Time travel romance is a subgenre of romantic fiction [1] [2] [3] associational to Paranormal romance. Time travel romance focuses on romantic love and includes an element of time travel. Time travel romance stories may or may not have a happily ever after ending. Jude Deveraux's A Knight in Shining Armor is one of the best known time travel romance novels of all time, [4] famous for the lack of a happily ever after ending. Time travel romances feature at least one character transported to an unfamiliar time period. A recurring theme is the conflict of falling in love and subsequently the character must decide to stay in the alternate time or return to the time he/she came from.
Genre is any form or type of communication in any mode with socially-agreed upon conventions developed over time. Genre is most popularly known as a category of literature, music, or other forms of art or entertainment, whether written or spoken, audio or visual, based on some set of stylistic criteria, yet genres can be aesthetic, rhetorical, communicative, or functional. Genres form by conventions that change over time as cultures invent new genres and discontinue the use of old ones. Often, works fit into multiple genres by way of borrowing and recombining these conventions. Stand-alone texts, works, or pieces of communication may have individual styles, but genres are amalgams of these texts based on agreed-upon or socially inferred conventions. Some genres may have rigid, strictly adhered-to guidelines, while others may show great flexibility.
Paranormal romance is a subgenre of both romantic fiction and speculative fiction. Paranormal romance focuses on romantic love and includes elements beyond the range of scientific explanation, blending together themes from the speculative fiction genres of fantasy, science fiction, and horror. Paranormal romance may range from traditional category romances, such as those published by Harlequin Mills & Boon, with a paranormal setting to stories where the main emphasis is on a science fiction or fantasy-based plot with a romantic subplot included. Common hallmarks are romantic relationships between humans and vampires, shapeshifters, ghosts, and other entities of a fantastic or otherworldly nature.
Time travel is the concept of movement between certain points in time, analogous to movement between different points in space by an object or a person, typically using a hypothetical device known as a time machine. Time travel is a widely-recognized concept in philosophy and fiction. The idea of a time machine was popularized by H. G. Wells' 1895 novel The Time Machine.
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Time travel romance settings may vary, from a present-day character sent back to the past, as in Binding Vows by Catherine Bybee, or with a character from the past sent forward to the future, as in several books in the Highlander series by Karen Marie Moning. A common location theme in time travel romance is Scotland, such as in the popular Outlander series. Although the focus of time travel romance is the love story between the characters, there is always some mechanism of science fiction or magic involved to facilitate travel through time. Enchanted stones, magical jewelry, and time travel machines are all methods employed to send the character to the necessary time period. Examples of authors specializing in this genre include Diana Gabaldon, Catherine Bybee, Karen Marie Moning, and Susanna Kearsley.
Catherine Bybee is a New York Times, USA Today, #1 Wall Street Journal, and #1 Amazon Bestselling author of romance novels. She writes in the romance subgenres of contemporary, historical, paranormal, and at one time erotica. She currently writes for Montlake Romance, an Amazon Publishing Imprint, and self-publishes some works.
Karen Marie Moning is an American author. Many of her novels have appeared on the New York Times Bestseller List with Shadowfever reaching the number one position on multiple national best sellers lists. She is a winner of the prestigious Romance Writers of America RITA award for Best Paranormal Romance and is a multiple RITA nominee.
Science fiction is a genre of speculative fiction, typically dealing with imaginative concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, and extraterrestrial life. Science fiction often explores the potential consequences of scientific and other innovations, and has been called a "literature of ideas".
The term "timeslip romance" is sometimes used for a relational, if perhaps more focused on nostalgia than romance, genre with examples of that form including Portrait of Jennie and Time and Again. [5] Although some definitions of "timeslip romance" do not require there be a romantic aspect. [6]
Portrait of Jennie is a novel by American writer Robert Nathan, first published in 1940. This story combines romance, fantasy, mystery, and the supernatural. The most successful of Nathan's books, it is considered a modern masterpiece of fantasy fiction.
Time and Again is a 1970 illustrated novel by American writer Jack Finney. The many illustrations in the book are real, though, as explained in an endnote, not all are from the 1882 period in which the actions of the book take place. It had long been rumored that Robert Redford would adapt the book into a movie. The project has never come to fruition. Though a film of this novel has never been made, a 1980 film, Somewhere in Time features a similar time travel technique. It is based on a 1975 Richard Matheson novel called Bid Time Return. The film concerns a young man unhappy with his life as a playwright. He meets a scientist named Dr. Finney whose time travel theory mimics Jack Finney's idea of self-hypnosis in the exact environment of the desired destination time. In July 2012, it was announced that Lionsgate studios optioned the film rights to the novel, with Doug Liman set to direct and produce.
