Sample-Chapter Showdown: Romance II

 

Full Moon Over Freedom by Angelina M. Lopez (Harlequin)
On the Hustle by Adriana Herrera (Carina Press)
Nobody's Princess by Erica Ridley (Forever)

It's time for a sample-chapter showdown!

I took myself on another tour of romance-novel sample chapters, because why not? This set features POC casts, which I'm delighted to see—the romance novel industry has been slow in introducing diversity in books, so I'm always happy to see more options.

In Full Moon Over Freedom, they were childhood friends, and then they were lovers, and then they didn't talk for years—and now they're back in the same town for the summer, in very different places but very, very much on each other's radar.

Sample takeaways: This preview starts with a (*cough*) not-quite bang that tells me that there is steam aplenty to come in Full Moon Over Freedom, and I'm over the moon (and thus also over Freedom?) to see Mexican-American protagonists in mainstream romance. Gillian—Juliana by birth and to her family—has spent the past decade or more making herself over into someone she thinks of as more palatable to a white East Coast crowd, while Nicky has made a name for himself as a Mexican-American artist, and I'm very curious about how Gillian's identity will evolve over the course of the book.

The full book is out in September, and if the preview is anything to go by it'll be very steamy, with intersectionality and something to learn about Mexican (and Mexican-American) culture—and who can argue with that?

In On the Hustle, he was her boss...and she couldn't stand him, or the way she turned him on. And now that he's not her boss, all he wants is to redefine the relationship.

Sample takeaways: I've said it before and will say it again—I'm thrilled with the turn towards more Latine (and BIPOC more generally) protagonists in mainstream romance. It's beyond high time! What fascinates me here, though, is that these sample chapters have On the Hustle set up to be something of an update on the classic "Greek tycoon" subset of romance novels. (If you're not familiar with the existence of that particular subset—yes. Yes, it is a thing.) Alba is Dominican, and Theo is Dominican-Greek, and it's evident even from these sample chapters that their cultural identities/backgrounds are meant to play a role here.

Even modern-day Greek tycoons are not really my thing, but I'm happy to know that if I ever want to make a comparison between old and new, I know where to look (and I'm intrigued by Alba's business—if you had a room designed around a specific book, which book would you choose?).

In Nobody's Princess, Graham Wynchester dreams of meeting a princess. Unfortunately for him, Kunigunde isn't one...but she is frustrated by convention. Her goal is to work alongside her brothers as a Royal Guard, but as a woman (and a Black woman at that), she's limited in what she's allowed to do. But not to fret...Graham is undeterred by her lack of royal pedigree, and together they're ready to shake things up.

Sample takeaways: Nothing is clearer from the sample than this: Graham is extra. Capital-E Extra, in fact. This is heterosexual romance, but he'd do well as a hero in a m/m romance based in the fashion world, or maybe the drag world. (Not sure he'd be a drag queen himself—he might wreak dapper havoc behind the scenes instead.) He makes for a very entertaining first few chapters—I suspect that, reading the full book, you'd have to suspend your disbelief and also a lot of your knowledge about Regency-era London (on the plus side, I have very little of that knowledge to suspend), but if you're willing to do that it looks like a total romp. Kunigunde is a little harder to read, but I'll always take a heroine who can hold her own over a heroine dead-set on swooning into the hero's arms.

The verdict: If Kunigunde were a princess, I'd probably be all over Nobody's Princess (we all have our reading quirks), despite the doesn't-fit-my-reading-habits Regency setting. As it is, I think I'm most likely to read Full Moon Over Freedom, for the promises of both intersectionality and, uh, full steam ahead.

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