I have been reading romance at an increasing clip because it helps dim down the worry part of my brain, which has been working overdrive.

Now, I am generally a pessimist with an optimist gym routine. I tend to assume things will be bumpy or hard or not work out. BUT I've learned over time that my life is better when I intentionally spend an hour or two strengthening my fledgling optimism muscles in the presence of a "what if it works out?" curiosity. Reading romance novels with characters I relate to is one way I do it these days.

So, here's a friendly listicle of romance novels I read this summer:

A Dish Best Served Hot by Natalie Caña Check it out

My quick take:

This book was indeed served hot and the characters were highly likable. A thick, Puerto Rican, bisexual, leftist activist returns to her home city after leaving suddenly during her final years of high school. She runs into her former high school boyfriend (now a veteran and a single dad) as they care for their aging grandfathers, who are enemies/frenemies. There are hot-for-teacher outfits. There are real-life-construction-worker hardhats. There’s grownups doing hard grownup things and loving each other through them.

• Carnal Knowledge: 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥1​
• Character Development: 😁😁😁😁😁
• People-I-Could-Know-or-Care-About Factor: 🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈

Bonus Feature: Really good content on the complexities of housing development, uneasy decisions we make to pay the bills, and preserving shelter/supportive housing spaces for queer youth.

​Enchanted to Meet You by Meg Cabot ​ Check it out

My quick take:

A fun witch romance adventure. A self-taught / thrift-store-grimorie-taught witch named Jessica runs a clothing boutique in her hometown, which is Salem, Massachusetts adjacent. A dude with a foggy origin story comes into town and gets into her business. He does so because he's trying to prevent Jessica's high school frenemy — a country-club-lifer, legacy-witch mean girl— from ruining the town on accident (on purpose?). He's a delightful combination of direct and differentially polite. She's thick and confident and generally kind to people. They have quickies in a tiny beach cabin that is also her home.

• Carnal knowledge: 🔥🔥🔥
• Character development: 😁😁😁
• People-I-could-know-or-care-about-factor: 🌈🌈🌈

Bonus Features: There's a delightful cat and magical storms and teenage queer kid witches as secondary characters.

In the Case of Heartbreak By Courtney Kae check it out

My quick take:

Two nice queer dudes living in a small California mountain town with their respective and seemingly incongruent childhood traumas and eventually have hot sex in their beach house cottage / grandma's mansion. There's a lot of indirect communication about a reality TV show, feelings, and a flamboyant, pleasantly bossy, rich-from-being-a-serial-and-strategic-divorcee grandma who throws lavish parties at her mansion/castle in a Mendicino-like beach town. She anchors the book. Apparently some people have rich, spendy grandmas, but those people are not me. So, cheers. I must suspend my disbelief. Grannie creates the conditions for them to get together after years of cross-pining and baking-themed sweetheart scenes ensue.

• Carnal knowledge: 🔥🔥🌄
• Character development: 😁😁😁
• The People-I-could-know-or-care-about-factor: 🌈🌈🌈

Bonus features: Enthusiastic consent and many, MANY masc-sexy-themed dress-up outfits. 🏰⚔️🦚

Cleat Cute by Meryl Wilsner ​ Check it out

My quick take:

A brazenly confident and consistently cheerful midwestern redhead, Phoebe, shows up to the US National Women's Soccer Team to get quickly hot and bothered by the real-life version of the soccer star whose poster she taped over her bed as a kid. Grace, the poster candy, is stoic and seemingly single-minded. This creates fun tension as Pheobe draws Grace out into risk-taking on and off the field. They waste no time in christening the locker room, there's sexual tension while braiding hair, and the blossoming of good old lesbian codependence around healthcare.

• Carnal knowledge: 🔥🔥🔥🔥
• Character development: 😁😁😁
• People-I-could-know-or-care-about-factor: 🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈

Bonus Features: Meryl Wilsner may be the first fellow traveler (aka they/them short hair) romance author I've read!

What are your favorite romance novels with characters you could know or care about?

** NOTE: All emojis are on a (not) very scientific x/5 scale. 🌄= half a flame.

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