the [email protected]: What romance novel/author makes you laugh?

Great question, Ms. Grinnan!

Off the top of my head, the only funny romance I can think of isn’t really a romance. Yeah, I’m talking about P.S. Your Cat is Dead yet again- although I do regard it as somewhat of a proto-m/m romance in that it has an HEA.

Based on what you wrote, I don’t think you’d find it that appealing. The humor is often “mean” and quite a bit of it comes across as dated. Although the scene that comes to mind is when Jimmy Zoole’s ex-girlfriend drops by (I think to pick up her belongings?) and finds Vito, the captured burglar, tied to Jimmy’s kitchen table. Without missing a beat, Vito says something like, “Hi, there. Don’t mind us. Your boyfriend was just about to f*** me up the a**. I hope you don’t mind, but the truth of the matter is, we’ve been doing it since last August.” Stupid, I know. And totally paraphrased from my shaky memory. But the first time I read it, I busted up laughing. Some of Vito’s invented euphemisms for sex swing between funny because they’re so stupid and cringe worthy- also because they’re so stupid. I’m not sure where to place “honeybuggleburgers” on that spectrum- unless the laughter comes from the fact a grown man wrote it.

I would say that Curb Your Enthusiasm is deliberately and provocatively meant to be uncomfortable and squirm-worthy. I find it very funny and just flat out adore Larry David. You can definitely see the origins of Seinfeld in the show but with even more edge. I also laughed a lot recently watching the black comedy, Fleabag. My boyfriend and I share a high threshold for black comedies and bond over them. Arrested Development and Parks and Recreation too are among my favorite tongue-in-cheek comedies.

Julie Ann Long often has a great ability to write funny scenes, usually gently mocking the foolishness of a character. I’ve laughed reading some of her scenes: for instance, the genteel country garden shooting scene in Like No Other Lover in which Cynthia Brightly accidentally shoots the penis off a male statue; or the moment in How the Marquess Was Won when the proper, upright Julian decides to pet the heroine’s cat’s belly, wondering what could go wrong. Long knows cats well! She’s also though a writer who strikes me as pretty kind-hearted in her humor, just as she is in real life.

Lucy Parker’s witty and intelligent banter between two romantic antagonists is humorous and biting and is nearly always appealing to me. I settle in for some good snark time when I pick up her books.

I still also greatly enjoy the banter between Jessica and Sebastian in Lord of Scoundrels and the joint repetition of the phrase, “I should like to see you try.” In modern parlance, my teen niece likes to say, “challenge accepted.”

I could toss The Hating Game on the floor and have it land on just about any page and find a scene that strikes me as funny, especially in the first half when Lucy and Josh are furiously busy hating on each other. It’s hyperbolic humor and hard to pinpoint just one scene, though perhaps Lucy’s attempt to wear a skimpy dress to work, or what she calls “nearly a bathing suit,” to torment Josh may be my favorite.

I adored Sarah Hogle’s You Deserve Each Other and laughed out loud many times. The humor is biting and at times borderline cruel as the couple bicker and prank their way back together. Those who don’t enjoy snarky humor may not like it, and I’ve read reviews from readers who found it too mean in the first half when bitterness at times outdoes love, but it might end up as my favorite book of the year.

Great Question:

Natural Attachment – Katherine Kinglsey
Lord of Scoundrels consistently and parts of other Loretta Chases
It Had to be You by Susan Elizabeth Phillips used to (though I hated the first sex scene, always) Heaven Texas, and a scene in Nobody’s Baby but Mine – I hesitate to reread, such a great memories, but over time, it might not work anymore….
Anyone but You by Jennifer Crusie, and to some extent Strange Bedpersons – her shorts work best, her long ones are good, but less funny to me – never got into “Temptation” – not funny to me

not strictly romance, but oh such a favorite – and there is a lovely romance:
Tanya Huff Summon the Keeper

