Leave it to Leonor #408

This week’s final takeover is by Britt Fiocca. Britt and I became friends via Nicole the Troll and the things we have bonded and texted about include but are not limited to: Bennifer 2.0, Hunter Harris as our patron saint, Taylor Swift’s style (or lack thereof), celebrity conspiracies and feuds, [redacted], Harry and Meg, the entire Don’t Worry Darling press tour, celebrities who can [redacted], texts that start “can I be mean for a second?”, NYT connections, Virgos as mothers (me and her mom), and so on and so on. I love her so.

I’m so so excited for you to read her dissertation-level essay on romance novels. You can reach out to her directly at [email protected] anddddd I will be BACK in your inbox next week!

This week, I’m thinking about romance novels. To be quite honest, I am always thinking about romance novels. I can find a romance novel for every story, for every random fact I learn, or off- the- cuff comment I hear from other people. Recently, like most everyone else on the internet, I read the London Times Ballerina Farm story. I was alternatively incredibly annoyed and deeply deeply sad. The story starts very much like a romance novel. Young, beautiful, hardworking ballerina in training (at Julliard!) on the cusp of her career. A chance encounter with a handsome (I’m embellishing!) man while attending a hometown basketball game. He’s on her flight back to New York! He wines and dines her! Cue happily ever after!

To many, this is exactly how romance novels function, right? Meet cute followed by some amount of plot together, and culminating in a happily ever after with marriage and kids. I cannot deny that I have read many iterations of that book. I can even think of several ballerina books I’ve read in recent years. In Jay Hogan’s Off Balance, our hero ballerina must retire and return home due to a recent medical diagnosis. He is left to find purpose (and love!) in the aftermath. The hero of Tessa Bailey’s The Sweetest Fix uses his family influence to secure his ballerina love interest’s place on the stage. Obviously, she is incredibly angry about this (cue our third act break up) and they do not reconcile (he must grovel!) until she has made it on her own merit. Talia Hibbert has a ballerina story too where a ballerina struggles with the physical challenges of her job and what it means to love an ex-con who is so different from her posh upbringing. 

The London Times article details that this particular ballerina heroine walks away from her budding career and moves to what is undoubtedly a lovely farm on a multimillion dollar piece of property in Utah. Eight beautiful healthy children shortly follow. A supposed sustainable existence with fresh vegetables and adorable farm animals. It is an undeniably wealthy and privileged existence! The off hand dark side being that her husband encourages her to manage it all without child care and she is reported to be so exhausted that she has to take to her bed for days at a time. I hate to tell you that I saw a Tiktok where she opens an (unwrapped) birthday present while repeatedly stating how much she hopes it is tickets to Greece (they’re millionaires!) and it in fact ends up being….an egg apron. As with anything, it is a lifestyle people can choose of their own free will just as much as it can be one that people are forced into. I imagine it would be incredibly difficult, unthinkable even, to look into the faces of those eight children and feel regret, even more to admit to it, safely, in such a space. Talk about a dream, deferred. 

Romance novels get written about in definitive terms. In false dichotomies. Romance novels are a dangerous part of the trad wife pipeline and encourage readers to ignore violent, possessive behaviors from their partners. Romance novels are a feminist manifesto that ruin relationships and set expectations too high. Romance novels are guilty pleasures and silly fluff that exist as far away from literary fiction, the craft of writing, as possible. Romance novels are basically just porn. Imagine me, repeatedly slamming an ERRR buzzer. I ask why should pleasures always be guilty? (though if you enjoy guilt with your pleasure, please read Sierra Simone!). And there are wonderful stories out there with adult film stars.

Does porn not tell a story? Is it wrong if I want to read a book just to be horny? Is sexual desire or perhaps the lack thereof completely separate from the act of falling in love? Of forging relationships? Of discovering what it is you want and need for yourself and having the courage to ask for it? Is every book you read a reflection of your life? Must all characters be aspirational in romance? I know that isn’t true for literary fiction. There are dark romance novels I have no desire to read. Main characters who treat one another in ways I find heinous. There are popular romance novels I have no desire to read. Often those get made into movies! Romance novels, like most things in life, do not exist as a monolith. They are as varied in purpose and method as the writers and readers who craft and adore them. 

