#like tj klune did that

[artform-virtue]

finally rereading ravensong by tj klune and was emotionally devastated by page 2.

it's the way mark and gordo are doomed by the narrative. it's the way they cursed by their fathers to repeat them same mistakes over and over. it's the way they are destined to break each other's hearts. it's the way they are tragic archetypes destined for heartbreak. it's the dramatic irony of knowing how each flashback ends and still being devastated. it's the way they never stop fighting for each other. it's the way they will have a happy ending anyways because it's a beautiful queer paranormal romance.

[lorethebookworm]

OH MY GOD I JUST RE-READ THE HOUSE ON THE CERULEAN SEA AND HAD A REVELATION

Linus Baker is the literal definition of " I lost focus and had a consensual workplace relationship"

[healthydoseofhedonism]

[autumn-equinox-04]

Nick: lol I'm dying help

Jazz: oof same

Gibby: mood

Seth: rip, what's up?

Nick: no like I'm legit dying

Nick: some guy stabbed me in the McDonald's parking lot

Nick: *sends blurred picture of him dabbing in the ambulance*

3 people are typing....

[amochi]

oh my god house in the cerulean sea like one of favorite books ever I'm glad you liked it !!! i'm gonna lie I cried reading it 😭😭

I've been debating whether or not I should read under the whispering door I probably will though since I liked hitcs so much

I would highly highly recommend it, and any other TJ Klune books you may be interested in. I found under the whispering door to be more meaningful to me personally, so I think it’s my favorite of the two, but they are both spectacular!!!

[azurejacques]

I loved in the lives of puppets so much, but I do just have thoughts! Like idve loved to have seen more development of their new home at the end, but also it wasn’t a bad length. I think the thing I’d really have liked to see would be a longer journey in the first half. What do they discover on their trek? More fleshing out of the world would be neat. More time for Hap and Victor to develop a relationship maybe? I’m not gonna say I dislike how it actually was written, I’m just musing. I do, however, quite like the way the ending leaves things open; especially since one of the big things Victor decided for himself is that he isn’t the savior of mankind or god or anything like that. We can assume they eventually start to engineer more humans, but he doesn’t make it his burden to remake humanity, he just focuses on being alive and with those he loves and being human and all that. Will he fall victim to the same mistakes as his blood before him? Maybe, maybe not, but he wants to be better than those that came before him. Alright I’m gonna end this tangent here. All in all, loved it, totally recommend it. Are there bits where I’m like “hmm idk if I love the pacing/plot choices here” but it’s not early enough to break my immersion.

Edit: I am once again shifting some opinions and I do actually agree that I would’ve liked to see more about what happened to like,,, all of robot society after the Big Ol’ Wipe, like I kind of went with the way it was written like sure but also like,,, a little more even just like thought on it from victor might’ve been nice? Like there are a lot of implications there and like he does weigh that decision like was that right of him to do, but I think it’d’ve been worth taking more time to explore.

[pu-butt]

Somebody hold me back before i go through all of tj klunes in the lives of puppets again and mark every instance of humanity in man and machine alike and end up just highlighting ninety percent of the lines

[sleevesareforlosers]

finished 'under the whispering door' 7/10 neat concepts did make me cry did make me laugh but the ending felt like a copout beyond BELIEF like.

how are you going to write an entire book that absolutely nails the 'all we can do is move forward' 'rivers flow one way' acceptance of life and your past and how you have a duty to do better Now and then ALSO beautifully navigates 'right place wrong time' and the gorgeous yearning of being physically unable to touch someone you love (due to one of you is a ghost and one of you isnt) (and neither of you really want to admit it because the entire point is the ghost will be moving on) and then just. last twenty pages go 'actually we Can bring people back to life but only for this one specific (weakly justified and out of the blue) scenario and an offpage sex scene'

just such a startling way to undo the entire momentum of the book and for what? a 'feel good' story about death? i understand that the author is known for a certain tone but imo it wouldnt have been heartbreaking or ruined the mood to just have the main character pass on Like He Had Accepted And Made Steps Toward Feeling Good About What He Was Leaving Behind. especially with the epilogue featuring the other dead character Actually Moving On and how that was okay and fine and what he needed and was ready to do

on a smaller note. either make your books grapple with the horror of the concepts you yourself are introducing or gloss over it. dont give me two scenes of violence and anger and zombies in an otherwise completely cozy and tranquil book its just jarring and falls flat

[woodnrust]

I have one sided beef with TJ Klune and honestly I need Chuck Tingle to rip him to shreds for me

[inawickedlittletown]

Handsome Little Bookworm (BuckTommy) - one-shot

Summary: In which Buck discovers how avid of a reader Tommy is.

