Short Takes for a Short Week

It's a short work week here in the U. S. (Monday was our combined Presidents' Day holiday), so here's one short post from me. I've been reading up a storm, and have a bunch of recommendations for new books from RNFF favorites, all later books in ongoing series:

Collateral damage. That's what well-heeled New York philanthropist Arden MacCarren is after her investment banker father and brother are arrested for masterminding a massive Ponzi scheme. Though she knew nothing about the fraud, Arden's left dealing with the fallout, despite being known as the weak one in the family. Looking for a safe space to hide from all the negative publicity, not to mention find a technique that will help her fight back against her increasingly debilitating panic attacks, Arden enrolls in a private drawing class. Having hot sex with the class's tattooed male model, a former marine, is just a way to help them both escape for a few moments from their own emotional wounds. Or is it? A story of two wounded warriors, both helping one another remember the fighter inside.

Best lines:
      "You saved me," he said. "They saved my life so many times, but you saved me, too."
     "I'm in good company, then," she said. When he looked back at her, one eyebrow raised, she added, "You taught me how."

Full-length books in Buchman's Night Stalkers series follow a predictable, yet still entertaining pattern: two heterosexual coworkers in the Army's SOAR (Special Operations Aviation Regiment Airborne) helicopter aviation support group strike sparks of one another during an initial action-packed mission, grow closer, spend a leave together, then return for one major mission that allows them to overcome any last doubts either may have had about making a long-term commitment. Our protagonists here are of the opposites-attract variety: Captain Justin Roberts, a sweet-talking Texan who can pilot a helicopter as easily as he can gentle a horse, and fellow Captain Kara Moretti, a mouthy Italian from Brooklyn who pilots the hottest RPAs (remotely piloted aircraft) in this woman's army. Yet despite their differences, Kara and Justin keep finishing each other's sentences, insulting and wisecracking their way through stressful situations while silently in mutual awe of each others' skills. Lots of cool tech, high-stakes action scenes, homages to (rather than stereotypes of) ethnic roots, and of course, heartfelt respect for competent military women.

Best lines:
"Families normally didn't happen in the same unit of the military. Hell, sex wasn't supposed to happen in the military at all—as if that made one lick of sense. Come on, people, corral a clue. Why would a career guy want anything less than a soldier babe?"

This follow-up to Maher's Rolling in the Deep, in which two coworkers won millions in the lottery, features the brother and friend of the lucky winners. Mexican-Italian Tony Lopez was supposed to be the successful sibling of the family, taking care of his younger brother and mother after his father passed, earning a business degree and running a successful store in his Queens neighborhood, marrying his childhood friend and parenting two beautiful daughters. But one divorce, one failing business, and one brother striking it rich later, and Tony is a man on the verge. Especially when the best friend of his brother's new love walks in the room. Cuban-European Beth Cody, single, pregnant, and happy to be both chalks up her raging lust for Tony to pregnancy hormones. But after the one-week friends-with-benefits deal she negotiates with him heads into deeper territory than she bargained for, can Beth reconcile her need for independence with her growing feelings for Tony? And that's not just a sell-copy tagline question, but a real issue, both for Beth and for readers wondering just how to keep their own sense of self while committing to a romantic relationship with another.

Best lines:
     "No doubt you think you've got this all handled, Elisabeth."
     That stops me. She never calls me by my full name.
     "You think, Oh, hey, I don't need a man. And guess what? You're actually right about that."
     I raise an eyebrow. It's not exactly what I was expecting her to say. I always assumed she disapproved of my lifestyle, that she wished I would settle down already.
     "You're a confident, competent woman," she says. "Don't think I haven't seen that. and admired it. You take excellent care of yourself and you make your own path. I love that about you, Beth."
     "Thanks, Mom, but—"
     "And I'll say it again. You don't need a man."
     "That's what I—"
     "But you are allowed to want one," she interrupts. "That's not against the rules, you know."

With so many historical romance authors dipping a toe in contemporary waters of late, it's a delight to find an author experimenting in the other direction. In Tempted, contemporary author Molly O'Keefe gives us a Western romance set in post Civil-War period, with protagonists attempting to figure out how to make a life for themselves in the wake of wartime trauma and upheaval. After seeing her once-abused sister now happily married (in book #1 of O'Keefe's Into the Wild series), Annie Denoe chooses to take her future into her own hands, moving to Denver and taking a nursing job with Dr. Madison. Luckily for her (though not so happily for him), the handsome doctor is nursing an addiction that often leaves him unable to do his job, a gap which Anne's medical training at the side of her doctor father leaves her all too ready to fill. When Madison offers marriage to protect her reputation, Anne finds his kiss far more interesting than his proposal. It's her best friend, army veteran Steven Baywood, though, not Dr. Madison, with whom Anne wants to explore her newfound interest in the carnal side of life. But Steven's war experiences, especially his time in the notorious Andersonville prison, have left him unable to be touched—emotionally and physically.

Best lines:
     "Do you love him?" Steven asked in a whisper.
     "I don't think that's as necessary an ingredient as my mother would have me believe. Do all those men love the girls at Delilah's?" [the local whorehouse]
     "Why are you doing this?"
     "Why not? Why shouldn't I?"
     "Anne, this is . . . shocking."
     "Well, maybe I am shocking."
     I am. I am very shocking, and no one ever noticed because I was so busy being invisible. And I love you. I love you so much and it hurts to be caught like this. Stuck like this with you. If I don't change things, they will never change.
     I will be like this forever with you.
     "Marriage is a very permanent step to satisfy curiosity," he said.
     "Are you suggesting another arrangement?"
     "Do you understand what you are asking?"
     "Yes . . . . I am asking you, if my marrying Dr. Madison in order to satisfy my curiosity about sex bothers you so much—are you volunteering to be my lover?"

