ROMANCE IS BOTH loved and derided for its formulaic nature. It is comfort, escapism and reassurance in a troubling world. It is generic in the truest sense, a genre defined and constrained by a handful of conventions. The heart of every romance is a love story, and by the last page of the book the lovers wind up together, happily ever after or at least "happily for now." (Less codified but no less crucial is that no children or pets are harmed. This is a place for happy endings, after all.) These rules give rise to a rich variety of stories, but they are constraints nonetheless. Here are four recent books that either test the boundaries or occupy the essential core of what a romance novel is. A romance is more than a book with a love story, it's a book about a love story, and J.R. Ward's CONSUMED (Gallery Books, $26.99) edges right up to the wrong side of that line. But in the end, the love story is still the center of things, and what surrounds it is a complex world, a context that defines the central couple as much as their love does. The book opens with the firefighters Danny Maguire and Anne Ashburn battling a blaze in an abandoned warehouse. They have a longstanding flirtation and recently slept together for the first time; here, the usual fodder for the first half of a romance is relegated to back story. But there's still so much to cover. Their mission goes wrong, leaving Danny traumatized and Anne unable to be a firefighter anymore. (A disappointing turn for readers excited for a firefighter romance that involves an actual female firefighter.) Ten months later, Anne is working as an arson investigator, and Danny's making a right mess of his life, chasing a death wish on the job and off. After some particularly unsound decision making, one of Danny's crew mates asks Anne to check in on him, which forces the two to grapple with their unsettled past - and, of course, their intense attraction. At the same time, Anne's digging into an arson case with some dangerous, powerful people behind it. That case, Danny's friends, Anne's family and the maneuverings of local politics all weave through the rest of the story. (Less thoughtfully integrated are Ward's peculiar political asides: A hospital nurse is derided as a microaggression-sensitive millennial despite the fact that Anne is surely a millennial herself, and some loafer-wearing bros display their knavery by telling a Latina waitress they're going to report her to ICE. It's equal-opportunity mockery, but pointless and distracting.) But Anne and Danny's developing relationship is still central, even if it doesn't dominate. Most impressive, while Anne sees and understands Danny's trauma, she doesn't magically cure him of it. Nothing is easy or simple in this love story, but it is realistically complex - even amid the TV-drama levels of intrigue swirling around it. The question of whether love can or should heal trauma also crops up in Brenna Aubrey's HIGH RISK (Silver Griffon, paper, $14.99), in which a former NASA astronaut falls in love with the psychologist of the SpaceX-style commercial spaceflight operation he's the poster boy for. But there's a more pressing issue here: This book ends with a cliffhanger. The main characters are thoroughly in love by the end of the book, though they haven't told each other yet. But on the final page, their story is unresolved. Many romance readers and authors think this clearly violates the requirement for a happy ending. But for others, that edict is clearly not so cut-and-dried, as cliffhanger romances continue to be written and published. Up until its intentionally unsatisfying ending, "High Risk" reads like a pretty wonderful romance, with a cocky astronaut and an endearingly geeky psychologist, with a high-pressure context and complex back stories for both. Commander Ryan Tyler is another post-traumatic hero, drowning himself in vodka and meaningless sex. Gray Barrett is assigned to be his minder in the lead-up to XVenture's first crewed mission, to keep him in line and out of the tabloids. When they start sleeping together, I was a little worried about their professional relationship - this isn't just a workplace romance, but an affair between an astronaut and the mental health professional tasked with ensuring his fitness for flight. As things went on, I became more troubled by the fact that Ryan's recovery depended entirely on his love affair with Gray. I'm not going to diagnose fictional characters with codependency, but in such an otherwise sharp and sensitive novel, I wish I hadn't even had the thought. In Sophie Jordan's BEAUTIFUL SINNER (Avon, paper, $7.99), there is no good reason for Gabriella Rossi and Cruz Walsh to be apart other than the paranoid hand-wringing of their friends and families. When the two were in high school they had huge crushes on each other, though of course neither knew about the other's feelings. Now, years later, Gabriella's moved back to their small hometown to help her grandmother recover from surgery, and Cruz is back, too, having been released from prison after being wrongly convicted of a crime - the murder of Sophie's cousin. Of course, Cruz's affirmed innocence isn't enough for most of Gabriella's family, or their judgmental small town. The two of them face plenty of irrational malevolence from the peripheral characters, including Gabriella's sister and her coffee shop boss. But let them all fade to the sidelines, as Gabriella and Cruz do while they're falling in love. Just keep your eye on the romance, as a hot guy discovers he can be loved for being good, and a good girl discovers she's been hot all along. The story isn't fluffy, but the strife is shallow enough that the end result isn't angsty but sweet and smoldering instead. If you want smoldering and fluffy - fluffy and delightfully filthy, too - then look no farther than Rebekah Weatherspoon's RAFE (Rebekah Weatherspoon Presents, paper, $14.99), subtitled, with endearing directness, "A BuffMale Nanny." Rafe, both the book and the character, are wish-fulfillment at their finest. The heart surgeon and single mother Dr. Sloan Copeland has just had her babysitter quit without notice. Enter Rafe Whitcomb, buffmale nanny indeed, a bearded ginger covered in tattoos whose previous clients have just moved to Australia. Rafe is, like many other romance heroes, very tall and built like a Greek god. He is also, as sadly few romance heroes are, an exceptionally good person from Page 1. Rafe is as comfortable whipping up four dozen snickerdoodles for the school bake sale as he is working on his motorcycle. Even more important, he's amazing with Sloan's daughters, 6-year-old twins; thanks to his experience taking care of his younger half sisters, he even knows how to wash and braid the biracial girls' hair. Sloan and Rafe's love story is as much a fantasy as the man himself: They confess their attraction right offthe bat, and proceed with lots of open communication and little regard for the fact that Sloan is Rafe's employer. But that doesn't mean things don't feel real. Sloan and Rafe come together with candor, awkwardness and humor, and their friends and family are all vivid characters. Sloan's ex-husband is the one villain, but while he's a bit caricaturish, Sloan's reactions to his malice are painfully real. And their daughters are brilliantly written, precocious kindergartners who feel like actual children, funny and honest and two distinct people despite being children and twins. I actually missed them when the book was over, but luckily "Rafe" is a breeze and a delight, a perfect book to read over and over again. JAIME GREEN, the Book Review's romance columnist, is a freelance writer and editor whose work has appeared in Buzzfeed, Popular Science, The Cut and Unbound Worlds.

