I finished reading “Just Stab Me Now” by Jill Bearup this last week.  The book itself came into my possession after my wife read it, it being a gift I gave her for her birthday.  My wife is a big fan of romance books, and the fantasy variety in particular.  She is a voracious reader, having read over 70 books some years, and finding a book she hadn’t read is a bit of a challenge.  “Just Stab Me Now” ended up being a good option because it’s a bit of a satire on the fantasy romance genre and so I knew it was unlikely to have been a book she would have encountered.

My wife’s reading far outpaces my own and so combined with my own reading interests and hobbies, I only read a few of the series she does.  That said, I figured a book I bought her qualified as one I should read and I’m very glad I did.  “Just Stab Me Now” has a unique approach.  While it starts off seeming to be a normal romantic fantasy, with a more serious than usual lead in Lady Rosamund Hawkhurst, it’s unique twist soon becomes apparent (to be fair, it’s on the back blurb).  Rosamund is very much in a story and her author, Caroline, pops in to make her presence known, interrogate her characters, and to desperately try to keep them from taking her carefully planned Enemies to Lovers novel off the rails.

If you’ve read one of my earlier check-in posts, you’ll know that I’ve had cases in the past where my characters have gotten away from me, one case going so far as to force me to rearrange the entire climax of the novel.  Caroline’s struggle to keep her characters on the plot she laid out for them obviously hits on this point and created an instant relation for me.

Beyond the struggle between Caroline and Rosamund, and some other characters, Caroline’s  life, and the struggles therein, have their own way of leaking into the story.  While, this plot line is a bit too on the nose in its execution, I still found it enduring and throughout the novel I bounced back and forth on whether I was more interested in what was going to happen to Rosamund or Caroline.  A fact which obviously to keep the pages turning.

A novel that incorporates the struggle between the author and her characters/story was a, well, novel concept.  Especially since it uses the common tropes of the fantasy romance genre to play against.  I will note that the usurping of the tropes doesn’t prevent the story from having a happy ending that is fulfilling within the romance genre and while some people may want the usurpation to go further, I was happy to end with a warm and joyful ending.

My final bit of praise is that the novel makes use of characters that don’t fit the usual trope.  Rosamund is 30-ish, a widow, and with two children, and spent the novel most concerned with her family and not the “Hot Enemy” in front of her.  As a 30-ish man, it’s nice to read a story where the character is at least closer to my age than the often teenage prodigies of other story (Looking at your Fourth Wing, as much fund as you were).

I highly recommend “Just Stab Me Now,” and Ms. Bearup’s YouTube channel itself is full of enjoyable content.

On my end of things.  I’m back on travel for work, which has thrown my fragile routine out of whack but I think I got things back on track this week.  Plus I learned that my stuff should finally be arriving.  My lovely wife will have to receive it all without me which isn’t ideal but it’s at least an improvement.  Expect a fun little Fey and Bard story on Saturday and a return to regular check-ins.

Go forth and do good things.