Welcome to Day 6 of #RomBkLove!
When trying to come up with a topic, I kept thinking about the books that gave me the most comfort in the last few years. Now, comfort can be an extremely subjective thing. You can find comfort in specific tropes or genres or in things that are familiar, etc. One thing that I find incredibly comforting is kindness. My friends and I sometimes use the term “warm hug book” for books that are gentle and kind and, if you’re a crier, leave you a sobbing mess from how good they felt. I am firmly in the “big ole crying crier” category, so here are some books that ruined me with kindness.
A book with this much petty bickering should not have the audacity to be as sweet and gentle as it is. The meddling elders and the supportive and loving queer community form the backbone of this book and I wanted to reach in and hug everyone and never let go. CWs: sexual harassment and attempted coercion
This is both the sweetest and raunchiest “marriage of convenience because of an inheritance” book that I have ever read. It is full of big and small acts of kindness. The scene where Xeni refuses to hold an important meeting in a room where Mason can’t fit into any of the chairs and just handles it is one that will forever live in my head rent free. CWs: grief (loss of a loved one); homophobia (bi-phobia from a parent and an ex-partner)
This is a novella in the Sweetest in the Gale anthology and I like to tell everyone about how it made me weep uncontrollably in a bathtub. It involves a marriage of convenience between two long time friends in their late forties who marry when one of them is facing a potential breast cancer diagnosis with no health care coverage. The care-taking and gentle affection in this book is top notch and packs an emotional wallop. CWs: breast cancer (in the diagnosis/discovery process and family history); recent loss of a parent to dementia; alcoholism (ex-partner); economic insecurity
Practical Magic meets a Hanukkah romance in this achingly tender contemporary romance with magical elements where a quiet recluse finds connection, love, and acceptance and learns to overcome his crippling fears and reach for more out of life. It will 10/10 break your heart and put it back together again. It’s critical that you stock up on challah before attempting to read this book. CWs: grief (parental and guardian loss, teenaged orphanhood); domestic violence; persecution and ostracism
Eve Brown has crashed and burned career-wise too many times when she stumbles upon job interviews for a chef position that she’d be perfect for, is told she isn’t right for the position, and then accidentally runs over the owner of the establishment with her car. Whoops. Eve and Jacob are opposites attract who are compatible at the core. They’re both caretakers and they’re both empathetic and supportive. This is another book where I wanted to reach in and hug everyone. When I got the epilogue novella in Talia’s newsletter, I read it back to back twice because I was just not ready to say goodbye. CWs: Autistic main characters (diagnosed and undiagnosed), parental neglect and abandonment
This fantasy novel with romantic elements follows a middle-aged social worker who leaves his perfectly bland in every single way life and travels to the seaside to conduct a home visit for a house full of unusual children. There he falls in love with just about everything: a kind and loving man, the seaside, and a whole entire house full of amazing children. He’ll never be the same again. This is a wonderful found family story. CWs: homophobia; bigotry aimed at both children and adults
This is a marriage of convenience/fake dating romance between two former army colleagues who become reacquainted while in the process of starting new civilian careers and decide to be platonic friends and partners. Small-town hijinks involving buying a bakery for one whole dollar ensues. They start their marriage with a relationship that “… was the opposite of romantic but it was deeply kind” and that quote succinctly sums up what I truly love about this book. CWs: grief (loss of both parents as a child); abusive ex-partner (gaslighting and stalking)
What books feel like warm hugs to you or completely bowled you over with kindness and generosity and affection? I’d love to hear about them so that I can cry in my bathtub some more.
Tabs (@TheLadyInReds)
