Category: Author’s Alley
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The Late Shift
She worked nights. Had for years, long before he came along, and she’d assumed any relationship would eventually buckle under the strange architecture of her schedule. Idris hadn’t buckled. He’d rearranged. He couldn’t change his own hours — a normal nine-to-five, immovable — but he’d quietly shifted everything else. Dinner became breakfast, eaten together at…
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Why the Fake Dating Trope Will Forever Hold the Romance Genre in a Chokehold
Alright, look. We need to talk about our collective obsession with couples who aren’t actually couples, but are totally couples. You know exactly what I’m talking about, bestie. The fake dating trope has a iron-clad grip on the romance book community, and honestly? We never want it to let go. With August being Read-a-Romance Month,…
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The Translation
Her mother didn’t speak English. He’d learned forty careful phrases before meeting her for the first time, written phonetically on his hand in pen because he was too nervous to trust his memory. Ingrid had warned him it wasn’t necessary. Her mother had lived in the country for thirty years; she managed fine with gestures…
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The Practice Run
He proposed badly the first time. Deliberately. Oskar had planned the real proposal for weeks — the right restaurant, the right ring, the right words rehearsed until they felt natural. But three days before, lying in bed, he’d had a sudden and specific fear: that the real moment would feel like a performance, too polished,…
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5 Romance Book Tropes You Absolutely Need to Binge This August
Let’s be real for a second, bestie. August is the official month of peak laziness, melting ice cream, and existential dread about summer ending. But more importantly? It is Read-a-Romance Month. If your beach bag doesn’t have at least one unhinged, page-turning contemporary romance stuffed inside it, are you even vacationing correctly? I know what…
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The Long Way Home
He always took the long way home from the station. She’d noticed it years ago and never asked why, assuming it was about traffic, or habit, or nothing at all. It was none of those things. She found out by accident, walking with him one evening when his phone died and he had to navigate…
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Kindle or Physical Books on Holiday? The Romance Reader’s Annual Dilemma
Every summer, usually about three days before I leave for holiday, I have the exact same conversation with myself. “Be sensible.” “Take the Kindle.” “It holds hundreds of books.” “Your suitcase will be lighter.” Five minutes later… I’m trying to figure out how to fit four paperbacks into the side pocket of my suitcase because…
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Two Languages
They argued in two languages. It had started as an accident — Yusuf reverting to Arabic when frustrated, Camille reverting to French — and become, over time, a strange and useful ritual. “You only switch when you know you’re losing,” she told him, in French, mid-disagreement about whose turn it was to call the landlord.…
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The Romance Book You Pack for Holiday Says More About You Than You Think
Packing for a holiday is stressful enough. You have to decide how many outfits you’ll actually wear (spoiler: probably half), whether you’ll need that extra pair of sandals (you won’t), and somehow convince yourself that this is finally the year you’ll pack light. Then comes the hardest decision of all. Which books are coming with…
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The Allergy
He’d memorized her allergies before he’d memorized her birthday. This was a fact Priya hadn’t noticed about herself until three months in, ordering takeout, when he’d quietly asked the restaurant to leave off the cashews without her saying a word. “How did you know that?” “You mentioned it. Once. At the party where we met.”…
Sonia M. Rompoti, MSc, Bsc 