It was the late ’70s and early ’80s—a time when even a woman with a high-paying job couldn’t buy a house without having a man cosign for her. The Equal Rights Amendment had been defeated and the sexual revolution was underway, and most women felt a lot of uncertainty about who and what we were supposed to be. Some people said we had to choose between career and marriage, which was depressing. Others said we could have it all and be everything to everyone, which sounded exhausting.But then there were romance novels, satisfying our expectations when the world so often thwarted and disappointed them. The reassurance they gave me was addictive. Everything’s going to be OK, they seemed to be telling me. Someday you’ll have your own happy ending. Even then, with the romance genre in its beginning stages, critics complained that romance novels gave us unrealistic expectations about men and relationships. That complaint has resonated through the four decades of my life in romance.I wrote my first novel when I was 16, attending summer camp with three hours of free time every day. Longhand, on stationery paper you could buy by the pound. I knew nothing about plotting, characterization, or point of view, but from the moment I started, I was obsessed. Back in those days, the typical romance heroine’s journey often led her to submit and conform to traditional ideals. If she started out as a spirited vixen, she needed to be tamed, and the hero was the man for the job, and then she was rewarded with love, commitment, and security.Accordingly, in my early novels the female protagonists were frequently thrown into peril and needed lots of rescuing, and I’m sorry to say the hero was pretty much always in charge. But my stories have changed as I have, just as the romance genre has developed to meet the evolving attitudes of its readers. Now the heroine is the one in charge, and her needs and goals are paramount.In my Wallflowers series , a homage to the power of female friendship, four young women who are considered misfits decide to band together to find husbands.Now with the Ravenels series , I’ve been creating heroines who struggle for fulfillment beyond marriage, such as a young woman who dreams of creating her own board game company or another who’s the only licensed female physician in England. She rescues the hero and saves his life through her skill and determination. Nowadays, a romance heroine wins in the end not by submitting but by becoming wholly herself. Braver and bolder, with bigger dreams and fully equal to her romantic partner.And excitingly, many writers in all subgenres of our profession are expanding the conventional boundaries of romance as well as redefining what a happy ending can be. Diversity has finally made some hard-won progress in the romance genre, with more to come, so that readers have access to a vast and rich array of stories they deserve, created by new voices who will shape the future.The romance genre is bigger than one person, group, or organization. To me, writing romance is a calling. Nothing else comes close to accomplishing what it does at its best. It encourages us to reflect on how to nurture a relationship and grow separately as individuals while also growing together as a couple. How to work through problems, forgive each other, and learn from mistakes. And yes, there are sex scenes that lead us to consider what we might be interested in trying or what fantasies might be shared by others. Would you believe in this day and age, many women are still conflicted about enjoying sex? It has to do with things like lack of self-esteem, trust, body image, fear of judgment, and that centuries-old message that maybe we’re not entitled to physical pleasure. Romance novels explore these issues in detail, which empowers and enriches our readers.As for all those unrealistic expectations...my husband, Greg, is my hero, and thanks in large part to my lifelong love of romance novels, our marriage is full of mutual respect, warmth, and sexiness. And he’s not even a duke or a Navy SEAL! Romance novels don’t lead us to expect we could only be happy with a fantasy man we’ve read about. The message of romance novels is that you are the heroine or hero of your own life. You, regardless of your gender identification, culture, appearance, belief system, disabilities, or age, deserve to love and be loved. Wholeheartedly, passionately, and entirely.That’s not an unrealistic expectation. Don’t settle for less.