More Than Comics: A Comic-Con Romance Novel

More Than Comics cover

I have read an honest-to-goodness romance novel set at the San Diego Comic-Con. More Than Comics by Elizabeth Briggs is the love story of Tara McFadden, a young woman just out of college who’s been writing Misfit Squad, a successful graphic novel for Black Hat Comics, “the third largest comic book publisher” in this universe.

That’s not the only discrepancy. She’s meeting her artist, Hector Fernandez, for the first time in person at the con, and he turns out to be not only a talented illustrator but also the drummer for a newly popular rock band who almost won The Sound, a music competition show. Plus, he’s incredibly well-built and muscular because he works out to reduce stress. My thought was, where does he find the time?

More Than Comics cover

Of course, the two are going to have hot sex, experience misunderstandings about how serious they are, sulk, and reconcile over the course of the book. All while his band plays a show and they compete in the masquerade along with the other band members and their friends.

The book alternates chapters between Tara and Hector’s point of view, which occasionally got confusing, since the author doesn’t give them strongly distinct interior voices. However, the environment is quite authentic. Although the plot can be artificial, particularly the times when they just don’t talk to each other in order to justify their separations, that’s part of the genre. Overall, the book made for a good airplane read, where I just needed a distraction for an hour or so.

It’s part of the Chasing the Dream series, a collection of romances based around going on reality shows, so Hector first appeared in More Than Music. (My thanks to Ali Kokmen for gifting me a copy of this book.)



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