ABSTRACT
This chapter is a study of twenty-first-century popular romance novels that feature outlaws, including Suzanne Enoch’s 2008 Regency romance novel Before the Scandal, whose heroine, Alyse, steals and hides food in order to avoid starvation, and the highwayman who sweeps her off her feet does so in part with promises of material comforts, including seductive meals and strawberries. In this and other romance novels, Noone explores this linkage beyond simple identification of food within the text and examines the ways in which the presence and absence of food becomes a prime concern for romance protagonists within these outlaw narratives.
