Tomboy Heroines | 6.9.23
Anything he can do, she can do better
Despite my new “online brand” as a romance writer and reviewer, I am a lifelong tomboy. Even as far back as preschool, most of my friends growing up were guys. I played sports, I always tried to join the boy’s team during recess games that were unnecessarily pitting the genders against each other, and I hated the color pink, anything sparkly, and wearing skirts and dresses. There was a period of time where I insisted that everyone call me “Mack” (scroll to the end of this newsletter for a few photos of me from this time) and exclusively wore a hat to cover my hair which I guess I associated with girliness? It doesn’t matter, the point is: I have a lot of feelings about growing up as a girl under the patriarchy who doesn’t fit the traditional feminine mold, and I love books that validate and empathize that experience. Let’s go!
Irresistibly Yours by Lauren Layne. The first in the spinoff series about the men’s lifestyle magazine Oxford (the original series followed the women’s magazine Stiletto a few floors down, I’ve recommended the first of that series here) is a delightful rivals to lovers romp through the world of sports journalism. Cole Sharpe has been freelancing for Oxford for years, but for reasons that won’t possibly coincide with his romantic commitment issues he’s never accepted (or sought) a salaried position. That all changes when he suddenly finds himself in need of a more stable situation to pay for his developmentally impaired brother’s care that’s gotten more and more expensive recently. And now that Oxford is finally expanding its sports coverage to a full multi page section of the magazine, he knew he’d be perfect for the Senior Sports Editor position.
However, he’s got some unexpected competition in one Penelope Pope, fresh off a personal and professional heartbreak in Chicago and ready to make her mark in NYC. She’s a classic tomboy and completely not playboy Cole’s type- she’s tiny, skinny, and cheerfully accepts her lot in life as one of the guys. Well, externally cheerfully. Penelope is probably better described as cheerfully resigned to her position as the only woman in the room who is both underestimated for her gender and yet never attractive due to it. Which is probably why Cole, who in another book would be a callous, rakish dude to her, can’t help but root for her, despite his desperation to land this gig.
Their rivalry is real, but so are their instant feelings for one another. Cole spends the first third of the book trying to be the jerk his archetype would be in any other pairing but failing because Penelope is just so damned likable, and Penelope, for her part, automatically assumes and accepts that they’re just platonic workplace buds/rivals. Her self esteem is so tied up in her career that she never considers herself as a woman unless it’s working against her, so when Cole makes it clear he does not think it’s working against her in a non-platonic way, she’s genuinely surprised. It’s heartbreaking, and I feel ya, Penelope. This was a lovely, sexy book that makes me smile when I think about this couple’s journey to the HEA, and was a great balance of what I loved from the Stiletto series with what will be new and exciting about the Oxford one.
Rating: 4.25/5
How hot? 🔥🔥🔥🔥
Ten Ways To Be Adored When Landing A Lord by Sarah MacLean. When Georgiana, the sister of the powerful Duke of Leighton (remember her?), runs off, he knows who he needs to hire to find her: Nicholas St. John. This works out for Nick, because he needs to get the hell out of London for a while now that he’s been named one of London’s “Lords to Land” by a popular ladies’ magazine. As he has no intention of being “landed,” the pursuit of a duke’s sister will surely keep him away long enough for everyone to forget about him again.
Lady Isabel Townsend disagrees, because when the storied bachelor from the city shows up on her doorstep, she does everything she can to turn him away. He suspects she’s hiding Georgiana for some reason (and he’s right) but he can’t prove it, and Isabel is stubborn. And busy. Busy with a house full of runaway women (some who stay, some who she sends elsewhere to safety) she’s protecting from those who would do them harm or force them back into lives they want nothing to do with.
Despite their opposite goals, Isabel and Nick can’t help but respect the other, and find that perhaps they don’t need to be adversarial to achieve their ends. And if working together keeps Isabel from trying to fix the roof by herself in the rain… all the better.
It might be a little bit of a stretch to call Isabel a true tomboy (especially in light of the other two books in this roundup) but given she and her friends/collaborators have, by necessity, taken on a lot of roles usually taken up by men to protect one another, I felt it fit in with the theme nicely.
Rating: 4.5/5
How hot? 🔥🔥🔥🔥
The Scoundrel Falls Hard by Sophie Jordan. This book punches you in the face with its very first line, and never lets up from there. “There was an angry mob outside and what they wanted was inside Gwen Cully’s shop.” Like, are you kidding me? TELL ME MORE, SOPHIE!
Gwen Cully is the third generation of Cully to run a blacksmith’s shop in her small town, but she’s the first to have real competition (and, incidentally, the first woman to be in charge), and it’s starting to become a problem. She’d had to slow down to take care of her dying relatives while running the shop alone, and it had been just enough for a gross new blacksmith family to move in on her business. They’re also insistent that she marry one of the sons of this new blacksmith family, and she’s hard enough up for money that she might have to give in. She can’t survive much longer alone, no matter how hard she works. She is an impressive, tall, talented woman, but she’s only one person.
Then she’s presented with a surprising opportunity when the false heir of the nearby dukedom is chased into her shop by an angry mob. Kellan Fox’s father is a con man and has been pretending to be the Duke of Penning for months (as the real Duke hasn’t been to town in years), and Kellan had joined him for a few weeks before the actual Duke returned and outed them both. His coward father left him in the dust, and loyal Gwen can’t abide by this behavior, so she stops her furious neighbors from hanging him for the crime by claiming they’re engaged and in love and if they have any loyalty to her left, they’ll forgive the fraud (especially since Kellan was clearly not the mastermind of the lies) and let the two lovebirds fall for each other. She and Kellan agree to stay married one year to make it look real, and then Kellan will “run off on her” and go wherever he wants, unhanged. In the meantime, though, she puts his lying ass to work. Luckily he’s even taller than her (and she’s tall, y’all) and owes her his life.
This book is my historical catnip on nearly every level. Brave, strong woman saves dumbass man’s life, and dumbass man ends up dedicating his life back to her, despite everyone else seeing her as an oddity? Yes! Yes! One thousand times yes! This book is the third in a series but very easy to read out of order.
Rating: 4.5/5
How hot? 🔥🔥🔥🔥
Next week, I’ll be recommending books with DANGER BANGS! As in: having sex while in some kind of mortal peril.
What should I be reading next? Let me know in the comments!
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Baby Tomboy Bri aka Mack
Good times.