BuckTommy Positivity Week Day 4: hobbies and dates

Rated: G

Words: 1.1k

@bucktommypositivityweek

-

Read on Ao3

Buck realized fairly quickly that his boyfriend was a romantic. He didn’t seem to think that he deserved romance or that anyone would be willing to go to all that trouble for him, but he certainly loved to watch romcoms and he read more romance books than anyone that Buck had ever met. The first time he was invited over to Tommy’s house he’d zeroed in on the built in bookshelves that held both books and DVDs. He’d been interested right away, especially because of the insight that it might give him to Tommy. 

“This is quite the collection,” Buck had muttered as he perused the movies. “Chimney did say you were a big movie guy.” 

“When you grew up the way I did, escapism is all you really have, Evan.” 

Buck nodded. “I went with the route that kept me out of the house until I broke something. Usually my bones.”

“Evan,” Tommy said, exasperated.  

“I don’t do that anymore.” 

When he got to the book section of the bookshelf, Buck pulled out a dark blue book with white writing that read Boyfriend Material. 

“Is this a guide? Do I make the cut?” Buck asked. 

Tommy plucked the book from his hands and returned it to its spot. It brought him close enough that Buck could smell his cologne. It was earthy and warm and Buck wanted nothing more than to press himself up against him and maybe turn around and kiss him silly. 

“You are definitely boyfriend material,” Tommy responded and he took a step away from Buck. 

Buck knew he was blushing and thinking about how it hadn’t even a week since they had defined what they were doing. After not having had a boyfriend his whole life, it felt amazing to actually have one. Some might say it sounded a little juvenile, but Buck loved it. He loved that Tommy was his boyfriend. 

Buck ran his fingers over the spines of a few more books and slowly came to the conclusion that half the books Tommy owned were romance novels. It was a little unexpected, and Buck didn’t know what he had expected to find on Tommy’s shelves because Tommy had never struck him as someone that spent their time reading non-fiction or the thrillers that had become popular due to all the true crime podcasts. Maybe he just hadn’t expected Tommy to be very invested in reading. Romance books made sense, though. So did the mix of sci-fi/fantasy. 

“So which of these is your favorite?” Buck asked. 

“I don’t think I have a favorite,” Tommy admitted. 

Buck glared at him. “Which one have you read more than once?” 

“Not that many.” 

Buck perused the books himself, looking for one that might be a little more worn than the others. It was difficult entirely because Tommy seemed to take meticulous care of his books. But, of course he did. He had an entire section made up of classics whose titles Buck recognized from reading lists at school. Going up a few shelves, two books whose pages faced out caught his attention. Buck could understand putting the books that way on the shelf because the edges of the pages were pretty. He grabbed them both out. 

The books were by the same author, TJ Klune. The covers were cartoonish in a way. One featured a house at the end of a cliff and the other a house in the middle of a forest that looked entirely like it was ready to collapse. He looked at the back cover of one and then the other. 

“These sound interesting,” he offered. 

“They’re very good. Your favorite?” 

“Nope.”

Buck hummed and put them back. He grabbed another book at random. Less. The cover featured a suited up guy falling backwards. 

Next he looked at a very thick white book with some kind of ship on the cover. And then The Hunger Games which Buck had actually read. A Sherlock Holmes story collection and a few books by Andy Weir. He recognized The Martian because he’d seen Hen reading it a few years back. 

“Have you read everything on here?” 

“Most of them,” Tommy said. 

“Hmm, I think I like knowing my boyfriend is well read,” Buck said as he put Good Omens back in its place. 

Tommy snorted. “If you count romance and speculative fiction well read.” 

“You read more than me.” 

“And I bet if we found a book in a topic you found interesting, you’d be in a deep dive,” Tommy said. 

Buck didn’t deny it. He did smirk at Tommy and pull him into a kiss. “How about we keep you my handsome little bookworm.” 

The rest of the tour of Tommy’s house resulted in Buck finding even more books. He hadn’t been looking, it was just that Tommy had books literally everywhere. He had another bookshelf in his bedroom and a small pile on his bedside table. He had cooking books in the kitchen, even. It was cute and Buck had no idea when Tommy made time for reading, but he did. He knew that he took a book to work with him for the downtime in between calls, but with everything else Tommy did, it was still shocking how many books he got through. 

In the months that followed, everytime he stayed the night, he found that Tommy had already finished the book he’d previously had on his bedside table and that it had been replaced with something entirely new. He liked looking at the current book and asking Tommy to tell him about it. 

As far as hobbies went, reading was not one that Buck had expected to find hot. Not like Muay Thai which involved tight shorts and a very sweaty and delicious looking Tommy, or even Tommy tinkering away at a car wearing a backwards cap and a tight tanktop that would invariably get covered in oil or grease stains. Buck just hadn’t known what it would do to him to know that Tommy wore reading glasses. 

