Friday Five
Dining by candlelight at an intimate restaurant. Dancing and sweating in a crowded bar. Making out with a stranger in a hotel elevator. These are all activities that won’t be available to Bay Area residents this Valentine’s Day, but there is one place where they remain perfectly safe: the world of romance novels.
To celebrate our first Valentine’s Day in quarantine, here is a list of romance novels set in the Bay Area that will let you fantasize about a future time you’re no longer stuck on your couch.
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1. ‘Lola and the Boy Next Door’ by Stephanie Perkins (2011)
Heroine Lola has lived in the Mission Dolores her whole life and is even named after the neighborhood. Funny and only sometimes cringeworthy, this YA novel is a reminder of what it feels like to be 17 and think you have life figured out.
Lola is a charming narrator, though her interactions with her two dads and biological mom often made me shake my head. Her relationship with the boy-next-door (who has the unfortunate name of Cricket) brings out the best in her, and the love triangle between Lola, Cricket, and an aspiring musician Max illustrates the sometimes-gaping distance between who we want to be and who we truly are.
I couldn’t stop reading for the snappy dialogue, twisty plot, and quirky characters. Author Stephanie Perkins is an alum of San Francisco State, and her love for the Bay shines through the text.
2. ‘Natalie Tan’s Book of Luck and Fortune’ by Roselle Lim (2019)
This story centers on a fictional chef Natalie Tan, who is returning home from Toronto to San Francisco’s Chinatown. When she does, she finds her neighborhood in decline and her family restaurant shuttered.
According to the neighborhood fortune teller, to bring joy and togetherness back to her community, Natalie must cook three magical meals from her grandmother’s cookbook. The novel focuses less on romantic love and more on the love of family and home.
Author Roselle Lim, a Canadian writer with Filipino-Chinese heritage, writes about a rapidly gentrifying neighborhood with tenderness and affection — her descriptions of San Francisco’s Chinatown vivid and intricate.
3. ‘Sweet Little Lies’ by Jill Shalvis (2016)
Sierra Nevada-based Jill Shalvis is a prolific contemporary romance author, and her Heartbreaker Bay series contains 12 novels all set in the Cow Hollow neighborhood of SF. Sweet Little Lies is the first in the series.
The novel is an entertaining read, but I’ll caution that it’s not the most accurate portrayal of life in San Francisco, in my opinion. The main characters, couple Pru and Finn, are neighbors, and there is a magical fountain near their building that everyone believes makes wishes come true. Personally, I think San Franciscans are far too jaded for that kind of tale, but overall, the love story is eventful, complete with angst, lies, and betrayal.
Pru is the captain of a cruise ship in San Francisco Bay, and Finn runs an Irish pub. When a secret from Pru’s past resurfaces, their friendship-turned-romance is put to the test.
4. ‘The Wedding Date’ by Jasmine Guillory (2018)
This list would not be complete without this delightful romantic comedy from Bay Area native Jasmine Guillory. When main character Alexa is trapped in the elevator of the Fairmont Hotel with a handsome stranger named Drew, she’s charmed into going to his ex-girlfriend’s wedding as his date. Once the weekend is over, they can’t stop thinking about each other.
What follows is a realistic exploration of two workaholics trying to make it work: Drew is a pediatric surgeon, and Alexa works as the chief of staff to the mayor of Berkeley. They take turns visiting each other in San Francisco and L.A., all the while eating their way through both cities. Guillory goes to great lengths to describe every taco, burrito, burger, doughnut, and scoop of ice cream the couple consumes, which I appreciate.
5. ‘Wallbanger’ by Alice Clayton (2012)
This is one of the first romance novels that made me fall in love with the genre: It’s silly, funny, and smutty. Interior designer Caroline moves into a new apartment in San Francisco, only to find that she can hear her neighbor’s every move, keeping her abreast of his bedroom activities.
There are some nice Bay Area details in this one, especially Caroline’s group of friends from UC Berkeley and their trip to Lake Tahoe that resulted in some unexpected romantic pairings. The main couple Caroline and Simon are so beloved that Clayton even wrote a sequel about them, which is unusual for the genre. Cat lovers will delight in Caroline’s grumpy cat Clive, who adds whimsy to this endearing story.
