In the Market for Love

by M.L. Hickerson from the May 11, 2015 issue

Tagline: Nick might not have a fondness for vegetables, but there was something--or-someone--that kept him coming back to the produce stand...

Observations: I found it interesting to find a common romance novel trope in this 800 word story. There have probably been a ton of other stories this trope has appeared in, but this is the first time I've ever noticed it. Sometimes I mentally separate Woman's World romances from full-length romance novels; they're sort of like apples and oranges.

What trope might I be thinking of? It's a trope that promotes lovely conflict--something all novels need, but is not really mandatory in a Woman's World story. And the conflict is all internal.

Look back and see if you can find it.

Did you figure it out? The trope is The Secret. When one of the protagonists has a secret, it always begs to be told. The character is always worrying about it and wondering when it should be revealed. (The author wonders this too. LOL) We always worry about the reaction of the other character when the truth finally comes out.

In this story, Nick's secret was that he had no idea what to do with all those vegetables he'd been buying. (I did find myself wondering what he was doing at a farmer's market if he didn't like veggies, but it didn't stop me from enjoying the story.)

I liked that Nick ended up confessing. (Good boy. Honesty is the best policy.) I loved how their relationship grew slowly and steadily, so that by the end when you got that little plot twist, you totally believed that they could have gotten married and had a little girl, five years later.

And look at the last line.

Investing in the market had made Nick a very rich man.

There's another twist. Instead of using the word "market" like she (he?) had been, Hickerson suggested that Nick had invested in a type of stock market, and I thought it was very clever and different.

Photo credit: Infrogmation of New Orleans via Wikimedia Commons