When I first starting reading romance again, I loved Higgins’s contemporary romances, especially Catch of the Day. I love a fisherman hero. I left off reading Higgins because she, like other favourite Sarah Morgan, went the way of women’s fiction. But this publisher’s blurb felt more romance-y than usual for WF fare and I took a wild chance. I was wrong and right. I was wrong because Look On the Bright Side really is more WF than I care for and yet, I can’t say I didn’t enjoy it.
Centred around the Lark family, its focus, at firstl, is Lark Smith, an oncology resident sent packing to work ER because she’s too “sympathetic” towards the patients. And weeps…a lot. The narrative extends to also tell the story of Lark’s mother, Ellie, whose perfect marriage goes wonky when she discovers her husband of 38 years is messaging a woman on Facebook. And again, the narrative extends to Joy Deveaux, Lark’s landlady, who moved to the Cape after losing her brother. Divorcée of three marriages and recipient of sundry “beautifying” plastic surgeries, Joy has more money than she knows what to do with and nothing to do but feel lonely.
The Smiths and Joy are soon entwined with the Santinis when Dr. Lorenzo Santini, aka Dr. Satan, not a mere adorable grump, but devoid of adorableness and made of arrogance, rudeness, and a thorough lack of humour, asks Lark to be his fake girlfriend for his sister’s wedding and the sake of his dying Nona. Lark agrees, hoping “Dr. Satan” will help her make her way back to oncology’s good graces. And there be sad, serious reasons: Lark lost her fiancé to cancer and wants to dedicate her career to working with its patients.
Higgins’s Look On the Bright Side unfortunately proved me right…again, about WF’s most pernicious elements: sisters (Lark is a twin; thankfully, this didn’t get too much page time), cancer, truly its most unbearable convention (reaching its height in the goshawful My Sister’s Keeper), marriage on the rocks, family dynamics, and romance-lite. Yup, not a fan of these essential WF themes; they bore me to tears and then some.
Nevertheless, there are saving elements to Higgins’s WF: humour and banter, I assume left over from her romance-writing days. It won me over and it, in places, also in its favour, surprisingly delighted me. Particularly strong was Lark and Dr. Satan’s anti-banter: when they go on their first fake-date, Lark tells him about her family; his response: ” ‘Did I indicate interest in your family?’ ‘No, but someone has to fill the silence.’ ‘Why?’ ” And it goes on like this…and my Kindle note: “I love Lark. And this is too funny to be WF! Yippee!” Lark stays sharp and funny and is still a WF-weeper, over cancer and family…I never once rolled my eyes or disliked her. When she joins the ER, the supervising Dr. Unger is a hoot as well.
Look On the Bright Side suffers when it flashbacks to Lark’s fiancé’s cancer: these chapters went on too long, werebtoo detailed, but I guess they had to be so to give Lark her full healing HEA. Lark’s mother, Ellie, and her fury at her husband emotionally straying also had a witty, funny streak in her contempt and anger (but, hey, still romance-influenced, an HEA here too), though again, the exposition in the backstory fill-ins dragged on. The funniest exchanges are with Nona: old, bald, suspicious, and nasty Nona, who takes an instant dislike to Lark and spits hilarious venom at her for the duration. Nona-Nasty is foiled by Lark’s dog, Connery (yes, after Sean) whose adorableness and affection can make up for Noni’s deathly snark and Dr. Satan’s grim, arrogant, emotional cluelessness. And then there’s the firefighter brother, Dante Santini…romance sigh-worthy and with a lovely twist in how he’s connected to Lark. All around, I can’t say Look On the Bright Side made me a WF reader, but it may have again made me a Higgins reader.
Kristan Higgins’s Look On the Bright Side is published by Berkley and released on May 28. I received an e-galley, from Berkley, via Netgalley. The above is the honest AI-free expression of my opinion.
Miss Bates Reads Romance 
This isn’t my favorite Kristan Higgins, but it is good. I hope she gives Dr. Satan his own story, if nothing else to make him more human!
My favorite Kristan Higgins is Pack Up The Moon. I loved that story. I keep that on my re-read shelf.
LikeLike
You’re Higgins-expertise is right. I thought I’d hate it, but I quite liked it. And I really like her humour. I just wish it had been less of a misery-fest in place.
Dr. Satan, I so agree: he needs an HEA and to fall hard. Good to know about Pack Up the Moon, thank you. Now that I’m inching towards Higgins, I’ll look out for it. AFTER I make sure it isn’t lurking somewhere in the Giant TBR.
