Single Parents | 5.26.23
Searching for a co-parents doesn't have to be boring
I know a lot of readers don’t love books with kids involved, and I get that. They certainly aren’t my go-to books, because while narratively kids (of any age) add stakes and new dimensions, I just wanna focus on the couple as autonomous beings generally. However, I think the three books I’ve chosen for you today not only do interesting things with parenthood thematically, but also deliver genuinely swoon-worthy love stories. So even if you normally aren’t a fan of romances with on-page kids, I think you’ll find an exception in the following.
Well Matched by Jen DeLuca. The third in this series all about Renaissance Faires follows April, a single mom who’s on the verge of being an empty nester and, finally, escaping the small town of Willow Creek now that her daughter is headed to college and no longer needs a consistent home base. Willow Creek was great to raise her daughter in, but now she can move to the next phase of her life, and she needs to start preparing her house for sale. So she enlists the help of her friend Mitch Malone, who’s her daughter’s high school gym teacher, a high school sports coach, and one of the main attractions at Willow Creek’s annual Renn Faire with his kilts and stage fighting expertise.
Mitch needs something from April in exchange for his handyman skills- despite their decade age difference (she’s older), he asks her to post as his girlfriend for a family event so he can avoid the inevitable comparisons between him and his “more successful” family members and the accusations that he’s refusing to settle down. April agrees, and later agrees to volunteer at the local Renn Faire at her daughter and sister’s insistence (her sister was the protagonist of book 1 of the series, and her daughter has been a Renn Faire performer for several years), but when Mitch’s family show up again, she resumes her fake girlfriend duties.
As you might expect, all this forced proximity leads to not-so-fake feelings, and April and Mitch have to figure out if what they always thought they wanted might be different from what they actually need.
Rating: 4/5
How hot? 🔥🔥🔥🔥
What A Difference a Duke Makes by Lenora Bell. Mari Perkins has had a terrible day. Her belongings were stolen, the weather is horrible, and she’s late to her job interview at a governess placement agency, which means the disapproving lady in charge won’t consider her at all. This is a problem for this now fully penniless woman who also has a secret mission: to hunt down her birth parents that abandoned her to an orphanage as a baby using the scant clues she’s got. So when another governess rushes in behind her to tell the boss lady that she QUITS, that duke down the road and his brat bastard twins aren’t worth the trouble, and the boss lady assures her she’s done sending good governesses down there… Mari recognizes an opportunity.
Edgar Rochester, Duke of Banksford, was surprised but not upset to learn that he is the father of two French twins, born to a former lover who just passed away, and he has no idea what to do with the feral eight year olds he’s now responsible for. So when a spunky new governess shows up and actually seems like she might be able to control their worse behaviors to keep his mind clear for his work on a new steam engine, he hires her immediately. However, while she continues to do right by his children in ways he could have never hoped for, his mind is far from clear as the two of them realize a craftsman duke and a penniless governess have a lot in common.
I’m just such a sucker for women who put up with zero crap, talk to children and servants as people rather than tools or pets, and remind bruised and broken men of their humanity. This book delivers on that and it’s exactly what the doctor ordered.
Rating: 5/5
How hot? 🔥🔥🔥🔥
Never Judge A Lady By Her Cover by Sarah MacLean. SPOILERS ABOUND because the central character of this book is a mysterious character in the first three books of the series and if you want to maintain the mystery while you read the first three, I understand! I don’t think it matters all that much for the enjoyment of the book, but I don’t want to make that decision for you, so fair warning. It was a surprise to me when reading, and I’m glad of it. Take that for what you will!
In the first three books of The Rules of Scoundrels series, three fallen peers were rescued one by one from their societal banishment by the mysterious and powerful Chase, who enlists them to help run the legendary Fallen Angel gaming hell. And it turns out, for fans of Sarah MacLean, Chase’s identity is more familiar than you may imagine. She’s (yes, she! A pronoun that doesn’t get used in the first three books to preserve the surprise that the top dog at Fallen Angel is a woman) Georgiana, sister to the Duke of Leighton who ran away in Ten Ways To Be Adored While Landing A Lord (which you’ll be hearing more about in a few weeks) when she became pregnant, and was essentially ostracized with her daughter ever since. I did not see this coming at all, and I LOVE it.
However, after a decade of hiding in the shadows, Georgiana realizes she needs to come into the light, if only for her daughter’s safety and future happiness. She needs to marry a peer who doesn’t mind her past for financial and cultural stability, swallowing her pride for the sake of her precocious ten year old. And as she begins the reentering of society, she finds herself caught up with newspaper magnate Duncan West (love me a journalist) who has his own reasons for learning the identity of Chase and hopes Georgiana, who he assumes is Chase’s lover and not, in fact, Chase herself, will help make the connection. We’ve got hidden identity shenanigans, poking the boundaries of propriety and what choices a woman must take when the intangible concept of being ruined weighs heavily not just on herself but her child, and the lengths a man will go to protect those he loves.
Here’s what I’ll say: while conceptually I loved this book a lot (the twists! The reveals!) I did find the actual plot a little frustrating because it’s fairly obvious (even taking a step back from the expected HEA for a beat) that the solution to literally every problem is for Georgiana and Duncan to get married. Usually the stakes from a romance come from there being a compelling reason that the couple can’t be together. In fact, there are usually several reasons, and in this book, there really… aren’t. Duncan’s rich and financially solid but not a peer, so marrying him won’t get Georgiana’s daughter into the same fancy circles Georgiana herself came out in, but the daughter literally never claims to want that and in fact on multiple occasions tells her mom she doesn’t at all. And yet Georgiana, who has made her career out of finding gray areas in a buttoned up society who rejected her for a single indiscretion, still insists that to secure her daughter’s future (in the society who ruined HERS), she must marry a titled man. And Duncan isn’t really like most romance heroes in that he’s emphatically AGAINST love/marriage/etc. He’s lightly resistant, perhaps, but the hesitation is really on Georgiana’s part I feel like, and despite her general badassery, in this kind of vital part of the plot I find her resistance uncompelling.
Still a really great book, but not quite as explosive a finale as I’d hoped from this great series.
Rating: 4.25/5
How hot? 🔥🔥🔥🔥
Next week, I’ll be recommending books where sex toys and intimacy aids feature prevalently!
What should I be reading next? Let me know in the comments!