I love category romance and I yearn to read it with the same enthusiasm I used to. But category romance has been a desert, at least to this reader, these past few years and I’ve DNF-ed, disappointed, more often than make my desultory way through one “meh” after another. Fact is some of the best romances I’ve read have been category romances: Jessica Hart’s Promoted: to Wife and Mother, Kathleen Creigton’s One Christmas Knight, Karina Bliss’s A Prior Engagement, Molly O’Keefe’s Unexpected Family, and my beloved Betty’s Tulips for Augusta, to name a few. And let’s not forget the great HPs: classic Lynne Graham’s The Greek’s Chosen Wife; more recent, Dani Collins’s Cinderella’s Royal Seduction. For the most part, though, many of my favourite category authors have moved on from category, from romance itself (sobs). These days, my expectations, therefore, are low: at best, I hope for a passably written, pleasant read…but what I got from Teri Wilson’s Her Man of Honor is a GREAT one, hearkening back to the wonderful writing, pacing, characterization, sheer fun and yet depth of great category romance. The chef’s kiss of the perfect length to the genre. Truth be told, I wasn’t keen on Wilson’s premise: I’d surfeited with the weakness of Chin’s friends-to-lovers trope-handling and dislike any wedding-industry-set novel, Hallmark movie, etc. If tulle is involved, I won’t read it (though I’d rec Mia Sosa’s Worst Best Man). But from the first page, Wilson’s romance captured me. To set us up, the publisher’s blurbish details:

When did her longtime best friend become the perfect groom?

Everly England is a bridal-advice columnist. A guru. And unfortunately, a jilted bride! Her ruined reputation and wedding only get more disastrous when her bestie Henry Aston’s sympathetic kiss ignites a desire she never knew possible. Henry knows the glamorous city girl is terrified romance will ruin their friendship. But this stand-in groom plans to win her “I do” after all!

There is much to love about Wilson’s romance, but I’d like to start by mentioning something we don’t often think about when we read romance and that is her confident third-person narration. This may be the ultimate in English teacher geek-hood, but I can’t help it. So much romance is being written in the first-person and I find it mannered and distancing; I know, it should be the other way ’round, but I like the bird’s eye-view of everything and everyone in a novel. And, if you’re going to write first person, you better be a master because it is really really hard to pull off (see Charlotte Brontë…who pulls it off). I have to ADORE your romance narrator to stick with the narrative. Third person romance gives me the opportunity to like one character over another and, even if one gets the “I don’t like you” eye squint, I can happily live with another. But if I’m stuck in one head and I don’t like that head, I’m out. I realize this isn’t the “trend”, but I’m old and crotchety and I can carry unpopular opinions. (I do make an exception for Kate Clayborn.) Back to Wilson, though, and her assured third person narration which, because it’s coupled with genuine sympathy for her hero and heroine, is wonderful.

When Her Man of Honor opens, Everly is sitting in a heap of Marchesa tulle in what should have been her wedding night suite, eating crackers and squeezable tube cheese. It’s funny and pathetic and I liked her instantly. In walks an even more likable character, her best friend and knight in shining armor, Henry Aston. While I get the “we’re best friends-and-Henry-travels-the-world-and-isn’t-around-much”, I never quite bought why Everly agreed to marry feckless what’s-‘is-name, but a girl needs a premise. In walks lovely, loving Henry and everything gets better and better, or as Everly thinks as he eats tube-cheese and lends her a shoulder and makes her feels worthy, lovable, and desirable, “He’s your friend. Your best friend. And right now, he was proving himself to be one heck of a man of honor.” Wilson plays with that idea throughout, honor, what does it mean to be honorable? It’s not just quaint and old-fashioned and attached to histrom heroes, it means standing by someone, being there for them, and taking care of them.

Which is exactly what Henry does:

Everly didn’t want to talk. She just wanted someone to sit quietly beside her and not say a word…to just be there. Henry had always been good at that, even back in college. Eight years ago, on what was undoubtedly the worst night of her life–even worse than this one–he’d parked himself on the floor of her dorm bathroom and held her hand for hours until she finally cried herself to sleep with her head on his shoulder. It had been exactly what she needed. She looked up at him now, and his gaze softened just enough for her to know he was thinking about that night, too. It was just as raw and real to him as it was to her. Of course it was. Then he blinked, and she was no longer looking into the eyes of the boy who’d lived across the hall at Columbia. These eyes belonged to someone older. Wiser. All grown up.

Wilson has many of these dual moments so well rendered: Henry and Everly’s past and present, what they meant to each other and still mean and the lovely, in-a-moment realization of desire, something familiar and comfortable suddenly becoming exciting, new, wonderful. For Henry, this moment occurs when he sees Everly walk down the aisle (he’s a trifle embarrassed at the relief he feels when her fiancé doesn’t show, even while he’s angry and hurt on her behalf). For Everly, it’s a slower realization, but I’m happy to report not one that Wilson drags on and on. If there’s any hesitation on Everly’s part, it’s the uncertainty of her own desirability. And if there’s hesitation on Henry’s, it’s to protect Everly’s bruised heart.

There are consequences to that “wedding night” with Henry and they throw more turmoil in what is a whirlwind and difficult time for Everly. But Wilson can also pull off the friend circle: Everly has friends and a great sister and a boss who may give off a “Devil Wears Prada” vibe, but turns out to be quite decent. And then there’s Henry, “…with his kind eyes…soft manner…wild and wonderful heart”. Wilson’s romance has only one agenda among romances with many: to take two people who have loved each other for years on a journey where no hard lessons have to be learned, no one has to grovel, the dark moments are only dimmed, to a believable, heart-warming HEA (despite the tulle) and fashion a romance that brings a smile and happy sigh to the reader and shows us all the wonderful, simple truth of the genre.

I’m not sure I’ve conveyed how terrific Wilson’s romance is, but I would heartily encourage you to read it and find out for yourself. And if you can articulate its yumminess better than I can, more likely, please come back and leave a comment.

Teri Wilson’s Her Man of Honor is published by Harlequin Books and released mere days ago, on March 28th. I received an e-ARC from Harlequin Books, via Netgalley, and this fact didn’t get in the way of my gushy review. It’s as good as I say it is! (Also, I love the cover.)