There are romance readers who won't read women's fiction because "If I want realism, I'll look at my own life, I don't need it in my books."
When I was a kid in junior high and reading romances, 1970s-era Harlequins and Barbara Cartlands were fine for me. But, I was delighted as I got older to find out that romances, even Harlequin/Silhouettes, really expanded into what's now considered to be "women's fiction." For example, Kathleen Korbel's Silhouette Special Editions from the early 1990s dealt with everything from an illiterate hero to a heroine with a Down's baby, and I think they're some of the best examples of the genre out there.
Unfortunately, in the mid-'90s, category romances were taken over by way too many baby books--every other title was "Baby on Board," "Unexpected Delivery," or another insipid take on the subject. That's when I stopped reading them, even though I was working at Waldenbooks and able to get them with my discount. Now, the only romances I buy are Nora Roberts trilogies and the occasional book written by one of my old favorites.
Loretta Chase finally published her sixth book in fifteen years this summer, and I snagged it off the shelf after a customer brought it up to the register. I didn't even know she had a new one coming out. The customer laughed when my eyes nearly bugged out of my head when I went to ring it up; "Loretta Chase has a new book?!? How did I not know this?" She'd never read her before, but was delighted to have me recommend some of her old titles from the "other books by" list in the front of the book.