This year, our fall programming series, Orem Reads: Romance, is centered around the romance genre. Romance novels have always held a great appeal for me. I love the journey to find that one person who makes life complete and the struggle to reach a happily ever after. The chemistry, the tension, the challenge, the spice. Romance novels can often be predictable but the familiar ride with its often-used tropes is oh so satisfying. In reality, life is never perfect, but a love story can provide the ultimate escapist fantasy. In that respect, romance isn’t really much different from other genre fiction — mystery, adventure, thrillers — that all provide a somewhat formulaic escape from reality.
The greatest benefit of my job is that I get to read romance novels for a living. That’s right: as the person who purchases the romances for the Orem Library’s collection, I read many romance novels each year. What a racket! Orem Reads: Romance is a dream come true for me. To celebrate this year’s annual event, here’s a list of some of my favorite romances of 2022.
Contemporary Romance
Thank You for Listening
By Julia Whelan
Adult Fiction
The days of being a star on film sets are long behind Sewanee Chester. She has found success and satisfaction as an audiobook narrator, and it allows her to care for her ailing grandmother. When she arrives in Las Vegas last-minute for a book convention, Sewanee unexpectedly spends a whirlwind night with a charming stranger. On her return home she learns one of the world’s most beloved romance novelists wants her to perform her last book—with Brock McNight, the industry’s hottest, most secretive voice. Sewanee stopped narrating romances years ago, but she works on the book under her old romance pseudonym. Hidden behind the comfort of anonymity, Sewanee and Brock forge a real connection—until the realities of life come crashing down around her once more.
The Dead Romantics
By Ashley Poston
Adult Fiction
Florence Day is the ghostwriter for one of the most prolific romance authors in the industry, and she has a problem—after a terrible breakup, she no longer believes in love. It’s as good as dead. When her new editor, a too-handsome mountain of a man, won’t give her an extension on her book deadline, Florence prepares to kiss her career goodbye. But then she gets a phone call she never wanted to receive, and she must return home for the first time in a decade to help her family bury her beloved father. For ten years, she’s run from the town that never understood her. And even though she misses the sound of a warm Southern night and her eccentric, loving family’s funeral parlor, she can’t bring herself to stay. Even with her father gone, it feels like nothing in this town has changed. And she hates it. Until she finds a ghost standing at the funeral parlor’s front door, just as broad and infuriatingly handsome as ever, and he’s just as confused about why he’s there as she is. Romance is most certainly dead . . . but so is her new editor, and his unfinished business will have her second-guessing everything she’s ever known about love stories.
Gentle Romance
The Siren of Sussex
By Mimi Matthews
Adult Fiction
London’s daring new equestrienne finds love and an unexpected ally in her fight for independence in the strong arms of Victorian society’s most sought after and devastatingly handsome half-Indian tailor. Evelyn Maltravers knows exactly how little she’s worth on the marriage mart. As an incurable bluestocking from a family tumbling swiftly toward ruin, she knows she’ll never make a match in a ballroom. Her only hope is to distinguish herself by making the biggest splash in the one sphere she excels: on horseback. In haute couture. But to truly capture London’s attention she’ll need a tailor who’s not afraid to take risks with his designs—and with his heart. Half-Indian dressmaker Ahmad Malik has always had a talent for making women beautiful, inching his way toward recognition by designing riding habits for Rotten Row’s infamous Pretty Horsebreakers—but no one compares to Evelyn. Her unbridled spirit enchants him, awakening a depth of feeling he never thought possible. But pushing boundaries comes at a cost and not everyone is pleased to welcome Evelyn and Ahmad into fashionable society. With obstacles spanning between them, the indomitable pair must decide which hurdles they can jump and what matters most: making their mark or following their hearts?”
Meet Me in the Margins
By Melissa Ferguson
Adult Fiction
When Savannah Cade quickly stuffs her manuscript for a romance novel in a secret nook at work, she thinks she’s been able to hide what she’s been writing from others at her highbrow publishing company. So when she returns to get the manuscript, she’s dismayed to discover that someone has not only found it, but also written critical notes in the margins. After the book is rejected for publishing, Savannah finds herself forced to seek the help of the mystery editor, who becomes increasingly important to her.