Romance writing, like any creative endeavor, is worthy of criticism. Each book like a painting, like a poem, like your favorite episode of television has its own vision that exists both in and of the context around it. Many romances, and much of the ones published by major houses, are skewed white and heterosexual. But to decide that the entire genre is only one thing is to miss so many wonderful books. Queer romances. Poly romances. Romances with a wide array of BIPOC characters. I have read books with ace characters. With ghost heroines and heroes. Pirates! Books that take places entirely in a Belizean jungle or the Arctic circle. I have read characters learning their way through kink. Romance with sex workers. Trans historical romance. Open relationships with non-traditional happily ever afters. I have read books that disappointed me. Books where the grovel is not enough and I want a main character who fucked up to piss off! I have laughed at books that are both incredibly silly (dumb even!) and yet, a delightful reading experience. I do not want to only read books that connect to my own personal experience with characters that make the exact decisions I would make. That is the joy of reading, no matter the genre and in particular with genre fiction. 

I do not read monster romances because I want to embrace my taboo sexual desires. Though, those are no one’s business! I can contain multitudes! I read monster romance because it is FUN. And here I am not speaking solely of SJM or Ice Planet Barbarians. The wealth of monster romance extends far. There’s Kathryn Moon and Kimberly Lemming and Zoey Draven and L.C. Davis and C.M. Nascosta and Liliana Lark and Kresley Cole. I read romance so I can send my romance chat friends messages like “You will not believe what is going on with his long lizard tongue!” or “I am so stressed! I don’t know how they are going to figure this out!” The need to constantly categorize this genre in particular strikes me as its own type of rigid control. Let the people be horny if nothing else!

When I first thought about writing this for Leonor, I was gripped by the need to provide a starter’s guide to romance. Time Magazine recently published a great list. What are the classics? The mainstays!? The more I thought about it, the more I realized that it changes day to day for me, mood to mood, and person to person. The syllabus of romance recommendations I want to craft is going to change depending on the reader asking for it. I want to tailor it to you, gentle reader! The only real requirement here is that romance novels have a Happy Ever After involving the main characters in the book. This can be two people! Three! Four! They can live separately and never get married! But they must be happily in love. So here are ten-ish books that I cannot stop thinking about. Some of them I read recently, some I have read repeatedly, or even long ago.

1. What is Love? Jen Comfort. This is my favorite contemporary I have read so far this year. This book is SO HORNY. Two drastically different people vie for the win in Jeopardy (or what is very close to Jeopardy) and try not to completely lose their minds over each other. The learning geography scene? Seared into my psyche. 10/10 for sexual tension and banter. My catnip.

2. The Love Remedy. Elizabeth Everett. My favorite historical romance of the year so far. Call the Midwife but some light bondage? Ok! Our beleaguered elder sister heroine is trying to keep her family’s pharmacy afloat but her intellectual property has been stolen too! Her only hope is a former prizefighter single dad private investigator? His voice is hoarse because he got punched in the throat one too many times? His nose is crooked and his shoulders are huge? Say no more.

3. The Winter King by C.L. Wilson. Fantasy/romantasy novels are often too long. More than 600 pages? The main couple’s story stretches across more than one book? I could read four books in the time it takes to read one romantasy duet. I just usually want them to get a more cut throat editor! This book is under 400 pages. There is magic. I think the hero looks like The Witcher. These two are hot for each other from the jump but equally suspicious. This is a master class in fantasy romance writing. 

4. Love and Other Disasters by Anita Kelly. Three words: Top Chef romance. Our nonbinary MC London is buttoned up and would crushing the competition if they could stop staring at our chaotic bisexual MC Dahlia and her amazing hair!!! Please, I love these two. Anita Kelly is so good at making me cry. At tender loving care between characters. Dahlia is a recent divorcee who is dealing with the aftermath of admitting that she doesn’t want the picket fence and the 2.5 kids. I love her. This book is also the start of a loosely connected series featuring friends and siblings of our main characters. Each book made me cry and to be quite honest, I resent it. 

