Ernesto Vasquez might have been born in the Dominican Republic but he is a die-hard New Yorker at heart. His food truck, OuNYe’s menu expresses the special fusion of his New York city childhood, where the Afro-caribbean flavors of his heritage and that of his Puerto Rican, Cuban, Jamaican and Haitian best-friends, nourished and united them. Making his food truck a success is his driving objective because Nesto can’t live on passion alone, he needs his truck to turn a profit. Willing to try anything, Nesto has given himself six months Upstate in his mother Nurys’s new town of Ithaca, in a last ditch effort to keep his dream aflot. If he fails to find customers, he will pack it in and head back to NYC and find new dreams.
There's a lot going on in Romancelandia every week, so we're starting a new weekly feature to help all of us keep up. Happy reading!
March is supposedly the start of Spring, so let's be optimistic and welcome some sunshine along with these fabulous books. (If you're Andrea and in South Africa, hopefully March brings a bit of relief from the heat of summer!)
Sometimes the most unexpected combinations make the best pairings and no one knows this better than the residents of Romancelandia. Opposites attract is a time honored and battle tested trope that helped create the very foundation our fair city rests on. Knowing that we love our opposites-attract romances the way citizens of Shondaland love popcorn and wine, Crystal B. Bright (yes, that is her actual factual legal name) offers her unique take on the trope by pairing sultry R&B divas with good ole country boys for her Love & Harmony series.
February: the shortest month of the year that always feels like the longest because hot takes on the romance genre - AMIRITE Y’ALL?! I’ve been neck deep in contest judging which has meant less time online (and aggravated), but that doesn’t mean I haven’t been scouring around for unusual historicals. Wild horses couldn’t keep me away from that. Here’s what looks enticing for February:
Possibly my favorite trope or character in historical romance is the science-y bluestocking. I will read all of these books because they totally play into my science vanity, not that any hot lords or ladies have sought me out for discussing groundwater flow or vapor intrusion models in public. This is not to say that I love every science-y heroine book, but I will read all of them. Before you think “she hated this one too?” I need you to know that I really enjoyed Lady Claire Is All That.
I read queer romance, I read interracial romance, I read romance with disabled and fat characters… and I read books that I should put down long before I do because they physically and emotionally hurt to read. In the last few months, I’ve read scores of romance novels featuring characters with various experiences with marginalization. One of the most surprising things I’ve found is how often the very books that are meant to be empowering are, in fact, quite hurtful to the reader.
Duchess by Design is pretty much what it says on the tin - an impoverished young Duke mistakes a young New York City dressmaker for her wealthy client and is immediately "enchanted" by her. What follows is a Gilded Age romance heavy on the feminism and lighter on the romance. If you enjoy reading about fashion, like in Loretta Chase's Dressmaker series, you'll enjoy this one.
To start, this is a short and sweet story, and #ownvoices when it comes to transgender representation as the author himself is trans.