LikeLike
See, that’s the problem with good writers migrating to WF–one starts following them there because there seem to be very few left writing genre romance. /s
Okay, but really, why are so many good genre romance writers moving on to WF? are they getting better advances and bigger readership or what? Because it has to be depressing to write them, what with so much misery and “just like real life”, and so little joy and romance. /rant
LikeLike
I’m with you rant-wise, I don’t think they have more fun writing them. I suspect WF is more likely to attract a general audience than romance. Romance has, once again, as before, been marginalized. And with so much of it being online, like Wattpad, or self-published, the genre is like putting water in your wine. Weakened.
One thing I can say, for Higgins and Morgan, migrating to WF has not made them better writers, but it may have ensured a better income. So I don’t blame them, but I don’t want to read their WF as I did their romance. It’s just not fun. So they’ve lost readers and gained readers and the gain must be sufficient to see them stay in WF. I also think that the painful tearing apart of Romancelandia, necessary as it may have been in places, also made writers and readers say “I’m outtahere.”
Sadly, this “migration” has seen some of rom’s best writers exiting and hence, why some of us, aren’t reading as much of it. *sorry rant sustained too too long*
LikeLiked by 1 person
Some of the migration is because there’s a lot of good self-published genre romance, and trad publishers, rather than compete by offering better terms to new good genre writers and offering their catalog at reasonable prices, they overprice everything new and tell their contracted genre writers that their genre is “dying” or “not selling as it used to” (which is true in the sense that lots of people are buying what they want at cheaper prices directly from authors via kindle unlimited and the like).
Given traditional publication timelines, some of this was happening even before RWA imploded, but it has accelerated in recent years.
I’ve taken refuge in historical romance, with mixed results, but one does one what can.
And there’s of course the endless supply or romance-flavored cozy mysteries, gog help us all.
/second rant
tl;dr: I blame publishing, because gog knows they really fly on the power of their prejudices.
LikeLike
I’m awfully glad there’s good self-published romance out there because goodness knows I’m an utter ignoramus about it. The self-pubbed I’ll read are Mimi Matthews and Emma Barry and they’re now trad-published. And, I’m guilty too, because I read so much and want to try new authors or sustain old faves, I do wait for their books to get cheaper before I buy. In a nutshell, maybe the real culprit is the ‘zon!!!!!
I think I read more contemporary than historical, but I also read a lot more crime fiction and nonfiction than I do romance. Important thing my friend, as a classroom English teacher, is that people read at all, given what I see even from willing and compliant good students. The reading for pleasure thing: it’s going the way of knitting, which I also love. A niche!
LikeLiked by 1 person
The ‘zon took advantage of a critical weakness of trad publishing: privileged white men would not credit authors with the daring to go out and publish digitally, either with smaller presses or on their own, so Bezos poached them all. Then trad pub, rather than finding ways to compete with ‘zon, just went along–and kept their prices high or even raised them. Consumers, especially voracious readers, can’t afford those books, so we turn to digital editions and sales.
But they blame libraries all day long, of course.
LikeLike
This is true; traditional publishers didn’t respond well to the ‘zon situation. We used to be able to buy e-books at reasonable prices on the ‘zon, not too $$$$$, but also not the dirt cheap that doesn’t give the author anything in return as happens now with a sale. Sometimes, the e-book is pricier than paper.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Ah but see, trad pubs set the prices for their books on amazon–and they, stubbornly, only want to sell paper, and so they price the digital editions stupidly high. Who wants to pay paper prices or higher for something that you are renting/licensing? No one.
Not that the ‘zon is innocent here; they’ve manipulated the market and now indie and self-pubbed authors are trying to escape a system that exploits them as much as trad pubs did once.
But trad pubs suck large, and most of their pain is self-inflicted; I wouldn’t care but for the effect their stupidity effects readers all over. /rant
LikeLike
And for those authors I really want to read. I do admit it helps to get those ARCs. I can’t afford to feed my TBR otherwise. And I really just like writing stuff. But still, I can’t say it doesn’t help.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Oh same, absolutely; I like writing reviews (and rants), and when someone tells me they sought out and enjoyed something based on one of my reviews? oh it’s the best feeling. It feels as if I’m giving the author something back for the enjoyment I derive from their work. If that also means I get ARCs for their future work, that’s an embarrassment of blessings (and I’ll take it).
Without ARCs I’m not sure I would try many new authors; it’s not the same browsing a library’s digital shelves, I’m afraid. And ARCs I’ve loved I get to keep and re-read when I want/need to.
LikeLike
And, another publishing problem *resumes rant*…when they got rid, mostly, of the mass market paperback. Trade paperback are pricey and that ensures that I won’t try newtome authors and if the “e” is as $$$ as the trade. A problem. Nasty cycle.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Exactly!
LikeLiked by 1 person