coral reviewed Hold me by Courtney Milan (Cyclone -- bk. 2.)
None
5 stars
Courtney Milan is probably why I find so many other romances by so many other authors really disappointing.
She writes trans characters and bi characters and gay characters, and they get to be full human beings who have good and bad relationships and who don't have to die to move the story along.
She has smart heroines. They aren't all literature, folklore, or history majors—maybe none of them are, and that's OK, given the overrepresentation of them in the rest of romance.
She still uses the tropes of the genre, but unlike so many romance authors, she colors all the way to the edges. The reader recognizes the tropes and knows what's most likely to happen, but it doesn't feel formulaic or predestined as one is reading—the tropes sit more lightly on the story and feel optional, as if she might choose a different ending, where lesser authors leave no …
Courtney Milan is probably why I find so many other romances by so many other authors really disappointing.
She writes trans characters and bi characters and gay characters, and they get to be full human beings who have good and bad relationships and who don't have to die to move the story along.
She has smart heroines. They aren't all literature, folklore, or history majors—maybe none of them are, and that's OK, given the overrepresentation of them in the rest of romance.
She still uses the tropes of the genre, but unlike so many romance authors, she colors all the way to the edges. The reader recognizes the tropes and knows what's most likely to happen, but it doesn't feel formulaic or predestined as one is reading—the tropes sit more lightly on the story and feel optional, as if she might choose a different ending, where lesser authors leave no doubt of where the story is going.