaptation of the story. Whereas Charles Dickens, for example, expresses a sympathetic identification with Bluebeard, and a discernable strain of misogyny emerges in his recreation of the tale and recurrent allusions to it, his contemporary, William Makepeace Thackeray, uses the tale as a springboard for his critique of avarice, hypocrisy, pretension, and the subjugation of women in Victorian society.

When the Sisters Grimm are invited to the Black Forest by their eccentric aunt, little do they know they will soon be finding marriage matches beyond their wildest dreams.

When Dr. Frankenstein's niece enters a castle in search of a vampire, she finds more than she bargained for--a paranormal romp and more love bites than she knows what to do with!

Maria Tatar analyses the many forms the tale of Bluebeard's wife has taken over time, showing how artists have taken the Bluebeard theme and revived it with their own signature twists.