We have a Rec League from Heather S., who is hoping to pass along some great category romance recommendations to a coworker:
My coworker wandered up today with two Special Edition titles in hand and proceeded to declare them terrible based on cover/title/plot blurb. I asked if she’d read them, she said no, and admitted she ought to read some before judging them.
Now I need a list of the best category romances/authors! The SBTB entry I found in a Google search was nearly 10 years old. I call upon the powers of the Pink Palace to rain fuchsia and great books upon my coworker!
Amanda: Would Entangled books count? I feel like those are category-adjacent.
Sarah: Yeah category is a length for sure.
Amanda: From the Entangled line, I would recommend Tessa Bailey’s Made in Jersey series beginning with Crashed Out and the Sydney Smoke series by Amy Andrews, which begins with Playing by Her Rules.
Also a suggestion that if you have any favorite romance authors, there might be a chance they’ve written category length stuff, like Nalini Singh.
Aarya: As the resident Nalini Singh expert, I can attest that her best category is Bound by Marriage, which features a marriage of convenience, an icy hero who is determined not to love anyone, and an artist heroine. They rereleased it with a new title and it’s now To Have and to Hold.
Other category books I’ve enjoyed:
– Priscilla Oliveras’s Matched to Perfection trilogy (I mentioned this in last week’s Rec League for underrated authors).
– Jennifer Hayward’s His Million-Dollar Marriage Proposal. Fake relationship + stubborn heroine + interesting business subplot. A lot of these HP billionaire heroes rarely talk about their work, and the hero’s athletic company is really important in this one.
– Therese Beharrie’s Surprise Baby, Second Chance ( A | BN | K | G | AB ). Marriage in trouble + forced proximity + pregnancy from a one-night stand. Raw and emotional. I’m a sucker for couples working through their mistakes and improving their communication.
– Is any category list complete without Sarah Morgan? Though I’m sure everyone has read her. My favorites are Doukakis’s Apprentice and One Night…Nine Month Scandal.
Amanda: I think the Oliveras series might be too long to be category.
Though I think Sarah can speak more on acceptable category length.
Aarya: I’ve seen it on other category lists but you might be right. But it also feels like a category. Isn’t Kensington Zebra a category line?
Amanda: I think it matches the fact that categories are part of a line, but not the page count?
Goodreads has this definition:
Category romances are short, usually no more than 200 pages, or about 55,000 words. The books are published in clearly delineated lines, with a certain number of books published in each line every month. In many cases, the books are numbered sequentially within the line.
Category romances never made up much of my reading, so a clear definition based on personal experience escapes me.
What about you? How do you define “category romances” and which titles would you recommend?
Sarah Mayberry! She used to write Harlequin Blaze and Harlequin Super Romance.
Jennifer Crusie’s early work was all category romances. I’ve re-read most of them in the last few years, and my faves, Anyone But You and Charlie All Night, are still fantastic fun.
Seconding Sarah Mayberry! Everything I’ve ever read by her was excellent.
Tiffany Reisz’s trilogy for Harlequin Blaze was also first-rate, and I’m really sad that the line closed before she had an opportunity to write anything else for them. I think Meg Maguire (/Cara McKenna)’s Blaze stuff was pretty good too.
I recommend this book every time I have an excuse, so woot, another excuse: Kathleen O’Reilly’s Beyond Breathless, also for Blaze. Completely badass Wall Street exec nicknamed “the Porcupine” spontaneously hooks up in a limo with an investment broker who is basically like “my God this woman is terrifying, I love her.” She requires some convincing, but remains in character throughout — no Feminine Softening apart from agreeing she wants him in her life — and in the sequels featuring his siblings (the sequels are less good, sadly), it is extremely clear that everyone except the hero is absolutely scared to death of her, and it’s wonderful.
I love a lot of Kelly Hunter’s category novels; sometimes it feels like they made her throw in a billionaire or something just to keep it within the Harlequin line parameters, and she just kind of plugs that in there and keeps moving along. Favorites are Cracking the Dating Code (programmer and billionaire hook up on private island) and The Maverick’s Greek Island Mistress (a helicopter pilot and an artist hook up on a Greek island for the summer).
Jennifer Lohmann’s Winning Ruby Heart should have a ton more acclaim than it gets – disgraced former Olympic runner attempting a comeback with the (paraplegic) reporter who first exposed her doping scandal.
