I have now spent multiple years gushing about Emily Henry’s book-themed romances, Beach Read and Book Lovers. I love books, and I’ve also discovered that I like well-written romances. I mean, sometimes I read schlock, but that’s mostly to scratch an itch, and it often doesn’t leave a mark.
So when one of Thriftbooks’ daily emails was touting a list of book-themed romances, I absolutely had to check it out. And promptly added several of them to my wishlist. Then, some time later, my mom told me that relatives were wondering what non-gift card items they could get me for the holidays. Honestly, these were the books I was expecting to receive, not Fantastic anthologies. Not that I’m complaining. A mix of both is good.
So we’ve got Seven Days in June by Tia Williams. Our leads are both authors. He writes the Great American novel, she writes erotica. But this isn’t Beach Read all over again. First and foremost, as the cover indicates, these authors are Black. That’s not to say that this is an exclusively Black story or that it’s Beach Read but Black. Simply that it’s part of the characters’ identities, and that in places dominated by white people, like New York City, they can’t help being aware of it. I compare it to my own experience being Jewish in a predominantly Christian country. I know they’re not the same, but it’s the closest comparison I regularly experience. Anyway, I’m not going to bring up race again unless it’s relevant to plot or character, but I feel it’s important to shine a light on Black literature in general.
Especially because, spoilers, this book is great.
Eva is a single mother with chronic illness struggling to write the next book in her series. She became a bestselling author at nineteen with the first book in what would become her Cursed series. It is paranormal romance erotica, starring a vampire and a witch. And every time they have sex they end up on opposite sides of the planet. Why? Because he’s cursed. Look, I’m sure the details are very important to her dedicated fanbase. They’re irrelevant to the book I read.
Shane is a single guy who is two years sober and in trouble. Because he’s never written a single line sober. So he’s mostly been getting work as a special “famous teacher” for a semester or year here and there. He’s lived all over, tries to mentor troubled kids, etc. And he’s never forgotten Eva.
He originally went to New York to talk to his (and Eva’s) editor CeCe, wanting to get Eva’s contact information so he could talk to her. They meet for the first time in fifteen years when she’s on a panel, he’s in the audience, and is invited to join the group.
And that’s when we learn that the two of them have been writing each other into their books for the past fifteen years.
Of course, nothing’s that simple. They can’t just meet and dive back into what they once had, when they spent Seven Days in June together in 2004. They’re adults, they have baggage, and people in general are messy. But there’s definitely still a spark.
There’s also an aspect of heritage, specifically for Eva. Not necessarily as a Black woman, but as a woman from a family of strong, and strange, women. We see her teenaged relationship with her mother, and we also see how she cleans up tales of that same mother for her own daughter. Not out of embarrassment, but to protect the girl.
Like I said earlier, this was a great book. I found myself caught up in the excitement and swept away into the leads’ lives. I appreciate that it does feel very 2019 (when the book was set, though it came out in 2021) although there was one element I questioned. Frankly, that was when Shane described seeing a couple jogging together while sharing EarPods. The wired headphones Apple would include with all its devices. I’m pretty sure they were already switched over to AirPods by then. I mean sure, the wired ones would’ve been cheaper and most people might still have a pair around, but hey, I’ve been using Apple products for decades and have yet to declare their emails as junk. So it might just be my perception that’s off.
One thing I did want to discuss is Eva’s chronic illness. There’s no name that’s ever given to it – I’m not even sure the doctors ever identified it – but that’s besides the point. We’re told what sort of conditions can aggravate it (precipitation, sugar, alcohol, etc.) and how Eva deals with it on a daily basis. And all of this feels very real and genuine, at least from an outsider’s perspective. I don’t have a chronic illness.
But it did make me think. It seems that chronic illness is a trend in books in recent years. The female lead of Get a Life, Chloe Brown also had chronic illness as I recall. And one of the Psy-Changeling novellas had a woman who didn’t have an illness, but did have a childhood injury that still pained her and caused issues as an adult.
Many of these portrayals feel like people pushing for representation. That is to say “why don’t we see people with chronic illness in mainstream media?” Rather than “you want your diversity to include chronic illness? fine!” The former is people wanting to say “these people exist and they have every right to be shown as full and genuine people.” The latter are those who don’t understand, don’t want to understand, and just want people to shut up and give their money.
I feel like chronic illness as a character trait is easy to abuse and as the general public becomes more aware of it, we will see it used as an archetype; the 2020s version of the kid in the wheelchair. But for now, I think most of the portrayals I’ve seen are genuinely there to help, and not for tokenism.
If you’re looking for a romance about two people who met as messed up kids and are now wondering about reconnecting as mostly-functioning adults, Seven Days in June is a great one to pick up.