Anne Ashburn is a rebel and a hothead, and an integral part of Ladder 499 in her hometown. When a rash decision goes wrong, fellow firefighter Danny Maguire comes to her rescue with an ax. No longer able to fight fires, Anne takes a job as an arson investigator and looks into the fire that caused her grave injury. It matches that of several other warehouse fires, all vaguely connected to shady Boston developer Charles Ripkin. The last guy who confronted Ripkin washed up on shore after a boating accident, but Anne is determined to find the truth. Danny adds guilt for maiming Anne to his collection of inner demons, but he has enough sense to realize the connection between him and Anne is worth exploring. Throw in some family drama and a rescued pit bull named Soot, and you've got Ward's (Devil's Cut, 2017) latest. It's a departure from her beloved Black Dagger Brotherhood series, but fans of the hypermasculine vampire warriors will appreciate the tough, damaged exterior and raw sexuality of both Danny and Anne.--Susan Maguire Copyright 2018 Booklist

Forced to give up her job as a firefighter when she loses a hand in a near-deadly disaster, Anne Ashburn is putting her life back together as a fire inspector as fiercely as she once fought the flames. She just wishes Danny Maguire, the hotshot, brave-to-a-fault firefighter who feels responsible, could do the same. A series of seemingly connected blazes soon have Anne on the trail of a deadly arsonist, and when she becomes a target herself, Danny vows to do anything to keep her safe. Rugged heroes and heroines battle fierce emotions and infernos and routinely deal with tragedy and heartbreak in a story brought to stunning life by rough, realistic detail, passion, and snarky, sometimes gallows humor. A pair of perfectly matched protagonists learn to deal with their demons and reach well-deserved love along the way. -VERDICT Raw, gritty, and gripping, this adrenaline-laced tale whips along at lightning speed and is impossible to put down. An impressive, "consuming" launch to Ward's widely anticipated series. Ward (The Thief) is noted for her popular "Black Dagger Brotherhood" titles; she lives in Kentucky. © Copyright 2018. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

A Massachusetts firefighter injured on the job finds new purpose as an arson investigator and discovers that looking for the sources of fires can be just as dangerous as trying to put them out.The daughter and sister of legendary New Brunswick firefighters, Anne Ashburn grew up struggling to prove she was tough enough to be one herself. After finally making it, it's the very thing she loves that ends her career: A routine fire goes rogue, trapping Anne and forcing her on-again, off-again crush, Danny Maguire, to amputate her hand in order to save her life. While Anne recoversconveniently quickly for a narrative paced like a soapy TV dramaDanny, who's also injured in the blaze, tumbles down a wormhole of undiagnosed PTSD and heavy drinking. Anne takes her position as arson investigator seriously, linking several warehouse fires to a big-shot Boston developer with ties to the department and a violent streak. Meanwhile, Danny pines for Anne, renovates an old house, and puts his life on the line, like far too many characters before him who should have "I'm Damaged and Have Nothing To Lose" tattooed across their chests. Ward (The Thief, 2018, etc.), known best for her Black Dagger Brotherhood series, relies on double-entendre instead of realistic dialogue and stock characters in place of complicated people in a dangerous profession.For a story centered around flames, there is no spark between the characters. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

The prolific Ward is best known for the bestselling Black Dagger Brotherhood paranormal romances, so that might be why this first-responder thriller is marketed as romance, but its true heritage is gritty TV dramas. Characters have sex, but there's nothing like a romantic story arc. Anne Ashburn is the only female firefighter in her New Brunswick, Mass., station. She's the daughter and sister of firefighters, but she despises her family and won't admit her continuing attraction to Daniel "Dannyboy" Maguire, the station's bad boy and her recent one-night stand. Sexual angst becomes moot when a catastrophic fire ends Anne's career and sends Danny into a PTSD spiral. Refashioning herself as an arson investigator, Anne discovers that the fire has suspicious links to others. Meanwhile, her former colleagues won't let her leave Danny in the past. There's a lot of explicit injury, trash talk ("Amy, don't be codependent. It makes your ass look big"), bad behavior excused because it's done by the good guys, and sneering at "the Instagram set" and other caricatures of weak, whiny liberal elites. For readers who consider "Do your department a favor and just put a bullet in your head" to be pithy advice for a suicidal lover, Ward's facility with topical one-liners will make this a hit, but readers seeking actual romance would do well to avoid it. Agent: Meg Ruley, Jane Rotrosen Agency. (Oct.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.