Here’s the description of the novel:
With shades of The Lovely Bones combined with the guilty pleasure of a pirate romance: a novel about two sisters coming of age in the 1950s, and what happens when one of them disappears.
Neave and Lilly Terhune couldn’t be more different. Lilly is a beauty who runs through men like water. Neave, having been told at an early age by their mother that she will not be able to get by on her looks, always has her head in a book. Her favorite is The Pirate Lover, a romance novel about a young woman who refuses marriage to the highest bidder and instead escapes to the high seas where she meets the love of her life.
During WWII, when the men are gone, both sisters start working. But when the servicemen return and take back their jobs, Neave and Lilly are left with few options besides marriage. But they have other ideas. They start to build a makeup business (think Avon in its early days) and soon have a hit on their hands. But just as their business is truly taking off, Lilly disappears and Neave must figure out what happened. Luckily, she has Lilly’s assistance helping from above, even if she doesn’t know it quite yet.
Alternating between the sisters’ story and that of Neave’s beloved Pirate Lover book, Sharon Pywell shows how all romantic relationships have dark undercurrents, how even the most cerebral amongst us can enjoy a swashbuckling, page-turning romance, and how sometimes the guiltiest of pleasures might contain essential kernels of truth.
There’s romance, historical fiction, and female friendships! I can also vouch that the cover is really pretty in person.
To enter to win, leave a comment and tell us what you love about being a romance reader. Is it the stories of strong women? Is it the community? Let us know!
Standard disclaimers apply: We are not being compensated for this giveaway. Void where prohibited. Open to U.S. and Canadian where permitted by applicable law. Must be over 18 and ready to bury your nose in a good book. While the Terhune sisters above might have a secret love of pirates, all heroes are appreciated here! Life lessons learned by reading romance are always encouraged. Comments will close Friday, Monday 24, 2017 around noon ET, and winners will be announced shortly thereafter.
Good luck to everyone!
Winner update:
- Vicki
- elizabeth
- Maureen
- Melisenda
- Megan Larsen
- Katherine C.
- Emily
- MollyM
- Kay Sisk
- Susan
- Mara
- Hera
- Heather RR
- Liviania
- Karenmc
- Nancy
- Holly Gault
- cleo
- Lori
- Cristie
- Becky
- Janine
- DonnaMarie
- Valerie Paquin
- Cat
Thank you so much to every one of you who commented. Seeing what you love about romance is truly heartwarming.
Winners, you should be receiving an email from me shortly. Please, check your spam folders!
I found my way to romance via historical fiction – Jean Plaidy, Margaret Campbell Barnes and Anya Seton. As a teenager, it was the sexy-times that drew me. Today, it’s a sense of community – reading books about strong women, written by women for women.
I love that there are so many different types of romance novels to suit my needs at the time.
The happy endings. And also, in my favorite romances, the banter. Good banter is hard to find these days outside the romance genre…
My favorite thing about romances is the community of readers of romances. They have changed my world.
I’m also very fond of the possibility of an HEA.
I think most of us like the assurance that HEA is usually the destination and the insight into other lives/places/experiences. For me books have always been an escape and a refuge. Romances add the spice of sexual attraction that all romances have.
I love the happy feeling I have during and after I finish a book! It’s the fixer of any!
I love the possibility romance stories holds. Even though I have a pretty awesome HEA with my husband, I love reading the stories and placing myself in the heroine’s shoe and wonder what I’d do about it.
HEAs, or at the very least HFNs–when I feel like life is just too much to deal with, I know I can pick up a romance and things are going to turn out okay in the end.
Seriously, they’ve saved my sanity more than once in the 17 years since my husband was killed in an accident. Truly. Plus, this community is THE BEST 🙂
I love being able to imagine myself in the heroines’ places, having adventures with different, dashing heroes.
Happy Endings
I love HEAs. They allow me to enjoy the conflicts, knowing that all will be well in the end.
wow – did I enjoy reading the comments above! I love reading romance for all the reasons listed . . . and I enjoy this site because I didn’t know I was missing a community, until I found all of you.
it’s a lot of things. i like the women-centric stories written by women, for women. i also like the escape of getting carried away in a great book. of course, i also adore the community <3
I love the happy ending because as a social worker I don’t often see it. And I love stories about strong women & the men who love them.