He’d kissed him about it and begged him to keep the glasses on during sex that night. He had absolutely no regrets about it. 

Buck was also a little amazed by how much of Tommy’s mail consisted of books getting delivered to him. Or how whenever they went anywhere that had a local bookstore they had to make time to go inside and peruse the wares. Tommy always bought at least one book. 

Some of the best nights were the quiet nights where Buck had his headphones on and he watched a documentary or dived into his research and next to him, glasses perched on his nose and a book open in his hands was Tommy. Buck could picture them doing that for years. 

He could see it so well, the two of them a bit older sharing in each other’s space but doing their own thing. Occasionally sharing a smile or a kiss maybe with rings on each other’s fingers to top it all off.  

[xiaq]

Ok so I read TJ Klune's Wolf Song on the plane for my work trip and I have THOUGHTS I would like to discuss. (spoilers ahead)

So to start, I quite enjoyed it. There were portions that were just so lovely and lyrical and I fell in love with the found family dynamics and the fleshed out, 3-dimensional characters. The thing I'd heard from others as a negative, the age gap between Joe and Ox, didn't really bother me because I cut my teeth on fic and nothing sexual happened until they were in their 20's.

But.

Joe's character/decisions/the way he treated Ox drove me crazy. Did anyone else just want to throw the book across the room when you found out that three fucking years pass while Joe and half the fractured pack are cavorting around accomplishing nothing and not so much as texting updates to the rest of their grieving family?? Why? There was literally no reason given for it that made sense. And the supposed impetus for their return didn't seem all that pressing considering that the home-pack had been in danger multiple times during the prior THREE YEARS they'd been gone?? Did I MISS something??

Anyway.

I've already ordered the next book because I'm bought in, but can someone tell me if I should prepare for similar frustrations re Gordo and Mark because judging by the already established dynamic between them I fear I am going to be in another book-throwing mood at some point during this story too.

[olderthannetfic]

This is for the anon who's afraid to publish fiction out of fear of being attacked for "incorrect" rep even when describing their own identities. Most of the authors whose books get attacked like this (over nothing or something minor) are already known to the cliques leading the callouts. They tend to be young and have an aspirational social media presence that elicits envy from their peers - and from many readers who join these attacks - because of large book advances, industry hype, etc. They are people who are already present in other authors' group chats or the subject of gossip there. The attacks are largely lateral, and you can often track at least part of motive to a preexisting beef. For example, Zhao alienated some tastemakers on YA book Twitter long before her book got criticized, and there's reason to believe they were anticipating a fuck up (also, the changes she made to the book were utlimately beneficial, as there were problems with the original version, but that's not really relevant here).

Sometimes, bad marketing and/or the author's unfortunate disclosure of their inspiration outside of the book itself are part of what drives the callout (see Molly X Chang and TJ Klune). Agents, editors, and publishers who deserve part of the blame nearly always throw their authors to the wolves - especially if they are debuts - and I suspect that those who lead bad-faith callouts are well aware of who will be defended and who will not. They won't attack someone inside the clique unless their position there is already tenuous.

The Fall situation was somewhat unique, and that attack got as bad as it did because the editor of Clarkesworld was in the hospital and unable to defuse the situation. It was the perfect storm and (hopefully) unlikely to recur.

In my opinion, the paranoia is kind of pointless outside of making you work harder and think more carefully about the rep in your book, which isn't a bad thing on its own. At worst, your fear will paralyze you and provide reasons to never to publish. At best, it suggests that you have confidence in your writing and high hopes for putting out a buzzy book that could attract a callout.

--

[captain-is-king]

i’m going to compile my notes about the testimony because boy howdy. i happened to be listening to THE MOST INTENSE INSANE PARTS while in the car so people driving by and seeing the faces i was making were surely baffled.

1. where’s the other two hours and 46 minutes tj klune. where are they. i will listen to arthur speak for two hours and 46 minutes make no mistake

2. two people over the span of several years are considered a REVOLVING DOOR now?

3. so in the beginning i was like UGH YES arthur work that room beat them at their own game be holier than thou you’ve never done anything wrong. and then we found out ARTHUR DIDNT REGISTER and was breaking the law a whole bunch which made me gasp but then i was also like…..hold up……why am i surprised? of course he did. and then i was upset!!! because they are going to use this against him!!! but THEN i was like….ACTUALLY FUCK decorum and BEING POLITE and INOFFENSIVE AND QUIET AND PERFECT BIGOTS DONT DESERVE ANY OF THAT. WHY SHOULDN’T WE PLAY NASTY??? so when arthur became his phoenix self i was SCREAMING. CHEERING. LOVING IT. like again. will they use this against him? certainly. would they use ANYTHING against him? obviously. did he deserve to go off? UH YEAH.

