Unless you count Jane Austen and Charlotte Bronte (I don’t), I rarely pick up romance novels. I do, however, enjoy sci-fi and fantasy novels that have romance thrown in. And I want the romance to be the slow-burning kind, the kind that makes you scream at the protagonists, “Come on! Just kiss already! Declare your love! You’re obviously crazy about each other!”
In the spirit of the slow-burn sci-fi/fantasy romance, I offer you the following gems.
The Best of All Possible Worlds by Karen Lord
In her second novel, Karen Lord plays with the idea of large-scale catastrophe and what it does to a culture. Drawing on news stories about the many women who died in the 2009 tsunami, Lord spins a tale of an entire planet that is destroyed. The Sadiri sent far more men than women to off-planet occupations, leaving a surviving population that was largely male. Grace Delarua is from Cygnus Beta, a diverse planet populated with different people groups who live in a rich array of cultural settings, including various groups of taSadiri, distant relations of the Sadiri. As part of a team that is searching for people who are most closely related to the Sadiri, in an attempt to arrange marriages that will allow them to preserve their identity, Grace slowly develops a growing regard for one of her Sadiri teammates, Dllenahkh. Within the first 100 pages, I had become so entranced with the story that I was loathe to set the book aside to take care of the daily tasks of life.
Telepathic and empathic abilities, “mindships” and even time travel all play roles in the story, but the core of the novel is the unfolding relationship between Grace and Dllenahkh.
“Ever wonder if you’ve done the right thing?” I asked him finally.
“Frequently,” he replied. “Legalities notwithstanding, to not wonder indicates a dangerous lack of awareness of the nearly infinite array of choices presented by life. More tea?”
I held out my cup in mute assent. His fingertips brushed mine as he took it from me, and I felt a wave of… something. Approval? Affection, perhaps? I looked at him, startled, and he held my gaze for a second before focusing on pouring.
Whether or not any of her other books are of the “slow-burn romance” variety, I’ll be reading more of Lord’s novels in the future.
Bronze Gods and Silver Mirrors by A. A. Aguirre
So far, Ann Aguirre and her husband, Andres, have managed to stretch out this slow-burn romance over two books set in a steampunk universe. I keep checking Ann’s website to see when the next book in the series will come out. I certainly hope there will be another.
The books involve partners Celeste Ritsuko and Janus Mikani, inspectors working for the Criminal Investigation Division in a city called Dorstaad. Bronze Gods is very much a murder mystery, while Silver Mirrors mostly sheds the feel of a detective novel, moving more into the realm of adventure. The key to both is the growing relationship between coworkers who, having come to like each other during the first three years of their work together, find their feelings growing beyond those of good partners.
He drained his own beer with a deep pull, before saying, “Anything for you, partner. You’re always there when I need you, and that means the world to me.”
Warmth spread from the tips of her toes all the way to the top of her head. With anyone else, at a moment like this, she’d be thinking about the curve of his bottom lip or how his whiskers might prickle if she leaned a little closer. Before she knew it, her hand was moving, brushing against his jaw to find out. He leaned into her touch, smiling faintly as he caught her gaze. His skin was hot, the scruff prickling against her palm, and she slid her hand farther back into his hair, because she knew his head ached after a bad night. She pressed her fingertips to a few key points in slow, soothing circles.
“How’s that? Better?”
His lashes drifted shut as he dipped his head forward. When he opened his eyes, their noses were nearly touching. “Much.”
War for the Oaks by Emma Bull
This book is known, in part, for being a defining novel of the “elf-punk” genre. Think faeries and rock bands, but don’t laugh — it works much better than you might expect. Set in Minneapolis in the 1980s, the book is so full of detail that you could cosplay some of the characters. You could also pull together a long playlist of the songs mentioned in the book — something I plan to do someday.
War for the Oaks is a bit different from the other books I’ve mentioned: for one thing, the question of whether or not the romantic tension will be resolved is answered earlier in this book than in the others I’ve mentioned, though the tension still goes on long enough to qualify as slow-burn. It also has some sex scenes that aren’t present in the other books, although they are not at all graphic.
In addition, more than one male character in the book is seriously vying for the attention of Eddi McCandry, the main character. If you read Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park, you may remember wondering if Fanny would end up with Edmund or Henry. Emma Bull’s novel reminds me of that, although perhaps it is better to compare Eddi to Captain Wentworth in Persuasion, turning the question of “who will she end up with” into “will the one who is clearly pining for her win her attention.” Although I probably don’t need to try so hard to avoid spoilers, I’ve chosen a passage from the book that doesn’t reveal the “he” who is in it.
Moonlight reflected off the water and into his eyes, and they seemed deeper than the creek. Eddi knew she should let go of him, maybe say something. But the moment when she should have done that went past. He opened his mouth to speak, shut it again, and shivered under her arm. “Ah, well,” he whispered, with a little catch in his voice.
Besides combining a nerdy theme with romance, Bull’s book has one other thing in common with the books by Lord and the Aguirres. All of them touch, at least in part, on fairy lore — not the fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm, but the sort of stuff you might run across in Faeries by Brian Froud and Alan Lee. In fact, in an interview with Green Man Review, Bull mentions that book as one of her influences.
War for the Oaks is, of course, heavily involved in the world of faerie, given its subject matter. Bronze Gods and Silver Mirrors take place in a world that used to belong to faeries — or “Ferishers” as they are called in the books — and the blood of those faerie natives still flows through the veins of some of the people of that world, including Janus Mikani.
Faeries barely show up in The Best of All Possible Worlds, and when they do, it is in a very different way from the other books I’ve mentioned, but they are there. During the search for compatible mates for the surviving Sadiri men, the team encounters a culture that calls itself the Seelie Court, ruled by “the Faerie Queen.” The notion of an alien culture built on old Earth stories is not the only thing in the book that made me think of Star Trek, but the novel still stands on its own as a worthwhile read.
So here’s your wonderful thing for the week: Pick a book from the list, get your hands on it, and enjoy! Then tell me what you thought.
Update (02/15/21): Looking for more sci-fi romance? I recently posted on the Sirantha Jax series by Ann Aguirre. The first book could qualify as slow-burn.