In Regency romance Viscount in Love, Eloisa James has written a working draft of a great book, and my random thoughts on Stephen Hawking

 

There is nothing fresh or new about a Regency romance about a heroine who paints with -- shocking -- oils, instead of watercolors.  But it is unusual to have a heroine who works really hard at painting.  Viscount in Love, by Eloisa James, would have been a great book if it had leaned more into heroine Torie's painting.  At the end we learn SPOILERS

 

that she is such a great painter that she had been part of the Royal Academy (or something) since she was 16, which is a huge honor.  And throughout the book we have her internal monologue on her thoughts about her paintings and what she is trying to accomplish and how she wants to make them better.  But there is so much we never learn.  Who taught her to paint?  Did her dismissive father hire tutors for her when she was young?  Did she spend a lot of time at exhibits, or with other artists?  At one point she comments that she would never have become such a great painter if she were not illiterate (she has undiagnosed dyslexia) --  but I want to hear so much more about this. There's a documentary about Stephen Hawking called A Brief History of Time (much more interesting than the book Hawking wrote of the same name, which is about physics and of which I understood not a word.  Well, maybe a word here and there but certainly not a sentence).  That documentary demonstrated that Hawking would never have been a great theoretical physicist if not for his disability.  For example, according to the documentary, turning a page was so difficult for Hawking that he wouldn't do it until he was sure he understood every word on the page before him.  How does Torie's illiteracy similarly lead to her genius as a painter?  

Also, I'm no art historian but even I know that Impressionism started in the late 1800's, as a reaction to photography.  Now that people had a different way to obtain accurate likenesses of themselves, painters were freed to interpret their vision of the world more freely.  Torie seems to have anticipated this movement by at least half a century. 

Much of the plot of Viscount in Love is a distraction from the Torie-as-artist story.  Hero Dominic was engaged to Torie's sister for three years before she dumped him and he immediately set his sights on Torie.  The scandal and ickiness of this is not given enough space to breathe. Torie and Dominic and Dominic's adopted children get into a dangerous situation at a giant market.   This episode doesn't add much to the story, except showing us that Dominic can handle himself with a weapon.  Yay, him, but without a future dreaded kidnapping that fact is irrelevant -- a Chekhov's gun that never gets taken down from the wall.  (But, points for the lack of kidnapping.) 

There appears to be a whole back story about Torie being outed as illiterate between the first chapter of the book and the main action two years later, but we don't hear much about this.  Maybe it's in a different James book, but this is the first book in this series.

But, again, all of this is just a distraction.  I may be prejudiced as I am very fond of writing about artists, basically as a stand-in for writers.  (My characters Animal and Rose in my smutty naked sex slave book Mindgames are artists, for example.)  But if you're going to have an artist acknowledged by the leading artists in society as one of the greatest artists of her time, you need to do something with that.  

For my review of other Eloisa James books, see here.  

Note from Jasmine Gold: As the name of this blog indicates, I write erotica. Check out my dark, dystopian novel about naked sex slaves, Mindgames. Your darkest fantasies, with a phenomenal plot and characters you will come to think of as beloved friends. Available on Kindle and Kindle Unlimited  and in paperback.  Or read my book of short stories about hot, consensual sex, The Mature Woman's Guide to Desire, available on Kindle and Kindle Unlimited.

 

Regency romance Something Extraordinary in another tour de force by Alexis Hall (plus bonus reviews of his Spires trilogy)

 

I love almost everything I have read by Alexis Hall, and even his books that I don't love I still like very much.  Something Extraordinary falls into the love, love, love category.

SPOILERS 

Hall specializes in romances about people who do not fall into traditional categories, not only across the gender spectrum but across the personality spectrum.  Something Extraordinary is the third book in Hall's Regency romance trilogy about a pair of obnoxious twins and their friends and lovers.  I reviewed the first book, Something Fabulous, here.  The heroine of Something Extraordinary is Arabella Tarleton, the twin who is certain (maybe correctly) that she is incapable of feeling romantic love.  The hero was a minor character in Something Fabulous who is a gay man.  Although I don't remember him clearly from the first book, I do have a vague sense that Hall has retconned him quite a bit. He obviously had to find a way to change his name from the ridiculous Harley Comewithers, which could not belong to any hero, so Arabella christens him Rufus.   In Something Extraordinary he is in his late 20's, in prime shape, a veteran of the Napoleonic wars, and more or less an orphan who was raised by his mean aunt.

