Raise your hand if you’re a fan of love triangles in romance novels! Anyone? Anywhere? Thank you, I see that hand way over there. And you, brave soul — thanks. But most of you are sitting there with your arms crossed over your chests, shaking your heads.
It’s often so very obvious which girl he should pick, right? (It’ll make sense why I’m going with this scenario instead of the reverse. Trust me.) As readers, we can see that one is cheating on him or that she’s completely unsuitable for some other reason. Why is he drawn to the catty one in the first place? What does he even see in her for five seconds?
And then there’s the fact that most (not all, but most) romances are written in the points-of-view of both the hero and heroine, so it’s not like it’s going to be a surprise with whom he ends up. We know. And he should, too, because otherwise he’s just dumb. It’s so obvious.
But what if the right woman is the wrong woman, and the wrong woman is the right woman?
Go ahead. Wrap your brain around that.
This is what I decided to do in Amethyst Attraction, the fourth and final Pot of Gold Geocaching Romance, which releases… today. (Blink.)
Eli Bryson is the youth pastor at Creekside Fellowship in my fictional town of Jewel Lake, Montana. He had a rough upbringing, but Jesus found him and called him. Eli absolutely loves what he does. Loves shooting baskets with the teens and taking the guys on campouts. And he’s the mastermind behind the annual Pot of Gold Treasure Hunt, a church outreach event.
Also, Eli would love to get married. As a pastor, he knows the kind of wife he needs. Someone like the head elder’s daughter, Stephanie. There is nothing not to like about Stephanie. She loves Jesus, she loves the teens, and she leads Bible studies. It doesn’t hurt that she’s pretty and meek. She doesn’t rev Eli’s heart, but that might come. A guy can hope.
Who is all wrong for him? Harper Satterfield, the privileged daughter of the town’s wealthy benefactors. She’ll be around for the summer, heading up the new marina project her dad has invested in. Eli has only met Harper twice before this, but he can’t get her out of his mind. There are so many reasons why Harper is the wrong woman for him that Eli decides to take matters into his own hands. How?
He decides to date Stephanie and fall in love with her before Harper actually moves to Jewel Lake. Then he can get Harper out of his mind and everything will be great. Right?
Not so fast, Eli! First, Harper and Stephanie are going to be best friends. That’s going to be awkward! And then… well…
When youth pastor Eli Bryson realizes he’s attracted to an unattainable visitor to town, he vows to put her out of his mind and starts dating the perfectly attractive daughter of a church elder. But try as he might, falling in love with the right woman isn’t in his power.
Harper Satterfield is in Jewel Lake, Montana, for the summer, supervising the new marina her dad’s company is constructing. Needing to fill her time, she volunteers to run the church office part-time to cover for the regular receptionist. Seeing Eli’s spiritual side daily will cure her unlikely crush on the hot pastor. Except it doesn’t.
How can the annual Pot of Gold Geocaching Hunt prove to both Eli and Harper that true treasure might be found where they least expect it?
Turns out I liked Stephanie so well that she’ll get her own story down the road! Not in the Pot of Gold Geocaching Romance series, since it’s now complete, but I’ve got more plans for Jewel Lake.
Over to you: Tell me about your favorite love triangle story! And, if you can’t think of one you liked, how about your favorite romance with a pastor?
Amethyst Attraction released this morning and is now available in Amazon stores around the world as an ebook. It’s also ready to download via Kindle Unlimited. Enjoy!
Valerie Comer is a USA Today bestselling author and a two-time Word Award winner who writes where food meets faith and fiction. She injects experience laced with humor into her green clean romances. Her life on a small farm in western Canada provides the seed for stories of contemporary inspirational romance. Like many of her characters, Valerie and her family grow much of their own food and are active in the local foods movement as well as their church. She only hopes her creations enjoy their happily-ever-afters as much as she does hers, shared with her husband, adult kids, and adorable granddaughters.
I hate love triangles, and anyone who watched Hallmark’s When Calls the Heart series will probably agree with me!!
Thankfully your story has an obvious love choice!! It hit my Kindle a few hours ago but I haven’t started it yet.
Love triangles can be so frustrating and you want to bonk someone on the head. Haha. Thank you for sharing. Blessings
I read an inspirational romance book years ago that had a love triangle, but it was constructed so well that the reader truly didn’t know which one the girl chose until the final page. And for the life of me, I can’t remember the name of the book or who wrote it.
Jewel Lake, Montana sounds like my kind of place!
