AKRON, Ohio — There are lots of things that aren’t selling during the recession. But sex isn’t one of them.

Similar to the Great Depression, when “Gone With the Wind” was the best-selling novel, people are looking for ways to escape their money troubles. So many are turning to romance novels to forget about things like unemployment and shrinking retirement funds.
“The romance industry is doing well ... because in tough times like these, people want to be entertained and they want it to be affordable. Our romance books ... have always guaranteed a happy ending,” said Katherine Orr, a spokeswoman for Harlequin Enterprises.
Certainly not all romance novels are about sex, though that’s a big part of the genre’s appeal. (Which brings to mind a Time magazine story that reported folks are buying more condoms. Couples could be trying to avoid having another mouth to feed until the economy stabilizes, or just having some almost-free fun, but that’s another story.)
Lori and Tony Karayianni of Toledo, Ohio, who write together under the pen name Tori Carrington, know romance novels. They have had more than 40 books published, the majority of them with Harlequin and most of which the writers describe as hot and, yes, sexy.
“Reading romance novels won’t help pay your bills, or erase the worry of an impending foreclosure, or even cure an illness. But what it does do is allow you a short escape from those staggering realities — and ultimately leave you refreshed and refocused and more psychologically able to deal with them,” said Tony Karayianni.
Harlequin, the mistress of romance novels, showed a 32 percent increase in sales in the final quarter of last year compared to the previous year.
Another factor that helps the Harlequin tales, along with happy endings and covers that sport bulging bodices and beefcake, is their cost — generally $5.99 or less. Sometimes the prices of the paperbacks are even more enticing when several are bundled together online or at stores.
“Not only are they an affordable form of entertainment, they celebrate and reinforce what is truly important in not merely your life, or our lives, but everyone’s lives: love and sharing and human connection,” said Lori Karayianni.
A reader can “make friends with characters not all that different from her. Characters that are going through many of the same struggles she is, even as they overcome problems both large and small,” she said.
They also allow a reader to escape to an alternate reality — as is apparent in the couple’s new novel, “Unbridled.” Certainly, if the description on the back cover is correct, the book could make most adults forget about the bills piling up in the junk drawer:
“Carter Southard is cooling his heels in jail when classy attorney Laney Cartwright strides in on her mile-long legs to spring him. Uh-oh. This naughty bad boy’s got even bigger trouble because their attorney-client privilege is about to take a sizzling detour.
“The sex is hot and wild — totally unbridled! But scorching the sheets is all this guy from the wrong side of the tracks has in common with an uptown girl — right?”
Dianne Harper, president of the Northeast Ohio Romance Writers Association, thinks when things are looking poorly, people turn to fiction of any kind.
“And romance,” she noted, “is the great escape.”