The critics in Romantic Conventions believe that the romance genre is an important part of the literary scene, not only because it has captured nearly fifty percent of the paperback market, but also because it employs sympathetic values and identifiable conventions of its own. These values -- literary, challenging, and socially redeeming values -- are encoded in the themes; conventions, patterns, or familiar images that are the tools of the craft of romance writing. The authors explicate, explain, dissect, analyze, and research to make the enjoyment of reading the romance greater.