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''Welcome to Temptation'' is a contemporary romance written by Jennifer Crusie and released in 2000. The novel explores the love story between Sophie Dempsey, a screenwriter making a movie in the small town of Temptation, and the mayor, Phinneas "Phin" Tucker. Over the course of the story, they solve a murder and deal with conflict around Sophie's movie, which is alternately a documentary or a porn flick. The lead characters appear in supporting roles in the sequel, ''Faking It'', which centers on Sophie's brother, a secondary character in ''Welcome to Temptation''. Crusie, who has often defended the romance genre against critics, wrote the novel to deconstruct the complaints levied against the genre. The novel examines perceptions of reality versus fantasy and concludes that embracing a fantasy may lead to greater self-awareness. Through imagery and plot points, Crusie shows the shift in the power dynamics between the couple change as their relationship progresses, resulting in a more equal balance of power. Sophie's movie, which includes scenes taken from her courtship with Phin, provides an opportunity to explore the boundaries between private acts and public events. Using a protagonist who is also a con artist, Crusie highlights the inherent con in romance novels - that two extremely different people who have known each other for only a short time could live happily ever after. The book was well-received; reviewers highlighted its humor, dialogue, and more daring sex scenes. It was a ''New York Times'' besteller and was number two on Amazon.com's list of top contemporary romances of 2000. ==Background== As research for her doctoral dissertation, Jennifer Crusie determined to read 100 romance novels. Crusie had never explored that genre, and she was convinced she would find it difficult to wade through those types of books. To her surprise, she discovered that she enjoyed the genre, so much so that she became a literary critic for the genre and began writing romance novels herself. During the 1980s and 1990s, literary critics frequently dismissed the romance novel genre, often for contrasting reasons. Janice Radway contended that the genre is bad for women, blinding them to the difference between fantasy and reality. She posited that women turn towards books in this genre to get an emotional release denied to them in their daily lives, where they must devote themselves to caregiving and have little time for themselves. Other critics saw the genre as simply a rehash of stereotypical sexual and marital roles.〔 In the late 1990s, Crusie wrote several essays defending the romance novel against critics.〔 Crusie was also developing her own career as a novelist.〔 Lamenting the lack of the “edgy, angry feminist love stories" that she most enjoyed reading, Crusie determined to fill that gap herself. After writing several short category romances, Crusie transitioned to writing single-title novels. Her third of these longer works was ''Welcome to Temptation'', which was released in hardcover in March 2000 by St. Martin's Press. It was reissued in trade paperback format in September 2010. One of the secondary characters, Davy Dempsey, becomes the hero of Crusie's follow-up, ''Faking It''. The protagonists in this novel are secondary characters there.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Welcome to Temptation」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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