Not the news presses, but the book publishers who keep spewing out novels with the same plot. Full disclosure here: I read romance fiction, mostly the contemporary kind, although historical romances do have that added dimension of describing the fascinating events, customs, and dress of bygone days. My problem is that I have all too often purchased a romance and discovered it has the exact same plot as, not one or two, but far too many novels of its genre.

Does this seem familiar to you? The poor widow/divorcee/dumpee (including job dumpee) moves out of the big bad city back to the cute/quaint/picturesque small town where she grew up because mom/sister/aunt/grandmother/dad/stepdad/grandfather is either deathly ill, already dead, dying, or in need of some kind of assistance from our poor heroine. Once back home, she runs into the fellow who either dumped her back in high school or made fun of her in school or married her best friend/sister/cousin or otherwise BROKE HER HEART. He is, of course, now widowed/divorced/dumped himself. Emotions clash. Misunderstandings, based on the past and also current events, abound. But the spark of romance that has simmered all these years reignites, and they have a night of (always) mind-blowing sex, following which one or both of them decides it was/is just a fling, nothing serious. Until they realize they still only have eyes for each other and wind up marrying and living happily ever after.

Yes, there are minor deviations from this plot, but the essential story—the woman moving to a small town where she hooks up with the man who broke her heart and sent her running to the big city in the first place—is the same.

What do these writers have against big cities? Why can’t the woman live in a small town or isolated farm or ranch and get dragged back to the city where she grew up? Better yet, why can’t she decide she’s tired of small-town snoops and gossips and knowing everyone down to the calluses on their heels with everyone knowing she slept around as a teenager or got pregnant out of wedlock or shoplifted or otherwise misbehaved in a way the town’s denizens can’t/won’t forgive? Why can’t she meet a complete stranger—either back home or by heading for the big bad city?

And why do romance publishers keep going to the same well? Market research might show that this overused plot is readers’ favorite, but isn’t it a bit like that lovely perfume you wore all the time until, one day, you realized you couldn’t smell it anymore and had to change to a different scent? I understand that romance readers expect happy endings after conflict threatens to tear the lovers apart, but surely there are different ways to tell the story, ways that don’t involve the plot I’ve just described. I guess I’ll just have to stop reading romance fiction—at least till the well runs dry.