This month in BookTrib, we are celebrating women’s fiction titles that showcase characters caught in a love triangle. Triangles have sharp pointy ends, don’t they? When you get caught on something sharp it hurts. When there are three in the love triangle, things get tricky and someone is going to get hurt. Or are they? Who will you have us cheering for, feeling sorry for or getting furious with? Find out in these six novels with complex romances.
Lipstick on the Strawberry by Margaret Ann Spence
English caterer Camilla Fetherwell’s life feels as splattered as her apron. Estranged from her family, she now lives in the United States. Returning home for her father’s funeral, she meets her first love, Billy, whom she hasn’t seen since her father broke up their teenage romance.
Sparks fly, but the reunion is complicated. Camilla lives across the ocean; she has a business to run and a handsome artist waiting back in Boston. Billy holds her heart, but when Camilla suspects her father may have led a secret life and Billy makes a startling revelation of his own, apprehension turns to dread. The romance seems doomed.
A little salt, a little sugar and more than a dash of vinegar characterize Camilla’s relationships with her family – and her men. As for love, the main ingredient, will it be burned to a crisp, or be served tender and delicious?
The Winter Loon by Lori Henriksen
In the shadow of the Great Depression, Ruth Thompson’s family expects her to marry Duke, her long-time sweetheart. In defiance, she joins a rodeo circuit to earn money for college and comes of age in the male-dominated culture of rodeo competition.
Returning home to Minnesota, Ruth resumes her familiar relationship with Duke. However, once at college her safe existence is upended when she meets Gisela, and further unravels when the two women fall in love.
The lives of Ruth, Gisela and Duke entwine as Ruth embarks on a journey of self-discovery, full of dangerous social repercussions, that takes her from Minnesota to the California coast. As WWII escalates, each of them struggles to find the moral strength and courage to stand firm on their choices despite the fear of pain and loss during this perilous time in history.
Friday Mornings at Nine by Marilyn Brant
Three close friends. Two competing love interests (each!). And one of life’s biggest “What-if?” questions…
Each Friday morning at the Indigo Moon Café, Jennifer, Bridget and Tamara meet to swap stories about marriage, kids and work. But one day, spurred by recent emails from her college ex, Jennifer poses questions they’ve never discussed before. What if they all married the wrong man? What if they’re living the wrong life? And what would happen if, just once, they gave in to temptation?
Soon each woman is second-guessing the choices she’s made — and the ones she can unmake — as she becomes aware of new opportunities around every corner, from attentive colleagues and sexy neighbors to flirtatious past lovers. And as fantasies blur with real life, these three good friends begin to realize how little they may know about each other, their marriages and themselves… And how much there is to gain — and lose — when you step outside the rules.
Partner Pursuit by Kathy Strobos
When a workaholic lawyer meets a fun-loving music marketing executive for opposites-attract, friends-to-lovers adventures, which partnership will she choose?
Audrey Willems is not going to take any chances with her bid to become a partner at her New York law firm—especially with only six months until the decision. That includes accepting that for now, she’s been friend-zoned by her colleague, Tim, the one she’s had a crush on forever.
Until she bumps into Jake—her new neighbor. Jake is a fun-loving music marketing executive. He’s funny, caring, supportive—and able to kill water bugs in the bathroom. But Jake will never date a woman married to her job. His father was a workaholic lawyer who never had time for family.
And she’s just got the case of a lifetime—the one she needs to win to make partner. Working 24/7 at the office may not even be enough hours to pull off a victory.
When Jake asks her out and Tim suddenly wants to be more than friends, Audrey is determined to prove that she can juggle work and romance—even if managing court cases, candlelit dinners, and bike rides around Manhattan is a lot harder than it looks. She keeps canceling dates for yet another case crisis.
But making partner is like a game of musical chairs and the last seat is a business class alone, which partnership will she choose?
Tex Miller is Dead by Kelly Elizabeth Huston
Callie Austin, the unknown author of the wildly popular Tex Miller book series, decides twenty-plus years of living in anonymity is enough. Her plan? Kill the beloved Tex Miller. But with a fierce agent, a cut-throat editor, and a beyond-zealous fan base, Callie knows not everyone will be happy. And just wait until Tex hears about it.
At twenty-two, Callie, orphaned and grieving, conjured Tex Miller, a dashing adventurer, a now-adored literary character who makes women swoon and men sit up straighter. Her novel skyrocketed, but Callie was lucky. It was the mid-1990s, pre-internet explosion, and much to her publisher’s chagrin, she insisted she remain anonymous by using a pen name. The enigmatic Calliope Jones was born and cloistered away in one fell swoop, leaving an idolizing public scratching its collective head. Visible only to her, Tex Miller became her constant screwball companion.
Two decades and a dozen books later, on a routine trip to NYC, Callie plans to end the Tex Miller saga, but an up-and-coming streaming service’s offer to turn Callie’s books into an original series may waylay Tex’s demise. Things spiral further when her trusted long-time driver falls ill, and a young replacement chauffeur catches her eye—and maybe her heart, while Tex goes rogue, unsure he’s down with the new plot twists. Throw in a dogged gossip blog’s rabid pursuit of ‘the truth’ along with Calliope Jones’s fervent fandom, and poor Callie Austin has her hands full.
Tales of the Mistress by Dorette Ellen Snover
For years, the Guild’s prize baker, Epi Gerroux, is rumored to have killed his mother as a child, and for punishment is abandoned and sequestered on the bread terrace in the tiny village of Ceres in Southwest France, where he quietly and ferociously bakes the bread crowns for his mother’s enemy, the Guild.
Until Epi is arrested and charged with sedition.
EPI, the bread apprentice, is not everything he appears to be. He has survived for years alone with his Guild family. In love with both his “brother” and “sister” in the Guild when arrested, he faces a horrible choice, which one truly sees him, and which one should he sacrifice?
