The problem with light reading

I’ve been reading a lot of great books lately, and I feel truly blessed. Except… while on the plane back from St. Louis, I was dying to read a romance novel. I haven’t read a good romance novel in like forever. This is partly the industry’s fault. I don’t need the writing in romance novels to be high literature, but I do want it to be strong, and there’s so much crap out there, that I often find it hard to give new romance authors a chance. I’ve lost so much money on intriguing situations with poor execution, that I’ve become loathe to take risks.

And though I enjoy reading “good” books, I lately find myself wishing I could turn back the clock to a time when I only cared about situation and not so much about the writing. At the same time, I grew up on Johanna Lindsey, Susan Elizabeth Phillips, Judith McNaught, Nora Roberts, and Deborah Smith. These ladies (with the exception of Roberts) aren’t churning them out like they used to, but at the same time, I haven’t really found a new crop to replace my old crop of dependable light airplane reading.

So I’ve decided to crowdsource the problem. Outside of mystery (a genre I can only abide if the writing is particularly excellent), who are your go-to authors for light reading these days?

featured image credit: Lara Wannabe