The book begins with Arabella kidnapping a very drunk Rufus the night before his wedding to a woman his aunt chose for him, and attempting to elope with him to Gretna Green.  Rufus had been willing to go along with the wedding because he does not feel he deserves happiness, and to placate his aunt.  He is less willing to wed Arabella, but when he sobers up he realizes that if he doesn't marry her her reputation will be ruined.  Along the road to Gretna Green Arabella is shot, they both make some friends and meet some excellent lovers, and they come to love each other in a mostly non-romantic, pretty much entirely non-sexual way.  After the wedding, they both need to find a way to convince themselves and each other that that is enough -- that their relationship as best friends and platonic bedmates, with other bedmates as suits each of their fancies -- is not just enough, it's great.  

Like all of Hall's book, this one is talky, with characters apt to go off on philosophical tangents or give discourses on consent at any moment.  This is part of its charm.  But the bulk of its charm is the philosophy that any and every kind of love is good enough, that no one is required to fit into a conventional relationship, and that we all have a redemption arc if we choose to follow it.  

I truly think that at this moment Alexis Hall is my all-time favorite romance writer.  

 

 

Bonus reviews of the Spires series:  Glitterland, Waiting for the Flood, and For Real

 

 

Glitterland is one of Hall's earliest books, and it was originally self-published.  Both of these show.  The plot is a bit more simplistic than his most recent work, and the book needs a good copy editor.  I'm not quite sure how I feel about love interest Darian's crazy accent.  He is from Essex, a place I don't know that I have ever heard of but seems to be somewhat like an English version of Jersey Shore (as presented in the reality TV show of that name, not the actual place, which is quaint, beautiful, expensive beach town after quaint, beautiful, expensive beach town).  The relentless presentation of Darian's accent didn't really bother me, but I felt like it should have.

Glitterland's hero is Ash, who describes himself as mentally ill -- his diagnoses are manic depression and clinical anxiety, and these are no joke.  Ash has to be careful to follow a regimen of medication and self-control, and is prone to anxiety attacks whether or not he slips up. But Ash's real problem is that he uses his very real mental illness to act like a complete jerk.  In some ways the plot is reminiscent of the fantasy series The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever, which follows the adventures of Thomas, a man from our world who suffers from leprosy and is deposited in a fantasy world.  He has to learn to disregard all of his training about how to keep himself healthy, but is also, well, a complete jerk.  Like Thomas, Ash has to figure out who he is and who he wants to be aside from his illness.  

Unlike in Hall's later books, he does not develop Ash's love interest and foil, Darian, which makes him a somewhat flat character.  

Nevertheless, I really enjoyed this book and highly recommend it.   

 

Waiting for the Flood is part of the same series as Glitterland, I guess because they both are set in university towns? Oxford, I think.  Waiting for the Flood was fine.  It's a romance B, a Hall romance C.  It consists of two novellas. The first one is about Edwin,who has had trouble getting over his ex-boyfriend Marius.  The second one is about Marius. 

I didn't love either of these characters.  Edwin is supposed to be sweet, but just came across as much, much younger than his early 30's.  His love story with Adam seemed rushed, to the point of creepy and potentially love-bombing.  

Marius is unpleasant, and not in the whiny but adorable way of many of Hall's characters.  He's just kind of a jerk, and it's hard to understand what Edwin ever saw in him.  He is an artist who has not created any art for a while (I won't say why; that would be a spoiler, but also it doesn't really matter).  He also has a relatively-well-managed eating disorder that Hall doesn't really do much with.  I also don't really understand his life since he left Edwin and moved out of their house.  He seems to have been couch surfing for the last three years?  Where does he keep his stuff?  What is he living off of?  His love story with Leo is okay, although as with Edwin I have trouble seeing what Leo sees in him.

One of the joys about reading these older Hall books is to see how much he has developed as a writer.  As I said, these books are romance Bs.  Compared to some of Hall's more recent books, such as Something Extraordinary, which really are extraordinary -- well, it should give hope to every writer that there are better things ahead.  