will think more
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I FANATICALLY keep track of books that make me laugh.
The hilarious romcoms on my reread list are chapters 1 and 3 of Garters by Pamela Morsi, The Wallflower Wager (my second favourite romance) and the first chapter of Goddess of the Hunt by Tessa Dare, What Happens in London and Ten Things I Love About You by Julia Quinn, A Wicked Kind of Husband by Mia Vincy, The Summer Duke (A Duke For All Seasons #3) and The Autumn Duke (A Duke For All Seasons #4) by Jillian Eaton, Chapters 1-9 of Making Waves. Chapters 1-10 of Frisky Business, Studmuffin Santa (Ponderosa Resort Romantic Comedies #1) and Believe It or Not by Tawna Fenske, chapters 1-15.5 of Get a Life, Chloe Brown (The Brown Sisters, #1) by Talia Hibbert, Act Like It, Pretty Face, the first 15.5 chapters of The Austen Playbook and Headliners (London Celebrities #5) by Lucy Parker and Artistic License by Elle Pierson(Lucy Parker) which used to be the funniest book I have ever read.

Soon to be joining them will be His at Night by Sherry Thomas (I am up to 70%), the first 1/4? 1/3? of which is sublimely funny.

The only romance novel that comes to mind for me is The Flatshare. I laughed out loud a few times while reading it.

Humor is such an idiosyncratic thing—and, I have to be honest, I don’t read romance looking for something to make me laugh (I’ve got an entire set of Blackadder dvds for that). And I really dislike it when I feel as if a writer is tripping over themselves trying to be funny. That being said, the writers who consistently make me chuckle as I’m reading their books are Eve Dangerfield and Annika Martin (specifically her Manhattan Billionaires series). The humor in both of their works emerges from the characters and the situations they find themselves in as opposed to a big joke set-up and punchline—and that type of humor works best for me when I’m reading. Actually, the most I’ve ever laughed out loud while reading a romance was when I was reading Cara McKenna’s decidedly-not-a-comedy, AFTER HOURS. There’s a scene where the heroine is debating with herself whether she should sleep with the hero. She imagines her common sense and her libido getting into a fight about it. As the heroine leans closer to deciding she will take a chance on the hero, she says, “At this point, my libido has my common sense tied up and has thrown her in the trunk of a car.” I guffawed are that. Well, as I said, humor is VERY idiosyncratic.

This is our tag for funny romances: https://allaboutromance.com/review-tag/funny/

It’s one of the long ones so there are a lot of possibilities.

I find most books that set out to be funny, or have the characters cracking up over what another character says often makes me cringe. I also really dislike those big public displays of humiliation in books where the whole town is there to see (usually the hero) get his big comeuppance. Cringe, cringe, cringe.

One book that always amuses me (despite having some really dark parts in the background) is Linda Howard’s Open Season. I love the heroine. She’s smart and strong willed, completely sure of herself intellectually and at her job-but insecure about what she thinks are her lackluster looks and personal life. Her makeover process is just charming and completely initiated by her. The back and forth between her and the tough guy hero is absolutely believable and doesn’t sound like it is manufactured banter. It feels more character driven than just snappy comebacks and I bought into the romance completely.

Molly Harper’s books are fun with a lot of sarcastic thoughts and quips although sometimes they can go too far to the point of quip after quip where it’s clear this is manufactured banter and not a normal give and take conversation.

Some of Lisa Kleypas’s books have humor that works for me as well. I enjoy the dry sarcasm of some of her cynical heroes like Sebastian in Devil In Winter and Leo’s banter with Catherine Marks in Married by Morning.

Sometimes an odd or uncomfortable situation in a book will make me laugh as when I recently reread Motorcycle Man by Kristen Ashley. The initial setup involves the heroine having to face a really humiliating situation or running scared and she puts her back up, gives herself a pep talk about embracing her inner “slut” and powers on. A lot of Ashley’s humor can seem juvenile but this part really worked for me and had me cheering for the heroine when she decided to say “so what” and not let herself be shamed for something a guy never would be.

I agree that humor really is idiosyncratic, but also may be very mood dependent as well. Sometimes it really is a case of right book at the right time. I tend to go for more subtle or dry humor. A sardonic tone or light sarcasm often works for me, so characters that pull that off may stand out more than overall humor in a particular book. I think a good audio narrator, too, can really make humor work. I remember laughing out loud a lot when listening to Anna Fields narrate SEP’s Natural Born Charmer. The banter between Amelia and Emerson in the audios for Elizabeth Peters’ Amelia Peabody series is a delight as well.