Historical Romance
Never Fall for your Fiancée
By Virginia Heath
Adult Fiction
The last thing Hugh Standish, Earl of Fareham, ever wants is a wife. Unfortunately for him, his mother is determined to find him one, even from across the other side of the ocean. So Hugh invents a fake fiancée to keep his mother’s matchmaking ways at bay. But when Hugh learns his interfering mother is on a ship bound for England, he realizes his complicated, convoluted but convenient ruse is about to implode. Until he collides with a beautiful woman, who might just be the miracle he needs. Minerva Merriwell has had to struggle to support herself and her two younger sisters ever since their feckless father abandoned them. Work as a woodcut engraver is few and far between, and the Merriwell sisters are nearly penniless. So when Hugh asks Minerva to pose as his fiancée while his mother is visiting, she knows that while the scheme sounds ludicrous, the offer is too good to pass up. Once Minerva and her sisters arrive at Hugh’s estate, of course nothing goes according to his meticulous plan. As hilarity and miscommunication ensue while everyone tries to keep their tangled stories straight, Hugh and Minerva’s fake engagement starts to turn into a real romance. But can they trust each other when their relationship started with a lie?
A Perfect Equation
By Elizabeth Everett
Adult Fiction
How do you solve the Perfect Equation? Add one sharp-tongued mathematician to an aloof, handsome nobleman. Divide by conflicting loyalties and multiply by a daring group of women hell-bent on conducting their scientific experiments. The solution is a romance that will break every rule. Six years ago, Letitia Fenley made a mistake, and she’s lived with the consequences ever since. Readying herself to compete for the prestigious Rosewood Prize for Mathematics, she is suddenly asked to take on another responsibility—managing Athena’s Retreat, a secret haven for England’s women scientists. Having spent the last six years on her own, Letty doesn’t want the offers of friendship from other club members and most certainly doesn’t need help from the insufferably attractive Lord Greycliff. Lord William Hughes, the Viscount Greycliff cannot afford to make any mistakes. His lifelong dream of becoming the director of a powerful clandestine agency is within his grasp. Tasked with helping Letty safeguard Athena’s Retreat, Grey is positive that he can control the antics of the various scientists as well as manage the tiny mathematician—despite their historic animosity and simmering tension. As Grey and Letty are forced to work together, their mutual dislike turns to admiration and eventually to something…magnetic. When faced with the possibility that Athena’s Retreat will close forever, they must make a choice. Will Grey turn down a chance to change history, or can Letty get to the root of the problem and prove that love is the ultimate answer?
Fantasy Romance
A Curse of Queens
By Amanda Bouchet
Adult Fiction
The queen has been cursed, and Jocasta—herbalist and member of the royal family—is the only one who can brave Circe’s Garden to save her. But with treachery brewing on Mount Olympus, only one thing is clear: Thalyria and its new royals are still pawns in an epic game of power—one that might end in a War of Gods
The Kiss Curse
By Erin Sterling
Adult Fiction
Gwyn Jones is perfectly happy with her life in Graves Glen, Georgia. She, her mom, and her cousin have formed a new and powerful coven; she’s running a successful witchcraft shop, Something Wicked; and she’s started mentoring some of the younger witches in town. As Halloween approaches, there’s only one problem—Llewellyn “Wells” Penhallow. Wells has come to Graves Glen to re-establish his family’s connection to the town they founded as well as to make a new life for himself after years of being the dutiful son in Wales. When he opens up a shop of his own, Penhallow’s, just across the street from Something Wicked, he quickly learns he’s gotten more than he bargained for in going up against Gwyn. When their professional competition leads to a very personal–and very hot–kiss, both Wells and Gwyn are determined to stay away from each other, convinced the kiss was just a magical fluke. But when a mysterious new coven of witches come to town and Gwyn’s powers begin fading, she and Wells must work together to figure out just what these new witches want and how to restore Gwyn’s magic before it’s too late