What Do We Owe Our Exes? Elle Kennedy's THE SCORE

The latest addition to Elle Kennedy's New Adult Off-Campus series, The Score, focuses on the developing romance between college hockey player Dean Di Laurentis, the "king of one-night stands," and Allie Hayes, the girl who makes "little Dean" (i.e., his cock) pine for her and no other. Yet Kennedy's tale isn't the "teach/tame the philandering bastard the folly of his promiscuous ways by throwing a good-hearted virgin at him" storyline typical of old school romance (a large part of the appeal of the novel is that Allie, though she's had far fewer partners than has Dean, is in many ways more sexually adventurous than he is). Neither is the novel about being simultaneously resentful of and jealous of a man's right to be more sexually active than a woman is, as are so many other good-girl-heroine romances. In fact, the key to the fantasy of Kennedy's romance is that the villain of the piece is not sleep-around Dean, but Allie's nice-guy ex-boyfriend, Sean.

Reading The Score made me laugh at Dean's bawdy seduction attempts as he tries to win over the one girl who says "no" to any repeat performances after sleeping with him one time. But it really made me think why so many young women hold on to romantic partners long after everyone around them knows that the relationship has long run its course. And how many young women feel guilty if they are the ones to call a halt. What, if anything, do girls owe their exes?

The Score opens with Allie receiving increasingly desperate text messages from Sean, whom she's just broke up with—again. For the fourth time in three years. After being part of a couple since freshman year, Allie feels "like such a failure" for not making it work with Sean. "No, I feel like a quitter," she amends her thought; a quitter because "The last piece of advice my mom gave me before she died was to never give up on love" (Kindle Loc 62). Women teach other women that it is their role to nurture relationships, to pour their energies into emotional care-taking; when such care-taking fails to achieve the promised results, women are often made to feel, or make themselves feel, guilty about it.

Sean isn't evil; in fact, he's often rather sweet. But he can also be pretty un-sweet, especially when Allie's goals do not align with his. Their latest breakup came after Allie realized that while Sean had been fine with her plan to move to LA after college to pursue an acting career at the start of their relationship, of late he'd been arguing against her going into acting at all. His dream is for Allie to join him in Vermont, playing the role of happy housewife as he works at his father's insurance firm. And the arguments he'd been using to convince Allie of the rightness of his dream have involved far more verbal abuse of her acting talent than celebration of the bucolic Vermont lifestyle.

And so Allie breaks up with him. Again. For the last time, she swears. Afraid, though, because of her "terrible habit of wanting to make everyone happy, eve if it means sacrificing my own happiness" makes her scarily susceptible to Sean's sweet-talking ways (1046), Allie calls on her roommate, Hannah, for backup. But Hannah, out of town for the night with her boyfriend, can only offer her boyfriend's house as an escape. A house which said boyfriend just happens to share with the incorrigible, highly-sexed Dean. Allie, who's not a one-night-stand kind of girl, starts off the evening determined not to heed Dean's inevitable come-ons. Yet Dean's surprisingly easy to talk to, and, after a movie, a joint, and more than a little tequila, Allie wakes up the next morning hung over and naked—beside an equally naked Dean.

Allie feels anything but satisfied, even though the sex she and Dean shared was fabulous. "I'm such a slut. Okay, maybe I'm not. Maybe I'm just a twenty-two year old woman who had some no-strings fun for once in her life," Allie debates with herself after the fact. One-night stands make her feel "defiled," "ashamed," and now, having engaged in one only one day after breaking up with a long-standing boyfriend, more than a little guilty (721, 726). So guilty that Allie feels compelled to tell Sean what she's done when he calls with his heartfelt apologies and pleas for forgiveness and second (fifth?) chances). And later, when Sean tells her "I forgive you," Allie feels not just resentful ("because forgiveness implies that I'd done something wrong by sleeping with someone else, and that wasn't the case"), but also "relieved."

Intriguingly, it is the two men in her life who do the most to convince Allie that she does not owe Sean. Allie's tough father tells her he's glad she broke up with Sean:

    "Boy was too needy," Mr. Hayes continues. "I didn't like the way he looked at you."
     "How did he look at me?" Allie asks warily.
     "Like you were his entire world."
     She frowns. "And that's a bad thing?"
     "Damn right it is. Nobody should ever be someone else's entire world. That's not healthy, AJ. If your whole life is centered on one thing—one person—whatcha going to be left with if that person goes away? Absolutely nothing." He gruffly reiterates, "Not healthy." (3427)

And Dean urges her to drop the name/blame game:

    "But I wasn't kidding when I said I'm not into casual sex, okay? Every time I think about what we did this weekend, I feel—"
     "Horny?" he supplies.
     Yes. "Slutty."
     I don't expect the flare of irritation I glimpse in his eyes. "You want some advice, babe? Erase that word from your vocabulary."
     I suddenly feel guilty again, but I'm not sure why. Very reluctantly, I join him on the couch, making sure to keep some distance between us.
     "I mean it," he continues. "Stop slut-shaming yourself. And fuck the word slut. People should be able to have sex whenever they want, however many times they want, with however many partners they choose, and not get some shitty label slapped on them."
     He's right, but . . .  "The label is there whether we like it or not," I point out.
     "Yeah, and it was created by prudes and judgmental assholes and jealous pricks who wish they were getting laid on the regular but aren't." Dean shakes his head. "You need to stop thinking there's something wrong with what we did. We had fun. We were safe. We didn't hurt anybody. It's nobody's business what you or anyone else does in the privacy of their bedrooms, all right?"
     Oddly enough, his words succeed in easing some of the shame that's been trapped inside me since Friday night. (1315)


And this, perhaps, is where the fantasy of this romance lies: not in the fact that sex-loving Dean falls for sexually adventurous Allie, but that sex-loving Dean proves to be a sex-positive feminist, while nice-guy Sean proves to be a sexist asshat (examples of which come later in the story). Allie may need validation from men, as so many romance heroines do, but ultimately this validation is about affirming her rights—to her own plans, her own desires, and above all, her own sexual selfhood—not the rights of her male partner.

Or maybe there are just a lot more sex-loving sex-positive male feminists out there than when I was in college?

