When I wrote my Keys to Love series featuring Island Affair and Anchored Hearts, one of my main goals was to welcome readers to my adolescent home — Key West, Florida. To have the island that shaped my formative years come to life in all its vibrant, lush glory.
I wanted readers to feel like they had their toes in the warm sand at South Beach with Luis & Sara. To sense the wind fluttering their hair while they stood at the end of White Street Pier with Anamaria & Alejandro. To take deep, soul-refilling breaths of the briny Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico breeze. To find their taste buds salivating over the Cuban food Mamá Navarro cooked for every familia dinner and that Alejandro’s Papi served at his restaurant. To fan themselves because they too felt the humidity and heat while salsa dancing with Luis and Sara at El Meson de Pepe in Mallory Square.
Yes, Island Affair and Anchored Hearts are “beach books.” But not just any beach. Not just any island. Key West. It was important to me that readers finish each book feeling like they’d made new friends, maybe found a new book boyfriend or girlfriend, and experienced the sights & sounds and foods of the Cuban American community in Key West.
The romance genre — and sometimes even women’s fiction — is often labeled as “escapist.” Like that’s a bad thing. Honestly, I don’t consider the word a negative one. In a recent interview, romance icon Kennedy Ryan shared that she doesn’t see our novels as an escape from but rather an escape to something. I completely agree with her. And, I’d also add that many romance novels also offer an escape to somewhere.
Just like I’ve tried to do with each of my books. The thrill of cheering in the stands at Cubs game at Wrigley Field in Chicago with Lilí and Diego in Their Perfect Melody. The nervous (and confident if you’re Catalina) energy of being on stage for a mariachi competition in San Antonio, Texas, with Mariana and Angelo in West Side Love Story. Splashing in the warm ocean waters of Key West in my Keys to Love series.
The books I’m sharing with you below — a mix of romance and women’s fiction—are on my Keeper Shelf because they’ve whisked me away on book vacations to interesting locations. Taken me on emotional journeys. Taught me about different cultures and traditions. Expanded my perspective. Helped me “escape” the busyness of everyday life with a swoony romance or a family drama where the setting became a character I fell in love with and believed I had visited.
Whether you’re craving a delicious meal in Italy, a visit to my childhood summer home — Puerto Rico, a race to catch all the must-see sights in San Diego, a chance to surf in New Zealand or bake Cuban pastries and sandwiches in a bed and breakfast in England, I hope you decide to curl up with these books and escape in a story that will tug at your heart and have you feeling like you’ve stepped into a different world.
Happy escaping!
A Recipe for Second Chances by Ali Rosen
A delicious debut and swoony romance that had me ambling through the Italian countryside, a bite of gelato melting on my tongue, convinced my passport had been stamped upon my entry.
At the Island’s Edge: A Novel by C.I. Jerez
A keenly emotional novel about a combat medic suffering with PTSD, familia, the choices we make and may regret, and the power of coming home, set on an island that’s been home to my familia on my Mami’s side for generations.
Seoulmates by Susan Lee
A sweet and funny and moving friends-to-lovers YA romance featuring young adults facing issues readers of any age can identify with and a setting so expertly described I was convinced I’d toured the sights of San Diego, too.
When We Believed in Mermaids by Barbara O’Neal
This bestselling family saga had me crying, smiling, pressing a hand to my heart as a flurry of emotions swept through me, and believing I’d sat on a surfboard and ridden a ferry in the New Zealand ocean, marveling at the shimmering shades of blue water, tipping my face to reach for the sun’s warmth.
A Cuban Girl’s Guide to Tea and Tomorrow by Laura Taylor Namey
A YA romance rich with not one but two cultures; emotional and sweet, this coming-into-her-own novel had my mouth watering for Cuban sandwiches and flan, certain I’d burrowed deeper into a handknit sweater as I strolled along a trail — and rode on the back of a motorcycle! — on a cool, crisp English evening.