 

For most of the time that I was reading For Real I was thinking that I would write a review along the lines of:  An overriding theme of Hall's work is his characters learning to accept themselves (often through the love of another good man), no matter what their career interests, kinky desires, sexual orientation, or place on the gender spectrum. The only rule is do no harm, unless the person you are doing harm to wants it.  For Real took this a step too far for me, to an age gap romance.  Hero Toby is 18 and hero Laurie (a nickname for Laurance which disappointingly is not based off of Laurie in Little Women, but instead a character is some erudite work I have never heard of) is about twice that age.  Hall presents Toby as being inexperienced (because he is young), and flailing about his life goals (because he is young), but basically a fully formed adult.  Nuh uh.  Hall probably wrote this book before the flurry of activism about how young violent criminals should not receive life sentences because your brain, especially your judgment, is not fully formed until you are in your late 20's.  I could not buy Toby as a character.  When I was 19 I actually had a sense that I didn't have the best judgment.  But what I didn't understand at that age is that people can't read my mind.  I assumed that if I felt something, the person I felt it towards knew what I was feeling whether or not I expressed it and had some kind of parallel or maybe opposite feeling. The idea that I had to actually communicate was just insulting.  (These days, much of the kink in my smutty stories revolves around communication during sex.)  Toby has the opposite problem:  He's screaming his love to Laurie and Laurie doesn't want to hear it.  Until he does.

And then there's my other problem with age gap romances, which I wrote about here:  Life has stages.  Laurie needs to be having kids now or he will lose the chance forever.  Toby is not in that stage.  Yes, I understand that a lot of people don't want kids, but in your late 30's you need to sit down with yourself and think that through, because it's now or never.  

So that's along the lines of the review I thought I was going to write.  Until I came to the add-on short story at the end, about a minor character in For Real who rapes a student.  Like, there is no getting around this.  Leigh is an Oxford professor wandering around a college courtyard in the middle of the night.  His 18 year old student, Baron, happens upon him.  Baron has a crush on Leigh.  Leigh takes him up to his office, shames him into drinking after he says he doesn't want to, seduces him, tries to kick him out after Leigh comes, and then Baron turns the tables on him and gets all dominant and masturbates on him.  This story would not be out of place in the sadly now defunct BDSM Library, which published many non-consent stories (including mine, thank you).  But, Alexis, you could have warned me.  What were you thinking with this story?  I thought I knew you.   

 

Note from Jasmine Gold: As the name of this blog indicates, I write erotica. Check out my dark, dystopian novel about naked sex slaves, Mindgames. Your darkest fantasies, with a phenomenal plot and characters you will come to think of as beloved friends. Available on Kindle and Kindle Unlimited  and in paperback.  Or read my book of short stories about hot, consensual sex, The Mature Woman's Guide to Desire, available on Kindle and Kindle Unlimited.

 

Review of mapmaking Regency romance The Marquess Makes His Move by Diana Quincy

 

Spoilers in this review.

Regency romance The Marquess Makes His Move by Diana Quincy shines (so to speak) when it shows the details of a servant's life in Regency England -- the work that goes into polishing boots, for example.  Hero Brandon has to learn such skills when he pretends to be a valet in the household of heroine Rose.

If the rest of the book focused as much on details and less on a rather silly story involving bigamy and a villain who is more pathetic than evil, I would have loved it.  As it was, I wanted to know more about Rose's mapmaking, beyond that she learned it growing up, that she works hard at it, and that the maps are whimsical and have details that make me think they must have a scale that approaches 1:1.  

While I appreciated that after learning of Brandon's deception Kate took her time trusting him again, it also made the last third of the book drag to the extent that I wanted to nap as much as we are frequently told Kate wants to. 

Note from Jasmine Gold: As the name of this blog indicates, I write erotica. Check out my dark, dystopian novel about naked sex slaves, Mindgames. Your darkest fantasies, with a phenomenal plot and characters you will come to think of as beloved friends. Available on Kindle and Kindle Unlimited  and in paperback.  Or read my book of short stories about hot, consensual sex, The Mature Woman's Guide to Desire, available on Kindle and Kindle Unlimited.

Movie Mr. Malcolm's List is much worse than a cut-rate Bridgerton, with bonus reviews of bad novels by Suzanne Allain

 

When Regency romance movie Mr. Malcolm's List appeared on my Netflix recommendations a few days ago, I was pretty sure I had seen it when it was first released 2022, possibly even in a rare excursion to an actual movie theater.  I thought maybe I had even read the  2020 book by Suzanne Allain that the movie is based on.  But I didn't have a strong recollection of either.  

