D.E. Stevenson was a 20th century Scottish novelist writing romance fiction before, during, and after World War II. By analyzing her life and dissecting the genre's formulaic properties, I will show how The English Air is representative of the ways some women coped with the eras of conflict of the two World Wars. In a critical analysis of the novel itself, I will show how Stevenson's attention to Anglo-German relations propels it beyond a light-hearted example of the genre as a whole, pushing against the prescribed requirements of what romance fiction must be. Though Stevenson has never before been studied through an academic lens, her novels were popular and successful, which suggests that this kind of fiction met the needs of readers during the early to mid-20th century, while coping with the devastation and uncertainty of war. / Master of Arts