Why Readers Love Luxury Romance

Most of us spend our days worrying about bills, work, laundry, aging parents, difficult relationships, or what to cook for dinner. Luxury romance offers something completely different: emotional escape, breathtaking settings, and the fantasy of being cared for, cherished, and swept away from ordinary life.

A beach vacation is the perfect escape

Emotional Escapism

I don’t know about you, but I frequently feel the need to escape from the world. The news is full of troublesome politics and wars. Social media can be stressful, and it’s difficult to avoid all the negative comments and opinions. Even TV doesn’t hold the joy it used to for me, and sometimes all the crime shows and drama feel… too much. Add to that the stresses of everyday life, and I desperately need to close out the world and escape. And that’s when I turn to reading romance.​

Romance novels are sometimes criticized for looking at relationships through rose-tinted glasses. No real person is perfect. We all get tired, grumpy, and irritable, and it’s not fair to read about a romance hero and expect our men to match up to a fictional character. But in a way, I feel that’s the point of reading (and writing) romance. My stories are safe, and they provide a warm, cozy retreat for a reader. My heroes still get grumpy and irritable sometimes because I like to write as realistically as I can. But at heart, they’re kind and gentle, and although they might tease the heroine, they never turn their anger on her.
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Luxury as a Virtual Vacation

So luxury romance offers emotional escapism… but it also features a physical escape. A lot of my early series such as Doubtless Bay, Four Seasons, and Blue Penguin Bay are small-town romances with boy-next-door heroes rather than billionaires. But it’s only now I look back that I realize they all have one thing in common: they’re all luxury romances. From the start, I enjoyed writing about New Zealand, from the Bay of Islands all the way to the Southern Alps. And I realized my readers enjoyed going on these virtual vacations with me. They liked flying in private jets and eating in exclusive restaurants. They loved staying in penthouse suites in the cities, and secluded lodges in the mountains. For me and my readers, my books have escapism, glamour, travel, and comfort.

The view of Aoraki Mount Cook through a luxury lodge

In real life, most of us can’t afford to stay in five-star hotels, and many readers will never be able to come to New Zealand. But in my stories you get to visit all the fascinating landscapes New Zealand has to offer from the comfort of your armchair. You can discover Kiwi fusion cuisine (I always try to describe what they’re eating!). You can find out what it’s like to stay in a glass-walled cabin in the Dark Sky Reserve while you look at the stars (like in My Boss, the Billionaire). You can tour the country’s beautiful cities in the A Boss in a Billion series, or take a cruise around the fjords of Milford Sound in Seduction Under the Southern Stars.

Where else can you get a virtual vacation to New Zealand for under five dollars? 😊​
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Glamour and Wanderlust

No matter what your favorite kind of vacation is, there’s somewhere in New Zealand to suit you - a book of mine that features it! We’re lucky to have a wide range of stunning landscapes here. If you love warm weather and golden beaches, the Bay of Islands is an absolute paradise. I should know—I live here! When I first arrived in the bay, I thought I’d flown into Jurassic Park. The bush is thick with palms and ferns, and the whole place feels very tropical. But there’s more to it than its lush vegetation. For example, you can take a trip through the Hole in the Rock on a boat and see dolphins and orca whales. Niall in A Secret Between Friends (Between the Sheets book 1) does these tours (and wait until you read the scene with the wetsuit, LOL.)

If you love vineyards, cellar doors, and exclusive restaurants, we have so many in Aotearoa New Zealand, including those in the Bay of Islands and Hawke’s Bay in the North Island, and Marlborough and Otago in the South Island. I feature a lot of them in my stories. Check out Blue Penguin Bay if you’d like to read a whole series set in a vineyard.
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A South Island Vineyard

If you like the idea of staying in unusual and exotic locations, then you’re in the right place! There are so many options here in NZ, I find it hard to pick one when I start writing! In The Irresistible Billionaire (The Billionaire Princes book 1), Ben Prince lives in a remote clifftop mansion near Nelson in the South Island. In book 2 of the same series, The Castaway Billionaire, the characters are stranded on a literal desert island in the middle of the Pacific. I also write about remote cabins in the Southern Alps, luxury cruises around the Bay of Islands, Milford Sound, and in the case of Santa, the Billionaire, (book 4 of the same series) around most of New Zealand! Whether it’s a five-star hotel or a log cabin in the middle of nowhere, you know you’re going to have a vacation of a lifetime when you read one of my books!

Want to read more about Aotearoa? Check out my page on New Zealand Romance Books.

Luxury romance naturally lends itself to the Cinderella trope, where an ordinary woman who’s maybe struggling a little financially meets a gorgeous wealthy guy who’s determined to sweep her off her feet. The fantasy of being lifted out of a mundane life and spirited away to a world of five-star hotels, private jets, and exotic locations is irresistible. But I think the real appeal is that the hero is completely focused on the heroine. He sees her, values her, and wants to make her happy. Add in a sexy smile and a private island, and honestly... who can blame us? 😄 
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The appeal of a loving hero ❤️

The Rise of Emotionally Safe Heroes

I want to say a bit more about the heroes in my stories. I’ve always loved luxury romance, but traditionally, in these types of romances, wealth and power has turned the male main characters into arrogant alpha-holes who remain cold to the heroine until the last page where they suddenly declare they were in love with her all along.

The current movement towards #hefallsfirst stories has absolutely delighted me, because these are the type of men I’ve written all along. I’m no good at writing toxic men. I have no interest in heroes who want to control their women, who don’t respect them, and who aren’t kind to them. My heroes always fall in love with their girls at first sight. Something keeps them from declaring it immediately, whether that’s an emotional flaw (like they’ve been badly hurt before) or an external conflict (their families are enemies). But you can guarantee that from day one, they want the heroine, and most of them pursue her from the get-go.

Life can be so stressful, so I like to write heroes who are kind and gentle, and who have learned to rein in their anger, so they never use it against the women they love. That’s not to say there won’t be blazing passion between my characters! My stories are steamy, maybe 3.5 to 4 flames, and you know when you read one of my books that you’ll be getting several love scenes. But they’ll always be gentle and respectful. If you’ve come here looking for degradation, cruelty, or dark romance, you’re very much in the wrong place.

Escape with a beach romance

Luxury romance isn’t really about wealth. It’s about emotional fantasy: safety, comfort, adventure, beauty, hope, and the dream of being deeply loved in an extraordinary world. At its heart, luxury romance is the belief that love can make life bigger, brighter, and more beautiful. ​