Elle Kennedy

The Score

Off-Campus Book #3

2016

I Want You to Need Me: Serena Bell's CAN'T HOLD BACK

You might belong in Hufflepuff,

Where they are just and loyal,

Those patient Hufflepuffs are true

And not afraid of toil

        (J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone)

Not only readers of fantasy, but broader conventional wisdom, insists that no one would ever want to be a Hufflepuff. One of the four houses of J. K. Rowling's wizarding school, Hufflepuff is where the "duffers" hang out, those do-gooders who are not smart enough, or courageous enough, or sneaky enough to gain entrance to one of the other more prestigious houses. "Nobody wants to be Hufflepuff," Actress Mindy Kaling tweeted this past September; Republican presidential candidates Marco Rubio, Scott Walker, and Ben Carson, who were "sorted" by the New Republic into Hufflepuff, all apparently took issue with the designation. Being though of as a hard-working foot soldier, just and loyal, is regarded by not just by actors and political candidates, but by much of the public at large as the ultimate insult.

Except not, I would guess, by many readers of romance. And particularly when it comes their romance heroines. Female leads who are nice, who live to serve others without any selfish desire for accolades or acknowledgement themselves, are often the ones whom readers praise the highest, whom they hold closest to their hearts.

This embrace of the good-girl heroine is an attempt to reclaim the value of the caretakers of the world, a role which is far more often associated with women than with men. I'd argue, though, that just as conventional wisdom needs to get over its too-easy dismissal of Hufflepuff and its character qualities, romance could do with a bit of examination of the problematic aspects of the female-as-caretaker role.

Which is why, perhaps, I so enjoyed Serena Bell's latest contemporary romance, Can't Hold Back. Its female lead, Alia Drake, is the quintessential Hufflepuff. With an absent father and a mother suffering from mental illness, Alia had to play the role of parent to her younger sister, Becca, from an early age. A task made all the more difficult by Becca's learning disability, a disability that the schools did not recognize nor acknowledge until Becca's teens.

But Alia never complains about the familial burden which has been placed on her shoulders, in part because she is by nature a caretaker: "she wanted to walk a different path, a path of service and purpose. She wanted to be where she was needed" (Kindle Loc 205). Alia's career choice reflects her commitment to her principles: she trains to become a physical therapist, helping the injured to regain their physical mobility (and almost as often, their emotional stability). Working with the elderly, with kids injured during sports, with vets returning from war, and helping take away their pain, Alia has found meaning in her Hufflepuff-like commitment to serving others.

In the novel's prologue, Alia and Becca are attending a party held by a fellow physical therapy student when they meet a young soldier. Alia's instantly drawn to the man, Nate Riordan, but almost as quickly dismisses her attraction, precisely because of her caretaker ways: "Alia's life, for better or for worse, had made her into someone who thrived on taking care of people. It didn't tend to work out well for her with guys who were more the fiercely independent alpha types" (111). Alia is such a caretaker that she immediately steps aside,  because "Becca needed a guy like Nate Riordan way more than Alia did" (111). By "giving" Nate to Becca, Alia reinforces her self-identity as a caring, selfless sister.

But things do not quite turn out the way Alia anticipated between Nate and Becca. A fact that makes things more than a little uncomfortable when, two years later, Alia snags a two-week job at a veterans retreat only to discover that one of her new patients is Nate. Her sister's ex. And the man she betrayed by writing letters on her sister's behalf while he was deployed, letters that made him fall for a woman who did not really exist.

Nate's suffering not just from lingering physical injuries sustained during a bomb blast; he's also suffering from "mystery pain," pain that no doctor can seem to pin down or alleviate. On the verge of becoming addicted to painkillers, and being unable to fulfill his commitment to a dead fellow soldier because of it, Nate flushes his pills and checks in to his old friend's rehabilitation center. Finding Alia temporarily taking his friend's place does little to calm the bite of Nate's pain.

At first, Alia tries to keep things professional between herself and her new patient. But that mutual attraction that Alia once repressed keeps popping back up; combine that with her commitment to helping those in pain, and a hurting Nate becomes almost impossible to resist.

I found it refreshing that after a therapy session that veers too far over the line into a romantic situation, Alia immediately reports herself to her boss. Because not only does the physical therapy code of conduct forbid sexual contact between therapist and patient; Oregon law can fine Alia, even take away her license, if such contact is discovered.  Repercussions from breaking those codes are real, and important, to Alia.

Even more interesting, her boss reminds her that Nate is not the only one at risk in such a situation: "But I've got to tell you, you're vulnerable, too. It's a powerful thing, stopping someone's pain" (1195). Power and vulnerability in the caretaker's role—not things I'd given much thought to before reading Bell's novel. Is there a danger for Alia that being a caretaker, being needed, just might be as addictive as a painkiller is to Nate?

I especially loved that it is not a confrontation with Nate or with her boss, but with her dependent younger sister that finally brings Alia to ask herself the really painful questions. Such as why did she push the younger Nate so hard toward her sister? Why does she have such a difficult time articulating what she wants in bed? Why is she so ready to take the "consolation prize" of being needed, rather than admitting that sometimes, she, too has needs?

Alia doesn't need to reinvent herself, to give over entirely her caring Hufflepuff ways. But she does come to realize that even a Hufflepuff can let a little Gryffindor, a little Ravenclaw—and even a little selfish Slytherin—into her life, without compromising her values, or her principles.

Or her status as a nice girl romance novel heroine.


Can you think of other romance novels that balance praise for the typically feminine role of caretaker with a recognition of its potential for denying the self?



Photo/Illustration Credits:
Nice Hufflepuffs: Hercollege.com
PT & Vet: Namaste Y'all
Code of Ethics: Illinois Physical Therapy Association

Serena Bell

Can't Hold Back

Loveswept, 2015

Fat as a Feminist Issue for Teens: Julie Murphy's DUMPLIN'

Kelly Jensen's BookRiot post this past summer on Fat Phobia in YA points out how rare it is to see a fat person in books for teens portrayed as anything but a villain, or at the very least, a person who needs to lose weight in order to be deemed worthy of happiness and love. Despite the rise in activism around issues of body size and fat acceptance since the turn of the 21st century, YA books have been slow to embrace fat politics. Kind of makes you want to bundle up the 20+ books listed as references in Wikipedia's "Fat Feminism" page and drop them in the hands of the nearly one third of American adolescents who are, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, overweight or obese.

Or you might want to give them a copy of Julie Murphy's new YA, Dumplin'.