Anne McAllister’s books tend to be kind of old, but they are another example of the category romance novels that kind of don’t want to be category romance novels; her main series is about a huge, loving Greek-American family (and someone made them all be billionaires but you can tell McAllister isn’t feeling that). One of my favorites is The Night That Changed Everything.
Jessica Bird, who later started writing as J.R. Ward, wrote some nice category romances earlier in her career, mostly set in New England. Kathleen Eagle wrote a lot of category romances early in her career, which are almost inevitably very, very good. I find that Maisey Yates’ books can get a little repetitive, honestly, but I think she has a lot of category-length stuff that is very readable (small town romance, spunky heroines).
For category romances that full on embrace being category romances (billionaires! helicopters! DRAMA!): Kate Hewitt’s His Brand of Passion had more realistic emotional drama than I’m used to seeing from a billionaire category romance. Abby Green’s The Bride Fonseca Needs has a heroine who actually makes sense when agreeing to an arranged marriage (despite the description, she’s actually an old school friend of the hero’s, not just his assistant). I tend to enjoy Kim Lawrence’s stuff. Anna Cleary’s Untamed Billionaire, Undressed Virgin is actually about a speech pathologist and a spy in Sydney. Ally Blake’s The Rules of Engagement is basically exactly what it claims to be. And if you want, like, old skool level of crazy drama in a much more modern-level-of-consent, category-length package, you need Julia James (e.g. Bedded, or Wedded?).
I haven’t read much category romance but I am a hardcore champion of Tiffany Reisz’s three holiday books for Harlequin Blaze. I read them for the first time last year and decided it will be my new annual tradition to read before Halloween (Her Halloween Treat), Thanksgiving (Her Naughty Holiday), and Christmas/Hanukkah (One Hot December).
@Tess — I’ve only read one Harlequin Presents ever, and it was by Kelly Hunter: The Man She Loves to Hate, about two people whose parents had had an affair. That is for some reason a catnip plotline for me, and it also had great reviews, so despite being put off by the Harlequin Presents… presentation?, I gave it a try, and I LOVED it, so I was tempted to read more of her stuff, but ultimately chickened out because the titles and the synopses sounded very… well, Presents-y. In your opinion, is that mostly just packaging, in Hunter’s case?
@Anonymous – 100% yes. I would say The Man She Loves to Hate is actually one of the more category-like of Hunter’s category romances, so if you loved that then I would definitely say you should read some of her other books. That’s not to say she doesn’t have any misfires, but most of her books bear zero resemblance to the title and very little resemblance to the plot description – there’s a lot of massaging going on in the titles and back-cover descriptions to make them seem more Harlequin Presents than they actually read.
@Tess — thanks! I will definitely do that.
Another by Kathleen O’Reilly, Sex, Straight Up, one of the first romances I read after my dry spell starting in the late 70’s, reviewed on the site by Sarah. Harlequin Blaze: he lost his wife in the twin towers, she’s an artist working for her family’s …auction house? So good! @Anonymous – I’ve never tried another O’Reilly but you’ve inspired me to check out Beyond Breathless.
I love Caitlin Crews’s Harlequin Presents books (she’s published over 50 novels for them). They’re always angsty, set in exotic locales where money is no object, and involve two people who have to overcome their dysfunctional upbringings in order to find love with each other. Her heroines are intelligent and thoughtful, her heroes are handsome and brooding without being the “unknowable” hero of old-school Gothics, and the angst never tips over into melodrama. The sexuality level is “warm” and on the euphemistic side (no profanity, no slang, nothing is explicit), but Crews does a great job keeping the sexual tension on a constant simmer. She also writes duets and trilogies, where the hero & heroine of one book are related to/friends with the hero and heroine of another book. I especially recommend NO MORE SWEET SURRENDER & NOT JUST THE BOSS’S PLAYTHING; THE PRINCE’S NINE-MONTH SCANDAL & THE BILLIONAIRE’S SECRET PRINCESS (identical twins switch places and each one lives the life of the other); EXPECTING A ROYAL SCANDAL & BRIDE BY ROYAL DECREE.
I second/third the recommendation of Meg Maguire’s (aka Cara McKenna) Harlequin Blaze books: MAKING HIM SWEAT, TAKING HIM DOWN, DRIVING HER WILD, THE WEDDING FLING, and CAUGHT ON CAMERA. Some of these have been reissued with different titles, so check the copyright pages carefully.
