This Rec League request comes from Varian in the SBTB PatreonDiscord. Their request:
I’d like some romances without an act 3 breakup.
Amanda: Note that I guess this could mean spoilers for certain books, so FYI before reading further.
Sarah: Courtney Milan doesn’t like 3rd act breakups.
Shana: I love those books so I can’t wait to see what the Bitchery comes up with for this one. Ana Maria and the Fox doesn’t have a 3rd act breakup. The characters are briefly apart, but not by choice. Never Cross a Highlander has the same thing.
Courtney Milan’s The Duke Who Didn’t is truly Act 3 breakup/kidnap/separation free. And a delight. In fact, I may need to reread it soon. sarah
Sarah: Thought of one! Something Wilder ( A | BN | K | AB )
Oh – and a LOT of Nalini Singh’s contemporaries have problems with external influences or boundaries, but not 3rd act upsets.
The Flatshare! They work together to solve a bunch of big problems (CW/TW for intimate partner violence) but they don’t fracture really.
What romances would you recommend? Let us know!
I’ve read a number of Willow Dixon’s m/m romances—she was one of my “discoveries” last year—and, so far, none of the ones I’ve read have had the third-act “big mis”. In fact, every time I’ve written about one of her books for WAYR, I mention there’s no break-up. Yes, there might be something that throws some obstacles onto the MCs’ path, but it’s something from outside their relationship. Some of her books are N/A, which I realize isn’t everyone’s cuppa, but I would recommend the books in her Heroes at Home series, where most of the MCs are in their thirties, or her more recent Club Crimson series, where the MCs are in their mid-twenties.
All of Cat Sebastian’s recent books, starting with The Queer Principles of Kit Webb! She’s explicitly started avoiding them, and it is such a relief (and also doesn’t take away any of the feelings of emotional catharsis that are usually generated by third-act breakups).
I think the flatshare has a minor third act breakup, but it gets resolved pretty quickly.
Royal Holiday by Jasmine Guillory does have a third act breakup but it’s more about logistics than miscommunication and they remain friends the entire time until the resumption of their romantic relationship
I usually don’t have them or they’re “soft” (argument/something to get past, but no actual split). My only currently-published books that do have them are METHOD ACTING and ACTING LESSONS.
I don’t remember a third-act breakup in Olivia Waite’s The Care and Feeding of Waspish Widows. It’s deliciously slow burn and the final conflict is an external ones that the characters all work together to solve.
Celia Lake almost never features 3rd act break-ups in her romances. I’m saying “almost” because, while I cannot think of any, she’s written quite a lot and my memory isn’t what it used to be.
I hate 3rd act breakups, and after reading one that actually worked for me, I’ve realized it’s because most of them are very contrived. The one that worked was Season’s Change by Cait Nary, and it worked because it was very organic to the story, like something that would actually happen. Contrast that with Lily Morton’s The Sunny Side where one character acts so out of character (with bonus foreshadowing from the irritating ex) that the book was ruined for me, and I’ve been side-eying the author’s new books ever since.
All that to say, this is a great rec league topic, and I will try to come up with books to recommend.
Yay for no third-act breakups! For a while I was trying to write them because every romance writing class or craft book insists that (1) there must be a dark moment and (2) it must involve the couple breaking up, but I’m so over it. I love reading books that don’t include a breakup, so why shouldn’t I write them?
My short-term memory is so bad that I don’t dare recommend specific books, especially because sometimes the author sneaks in the perfunctory breakup and it is over so quickly that I’ll likely forget. But I think many fantasy romances, and especially the cozy or fun ones, have the couple battling some outside force so that they are battling together to create plot/conflict, and no breakup occurs. So maybe Kimberly Lemming’s books, Legends and Lattes, Can’t Spell Treason without Tea, and so on? (But don’t quote me on these.) And Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries, although that might not be considered a romance novel.
Suzanne Enoch’s The Care and Taming of a Rogue doesn’t have a third act breakup. There’s a kidnapping, but the FMC and MMC aren’t emotionally separated.
