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Books that Won’t let Me Go

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Deep End by Ali Hazelwood

I did not expect to write about Ali Hazelwood again so soon, but then I read Deep End and, well—I went off the deep end, metaphorically speaking. In the author’s note at the beginning, she says it’s her favorite book she’s written, and by the end, it was my favorite book of hers as well. And not just because of the fun callbacks to Olive and Adam from The Love Hypothesis, who are the main characters’ professors at Stanford.

I was recently hijacked by another book that was totally unexpected: I Got Abducted by Aliens and Now I’m Trapped in a Rom-Com by Kimberly Lemming.

Here’s my review of these two books and a list of other romances I can’t stop obsessing over.

Books I wasn’t done with after the last page

When I finish a romance novel—or movie, for that matter—I often go back to my favorite scenes before starting a new book. For me, that tends to be the third-act breakup and the reunion after it, their first kiss/getting together, or other pivotal scenes that move the love story forward.

How much rereading I feel compelled to do is part of my personal rating system for a book. If it was just meh, I might be done when I read the last page. Most of the time, though, I’ll go back to two or three scenes I want to savor again. But if a book has me by the throat and I simply don’t want it to end, I’ll go farther and farther back in the story, reading and rereading favorite scenes, savoring dialogue, spending more time with characters I can’t get enough of, and putting off starting the next book because I want to stay in this book’s world. It’s like having a great taste in my mouth after eating a dish that was perfectly seasoned; I’m sad when the next meal overrides the lovely flavor.

Some other books on my obsessive reread list:

Movies I keep rewatching:

  • What’s Up, Doc?
  • Clueless
  • French Kiss
  • 12 Dates of Christmas
  • Holidate
  • Love Hard
  • Many others, too numerous to name—mostly holiday romcoms because I am a sucker for them.

Deep End grabbed me and wouldn’t let go

In many ways, Deep End is a typical Ali Hazelwood romance: socially awkward heroine meets tall, handsome man of few words who’s totally smitten with her. In Hazelwood’s expert hands, the formula works and I’m here for it, but there was more in this book for me.

Scarlett Vandermeer is an elite-level platform diver who was injured by a bad dive the year before the action starts. She still can’t do the type of dive—inward—that she was doing when she got hurt. Although she’s physically fine, she struggles with a mental block. And, for me, I think this was the particular hook because I’ve been struggling with a mental block about a physical activity I love (riding a bike) and slowly working my way back to feeling comfortable doing something I used to do with ease and joy. So I was right there with Scarlett the whole way.

Another thing that hooked me was the slow, intense burn of Scarlett’s budding relationship with Lukas. They explore BDSM, a long-time desire and first for both of them. But what makes the sex so mesmerizing is the emotional heft of it, the way Scarlett describes being pulled apart and reconstructed by it, and feeling truly seen, the trust and care they give each other.

Add in Hazelwood’s humor and vibrant supporting characters, and this is a book I’ll savor for a long time.

  • Humor level: low-key funny and serious by turns
  • Spice level: super spicy
  • Tropes: sub/dom power play, overcoming mental challenges, elite athletes, STEM

My first alien: I Got Abducted by Aliens and Now I’m Trapped in a Rom-Com by Kimberly Lemming

When my romance writer friends start talking about reader preferences and where readers will or will not follow a writer, I’m baffled. I’m not like that, I say. I read and enjoy MM, MF, FF, and trans/nonbinary love stories. I read authors of different races and cultures. I’m broad in my tastes.

But I’m a big liar. Because the truth is, there are more romance subgenres I don’t read than ones I do. I DNF’d my first Colleen Hoover on page two because it was too violent for me. I only pick up books with magic in them by accident and I’ve never read a romantasy. Mafia, why choose, and reverse harem are tropes I know about in theory but haven’t read.

And I need to get over myself. Because when I accidentally read a romance with witches, I like it. And I also liked Kimerly Lemming’s sci-fi romp, I Got Abducted by Aliens and Now I’m Trapped in a Rom-Com.

I only picked up the book because the title made me laugh and the cover art, reminiscent of a B-movie poster from the 50s, also made me laugh. And then I read the book and it really made me laugh—and reconsider my narrow reading preferences.

Lemming’s novel, a delightful take on The Wizard of Oz, has Dorothy whisked away by aliens to a terraformed planet. Only, the aliens didn’t have much time to study Earth (budget cuts), and they’ve gotten a lot wrong.

Dorothy’s love interests are horned, hooved aliens, Lok and Sol, who bicker for her affection and attention as the trio becomes more bonded. So I guess I’ve read my first why choose romance? Look at me being all open-minded!

The book includes a talking lion, talking owls, a pink dinosaur, and much more mayhem. I loved it. It stayed with me and I’d recommend it, no matter what kind of romances you think you like.

