Saturday, April 21, 2018

The search for authenticity in clean romance - plus a review of Harvest Moon Homecoming by Jessie Gussman


When I first started reading my mum’s Mills and Boon, the stories were so tame that it amazes me they were considered for adults only. Apart from rapidly beating hearts and the odd tummy flutter, there wasn’t a hint of sex. A lot didn’t even have kissing!

Today clean romance sales are surging and while it’s fun to write for that genre, changes in society means it’s more of a challenge to come up with a storyline and characters that are authentic.

For instance, in my mum’s time, nice girls just didn’t go to bed unless they were married. Well, they did, but they pretended they didn’t.  As sex was taboo, wanting it and not doing it was perfectly believable and provided authors with a neat method for promoting sexual tension.

Also, back in those days, class was a lot more important. A secretary really was a step down or two from her boss. And a girl who’d taken a course at a little college, was way below a man who went to university.  Again, very simple, very understandable Obstacles To True Love.

The challenge for writing clean romance therefore is not so much leaving out the sex scene but explaining why you’re leaving it out.

If you have an office situation, like Curtis and Emma in His Competent Woman, you can incorporate modern values. At one point, Curtis is nervous about his interest in Emma being perceived as inappropriate or perhaps even harassment. That is, I think, a very real concern for modern men who fall for their colleagues.

For Love, Laughter andLots of Dogs, I wanted to explore how an old fashioned courtship might work in modern times. So Kelly is a bit worried about the gossiping cats who destroy reputations in her little village, and Cory had a very bad time with a previous whirlwind romance. That was enough to provide them both with authentic reasons to keep it vertical for a few months.

In Harvest Moon Homecoming by Jessie Gussman, Principal Calvin “Fink” Finkenbinder and Ellie Bright are living in a small rural town where social standards mirror are very definitely last century. Fink’s bosses look down on Ellie because she doesn’t have a lot of formal education and as this might impact on Fink’s career, that becomes an Obstacle To True Love.

It’s a fun idea that works because of the setting. It would not have worked if Fink and Ellie were living in New York or Los Angeles but in a small town, values are more likely to be old-fashioned and as everyone is living on top of each other, gossip is concentrated.

In real life those situations would be heartbreaking but in novels, you know you can count on a Happily Ever After.  And that’s what matters, right?




My review of Harvest Moon Homecoming on Amazon UK: 

I’ve had a bad couple of months and so I was looking for a light, cheerful novel with nice people and no angst. This hit the spot. Fink and Ellie are very nice people, getting on in life, and discovering that they’re not too old for romance. It’s a clean romance, so apart from a few kisses, it’s all about the relationship that develops. I must say, I liked the farm details and the plot revolving around the American tradition of having parades with floats was also a lot of fun.  


Harvest Moon Homecoming
By Jessie Gussman
ASIN: B076HP2L1K
132 pages
Price:99 cents




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