As Dumplin's narrator, sixteen-year-old Texan Willowdean Dickson, explains,

     The word fat makes people uncomfortable. But when you see me, the first thing you notice is my body. And my body is fat. It's like how I notice some girls have big boobs or shiny hair or knobby knees. Those things are okay to say. But the word fat, the one that best describes me, makes lips frown and cheeks lose their color.
     But that's me. I'm fat. It's not a cuss word. It's not an insult. At least it's not when I say it. So I always figure why not get it out of the way? (9)

Willowdean has always been pretty comfortable in her body, at least by her own account. Her mom may be a former beauty queen who can't quite bring herself to accept her daughter's far-different figure, but Willow could always turn to her live-in aunt Lucy to give her unconditional love and support.

Miss Texas Teen 2014 & court

But six months ago, Aunt Lucy, only thirty six, died from a massive heart attack. Lucy's obesity—she weighed four hundred and ninety eight pounds at her death—was undoubtedly a contributing factor. And Will's mom, wrapped up in her volunteer work for the annual Miss Teen Blue Bonnet Pageant, can't seem to help Will mourn her lost surrogate mother.

And now, this summer, so many other things in Will's life are changing, things that feel completely out of her control. Her best friend, Ellen, becomes sexually active with her boyfriend. And El's been hanging out with her summer job friends, the skinny girls obsessed with the fashions they sell at Forever 16. Both things make Will feel that she and El, best friends since before first grade, are slowly but inevitably drifting apart.

And even more unbelievably, Will's coworker at Harpy's Burgers & Dogs, Private School Bo, former super jock and still super hot guy, seems to be interested in her. Like, really interested. And not just in her ability to keep a conversation going when he can barely string a few sentences together at a time. So interested, in fact, that he kisses her, out by the dumpsters at work. So interested that he and Will end up driving to the old elementary school for epic make-out sessions almost every night after work.

Will believes she's never been really embarrassed by her size before. So when Bo starts to take things beyond kissing, Will (and the reader) are both pretty shocked by her reaction:

His hands travel down to my neck and along my shoulders. His touch sends waves of emotion through me. excitement. Terror. Glee. Everything all at once. But then his fingers trace down my back and to my waist. I gasp. I feel it like a knife in the back. My mind betrays my body. The reality of him touching me. Of him touching my back fat and my overflowing waistline, it makes me want to gag. I see myself in comparison to every other girl he's likely touched. With their smooth backs and trim waists. (58)

And Will's negative reaction to Bo never seems to abate. Especially after summer ends and schools starts, and Will finds out that her secret lover is no longer attending private school, but is going to be in her very public school. So Will breaks things off with Bo, without really telling him why. Because Bo lied/didn't tell her the truth? Because he kept her a secret? Or because she kept him one, and is afraid of trying to merge her secret and her everyday life? Because who wants to constantly hear "how did she end up with him?"

After being teased one too many times by the school jerk boy about her weight (and kicking said jerk boy in the nuts), Will spends her week on suspension brooding and longing for her dead aunt. But when Will uncovers a blank entry form for the Miss Teen Blue Bonnet pageant amongst Aunt Lucy's old papers, an "obscene thought" crosses Will's mind. And before she knows it, she's signing up to participate in her mom's obsession: The Teen Blue Bonnet Pageant. And providing inspiration for a small group of other teens whose bodies do not meet the conventional norms of beauty to join her.

But this isn't a Disney Channel story, one in which the underdogs triumph, or are at least offered acceptance by the normative folks. Instead, it's a story about fighting against one's own internalized prejudices. And taking a stand for what everyone, not just the beautiful people, deserve.

As Will's new friend tells her when Will's on the verge of dropping out of the competition:

"Maybe fat girls or girls with limps or girls with big teeth don't usually win beauty pageants. Maybe that's not the norm. But the only way to change that is to be present. We can't expect the same things these other girls do until we demand it. Because no one's lining up to give us shit, Will." (325)

If this were a Disney Channel film, a potential new boyfriend, a passel of new friends, and a chance to compete for a cubic zirconia crown would of course lead Willow to recapture her old self-confidence. But instead, Murphy sets a harder path for Willowdean:  to create a new sense of herself, one that recognizes the hidden loathing she harbors within herself, for herself and for others, and to move past it. Only then can she find the courage to "step into her own light" (371).


Photo credits:
Miss Texas Teen 2014: voy.com
Thin Privilege: Everyday Feminism
Crown: Miss Universe Bahamas Application

No More Mrs. Nice Girl? Kristan Higgins' IF YOU ONLY KNEW

In the romance community, Kristan Higgins has the reputation of being really, really nice. Always ready with a smile, a joke, or a friendly comment is Kristan, to fans and fellow authors alike. The first time I met her in person, at the very first romance writer's conference I ever attended, she complimented me on the dress I was wearing and asked where I got it, making me, rather than her, big name author, feel like the center of attention. Higgins is clearly in possession of what my grandmother would have called "a kind soul."

Laverne & Shirley's disastrous turn attempting to run
"The Diner."

But sometimes niceness can shade uncomfortably into self-abnegation. I've long been a fan of Higgins' early books; The Next Best Thing is one of my all-time favorite romances, and I wrote about My One and Only in a previous RNFF post. But I haven't enjoyed her recent work (the Blue Heron series) nearly as much, in large part because I've been finding her heroines too abject to identify with or admire. The Perfect Match's Honor Holland is not just nursing a crush for her high school friend for years, but is secretly sleeping with him, in a friends-with-benefits situation that falls apart after Honor finally screws up the courage to ask her crush about his long-range intentions. Waiting On You's Colleen O'Rourke hasn't had a romantic relationship in ten years, ever since her boyfriend of four years abruptly told her he was marrying another woman, with no other explanation. In Your Dreams's Emmaline Neal, a tough-on-the-outside-only cop, is dumped by her once-fat boyfriend after he loses the excess poundage, rejecting her in favor of his fitness-mad trainer. Higgins has always been known for her humor, but in these books, I often felt that I was being asked to laugh at these women in their painfully ridiculous situations, as much as I was being asked to identify with them. I know a lot of people like this sort of humor, laughing at ridiculously inept women—witness the popularity of television shows like I Love Lucy and Laverne and Shirley (I'm sure those of you who are more pop-culturally literate could name a slew of more contemporary examples). But for me, being asked to adopt such a readerly position does not make me laugh; it makes me squirm with discomfort and shame on behalf of the women being made fun of.