Hi Valerie! My favorite love triangle and story about a pastor is my own. I met my husband in college. He was studying premed and a new Christian. Then he felt the Lord’s calling into the ministry. My mom was the church custodian. I knew our pastor’s well and didn’t want to be a pastor’s wife, even though I felt a calling to serve. I taught Sunday School starting at fourteen and was spokes woman for our youth group and sang in the church choir. I was a charter member of our church plant at age 10. Back to college, in our church college and career group another young lady wanted my hubby and tried to create a wedge by saying hubby is going to do this. Finally I gave him a choice. We have been married for 48 years. I supported him through seminary, we served for 30 years, had 3 sons, now 4 grandkids, and love retirement. MY pastor LOVE STORY TRIANGLE.
Relaxing today after an emotional long two days with the granddaughters ages 7 and 4. They hadn’t seen each other in 18 months. The four year old did not want her cousin to leave. I babysat them both. They are more like sisters than cousins. The little one has had a year of upheaval – her mom divorced our son (she cheated and is already engaged) and changed jobs. Our son has joint custody – this plus Covid and shut downs. Poor little gal cried all evening for her cousin and grandparents. Hope my son got some shut eye. Reading your book today. We received 5inches of rain last night. Slept through the storm, Oma was exhausted. Best wishes. Will post review soon.
I love Renate’s story above :)
Triangles are great for creating suspense if the author can keep readers guessing until the end. Interesting post, congratulations on the new book. A new book is like a new ray of sunshine released into the world, or it seems that way to me.
I like love triangles! They can be fun to read, though frustrating, too! The book sounds really good!!
Hi Valerie, I think my favorite triangle story is yours! Sounds like an interesting setting, too. Best wishes!
I very much enjoyed this story!
I’m excited to read your new book. I’ve enjoyed the series and kept thinking that pastor needed a wife. (Lol). I’ll have to check the kindle app and see if the book showed up.
I have to admit I’m not much of a fan of the typical love triangle, either!
Yes!!! How can they not SEE?!?!
And here I was sure you would give the title and author because the book was THAT memorable! Did it only have the heroine’s point-of-view? It seems the only way to pull that off would be in a single POV!
Oh, Renate, that sounds mentally and emotionally exhausting as well as physically. I’m so thankful you got some grandgirl time and hopefully you will get more — more often and in smaller doses!
I love your love story with your hubby :)
I love that! The world is a sunny place today, then, since Elizabeth Maddrey also has a new release today!
A little reader frustration now and then isn’t a completely bad thing… ;)
I hope you enjoy Amethyst Attraction. :)
Yay, I’m glad!
Eli definitely needed a wife! I hope I did justice to his story.
I was so excited to see your book show up on my Kindle last night! Now I’ve got a couple of love triangles to talk about :-) First of all, I remember reading Catherine Marshall’s Christy, and being sure that Christy married the Scotsman. But then when I read one of Marshall’s books that’s sort of autobiographical, her mom married a pastor (and Christy was based on her mom’s story).
Then my love story with a pastor (well, he wasn’t when we got married) was sort of a love triangle. When I met him, he had a girlfriend… I found out later that the Lord was the one who told him she wasn’t the right girl. I wondered about it, and when Jim asked me to marry him, he told my why I was the right one, and the other girl wasn’t – a special gift from the Lord to me! We’d both felt a call to missionary service, and it was after we’d been married a year that those advising us said “You really should go to seminary.”
I love your story, Margaret!
Valerie, your book sounds wonderful.
I hate love triangles !! But it is the fault of secular romances lol what happens is usually this: Girl is attracted to two boys, she will kiss both and act with both as if they were already a couple and then after playing with both at the same time she will choose one.
In Christian books it is better because there is a genuine concern of the author not to glorify bad behavior, I remember one that I liked very much that I read recently (but it is historical romance): The protagonist falls in love with an elegant and apparently kind man who treats her well and praises her continuously and for her that is beautiful because she has always felt like an ugly duckling during much of the book this boy woos her and in the final stretch they begin to establish a kind of courtship but oh no! for some reason she is uncomfortable kissing him because she feels that something is not right.
Also at the same time in the whole story she is friends with a young pastor, he always advises and helps her and she goes to him when she has a problem, without realizing she begins to compare her friend with her boyfriend, finally she realizes that her boyfriend is not good but a manipulative and deceitful man and she leaves him. During the last chapters of the book she begins to notice the pastor more not as a friend but as a man (and the reader already knows that he is attracted to her), In the end they stay together. I could not get angry with the protagonist because I understood why she liked the other boy at the beginning also her change of feelings was gradual, she did not play with both at the same time nor did she like both at the same time.