After watching the movie, I'm still not sure if I've seen it before.  I suspect that a month from now I will have again forgotten it.  It's that kind of movie.  Not truly terrible, just very bad.  

Mr. Malcolm's List has a perfectly serviceable plot.  So-called hero Jeremy Malcolm is the rich second son of a lord.  He wants to get married but not to someone who only wants him for his money.  He makes a list of qualifications he is seeking a in a wife.  He offends Julia Thistlewaite when she doesn't meet those qualifications because she can't carry on a conversation about current events.  

Julia seeks revenge by inviting her friend, heroine Selina, who is poor, to visit her in London and cause Jeremy to fall in love with her only to rebuff him because he doesn't meet the qualifications on her list.  (Selina's poverty never becomes a plot point.  At one point Julia gives her a nice hat, but it's not clear if that's because Selina can't afford her own hat -- her clothes are very nice -- or if Julia is trying to be nice. We never really understand any of Julia's motivations, so . . . )

SPOILERS  

Jeremy and Selina for some reason fall in love for realz.  Maybe because neither of them is interesting in any way?  Julia, meanwhile, falls in love for realz with Selina's friend Ossery, who for some reason has also fallen in love with her.

The movie obviously lends itself to comparisons with Bridgerton, since after all they are both Regency romances and they are both set in an alternate-history Regency England where people of color are fully integrated into every level of English society including the very upper classes. 

But that's like comparing the original Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory to the 2005 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.  They are both based on the same book, but the first is charming and unforgettable, while the second is an unpleasant money grab.  

I was put off by Mr. Malcolm's List from the first scene, which shows Julia and Selina as tweens at boarding school together.  I have seen elementary school plays where the kids were more convincing in their roles. I don't like to insult child actors, and as the movie continues it becomes clear that this terrible scene was a result of terrible direction, which we see throughout the movie. Poor Ashley Park, who is forced to play Selina's distant relation Gertie Covington as a (mentally ill?) character who can't stop giggling.  

After the boarding school scene we  jump forward to Julia's fourth season in London.  Having received no proposals, she is in danger of becoming an old maid.  This is not entirely surprising, because she is not only vapid but mean.  

Grown up Selina arrives.  She doesn't have a personality, per se, but she does have grace and a good understanding of the political questions of the day.  (Not slavery, of course, which is never mentioned as the foundation of the wealth in the movie, but whether Parliament should fund the building of more churches.)  Jeremy is smitten because she meets the criteria on his list.

In the meantime, Ossery shows up like a breath of fresh air.  He is debonair and devil may care, and he has come to town to woo Selina.  I really hoped he would succeed, because Selina came to life around him.  

Instead, much like in a dating reality show, after they have spent a few hours together over the course of a couple of weeks, Ossery declares his undying love to Julia, telling her that he will spend his life making sure her schemes don't get out of hand.  She laughs, delighted, as if nothing could be better than marrying someone who tries to smother her.  This love story is unearned and annoying.

Jeremy and Selina work through her scheming and get engaged, because for some reason all the other characters think they are perfect for each other.  I think Jeremy is better suited to Julia.  Jeremy and Selina will have a staid future as two sticks-in-the-mud, while Jeremy and Julia would have balanced each other out and maybe had some fun together.  

Finally, Julia has a cousin, Lord Cassidy, who appears thoughout the movie but remains a mystery.  Is he a dissolute alcoholic, or does he only drink to drown his ability to see the terrible romances growing around him?  Why is he afraid of horses?  

Bonus reviews of bad novels by Suzanne Allain

Like Mr. Malcolm's List, Allain's novel The Ladies Rewrite the Rules has a good enough premise.  Maxwell Dean is a cad who has published a directory of rich, eligible women so that poor younger sons and other men in need of a wealthy wife can try to marry them.  Heroine Diana Boyle, a rich widow, is one of the women listed in the directory.  She confronts Maxwell, reaches out to all the women in the directory to rewrite the rules (roll credits) so that the rich women are in charge, makes friends, falls in love, etc. etc.

Unfortunately the book does not live up to the premise.  SPOILERS

 

For one thing, Diana falls in love with Maxwell.  Really?  The characterization is so bad that it is hard to tell why she would do so, but apparently he's just . . . misunderstood?  Made a mistake?  Feels bad?