Interestingly, the Blue Heron books were the first in which Higgins adopted a dual point of view, half of her story told from the POV of the heroine, half from the hero. To me, it almost felt as if to make room for her heroes' voices, to make them seem heroic even when we were seeing inside their more vulnerable, human selves, she unconsciously found herself diminishing her heroines. To make them so nice, so silly, that they almost disappeared as people.

The card Jenny should have sent to her ex's baby shower?

It struck me as significant, then, that while Higgins' latest book, If You Only Knew (which is not part of the Blue Heron series) contains two different points of view, they are not those of the heterosexual romantic pair. Instead, they are those of two (presumably white) sisters, both of whom are negotiating major difficulties in their married lives. Or, in the case of younger sister Jenny Tate, negotiating her relationship with her ex-husband. And the woman he married only a few short months after his and Jenny's divorce. And the baby her ex and his new wife are about to have, the baby that her husband always told Jenny "he wasn't sure the time was right, and he loved our life the way it was" (Kindle Loc 56).

Of course, since Jenny is the ultimate nice girl, she's stayed friends with Owen, has become friends with Ana-Sofia, and, when the novel opens, is attending their baby shower. Even Jenny herself terms such behavior "pathetic" (49). But still, she can't seem to stop herself; "I want so much to hate her—to hate them both—but they're just too fucking nice" (909). And so Jenny, in turn, continues to feel compelled to be nice in return—so nice that she ends up helping to deliver Ana-Sofia's child when the baby arrives unexpectedly early.

In comparison to her gregarious younger sister, shy Rachel seems to have reaped the rewards, rather than the pains, of being a nice girl. She's got a loving husband with a lucrative job, a beautiful home in the New York suburbs, and, after months of fertility treatments, triplet girls whom she loves almost more than she can bear. But Rachel's niceness does not allow her to see, never mind acknowledge, the fissures in her perfect life. Being a stay-at-home mom is all that she's ever wanted; admitting that taking care of triplets on her own might just have brought her one inch away from the "moms who look fifteen years older than they are. Who have inches of gray roots showing, who wear their husbands' clothes and smell like stale milk and spit-up, who are weepy and exhausted" is terrifying (209).

Confronting her husband when she suspects he's having an affair is the last thing that always-make-peace Rachel wants to do. Taking him back after such a transgression would have once seemed impossible. But now that she's so enmeshed in her suburban life, Rachel finds herself reconsidering her former unconciliating stance towards adultery. Wouldn't a nice wife forgive?

While If You Only Knew creates not one, but two female protagonists who are as ridiculously nice as Higgins' Blue Heron heroines, this book doesn't just feature overly nice women; it takes on the issue of female niceness itself, calling attention to its self-erasing tendencies in the lives of too many women. Though Jenny does find romance by book's end, If You Only Knew is more women's fiction than romance; both Jenny and Rachel coming to understand where the line between being nice and being too nice lies. While that line may be different for each sister, both ultimately negotiate a way to retain their self-identities as nice women, but women who simultaneously do not allow their very niceness to allow others to take undue advantage.

It made me smile to see that Higgins' recent Publishers Weekly apologia for the romance genre was entitled "Never Read a Romance Novel? Grow Up." Because there's no phrase "Mrs. Nice Woman," is there? It's only ever "nice girl." Girls (especially in America, white girls) who are only all too often taught to be nice to the point of erasing their own needs, never do grow up, do they?

So happy to report that Higgins's fiction is back to hanging out with the grownups, too.


Photo credits:
Laverne & Shirley: DVDtalk
Baby Shower no-show: Alpha Mom

Kristan Higgins

If Only You Knew

HQN Books

2015

Genetics and Romance: THE BOLLYWOOD BRIDE and PURSUED BY THE ROGUE

In the 1932 film adaptation of the 1922 British play A Bill of Divorcement, Katharine Hepburn (in her film debut) plays a woman on the verge of marriage. That is, until her father, who has been incarcerated in a mental institution for the past twenty years, shows up on her doorstep. Hepburn's character, Sydney Fairfield, had been told by her family that her father's mental illness was the result of shell shock he suffered during his military service in World War I. But her father's escape from the asylum brings the truth to light: Mr. Fairfield suffers from an inherited mental illness, an illness to which previous generations of Fairfields have also succumbed. And which Sydney—and Sydney's future children—may also someday face.

Katharine Hepburn and John Barrymore as daughter
and father

In good 1930s melodrama form, the selfless Sydney gives up her fiancé and offers to live with and care for her mentally ill father. There is no romantic ending here—unless one considers refusing to give birth to potentially "abnormal" children, and self-sacrificing one's own romantic future to care for a parent, a satisfying happily ever after (as, apparently, did the reviewer for the New York Times, which deemed the "closing scene" "splendid"). Even though there is no way to know for certain that she will inherit her father's illness, Sydney refuses to gamble, refuses take a chance on love.

Today, with the advent of genetic testing for many inherited health issues, it's possible (at least for those with insurance that will cover it) to be tested and find out far more precisely just what the odds are that one will suffer from, or be a genetic carrier of, certain diseases. How has such technology, and the scientific advances that have accompanied it, affected the world of romance?

Sonali Dev's A Bollywood Bride and Kelly Hunter's Pursued by the Rogue both are built upon fear-of-inheriting-a-parent's-illness plotlines. For the heroine of Hunter's contemporary romance novella, Dawn Turner, genetic testing would reveal a definite "yes or no." With a father who suffers from Huntington disease, Dawn has either inherited the faulty HTT gene that causes the progressive brain disorder or hasn't. Dawn has spent her professional life researching technology related to gene mapping, but has not wanted to find out her own HTT status. Dawn has told herself that when she turns thirty, she'll get tested; since the onset of Huntington disease in adults typically does not occur until one's thirties or forties, knowing that she's a positive before then will only place a too-heavy emotional burden on her already difficult life.

