The New York Times Book Review - USA (2020-08-09)

THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW 7

WE REACH FOR ROMANCEwhen
illness strikes, when the world
weighs too heavily, when our own
joy is hard to find but we need to
know it’s still out there some-
where. This summer’s crop of
romance novels are about squaring
up to hardship and finding some-
thing better on the other side.

THE KEYWORD FORRosie Danan’s
debut contemporary THE ROOM-
MATE (Jove, 315 pp., paper, $16)is
capacity.The scandal-shy socialite
Clara Wheaton insists it wasn’t
bravery that led her to impul-
sively follow a childhood crush to
the far side of the country: “Ev-
eryone had entirely the wrong
idea about the capacity of Clara’s
courage.”
Clara’s crush vanishes and
leaves her with a strange room-
mate scrounged from the depths
of Craigslist. Josh Conners is a
popular performer in the adult
entertainment industry; he’s
playful and charming and has
coasted through his career. As he
and his strait-laced new room-
mate slowly fall for each other,
Josh offers up what may be the
most quintessentially romance-
hero line I’ve ever seen: “His
capacity for longing terrified him.”
It would have been so easy for a
book with this premise to tip into
tawdry titillation or shame. It
never does. And I keep coming
back to capacity, a term we use to
describe the amount of space
something has to grow into. “The

Roommate” is a book about peo-

ple expanding into their best

possible selves — about embrac-

ing pleasure, loving unabashedly

and fighting exploitation and

small-mindedness. Warmly funny

and gorgeously sexy, this porn-

star romance is the most whole-

some thing I’ve read in ages.

DANAN’S BOOK ISabout people

building a new future: May Peter-

son’s second fantasy romance, THE

IMMORTAL CITY (Carina Press, 330

pp., digital, $4.99),gives us lost

souls unearthing a forgotten past.

Ari is an immortal dove-soul with

wings and the ability to heal. He

has sold his memories to the

sinister Lord Umber for reasons

he cannot remember, and spends

his days lurking in the statue

fields where mortals come to die.

When he impulsively rescues a

youth named Hei, their connection

begins a chain of events that

unravels the city’s very existence.

Amnesia, a familiar trope in

romance, becomes epic in Peter-

son’s hands, as befits the fantasy

setting. Trust, we see, depends on

memory. You can’t know some-

one’s a threat if you’ve forgotten

what they’ve done. But remem-

bering can be a wound — Ari’s

slow piecing together of the truth

brings pain even as it brings

clarity and the knowledge of what

it means to love someone beyond

death, beyond memory, beyond

time itself.

TRUST AND TRAUMAare also cen-

tral to Vanessa Riley’s A DUKE, THE

LADY, AND A BABY (Zebra Books, 312

pp., paper, $15.95).Let’s be frank:

This cover and title will mislead

you. The baby in the title and

those graceful silhouettes might

suggest a gentle screwball com-

edy, perhaps one with a hilarious

scene where a bath gets out of

hand and someone gets splashed.

You will not be expecting the lady

to be a widow who escaped from

Bedlam, or the duke to have lost a

limb in the war, or the baby to be

the heir to a fortune. This cover

and title are like advertising a

string quartet and then dropping

“The Phantom of the Opera” on

the audience’s head, chorus and

chandelier and all. Personally, I

was delighted: Riley is at her best

when she lets her Gothic impulses

out to play. This book made me

wish for howling winter winds and

guttering candles so I could prop-

erly appreciate the shivers. Read-

ers on the lookout for Black or

disabled characters in historical

romance will not want to miss

this.

THERE AREromances with celebri-

ties that emphasize the fame and

the fortune — and then there are

the (better) ones that emphasize

the work. Like Anna Zabo’s

Twisted Wishes series or Lucy

Parker’s London Celebrities,

Alexis Daria’s YOU HAD ME AT HOLA

(Avon, paper, $15.99)is a story of

two working actors who pour

themselves into their craft:

drilling lines and choreography,

fine-tuning emotions, doing 17 full

takes of the kissing scene.

Jasmine Lin Rodriguez, reeling

from a breakup, has landed the lead

in a new Latinx series for a major

streaming service. Her co-star

Ashton Suarez is trying to make the

leap from telenovelas to Hollywood

while keeping quiet the fact that he

has an 8-year-old son. The hero’s

secret baby (nice twist!) is a won-

derful source of tension: Ashton is

a busy actor but a loving father, and

protecting his son gives him a

reason to be wary and closed-off

that’s more engaging than garden-

variety alpha arrogance.

The buildup here is exquisite.

Jasmine and Ashton slowly grow

closer until the reader is aching

for them to just go for it already.

“In her, he recognized a loneliness

that resonated with his own.”

Swoon.A solid 7.5 on the angst

scale, and an absolutely pitch-

perfect summer escape. 0

Hot and Bothered

OLIVIA WAITEis the Book Review’s
romance fiction columnist. She
writes queer historical romance,
fantasy and critical essays on the
genre’s history and future.

LOVE NOTES/ROMANCE/BY OLIVIA WAITE

LISA TEGTMEIER

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