Reading notes

The company I keep.

Writers who prove a love story can be smart without being cold. What each one taught me, in a sentence or two.

Abby Jimenez

Let real life keep its weight — illness, family, work — and the lightness you earn beside it means more.

Expertise is attractive. Let characters be brilliant at something, and let the love story respect the work.

Slow is a feature. Attention, sustained long enough, becomes its own kind of intimacy.

Place holds memory. A summer, a lake, a city — geography can carry the past into every present scene.

Banter is armor. The wit is doing emotional work — it hides the wound exactly until the moment it can't.

The mind is a setting. Interiority, rendered patiently, makes desire legible without raising its voice.

Warmth is not the same as softness. Kindness can drive a plot as hard as any secret.

Timing is a character. The near-miss and the what-if are structures, and structure is romance.

A life told whole. Ambition, marriage, regret — the love story gains scale when the years do.

And others. This shelf grows.