SEVEN DAYS IN SEATTLE

In Gordon’s novel, a lawyer’s business trip to Seattle turns into an extended affair punctuated by personal, familial, and romantic matters, along with plenty of power-plays.

Many modern romance protagonists and plotlines challenge stereotypical genre traditions. This novel initially feels fairly traditional with its heteronormative dynamics, wealthy love interests, and occasionally stock plot devices. However, it does have less-familiar elements, thanks to its unusual protagonist, Raven Rain Nichols, a 30-something lawyer from San Francisco with a strikingly clear memory and a tendency to dissociate from the present. Rather than simply building tension around a main character waiting for the perfect lover to enter her life, Gordon’s novel uses sex as a vehicle by which Raven explores her larger desires and her personhood. An author’s note describes the book as “a story about a woman coming to terms with who she is amidst complex relationships,” adding that it “takes place mid-journey to her becoming the woman she wants to be”; that is to say, there’s no ordinary happily-ever-after. One touchstone of that journey is tall, muscular Parker Page, Raven’s best friend and ex-lover from Stanford University; another is Noah “Nik” Knight, a playboy and wealthy real-estate developer who turns Raven’s seemingly ordinary business trip in Seattle, where her family lives, into a weeklong affair. (Of the latter, she muses, “I don’t tell him that whenever he opens his mouth to say something, I want to kiss him, which is crazy.”) With its conversational tone, shifting points of view, love-triangle frictions, and Emerald City backdrop, Gordon’s novel may appeal to readers looking for an offbeat and cerebral story of personal growth.

A somewhat familiar but intriguing story with a complex protagonist that flouts convention.