The much underrated quality of likeability

I've already waxed lyrical about Sarah Mayberry. For my money, she's the best writer of contemporary romance I've ever read, bar none. The cornerstones of her strong satisfying stories are believable characters and relateable conflict. Part of me wishes she'd write something longer than her standard categories just so I could get more in one reading but then I'd have to wait longer between books and that would be awful. So, as long as she keeps writing, I'll be happy.

Initially, I thought Her Best Friend was going to disappoint me. I read the first couple of chapters and didn't feel hooked. But then I picked it up again and suddenly I was into it. It was just a slower burner getting started than some of her others.

This is a friends-to-lovers book, a trope I used to hate until I read Anything for You by Mayberry. Why did I hate such a favourite romance plot? On reflection, I think it's because the friends-to-lovers books I'd read before had failed to convince me about the underlying friendship. This is where Mayberry excels. You really believe in the pre-existing relationship and when her characters worry, for example, that if they get together they'll lose that friendship, it feels like a valid concern rather than just, well, made-up-shit.

Her Best Friend has another angle beyond friends-to-lovers though. As well as Amy the heroine and Quinn the hero, we have Lisa - Quinn's soon to be ex-wife and Amy's friend. The three of them had been friends at school with Lisa and Quinn getting together in their mid-teens and eventually marrying. So Amy and Quinn don't just have to develop from friends to lovers, they have to do so in the face of all that history.

When the book opens, Amy has just fulfilled a lifelong ambition by verbally closing a deal on a derelict cinema her grandfather had built and that she wants to restore. However, another developer wants the site and it looks as though the Council is going to welch on the deal. Reluctantly, she decides to call Lisa for advice. She's spent a year and a half avoiding Lisa and Quinn. Having been in love with Quinn for 16 years, she had finally decided that she needed to remove herself from his and Lisa's lives and get on with her own life. However, when she calls, she gets Quinn rather than Lisa. He gives her some advice but doesn't immediately tell her that he and Lisa split a year previously. Instead, he takes some leave and goes to his old home town to help Amy some more with the legal situation, and then with the actual restoration.

When Amy discovers that Quinn and Lisa have split, she feels torn. She's excited at the thought that he is available, a little guilty that she's having those thoughts and bothered that her hard-worn equilibrium is going to be upset again, when she's worked so hard to create distance between them. Overriding all of these reactions, though, are her strong feelings of love and friendship for Quinn. It's the same with Quinn - his primary reaction to Amy is one of caring affection with all the complications and comforts of a longstanding and deep friendship.

Mayberry does a good job of showing how the sexual attraction Quinn is experiencing around Amy feels - not wrong as such - I'm struggling to find the right word here, maybe, exploitative? There's a scene where he walks in on her while she's taking her top off. He pauses to watch for a few seconds before he backs away, undetected. He then spends the next few minutes pondering whether to 'fess up before uncomfortably deciding not to. The thing I liked about that scene was that it showed not only that their existing relationship was based on honesty and trust but also how uncomfortable Quinn felt when that was compromised. A mild little bit of voyeurism (the sort of scene a typical romance hero might well exploit to the full) becomes a neat illustration of how sex really will threaten the cornerstones of their friendship. Amy and Quinn both realise that sex will change everything between them and their carefulness with each other around this felt like believable behaviour in her hands.

I was relieved that Mayberry didn't resort to painting Lisa (who cheated on Quinn) as a villain. Lisa has her faults but she is a fully three dimensional character and someone Amy cares about and likes. However, she is not someone Amy is prepared to sacrifice her happiness over needlessly. While Amy cares about how Lisa will feel about her and Quinn getting together, Lisa's reaction isn't an insurmountable obstacle for Amy. It was refreshing not to have the musty old chestnut of I can't get together with X because of Y, even though their relationship is over. I'm not a fan of black and white thinking in protaganists so I greatly appreciated that this dilemma was not presented as complete obstacle that is then overcome right at the end by some sleight of hand.

And finally a word about likeable heroes.

I love my tortured Regency rakes, I really do. But it is refreshing to see a depiction of a hero who is kind, fair and non superhuman, just a very real, relateable person. Reading Quinn, it occurred to me what an underrated skill it is, to write a likeable character, particularly a romance hero. Arguably, tortured heroes are easier. If you have a hero who's all secretly traumatised and cold and distant, you can get away with having him act unemotionally/ appallingly all the way through the book, creating shedloads of conflict and then sort it all out with a big redeem near the end. How many times have you read that particular cliche? Hundreds in my case (and I love it, I do - I'm not dissing it!) but it's also satisfying seeing a hero be consistent and rational and thoughtful in a way that feels believeable and true. And actually, that's a quality I think I need to see in contemps more than in other genres.

And I know I said that that was my final point but I can't close without mentioning how much I loved the drunken and pillow-biting declaration scene.

If I was going to be picky, I'd have to say that Her Best Friend didn't quite reach the high watermark of Anything For You for me, but it really was a thoroughly likeable read.

Can you think of any memorable likeable heroes I should check out?