Even that little by-play where she’s not sure if she trusts him to check out her head injury seems to be setting up a clash of personalities that will lead to fireworks of a passionate kind.

You know, it’s not hard to see why readers expect a romance from a book with Crusie on the cover. I’m just surprised (naive) that it takes so little to set up the expectation that they’ll be lovers. Essentially, it’s just both of them in the second scene in the book. Which is really amazing; it seems to work like putting Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan in the same movie even if they don’t meet until the last scene. I knew expectation was huge, but I didn’t realize it would be this hard to derail.
So good food for thought here.

second – i think as i get into the book i’ll see that they aren’t meant for each other.

they are born the same day? you alluded to a luke/ leia thing already, didn’t you?

The head touching made me think romance even if it wasn’t tender and there was no spark, it could set up for future sparks.

Also the Cinderella reference. I like it, but don’t know if it implies “this’ll be a Cinderella story by the end” or “this ain’t no Cinderella story, kids”

Write your story. If it doesn’t want to be a romance, don’t make it a romance. I’ll read it anyway. But think about the tone of the book’s cover (color, font, imagery, text placement). That will bet the best opportunity to kill the notion of a romance.

Or give us more of an idea of each characters’ goals up front. Mab wants a theme park and Ethan plans to die, but those don’t seem like the final version. A romance reader like moi would be thinking “I bet a good love story would get him over that fugue”.

Is it so hard to see why we’re expecting the story to be ‘their’ story?
Especially since the both seem straight (a military career is hard if you’re not, and the clown she’d marry was male), and they’re opposite sexes, and obviously not related.

If you rule out romance, and I didn’t know who the author(s) were, though, based on that I’d be expecting horror.

I’m not sure why MAB is restoring the park and what her relationship is to the others (Glenda, Depha, and Gus), but I suspect she will have a big role in ridding the park of demons (or maybe she is accidentally responsible for letting them lose and so has to be the one to resolve it).

Yes, very much a mystical first chapter. Liked it a lot.

I’m good on this. I don’t think the scene was hurt by pulling out either of those lines, so I’m good with the changes.

So we’ll meet back here in a year and discuss whether it worked or not. ARGH. Four out of five betas liked it. That’s something.

1) Mab looking at Funfun and thinking “I’d date him, if he were real.”

2) Next up is the line, “Cinderella got bluebirds doing her hair but I get a raven messing with my work” line. For some reason all fairy tale references mean romance to me. I think it’s the kiss thing that all Disney-esque adapations require somewhere in the plot to break the spell, prove true love, and so on.

3) Ethan rushing to the rescue. (I think it would work better if he were already inside the fence and nearby when he heard Mab scream)

4) Ethan checking on Mab’s head wound instead of Glenda doing it. Glenda or any of the other by-standers not being the first one to check on Mab’s head wound.

5) Ethan feeling something that would have been outrage at one time when he hears that Mab was hit by someone or something.

6) The fact that Mab is a fixer of things and that Ethan needs to be fixed.

The romantic interest is there, but it’s lopsided and mostly coming from Ethan. Mab seems like she’d like to be in love, she just doesn’t have the time in her schedule for it. (…and then comes along the wounded hero… in need of repair… and he obviously belongs to the park… so our spunky heroine must fix him… and fall in love.) The first chapter makes me think of a dark, twisted Sleeping Beauty re-telling. Instead of a finger pricked by a spindle, it’s a bullet to the heart.

“Fast Women” was the first thing Crusie I ever picked up, is my favorite (and I’ve been through the entire backlist and everything since) so I rarely expect the “romance norm” from you. It’s why you’re an autobuy and I check regularly in here at Argh Ink.

Having said that, I’ve known since ya’ll started posting about “Wild Ride” that it was going to be non-romance so when I read the exceprt I wasn’t expecting (and did not find) any chemistry or promise of an HEA.

I saw at least one commenter mention a pen-name which under normal circumstances I would agree with, but your writing has been expanding outward from straight up romance for so long that I personally don’t think it’s necessary.

When I pick up a Cruise I’m looking first for a good solid work of fiction. If there’s an HEA, cool. If not, also cool. Just give me the writing and I’m a happy camper.

Even if there’s no chemistry right now, I would expect it to develop over the course of the story.

And then looking at it from the position of knowing they WON’T get together, I STILL didn’t see anything that would change my opinion.

It’ll have to be blatant, Jenny. Because in my mind, you write romance novels; and your collaborations with Bob are romance novels; so if I don’t know any better, I expect a romance novel. I’ll just figure that all the subtle things and obstacles preventing a romance will be overcome until probably 3/4 of the way through the book, when I’ll start to go, “What the HELL are they doing”?

I’d still like it, but the lack of the developing romance would be an ongoing distraction unless I had a very definite reason NOT to expect it.

I know you & Bob will figure out something. And since I know, it won’t be a distraction for me. I can’t wait for it to come out, because so far I am DEFINITELY intrigued, sucked in, and impatient for more.

Hmmm. If the “Luke&Leia” thing mentioned in the comments is what you’re aiming at, this is some definite foreshadowing that, to me, says, “not a romance.” Especially when Ethan arrives, Kevlar-clad. Me likey.

But, all the other aforementioned issues are still there, so there will be people who may be disapointed. You can’t please everybody all the time though. No one can.