The label ‘Small Town Romance’ encompasses a new and thriving subgenre of lifelong love novels. So old-fashioned that its plots are predictable, without demotivating its huge readers.
First synopsis: “Ike Graham, editor of a New York newspaper, learns about the case of Maggie, a young woman who lives in a rural area of the state of Maryland who has the curious habit of running away from the altar just before getting married. Intrigued, Ike writes a column about the young woman’s case, without foreseeing Maggie’s anger and the chain of entanglements that will end up unleashing. Second synopsis: “One day fishing, Magnus Sigge, baker and mayor of the town of Sandbergen, finds an unconscious woman in the sand. Upon waking up, she discovers that she remembers nothing about herself and her past. Waiting for her to recover, Magnus offers her a job in her bakery and gives her a name: Lucía. Third synopsis: “Lina Solavita has just moved to Knockemout and is Nash’s new neighbor. Intelligent and sexy, she is the only one who sees the shadows hidden by the police chief. Lina doesn’t like personal contact, but for some reason, Nash’s touch is different. He notices it too. He pities that Lina has her own secrets and if Nash finds out the real reason why he is in town he won’t forgive her. One of them corresponds to a movie from Hollywood starring two big stars, another a romantic novel and another to a german television film.
For those who can’t match each summary with its genre, here are the answers. The first is the synopsis of Runaway Bride, a film directed by Garry Marshall in 1999 and starring Richard Gere and Julia Roberts. The second summarizes the argument of The magic of Sandbergen, a German television film of the saga by Inga Lindström (pseudonym of the writer Christiane Sadlo) of those that broadcast on weekends and that are grouped under the concept ‘afternoon movie’. And what remains is the plot of the novel Things we hide from the lightof Lucy Score that the Chic publishing house has just published in Spain translated by Sonia Tanco. A book that meets all the requirements of the classic and normative romantic novel but is labeled ‘Small Town Romance’, that is, it takes place in a small town, usually located in the United States. It is precisely in the Anglo-Saxon world where this type of books have had the most success until now, driven by the recommendations of Booktokers (TikTok users who prescribe readings) influencers. Now they land in the Spanish-speaking market.
Eva Lopez She is one of those book prescribers who triumphs on the Chinese social network. Her profile @evayloslibros has 51,400 followers and her videos have reached almost two million likes. An expert in “fantasy, romance and thriller,” as specified in her TikTok description, she explains to El Periódico de España, from the Prensa Ibérica group, that ‘Small Town Romance’ (STR, from now on) is “a trope.” In the Anglo-Saxon meaning of this word, that is, “an element or theme that is usually repeated within a genre and its subgenres (in this case within the romance genre).”
In any case, Eva López came to STR from Booktook, the literary community to which she herself belongs. “Currently my favorites are Archer’s voicefrom the writer Mia Sheridan and the books of Elsie Silver which the Pàmies publishing house is beginning to translate into Spanish, which has already published Win at all costs and on November 6th he released the next one, Win to the limit”. According to Elena Rodriguez, editor of Chic Editorial, this theme triumphs because it shows that there is life beyond the big cities where romantic novels used to be set. “There is love and love stories that deserve to be told and that take place in outskirts or small towns, which gives a special charm to the plots,” she maintains. Identification with the heroine of the story is another of the keys to the success of STR. “It is easier to feel identified with a protagonist who lives in a small town, close to the boy or man she is interested in, whom she meets when she goes shopping, when she goes to the laundry or at work,” she says. . It is the concept of ‘Girl Next Door’ (the neighbor, an ordinary girl) so exploited in advertising or fiction created by heterosexual cisgender men, but applied to the opposite gender.
The LGTBI community is not very represented in these titles. Although a quick Google search shows up lists of STR books featuring non-heterosexual characters, The best sellers are normative in all aspects: both in the sexual orientation of the characters and in their physique (they are quite descriptive) or the archetypes they represent. In fact, the plots are so predictable that you already sense what is going to happen from the first chapter but this, more than a problem, is an advantage for the reader. As Eva López says, “they are readings that I know I will enjoy because it is a trope that I like and it is very predictable. Some people may think that a predictable story means it’s not good, but I think the opposite. Predictable, to me, equals security”.