5. What I Did for the Duke by Julie Ann Long and Waking Up with the Duke by Lorraine Heath. They both have Duke in the title, I am counting them together! If push came to shove, these are my two favorite historical romance writers. What I Did for the Duke involves a widower seducing his nemesis’s younger sister (for romance reasons!) while she thinks he’s helping her make her childhood best friend fall in love with her. What could go wrong? What I love about this book is that his grief is so beautifully handled. He loved and actively mourns his first wife. He falls for our heroine and there is no comparison or jealousy or rewriting of history there! The grand gesture at the end involves a Titian painting! I rest my case. Lorraine Heath (the GOAT! sorry everyone) is a master at starting a book where I must ask myself “how the hell is this going to work out?” I will leave you with the premise of Waking Up with the Duke: man who was paralyzed in drunken carriage accident asks his best friend (driver of said carriage) to impregnate his wife for him because he owes him one and she wants a baby! They are secretly hot for each other anyway. Excuse me? Bonus points for the secondary love story involving the hero’s mother and her much younger artist boyfriend.

6. Thirsty by Mia Hopkins. There is a lot of dark romance out there involving men who have been to prison. Oftentimes they are wrongly accused or they are in fact quite “bad” with only a morality chain connecting them to our hero or heroine. Salvador is not wrongly accused and he’s not a “bad boy.” He was involved in his father’s gang and went to jail for it. Now he has to navigate secure housing, finding a job, and his incredibly hot but distrustful neighbor, Vanessa. Vanessa is a single mom who once loved a man involved in the same gang. It is a juicy, angsty premise and let me tell you, these two burn up the sheets. I love this entire series and the sensitive way it deals with life after incarceration. 

7. Wicked Abyss by Kresely Cole. Maybe you read Bride or The Fake Mate and want more paranormal romance? Kresley is the Dolly Parton, the Aretha Franklin, the Celine Dion. Maybe I am unhinged to recommend book #17 in a nearly 20 book series. The Capricorn in me wants to demand you read all of them (and if you read all those SJM books, don’t start! You can do 20 mass markets!). This one can function as a standalone IMO though some of the lore may be lost on you. This to me is the “Shadow Daddy” to end them all. Abyssian, the King of Hell, will continue to turn more demonic by the day if he does not find his reincarnated mate. There are wings! Horns! Reddish skin! Piercings in interesting places…The mate in question, a Fey princess, is hiding in the mortal realm, at Disney World, with a job as Cinderella. Ha ha! These two alternatively prank, snark, and lust after each other once they’re on page together. Chef’s kiss! Kresley Cole also has a phenomenal narrator for the audiobooks of this series. Robert Petkoff, the man that you are!

8. You & Me by Tal Bauer. Okay hear me out! Ex-ormon divorced dad moves to Texas so his son can play Friday Night Lights football. Britt, babe, what!? Here’s the thing! I don’t care about religion or football! But this MC falls for another single dad with a Friday Night Lights son. He is grief stricken and lost and so desperate to connect with his son that he decides to be a booster! In Texas! Please. There is so much to love in this book. The tender friendship, the trials of parenting, the bedazzled football shirts, and whew, the way they fall in love. Late in life discovery of bisexuality? Conflicting emotions about leaving the Mormon church? Seducing your best friend by buying all his favorite wines? This is what I want from Hallmark movies. 

9. WAGs series by Naima Simone and Men at Work series by Tiffany Reisz. I was not going to write this list without category romance. You want to read romance but you are embarrassed about shirtless dudes on covers or lovers in a clinch? Grow up! Naima Simone’s WAGs series (sorry I know I am talking about football again but like, at least it’s not hockey?) involves twins and mistaken identity, oh no I am in love with my best friend/personal assistant and she is moving to Ohio?!, and lastly, one-night-stand-turned-accidental-pregnancy for two people who swore never to love again! There is angst and heat and many hijinks. Reisz’s Men at Work is a series of holiday based novellas. All of these subvert expectations of the genre. The Halloween story involves an older heroine and her younger sibling’s best friend, the Christmas/Hanukkah story features a Flashdance style welder bisexual heroine who completely dismantles her love interest, and the Thanksgiving story includes the best telling off of your toxic family at the dinner table scene of all time! Also these characters are putting it DOWN.

