When Ana approached me about signing on again for this year I paused for more than a hot minute, took stock, and knew that even though my life and reading is kind of topsy-turvy at the moment, I couldn't say no. Of course the next question was: what theme did I want to discuss? I thought about some of my favorite reads from 2018 and realized it had to be Communities.
I'd hazard a guess that the first thing that comes to mind when many of you think of communities in romance is Small Town Contemporaries. Some readers love them. Some readers wonder why the heck they remain so popular. And I'm here to tell you the answer: it's the world building. It's the same reason why every flippin' romance novel is part of a series. Readers LOVE to lose themselves in "a world." They want to fall into a story and have the author create a world that they can lose themselves in. And certainly while many Small Town Contemporaries do just that - with this theme I want to challenge Romancelandia. Because there are many romances out there, not set in small town worlds, where the author creates a rich, full community for readers to lose themselves in.
Here are a just a few examples:
- Beverly Jenkins is the Queen Mother of community-based romance. I'm still working my way through her historical backlist, but every single one I've read features a support network, a community, around her main couple. My favorite (so far) has been Indigo, where the heroine is part of the Underground Railroad network, along with many of her neighbors outside of Ann Arbor, Michigan. Another good Jenkins example? Always and Forever. A less successful book for me, personally, but one I always like to recommend to Small Town Contemporary fans. Why? Because a good chunk of the story involves a group of women on a wagon train traveling west to become mail-order brides. That wagon train is essentially a small town on wheels, right down to the various personalities.
- Tiffany Girl by Deeanne Gist is set in New York City and finds the heroine taking a job in Louis Comfort Tiffany's glassworks (one community) and living in a boardinghouse (another community). I LOVED the boardinghouse community in this one, filled with eccentric and interesting tenants, one of whom is the hero.
- Off Limits by Vanessa North centers around a ladies social club that caters to LGBTQIA+ members. One heroine is a concierge at the club by day, and by night she's moonlighting as the singer of a punk band. The other heroine is the only child of Hollywood royalty. Set in New York City, I loved the world of the social club that the author builds. There's also the community between the punk singer heroine and her band mates. Part fluffy, part angsty, I highly recommend this F/F romance.
- Everything I Left Unsaid by Molly O'Keefe is the first book in a four-book series where a heroine running away from an abusive marriage holes up in a rundown trailer park. It's the people she meets in that trailer park that form a community and change the course of her life forever.
- Seduced by the Badge by Deborah Fletcher Mello is the first book in a romantic suspense series set in Chicago. The community building here is part family, the cop hero's siblings all work in some form of civil service, and part nefarious, the center of the suspense action takes place at a local diner. The diner, not unusual for many cities and towns, features regular clientele and staff who add richness to the story.
- Passion's Song by Farrah Rochon is set in New Orleans' Ninth Ward post-Hurricane Katrina. The successful hero has bought up some property where he envisions a gentrification project of housing and upscale shops. The classically trained cellist heroine is volunteering at a local community-based organization working to keep kids off the streets and out of trouble. The city and the Ninth Ward add color, flavor and texture to the Friends To Lovers romance, and immerse the reader in the sights, sounds and smells of New Orleans.
