Alie Benge is a Wellington-based essayist. Her essays have been published in Takahē, Turbine | Kapohau, The Spinoff, and others. She holds an MA from the International Institute of Modern Letters, and in 2017 was joint winner of the Landfall Essay Competition
Romance novels are more than cringey sex and shirtless men in kilts. Alie Benge discovers the power of the female as she becomes the genre's latest convert.