I think I turn to television programs for humor more than books. Lately, my husband and I have been streaming Schitt’s Creek and laughing a lot.

I enjoy witty, snarky, clever dialogue best, so love the books of KJ Charles, Alexis Hall, Lily Morton, Georgette Heyer and Loretta Chase especially.
There are a few scenes from historicals that I found funny and have stuck in my memory:
-The statue shooting scene from Like No Other Lover by Julie Ann Long.
-The scene in Julia Quinn’s What Happens in London where the hero from Ten Things I Love About You is standing on a table reading aloud the Gothic potboiler that is an important part of the plot. I also enjoy all her unicorn incidents but the Pall Mall games, not so much.
-The boat scene towards the end of Eloisa James’ Desperate Duchesses where the hero is trying to engineer a situation to break the heroine’s engagement to another character, but gets more than he bargained for, always makes me laugh. Also, the versifying mermaid in that book.
I find most of Lucy Parker’s books amusing and loved Managed by Kristen Callihan.

Since we’re talking about funny television as well as funny books, I have to say the only current comedy I enjoy is The Connors, although I would enjoy it a lot better if they didn’t kill off Roseanne.

As for funny movies, I never get tired of watching Life with Father, which is a sorely underappreciated 1947 Technicolor comedy starring William Powell and Irene Dunne. In between Clarence Day’s blustering, you can still see the warm romance he has with his wife.

Tootsie and My Cousin Vinny are also among my favorite comedies that I never, ever get tired of. Like Life with Father, if either of these movies are on TV, I will watch them no matter how much of the film is left.

Romances with humor are what got me started reading the genre, and since the 1990s I have recorded humor scores for the romances I read.
These are the romances I recorded with my top humor rating of 5 stars:
alexander, victoria: the marriage lesson*****
alexander, victoria: the pursuit of marriage*****
barnett, jill: (fall from grace***** see a season in the highlands anth.)
barnett, jill: (saving grace***** see highland fling anth.)
craig, emma: rosamunda’s revenge*****
crusie, jennifer: bet me*****
davidson, maryjanice: undead and unwed*****
davis, maggie: hustle, sweet love*****
evanovich, janet: back to the bedroom*****
evanovich, janet: smitten*****
evanovich, janet: the rocky road to romance*****
evanovich, janet: the grand finale*****
evanovich, janet: love overboard[ivan takes a wife]*****
garwood, julie: the lion’s lady*****
holbrook, cindy: the missing brides*****
holbrook, cindy: the missing matchmaker*****
holbrook, cindy: the actress & the marquis*****
holbrook, cindy: lord sayer’s ghost*****
holbrook, cindy: a rake’s reform*****
holbrook, cindy: the reluctant bride*****
jensen, emma: what chloe wants*****
jensen, trish: without a clue*****
joy, dara: high energy*****
joy, dara: (santa reads romance***** see the night before christmas anth.)
klune, t. j.: the lightning-struck heart*****
krentz, jayne ann: summer in eclipse bay*****
lansdowne, judith a.: lord nightingale’s triumph*****
lansdowne, judith a.: mutiny at almack’s*****
laurenston, shelly: the mane event*****
leclaire, day: the nine-dollar daddy*****
lee, jade: (kung fu shoes!***** see these boots were made for stomping anth.)
lynson, jane: the duke’s downfall*****
macalister, katie: (unleashed***** see cupid cats anth.)
macalister, katie: noble intentions*****
martin, michelle: the mad miss mathley*****
michaels, kasey: the tenacious miss tamerlane*****
nelson, judith: the merry chase*****
nelson, judith: patience is a virtue*****
phillips, susan elizabeth: nobody’s baby but mine*****
quick, amanda: ravished*****
quinn, julia: brighter than the sun*****
quinn, julia: to catch an heiress*****
quinn, julia: how to marry a marquis*****
reece, jean: the primrose path*****
sands, lynsay: single white vampire*****
sands, lynsay: (all i want***** see wish list anth.)
smythe, sheridon: completely yours*****
thompson, vicki lewis: operation gigolo*****
tucker, bonnie: hannah’s hunks*****
anthologies: cupid cats (km*****, cb***, vlt**.5)
anthologies: highland fling (as, cm, jb*****, ls)
anthologies: the night before christmas (va’’’, sh***, dj*****, nm*)
anthologies: a season in the highlands (jd***, jb*****, gd**.5, pb*, pc**.5)
anthologies: these boots were made for stomping (jk**, jl*****, mm**)
anthologies: wish list (lk**.5, lc***, cd**, ls*****)
My full list is at http://www.ccrsdodona.org/markmuse/reading/romwhumorlist.html.
My thoughts on romance humor at the time were in this AAR column in 1998: https://allaboutromance.com/lauries-news-views-62/.

