Good Romances: They are About the Romance

Lots of stuff happens BEFORE they meet.

One of my criteria for good romance is the plot "needs to focus on the relationship's growth, not on the final declaration of love."

That remains the same between traditional and M/M-Romance.

On Votaries I provide the following analysis (from 2012, referencing posts from 2007): 

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Romances fall into two categories: character-driven and "world romance."

I use the term "world romance" to correspond to "world fantasy," novels which are more about the world of the characters than about the characters themselves.

In "world romance," the story centers on the hero and heroine overcoming obstacles in their personal lives before they can meet. In chick-lit specifically, the story centers on the heroine's friends, how often she goes shopping, what she does in her church/work/volunteer group, etc. etc. etc. It's Sleepless in Seattle (don't meet until the end) versus You've Got Mail, While You Were Sleeping, and Lakehouse (ongoing relationship, no matter how strange).

Same actors--more satisfying.

I prefer the character-driven romance (You've Got Mail) to "world romance" (Sleepless in Seattle). I have very little interest in world fiction generally (Tolkien being the huge exception), and so can't comment much on it. Hence, all my comments are directed at the character-driven romance.

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I feel the same about M/M-Yaoi romance. I don't read exclusively "slow-burn" romances (those where the sexual relationship only begins at the end of the book) since they can be as filled with irrelevances as a "world romance." I do search for books where I learn more about the couple as a couple--as opposed to reading several hundred pages of one person complaining to friends about not being a member of a couple.

Here are some "character-driven romances" from a variety of genres that take place in fully developed worlds yet remained focused on the lovers:

Actor and the Earl series by Rebecca Cohen (Elizabethan England)
Blood & Chocolate (THE BOOK!) by Annette Curtis Klause (contemporary clan of werewolves)
Fifteen by Beverly Cleary (the 1950s)
Glass Mountain by Cynthia Voigt (upperclass NYC society)
Hemingway's Notebook by Jackie North (Great Depression)
Howl's Moving Castle (the movie) by Diana Wynne Jones (fantasy world)
The Lion and the Crow by Eli Easton (early medieval England)
Jane Eyre by Bronte (mostly focuses on the couple--lots and lots of stuff!) 
Queen of Attolia by Megan Turner (fantasy world)
Samantha and the Cowboy by Lorraine Heath (West)
Serpent of Time by Eugene Woodbury (time travel: Japan)