The billionaire romance has a long bibliography, but Lauren Asher found an angle in The Fine Print that distinguishes it […]

Romance heroines are rarely allowed to be eccentric. They are allowed to be bookish, occasionally clumsy, professionally competent in nonthreatening ways — but genuinely, specifically odd, in ways that make other people in the narrative slightly puzzled by them?

Kristen Ashley has one of the most devoted readerships in romance fiction, and the reason is not complicated: she writes alpha heroes with a specific quality that is very hard to describe without sounding reductive, and that quality is immediately identifiable to the readers who love it.

The fake relationship romance tends to succeed or fail on the quality of the central pairing: if the two people are genuinely different in ways that are interesting rather than merely contrasting, and if the dynamic they develop in proximity feels earned rather than manufactured, the premise delivers on its premise.

Abby Jimenez occupies a specific corner of contemporary romance: she writes emotional, sometimes very funny novels about people who are competent adults managing difficult lives, and her great skill is making the warmth and the depth coexist without either undermining the other.