Paloma Light · Reading Guide
Letting a Fantasy Romance Be Playful
Yes on flirty dragons, bickering doctors, and solar-adapted grumpy athletes with plant spreadsheets. Fantasy romance deserves a little fun. A look at the affectionate teasing, theatrical complaints, and romantic banter in Bubbles Against Steel, Salt Beneath Skin, and Gold at 163%.
Published
I love a playful fantasy romance. Most particularly when the characters have room to flirt & complain extravagantly and put up with the dramatic and sometimes insufferable cast of characters I put around their world (sorry FMC, MMC).
Gosh, I want to smile while they fall in love. Obviously, I want them to have a good time getting there, too.
Welcome to Bubbles Against Steel. Please keep all drinks away from the equipment.
The dragon would like his suffering acknowledged
Maxie has a gift for turning minor inconveniences into personal tiny tragedies. An absent prop bottle has abandoned him and a restriction on climbing the scenery has dampened his artistic vision.
An imported cookie may even be evidence that Selenka wishes to court him.
Selenka can manage forty people without raising her voice and yes, she can also be distracted by his open collar.
I see no reason she should have to give up either talent.
What I enjoy most is how readily she joins in. When he treats her cookies as a grand offering, she reminds him that they originally traveled all that way for her.
When he mourns the fact that accepting a cookie cannot legally marry them, she offers her sympathy.
Regardless, he is having a wonderful time. So is she. I’m very fond of a romance where the heroine gets to enjoy the flirting, answer back, and occasionally make matters worse on purpose.
Affection with a side of insults
The romantic banter gets a little sharper over in Salt Beneath Skin. Caspian and Kiarla are both doctors, both HIGHLY opinionated, and both quite prepared to explain why the other is being a freakin' nuisance.
Caspian calls her Barnacle. Kiarla responds with Deck Rat. At one point, he walks backward through a crowded market so he can keep arguing with her. She offers this helpful advice:
“Then turn around, Deck Rat. You can be right while facing forward.”
Caspian grins. Her attempt to discourage him has encountered a serious obstacle: he likes being answered back.
That is the fun of these two for me. They can be thoroughly irritated and still pay attention to each other. A comeback becomes an excuse to keep talking. Then Kiarla makes him laugh, and he starts noticing details he probably ought to stop staring at.
Maxie would happily announce his devastation to the room. Caspian will continue the argument halfway across Port Shimmer. Both have found a woman whose replies are becoming a problem for their concentration.
The grump has a spreadsheet
Then there is Vitaly in Gold at 163%. He trains, he keeps a schedule, and he owns twenty-nine plants arranged according to their light, humidity, and watering requirements. Mayuri takes in the collection and asks the inevitable question.
“You have a spreadsheet, don’t you?”
Of course he does. Those plants have SUPREME standards of care!
But the part that gets me is why he admits it?!
Maybe because he knows she will laugh and he likes hearing her laugh in his home.
Mayuri is delighted by him, including the details he seems convinced require a defense. He has spent so much effort organizing his life, and now there is a woman in his living room telling him off for being rude to a plant.
Flirting is lovely and so is paying attention
Back in Sangclaw, Maxie’s theatrical complaints have plenty of competition for Selenka’s time. She has a campaign to produce and a film of her own taking shape at home. When she lets him see six seconds of unfinished footage, he puts down his cookie.
For Maxie, I feel this deserves acknowledgment.
He watches it twice and has opinions about the prop chairs. Selenka laughs cause he has paid attention to the work she cared enough to show him, and now they get to enjoy the scene together.
Besides the cozy romance bits, there is plenty to deal with in these stories, from a troubled production to a waterfront crisis and a solar-powered athlete whose readings are causing medical concern.
I still want the characters to find reasons to enjoy each other along the way.
A little trouble between takes
That is why I keep coming back to humor in fantasy romance. I want the teasing, the appalled expressions, and the look that says, please carry on, I am enjoying this far more than I intended. Falling in love sounds much more inviting when I can picture these people laughing over dinner.
Bubbles Against Steel is a short fantasy romance full of violet bubbles, backstage mishaps, and a half-dragon with an apparently endless supply of compliments. Selenka has a schedule to keep. Maxie would like to be on it. Preferably after work as well.