For Dev's heroine, Ria Parkar, the situation is more complicated. Her mother's mental illness is never named beyond the general label "psychosis" ("a break from reality, often involving seeing hearing and believing things that aren't real," NAMI), but most mental illnesses that manifest psychotic behavior are not caused by a mutation in one single gene. As a study published last year in Nature revealed, scientists have "identified 128 gene variants associated with schizophrenia, in 108 distinct locations in the human genome." Genetic counselors and doctors can guesstimate Ria's inheritance risk ("Genetically the doctors had pinned Ria's chances at thirty-five percent" [Loc 872]), but Ria, unlike Dawn, cannot be tested and know for certain. And since Ria is a major Bollywood film star, she's kept the secret of her mother's illness—and her own potential genetic carrier status—deeply hidden.

To know or not to know; or to know but to not be certain—these are the "numbers games" that both Ria and Dawn are forced to play as they confront not only their own futures, but the futures of the men they love. Both heroines, intriguingly, have more in common than just a parent with an inheritable illness. Both have suffered early traumas, some as a result of their parent's illness, others unrelated, traumas that influence how they view relationships. Both fear that they are starting to show symptoms of inheriting their parent's illness. Both fell early and deeply for young men during their adolescences, young men who, for various reasons, they were forced to leave behind. And now, both are forced to confront those first loves again, as they struggle to come to terms with their relationships with their parents, their potential future health problems, and the scars and pain that their past and present traumas have dealt them.

The one major difference between the two books is in their choice of point of view. Both use third person, but Rogue uses a dual POV, while Bride focalizes the story entirely through Ria's eyes. Both choices work beautifully to highlight each book's larger themes. The dual viewpoint in Rogue shows how not knowing her HTT status has served not to free Dawn from pain, but to isolate her from emotional connection, the kind of connection that we see and value in the viewpoint of Dawn's first love and current friends-with-benefits guy Finn, the youngest boy in a large, close-knit Irish family. And using third person single POV allows Dev to create an at times almost detached, even dream-like narrative, one which if it were in the first person we might fear was the result of pending psychosis or mental illness in Ria. Instead, third person creates just enough of a sense of distance to make us unsure, wondering whether we are reading about a woman still haunted by past trauma, or one on the verge of mental breakdown in the present.

Since these are both romance novels, you'll probably have guessed that neither ends with the melancholy but noble self-sacrifice required of Katharine Hepburn's Sydney. In fact, both insist that self-sacrifice is in many ways the coward's way out, a way of running away from confronting and accepting the fears that genetic illnesses force us to confront, whether we are romantically partnered or no.


Can you think of other romances in which the possibility of negative genetic inheritance plays a role in a romantic relationship?



Photo credits:
Hepburn and Barrymore: Film Ka Ilm
Huntington inheritance chart: Genetics and IVF Institute
Psychosis perception: The Mental Elf

Sonali Dev

The Bollywood Bride

Kensington, 2015

Kelly Hunter

Pursued by the Rogue

Tule Publishing 2015

Romance at the Roosevelt: Heidi Cullinan's CARRY THE OCEAN

"A quad[riplegic], an autistic, and a depressive walk into a bar..."

Sounds like the opening line of a really insensitive joke, no? But it's an all-too-likely description of three residents of the Roosevelt, an assisted living facility for younger adults who need a little extra help in order to live apart from their parents. The first book in Heidi Cullinan's new romance series actually begins before the Roosevelt opens, when first-year college student Emmet Washington develops a crush on the young man who lives (literally) across the Ames, Iowa railroad tracks. Because Emmet has autism spectrum disorder, which in Emmet's case has gifted him with an eidetic memory, mad math and computer skills, physical sensitivities, an inability to read others' emotions, and a tendency to hum and flap his arms when he's excited or distressed, meeting new people is more difficult for him than for the average Joe. Especially when that new person is as cute as recent high-school graduate Jeremey Samson.

After ten months of frustrated pining, Emmet finally gets his chance to meet Jeremey in person when their neighborhood holds a summer block party. Emmet's been practicing polite party talk, and is doing a good job of keeping his flapping to a minimum when he walks up and introduces himself to Jeremey. Some guys might panic when the boy of their dreams starts having a panic attack not long into their first conversation, but not straightforward Emmet. Instead, Emmet just asks if he can help, and holds out his hand. And Jeremey takes it.

Turns out that Jeremey's problems interacting with other people may be even more difficult than Emmet's. Emmet, after all, has informed, amazingly supportive parents who accept him for who he is, and work with him to figure out how he can best make his way independently in the world. Jeremey's, in contrast, won't listen to the doctor who tells them that Jeremey is suffering from major depressive disorder, won't allow him to take medicine for it, and keep telling him that he just needs to  "get over it," just needs to make an effort and he'll be normal.

Emmet's matter-of-fact acceptance of his own disability, as well as Jeremey's shameful secret is, a revelation to Jeremey: "It took me a second  to digest the fact that he'd spoken of his disability as casually as he might a paper cut. Plus he'd given me so much information about himself, helpful information. Intense and direct. It was, honestly, refreshing. I wondered if I could dare to be the same" (Kindle Loc 448). Emmet's straightforward, "What do you think? Should we give friendship with each other a whirl?" has Jeremey thinking about something besides himself for the first time in a long time, and the two fall quickly into an easy friendship (Kindle Loc 229). A friendship that over the summer gradually turns into a romance when mutual meltdowns lead to mutual comforting, and then mutual arousal. Turns out people with autism spectrum disorder, as well as people with major depressive disorder, are far more than just their diagnoses; they also have sexual identities, and sexual desires. As Jeremey notes:

I don't think most people believed we actually were having sex, or if they did, they thought we were cute while we did it or something. People saw us walking down the street to the grocery store or wandering the aisles of Wheatsfield and acted as if we were escapees from the Island of Adorable, puppies dressed up in people clothes. Like we weren't really boyfriends, like we were fake. (2739)

With her explicit depiction of Emmet and Jeremey's sexual relationship, Cullinan goes a long way toward showing readers that their "cutsey" views of disabled peoples' sex lives is more of a defense mechanism against their own worries than any accurate vision.