For another thing, Diana is a terrible person.  We are told over and over again that she endeavors to be like her mother, sweet and kind and generous.  But -- she completely overlooks her sister-in-law (the sister of her dead husband), an elderly woman who has been left impoverished because Diana's late husband left everything to Diana and nothing to his sister.  Diana spares no thought for this woman, other than to be annoyed by her.  

The book is just badly written.  Oh, it's grammatically correct and all, but if ever a writer needed to go back to a middle school creative writing class to learn to "show, don't tell," it's Allain.  Here's a quote taken from random.  Diana and Maxwell have been walking in a field that has just been crossed by a herd of cows. 

 "Might want to take 'er somewhere nice now, guv," Jim [Maxwell's groom] said in a lowered aside to Maxwell that was nonetheless perfectly audible to Diana.  "This place smells worse than a fat old man's cheeser."

Diana, who was thankfully already holding her handkerchief, was able to hide her reaction to Jim's comment behind it, and Maxwell was left to hope that Diana didn't know that "cheeser" was a slang word for flatulence . . . . 

The best character in the novel is an inscrutable butler who seems to maybe hate Diana but also is super helpful to her and very smart.  We never really learn his back story, except that Diana's husband did not remember him in his will.  I want more of him.  What I really want is for him and Diana's sister-in-law to sail off into the sunset together.

Allain's novel The Wrong Lady Meets Lord Right is a marginal improvement, but still felt like it was written by a 16 year old.  It is a Prince and the Pauper plot, with beautiful but poor Arabella pretending to be her sickly but rich cousin Isabelle for a season in London.  Remarkably nobody catches on.  Both women have improbable romances that improbably result in love and HEAs all around.  I was never convinced by any of it, especially by Isabelle failing to mention to Arabella that Isabelle's late mother had arranged her engagement to Arabella's love interest.  

 

Note from Jasmine Gold: As the name of this blog indicates, I write erotica. Check out my dark, dystopian novel about naked sex slaves, Mindgames. Your darkest fantasies, with a phenomenal plot and characters you will come to think of as beloved friends. Available on Kindle and Kindle Unlimited  and in paperback.  Or read my book of short stories about hot, consensual sex, The Mature Woman's Guide to Desire, available on Kindle and Kindle Unlimited.

 

Modern romance Love You a Latke by Amanda Elliot plays with but doesn't upend Hallmark movie tropes, with bonus review of better romance Sadie on a Plate

 

I knew almost immediately I was going to like modern romance Love You a Latke by Amanda Elliot.  The book is a modern romance featuring Jewish characters who live in a small town in New Hampshire.  Towards the beginning someone brings up the Anne Frank quote, "In spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart."  I was yelling to myself, as I always do, "That's what she said when she was safe in her attic with people bringing her food every day.  What did she say when she and her sister were dying of typhus in Bergen-Belsen?"  

And, guess what, heroine Abby said pretty much the same thing.  Abby is my kind of people.  

That said, she would have been better a better character if we had seen more of her grumpy, Luke from Gilmore Girls-like character, instead of her constantly telling us that she is a grumpy, Luke from Gilmore Girls-like character. 

Elliot evokes a lot of standard Hallmark movie cliches.  Small town versus big city.  Pushy parents.  Cafe owner trying to make a go of it.  But she plays with them in a really smart way.  Abby and hero Seth are both from New York City and have landed (separately) in a small town in New Hampshire -- the small town in every Hallmark movie.  Struggling businesses with a lot of heart, where the owners all know each other and work together.  Abby is roped into running the first-ever Hannukah festival for the town -- maybe for the entire state.  She grew up culturally Jewish but has not been part of the Jewish community for a while, and doesn't know any other Jews in New Hampshire.  Except, it turns out, she does -- annoyingly cheerful cafe customer Seth is also Jewish.  He offers to help her put the festival together in exchange for her pretending to be his girlfriend during a Hannukah trip to his parents back in New York.

They spend the eight days of Hannukah in New York, which in this book is just a small town multiplied.  Man, would I love New York if it were actually like this.  Holiday fairs and friends and basically happy, economically secure people everywhere you look.  

Abby's back story is that she had terrible parents and was a victim of their narcissistic abuse.  This part of the story doesn't particularly work for me.  The parents mistreated Abby in ways that were just kind of weird.  Elliott wisely downplayed this plot point, and although there was a confrontation with the parents in the end, a lot of it consisted of Seth dealing with them off stage.