10. You Should Be So Lucky by Cat Sebastian. Probably the most popular book on this list. I am ride or die for Cat Sebastian. It is deeply upsetting to me that I have read all her books and now must wait for her to write more. This book involves baseball and grief. So many books on this list involve grief and sports, I apologize. Here we have a sweet down on his luck golden retriever befriending a reserved black cat reporter. This book reminds me so much of another favorite of mine, Work for It by Talia Hibbert. Both involve prickly, anxious, anti-social (one would almost say unlikable!) characters that fall ass over head in love. One thing I love in particular about reading romance is the vulnerability (other people’s! Not mine!). Cat Sebastian is sensational at revealing the vulnerable underbelly of her characters and making it all deeply moving and relatable. The jars of cherries! IYKYK. 

11. Whiteout by Adriana Anders. Did you grow up loving Twister or Lake Placid? Deep Blue Sea? Anaconda? This is for you! As a bonus #11, Whiteout is a romantic suspense book that takes place almost entirely in the Arctic Circle. Ford, our jacked scientist, and Angel, the cook at McMurdo Research Station, uncover a conspiracy involving a virus and ice cores (it doesn’t matter). But they have to race across the ice and cuddle for warmth in tents and risk their lives on snowmobiles! They find an abandoned hut with hot water and a bed just in time! Hehe. A bonus that it is a romantic suspense novel that does not involve Navy SEALS or a police officer hero.

While many of these romances can be found at your local library, please know that my romance novel pen pal turned friend, Lauren, who I send hundreds of unhinged texts a day, recently opened a romance bookstore, Tropes & Trifles in Minneapolis (with Caitlin! Hi Caitlin!) Lauren is even better at recommendations than me. If you live nearby, please go in person! If not, you can order from their website or Bookshop. Do I refresh their website once a week to check if merch is available yet? Don’t ask me silly questions!

This week in reading. . .
I am working my way through C.L. Wilson’s Tairen Soul series. I don’t really think it needs to be five books, but every time I think about starting something else, she dials up the intrigue by 5,000. The heroine’s competitive himbo group of guards? Where are their books?! I also started Joanna Lowell’s A Shore Thing which involves a bicycle race across England with a RAKE, baby. On my TBR is Cleat Cute by Meryl Wilsner and Unwritten Rules by K.D. Casey. I blame the US gymnastics teams. . .and the rugby teams. And their shorts. And Challengers.

This week in listening/movies. . .
I listened again to the You Are Good (formerly Why Are Dads) episode about The Silence of the Lambs with Harmony Colangelo in preparation to see Longlegs, which takes a lot of inspiration from the Hannibal Lecter classic. Silence of the Lambs has been a favorite movie of mine and Clarice Starling feels like a seminal character to my being. But the movie is deeply flawed and I love the care that this podcast takes in talking about why and what it has meant for trans people. I think I will engage in one of my favorite self care activities which is taking myself to a movie solo in the middle of a weekday. 

Speaking of movies, no kissing in the Twisters movie?! They cast that charismatic man and the girl from Normal People and they don’t kiss??! Perish the thought. All I ask is that somewhere out there a romance novelist picks up the baton and I have an incredibly sexy Twister romance in my future. Will I still see this movie and holler at the screen? Of course. The original Twister movie is a romance masterpiece. 

This week in TV. . .
I’m watching Signora Volpe, per a good friend’s recommendation. Oh my god! Sylvia is a former spy now hating being a manager (deeply relatable) at MI6. After some blah blah work drama, she takes off for her niece’s wedding in Italy and proceeds to wear amazing clothes, solve crimes, and flirt with the hot police captain. He may be a cop and also have a shady past, but GOOD LORD he is hot. Their chemistry. . .Signora Volpe, I know you won’t do me dirty like Miss Scarlett & The Duke. This is not a Scandi level crime show, fyi. It is highly enjoyable and anyone who can send me the links to all her outfits. . .email me!