Cullinan breaks down other stereotypes, too, including ones related to genre expectations. For true love does not lead to instant recovery of health or ability, as it might have done in a romance novel of the past. Emmet and Jeremey help each other, but Jeremey cannot keep people from teasing Emmet when his excitement or frustration leads to arm-flapping or humming. Nor can Emmet prevent Jeremey's depression from worsening, to the point where even his parents have to accept that their son needs help, far more help than the easy "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" advice they've been giving to date.

That help takes the form of a stay in the hospital, a new relationship with a supportive psychiatrist/social worker, and, to Jeremey's surprise, a new life with his boyfriend Emmet at the Roosevelt. Living on their own, without their parents, for the first time, is a challenge for the two young men, especially when they're adjusting not only to apartment living, but to living with a romantic partner. And to living with their fellow Roosevelt residents, too, some of whom are less than happy to find themselves living in "the freak house" with Jeremey and Emmet (2788).

Is it "normal" for a quad, an autistic, and a depressive to walk into a bar? Cullinan's novel argues that there is no real "normal" even while insisting that we not regard that line as the opening to a joke, but to a very real situation we might encounter in our "normal," everyday world.

Illustration credits:

Autism Awareness Ribbon: Wikimedia Commons

Depression word cluster: Mental Health Resources

Group living cartoon: Autism blog Seattle Hospital

Heidi Cullinan

Carry the Ocean

Samhain, 2015

Short Takes: Issues of Commitment

Short reviews of new releases by favorite RNFF authors, all focusing on issues of romantic commitment:

Laura Florand

All For You

(Paris Hearts #1)

self-published, 2015

Florand revisits a theme she tackled in The Chocolate Kiss: how to have a heterosexual romantic relationship with a protective man without ending up feeling like the fairy tale princess in need of rescuing. Our protagonists here, though, far far different from the successful pâtissieres of Kiss. Célie and Joss grew up together in a housing projects of Tarterets, a Paris banlieue notorious for its crime and violence. As a teen, Célie long nursed a crush on her older brother's friend, a crush she always believed was unrequited. Then, she had to nurse a broken heart when Joss abruptly left to join the Foreign Legion without a word. Though Célie "always kind of wanted to be the small woman who got protected herself" (Kindle Loc 272), in the wake of Joss's abandonment she's picked herself up and made her own way in the world, apprenticing and earning a place as a gourmet chocolatier in one of Paris's most renowned laboratoires. So, when Joss suddenly reappears five years later, Célie is understandably not all that happy to see him.

To Joss, it all made sense: to be worthy of the energetic, optimistic, so-alive girl whom he loved, he had to make something better of himself. Otherwise, they'd end up together, but stuck in dead-end jobs, scraping out a threadbare existence in the projects. But somehow, he hadn't really thought about what would be happening to, and for, Célie while he was away: "He'd come back to get her out of there, now that he was big enough to carry them both to the top of the world's glass mountain but she'd already done it for herself. All by herself" (411). But Joss has learned a lot about persistence during his years in the Legion, and he's not about to give up on his dream of a life with Célie just because she's a little mad at him...

Readers might be inclined to sigh over Joss's obvious good intentions, the strength of his romantic devotion to Célie, and his self-doubt and overwhelming need for her, and thus to root for Célie to immediately forgive and forget ("I would wait more than five years for you," the rather inarticulate Joss pens to Célie in a note). But Florand, and Célie, know better: Joss's overprotective ways, and his fantasies about Célie, aren't simply sweet, they're blind, and limiting: "...in your fantasies I was only what you needed me to be. Not what I actually was" (2238). As Célie thinks to herself, "It was kind of infuriatingly unfeminist how tempting it was to just yield to [his] need, to say, Oh, if that's what you need so much then you can have it. To just give up her own body to his demands. She caught herself. This was for her, too." (2209)

"[Men] are kind of raised to want to go out on quests to earn the princess's hand by becoming a hero. It's, ah, hard for us to wrap our minds around a princess who wants to do all that dirty work with us. Makes us feel—insufficient. Not man enough. Not good enough," says Célie's boss, Dom (1275). But for Joss to deserve Célie, he'll have to overcome that social message, to "do something else for her besides strive to be your best.... You might have to adapt to what she needs from you. Which might be something different" (2937). For example, a partner who consults her before making major decisions that will impact her life as well as his.

Anne Calhoun

The List

(Irresistible #3)

Berkley Heat, 2015

Blind devotion isn't the problem for the couple in Calhoun's latest erotic romance, despite the book's suggestive cover. Instead, it is fear of commitment, specifically on the part of the woman. The List opens with a high-stakes bang: Tilda and Daniel, who have been married for only a few months, in the office of a marriage counselor, Tilda wanting a divorce, Daniel mystified as to why. The story then backtracks a year, depicting the first unusual meeting between the FBI agent who dresses more like a college professor and the high-end stationary shop owner who moonlights as a matchmaker, then proceeds through their erotically-charged but emotionally casual hook-ups, a relationship scare, and an unlikely, impetuous marriage.

Tilda keeps not a list, but notecards on people she's met, especially those who've confided their deepest secrets and needs, and takes deep pleasure in bringing people together: "Every time she matched someone on her list, or simply introduced two people who might enjoy knowing each other, she'd proved that she understood that most basic of human needs: to see someone and be seen by them in turn" (778). But Tilda's never been on the lookout for a match for herself, not wanting to be seen by anyone else, for reasons that Calhoun only gradually reveals over the course of the novel. In fact, a major part of Tilda's charm for Daniel is this sense of mystery about her, the knowledge of hidden depths that remain elusively just out of his reach. But if Daniel is to have a chance of convincing his wife not to abandon their marriage, he'll have to move beyond the allure of secrecy, and plumb the shame and pain that lie beneath.

And how can you not love a book whose protagonist declares "Virginity is a cultural construct.... Given the many,many ways two people can have sex, limiting the question to the penetration of penis into vagina is a rather narrow approach. Anyway, why is it a loss? I gained knowledge, experience" (1000)?

Julie James

Suddenly One Summer

Jove, 2015

As in many a Julie James novel, Suddenly features both a man and a a woman who are not at all interested in romantic commitment. At least not initially...

