“I have!” I replied. “I started withAmerican Tailand the series keeps getting better. I started the fourth book this week and I’m loving it.”
“Do they end on a cliffhanger? I don’t start a series if the books end on a cliffhanger. Someone did me dirty once, recommending a book like that without warning me first.” Tiffany pressed her lips together in a line and turned her head to glare at Eliza.
“It was one time!” lamented Eliza from her spot on the loveseat next to Margo.
“People don’t forget,” Tiffany deadpanned as Margo turned her head so she could finish braiding her hair.
“IsAmerican Creamthe fourth book in the series you’re talking about, Polly?” Rose asked me, looking down at her phone.
“Yes. I’m actually reading it right now. And to answer your question, Tiffany, they don’t end on a cliffhanger. Each book is a standalone with a sort of romantic suspense femme fatale vibe. This last one has a female MC who’s a bounty hunter undercover as a dominatrix and it’sveryspicy. I’ve listened to all of them and the narration is spot on.”
“Who’s the narrator? I can be picky about my narrators,” Margo asked, finishing up Tiffany’s braid.
“Brittney Houston.”
“She’s great!” Eliza said. “The narrator for Ann Richter’s books is fabulous, too.”
“Did Ann Richter write theBrag Queenseries?” Margo asked, picking up a small notepad she’d been studiously taking notes in all afternoon.
“I’ve read those!Drags to Richeswas my favorite. They were as illuminating as they were hysterical,” Tiffany snorted.
“Would y’all quit talking so fast? I can only add so many books to my Kindle at a time and I’m trying to write these all down for my TBR. Ann Richter wrote what now?”
Margo hopped up, showing Rose the list of books she’d written down.
Eliza sighed. “The last thing I need is to add more books to my TBR. It’s already a mile long and that’s before I took a detour into monster romance books this past month. The last book I read was a doozy.”
“Are you talking about the book where the sunscreen is the MC with the micropeen?” Leah suddenly asked, startling me. She’d been sitting on my other side the whole time, but hadn’t moved or spoken for the last twenty minutes. I honestly thought she’d fallen asleep from the sheer volume of food and wine she’d consumed upon our arrival.
“Did you just say micropeen and sunscreen? Like the sunscreen has the . . .” I made a gesture that made everyone laugh. “How would that even work?”
“I feel like the length of the micropeen would be SPF dependent somehow,” Margo pondered aloud, causing Tiffany to snort.
Rose winked at me. “Eliza reads the most wackadoodle books.”
“Which I freely admit!” Eliza held up her hand. “But they make me laugh. But at least you’re calling them books and not smut. I’m so sick of people who tell me I’m not reading real books because it’s a romance. Like adding sex to a book makes it fake literature in some way.”
Rose scoffed. “If folks think I read romance for the sex they can go right ahead. I know the truth.”
“I’ve read books for the sex,” Margo shrugged and Leah snickered under her breath, “Haven’t we all?”
Rose gave them each a hard look. When she was satisfied that no one was going to speak, she continued, “I read romance on account of the happily ever afters. I have no desire to read hundreds of pages about folks who don’t end up together. I’ve lived sad endings, I have no interest readin’ about ’em. And I could care less if the heroine comes a hundred times or if the hero has a dick the size of a baseball bat. I read to escape, smut or no smut.”
Tiffany quirked her mouth and tilted her head to the side. “But, like, maybe a little smut.”
Rose ignored her. “I want a book that’ll take me on a million journeys with laughs and suspense and tears and still leave me happy at the end. Think about Disney! Can y’all think of one that has a sad ending?”
“Old Yeller!” Leah called out followed by Eliza shouting, “The Fox and the Hound!”
“My point is, I pity the folks who judge romance readers. As if the books we read are fluff. Like just because the books I read have some sex in a few chapters makes them somehow less worthy. Those folks are like the adults inPeter Pan, who no longer believe in magic. I, for one, am glad we find joy in readin’ romance.”
Rose paused briefly and looked around the room, finding that for once, we were all quiet, hanging on her every word.
“It means the child that loves to dance and sing, the one that dreams with their eyes open, is inside us all, alive and well.”
CHAPTERTWENTY-NINE
POLLY
