There’s a lot of derision in some circles for romance, and much of that is based on misogyny and the patriarchy, because most writers and readers of romance are women. But here’s the thing: romance, and particularly modern romance, is all about building the world the writer wants to inhabit. A world that is welcoming and accepting. A world in which consent rules and equity is the standard. A world in which differences in race, culture, neurodivergence, socio-economic background, and a host of other things are not insurmountable obstacles, but rather merely parts that make a person whole.
Helen Hoang‘s Kiss Quotient book trilogy exemplifies this world-building. She herself is a neurodivergent romance book lover, and when it came time to write her own books, she wrote what she knows in the most beautiful way possible. Instead of being a barrier to finding love, her main characters’ neurodivergence is simply a part of who they are, and each finds his or her perfect match through delightful writing and entertaining romps through romance tropes. Representation matters, and there are so few books in which autistic people are represented as main characters. That is one of the things that make Hoang’s books so compelling. Another thing? They are just plain sweet. And cute. And readable. The first two, especially, are a bit on the steamy side, but who doesn’t want a bit of steam with their love story?
We are not-so-patiently waiting for Helen Hoang to release more books; she’s only published this series so far. Her characters and writing are so fabulous, and the love stories make us smile.
One of our favorite past-times (other than reading or listening to romance, of course) is scrolling through different editions of the books we love, and as we were scrolling the book covers in this series, we stumbled upon the German editions. They are so dreamy and vintage’y , and we knew we needed to make our HerStory colorway inspired by them. That is how this month’s colorway, Kiss Quotient, was born. We hope you spend a bit of time reading or listening to this wonderful trilogy, making something beautiful, and thinking about how important representation is, and how very wonderful romance books can be.
Books by Helen Hoang:
- The Kiss Quotient
- The Bride Test
- The Heart Principle
Want more like this? Here are some other authors we suggest you read/listen to (and we have more romance authors coming up, so we haven’t included those authors in this list, even though they are some of our very faves):
- Jasmine Guillory
- Alyssa Cole
- Talia Hibbert
- Sara Desai
- Alison Cochrun
We hope you enjoy this HerStory Book Club as much as we have enjoyed putting it together. We envision an open-ended Book Club, with folks reading or listening to whichever book they’d like from each author’s If you’d like a spoiler of all of the authors we’ll be showcasing this year, check out our website: https://knittedwit.com/herstory-2022-authors/