Keep Calm & Read On
In this special series, our librarians are introducing you to more series and authors that keep them reading long into the night. In this post, one of our librarians talks about one of her favorite authors: Jill Shalvis.
When there’s a lot going on in the world or your life, sometimes you feel like you can’t concentrate on a book that is heavily detailed or intricately plotted. Sometimes you need something lighter that you know will end with a happily ever after. Romance novels are the perfect solution. Do not be fooled into thinking romance novels are just fluff, though. These novels offer complex characters with their own issues to complicate a relationship and subplots that drive a story forward.
My go-to romance author is Jill Shalvis who writes both romance and women’s fiction. She has multiple series and any one would be worth picking up as they all have a similar feel to them thanks to Shalvis’ writing style. As author Carly Phillips says on the cover of Animal Magnetism, “Jill Shalvis writes with humor, heart, and sizzling heat.” Not only does Shalvis excel at a steamy sex scene, but her characters have a snarky sense of humor that brings laughter or every book. Shalvis has a way of making writing characters that have seem to say whatever is on their mind and not feeling any shame in eating an entire box of Oreos. Her storylines are also not just about two people falling in love but the characters’ struggles to overcome obstacles and work their way to being better people.
Her most prolific romance series are Lucky Harbor, Animal Magnetism, and Heartbreaker Bay. Each series focuses on a group of friends or the local residents of a small town and their escapades in love. Each book in the series, though, works as a standalone because it is the love story of the one pair. Those characters, though, serve as secondary characters in the other books, so you get to see them again and build your own relationship with them. Shalvis has a way of making even the secondary characters important and loveable to the point that I look ahead to see what book that character gets his/her own story.
Shalvis has also been writing women’s fiction, which is similar to romance but less focused on the love story and more on one or two characters fixing what’s wrong in their lives. For example, Rainy Day Friends is about Lanie moving on after discovering her husband had been married to multiple women and River who is pregnant and homeless. These two women meet the Capriottis, who offer them not just jobs but a place in their family as they learn to believe in themselves, trust, and love again. This book still has Shalvis’s humor and the occasional steamy love scene, but the story is far more about Lanie and River healing from their pasts. Shalvis’s women’s fiction books all take place in Wildstone, but they act even more like standalones than her romance series as the only link between the stories is the location, so they definitely can be read in any order.
If you’re looking for a new bingeable author, definitely try Jill Shalvis. She has the humor and heart to keep you coming back for more.
Mary-Megan K.
Popular Materials Asst.