Reading: Get A Life, Chloe Brown (94/365)
Apr. 4th, 2021 06:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
white_hartI've seen several recommendations for Talia Hibbert's trilogy of romance novels about the Brown sisters, and reading a review of the third book, which has just come out, prompted me to try the first, Get A Life, Chloe Brown.
I thought this was a delightful book. It's an enemies-to-lovers romance between chronically ill Chloe, who has decided, at 31, that she needs to move out of her parents' house and start doing something more exciting with her life, and Red, who is working as the superintendent of the block of flats she moves into. (Talia Hibbert is British, and the novel is set in Nottingham, so I was surprised by the term "superintendent". Do British flats have superintendents, or have the US publishers changed this from something like "caretaker"?) It's warm and funny and I found myself caring so much about both Chloe and Red that I was dreading the final act break-up before the eventual happy ending (yes, Ms I Am Not A Romance Reader here has now read enough romance novels to know that there's always a final act break-up before the eventual happy ending); it features a disabled Black heroine and a working-class hero who is a survivor of an abusive relationship, but somehow it still manages to be a delicious frothy confection of a book. If this novel was a cake, it would be a gorgeously iced cupcake that actually tasted as good as it looked. Oh, and it features a cat.
(The sex scenes are quite explicit, but not difficult to skip if, like me, you don't like reading sex scenes.)
I thought this was a delightful book. It's an enemies-to-lovers romance between chronically ill Chloe, who has decided, at 31, that she needs to move out of her parents' house and start doing something more exciting with her life, and Red, who is working as the superintendent of the block of flats she moves into. (Talia Hibbert is British, and the novel is set in Nottingham, so I was surprised by the term "superintendent". Do British flats have superintendents, or have the US publishers changed this from something like "caretaker"?) It's warm and funny and I found myself caring so much about both Chloe and Red that I was dreading the final act break-up before the eventual happy ending (yes, Ms I Am Not A Romance Reader here has now read enough romance novels to know that there's always a final act break-up before the eventual happy ending); it features a disabled Black heroine and a working-class hero who is a survivor of an abusive relationship, but somehow it still manages to be a delicious frothy confection of a book. If this novel was a cake, it would be a gorgeously iced cupcake that actually tasted as good as it looked. Oh, and it features a cat.
(The sex scenes are quite explicit, but not difficult to skip if, like me, you don't like reading sex scenes.)
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Date: 2021-04-04 07:00 pm (UTC)There was some very interesting discussion on, I think, KJ Charles blog, about whether the final act break-up has to be a breakup or whether and how you can introduce the tension from another source - obviously easier if you've got thriller elements going on. I am all in favour of this; I dislike breakups intensely even if I know there's going to be a happy ending.
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Date: 2021-04-04 07:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-04-04 07:58 pm (UTC)Mum's flats used to have a warden, they now have a manager (paid less, doesn't live on site etc). Some flats for younger people use superintendent...
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Date: 2021-04-06 06:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-04-05 01:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-04-06 06:28 pm (UTC)