Reminders of Him is marketed as a romance, a genre of popular fiction that has long been a dominant element of the publishing market. In the decade since Hoover’s debut in 2011, she published more than 20 titles, all romances, and all best-sellers. It is that very productivity that has long given the romance genre its lightweight feel among critics. Third only to murder mysteries and political thrillers, the romance genre, despite such steady popularity, has long maintained an uneven reputation among so-called professional readers, academics, critics, and trendsetters in publishing who sometimes look down upon the romance with its formula plots and happy endings.

In her copious interviews (she maintains a public profile on social media), Hoover acknowledges her use of the elements associated with the romance. She embraces the moniker of a romance writer. Her signature novels investigate the emotional life of hypersensitive characters, both men and women, who are at once lonely and yearning for love, searching for the validation of a significant other. The hunger of lust, the damage from long buried secrets, and the toxic impact of betrayal all compel her plot points. She offers a cinematic sense of characters who find themselves in dramatic showdown scenes where their emotions are inevitably laid bare.