'My Favourite Romance Tropes and Valentine's Day'

'My Favourite Romance Tropes and Valentine's Day' - by Sudesna Ghosh

Sudesna Ghosh is a prolific Kolkata based romance author who shares her thoughts on Valentine's Day. Don't forget to check out her new release on Juggernaut, My First Love...

I love reading and writing romance. It wasn’t something that I planned to do when I started my writing career with short stories for children. But then I became friends with so many romance authors that I had no choice – I was talking about writing romance and reading more romance books than ever before because all my friends were writing them.

While a few people dared to comment that I was too serious and smart to write in the genre, my author friends encouraged me to try something new. I’m so glad I went ahead with it. No matter how much I tried to brush off Valentine’s Day as a commercial, superficial event, I started writing stories especially for the big day. Even if I didn’t get any Valentine’s Day cards or gifts, I started celebrating the occasion buying nice things for myself and the people I love. Romantic feels are contagious.

This year, I have a new novella on the Juggernaut Books app called My First Love. It’s a second chance romance where two high school sweethearts get the opportunity to be together again after a long gap. And of course there’s an obstacle because all love stories need one.

I enjoyed writing this book especially because the Second Chance trope is my favourite one to read and write. A second chance means you can get closure even if you don’t get back together. A second chance brings hope.

Hope is important. In a world where we’re bombarded with terrible news every hour, hope is a necessity. That’s why I wrote my first second chance novella A Perfect New York Christmas; because I wanted heartbroken friends to stop feeling hopeless.

Another trope I enjoy reading and writing is the Fake Lovers one. In my novella The Perfect Fake Boyfriend, Sush and Arjun start out as fake lovers for the sake of a family wedding and then they fall in love for real.

As a psychology graduate, I’ve always had a keen interest in relationships and it’s a learning experience when you build characters who go from feeling basic attraction or no attraction at all, to true love. In fact, I know a couple who went from being fake boyfriend and girlfriend to husband and wife later. Maybe spending so much time together and sharing the same space makes people feel comfortable and familiar to each other? Good friends who pretend to be a couple sometimes realise they’d be great as a romantic pair.

I’ve read a ton of fake lover romances and can say that it’s always fun. Sometimes there’s a lot of soul-searching to figure out that the bond has gone from fake to real. There’s always drama because one person promised the other that things would be fake and nothing else but fake.

This Valentine’s Day, I’m going to download some romance books and meet my friend for dinner. There will be heart-shaped cookies, good food and conversation.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

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Devika Fernando15 February 2021 at 09:28
Nice post! I'm glad you gave the romance genre a try, and I LOVE the second chance trope.
Satabdi15 February 2021 at 10:54
I like the enemies-to-lovers trope. Such fun to see people who have taken a strong dislike to each other in the beginning realising later on that they like each other very much!
Tarang Sinha18 February 2021 at 23:27
Interesting post! I like second chance romances. And I really enjoy enemies to friends to lovers kind of romance. I'm so glad you started writing in this genre. And Valentine's Day story reminds me of your story 'It Started With a Cup of Coffee', one of my favourites. I wish you all the best.

P.S.: I didn't know you are a Psychology graduate. I find Psychology very fascinating! :)

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