I'm working with someone on their romantic novel which focuses on the male protagonist and is all from his POV. The writer is female and she's slightly concerned that this is too different from the formula of most romantic fiction. I've been racking my brains for novels, old or new, that feature or tell the story from the man's POV- other than Nicholas Sparks The Notebook etc, I'm drawing a bit of a blank...I'm sure they exist though! Can anyone here think of examples?

Loads and loads of male gay stuff - great oceans of it. And lots of it is written by women and mostly for women, in the so-called 'slash' (fan fiction) and 'original slash' (original stories, not fan fiction) genres. Even I've written a gay male comedy romance novella - sadly out of print now, or I'd give you the details!

If you want something of real quality, you couldn't do much better than Forster's Maurice. If you want something a bit less literary, but still good, you could try William Corlett's Now and Then - that's absolutely full of overblown, desperate passion.

I think Nick Hornby and Tony Parsons do this kind of stuff.

Was also thinking Nick Hornby. Also, Mike Gayle.

Thanks- some good thoughts there. I suppose what she's looking for is the male equivalent character you'd find in classic romantic fiction- a bit bodice-heaving-style- is that what Nick Hornby does? I thought his were more literary fiction, albeit in a mainstream kinda way?

This looks like an interesting list at the more high-end commercial, mildly literary end.

https://booksaremyfavouriteandbest.wordpress.com/2012/07/17/top-ten-tuesday-lad-lit-for-readers-who-love-nick-hornby/

Must admit I don't know about the more genre end. I'm sure it exists - though as Catkin says, maybe more in LGBT .

Thanks Emma- interesting that this is called either lad-lit or dick-lit, as opposed to chick-lit and....women's romantic fiction I guess?

There's a new novel out by Mark Mills called Waiting for Doggo.  I wasn't dreadfully impressed with it myself but it is male point of view  romantic fiction written by a  man http://annegoodwin.weebly.com/annecdotal/terrific-title-for-another-novel-waiting-for-doggo-by-mark-b-mills

Thanks for this Anne- will check it out and spread the word to the author who is researching the market. I do love the title.

I recently read a Mills & Boon Historical novel, called "Unlacing Lady Thea", where the story has both male and female protagonists, and which is told from alternating points of view.

If I ever get published, I'll probably be in that category, too  Why shouldn't blokes have romantic experiences? We're not all football, booze and a choice of bawdy attitude or utter shyness! Not even those of us who work in IT.

And why worry about following a formula in any case? Isn't fiction supposed to be imaginative and thought-provoking?

There was a lovely little essay some years ago, in Slightly Foxed, by a female writer who loved Georgette Heyer, and whose father had been a great fan, not her mother. At the time she didn't think anything of it, but looking back now, knowing more about life and men and her father, she realised that for him the men in Heyer were deeply satisfying to identify with: handsome and well dressed but just as three-dimensional as the female characters, and just as much looking for a soulmate and finding one in the heroine.

I think it's probably significant that Heyer herself was what they used to call a man's woman - extremely forceful and uncompromisingly intelligent, grew up largely among men, preferred men to women, and traditional male qualities to traditional female ones. (There's a lot of quiet satire in the novels of the helpless female who just wants to be looked after, and the dull, protective chap who wants a wife he can be protective about... ).

Good romantic fiction doesn't always come from where you'd think it would.
Edited by EmmaD at 10:57:00 on 03 February 2015

HI Anna,

My last book Love Byte was written with a male protagonist in the first person too if that's any help??

David