Also, seconding Sarah Mayberry: HER BEST WORST MISTAKE & HOT ISLAND NIGHTS (the heroines are best friends, one ends up with the other’s ex-fiancé, but it’s not in a sleazy, cheating way). And I love and strongly recommend Mayberry’s HER FAVORITE RIVAL—a workplace romance that does what THE HATING GAME should have done: show the hero & heroine actually, ya know, working!
I second the earlier mentions for Sarah Morgan’s HPs and Tiffany Reisz’s Blaze trilogy. A few others I like:
– I’m a big fan of Lucy Monroe’s Harlequin Presents (I have all of them, but my favorite is probably “Bought: The Greek’s Bride”).
– Maisey Yates’s Harlequin Presents, especially her “Once Upon a Seduction” trilogy and “Hajar’s Hidden Legacy”, are fun for the escapism.
– Maya Banks’s Anetakis brothers trilogy for Sihouette Desire (all recently re-published) were fun (and over-the-top).
– Therese Beharrie’s Harlequin Romance line has been good (I bought “A Marriage Worth Saving”, which is a 2nd-chance romance between a couple who separated after she lost their unborn child.) Her books are typically set in South Africa and feature diverse characters.
– Emma Darcy’s “The Italian’s Stolen Bride” was my very first Harlequin Presents – I have re-read it countless times.
– Amy Fetzer’s “Taming the Beast” is one of my favorite Silhouette Desires, and a version of the Beauty & the Beast trope. I really liked the Desire line before Harlequin bought out Silhouette – it hasn’t been the same since.
– Barbara Wallace wrote a trilogy for Harlequin Romance focused on three female friends who work for the same company in NYC (“The Man Behind the Mask”, “Swept Away by the Tycoon”, and “The Unexpected Honeymoon”). The first two dealt with difficult themes (in the first, the hero was sexually assaulted as a teenager, and in the 2nd, the hero is a recovering alcoholic trying to establish a relationship with his estranged son.) “The Unexpected Honeymoon” is probably my favorite, although the cheesiness of the epilogue is especially strong.
– I love the old Loveswept titles – my favorite is Marcia Evanick’s “My True Love Gave to Me” (published in 1995, but available on OpenLibrary.org), and I like some of the newer ones, too, such as Roan Parrish’s Riven series, which are all m/m – the final book in the trilogy, Raze, was just released).
Category romance isn’t only about length. Each “line” has very particular storyline expectations. They’re sub-“categories” of romance, like glamorous romance, suspenseful romance, medical romance, etc. Readers who are partial to a certain type of romance can easily find it by reading the corresponding line. Category romance is easy to mock because it adheres to such strict guidelines. It goes beyond “always an HEA” to “always an HEA under these conditions.”
I’ve mostly read harlequin presents, the glamour line, because they’re over the top, fairytale like. Here’s a link that describes each of the harlequin romance lines. If you scroll down the page, there’s a drop down under each category with the line description.
https://harlequin.submittable.com/submit
I don’t have much experience outside of the harlequin categories. I’m not sure if category lines by other publishers are as delineated. My impression is that non-harlequin category guidelines are not as ridged. I haven’t been reading as many categories as I used to so most of my favorites are older titles. Since it sounds like the requester is looking for more recent books, I don’t know if I have any to recommend. I’ll have to think on it.
@Tess – “there’s a lot of massaging going on in the titles and back-cover descriptions to make them seem more Harlequin Presents than they actually read“
Yes! Harlequin category titles and descriptions, particularly on Presents, can be awful. IMO, some are thought up in the marketing department by people who haven’t read the book.
I approach categories the same way I approach general Romance, by sampling different books until I find an author I like and then reading their backlist.
I don’t know if she’s still writing, but Lynne Graham is the HP author I most often go to, when I’m in the mood for an HP.
I am very sad that Harlequin Historical paperbacks are no longer sold in bookstores, but you can order them online. They have beautiful cover art, and tell a good story in around 200 pages. Here are some of the excellent authors who have been writing HHs since forever, who for some reason never moved on to single title romances: Diane Gaston, Julia Justiss, Louise Allen, Christine Merrill. While other great authors wrote HHs for a while and then started publishing elsewhere: Carla Kelly, Nicola Cornick,Jeannie Lin.