I normally love romance reading because it helps me relax and turn my brain off, but I love even more when a romance novel unexpectedly makes me think more deeply about human relationships!
I like romance because I do enjoy that they end happily ever after. That being said, it still has to be well written with an engaging story or I have zero interest.
I love being able to relive that feeling of falling in love again.
I love romance for the escapism, and for the one place I can go for pure contentment when the rest of the world gets too crazy for me to deal.
It’s the stories and honest portrayal of women. It’s the underlying positive vibe. There is hardship, misunderstandings, bad things. But is a solution and a way forward attitude. Also – the women I’ve met and those I follow are the smartest and kindness people around.
Oy, there’s so much that I like about romance novels, but mostly it’s that they are mostly focused on women’s stories and their experience. There are so many different stories out there, showing the diversity of women’s experiences. Plus, there is always the HEA, which is just great after a hard day at work!
The happy ending of course.
I just really enjoy all the good feels I get when reading a romance novel, also, a good plot really adds to my enjoyment!
I love the journey to the HEA!
I love the escape of reading romance novels. There’s a lot of joy in reading something with a satisfying ending. As a slight history nerd, it’s also fun to immerse myself in a different time period.
Reading a romance makes me happy.
The year from heck, now the year and a half from heck, continues in my life. What I love about romance reading is that it takes me away from that, it gives me a chance to catch my breath, it allows me to believe that there might somewhere be a happy ending.
There are so many things I love about the ROMANCE genre, but if I had to pick one, it would be that no matter the trials and tribulations our couple go through, there is the promise of a happy ending and true love winning over adversity. I’ve always loved a good “star-crossed lovers” romance, where the odds are against them. In so many other genres, it seems that our lovers are destined for tragedy, but in ROMANCE, they are rewarded for their perseverance, for daring to “cross those forbidden lines” to be together and love one another. ROMANCE is the only genre where it *believes* in the hope and possibility of love surviving and overcoming all those odds.
I love romance because it makes me happy. Because I’m a romantic at heart and always will be.
I love romance because it’s surprising and comforting at the same time.
Most importantly I love romance because it says, “you are okay.” It’s okay to want romance. It’s okay to be indulgent sometimes. It’s okay to be vulnerable.You might think you’re difficult to love but someone will love you anyway. And maybe even love what makes you difficult. You are okay.
It’s a lovely concept of a genre.
Romance has the ability to make me feel good on the worst of days. I can get lost in it. You can trust in a happy ending when you lose faith in the people or world around you.
I like the larger-than-life exuberance of romance novels — the drama and the humour and everything is just so big and over-the-top, it always makes me smile.
I love the community that I have found with my fellow readers. Finally feeling like I have people who understand my interests and speak my language is such a relief and has changed my life!
A quickie with a romance book makes the day so much better.
I love being able to find myself between the covers of a book.
The unexpected humor in so many of them, it doesn’t really matter what the main genre is, you’ll be happily reading and then just burst out laughing. It makes it feel more real, I love it.
Plus the warm fuzzy feelings don’t hurt either.
I read romance to decompress after stressful days! It’s wonderful stepping into the shoes of incredible, strong heroines in different, creative worlds authors create!
Romance is a uniquely special force in my life. It has helped me understand the necessity for equal representation for all POC–both on the page and behind the keyboard, how love is love is love, how the genre itself is empowering and feminist in nature, and how my own traumas have healed by immersing myself between the pages of a good book (among so many other things). The power of consent is often overlooked and undervalued and my ownership of consent didn’t occur until I became a reader and a writer of the romance genre. I literally owe my life to romance.
I love basically all of it. The community or readers for being awesome ladies. I love the escapism of the stories and guaranteed happily ever after. I love strong heroines and passionate emotionally expressive heroes.
I read romance for the escape: it’s wonderful to visit worlds where the thorniest of problems get resolved! Plus also – somehow, they make me really appreciate my husband.
I enjoy the development of love and how it can occur with such diversity in characters, worlds, and plots.
I love the sense of satisfaction I get when I read about women with full and rich lives, which also always end in HEAs (naturally).