Delilah Green Doesn't Care

The romance genre can feature many types of settings or character dynamics, provided that the work focuses primarily on a romantic relationship. A romance novel usually features a happy ending, wherein the characters must be shown to have resolved their core conflicts and have a secure future. Delilah Green Doesn’t Care relies heavily on these two elements, though Herring Blake uses story structure and plot elements to underline how her narrative is unique in its approach to the genre.

For example, Delilah Green occupies the Cinderella trope, as she is the mistreated stepdaughter of her late father’s cruel second wife and has an estranged relationship with her stepsister. However, the twist is that both sisters view each other as the antagonist while feeling insecure over their own flaws and mistakes—Delilah even calls herself the “wicked stepsister” to Claire’s daughter, Ruby. The expectations of the Cinderella trope are subverted when Delilah and Astrid reconcile, allowing the familial and romantic relationships to develop in a healthy manner alongside each other.

The novel’s opening chapters partly subvert genre expectations by introducing Delilah and Claire separately before they encounter one another. Delilah opens the book having just slept with someone else, insisting that she still has no interest in lasting relationships. Instead, Herring Blake details the fraught history between Astrid and Delilah, as though to foreshadow that family reconciliation will play a part in Delilah’s eventual romantic happiness. Claire is introduced through her love for her daughter, her tense relationship with Josh, and her close bond with Astrid and Iris. This sets up that Claire, like Delilah, has existing relationships that matter to her and a complex past that she is hesitant to face.

The couple’s “meet-cute” has another subversive element. In many cases, the two characters in a meet-cute meet for the first time under unusual circumstances, such as in an elevator in Jasmine Guillory’s The Wedding Date or at the protagonist’s wedding in Mia Sosa’s The Wedding Crasher. Delilah recognizes Claire immediately but keeps her identity a secret because she knows that it will end their flirtation.

Both Delilah and Claire come out to each other in their first conversation. This, too, is a more recent element in the romance genre, as mainstream presses have historically only published heterosexual romance. Delilah previously had a teenage crush on Claire and inwardly reflects that Claire’s teenage coming-out gave her hope for her own romantic future, which adds weight to their new meeting as equals.

Herring Blake also acknowledges compulsory heterosexuality and anti-lesbian biases, as Delilah faces unwanted attention from the bartender, who is displeased to see Delilah buy Claire a drink after turning him down. Delilah teasingly reminds Astrid that Anne Shirley in Anne of Green Gables was always of more interest to her than Gilbert Blythe, a subtle acknowledgment that the overwhelming majority of romance elements in fiction privilege heterosexual attraction. In other ways, Herring Blake argues that the romance genre is universal. For example, the trope of “only one bed” can bring any couple together. This is a commonplace romantic occurrence where a couple with unrealized romantic or sexual tension arrives at a hotel or inn to discover that there is only one bed, which they have to share.

The romance trope of “best friend’s sibling” is also common, and it regularly features a secret relationship because discovery might enhance family conflict. Astrid is particularly integral to the novel’s resolution, as both Delilah and Claire reconcile with her before reuniting, and Astrid helps Delilah win Claire back. Herring Blake also telegraphs that both Astrid and Iris are unhappy in their current lives—Astrid due to her engagement and Iris because of her differing priorities with Grant. This is a signal to readers that both characters will become the protagonists of future romances. Herring Blake also has Astrid and Delilah discuss the Everwood Inn, which becomes a crucial setting in Astrid Parker Doesn’t Fail. In her first romance for adults, Herring Blake establishes her familiarity with the genre and her willingness to subvert it when doing so results in a more complex and nuanced narrative.