One of the best I’ve read recently was “His Convenient Marchioness”, which is, you guessed it, an MOC of an older widower and widow with children.
I love category romance. I’ve always been a big fan of Harlequin Presents (HP) knowing that many of the older ones were problematic (sheiks anyone). Mentioned above,I loved Sarah Morgan, Lucy Monroe and Maisey Yates. I found a older HP on my shelf a couple of Christmases ago that had a seasoned hero and heroine (mid 40’s, early 30’s). And yes, Ms. Nora started as a Silhouette author (McGreggor, anyone?) A lot of folks miss out on the Kimani romances. Harlequin did not do a great job of marketing them beyond being POC but you can find everything in in this line. Farrah Rochon and Synthia Williams have great sport romances (NFL, basketball) while Sheryl Lister and Reese Ryan have business owners.
@MaryK – There are too few opportunities to discuss category romance on SBTB. I appreciate that the original requester might be looking for category romances that pass the modernity test, but I for one would be interested in hearing about your favorite older titles.
@Jenny – I really liked the Desire line before Harlequin bought out Silhouette – it hasn’t been the same since. — I had a category romance hiatus that preceded my general romance hiatus, so 20+ years had gone by between my reading a Silhouette Desire and a Harlequin Desire and I didn’t know if the difference (blandness? lack of drama?) I detected was simply a result of changing tastes. I look at the specs MaryK linked, and the HQN Desire specs sound like the old Sil. Desire formula I remember, but the product is not the same.
For older categories, my favorite one is A Soldier’s Heart by Kathleen Korbel. It came out in and is set in the early 90s. It’s a romance between 2 Vietnam veterans with PTSD – she was a nurse who saved his life and he sought her out to think her decades later, unintentionally activating trauma she hadn’t dealt with. I believe it’s now available as an ebook, but I’m not sure.
@cleo – I forgot to add that A Soldier’s Heart is an example of one thing I like about categories, which is that (sometimes) publishers will take more risks with a category title than a single author title.
I’ve read categories with protagonists that are (or were) rarer in single title romances, including POC protagonists, protags with mental illness and disabilities, poor and working class protags, etc. Some of those portrayals were kind of cringey but a lot were pretty great.
Jeannie Lin’s historical categories set in Tang Dynasty China are a really great example of that.
I like Dani Collins’ Harlequin Presents books, especially the Sauveterre Siblings series.
Caro Carson is the only author I follow in the Harlequin Special Edition line. Her American Heroes series is very good.
I second the Jeannie Lin recommendation and also like Greta Gilbert in the Harlequin Historical line.
I’ve enjoyed ones by Sarah Mayberry, with pleasant people-next-door characters; and Mayberry’s “Her Favorite Rival,” with co-workers-to-lovers who are being set up as rivals for promotion in a bad work situation, is again enjoyable for the hero just plain being decent.
I used to read a lot of Harlequin Blaze and Kimani (RIP) but I don’t read categories as often. I think SBTB reviewed A Taste of Pleasure by Chloe Blake, and that one was good enough to even please my non-romance reading friends.
My favorite Harlequin author is Leslie Kelly, her stories always remind me of a big ensemble romantic comedy–memorably kooky secondary characters, big lovable extended families. I remember enjoying Bringing Down Sam (2013). Her Town of Trouble and Santori family books are ten years old now, but I still reread them.
I have very little experience with category romance because I only read it when working through an author’s back list. That said, I second the Jennifer Crusie rec (I’m partial to Getting Rid of Bradley and Charlie All Night).
Nora Roberts wrote of ton of category romance early on, and most of them have been re-packaged and re-issued over the years, so they’re easy to find. For Roberts, I like Skin Deep (book 3 of the O’Hurley series but you can read them out of order) and Night Smoke. There’s also a pair called Time Was and Times Change that involves time travel, which I loved as a teenager but might not hold up great, especially for people who read more sci-fi. Haven’t read it in years, but it was one I stole from my mom and really enjoyed, so there’s a lot of nostalgia there.
I’ve never read them, but Lisa Gardner also wrote category romantic suspense under a pen name early in her career, and they were recently re-released under the Gardner name. She writes great mystery/thrillers, and I keep meaning to look for the early romances and forgetting. Would love to know from anyone here who has read them if I should try them.
