Janga’s post on Debbie Macomber: Sweet, Cozy, Comfortable—and Hot(-Selling!) made me think about how we regard books that are both sweet and hot-selling. Here’s the first paragraph of Janga’s blog, where she hands-down demonstrated that Macomber’s success is impressive indeed, particularly in a romance world where big sales often seem to be equated with an accelerating heat level.
“Make it hot” may be the watch-cry of 21st-century romance fiction, but one of the genre’s top-selling authors has become a #1 New York Times bestseller, a RITA winner, and a Nora Roberts Lifetime Achievement Award recipient by writing over 150 kisses-only novels known as “sweet romances."
What does “sweet” mean to most people? I checked in with a few friends who informed me that sweet was a euphemism for little to no sex (and if there is sex, it’s fade-to-black time). When there’s no sex, then cozy and comfortable goes with the territory. I’m standing to say that ain’t necessarily so. Sweet doesn’t equal cozy and comfortable, or at the very least, it isn’t a guarantee.
You know the line from Cheers: The bar where everyone knows your name? That’s the feeling I get after I read a book by Debbie Macomber—she brings to life communities where everyone does know your name, and probably your business too. I read Macomber, particularly her two most famous series, Blossom Street and Cedar Lane, because her characters have become like family, and like family, the relationships last for a lifetime.
My first Macomber was Navy Wife. I had glommed onto to Suz Brockmann’s Navy SEAL books and after I was finished, I looked around for more. You’d think the two authors wouldn’t have a lot in common but there you’d be wrong. Both authors create worlds of family and friendship. They’re not idyllic—because bad things do happen to good people—but in true American fashion, a trouble shared is a trouble halved. Macomber’s characters endure the whole gamut of modern troubles, from divorce, parents who get Alzheimer’s, car-jacking, unemployment, cancer, infidelity and so much more.
In the Blossom Street series, each woman’s story involves new beginnings both professionally and personally. Each heroine starts a new business, a business that comes from the heart … and that enlarges her community. A knitting store, a bakery, a bookstore, a flower store...perhaps a bit of the fantasy comes from reading about store owners who have time to visit with their customers, to give back to their communities and to open their hearts to success. But these are romances, so what about the men in their lives? Some are loving and supportive, but not all. In a trademark Macomber move, the women’s stories have aspects that are untraditional, be it adoption, loving a partner who’s in recovery—you get the drift.
16 Lighthouse Road (the first book of the Cedar Lane series) opens with a Navy couple in a courtroom, petitioning for a divorce. This is the opening of a romance novel? Where’s the guaranteed HEA? And hold that thought, because one of the most unusual and compelling aspects of Macomber is that every thread doesn’t get resolved on the last page. In fact, sometimes real life even has a curve after a couple is a couple: whether it’s a judge getting breast cancer or an insecure teenager trying to sabotage her father’s second marriage, Macomber’s characters deal with life on life’s terms, realistically and with a lot of heart.
Debbie Macomber is a best-selling author whose name invokes universal American themes like love of family and community, our delight in holidays, especially Christmas, and traditional pastimes like cooking and knitting and gardening. Does that seem like a rather old-fashioned portrayal of American life? Well, it isn’t: Macomber’s characters, especially the women, are living it day to day, one day at a time, and with the help of friends, family, therapists, partners, and everyone from a supermarket clerk to a minister, they are living a very real American dream. They are wives, mothers, sisters, grandmothers, employees, bosses, and students and particularly in her two signature series, millionaires are in short supply.
Janet Webb, Book Lovers Resource
