Home for the Challah Days

DNF at 30%. I am always happy to see Jewish MCs in romance novels, but I could tell from the get-go that Home for the Challah Days was another one of those dreaded Small Town romances. You know, big city girl with high profile job and ambitious boyfriend returns to her New Jersey hometown and learns to value the truly important things in life, including the salt-of-the-earth ex who runs his family's Jewish deli.

In case the message is too subtle for you, one of the characters references “Crossing Delancey,” the 1988 movie in which Amy Irving pines after a snooty, intellectual author but ends up in love with the working-class mensch who owns a pickle shop. I did appreciate the fact that Wilck sets her novel around the Jewish New Year holidays (we have enough Hanukkah romances already), and she provides enough context so non-Jews won't get lost. Maybe her next novel will use a different trope that doesn't vilify urban settings and ambitious women.