More I cannot wish you
I love love stories! Here are some of my favourite contemporary romance novels.
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I have been reading romance novels since I was a teenager. I got through the crazy-in-retrospect Irish state examinations by doing Serious Study for 40 to 50 minutes, then reading romance for 20 minutes. Rinse and repeat. Next to books about theorems and fjords sat a Jennifer Crusie book - Welcome to Temptation (Buy). I reread it so much that I can still quote from it.
Crusie had a run of amazing books published in the early noughties - see Bet Me (Buy) especially. If you tell me a book you recommend is set in the early noughties, I am three-quarters of the way to converted. I love that era as a setting. Maybe it’s because I was super into watching the news then? Did not support those invasions. Those were my precipice of adulthood years, I was drawing up blue prints for my future. Also, I remember being on my Transition Year work experience in 2006 in the head office of a big book shop and the accountant, whose kids were always at horse riding lessons, asked me should she get eyeliner tattooed and that is my top Celtic Tiger memory. Me, barely monobrowed, dressed as Kim Possible, being asked should an adult woman tattoo makeup onto her eyeball. Go for it.
Anyway, Temptation is the name of a small fictional town in midwest America. Two sisters who run a wedding video service arrive in the sleepy hamlet to make a movie with a has-been actress Clea. They think they’re making an indie but actually, the funder is a pornography studio and they do not have permits so are immediately lying to the townsfolk. The sensible sister, Sophie Dempsey, ends up catching the eye of the single dad mayor, Phin. Phin runs a book shop which no one but Sophie seems to visit. I don’t think a single book is bought throughout the novel. There’s murder, secrets, adultery, seduction, fixing sunglasses, Dusty Springfield on the jukebox. Everything?
Here is how we’re introduced to Phin:
“He looked like every glossy frat boy in every nerd movie ever made, like every popular town boy who’d ever looked right through her in high school, like every rotten rich kid who’d ever belonged where she hadn’t.”
My greatest non-shame is I want a Pretty in Pink fan-fic sequel where she bangs James Spader’s character in college after he stops being a dick. Or maybe they bang while he's on the cliff edge of change and after too. THE HEART WANTS WHAT THE HEART WANTS. The heart is not the heart in this scenario. I am not sorry but I am also sorry.
Welcome to Temptation is a book about secrets and falling in love and changing your mind. Pornography isn’t demonised. Women get to tell men to fuck off. Sophie finds her power - a concept you will learn about in the below mentioned Ain’t She Sweet. Phin isn’t really a nice guy but is very real and very sexy. And the book has some great lines. Anytime I see a mouldy shower curtain I remember Phin telling Sophie he thinks her mildewed one is watching them. This has happened a lot to me in Dublin, the dampest city. Big brother is giving us pleurisy.
This book contains one of my all time scenes and Life Lessons. Sophie’s boyfriend - a therapist - shows up and witnesses Phin being abrupt and explicit with Sophie. Phin gets punched, the therapist gets sent away, and Sophie sits down.
“Call me on it when I’m being a son of a bitch," he told her. “Don’t take that crap from me just because I’m tired and I can be nice when I want to be.”
“Call yourself on it,” Sophie said, a little waspishly
I think about that a lot. I’m thinking about it more and more. Call yourself on it.
Whenever I recall my Leaving Certificate, I remember Welcome to Temptation and Sophie Dempsey making the decision to do what she wants to do, while having a great time. Female free will is the memory’s echo.
People have this misguided notion romance novels are a guilty pleasure, something to mock. If you can buy the book in Tesco or read it on Kindle Unlimited, it’s obviously not meant for clever people, right? Go. Fuck. Yourself. Romance novels are empowering, they’re funny, they bring me relief/joy/happiness/faith/hope. In these books female desire and happiness is centralised. They are revolutionary texts. I have found more meaning in the pages of a love story, where I know the final destination is a happy ending, than in the many other genres I’m ‘meant to’ read.
