New kinship patterns are the main drama factor in the recently emerging
subgenre of the erotic romance: stepbrother erotica. These largely
formulaic New Adult novels are currently booming in the US-based market
of electronic literature. Stepbrother novels usually feature a newly
married couple, the parents, aiming to build a blended family whilst
their adolescent offspring fight illicit desires towards each other as
they are now, in their parents’ eyes, virtually brother and sister. Much
drama ensues, but ultimately, love conquers all, and the illicit
becomes accepted, the extraordinary becomes ordinary, and the abnormal
is normalized. I discuss the romantic formula of heterosexual
stepsibling relationships, arguing that stepsiblings in love is not
simply an erotic or exotic transgression of the incest taboo, but
rather, the new normal in romance literature. As such, it continues and
amends the ever-developing formulas of romantic literature by
deliberately colliding family with romance, yet overcoming it. This
romantic formula does not only provide a pattern for writers to employ
and commodify but also enables readers to be seen as active agents in
their everyday uses of literature.