Written In the Stars is a thoroughly modern romance for the millennial generation that hits all of the rom-com beats!
Our heroines are Darcy, an uptight actuary scorned by love and Elle, a quirky, starry-eyed astrologist looking for true love. Get it? Elle. Darcy. I’ll admit, I was kind of stand-offish about this book because I’m not into Pride and Prejudice retellings but the P&P send-up stops at personalities and names.
The two get set up by Darcy’s HEA obsessed brother—who is working with Elle to integrate astrology into his dating app. The women couldn’t be more different; Darcy drinks $56 glasses of chardonnay while Elle is more of a boxed rosé kind of girl. But when Darcy tells a little white lie to her brother, they agree to a mutually beneficially fake relationship.
I thought this was such a solid romance and I loved all the details about Seattle, a city Bellefluer clearly loves judging by the gum wall in her author photo. The only thing that annoyed me was the standard-issue “black moment” at like 80%. I think a lot of the big 5 romance pubs are married to there being a black moment right before the end. But I’ve seen indie and smaller presses find other ways add conflict without it feeling contrived.
Sidenote
On the Other Blog, we talk alot about YA and it’s Jerk!Dads….well, I’ve noticed romance has a lot of Jerk!Moms
