Road Trip 2
[Ben Wyatt voice] It's about the journey
Read the first road trip round up (one of my first posts!) here. There is almost no overriding plot I love more than a road trip. There is absolutely no transportation method I love more than the open road with me in the driver’s seat because I’m a control freak who maybe likes to drive a little too fast.
If you need a great road trip playlist, here’s the one I use (I made it for my current WIP, a road trip romance about two people lying to each other about why they get on the road together!)
Three Little Words by Jenny Holiday. The final book in the Bridesmaids Behaving Badly series was absolutely my favorite, and it snuck up on me! Especially because we start with one of my least favorite character traits, Being Rude To Service Workers. Gia Gallo, a woman who loves her friends but doesn’t believe in relationships, is desperate to make it down from New York to Florida for her best friend’s wedding, not just for the usual reasons, but also because she’s the one bringing the wedding dress! Unfortunately, a massive snow storm has grounded all flights and all the rental cars are taken (leading to: the rudeness). Luckily (or unluckily, depending on where your head’s at), Bennett Buchannan, a Southern chef who doesn’t believe in one night stands, took one of said rental cars and is also attending that very same wedding (he’s on the groom’s side) and has offered to share the road.
Bennett thinks Gia’s a flighty diva but is too much of a gentleman to leave her behind, so they embark on a trip that seems designed to specifically be designed to make the two of them rethink their long-held prejudices, open them up to new experiences, and remember who they were before they were hurt. Because absolutely, these two people were hurt, but perhaps their new road trip buddy is exactly who they need to begin the healing process.
I was fully sold on this book fairly early (love a snowed in start, LOVE a road trip), and when they finally get to the wedding and Bennett’s talking to the groom about the trip, his first statement on Gia is… pun absolutely intended… CHEF’S KISS. The certainty. The confidence. The complicated heroine who isn’t always easy to love, and a chef hero who wants to help fight food insecurity! This is just a very good book, y’all.
Rating: 4.75/5
How hot? 🔥🔥🔥🔥
The Rogue Not Taken by Sarah MacLean. The start of the Scandal & Scoundrel series is just as explosive as the finale (which, incidentally, I’ve talked about previously in the Already Married roundup). In fact, the scandal at the start of THIS book is between the hero/heroine of the finale! Full circle! Let’s go!
Sophie Talbot is the youngest sister in her newly elevated to peership family, and she is straight up not having a good time. She misses their little house in the country, she misses not having to learn all this propriety nonsense, and she’s just discovered her brother in law cheating on her beloved older sister extremely publicly at a party. She makes a big stink, because Absolutely The Fuck Not, and somehow she is painted as the bad guy for making the scene (and pushing him into a fountain if I’m not mistaken, Sophie Talbot for QUEEN). So she runs off, frustrated and embarrassed.
At which point she comes upon a man (Kingscote, the Marquess of Eversley) half-dressed and climbing out a betrothed woman’s window nearby (it should go without saying the woman is NOT betrothed to him). Sophie asks him for a ride home, since he’s clearly on his way out of this area, and he declines. He’s had enough fortune hunting girls trying to trap him into marriage, but nice try. So Sophie does what any self-respecting woman would do when she’s stuck at a party she just got embarrassed at with no way home; she trades clothes with a groomsman and stows away on the carriage. (Do you understand how much I love this woman and her sheer audacity)
Unfortunately, or fortunately, for Sophie, King’s not heading back into town, he’s leaving to do a race with a friend in the country. Thus begins an accidental road trip with many many shenanigans, such as Sophie stealing all his wheels to sell for cash, King being mad that no one can tell she’s a girl, and both of them being angry stubborn dummies. I love the tension of a woman running away to an idealized past and realizing that no matter her best intentions, she’s outgrown that which she holds in such an important place in her heart, and a man realizing that being a devil-may-care rogue isn’t as fulfilling when it means you can’t hold on to the things you DO care about.
Rating: 5/5
How hot? 🔥🔥🔥
You, With a View by Jessica Joyce. For those of you who’re paid subscribers to Forced Proximity, you have access to my favorite non-romance reads from the past few years, and you know that when i read sci-fi I’m looking for incisive, insightful looks at our technology age and how the internet/digital media and the people in charge of it will be our downfall (when the aliens come). As a result, any book that’s anything less than that makes me a little tough to please when social media/internet trends are included in a plot. I actually had to stop reading another book that heavily featured TikTok by an author I’ve liked in the past because I simply Know Too Much and it was not clear-eyed enough beyond “TikTok exists and is a video app” to keep me in world. Why have I given you this whole paragraph before starting my recommendation? Because it’s important that you understand that this book does it right and if you are similarly wary of social media related plots, this one has the right balance. Let’s get into it!
Noelle Shepard recently lost her job, her independent living situation (she’s back home), [I think] her boyfriend, and her beloved grandmother. When she’s going through her grandmother’s old things, she discovers some old photos and letters implying she had a forbidden lover at one time. Desperate for a sense of connection to a woman she’s worried she didn’t know at all, she posts a TikTok searching for the mysterious Paul, and she gets a response after the video goes viral (I agree this is total engagement bait, I don’t doubt for a second this kind of thing would go viral) from Paul’s grandson who agrees to set up a meeting. The only problem is that it turns out Paul, who’s very real and willing to chat, is joined by the grandson, who Noelle already knows. It’s her high school rival Theo! And he’s being a jerk, per usual!
Plot plot etc, it turns out at one point grandma and Paul were going to elope and go on a romantic road trip honeymoon and Paul and Noelle decide it would be some nice closure (and also fun) to go on the trip that was already planned anyways as a way to say goodbye. Theo, of course, muscles his way into the plans.
Over the course of the trip, where Noelle starts to take her love of photography more seriously and considers taking the risk to make it a career, she also learns that Theo might be more than he’s appeared to her in the past. I love a “follow your creative passions” plot mixed with crafty grandparents and past rivals becoming present friends and lovers. If you love those things too, this is the book for you!
Rating: 4.5/5
How hot? 🔥🔥🔥🔥
Next week, it won’t be me recommending a trio of exceptional workplace romances, but my new pal
of ! I’ll be appearing on HER Substack on the same day talking about romance, writing, and more, so be sure to check her out if you haven’t before!
I’ll be sending out beta read copies of my self-published romance debut next month! Do you want to be a beta reader? Are the above tropes within your realm of interest? Shoot me an email (just reply to this newsletter)!