Here is a quick fire list of other contemporary romance books I love which you might love too. Life is way too short to not enjoy what you’re consuming culture-wise. I will do a bunch of historical romances - my catnip - next week. I'm super aware I've listed only white authors. I’ll do better next week. For some amazing closer-to-now contemporary WOC writers check out Alyssa Cole (also does great historical), Sonali Dev and Zoey Castile. Castile is writing a series on men in the adult entertainment business - a niche I think we can all super appreciate. Also, I love being recommended romance novels, so do get in touch!
Scruples by Judith Krantz (Buy)
This is THE sex and shopping novel and Judith died last Saturday so show her some respect. In Scruples, a young widow decides to use her money to open a boutique in Los Angeles called SCRUPLES. She recruits staff. She meets men. Her staff meets men and women. Everyone rides. Everyone wears designer. The climax of the novel takes place at the Oscars. It’s very un-PC overall and should be on every woman’s shelf. (When you finish the Spider oral scene please let me know how you're getting on.)
Call Me Irresistible by Susan Elizabeth Philips (Buy)
SEP is famous for mainstreaming the sports romance with her Chicago Stars series. However, I love her standalones - characters often show up from other books but you’re not too tied into playing catch up. This one is about a bridesmaid talking the bride into doing a runner. It turns out the bridesmaid is penniless cut-off Hollywood spawn, Meg Koranda, who has to stay in the small Texan town Wynette until she makes enough money from her drinks cart job to escape. Meanwhile, Meg keeps running into the golden boy jilted groom, Ted Beaudine. Ted makes Meg’s life a misery, they spark, they end up sleeping together, he’s very good and courteous in bed, she compares him to a robot and wants to see the mask slip, some very good scenes ensue on this topic. There is also a subplot about building an environmentally-not-awful golf club and using Meg to lure the creepy investor. It’s a really clever discussion on how we treat women who aren’t polite and conforming. Ted gives good grovel.
Ain’t She Sweet by Susan Elizabeth Philips (Buy)
This is another SEP and I’ll get the uncomfortable out of the way first. This book is about a woman hooking up with her English teacher years after she made up a sexual assault allegation against him. Sugar Beth Carey got run out of town and lived a life and is now returned to claim her inheritance. Everyone hates her, she’s ostracised, she’s basically on a humility tour. Her former victims want to make her eat shit off the floor and her former teacher is now a bestselling novelist and wants revenge, but also wants to hang out with her and hires her as his housekeeper. It is a journey that is done so well. This is a novel about forgiveness and moving forward and Sugar is such an amazing character. I love her.
Unsticky by Sarra Manning (Buy)
I did a whole podcast on why I love this novel. A young fashion magazine staffer becomes mistress to a domineering art dealer. Listen to my episode of the rather great Sentimental Garbage here.
Blue-Eyed Devil by Lisa Kleypas (Buy)
Lisa Kleypas is historical romance novel Oprah. Devil in Winter is incredible. She also has some contemporary romance novels on her list and this is my favourite one from that stable. The hero is Hardy Cates, he’s a trailer park boy who has made his millions from oil rigs - I know, again early noughties!!! - and is struggling to fit in with Texan high society. Enter stage left the heroine, Haven Travis, an heiress who to the outside world has never worked a day in her life.
Haven is actually a recovering victim of domestic violence and Kleypas did a lot of research so she could portray PTSD etc. in a sensitive manner. These two chalk-and-cheese characters meet and in one scene Hardy rescues Haven from an elevator that’s submerged in water thanks to a flash flood and that’s why I now get a bit ‘oh fuck’ in lifts. That and the movie Speed.
This novel might be triggering, so do take your time deciding to read and reading it. There is one character who is a particularly nasty piece of work and internalises all the misogyny. Whenever I see Nicholas Sparks sucking all the romance novel oxygen in the media, I say Lisa Kleypas three times and hope I’m casting a spell and somewhere a Hollywood producer thinks about picking this book up and adapting it.
This novel also has a small bit of plot about contraception and female bodily autonomy which is really insightful and might make the stop-putting-stuff-in-your-body people pause before handing out unsolicited advice.