The formula of a romance novel is simple: man falls for woman, overcomes several difficulties and wins her over in the end. No book cover is complete without a muscular man and a sensual woman holding each other in a passionate embrace. The cliché that this pulp is only read by lonely spinsters is false: there are plenty of married women and men who just can’t get enough of it. Without getting too serious, Guilty Pleasures confronts us with the human need to escape into a dream world.