The Bridges of Madison County clearly falls within the romance genre; it is a love story pure and simple. And it has all of the romance elements: a mysterious, sexy stranger who enters the life of a house-bound woman possessing untapped passions waiting to be released all within an intimate or sensuous or exotic locale and complicated by various impedimenta to be overcome before the couple can fulfill their love.

Although Waller's book strives to be more than just another romance novel per se, it nevertheless comes out of that generic category.

The particular twist ending where the romance does not entirely work out is, of course, also of ancient tradition.

The original Francesca in literature was Francesca da Rimini whose tale of thwarted love was immortalized by Dante in his Divine Comedy — and later in many other forms by among others Tchaikovsky — and...