I also bear the stories where the girl likes two men at the same time but maintains a friendship with both and only kisses with one of them when she chooses.
I’m fine as long as the boy or girl doesn’t play with two people at the same time while hurting them.
That sounds like a really interesting plotline! Thanks for sharing.
Hi, Valerie!
When you ask it like, “Do you like love triangle stories?”, in general, they make me uncomfortable. As a young man, I was the clueless guy. Not for any real triangle, I don’t think, but for the fact that my relationship fears kept my head in the sand. All. The. Time. My wife (long before she was my wife) finally reached out and gave my heart the message that it was safe to love in return. I shudder to remember all the times before that which I now understand to have been total relationship blunders. Yikes!
The other aspect that is so difficult for me is that someone always gets hurt by the very nature of the thing. Someone gets Yes and someone gets No. Ouch.
So, with all that on the table, I can still see a love triangle story working if what changes is personal growth for all involved, insight for a good way forward for everybody.
To answer your question, nope, no favorite triangle stories. Although, I did read a thriller series by a Christian author (the series was not overtly “Christian”, though) where, toward the end, the hero enters the room with both women and the last line in the book was “Will you marry me?” The author then invited readers to vote for who the proposal was meant for. My girl lost. Oh, well.
I’m a mathematician. I think I’ll stick to the triangles of the geometric variety. More fascination and much less drama! :-)
I’m not a real big fan of love triangles for all the reasons you mentioned. I have a picture of which person the hero or heroine should end up with for obvious reasons :-) BUT…that being said, as long as the other person who didn’t get their happily-ever-after gets that in the next book, I’m okay…lol! I’m a hopeless romantic, so I think the “loser” deserves to win in love *wink*
I’ve also not read too many stories featuring pastors. The only one I can think of is an old Love Inspired Suspense book entitled “Secret Agent Minister” by Lenora Worth (2007). Literally, the hero is a pastor & a secret agent, though you can’t tell at all because in his pastor role he’s so mild mannered. It’s a fun book!
Your story is so intriguing Valerie that I went over and borrowed it from KU :-) I gotta find out why Eli chooses who he does *wink*!
Definitely not!!
Happy New release day ladies, Congratulations. I think Love triangle s are very complicated, and if there are children involved it really makes it worse. Have a great week and stay safe.
Thanks! I hope you enjoy it.
Oh, wow, what an interesting ending for a book LOL! That would never fly in the romance genre.
WooHoo, I hope you enjoy it!
Ooooooh, yes. So much harder with kids. Now you’ve started my brain whirling on that idea!
Favorite pastor book A Baby for the Minister by Laurel Blount. I love all her Li books.
I love Laurel’s books as well!
Hm…I haven’t read many “love triangle” stories…
I’ve enjoyed A Baby for the Minister by Laurel Blount <3
Love triangles can be most frustrating. Can’t they see the one they love best.
Ah, good point! But authors like to cloud that up a little ;)
Yes, definitely a good one!
In love triangles, there is always someone who gets hurt. I think of the friendship/dating between Hannah, Mike and Norman in the Hannah Swenson mysteries by Joanne Fluke. God bless you.
For every winner in a love triangle, there’s a loser. And yes, that’s sad, especially if s/he is a nice person!
That sounds like a fun book, Valerie. I love how you flipped it.
Thanks, Shannon! It was fun to do :)
It’s a bit of a stretch, but in Pride and Prejudice, Lizzy is initially dazzled by the charismatic Wickham, but in the end, his truth outed, plus Mr. Darcy revealed himself to be the most honorable and worthy gentleman.
I love them. I read one that a teen girl going to her last year of school got pregnant & she kept it a secret from her boyfriend due to him going off to college to play for a league & then she ends up kicked out of her home & lives in her car till she sees her ex-boyfriend’s older brother & ends up with him & getting his help to live & they become together & the brother in the end finds out but they make 2 more books about it & it gets better by him coming back to meet his child & spending time with family with his new girlfriend.
I like them for sure but no special book though.
Hi Valerie, I’m raising my hand, lol. Looking forward to reading your take on the love triangle trope. :)
:)
Yes, it’s an “interesting” trope at the best of times! Hope you enjoy.
I hope you enjoy Amethyst Attraction!
Interesting comparison!
Wow, secret baby AND love triangle in one story! That sounds complex :)
I’m not a big fan of love triangles but your story sounds really good!
Hope you enjoy it!