How to be a "Wicked" Woman

How to be a "Wicked" Woman

I requested How to be a "Wicked" Woman through BookMooch after it was mentioned in the archives fiction presentation at SAA (see this post). The romance anthology is concerned with what it means to be wicked. Three stories are included in it:

• "The Wicked Witch of the West Side" by MaryJanice Davidson
• "Instruction in Seduction" by Jamie Denton
• "Wicked Ways" by Susanna Carr

"Wicked Ways" is the one that features archives and the one I chose to read first. Neither of the protagonists in "Wicked Ways" is an archivist (the female lead is a business owner and head of the library's friends group, the male lead is an investigator pretending to be a librarian), but they do have a romantic encounter in the archives.

What I don't like about these kind of anthologies is that the stories don't tend to be long enough for the relationship buildup to be appropriately satisfying. "Instruction in Seduction" was the least problematic in this regard because the characters knew each other before the start of the story period and had a strong backstory. I didn't like "The Wicked Witch of the West Side" at all. The female protagonist was extremely irritating and there just wasn't enough time to warm up to her (if warming up to her was even possible).