Flat out, my reading tastes normally lean toward insta-love and attraction that flares up so hot and bright you get contact burns if you stand too close. I’m seriously in love with people being hit out of the blue by FEELINGS and the knowledge they’ve found their special someone.
In other words, while I can appreciate a slow-burn romance, they’re not the type of book I normally gravitate toward.
Then I read Mariana Zapata’s The Wall of Winnipeg and Me. That lady KNOWS how to write some compelling slow-burn romance. I mean, Aiden didn’t have any designs on Vanessa when they first met. Or over the two years she worked for him. She was someone he tolerated because she didn’t annoy him as much as most people.
*side note* Aiden’s kinda a dick when we first meet him. Just so you know. He’s a mega-sports star at the top of his game and his life revolves around playing and training and winning. He doesn’t like anyone who distracts him from those things and he’s got the aloof, broody asshole thing down. Don’t worry, though, he figures things out. Eventually. I mean, he’s still a dick sometimes, but he sees what he could have lost in Vanessa with his dick-hole-ishness and makes an effort to be better. */side note*
Basically, I was smitten with Aiden and Vanessa. But I still wasn’t convinced I liked the slow-burn. Not enough to actively seek it out, anyway.
Recently, I reread TWoWaM and fell in love with it all over again. I realized I’d collected a few other Mariana Zapata books (I’m a sucker for a sale, guys. A SUCKER!) and decided I was going to dive on into them.
Wait For It – Broody, asshole hero has REASONS for not pursuing the sassy single mom who moves in across the street. SPARKS FLY. He douses them with his broodiness. MORE SPARKS FLY. She (mostly) convinces herself she’s fine with being only his friend. THINGS HAPPEN. They hug after. I SWOON.
HOLY WOW, the hug alone made me giddy. And once those REASONS he was holding himself back are resolved things get steamy.
The buildup to them reaching the point where they leaned on one another killed me. DEAD. I was dead. Then things went deeper and YEAH, FINE, I TOTALLY GET THE APPEAL OF THE SLOW BURN. Aiden and Vanessa weren’t a one time thing. Dammit.
Kulti – Dude. Reiner Kulti is an asshole when we’re first introduced to him. Aiden was broody and glowering, Kulti is just flat-out a dick. The issues he’s dealing with in his personal life (which we don’t find out until a while in) have made him retreat into himself. Add in his mega-sports star ego (kinda like Aiden’s ego, come to think of it) and he’s NOT A NICE GUY. Let’s just say he has the simmering scowl and brooding silences down and that doesn’t make him approachable AT ALL.
You know, until Sal chips away at his cold dead heart enough to allow a little sun in to thaw it.
DAMN YOU, MARIANA ZAPATA, now I want more slow-burn.
It’s the payoff. The payoff after several hundred pages of butting heads and starting tentative friendships makes me swoony.
I don’t know if I’ll ever write a slow-burn, but I’m enjoying reading them. Maybe too much. I seriously can’t get these books out of my head and they’ve left me with a big book hangover.
The point here is if you want to be RUINED for the slow burn, read a Mariana Zapata book. Or three.
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