on Jane Friedman site:

Saying that romance is a genre the literati love to hate is a hackneyed truism. The preponderance of tropes, if they’re not well handled, can give romance a predictable or formulaic feel. Why, then, are they so enduringly popular? Why do they continue to outsell so many other genres, when the story’s outcome in all cases is a given?

I have come late in life to this popular genre. Yet what began as curiosity is fast developing into an obsession. In the past few months, I have read or listened to approximately fifteen different historical romances. Apart from the sheer pleasure of the experience, I’ve learned a great deal about what makes a story worth reading and why the genre is so appealing. My interest—as a historian and historical novelist—is in romances set in the past. But minus the historical setting, I think most of my observations apply to any good romance.

In a nutshell, here’s what I found.