The other part of Abby's back story is that she is desperately trying to make her coffee shop a going concern.  This point could have used a lot more details. We are never told why Abby wants to own a coffee shop, or how she came to love coffee.  

After the New York trip and the inevitable falling in love for realz, Abby and Seth return to the small New Hampshire town.  The Hannukah festival is a huge success, and so are they.  HEA.  

A lot of the story consists of Abby reconnecting with her Jewish life, which she had loved as a child despite her parents.  I enjoyed that part of the story.  Elliott kept it simple, focusing on food and holidays and not all the complications that accompany being an American Jew in 2024 when the book was published.  While Elliott writes about the frustration Abby experiences when people think Hannukah is the Jewish Christmas and want to treat it as such, there is (understandably) no discussion of anti-semitism or anything going on in the Middle East.  And, like the book, that's just fine.   

Bonus Review of Sadie on a Plate

 

Love you Like a Latke was a perfectly serviceable, even good, romance novel.  Elliot's earlier novel, Sadie on a Plate, was truly excellent.  

Sadie on a Plate is not the first romance novel I have read recently that is set on a reality TV cooking show.  It's not the first romance novel I've read recently where the contestant unwittingly meets another show participant on the plane flying out to film the show.  So not many points for originality.

But: this book shines because of the specificity about heroine Sadie's cooking. Why she loves cooking. How she learned to cook. What her perspective on cooking is.

The book also features remarkably good and realistic character growth for Sadie.  And the other contestants and Sadie's relationships with them are very well-drawn.   

My main criticism of this book is that the romance with hero Luke seems tacked on. Call me a cynic, but there is no reason why they can't wait until the show is over before groping each other in bathrooms and freezers, instead of risking both of their careers.  Sadie's character growth supposedly includes developing better judgment, but her actions with Luke go completely against this.  Sure, without Luke this book would not have been a romance novel, but it would have been better.  (That said, Luke is a good character who gave me all the feels when he came through in a pinch, and had a nice character arc of his own.)   

 

Note from Jasmine Gold: As the name of this blog indicates, I write erotica. Check out my dark, dystopian novel about naked sex slaves, Mindgames. Your darkest fantasies, with a phenomenal plot and characters you will come to think of as beloved friends. Available on Kindle and Kindle Unlimited  and in paperback.  Or read my book of short stories about hot, consensual sex, The Mature Woman's Guide to Desire, available on Kindle and Kindle Unlimited.

Totally and Completely Fine by Elissa Sussman is a beautiful meditation on mourning that hits all the romance tropes

 

Spoilers in this review.  

Totally and Completely Fine by Elissa Sussman hits the following romance tropes:

Small town widow with teenage daughter meets Hollywood heartthrob in chance encounter in the big city.

Sparks ensue.   

Small town widow runs a bookstore/craft shop in the small town.

Hollywood heartthrob comes to small town.

Hollywood heartthrob and small town widow decide to make a go of it.   

Hollywood heartthrob gets called away by his career.

Hollywood heartthrob realizes widow is more important than career and small town life is for him.  

This could be a Hallmark movie, right?  I mean, it is most Hallmark movies.  Just add in a Christmas fair.

But, Totally and Completely Fine turns the romance trope on its head.  

Heroine Lauren lost her husband three years earlier in a car accident.  She and her 13 year old daughter are still deep in mourning for him.  Both of them are just starting to come back to life.  

Lauren meets hero Ben when she is visiting her brother, who is a huge movie star -- along with the substance abuse, body dysmorphia, and unpleasant paparazzi that come with that gig.  Lauren and Ben hook up, and it's magical.  She returns to her small town happy to have had a fling.

And, honestly, her small town kind of sucks. I mean, it has the Hallmark stuff like everyone knows each other, small locally-owned businesses, etc.  But it is also gossipy and judgmental and often religious in the you're going to hell way.  Lauren had a reputation as a slut when she was a teenager and no one has every forgotten that.  

The bookstore / craft store is adorable, but it's also funded by Lauren's brother, who has movie star money.  I love that.  I hate books where there's a fundraiser for a local bookstore and now it's going to be just fine.  No!  That's not how retail works!  