  • Humor level: one of the funniest romcoms I’ve read in a long time
  • Spice level: lots of 3-way spicy human/alien sex, including one sexual encounter that ends in one of the funniest scenes in the book
  • Tropes: Wizard of Oz retelling, sci-fi, why choose

Author Interview: Alyssa Jarrett Puts the “Com” in Rom-Com

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Plus her new holiday novella, Love Me Merrily

If you, like me, are a fan of romantic comedy with an emphasis on the comedy, you’ll love Alyssa Jarrett’s Glam Fam series. Centered on a group of friends in the entourage of a wealthy influencer, the books are peppered with spicy observations about Bay Area culture, the tech world, and family relations. Her tagline, “Romcom with extra com,” is spot on.

I recently spoke with Alyssa about her books, her choice to be fully herself as an author and through her characters, and what’s next for the Glam Fam.

I’ve summarized some of our conversation below, but you should watch the full interview to hear what Alyssa has to say (and ignore me — I clearly have a lot to learn about being on video). You’ll want to hear her articulate, funny, and irreverent take on being an indie author, sharing her Armenian heritage, and writing about an elite rock climber when she’s a “self-described bougie bitch.”

What would it be like to be them?

Alyssa Jarrett has published three full-length novels: Love Apptually, Love on the Rocks, and Love and Paklava. But it turns out the first book she wrote will be the last one in the series: the love story of Alex, a daughter of wealth turned influencer who’s the center of the eclectic group of stylists who call themselves the Glam Fam.

The origin story for the series starts over a decade ago, when Jarrett was going through a breakup with her high school sweetheart and wondered what it would be like to be famous and have the whole world watch you walk through that. In the end, though, “I saved Alex’s story for last because a millionaire heiress wasn’t the most relatable,” she says.

In Love on the Rocks, Jarrett asked herself a similar question after watching Free Solo and wondering what it would be like to be the girlfriend of an elite athlete so focused on his sport. The result is a funny and tender collision of two very different worlds, along with some very detailed advice on rock climbing.

In her other two books, however, she explores more personal themes.

Paying homage to her community

When asked whether the Bay Area-centric humor poking fun at tech culture in Love Apptually will translate to readers who aren’t local, Jarrett says, “As for the inside baseball of it all, I know there are some elements that people may not understand.” But, she adds, “I set out to write a book that I knew the people around me would appreciate, and I think I did that.”

Paying homage to her community is important to Jarrett. “Am I going to be Colleen Hoover famous? Probably not,” she says. Telling stories that are authentic to her is more important.

With Love and Paklava, she gets even more personal, building a love story around an Armenian baker from Fresno, where she grew up. It wasn’t until she went to college in Santa Cruz that she realized most people don’t know much about Armenia or the Armenian genocide, which preceded the Holocaust of World War II and was one of the events that emboldened Hitler. “[The Armenian genocide] continues to have a ripple effect even now,” she says.

But Jarrett wanted to show “modern-day resilience and love and joy” in her community through her rom-com, and she succeeds. Bonus: the book includes the hero’s scene-stealing grandmother, Queenie, based on Jarrett’s real-life grandfather and the source of very funny interjections into the romance between the baker and the punk-rocking aesthetician.

Love Me Merrily: A holiday novella that turns up the heat

Jarrett wrote the holiday romance Love Me Merrily because, she says, “I wanted to see Summer [a side character from Love on the Rocks] have a happy ending.” Also, “I wanted to talk about grief as it relates to the holidays.”

The love interest in this novella, set in a wintry Yosemite National Park, is the brother of one of the Glam Fam. As in her other books, Jarrett deals thoughtfully with trauma, loss, and anxiety, while also delivering a big dose of humor and a lot of spice.

When asked why an out-and-proud atheist would write a holiday romance, Jarrett said that adding a little punk rock to the season was a way to reclaim a time of year that’s not her favorite — on her own terms.

  • Humor: Without the funny asides of the full-length books, but still spiked with wit.
  • Spice level: Steamy.
  • Tropes: love after loss, winter in Yosemite,  getting snowed in, hating the holidays, dry humping, elder emos, atheist Christmas, mental health issues/anxiety/agoraphobia

Watch the full video interview on my Substack.

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3 Reasons I Love Ali Hazelwood’s Writing

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A meditation on Love, Theoretically, among other books.

My first Ali Hazelwood book was The Love Hypothesis. I was an instant fan and immediately read everything of hers I could get my hands on.

Then she published Bride, which didn’t look like my cup of tea, and I moved on to other authors, and now I realize I’m behind because I just read Love, Theoretically. It reminded me of why I love her writing so much. I have read enough of her books to see some of the plot twists coming, but I don’t care.

Whether you love or loathe Hazelwood’s brand of humor and storytelling, she’s got (at least) three things other romance writers should emulate.

Details that add vibrancy without clutter

I’m not just talking about the science words she throws around, though I love that, even though 99% of the physics references in Love, Theoretically, went over my head. It’s the specificity that makes her characters come alive: the Kurosawa movies  Elsie hates and her roommate Cece loves, Hedgie the hedgehog defecating on her pillow, Cece eating croutons from the bag with chopsticks and throwing them around the kitchen when she gets excited. I could see (and smell) the cluttered, funky apartment the two shared.

