Hybristophilia is the clinical term for falling for dangerous men, and it's why serial killers on death row get marriage proposals by the hundreds. Romance publishing figured out how to sell that same instinct as fiction nearly a century ago.

Ksenija and Sue (and a new guest co-host) trace the "dark romance" trope from Wuthering Heights through Twilight to BookTok, testing the three big arguments in defense of the genre, the double-edged misogyny debate, and why the fantasy of the man who's dangerous to everyone but you keeps resurfacing every generation, dressed as something new.

📚 Books Mentioned

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• Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë: https://amzn.to/4gbQLJ1
• Twilight by Stephenie Meyer: https://amzn.to/4geauYL
• The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux: https://amzn.to/4qlGmPZ
• Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë: https://amzn.to/3RVlHW9
• Beauty and the Beast by Madame de Villeneuve's: https://amzn.to/4gyXHkY
• Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier: https://amzn.to/4ge5YcG
• Outlander by Diana Gabaldon: https://amzn.to/4g0wasD
• Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir: https://amzn.to/3UiYs93
• Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry: https://amzn.to/3UiYqOt
• A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness: https://amzn.to/4xGfbBA
• A Spool of Blue Thread by Anne Tyler: https://amzn.to/4x45nla
• The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry: https://amzn.to/4zkVpNM

💌 Our Substack & Show Notes: https://transatlanticbookmarks.substack.com/

📚 Read Ksenija's Novels: https://transatlanticbookmarks.substack.com/p/publications

📚 Ksenija on Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6449766.Ksenija_Popovi_

👉 CHAPTERS

00:00 Hybristophilia and the Dark Romance Controversy

01:06 A Surprise Co-Host and the Mailman Conundrum

06:47 From Wuthering Heights to Twilight: A Dark Romance History

12:35 Three Arguments in Defense of Dark Romance

23:04 Fiction as Coping: Does the Genre Actually Harm Readers?

29:13 The Misogyny Argument, Cutting Both Ways

38:58 Tropes Hollywood and Publishing Can't Quit

41:58 Why Women Are Drawn to Dangerous Men

49:07 Masculine and Feminine Energy, Tony Robbins and Polarity

1:04:27 What We're Reading: Book Recommendations