When Ben unexpectedly shows up in the small town, Lauren and her daughter both have a lot of deep unfinished emotional work to do over the death of Lauren's husband before she can consider being with Ben.  When he suddenly decides to leave for a job, it's because he needs the big money the big movie role will bring him for reasons that kinda sorta make sense and don't make him an asshole.  When he decides to stay, it's actually beautiful.

Great book, great writing.   

 

Note from Jasmine Gold: As the name of this blog indicates, I write erotica. Check out my dark, dystopian novel about naked sex slaves, Mindgames. Your darkest fantasies, with a phenomenal plot and characters you will come to think of as beloved friends. Available on Kindle and Kindle Unlimited  and in paperback.  Or read my book of short stories about hot, consensual sex, The Mature Woman's Guide to Desire, available on Kindle and Kindle Unlimited.

Is ZomRomCom by Olivia Dade romantasy, or just a vampire romance with terrible pacing?

 

I'm not entirely clear on what romantasy is. I assumed it was Lord of the Rings but either Frodo or Sam is a girl, or they're both textually gay, or something.  But maybe all the paranormal romances I've picked up over the years when the library has been bare of new Regency romances have been romantasy all along?  

 According to Google, or the Google / AI mix that comes up now when you try to google something:

While a vampire romance can be considered romantasy, the distinction lies in the emphasis: traditional paranormal romance focuses on the romance with supernatural elements, whereas romantasy prioritizes world-building, politics, and epic quests alongside the romance.

The world-building of ZomRomCom by Olivia Dade is half-hearted at best.  It's set in an alternate reality where zombies and various supernatural beings exist, but also it's more or less 2025 in our world, except that people casually refer to "gods" and "hells" instead of to God and Hell.  The zombies are trapped in a city's walled innermost circle, and then there are walled concentric rings around it where some people live -- although most moved away after the original Zombie apocalypse, before the Zombies were trapped in the innermost circle.  Got it?

SPOILERS  

Now the Zombies have escaped.  They are running around the concentric neighborhoods, slurping brains (or not, because it's not clear whether or not these poor starving creatures ever succeed in finding a meal).  Heroine Edie, who lives in the first ring outside the zombie circle, decides to try to save her neighbors by warning them. She starts with her next door neighbor, hero Max, who, it turns out, is a hot vampire.  And also a TikTok fashion influencer who hawks uncomfortable underwear.  (For some reason, since he's crazy rich.)  Max reluctantly agrees to help Edie, because he's been in stalkery luurve with her for years, and maybe also because he actually cares?

So Edie and Max set out to warn people in the most desultory way possible.  There's so much -- SO MUCH -- hanging around.  Can't leave while it's dark, might as well have sex!  Oops, can't leave while we're hungry!  When they do eventually go on their brief excursions, they warn a few people -- apparently everyone else has already been eaten?  Or is hiding?  Or the neighborhood is so empty there's no one to save?  It's all very unclear.  And then Edie and Max are tired again, or it's dark, or they're hungry -- time to go back and rest and eat and have sex!  

Along their very slow attempts to save people they meet some charming counterfeiters who are also amazing cooks who live in an abandoned mall and are utterly unconcerned about the second coming of the zombie apocalypse.  And a group of tween girls who are also unconcerned and apparently have no parents and they are so upbeat and want to help!  Then there is more eating and resting and fucking (but quietly because the tween girls are around).  

Eventually, after who knows how much death and destruction (if any) has been caused by the escaped zombies, there is a battle.  It might be dangerous!  But fighting is so tiring!  

Now the battle has ended but there is a bigger one to come.  In the next book, which will star different characters from this book.  I'm not sure which ones because I  couldn't keep them straight.

I was reading this book at the same time that I was watching The Last of Us, a Zombie apocalypse TV show that is intense and amazing and scary as fuck.  I would sooth myself after the episodes by reading a few pages from Zom RomCom, which allowed me to fall into a peaceful sleep, just like our main characters after (and sometimes before) fucking.  

 

Note from Jasmine Gold: As the name of this blog indicates, I write erotica. Check out my dark, dystopian novel about naked sex slaves, Mindgames. Your darkest fantasies, with a phenomenal plot and characters you will come to think of as beloved friends. Available on Kindle and Kindle Unlimited  and in paperback.  Or read my book of short stories about hot, consensual sex, The Mature Woman's Guide to Desire, available on Kindle and Kindle Unlimited.