It Would Have Been Better with *Less* Magic

Bone Gap - Laura Ruby

The people around town called Finn O’Sullivan a lot of nicknames, most of them because of how he seemed so… distracted. Finn had plenty of reasons to be distracted, reasons like being deserted by his mother and the simple fact of being seventeen. But right now, he was distracted because Roza had disappeared: Roza, the beautiful Polish girl who’d just suddenly appeared in the O'Sullivan's barn one morning and had subsequently captured the hearts of everyone in Bone Gap, Illinois – especially the heart belonging to Finn’s older brother, Sean. And then she disappeared, and Finn simply couldn’t describe the man who had taken her, the mysterious man who moved like corn stalks waving in the wind.

Finn also found himself distracted by the beekeeper’s daughter, Priscilla Willis (who vastly preferred the name "Petey"). He thought her beautiful, even though everyone else thought her… strange-looking; homely, even. Petey was, however, the only one in Bone Gap who understood Finn’s distraction and his confusion, perhaps because Finn distracted and confused her, too. 

Promise Me You'll Leave Us Alone: Harlan Coben's "Six Years"

Every romance novel on the face of the earth would have you believe that there is “one true love” out there somewhere, a fated meeting just waiting for two pairs of eyes to lock together across a crowded room. It didn’t quite happen that way for Jake Fisher – Natalie Avery was wearing sunglasses the first time he laid eyes on her – but it was damned close. The two spent a couple of delirious months together at adjacent artistic retreats in upstate Vermont, long enough for Jake to decide Natalie was the fabled “one.” And then she dumped him – dumped him hard one day and sent him an invitation to her wedding the next. When the ceremony was concluded, she made Jake promise that he would never, ever contact her and her new husband.