Opposites Attract
Very different people meeting in the middle
You could argue that there’s more opposites attract romances than not (what is grumpy/sunshine if not a subcategory, after all?), but I think these three following books are particularly potent versions of this trope. Where their opposition isn’t just an initial roadblock, but a fundamental one, which makes the potential for their individual happiness and romantic togetherness all the more fraught.
All Night Long With A Cowboy by Caitlin Crews. Harriett Barnett is the town spinster-in-training. She’s the high school librarian who doesn’t care at all for her appearance, isn’t interested in love, her best friend is the school secretary that at least four generations of town lived in fear of as kids, but unfortunately, she has a problem that only a cowboy can fix. A troubled student of hers is in desperate need of intervention from someone he respects, and there aren’t many of those to go around. She learns Jensen Kittredge, the town tomcat, might fit the bill, though, so she marches into the seedy bar he likes to haunt to demand he help her out.
In working together to support the troubled teen, Jensen and Harriett start spending more and more time together, and it turns out that Harriett might have underestimated the power of passion and Jensen may have underestimated the joy of making just one woman happy. What I loved about this opposites attract, rigid and pragmatic meets sarcasm and sensuality story is that Harriett is never an object of pity. This isn’t a She’s All That story, though eventually she starts making slightly different aesthetic decisions for her own reasons. Jensen falls for the “school-marm” version of Harriett, and though she’s a virgin at the start of the book, dispensing with that status is just as pragmatic a choice as any other she makes.
I just love a book where both characters start with a lot of preconceptions and it’s through working together, not through force, that they learn to meet in the middle. Neither wants to change the other person, they just want to be accepted as exactly who they are. I found this book breathtakingly romantic, and laugh out loud funny at parts. A perfect combination.
Rating: 4.5/5
How hot? 🔥🔥🔥
Make Me Wilder by Serena Bell. An even more outdoorsy boy meets prim and proper girl story! Gabe Wilder is the oldest child of a big Oregon family, the “man of the house” after his father’s death, and the big boss of their family outdoor adventuring company. A company that’s struggling, because when a hot springs popped up in town recently, the new influx of tourists is more interested in weddings and wineries than roughing it. Unbeknownst to Gabe, his mom hires an outside marketing consultant to help them rebrand and turn things around.
Lucy is a reformed small town girl turned city dweller, and at a crossroads at her life, so a meaty project like reframing Wilder Adventures into Wilder Romantic Adventures is exactly the distraction and jumping off point she needs for whatever comes next. Unfortunately, the guy in charge didn’t know she was coming, so this project is less collaborative than she’d hoped. She won’t be deterred, however, and much to his annoyance, Gabe really does need the help, because business really is bad.
Thus begins a series of books about revamping the Wilder Adventures company while each jaded-in-their-own-way sibling falls in love. I loved the specificity of tourist town pressures on small businesses, uncompromising people learning to compromise, and a dog barf running gag that begins in this book and has continued even into the next series set in Rush Creek, the first book of which was released a few weeks ago. I also can’t help but love me a gruff mountain man meeting his match in an organized girlie in heels.
Rating: 4.5/5
How hot? 🔥🔥🔥🔥
Love, Theoretically by Ali Hazelwood. Is this book essentially The Love Hypothesis but in a different academic discipline? Yes. Do I love it any less for the redundancies in character development and chemistry? Absolutely not. Some authors entirely reinvent themselves with every book (Beth O’Leary, Sally Thorne), most have a recognizable brand that still allows for distinct choices per pairing, and some write the same book over and over. I can’t even be mad, because The Love Hypothesis was revelatory for me as a newer romance reader, and Love, Theoretically hits the exact same sweet spots for me. You might disagree, but if you do… get your own romance newsletter!
This opposites attract story is less about the characters themselves and more about their careers. Elsie is a theoretical physicist in adjunct hell (highly relatable to me, personally) and looking for a full time tenure track position, and to make ends meet she’s a fake girlfriend for hire. Her current client is the sweet (and eventually revealed to be aro/ace, because Ali Hazelwood wrote this book FOR ME) younger brother of Jack, who due to a series of miscommunications Elsie thinks is a dumb dumb. Turns out, though, he’s not only an experimental physicist (aka a direct academic rival) on the hiring committee at MIT where she’s been shortlisted, but he’s also the twerp who wrote a scathing anti-theoretical-physicist article years before that set the entire discipline back years and also professionally destroyed Elsie’s mentor.
It’s a classic Hazelwood joint to the end- we’ve got the highly specific politics of being a woman in STEM, a female lead with crippling people-pleaser instincts, and a male lead who just wants to take care of her while she kicks ass and takes name. It’s tropey, it’s a sucker punch to the sternum for people who are criminally incapable of taking up space, it’s just great. For as long as she’s writing this kind of book, I will be in front of the line to read it. I’m also definitely curious about her first foray into supernatural even though I am not really in my supernatural/fantasy era anymore. But’s it’s a new Ali Hazelwood, so I’ll be there!
Rating: 5/5
How hot? 🔥🔥🔥🔥
Next week, I’ll be recommending some Christmas novellas to get us all into the holiday spirit!
What should I be reading next? Let me know in the comments!
Love, Theoretically is classic Ali Hazelwood and yeah, she has her shtick but she does it well! Have you read her chess YA/new adult one yet?