Hi, Megan, I really enjoy stories where the friends play an important role, but sometimes it depends on the story whether or not that needs to be the case. For instance, I really enjoyed some of Debbie Macomber's books where they are romances but also really stories about the (in this case, women's) friendships--Thursdays at Eight, and the Blossom Street books. I think in these books, the stories are as much about the growth of the women's friendships as they are about their romantic relationships. I don't remember as many books where the men are friends--Rhonda Nelson has a trilogy where the men served together but don't show as much of their interacting with each other, and some of Lori Foster's connected stories are of brothers and their friends. I'd definitely be interested in reading more stories where the heroes are the friends, too. Overall, I enjoy seeing the couple's relationship develop in the context of their community, and showing their friendships gives a much richer sense of that.

It's always a mixed bag for me. Sometimes I enjoy the friendships in books, as long as I don't think the friend scenes are "filler" or overshadowing the main storyline. I've read a few romances where the book seemed more about the friends than the couple.

My second book, About Last Night, was about 4 friends, and I actually wrote both of their romances in the book, more or less evenly, though there was one prominent couple. But many readers liked the other couple better. I'm never sure if that's a good thing or not, LOL.

I think friends in books are writer's tools (obviously real friends in life are a different matter) -- but they show readers who the main characters are, that people like them (important if you have an edgy character, the friend becomes the bridge for the reader -- if they like the protag, then there must be something likable about them, etc), and they also give our protags a life, and a place to reveal things that wouldn't be revealed otherwise. So we can't do without them, but sometimes I think some writers rely on them a little heavily.

I also find the male friendships sometimes more fascinating than the female ones, but maybe that's because I am more intrinsically familiar with female friendship.

All in all, though, I try to have friends have their own purpose in the book, they are usually subplot material with stories of their own, or I don't have them, or I put them in very lightly -- such as in Pick Me Up, there are some secondaries, but the heroine's best friend takes up less than ten pages of the book.

I guess that's more of a writer's perspective than a reader's... As a reader, I find friends more entertaining outside of romance fiction. In romance, I want the primary focus on the couple.

Sam

Good topic, Megan! I loved Lisa Kleypas' Wallflower series, about four friends (actually, two of them are sisters)who descend on London, looking for husbands. But I find I'm really attracted to books that feature male friendships. Maybe it's because men have always been (and still are) so mysterious to me. I grew up with no brothers and our family is very matriarchal. My father was an authority figure, and I was painfully shy around the opposite sex; I was never the girl with lots of guy-pals. My husband tends to be a bit of a loner and although he has male friends, he doesn't have that close male bond with any of them. So when I find a book that features male friendships, like Suzanne Brockman's Troubleshooter series, I feel like I'm getting a sneak peek at how the other half lives, and I find it fascinating.

Many of my best friends are men. I have no idea why. I just connect with men and they connect with me. I guess that's why I did so well working in the mine. One thing I like about guys is that they don't try to spare your feelings unnecessarily. Not a lot of beating around the bush. I just feel more comfortable with their directness, I guess. I do enjoy my female friends, though. If it weren't for women, who would we talk about sex with? Guys don't talk about sex in the same way women do. Women spill. Guys don't.

Deborah Smith's books (which can be found in both Womens Lit and the Romance aisles) often feature a lot of family and friends.

Joshilyn Jackson writes the same way. There are always a lot of family and friends mixed up in the romance.

Hmmm, they're both Southern Women. I wonder if there is a connection.

And I remember About Last Night (Sam's book) well. I loved both couples in the story and even though I knew which was the main couple, I was rooting for the "secondary" couple just as much!

ani

I enjoy a story where the H/H have friends. So often they evolve into another book I can read!

I think of romances as relationship books, and how a person deals with other relationships in their lives outside their love interest can be very telling. It also makes the characters more fully realized and multi-dimensional to me. So I love to see the connections and complications that friends and family members bring into the story! I love to write about 'em, too. In fact, I think the only way to avoid that is to somewhat isolate your characters so they're cut off from friends, etc. in the course of the story. And that too is interesting. *g*