These are all m/m (I am drawn toward angst, so most of my library includes third-act breakups, especially the m/f books):
“Honeymoon For One” (Keira Andrews): there is a 3rd-act physical separation (only because MC1 needs to close out his life in the US to return to Australia and to MC2), but there is no emotional separation. Good disability rep, too.
“Green’s Thumb” (Alexander Elliott): completely angst/3rd-act-breakup free. The only “stress” has to do with when MC1 will lose his job at a failing garden supply store.
“To the Moon and Back” (N.R. Walker): employer-manny relationship. There isn’t a third-act breakup or separation – just some concern about how to make their relationship work if they are also employer-employee. That gets resolved easily, and it is a lovely story overall.
I really dislike the third act break up because a lot of times it feels like the author it stitching it in because it is expected, not because the story really demands it. There are some that 100% nail it but those feel increasingly rare. Also I get really tense waiting for the shoe to drop. LOL. So I am going to stalk this topic.
to contribute: I recently read Sharon Sala’s Jubilee Kentucky series (2 books so far) and she doesn’t do a third act break up (in any of her rom-suspenses actually). In fact she is kinda Insta-lovey. But man when her couple gets together, they are TOGETHER. All the tension and conflict is external and they face it united.
Kristen Ashley doesn’t typically do 3rd act break ups. Her couples tend to be volatile for about the first third of the book but once they are together, they are pretty united as well.
Also just read The SHADOW EARL by Stella Riley…. it is an offshoot of her Rockliffe and Brandon Brothers series (they all share the same universe). Same deal. The couple are in love and are united fairly early on and the conflict is external.
Carla Kelly doesn’t do 3rd act breakups. As far as I can recall, neither does Elisa Braden, although some of her books have what I guess you would call a first act breakup-early in the book, after an initial encounter.
@Jill I have just finished my first Suzanne Enoch: England’s Perfect Hero – no third act breakup in that either. No misunderstandings at all between the main characters – just a few obstacles. Refreshing.
This Rec League actually strikes me as kind of funny. I don’t get worked up over the whole 60%-75% break up unless it’s wicked formulaic. Mostly it’s down to the skill and creativity of the author. If the break-up is barreling towards me like an 18-wheeler loaded up with 40,000 tons of bananas, then yuck, That tropette becomes ubiquitous and occasionally iniquitous, but not quite a deal breaker.
That’s not the funny part though. The funny part is that when I was looking for rereadable favorites a few posts back, many of them met the same criteria or no 11th hour break-up: Trust Me by Krentz; Madbess of Lord Ian MacKenzie by Ashley; What a Dragon Should Know by Aiken; seemed to lack that gratuitious shot of angst. Seems like the sex puppy heroes of yore don’t default to the pointless break-up either. Loretta Chase’s Mr. Impossible, Bujold’s Lord Vorpatril’s Alliance or Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen and a crappe tonne of Shelly Laurenston’s series titles don’t bother with pointless break-ups. I know humor isn’t always a factor in the lack of break-up drama, but I think humor is harder to fake than formulaic writing.
I don’t think there’s ever been a third act break up in any Jayne Ann Krenz/Amanda Quick/Jayne Castle book, or at least not in the past 10-20 years. Plenty of other repeated formulas, but not this one.
Probably most of Alice Coldbreath’s books would fit the rec, I think. Most of them have a moment of doubt in the third act, but only one or two that I can think of have a break up. Mostly the tension in the third act is the friends/relatives of the MMC pointing out to him that he’s an idiot if he thinks he’s going to go ahead with his act 1 plan (e.g. nothing about my life will change now that I have a wife!).
I just got distracted re-reading the last 10 chapters of HER BRIDEGROOM BOUGHT AND PAID FOR, and actually missed the “breakup” until the MMC was apologizing for his bad mood during their make up scene 3 chapters later. To clarify, it wasn’t a breakup, the MMC was just worried that he’d behaved badly and she was going to leave him.
Also, pretty much anything by AJ Sherwood, who writes M/M stories. There’s never any doubt – once the two MMCs are together, they’re TOGETHER.