All right, friends, I’ve been sadly remiss in reading and reviewing romance novels in this space, and we’re going to take a moment and correct that. I’ve got two novels and two novellas for you today, mostly from old faves but with one new author discovery.
(The new author discovery is embarrassing because omg Shana Galen has been around forever and it’s weird that I haven’t read any of her books before. Don’t judge me, just recommend me which Shana Galen books I need to read next.)
Trust Me, Laura Florand
The angst scale has clarified a lot of things for me, including one of the reasons I keep coming back to Laura Florand, whose books feature not just angst but really delicious food. Trust Me is the third in a series I haven’t read, which ordinarily wouldn’t matter but here matters — a bit. Our heroine, Lina Farah, is recovering from an attack that happened in the second book in the series, which made me feel slightly behind the times.
But there isn’t too much information missing here: She’s recovering from a trauma, and she falls for the black-ops guy who’s been tasked with her protection. This is the kind of set-up that can lead to high-handedness on the part of the protector, but Florand manages (mostly) to show that Jake’s main wishes for Linah are happiness and freedom. He doesn’t want to wrap her up in cotton wool; he wants her to get her life back. It’s a refreshing stance from a black-ops guy in a romance novel.
(Before you ask: Yes, I reported back to Whiskey Jenny on this book. Obviously. I would never read a book with a black-ops-guy hero and not tell Whiskey Jenny about it. I value our friendship too much for that.)
A Duke by Default, Alyssa Cole
What a better situation we are in now than a few years ago. A few years ago, I was pestering everyone to read Alyssa Cole’s Radio Silence trilogy, and mostly people did not know who she was. Now she is a Big Deal in Romance, and I am living for it, not least because it means she’s in the middle of writing several serieses that I adore. A Duke by Default is the second in her Reluctant Royals series (the first was A Princess in Theory), and it’s about a woman called Portia who’s trying to get her act together. She accepts an apprenticeship with a swordmaker in Scotland (this is modern day, so calibrate your expectations accordingly), who turns out to be a surprise duke.
A Princess in Theory stays my favorite in the series for now, but A Duke by Default is pretty fucking great too. Portia does brilliant work as the swordmaker’s publicity department, but continues to undervalue her skills as she’s been taught to do by her family. Along the way, she starts to find ways to adapt to her brain’s wiring in ways that maximize her talents — which makes this a very satisfactory romance in the sub-genre of protagonists learning to love themselves as well as their partners. There is also a #swordbae hashtag and some alluring glimpses into the love life of Portia’s sister, who I dearly hope will star in her own book soon.
Mrs. Brodie’s Academy for Exceptional Young Ladies features two novellas by one of my longtime faves, Theresa Romain, and a new-to-me-but-good-heavens-why-has-it-taken-this-long author called Shana Galen. I don’t know to what extent romance authors play around in shared worlds, but can I say, having read Mrs. Brodie’s Academy for Exceptional Young Ladies, that I would be all for it. The school is designed to appeal to the daughters of gentry, but the skills it teaches range far beyond dancing and mathematics, to forgery and fighting and faking accents.
Though these two novellas are vastly different, they each feature a second-chance romance, which imo is the best path to take for a romance novella. “The Way to a Gentleman’s Heart,” by Theresa Romain, reminds me a little of Rose Lerner — another of my faves! Marianne Redfern always thought that she would marry Jack Grahame, until she learned that he was betrothed to a heiress. She fled her home and came to London, where she has worked hard to establish herself as a talented cook at Mrs. Brodie’s Academy. But now Jack Grahame has appeared on her doorstep and threatens to unsettle her whole tidy life. In this story you may expect plenty of delicious food and emotional negotiation; and it’s a wonderful change to see a historical romance where neither character enjoys extravagant wealth. (Hence the Rose Lerner comparison!)
Shana Galen’s “Counterfeit Scandal” is tonally entirely different, which again, I adore. This is what shared-world romance can offer us! It’s like Jane Unlimited!
Ahem, anyway. “Counterfeit Scandal” is about a spy called Caleb whose work required him to fake his own death years ago, leaving behind his beloved Bridget, an artist and counterfeiter who had just learned she was pregnant with his child. Eight years later, Caleb is back in town with a price on his head, and Bridget is determinedly trying to find the child she was forced to leave at an orphanage years before. My one note on this one is that space constraints don’t really allow for a resolution of Caleb’s plotline, which leaves an asterisk on his HEA with Bridget and little Jimmy.
What romances have y’all been enjoying lately?