Sterling Hearts by L. SpeckhalsMy rating: 2 of 5 stars
I received this book for free, this does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review
Sterling Hearts was a first person point-of-view contemporary story of a young woman trying to find her footing in life. Evie has broken up with her emotionally abusive boyfriend and decided to move to the Appalachian area after she fell in love with a town her and the ex had passed through during a vacation. It's a small town but alive enough that she thinks an independent bookstore can be successful, her dream. Evie works to stay walled off, she wants to have a professional persona as a business owner and is still recovering from her abusive relationship, but when a man she dubs “The Cowboy” buys a children's book from her store, she can't help but let him a little.
This had sweet and cute moments but so much of what kept Evie and Blake (the cowboy) apart was misunderstandings that extremely easily could have been cleared with one simple asked and answered question. This read like a slice of life story with a romantic thread as Evie is very focused on getting her store running and worrying about her business persona in town. When her bestfriend comes to stay with her, we get a more livened up version of Evie as the friend pushes her to get out more and give Blake a chance.
There's a little bit of a mystery plot with some mysterious person who, through a sort of broker, Evie lets sell jewelry in her bookstore, that will have readers guessing and more than likely know the identity before any reveals. Evie and Blake spend some moments together with helping each other fix cars and redo a bathroom but they talk about everything but Blake's life, his secrets felt needlessly drawn out and ultimately made his character feel kind of blank to me. This was closed door with some hot and heavy making out but the way Blake's character never really revealed things about himself, kept him and his trying to build relationship with Evie feel distant and I never felt emotionally drawn to it.
The so easy to clear up misunderstandings Evie had that could have been taken care of with one question asked to Blake made Evie's reluctance feel dragged out and kept a large part of their relationship from developing. This was a slice of life with a very to be continued feeling ending that unfortunately didn't develop as much emotional depth in characters and relationships that typically pull me into stories.
Over the past couple of years, I've started to develop this theory that, when the blurb is all about her (plans/dreams/trauma), the book will lean more into women's fiction than genre romance as we understand it--especially if it's narrated from her point of view only/in first person by her, but sometimes even when the other lead has some point of view passages.
ReplyDeleteI've been checking reviews by other bloggers, and so far, the theory is holding with a 100% streak--I get the feeling this one falls there too?
From an old hat romance reader, I'd say it falls into that but newer romance readers? I have no idea if this is what they're looking for more of in romance now. Definitely not a strong enough romance plot/thread/relationship for me to call it strictly romance genre.
DeleteI think you're 100% onto something.
Yes, I think there will be a reckoning at some point when people who got into romance sometime after 2010 and/or from YA, and are reading these as "genre romance" will start discovering what we old foggies consider proper (for lack of better) genre romance, and it's going to blow their minds.
DeleteBecause, to be clear, this has happened before! Back in the 1980s, when all the genre romance with HEA was hetero, we often only had the heroine's point of view--the hero either was an asshole for a good 95% of the story, and suddenly was all, "but I love you and can't live without you, and I'll now be all that you need and want forever more!" in the last scene, or it was all a big misunderstanding because the heroine couldn't know/understand the hero's motivations, until it was all revealed--in the last scene.
It was only a few authors who were writing complex men characters and dual point of view, and then BOOM! that was pretty much the scandard for genre romance for like three decades.
tl:dr: maybe it's all cyclical, but I'll cling to the authors who are on the up curve of that cycle.