Back in the day, Barbara Metzger’s books frequently made me laugh. Miss Lockharte’s Letters is a story that I reread every few years. The book’s rather absurd premise leads to many extremely funny situations. Also, Ms. Metzger often includes animals in her books as secondary characters and they can also be a source of fun.

Dabney I also did not feel that Where’d you go, Bernadette was funny. I found it poignant and sad. My daughter thought it was hysterical. We both listened To the audio.. She listened while doing her run and had to stop to laugh. She liked it so much she even gifted it to me. We usually both agree on most of our books.

Oof! I can’t believe I forgot to mention just about the funniest side character in romance ever- Mr. Delacorte in Julie Anne Long’s Lady Derring Takes a Lover and Angel in a Devil’s Arms. He is a tenant at the boarding house run by the heroines of both books, and is *trying* to be more of a gentleman. I had to read the scene in Angel in a Devil’s Arms twice when he and the other guests are discussing poetry and

I had to read it a few times so I could keep laughing.

I seriously want Ms. Long to write a romance for Mr. Delacorte. He needs a good natured, understanding woman to love him. My choice would be an older widow or an “old maid.”

I think it depends on my mood too. I’ve read many of Julia Quinn’s books and found her occasionally amusing. Yet, last night, I found myself laughing out loud several times when reading her ‘First Comes Scandal’. The Cat-Head scene was hilarious!! I don’t know if I will laugh as heartily in my 2nd read though.

Me too! I laugh out loud while watching sitcoms and movies but rarely while reading. When everyone praises a book as hilarious I find it amusing and maybe smile inducing for me. I might chuckle here and there.
Having said all that I find the Earlier books of Julia Quinn funny. Mark Watney from The Martian is laugh out loud funny. Stupid and Contagious by Caprice Crane, Penny Reid, Lucy Parker books, The Hating Game are all very amusing.

It’s funny, isn’t it, that when you don’t laugh, but others do, that somehow, there is something wrong with you OR something wrong with the others? It’s profoundly uncomfortable. You know how so many popular comedians were alums of “Second City” in Chicago? The man in charge of comedy improv training there said, “If you can’t make people laugh, shock them, They will laugh.” He was right. Unfortunately. I loved your “confession,” Dabney, and it’s one that nearly everybody could make, as we’ve all been disappointed and uncomfortable when everybody’s howling (I mistakenly wrote: “ everybody’s boring,”) but you are silent. I still remember my date’s disappointed inquiry in 1740 at “It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad World”: “Don’t you think it’s funny?” No, I didn’t. I hate slapstick, most of the time. Being young, I faked my laughter.

My favorite funny books are Anne Gracie’s “The Perfect Rake” which has–I’m not kidding–some dialogue that Oscar Wilde could have written, Jennifer Crusie’s “Bet Me, and Loretta Chase’s “Lord Perfect,” “Mr. Impossible,” “Dukes Prefer Blondes,” and “Vixen in Velvet.”

Right now, I’m reading only light, funny books, so people’s responses are a God-send.

I think humor is really hard – very much in the eye of the beholder. My husband and I have very different tastes, and I’ve casually wondered for years what makes something funny to one person and not another. I think I’m more like Dabney – I don’t think people being mean (or self-absorbed) is funny. When I think about funny in books, it is almost always related to dialog e.g. Nobody’s Baby But Mine by SEP is an old favorite and a book I find funny, even on repeated readings. Yeah, the plot device that sets the book in motion is cringe-worthy. But the Lucky Charms incident, the comic books left lying around, the reactions of various characters as they find out Jane’s mistaken impression of Calvin’s intellect, Jane’s insistance on driving a beater car, Calvin figuring out the women in his family are willing to take Jane’s side over his, and so on, lighten my heart (if not make me laugh out loud) to this day.

