When I started this book I expected that there would be letters missing here and there, having known for a while that Jane's sister Cassandra destroyed a portion of Jane's letters. But I just realised how frustrating it is that there are longer periods of missing letters.

I was reading a letter Jane wrote to her brother Frank about the passing of her father and the personal items he has left behind, which are to be given over to Frank. That letter is from 29 January 1805. Then there is the note [letters missing here] and the next letter after that is from 11 April 1805. It's a letter addressed to her sister Cassandra and Jane's conversational tone is much more good-humoured than in the last letter, obviously the months have passed and she and her family have dealt with the immediate tragedy of her father's passing. However, I can't help but feel sad about the fact that we don't have the letters inbetween those two, to see how she and her family dealt with the grief etc. It's such a shame those letters were destroyed!

content warning for mentions of stalking, manipulation, assault, rape, coercive control, abuse, and the romanticization of the aforementioned.

I'd like to start off by saying I am aromantic and not much of a romance reader myself (although I don't mind a romance subplot if it's done well), so I'm asking this as an outsider to the genre. I first remember hearing the term "dark romance" as a teenager, and at that point it seemed to refer to any romance book that featured and romanticized stalking, manipulation, assault, rape, coercive control, or other abuses between the protagonist and their (usually her) love interest. Books like Twilight, 50 Shades of Gray, and Throne of Glass come to mind for me first when I hear the term, although I know that they are probably a bit too out-of-date to meaningfully represent the genre today.

Lately, I've been seeing more and more conversation about dark romance, and in particular I've seen more and more people say that "real" dark romance does not involve any abuse or assault between the romantically-involved characters. If that is the case, then what distinguishes a dark romance from a regular romance? Is this a popular position among dark romance readers or a controversial one? Is there a different genre title for books that do feature abuse or rape (and to be clear, here I am referring to specifically abuse and rape, not impact play or consensual non-consent or any other kink) in a romanticized or eroticized way?