Dispatch from Europe: Two British Romances that Lead with their Heroines
These closed-door romance novels pack enough emotional heft to satisfy even a spice fan like me.
Some romance readers are unrepentant smut lovers, the spicier the better, while others prefer to leave the sex to their imagination. I’m a spice fan. I want to go all the way into the bedroom in a romance novel. For those who think this is prurient (you’re probably not reading this newsletter, but anyway), a good sex scene isn’t about titillation—or not only about that. Bedroom scenes show the connection building between the characters and allow them to express the feelings they can’t yet put into words.
But I recognize that sex isn’t the only way to show the growing feelings the main characters have for one another. I can get a charge from a romance where the friskiness happens behind closed doors. One of my all-time favorite romcoms, Boyfriend Material by Alexis Hall, explicitly shuts the reader out of the bedroom.
I recently read two novels that not only hummed to themselves when their protagonists got it on but also broke some of my personal rules, spending far too much time without the love interests in the same scene. Yet I adored both these books and heartily recommend them. The strength of the narrative voice carried each story, and it didn’t hurt that both are filled with colorful British slang. The Anglofilia is strong in me.
If I Never Met You by Mhairi McFarlane
I heard about If I Never Met You by Mhairi McFarlane on the r/RomanceBooks. This subreddit is a great place for readers and writers of romance to hang out; I’ve learned a lot about what people like and don’t like, gotten an overwhelming number of recommendations to add to my TBR list, and found community with like-minded romance lovers. In this case, a poster had recently been through a divorce and made a specific request for a book showing a woman getting back on her feet after a devastating split. McFarlane’s book fits the bill perfectly.
If I Never Met You has a strong romance plot and a happy ending, but I would place it on the line between women’s fiction and romance. The novel spends a lot of time processing the shocking breakup when Laurie’s long-term partner upends her complacent life by walking out of it. A fake relationship with Jamie, a young, brash lawyer at the firm where Laurie and her ex work, serves both their needs. Jamie hopes to gain a promotion, and Laurie hopes that seeing her with another man will make her ex realize his error.
Set in Manchester, the book is filled with Britspeak, including many idioms I don’t understand. For some unknown reason, reading words I don’t know, especially euphonious ones like bad bollock, is my happy place. I didn’t catch most of the cultural references, but I had a great time trying to puzzle out the meaning from context.
If you’re looking for a book to reassure you that life gets better after a breakup, or just a well-written book with highly likable main characters, If I Never Met You is a great read.
- Humor level: not haha funny, but lots of humor
- Spice level: closed door
- Tropes: breakup, age gap, enemies to lovers, fake dating
Wish You Weren’t Here by Portia Macintosh
Portia Macintosh’s novel, Wish You Weren’t Here, follows in the hallowed tradition of Bridget Jones’ Diary with a hapless heroine who drinks too much and bumbles from one hilarious disaster to another. And, of course, there’s more to her than she realizes at the start of the book.
The book starts with Lana hooking up with Ethan, who is clearly the perfect man for her. Only they seem to leave a trail of havoc when they’re together, so they quickly decide to stop seeing each other. The book skips to two years later, as Lana is getting ready for her half-sister’s destination wedding in Australia. After several disastrous attempts to find a date to take with her, she accepts Ethan’s offer to come along on the condition that nothing can happen between them. That is, of course, a promise they can’t keep.
- Humor level: Bridget Jones level funny
- Spice level: closed door
- Tropes: second chance, fake dating, family reconciliation, secret millionaire
I promised weekly posts, and I haven’t kept that promise this month because I’m traveling. On the positive side, I’ve gotten lots of ideas for my writing, both my romance stories and for Rom-Com Ratatouille.
I’m on the road for another two weeks, and I’m going to try to do better, but no promises. Instead, here are some pictures of Antwerp.
Side note: The third photo is the Antwerp Central train station, the site of several great flash mobs, including the one below, which got me hooked on flash mobs and wanting to make that the grand gesture in all my books. The video is a bit degraded, but it still ranks as one of the top flash mobs of all time in my book.
One of the things I love about traveling, especially where English is not the local language, is the feeling of being a fish out of water. I like absorbing other cultures, hearing people speaking in languages I mostly don’t understand, and sampling different foods. It’s a way of seeing myself that I don’t have access to at home; one of the ways I get to know myself better is by traveling.
On this trip, I’m having a deeper experience than usual. The Antwerp neighborhood that is our home base is mostly Muslim. Walking out to the market street to get groceries this weekend, I was one of a handful of adult women among the throngs whose arms weren’t covered and who wasn’t wearing a hijab. I found myself looking for other women with uncovered heads as a way of reassuring myself that it was okay for me to be there. No one said or did anything to make me feel uncomfortable; this was all internal, and I realize my experience as a White person isn’t the same as a person of color, even when I’m in the minority. I’m grateful for the experience, which reminded me that I can play a part in making everyone feel welcome on streets that feel like home to me, especially those who may feel different.