Authors that I generally think of when I want to laugh: Loretta Chase, Julie James, Jennifer Crusie, SEP. Some early Kristan Higgins. Pamela Morsi (her contemporaries), and Lady Whistledown (Quinn).

One title I remember being laugh-out-loud funny the first time I read it – but not on a second reread: Bone Rider by Fally. Go figure.

I don’t read romance for the humour and that is maybe why I cannot remember any specific funny incident from an individual book. There are some authors who write reliably funny dialogue but if the romance isn’t grabbing me the humour won’t compensate for it. I abandoned the last Lily Morton I tried despite enjoying previous books because I found myself not caring if the characters got together.

It’s partly a cultural and partly a personal thing, but I find most of the venerated historical romance authors listed above to be not very funny. I respond better to dry British humour than broad comedy (in books, anyway) and I often feel like an author is trying too hard. For this reason I never got past the sample of Lucy Parker’s Act Like It. Also, “humour” in historicals often seems to be accompanied by anachronistic plots and characters, which are a guaranteed turn-off for me.

What really grabs me is humour through language. For this reason the most ridiculous Wodehouse plot is made hilarious through the brilliance of his unexpected metaphors. Many a Heyer novel has been endlessly amusing to me because of her clever use of a sophisticated vocabulary sprinkled with Regency slang in order to reveal her characters. But I don’t read either of them for the romance…..

My message to romance authors is, if you want to be funny then go for it, but I still want to be moved by the characters’ feelings and convinced that they belong together.

I’m reading a lot of comments here about people laughing more with visual media (movies, TV shows, stand up comedy) than with written materials. That’s true for me as well, and I want to add something more: I laugh way more at a comedy if I am watching it with other people rather than by myself. I think there’s an additive quality to having other people around you who appreciate the same movie/play/TV show than going it alone. And maybe that’s why a lot of us aren’t laughing at the written word. It’s just so solitary in comparison.

Anybody else laugh more in a crowd than alone?

Jennifer Crusie is a favorite author but I find I actually laugh out loud when I listen to the audiobooks. I am currently doing a re-listen of Lord of Scoundrels and find myself snickering all through my drive time.

So I re-read The Rosie Project recently, after many, many, years since I read it. I’m happy to say it’s still as laugh out loud funny as the first time I read it.

There are some funny scenes in the Kate Daniels series. I always chuckle when I think about Kate calling here kitty right before she meets Curran, or much later in the series when she and Curran go to Roman’s home to ask him to officiate at their wedding (practically any scene with Roman makes me smile).

There are very few truly funny romance historicals IMHO, but a few that I have read made me giggle and laugh out loud in places. My favorites: The Bridal Season by Connie Brockway; and A Week to be Wicked by Tessa Dare is so funny and cute. Love Colin!

And no one ever mentions this author, but I LOVED Ridiculous by D. L. Carter. Laughed throughout the whole book.

It’s fairly easy to write angst and drama, but very hard to make people laugh. I wish more writers would write funny and clever plots.

Many books make me smile (the books written by Jennifer Crusie or Loretta Chase, for instance) but I do rarely laugh with one. I can only think about Penny Reid’s ‘Beauty and the Mustache’ –in that book, I found a scene in which I really laughed out loud. It’s rather surprising, considering that part of the book is about something as hard as the illness and death of a parent. It could be related to the fact that I’m Spanish. Let me explain.
I’ve always thought that humour is something very personal and, partly, it relates to your culture. Many American romance novelists –for instance, Susan Elizabeth Phillips or Julia Quinn– tend to the slapstick situations. I don’t usually find it funny, although I can accept them in a contemporary romance. It falls flat in a historical one. I feel closer to the typical British humour, with its irony, sometimes sarcasm. My own Spanish culture tends to black humour, and I think that’s why I did connect with the aforementioned Penny Reid‘s book.
You can’t imagine the jokes we make about the COVID-19, even being one of the countries with a highest rate of people dying in relation to the population. It’s cruel and hard, and people from other countries find it sometimes very disrespectful, but it’s the way we cope with things.
That’s why I think that, in part, humour is related to your culture.