I would like to add in Jill Shalvis’s categories, Karina Bliss (Superromance), and Carol Marinelli’s medical categories.
Barbara Morgenroth! Her “Smart Romances” and “Hollywood Hearsay” books appeal to readers who enjoy good characters developed in a tight read, snappy, intelligent banter and creative plots. When I want to relax and chuckle out loud from cheeky dialogue and sharp ripostes, I pick up one of her books on Kindle. The series BAD APPLE is a cut above, with a sweet romance interwoven with frightening slices of life. No sleaze, lots of philosophy of life!
I agree with all the revommendations so far. Being Australian I have a soft spot for the Australian authors such as Sarah Mayberry, Amy Andrews and Kelly Hunter. I also recommend anything by Australian authors Marion Lennox and Fiona Lowe. Many of the authors mentioned have books in the Harlequin Medical line which are good reads.
I haven’t been keeping up with what’s out in the last few years so any recommendations I have are a bit older, but I have stumbled upon this Harlequin Historical author, Virginia Heath. I’m having trouble keeping up with all the new books she has out, but so far I’ve enjoyed everything I read from her which is rare because I’m very picky.
I can’t believe I forgot one of my favorite writers, Jill Sorensen, who wrote two excellent Harlequin Suspense romances, STRANDED WITH HER EX and TEMPTED BY HIS TARGET. She also published a Silhouette Romantic Suspense book, DANGEROUS TO TOUCH. I highly recommend all three books.
Early Suzanne Brockmann – the one where the SEAL wears the hair extensions to look like a prince he’s impersonating, or something? (The whole “Tall Dark and something” series, before her Unsung Heroes, was category).
I also second or fifth at this point the Jeannie Lin, Farrah Rochon (where to start?), and Jill Sorenson. Also Caro Carson and Merline Lovelace are both veterans who often write military-themed categories (Carson went to West Point and Lovelace was a commander of an airbase, I think).
To make a good rec, if you find out whether the coworker generally likes suspense or overseas locations or small towns or military — there are definitely great recs in all those fields on this list.
Also, Wendy the Super Librarian’s blog often recs current category romance. She was an RWA Librarian of the Year and she reads and writes about a lot of category.
Happy to recommend Leslie Davis Guccione’s Silhouette Desire series with the Branigan brothers, starting with Bittersweet Harvest (1986). I only kept a few of my mom’s category novels, and this series is one that always makes me want to find more of the author’s works.
I basically discovered categories when Harlequin had a mega-sale a couple of years back. I looked for authors who had graduated to the mainstream and authors that had been recommended by the SB-TB crew.
My favorite category authors are Karina Bliss, Sarah Mayberry, and Molly O’Keefe. Ally Blake is ok but not consistent. Same for Amy Andrews but I just love Taming the Tycoon and enjoyed most of her Sydney Smoke books. And while I’ve enjoyed Sarah Morgan’s current stuff and a few of her categories, many of her older books feature major alphahole heroes and some heavy duty traditional stereotypes and resolutions.
I just wanted to mention that some of the older categories by some of these authors may have been reissued with new titles and covers. I’ve run across this with titles by Karina Bliss and possibly Molly O’Keefe.
When Category Romances are done right – they are so good – they cram so much story and emotion into a small package!
I will add my voice to all of those who have recommended Tiffany Reisz’s Blaze trilogy: Her Halloween Treat, Her Naughty Holiday, and One Hot December. I love those books!
And some recommendations that I will add (sorry if I missed someone recommending them already in the comments!)
Doukakis’s Apprentice by Sarah Morgan: An enemies to lovers HP. The hero takes over the heroine’s company and has a ton of misconceptions about her.
A Will, A Wish…A Proposal by Jessica Gilmore: A small town bookstore owner heroine and a tycoon hero forced together by a will.
A Man for All Seasons by Heather MacAllister: a friends (roommates) to lovers where the heroine has always crushed on the hero.
Christmas in His Bed by Sasha Summers: Holy punch in the emotions – this is a second chance romance between high school sweethearts. CW for off page abuse in the heroine’s backstory.
Bare Pleasure by Lindsay Evans: Former black sheep of the family and male stripper hero dates heroine with body image issues. Really liked this one, but wish the heroine’s older sister who was a cold, detached business tycoon had gotten her own book at some point.