Neither divorce lawyer Victoria nor investigative reporter Ford are looking for a long-term romantic partner, and not just for the reasons espoused by James' usual thirty-something highly-educated successful professional types—too much work, too little time. Victoria has moved on from her difficult childhood, dealing with a father who abandoned her and her mother, and a mother who attempted suicide in response, and now runs her own successful family law firm in Chicago. But her personal experiences, coupled with a job focusing on the dissolution of romantic relationships, makes her "self-select out of the happily-ever-after rat race." As she explains to new neighbor Ford, "I like keeping things simple and fun. No obligations, no expectations, no endgame of a marriage, two-point-five kids, and a minivan in the suburbs" (page 133). A position that the equally commitment-avoiding Ford, who grew up with an alcoholic father with on-again, off-again emotional tendencies, is happy to applaud. Victoria's more than happy to hook-up with the hot guy in the apartment next door (so convenient, getting a sex fix in less time than it takes to get a mani-pedi, and home again faster, too). And Ford isn't complaining, either.

After a break-in to her townhouse leaves Victoria subject to unexpected panic attacks, the über-confident lawyer does what any professional would do—she consults a behavioral therapist, determined to conquer her annoying weakness. But when said therapist wants not only to teach her new breathing techniques, but to delve into her emotional past and present, Victoria is hardly thrilled. Especially when she begins to realize that her casual hookups with new neighbor Ford are starting to feel far too serious for comfort.

A subplot about Ford's sister and the search for the father of her new baby takes the place of the usual FBI/mystery plot of James' earlier books, reinforcing the issue of how to balance independence and self-sufficiency with the equally strong need for emotional connection.

Short Takes: New Books from RNFF Favorites

Today, a few brief shout-outs for new releases from authors whose previous work has been featured in past RNFF columns, all featuring heroines as tough, determined, and whip-smart as any you're likely to find in contemporary romance today.

Emma Barry, Party Lines (The Easy Part #3)

When Michael Picetti, deputy campaign manager for one of the leading Democratic candidates for President, finds himself sitting next to an Economics Today-reading, politically-obsessed Latina on a flight to pre-caucus Iowa, he automatically assumes his seat-mate is a liberal like himself. An assumption that Lydia Reales, Assistant Deputy Campaign Manager for Voter Outreach for Scott Stafford, Republican Presidential candidate, is all too used to hearing, and that she takes deep pleasure in scuttling, much to Michael's chagrin. Yet their almost-meet-cute is not the last; their campaign trail paths keep crossing and throwing them into each other's path, a path each is far too intrigued not to follow.

Neither Michael nor Lydia is an idealist, ready or eager to genuflect at the feet of candidates they know are far from faultless. But each is deeply committed to the central tenets of their respective political parties, as well as to the thrill of the campaign trail ("This job makes me feel like pure, concentrated awesome," Lydia tells Michael (Kindle Loc 576). And both are used to committing themselves 150% to their jobs. But as their antagonistic acquaintanceship merges into no-strings-attached sex, and then to friendship, cynic Michael finds himself unexpectedly wanting more. Can professional and personal desires, never mind political differences, be reconciled? Filled with fascinating details about life on the presidential campaign trail, the frustrations of both racial stereotypes and racial tokenism, and the precarious position one is put it not knowing whether the lack of appreciation one feels is due to sexism, racism, personality conflicts, or a combination of all of the above, Party Lines makes for a fittingly feminist conclusion to Barry's outstanding D.C. insider trilogy, The Easy Part.

Cara McKenna, Give It All (Desert Dogs #2)

On the outside, lawyer and PR manager Duncan Welch presents as cool, controlled, and utterly contemptuous of anyone who lacks his class, looks, and intelligence ("I'm exceedingly difficult to date. I posses a winning combination of impossibly high standards and stunted empathy," he opines with biting wit [969]). But when he's accused of taking bribes during a casino development project in largely working-class Fortuity, Nevada, Duncan's highly-polished surface develop a few telling cracks. Cracks that popping extra Klonopins, downing more vodka and tonics, or engaging in some obsessive-compulsive cleaning doesn't seem to fix. Cracks that never-get-attached bar-owner Raina Harper is all too interested in breaking wide-open.

The combination of English-born Duncan, an orphan who has never experienced love, and Raina, a half-Latina heroine who feels "my heart's spent," "most of the things a woman feels for a man" having been "used up" by her care for her recently deceased father, make for an unusual, dynamic romantic pairing (989). As does Raina's gender-bending admission, one accepted rather than demonized by the narrative, that "I don't like feeling like I'm being take care of by anybody... I'd much rather be needed than do the needing" (981-84). Care to guess who ends up doing the rescuing at the story's climax?

Courtney Milan, Trade Me (Cyclone #1)

Milan proves herself as adept at contemporary romance as she is at historical in this deeply intelligent story of a relationship between two people from vastly different social classes. The titular "trade" results from immigrant Tina Chen losing her cool when, during a discussion of food stamps in class,  fellow college classmate billionaire tech genius Blake Reynolds makes a thoughtless comment ("No matter what we do, we always have a permanent underclass. The only question we have is how we treat them, and what that says about us" [p. 10]). Tina knows that that "we" sweeps people like her and her family conveniently out of sight, and that Blake, and most of her fellow classmates, have no idea what it means to live outside the bounds of middle class comfort. "Try trading lives with me. You couldn't manage it, not for two weeks," Tina challenges. To her utter surprise, Blake takes her up on the challenge, and offers her his lifestyle—money, car, apartment, job—if she'll pretend to be his girlfriend for the next few weeks. 

What makes the story intriguing is that Blake's acceptance of Tina's challenge stems not from a manly desire to prove himself, but from his desire to run away from his own fears, fears that are gradually revealed over the course of the story. And tough-as-nails Tina has more than a few fears of her own, fears that have, ironically, kept her safe in a world filled with uncertainty of the financial and emotional types. And nothing about falling for a billion-point-four-aire genius with a brash, overbearing father and a boatload of psychological baggage says "safe" to Tina. Even if said genius proves to be far more than the stereotypes of a "winner of the nepotism lottery" might suggest. I especially loved the way that Milan presents each protagonist's difficult parent, a parent who in another author's hands would have clearly been labeled "villain," as rounded, intelligible, and above all sympathetic, complementing the book's larger themes of looking beyond the surfaces and understanding and confronting one's fears.