Beautiful language

Ali Hazelwood uses language beautifully. Elsie describes herself as “a puppet who maybe, just maybe, is a real girl after all.” Jack is the only one who sees “all the Elsies I’ve created to fit all the worlds I’ve inhabited.”

Those aren’t the most outstanding examples from Love, Theoretically, but they’re ones that stand up without context. Hazelwood is a master of vivid descriptions, funny banter, and grounding in Elsie’s emotions on every line,

Steamy sex scenes that are all about emotion

Near the end of Elsie’s first sexual experience with Jack, she thinks, “It’s not even about coming or about anything else I might have stupidly expected. This is about him and me. And the possibility of something that goes far beyond the both of us.”

Those sentences should be in the textbook for romance writers on writing sex scenes because that’s exactly it. Through every moment of intimacy, Hazelwood takes us to the molecular level so we can watch as Elsie changes because of the love and care she feels from Jack. It’s everything I want in a romance.

Love Theoretically

  • Humor: satisfyingly amusing
  • Spice: 3 out of 5
  • Tropes: grumpy/sunshine, enemies to lovers, STEM setting, evils of academia

The Pros and Cons of the Author Binge

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Grooving on historical romcoms from Amanda Quick

I love an author binge. When I read a book by a new author I like, I want to find and read their complete backlist. This is partly because I’m greedy for more of the good stuff I got from this author, but also because I’m afraid I’ll forget them under the crush of my TBR pile.

However, reading too many books from one author back-to-back has its downsides, as I first discovered the summer I was 12.

Murder on the summer vacation: A cautionary tale about Agatha Christie

When I was 12, my family embarked on an 8-week vacation across Europe. It wasn’t possible to pack enough paperbacks to satisfy a voracious reader like me (this was before ereaders—yes, my young friends, there was a time when we had no choice but to read physical books—shudder). The only pre-teen appropriate author reliably available in English on the continent that summer was Agatha Christie.

I liked mysteries. I liked Agatha Christie—until I spent a whole summer mainlining her books. By the time we flew home from Amsterdam, I could tell you how every Christie book would end. I was bored to death with the scene where the detective gathers all the suspects in a parlor to reveal the culprit—so predictable. The red herrings, the real culprits—painfully obvious. Christie’s formula isn’t terrible; I just OD’d on it.

To this day, I’m reluctant even to watch a movie based on an Agatha Christie book. My author binge turned me off to one of the preeminent crime writers of the last century, and, honestly, that’s a shame.

My latest author binge: Amanda Quick

I recently grabbed three Amanda Quick novels written in the 90s, based on Reddit recommendations, and gobbled them down. Then I had a tiny bit of indigestion.

Mistress, Mystique, and Mischief are standalone historical romances. Mistress and Mischief are Regency romances; Mystique takes place in a Medieval period.

Despite the different settings and unrelated characters, I couldn’t help notice the throughlines that run through all three books: repressed heroes constrained by a strict set of personal rules and shaped by trauma; independent, feminist, chatty heroines unafraid to take matters into their own hands. I love those archetypes, but reading the books in the space of a few days, I couldn’t help noticing the patterns and the repetition of the grumpy/sunshine trope.

If I had read these Amanda Quick books as they came out, a year apart, I would have been delighted to dip back into her world once a year. The ecosystem of instant access and binge media consumption has changed the demands on authors to mix it up from book to book, while being similar enough that readers know what to expect from your author “brand.” I want to acknowledge that it is a big lift.

An author binge always works better for me with a series following the same or related characters. When I can follow characters I like through multiple adventures, I’m hooked no matter what. A binge helps me tease out connections in worlds constructed by the author or follow my favorite couple deeper into their happily ever after.

Book recommendation: Mischief

I liked all Amanda Quick books I read very much (and I will read more, after a break), but the one that stood out to me was Mischief. The heroine, Imogen, decides early on that the brooding hero, Colchester, has a delicate constitution. This is completely untrue, but he goes along with it in an indulgent and fond rather than mocking way. Imogen boldly sails through life, believing in a version of reality that makes her happy, and stepping up to protect the man she loves from becoming “overwrought.” I’m a sucker for an unreliable narrator, and I love that for her.

  • Humor level: Laugh out loud funny.
  • Spice level: 3 out of 5
  • Tropes: virgin, tortured hero, grumpy/sunshine, mystery

Amanda Quick is a pen name of Jayne Ann Krentz, who also writes under her own name and as Jayne Castle.

Writing updates

While my first finished book voyages through submissionland, I find myself starting and stopping too many other projects. My writer friends encouraged me to work on the second book in the series, which is sound advice, and I’m doing that, but there are so many other ideas crowding my head right now, I’m finding it hard to focus on one story.

That said, I am determined to finish a fun short story for you, dear subscribers, in the very near future. And, as always, let me know your romance recs.

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