Christmas with Her Secret Prince by Nina Singh: A very cute Hallmark Movie-esque story with a diner waitress starting over after divorcing her no good husband and a prince who feels constrained by his path in life.
Testing the Limits by Kira Sinclair: hero has been in love with the heroine since he first met her, the problem was she was his brother’s fiance. His brother passed away and there are a lot of complicated feelings. Heroine is a social worker so CW for domestic and sexual violence.
Triple Dare by Regina Kyle: Best friend’s little sister trope (which I know many hate, but I love when done well) – hero is a hometown firefighter and heroine has had a crush on him forever. CW for body image issues for heroine.
I am super late because we were on vacation last week, but I had to chime in because Harlequin Presents are my JAM! They do require a healthy suspension of disbelief (really, in 2019 you are a billionaire and you have to get married to prove that you are respectable in the eyes of your board of trustees….riiiiight….) but for me they are a total escape. Some authors I really enjoy have already been mentioned, including Dani Collins (her Sauveterre Siblings series in particular but also Xenakis’s Convenient Bride and Consequence of His Revenge) and Sarah Morgan. I also read some older ones by India Grey that I thought were unique and interesting. I tend to like when HP does a series of connected books with the same characters, as then you can get a little more depth even though each book is going to follow a different couple. There was a 6-book series a few years back called The Notorious Wolfes that I liked a lot. It was interesting to see 6 different authors take on the same characters. Some of my old favorite authors in this line are Michelle Reid, Susan Napier, and Penny Jordan, but although they will always be close to my heart, their books might not hold up as well by modern standards.
Most of my all time fave category writers have stopped writing – Susan Napier, Anna Cleary, India Grey, Jane Donnelly, Sophie Weston. I’ve liked what I’ve read of Victoria Parker and I recently read and really liked The Tycoon’s Princess Bride by Natasha Oakley. They both appear to have stopped writing as well.
I’ve liked books I’ve read by some of the authors already mentioned, but not quite to the same extent. Maybe it’s because they were the first category authors I read, but the earlier authors seemed to write with more nuance somehow. Too, I’m not as patient a reader as I used to be, and I’m not as likely to keep trying an author if the first book of theirs I read doesn’t grab me. There are so many more choices now with digital, I’ve probably gotten spoiled. Then, if I found an author I liked, I’d have to hunt down their backlist, a lot of which were out of print so there was a bonus treasure hunt aspect.
Now that I think about it, my tastes have changed somewhat. I’m not as fond of high drama as I used to be and Presents definitely tend to be high drama. I still want glamour though, but not with people who are at odds for most of the book. Maybe I should try some of the newer Harlequin Romance authors.
Cheryl St. John’s Sequins and Spurs was balm to my soul. Historical, family centered and just a fantastic cozy comfort read that gives you hope.
I read category romances for years. I still read them occasionally. Nora is obvious. I’ll recommend the McKade brothers series (The Heart of Devin McKade features a heroine who has been physically and sexually abused by her husband, so not the typical fluff). Yes to Suzanne Brockmann’s Tall, Dark and Dangerous series.
Janice Kay Johnson and Tara Taylor Quinn stuck to the Superromance line to the end and did some nice work. Brenda Novak, Ginna Grey, Lynette Kent (especially the wrenching duet of Luke’s Daughters/Matt’s Family). Margot Early did some interesting things, including one book I don’t even consider a romance (The Truth About Cowboys), since it’s really about the heroine’s relationship with her father and the romance plot line is rather perfunctory. And of course, the occasionally excellent, always entertaining Susan Mallery.
Nora’s categories go all the way back to the OG Silhouette line in the early 80s – I think I’ve read all of them at least once (anyone else remember the monthly subscriptions?) and some are still in my comfort reads rotation (looking at you, First Impressions!). Some are very much a product of their time W/R/T consent, sexual agency, and Madonna/whore dichotomies, but they don’t cross the line into true Old Skool WTF.
I should also mention Debbie Macomber. Sometimes it feels like the stories are shaped too much by her religious beliefs (I read a whole bunch of them before I noticed there was no pre-marital sex — the characters always managed to get married (marriage of convenience, secret marriage, etc.) before they had sex), but there are a few that really stand out, including one of my favorite categories of all time, “Stand-In Wife.”