There is a reason romance readers can’t get enough of the forced proximity trope. Whether it’s a snowed-in cottage, a week-long country estate visit, or a ship bound for the horizon, being “stuck” with the one person you are desperately trying to avoid is the ultimate recipe for romantic tension. Because there is no escape from FEELINGS.
When we think of classic historical forced proximity, the gold standard is often the rigid social trap of a country house party like the breakfast tables and ballrooms of Lisa Kleypas’s Wallflower series (except maybe Devil in Winter, no house party in sight at the gaming club). There is nowhere to hide when society demands you stay in the same room.
But for my Victorian romance, When Jack Fell, I wanted to exchange the ballroom for a pressure cooker of wood, canvas, and endless ocean.
Taking inspiration from the high-seas tension of book like Christi Caldwell’s An Heiress at Sea, Courtney Milan’s The Devil Comes Courting, a maritime setting offers absolutely no escape. When Jack and Jillian are thrust back together on the ship Hermes, they can’t retreat to separate wings of a house. They are forced into narrow corridors and shared galley meals, where every “accidental” brush of a shoulder feels like a lightning strike.
The limited space forces a physical proximity that cracks open their emotional defenses, making the pining double the fun to write, and, I hope, to read.
If you crave the high-stakes tension of a “he falls first” hero trapped in a tight space with his childhood best friend, you can find it in When Jack Fell here.