If the screed of plot requirements sent out by the Great Big Romance Publishing Machine is not a ‘formula,’ I don’t know what is. There are a lot of books turned out to fit formula. And I don’t see that acknowledging the existence of formula is an attack on an entire genre, nor on a specific writer. After all the people who whomped False Colors because it didn’t sail close enough to a “real” romance plot–I do think it’s fair to say that yes, there are quite a lot of readers who DO want their formula.

>> It just makes you look like a jerk and reflects badly on the thing for which you’re advocating<<
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I’m sorry but this comment is totally out of line, inappropriate and just rude. Every review is a personal opinion of the reviewer and they should be respected as such. You may not agree with Erastes’s review but I would request that you refrain from using this review as a platform to raise other, much broader issues that have nothing to do with Alex’s book.
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This site is open to anyone who can disagree without being discourteous or offensive and I would appreciate it if you would keep your comments to this review. If you have any personal issues with Erastes this is not the place to air them.
Thank you.

That aside however, please stop saying this: “The relationship [ . . . ] ably shows why gay romance, and particularly gay historical romance baulks from being shoe-horned into a formula that readers of hetero romances have become used to.” You’ve said it before many times that I know of, and I’m sure you’ll say it again, but it’s just not true. Seriously, Erastes, if you can say this with a straight face, you haven’t read very widely in het romance. There is just as much “formula” (although I would call it convention) in m/m romance, esp. m/m historical romance, as there is in het romance. AND there’s much more experimentation. I’m sorry, but if you can read Kinsale and Kleypas and Milan and Dahl and James and Holly and Beverley and Quick and Schwab and Ivory and Joyce, to mention only a few historical writers, and say they all write to a formula, you’re not reading closely enough. And if you can read the m/m historicals out there (which doesn’t touch the het romantic contemporary and romantic paranormals and romantic space odysseys and romantic steam punk and romantic suspense and romantic mysteries) and honestly say they’re doing something completely different from het historical romancae, you’re reading with blinders on.

Do not try to raise one thing by trying to push down another. It just makes you look like a jerk and reflects badly on the thing for which you’re advocating. And alienates the bulk of your readers. Maybe not the bulk of the readers here, but certainly the bulk of your actual readers, who all read voraciously and read m/m and het romance indiscriminately.

Thanks again.