This feeling of tranquility is not far from what is caused by what is known as the ‘comfort series’, those audiovisual creations in which the public takes refuge when they want to escape from reality with a friendly fiction without surprises because they have seen it a thousand times. Series like Friends, Modern Family or course, Gilmore Girls which, coincidentally, also takes place in a charming little American town. The scripts of Amy Sherman-Palladino They are quite far from STR romantic novels, but the neighbor’s falling in love and the dynamics of everyday life in a small town are also present. “The STR trope is not exclusive to books,” says Eva López. “In fact, many have audiovisual adaptation. For example, several of Nicholas Sparks: Noahs diary, A place of refuge, The best of me, The last song either The longest journey”, lists the Booktoker.
The queen of the people
Although it is still far from reaching the monstrous sales figures of the owner and lady of romance Danielle Steel (more than 500 million copies shipped), Lucy Score amasses her fortune step by step. With more than twenty titles published, she rose to stardom with the first book of his Knockemout trilogy Things we never leave behindwhich represented a real revolution in Tiktok. The book reached number one on the best-seller list. The New York Times and to the highest positions in the The Wall Street Journal and USA Today. “I’m not going to lie, I read this book because I saw everyone, and I mean EVERYTHING, read it. Social networks, especially TikTok, made this book visible and, with more than 61.8 million views on the hashtag #ThingsWeNeverGotOver on TikTok, it continues to reach all parts of the world,” wrote the literary blogger Silvana Reyes on the popular website Book Riot.
Author Lucy Score.
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Score began his career by self-publishing his books on Amazon. The first was titled Cocktails at seven, a short novel that only sold 35 copies. As he told in one interview in Washington Post, faced with that result he was about to throw in the towel and look for “a real job.” But one day she received an email from another freelance author that changed the course of her career. “Your brother shared a link to your book on a forum, I downloaded it and read it. I really liked it. I run a small publishing label. Would you be willing to rewrite it as a long novel and let me publish it?”, she told him in the email. As in the works she signs, what happened next will not surprise her (to the delight of her readers).
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The Chic publishing house has so far published the first two titles of its successful trilogy, Things we never leave behind and Things we hide from the light, and she plans to release the third in 2024. “Her books are addictive, fun, ingenious, and Lucy Score has managed to connect with a very broad female (although not only) audience. It has readers in their twenties and in their fifties.“, and when an author of such a specific genre connects with such a wide range of readers it is something wonderful,” explains Elena Rodríguez. These titles have a length that exceeds 500 pages, something that may put some readers off, but the editor insists that there is no need to be intimidated. “I have a friend who doesn’t read novels, she only reads manga, and I gave her Things we never leave behind for him to read it, although he didn’t know if he would. Well, she lasted two days and kept asking me for weeks when we were going to publish the second book in the series. Reaching readers outside your genre is something extraordinary that few authors achieve,” she says.
Eva López has not yet entered the universe of Score, although she plans to do so soon. For now, she recommends getting started in STR with Mia Sheridan and her novel Archer’s voice. “In this book Bree flees the city and moves to the town of Pelion [situado en el estado norteamericano de Maine] to escape a trauma from his past. There he meets Archer Hale, a young man who cannot speak due to an accident he suffered as a child and which the entire town ignored. Bree and Archer are two people who help each other and fall in love along the way. “It’s a beautiful STR,” she assures.
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In Spain there are also authors who have incorporated this topic into their romantic novels. Elena Rodríguez quotes Carmen Sereno and his book Nobody dies in Wellington, published in his publishing house. “Carmen is an extraordinary writer and the books about her, In addition to having exciting plots, they have settings that transport you in a magical way”, he comments. In addition, she takes advantage and mentions two other international Chic authors: “Brittainy Cherry and her series The elements or Ilsa Madden-Mills with You are not my Romeo”. Proximity romantic love.