Sample-Chapter Showdown: Romance

 

The Romance Recipe by Ruby Barrett (Carina Adores)
Out of the Blue by Alison Bliss (Forever)
A Rulebook for Restless Rogues by Jess Everlee (Carina Adores)

It's time for a sample-chapter showdown!

I took myself on a tour of three romance book previews—and just to entertain myself, I picked one each of f/f, m/f, and m/m romance. I read a lot more of the former two categories than m/m, but I'm always game for whatever book will entertain me for a while. (I would frame this as a three-books-enter-one-book-leaves sort of thing...but let's be realistic: I don't have a lot of bookish self-control and might end up reading all three.) So here we have three different subgenres—contemporary f/f and m/f, and historical m/m—from three different authors. Now, off to the races...

In The Romance Recipe by Ruby Barrett, restaurant owner Amy faces off against her head chef, Sophie, as they try to take the restaurant from barely afloat to thriving. The catch: the quickest way to do this seems to be to go on a cooking show...hosted by Sophie's ex. The other catch: Sophie and Amy each have a thing for each other, but neither of them is ready to admit it.

Sample takeaways: The first few chapters of The Romance Recipe do a bang-up job of both setting the scene and getting me invested in the characters. I've had this on my radar for a while (lesbian romance, plus reality-TV cooking show), but the opening is doing some things that I don't often see in romance novels: first, one of the ways we're introduced to Amy is seeing her own up to a judgement error and correct it. This both sets up a push-pull with Amy (she's self-aware but also has a hard time trusting other people's judgement) and is something that a lot of books would make a major, drawn-out conflict of the book...so the fact that it's treated as a no-brainer here is kind of great. And second, Amy and Sophie know each other from the beginning—not well, but I love that they have an established relationship as opposed to a traditional "Here is character A, here is character B, oh! They meet! How cute!" I'm also very interested to note that, as of the first five chapters, the ex is just an ex rather than an evil/homophobic ex...and I have my fingers crossed that he stays that way.

In Out of the Blue by Alison Bliss, Preslee is a woman on a mission—she's just been told that she needs to change her lifestyle to keep her pre-diabetic status from becoming full diabetes. Her first foray into a gym is not, shall we say, auspicious...but the owner catches her eye, and she catches his eye. With the gym struggling, Adam realizes that the prudent thing to do might be to stop focusing only on gym rats and power lifters and start targeting people who have historically been less comfortable (and been made less comfortable) in the gym. And if that means that he and Preslee have to spend more time together...

Sample takeaways: Out of the Blue feels about as classic as they come, from the insta-attraction to clumsiness as a fatal flaw to the dynamic between Preslee and Adam. It gets off to a quick start, and I'm glad to see that in this book about a plus-sized heroine starting on a fitness journey, the author is clear from the beginning that the focus is meant to be on health rather than on size. (I hope that holds true throughout the book, but I see no reason that it shouldn't.) Adam's bet also feels classically romance novel, though on the more cringe-worthy side of romance, and...well, I'd like to see him learn the error of his ways.

In A Rulebook for Restless Rogues by Jess Everlee, Noah and David have been best friends—and sometimes more—for fifteen years. David runs a thriving underground gay bar, and Noah is on his way to becoming a sought-after tailor. But in late-nineteenth-century London, running a gay bar carries significant risks...and when David's livelihood and possibly more are threatened, David and Noah have to decide what's next for them.

Sample takeaways: Here we have two likeable heroes in a society that is not fully ready for them. The stakes are clear (including livelihood, possible prison time, and worse—society was not exactly leaping to defend queer relationships in the late 1800s), and I always love a romance where the greater conflict is something external rather than the protagonists being nitwits about their own feelings. Also really nice to see that these particular heroes are both friends to begin with and have some history that keeps them from being totally blind to their shared attraction. This is definitely shaping up to be a lively read.

The verdict: I'm most likely to read The Romance Recipe, just because I love me an f/f romance (and a cooking-show romance, for reasons that even I don't fully understand) and I'm intrigued by the off-piste approach that this one takes. Out of the Blue feels the quickest and most bread-and-butter-style romance, something to consider when brain-tired or on an overnight train ride or coming out of reading something heavy. It's the most likely to frustrate me, but also the most likely to deliver exactly what I'm expecting, which will render me unable to complain too too much. If I'm in the mood for quick wit and subversion, A Rulebook for Restless Rogues feels promising...now if only it were an f/f book!

Thanks to the authors and publishers for providing these free previews through NetGalley.