During the coronavirus stay-at-home orders, I decided to read a few books by Talia Hibbert. I basically was looking for romance books by POC authors and her name came up, despite the fact that literally none of my romance-reading friends had ever mentioned her work.
I’m not sure that a search engine has ever brought me such a good recommendation.
Naturally, I started with Get a Life, Chloe Brown. And it was incredible. I can’t possibly tell you enough to read that adorable book. It had lively, wonderful characters and a lot of steamy anticipation. I’m not reviewing it totally today because I immediately sent it to a friend after I finished, and I like to have the book near me when I’m reviewing so I don’t forget details.
So, we’re going with a collection of books that Hibbert released specifically during the stay-at-home time to give readers a little comfort. It’s a collection of four of her novels (all kind of connected through characters that appear in the background) that she described as having “cinnamon-roll” boys. It was an accurate description for Hold Me Close.
The four books included in this collection were A Girl Like Her, Damaged Goods, Untouchable, and That Kind of Guy. All of them include those adorable boys and some complex, interesting women. These characters have insecurities and anxiety disorders, autism and a background with mental abuse. They are real and flawed and feel like they could be your friends.
I can’t even tell you if I love the cooking men in A Girl Like Her and Damaged Goods or the overly-worried father in Untouchable or the demisexual lead male in That Kind of Guy more. They are just all that good, and they are all telling stories that deserve to be told but aren’t heard very often.
When I first read through this collection, I’ll admit that I was most impressed (and surprised) by the way the demisexual love story was written. It’s not an experience written about very often, and I really appreciate the thoughtful way it was approached, and the open conversations within the text about the life of that character. I’m not saying it should be your only resource for demisexual romance, but I thought it was handled with compassion and respect.
If you haven’t read Hibbert’s work, I do very much recommend it. It has all the steamy happiness you expect from a good, inclusive romance author, but her work also has a fresh reality to the characters that is so needed in the genre.
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I got this collection on Amazon after Hibbert tweeted about the special offering, and it’s no longer available. But each of the novels is available as standalones, and you can find them most easily by searching for her Ravenswood series.
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