Curvy Heroines { part 2 }

More books to love about heroines with more to love!

It’s a little surprising it’s been two and a half years since part 1 of this roundup theme! I guess I’ve gotten more specific in the way I corral tropes and commonalities, but it felt like it was time to revisit my girls with more to love about ‘em.

Want to be a guest curator of a future round-up? Get in touch!

A Foolish Flirtation by Alice Coldbreath. One of my new favorite historical authors! This is a kind-of second chance romance, and a kind-of bully romance. Neither of those aspects go as far as they could, because this isn’t that dark of a series, but there’s a lot of emotions and past hurts to go around. Emmeline is the curvaceous daughter of a wealthy tradesman who, a decade ago, got a season of her very own… but unfortunately, her not-blue-blood (and her larger-than-fashionable body) worked against her. The only suitor giving her any attention was kind of a jerk and then, when it seemed like they’d bridged the divide between their classes, he announced his engagement to another girl.

Ten years later, former bully Jeremy Vance is a divorced single dad and Emmeline is barely scraping by after her father’s business fell on hard times, but thankfully her erstwhile fiancé claims he’s coming to get her any minute now. Aaaaany minute…. except, unfortunately, it turns out he’s already married, and he’s been scamming her for years. So what’s a girl to do but marry her newly penitent, newly single former bully? For practical purposes only, of course.

This is the first of a new series that I’m loving, but you should read the Prizefighters series that came before where you’ll meet pre-Emmeline but post-season Jeremy when he sets up his half siblings in matrimony and generally causes lots of problems that makes his own book and the drama within all the more hilarious.

How hot? 🔥🔥🔥

Bet Me by Jennifer Crusie. Last year I finally tried my first Jennifer Crusie book, and subsequently exhausted her entire romance backlist, down to the novellas. She is brilliant, and one of the only genuinely, consistently laugh-out-loud funny writers who actually deserves the romantic comedy label.

Bet Me is a play on the classic She’s All That kinda plot- Minerva is a round (Jennifer Crusie loves a round woman, described as round on the reg), boring-ly and unflatteringly dressed woman with a sharp tongue and even sharper shoes. She’s also a woman who takes zero shit, so when she overhears the classically handsome Calvin making a bet with his friends and colleagues at a bar that he can get her to go to dinner with him (the implication being she’s a nasty maneater and only someone as charming as him could manage it… as a joke, of course), she decides to mess with him. She doesn’t get gone, she gets even.

Except the thing is, Calvin wasn’t really making a bet, so much as he had a bet thrust upon him, and what she overheard was the negotiation phase before he told them all to fuck off. Kind of. And of course he’s not actually interested in her- he makes a comment later in the book about how she dresses like she hates herself, and she very much does (#relatablecurvygirlexperience)- but also he keeps running into her, and he can’t quite keep away. She assumes for the majority of the book he’s trying to win this bet, he spends the whole book flummoxed about why they’re hanging out but also thinking about her constantly. They’re both so mad about it, and so madly in love for ages before they realize it.

It’s funny, it’s heartfelt, it’s as wacky as only Jennifer Crusie can get away with, and I loved every rollicking second.

How hot? 🔥🔥

Camera Shy by Kay Cove. Avery’s boyfriend and business partner did not, in fact, propose to her on her 30th birthday. Instead, he dumped her because their sex life was so boring, and she takes the first chance to escape she can- the opportunity to house sit for someone in Vegas. Her new temporary neighbor is Finn, the sexy boudoir photographer with a failing business.

The deal? Sex lessons in exchange for a marketing overhaul. We love a career girlie who’s confident in everything but herself. Naturally, a major hangup for Avery in her sex life is her body size, and I appreciated that we got Finn’s photographer POV of how beautiful she is without actually using photography to fix her. She doesn’t agree to be photographed by him until pretty late in the book, which I thought was a smart choice.

There was just something specifically gripping about Avery, a woman ostensibly with her shit together, being out of step with her own body, and how she and Finn navigate it over the course of the book. I felt seen, she felt seen, and I thought this book balanced a pretty plot-light book with a largely interior emotional story really well.

How hot? 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥

---

Next time, I’ll be recommending books with exceptional meet-disasters rather than meet-cutes. Let’s get messy!

What should I be reading next? Let me know in the comments!

Follow me on social: Twitter | Instagram | Bluesky

Available now: my debut marriage of convenience romance Rehabbing the Billionaire! Buy your copy on Amazon, or snag it on Kindle Unlimited! Then, rate it on Goodreads to help more people discover it!