Happy to report that F1 is back this week from summer break. 2024 so far, as the F1 girlies reading this know, has been BONKERS. Last year’s boring season of Max Verstappen dominance has given way to Carlos! George! Lando! Oscar! Charles! Lewis! All not only scoring podiums but WINNING THE RACES. THIS MAKES ME SO HAPPY.

Also hello! Paralympics in Paris begin on the 28th! More sports, more hotties. I will be watching!

This week in a newsletter/on the internet. . .
Do I want to start my own business? No. Do I enjoy baking? Also, no. Am I good at baking? Definitely, no! But I love Bronwen Wyatt’s Bayou Saint News. I was riveted by her recent How to start a cake business edition which chronicles her experience and advice about running a cake baking operation. Also, her images of her cakes? GORGEOUS. I want to stare at them all day and also have a taste. Her hurricane prep issue is also essential reading.

My husband watches a lot of sailing content on Youtube and consumes a lot of media about boats in general. Back in February he hurt his back and had to spend a lot of time on the couch. We started watching Sailing SV Delos, a Youtube channel chronicling the adventures of one man, his girlfriend (now wife), and sometimes his brother and various crew members sailing around the globe*. Why is this so captivating to me? I am fascinated by how they provision the boat, by their constant need to repair it with only the tools on hand, by the mental health struggles they sometimes face, by how hard and yet how exciting living this way seems. They are now raising their toddler on the boat! You have a baby! On a boat?!

*for a romance novel with an accurate look at the cruising lifestyle (look at me with the correct terms, babe), read Float Plan by Trish Doller! (See, I told you I had a book for everything! Don’t even get me started on pirate romance!)

Also please respect my privacy at this time…J. Lo, you know I do think it is best you run, girl! Sorry, but no one can ever make me hate her. I watched Anaconda this week and I will watch Shakespeare in Love as it is the only movie where Ben Affleck is a good actor. He has one great line and delivers it with haughty, frustrated aplomb! That is his wheelhouse (Leos!)! Don’t argue with me!

This week in google searches. . .

• Are all the renaissance popes related to each other

• Pj masks villains

• Maid in manhattan press tour

• Costco busy times

This week in art things. . .
Amy Sherald retrospective at the Whitney in Spring 2025?!?! Planning my visit starts now.

This week in shopping. . .
I do not want to plug cursed Am*zon but for vacation my mom (my son’s beloved Lola) bought reusable water balloons for the beach. They are so smart! Magnets! Easy for little hands to refill and throw with glee.
[ED NOTE: we have these and LOVE them]

I also bought Jeffrey Campbell Jelly flats from Anthropologie after my very cool friend Lauren (an equally cool but different Lauren from bookstore Lauren) posted them. Only time will tell if I can pull them off. . .

This week in one good thing. . .
My son has a terrible awful battery operated lizard toy that I recently overheard my husband tell him was a “dinosaur” or “sort of like a dragon, not a real animal.” I was obviously like “No! Frilled lizards exist!” I ended up googling frilled lizard videos and the laughter that ensued was truly the best thing. My husband and son both have a public laugh and a private laugh. A goofy infectious genuine laugh that I hear from both of them semi-rarely when something really tickles them. A rolling little curlicue of a laugh. If life were a cartoon, it would be a hot pink squiggle in the sky. The way they laughed at this truly outrageous animal video was the best moment of my life recently. I wish I could have bottled it. 

This week in a quote. . .
“So much of what I see reminds me of something I read in a book, when shouldn't it be the other way around? I don't really want an answer. I just want to send this cosmic question out into the void. So good night, dear void.” - You’ve Got Mail

Me, wondering if I should start a romance novel newsletter 
(gentle readers, let me know!),
Britt

The majority of Britt’s book recommendations can be found here.

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