Romance, plus.
There is some excellent storytelling going on over in the romance genre nowadays, as I was telling my friend Janice in book club last month. I started recommending titles to her and then I thought, why not just tell everybody?
This may be the best romance novel I’ve read in, I don’t know, the last five years? It has everything you could possibly want and then some: a complicated, totally believable heroine, one of the sexiest heroes walking around fiction on two legs, terrific dialogue, a plot with a couple of truly hair-raising reveals, the best brother-sister relationship I’ve ever read (two, actually), and one of the best ensemble casts ditto. And then there is Davy, the FAS brother Jessica is parenting. Higgins pulls no punches here, making the entire novel un-put-downable from beginning to end. Closed door, mostly.
Read this for Jake’s relationship with the six kids. Funny and poignant, and very much open door.
The hero is so damn delightful, but his mom, oh, his mom. Great dialogue, too. Door way open.
A lost-and-found relationship where the hero is a recovering addict, which Bowen handles superbly without letting it take over the storyline. Door open.
One of the scariest villains you will ever read, all the scarier because Crusie puts the reader in his head and we get to watch his obsession with the heroine increase one completely rational–to him–step at a time. Shiver. Closed door.
Book Review Monday Chatter Anything For You Crazy For You Emma Chase Good Boy Jennifer Crusie Kristin Higgins Sarina Bowen Sarina Bowen and Elle Kennedy Steadfast Sustained
Sexier than Jim even??? Surely not!
Have you read Keepsake, the one that follows Steadfast? I love Sarina Bowen. Not many writers can convincingly sell a virgin hero in a contemporary romance, but she does it. The emotional damage that both the hero and heroine have to navigate is pretty compelling, and doesn’t play out the way you might expect at first glance.
Also, Jenny Crusie’s blog is wonderful if you’d like to know–in detail–about her process of writing. I’ve been a fan of hers since the early 1990s.