Romance Roundup: January 2016!

As we’ve mentioned here at Stevereads before, the tactic some Romance authors take of anchoring their stories geographically seems extremely popular with the core readership. I find this more confusing than not, since, after all, the traditional modern view of romance is that it’s something most likely to take root and flourish in foreign soil – that is, that love is something you travel to, rather than something that travels to you.

But then, none of these location-romances involves passion igniting between stay-at-home locals. There’s always a prodigal son or daughter returning to a place that once burned them badly and finding a love there that’s eluded them elsewhere. In fact, the restorative power of places seems to be the key to the attraction here: that if heart-bruised and wary souls will only trust in travel brochures, the course of true love will run smooth again. Take three upcoming examples of this particular trend:

Hometown Hero by Cate Cameron (Berkley Sensation) – This is the second Lake Sullivan romance, a follow-up to Cate Cameron’s very enjoyable Just a Summer Fling from last year, and once again Lake Sullivan, Vermont is the reassuringly small-scale and cozily New England setting for an unlikely romance – this time between headstrong, aggressive “Mixed Martial Arts” fighter Zara Hale and handsome, easygoing Cal Montgomery. Cal wants Zara to lend her local-girl-makes-good celebrity status to a new community center, and as is made clear to Zara, the commitment is more than just passing:

“People aren’t as gullible as they used to be. It takes more than a few snapshots with some raggedy kids. We need testimonials from concerned locals, recorded tears from your proteges, poignant anecdotes about how much you’ve learned. We need more than a photo op, Zara.”

To which our heroine inimitably replies: “This is bullshit … I’m a fighter, not a humanitarian. I’m the MMA champion! I’ve got the damn belt – I’m looking at it right now. How is messing around with a bunch of kids going to make me fight better?”

In other words, this is the very first Berkley romance in which the local boy falls in love with a Klingon warrior – and once Zara starts spending time around Cal, she starts to reciprocate his fascination, at least on one level:

But damn, the man looked good in a suit. She’d never really been with someone so polished, but it was kind of intriguing to think about it. Fun to imagine all the different ways she could muss him up …

No. Bad thought. Bad.

Cameron writes all this with even more skill and bolting energy than she displayed in her previous book, and there’s an intelligently-handled subplot about Zara’s brother, just recently released from a ten-year prison sentence and trying to return to society. I’m not sure how believable Lake Sullivan will be if novel-worthy stories keep happening there, but Cameron is an author I’d trust to make it work if anybody can.

Carolina Dreaming by Virginia Kantra (Berkley Sensation) – Case in point: Virginia Kantra’s series of novels set on Dare Island, North Carolina, is now up to five installments and shows now signs of getting stale. In this latest one, bakery owner (and survivor of a corrosive divorce) Jane Clark is trying to remake her life by returning home to Dare Island and starting her own business. Her recent experiences have left her understandably brittle, although as always Kantra’s narrative voice is on hand to provide perspective:

When she was starting over, it had been so hard for her to ask for her father’s help. To accept anyone’s help, especially when it meant admitting her own mistakes. Even yesterday, with Sam, she had balked at accepting charity.

Sometimes, when you didn’t have much else, all you had to hold on to was your pride.

And sometime that was just foolishness.

When Jane encounters Marine Corps vet and washout Gabe Murphy, “with his sun-streaked hair and strong, muscled arms,” she reminds herself that he’s “a mistake she simply couldn’t allow herself to make.” But where would the Romance genre be if its main characters weren’t forever making mistakes they couldn’t afford? It turns out Gabe and Jane each have qualities the other needs (personal qualities, you swine – get your mind out of the gutter! They don’t even have gutters on Dare Island!), and Kantra is such a blunt, smart, rapid-fire writer that you’re caught up on the story from the first chapter.

The One for Me by Sydney Landon (Signet Eclipse) – This one is a bit trickier than the other two. True, it’s technically a location-based novel, but the location is as much a business – Danvers International – as it is a place, in this case Myrtle Beach. This is the eighth time Sydney Landon has delved into the corporate culture of Danvers in order to find romance, in this case between hapless go-getter Crystal Webber and suave executive Mark DeSanto (“somehow, he managed to be pretty, sexy, and rugged all at the same time”) – a romance that gets off to a problematic start when our two would-be lovers meet for the first time and Crystal is … unwell:

Using the last reserves of her strength, she pushed her shoulders back and attempted to give him a bright smile. “I’m fine,” she replied in a voice that sounded scratchy, even to her own ears. He gave her a skeptical look and then, before she could do anything to stop it, the unthinkable happened. Her body went into a full revolt, and almost in slow motion, she threw up on a pair of shoes that likely cost more than her Volkswagon Beetle. Words of apology rose to her lips but before she could utter them, her world dimmed and then turned black.

Fortunately, as a friend might have informed poor Crystal, a relationship that begins in such a fashion can’t get any worse, and sure enough, with Landon’s smooth and humor-friendly handling, that’s just what happens in The One for Me. Although I’m still not convinced I’d actually want to work at Danvers International.