Charlottesville’s own rom-com queen Jenny Gardiner loves—like, totally loves—a chance encounter. Whether it’s a Las Vegas waitress literally falling for a prince on an Italian train platform, erstwhile lovers coming face to back-of-head in an Uber, or estranged fiancés pitted against one another in a cooking competition, Gardiner consistently finds ways to bring her characters into comically compromising situations.
“Andi rolled over like an upended turtle, dusted street crud from her cheek, then looked up and cringed,” Gardiner writes in Bad to the Throne, her latest in the It’s Reigning Men series. “Because it wasn’t someone. It was him. The naked prince. Decidedly not naked this time around.”
For Gardiner herself, the chance encounter that started it all was with a publisher willing to take, well, a chance. “I have a strong writer’s voice,” she says. “You either like it or you don’t like it at all.” In the early part of her career as a romance novelist, Gardiner butted heads with predominantly male editors who just didn’t get her. That all changed when she won a fiction writing contest and found a publisher who fell head over heels for her humor.
Now, after publishing three dozen books since 2008, Gardiner’s in a groove. Her latest titillating tale hits the stands on February 28. (She’s also an occasional freelance writer for C-VILLE.)
In Hard to Get Lucky, Gardiner will unleash her whimsical style on a new protagonist, Alyssa Heyward, and her hapless-cum-hunky suitor, Josh “The Mad Tooter” Trumbull. Who knows where Heyward and Trumball’s antics might take them. Gardiner admits that she usually doesn’t know what’ll happen until a book is finished—but the couple is likely to come to a cheerful finale.
“I’m a big fan of happy endings,” Gardiner says. “I like escapist reading, and with the pandemic, I think a lot more people feel the same way.”
Gardiner cites romantic comedy guru Nora Ephron as a primary inspiration for her work, and her laugh-out-loud ludicrous premises might remind some of other delightfully over-the-top writers like Dave Barry or Carl Hiaasen. To wit, in Throne for a Loop, set in Gardiner’s fictional modern-day monarchy of Monaforte, the main character orders a “really huge and hideous penis cake that says ‘Good Riddance to the Big Dick,’” Gardiner explains. But the cake ends up a party favor for a princess—thanks to some sleight of hand from an up-and-coming chef who turns into a love interest with a twist.
Penises are often punchlines for Gardiner, who’s reluctantly found herself becoming more racy over the years. She says Fifty Shades of Grey “changed the mandate” for romantic comedy novelists when it was published in 2011. “It became super expected in a novel,” Gardiner says. “Ultimately, I’m a businessperson who wants to sell books.”
That doesn’t mean Gardiner doesn’t cringe now and again imagining her mother-in-law reading through a thorough dick description. Fortunately, no one else around town should find anything too cringe-worthy—other than snippets from the news and the occasional personal anecdote, Gardiner promises her plotlines and characters are fully fabricated and never based on real-life acquaintances.
Gardiner also seeks to empower women, she says. She hopes readers see her characters in positions of strength, and come away with the “good sense of yourself you need in any kind of relationship.”
And Gardiner swears her lit’s not just for chicks. “I have more male readers than I ever realized I had,” she says. “Everyone wants to get into some other world. Whether you’re reading sci-fi or murder mysteries, you’re trying to find another place to put yourself. And it’s helpful to get in the minds of women.”
So, what can we learn about love from Gardiner’s characters and their romantic roller coasters? The author, who uses her three brothers as a touchstone for her flawed but forgivable male characters, says she’s learned a lot about herself during her writing journey, which has evolved from women’s fiction to contemporary romance (with a little memoir and mystery thrown in along the way). She says when she wrote her first novel, readers would’ve come away thinking “the most romantic thing you can do is the dishes.” As she’s gone along, though, she’s come to hope her readers simply recognize women are complicated, and that’s okay.
Gardiner says she hopes her female readers specifically understand that in love, they just need to be themselves and have fun. “I think the best advice is to trust your gut,” the author says.
Hopefully, with Valentine’s Day fast approaching, Charlottesville’s local lotharios won’t decide to mimic Noah Gunderson of Gardiner’s Falling for Mr. Wrong. Where the novel’s smartass female protagonist, Harper Landy, might suggest dudes not dump their dames on V-Day, Gunderson has other ideas.
“[He] would recommend, instead, you should do it before Valentine’s Day so you don’t waste money on a gift and dinner,” Gardiner says.
Gundersons, be gone.