It can be tricky to write reviews about certain genres. Romance, for example. Do you write the review for the people who already absolutely love the genre and the “happy for now” endings? (Happy for now has replaced happily ever after, by the way.) Or do you write for the people who don’t dip their toe into this reading pool very often, hoping to entice them in?

Bethany Turner

Bethany Turner, a denizen of southwest Colorado, writes breezy, funny romance novels—she calls them rom-coms—full of pitch-perfect pop culture references. (Caveat: this strength is also a potential danger. It would be fun to reread these books in 10 years and see how many of the references still ring true.)

Turner has crafted a trilogy set in the fictitious Colorado mountain town of Adelaide Springs. The first, Brynn and Sebastian Hate Each Other, was published in 2023. As soon as the story opened, I fell hard for Brynn Cornell. She’s working her rear off in the big city in the male-dominated television industry, where she was just bumped up to the prime spot on a morning show called Sunup. She has a bubbly personality and a girl-next-door quality that viewers love, and she’s known as “America’s Ray of Sunshine.” But many readers will instantly relate to her inner dialogue, where we learn she’s a lot smarter than people give her credit for, and frankly getting tired of hiding it with canned dialogue she figures anyone could read from the teleprompter.

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On a morning where several small details have already gone haywire, Brynn accidentally cuts loose about what she really thinks about her hometown of Adelaide Springs, learning too late that her mic was live and her words went out to the whole country. With her reputation as a “nice girl” in jeopardy, she and her producers come up with the idea of sending her back to her home town with a camera man in tow, to make nice and preserve her image.

Back home, Brynn immediately clashes with Sebastian Sudworth, a relative newcomer to the town who fled to Adelaide Springs for the anonymity it provides him. He’s become a jack of all trades, doing everything from driving for the local car service to bartending to karaoke performing to sitting on the town council. This is a far cry from his former career, that of a Pulitzer-winning journalist who left the scene and dropped out of life. He doesn’t know Brynn, although everyone else does, and he sees no reason to cut her any slack for dumping on his beloved adopted home town.

This novel is a delight, albeit one that might be wearing rose-colored glasses. People are a tad more forgiving than they might be in real life, but why do we read romance, if not to temporarily escape from real life into a kinder and gentler place? There are some laugh out loud moments in the story, and I found it to be a very enjoyable read.

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The second book, Cole and Laila are Just Friends, came out in 2024 and recently was named a finalist for a Colorado Book Award. Cole and Laila are best friends who grew up in Adelaide Springs with Brynn, and it’s taken them their whole lives to figure out that they are attracted to each other.

On the one hand, this book suffers because we aren’t meeting the people of Adelaide Springs or getting familiar with the town—we already know them. And it’s easy to predict where the story is going to go from page one.

On the other hand, the pacing is still light-hearted and fun, and the sense of humor remains firmly in place. Cole and Laila are visiting Brynn and Sebastian in New York City, and the fish out of water elements are fun, even if this NYC is a bit fresher and cleaner than the grande dame is in person. Cole goes to great lengths to plan a perfect NYC day for Laila’s birthday, taking in sites and landmarks from her favorite television shows and movies. And the story goes exactly where you think it will.

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However, a note on formulas and predictability. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with it, not with the reading of it or the writing of it. Look at the enormous popularity of the J.D. Robb “In Death” series. Millions of people love them, myself included. But you know Eve Dallas is going to make sure the bad guys get what’s coming to them. That’s never a question. You either enjoy the ride or you don’t. There are horror authors who produce the same way, filling a niche that some people crave to have filled. Look at Westerns. Mysteries. Any successful series is filling a need for people, giving them the comfort of knowing what to expect in a general way, while the details need to be fresh and different each time.

Turner’s third book, Wes and Addie Had Their Chance, was released earlier this year. I feel it put the series back on track and gave it a strong ending. In this case, Wes and Addie (life-long friends with Brynn, Cole and Laila) were engaged, and Wes literally left Addie standing at the altar which, in this case, was under a tree at the edge of a beautiful meadow. They were 18 at the time, and the entire town watched Wes leave without a single word of explanation for farewell.

Fast forward a couple of decades. Addie was lucky. She went on to live a fulfilling life. She went to the Air Force Academy, became a pilot, and later had a career she loved with the Central Intelligence Agency. She met and married a man she worked with, who she fully believed was the love of her life. His death in a tragic accident, and the secrets surrounding his death and her reaction was what led her back to Adelaide Springs.

Wes, on the other hand, underwent a complete transformation. He reconnected with his long-absent father, who went on to become the governor of Connecticut. Wes, with aspirations of his own, became a very popular senator, and is now the front-runner to become the next president of the United States. He’s also a widower, and a secret from his past with his wife is jeopardizing his future. He’s come back to Adelaide Springs not seeking Addie, but rather to lick his wounds and get ready to face the fallout when his secret becomes public.

This story goes beyond the two titular characters, and involves decision making that can affect the lives of a lot of people, if not the whole country, lending the book some gravitas. There’s still a good amount of humor here, but more heft, more depth and more seriously wondering how the heck this can possibly work out.

One last side note: There’s always a question in the romance genre of how much physicality to put on the page. It’s not just “did they or didn’t they,” but how much of it do you show if they did the deed? Oblique references? Stopping at the bedroom door? Every intimate detail? One element I liked about all three of these books is that you never know for sure. It’s like she decided they were adults and their sex lives, if they had any, belonged to the characters. I think you could believe that they did or believe that they didn’t, and nobody could prove you wrong.