4. linus baker the man that you are. i am so glad we are seeing arthur’s pov because it’s so exciting and fun and interesting especially when he is in phoenix form!! but I ALSO MISS MY FAT FRUMPY SAD GAY GOVERNMENT MAN’S INNER DIALOGUE. i felt so seen.

5. i think this is yours” and “im not convinced you’re in any position to tell me what i should or shouldn’t consider. have a pleasant afternoon” ARTHUR PARNASSUS GOD DO I LOVE YOU. THE MAN YOU ARE.

[aurorawest]

The Scottish Boy by Alex de Campi - 5/5 stars

This book managed to rip my heart out at least 3 times. I loved it. Medieval enemies-to-lovers slow burn; very romantic. Kinda read like fanfiction at times but in a good way. 10/10 would read a follow-up love story about Arundel and Captain Wekena. If you like Captive Prince, give this one a try.

Reforged by Seth Haddon - 4/5 stars

Pretty good bodyguard romantasy. Ironically CS Pacat blurbed this one (another am-I-in-the-matrix moment). The world was interesting and I enjoyed the politics, though they're definitely not as complicated as other SFF politics I've gone feral over (see: Captive Prince, Winter's Orbit, A Memory Called Empire). I ordered the sequel after I finished this.

The Doctor's Date by Heidi Cullinan - 4/5 stars

A Power Unbound by Freya Marske - 5/5 stars

Where do I start? I love, love, LOVE A Marvellous Light. It's one of my favorite books ever. None of the rest of the books in the trilogy could live up to it, really, because it's so good. You'll notice I rated this one 5 stars though, because quite honestly I fell prey to a bit of The Academy Paying The Lord of the Rings Trilogy Its Due syndrome. I did love this book and thought it was better than A Restless Truth (which I still loved!) but part of that is, quite frankly, just due to the fact that I prefer m/m romance to f/f romance.

Anyway. This was such a good finale to the trilogy. I loved that the romance was a giant middle finger to purity cultists. I loved that one of the mains was Italian. I loved finally getting the story of what happened to the Alston twins. One thing I thought was really cool was how, viewed from the outside, you totally get why Edwin is such a loner. I really admire from a writing perspective how Marske pulled that off.

I feel like there's a lot to be said about what Marske was trying to SAY with this book, but I definitely need to reread it first before I can articulate any of it. The purity culture stuff is obvious, but the magic system too. I feel like Jack when he's almost able to connect everything in his mind into a bigger idea, but he can't quite get there.

I've got a special edition from Illumicrate coming, so I'll be rereading it when I have that.

Oh also, this book was the embodiment of all that one tumblr post -

The Guncle by Steven Rowley - 5/5 stars

I saw this in bookstores for years before I finally gave in and bought it. The blurb makes it sound insufferable and twee. Ignore the blurb. This was such a good book about grief and learning how to live again after terrible loss.

I Like Me Better by Robby Weber - 4/5 stars

At last I can stop getting the Lauv song stuck in my head whenever I set eyes on this book (it's stuck in my head as I type this). Pretty standard-issue YA, but it was cute and had a good message.

The Stagsblood King by Gideon E Wood - 4/5 stars

Another book about moving on from grief! This is the second book in a trilogy. When I was trying to determine if I wanted to read on beyond book 1, I scoured the internet for information about what happens in books 2 and 3. Eventually I decided, hell, I enjoyed book 1 well enough, even if what I want to happen in the rest of the trilogy doesn't happen, they're worth reading. SO, to that end, I will tell anyone looking for info that Tel gets romantically involved with a new man in this one, which, eh. I still want him to somehow end up with Vared. It was still quite good though.

In the Lives of Puppets by TJ Klune - DNF at pg 82

So funnily, we were at the bookstore the day I was about to start reading this, and my wife pointed out Ravensong (also by Klune) to me and said, "Do you have this one?" I made a face and said, "That's an older one of his books and I'm wary of his early work after that horrible Verania series. I don't think I've ever read an author as hit or miss as TJ Klune."

I wrote the above when I was 60 pages in and now I have officially DNFed this. Listen. You know how in Thor: Love and Thunder, Taika Waititi was clearly given free rein to do whatever he wanted, so all of his worst impulses made it to the final cut unchecked? Yeah. That's what this book is like.

Here's my Storygraph review: I see Klune is officially Too Big To Edit now. This book has exactly the same problem that his awful Verania series had—a joke that's funny at first but quickly grows tiresome when it's repeated five times per page. The emphasis on Victor's asexuality was also weird and read like Klune was just super proud of himself for writing an ace character.

Lion's Legacy by LC Rosen - 4.25/5 stars

Queer, YA Indiana Jones, but less #problematic. This book had some eerie similarities to my own archaeology adventure novel(s), which made me wonder half-seriously if I somehow know Lev Rosen? Anyway, I feared this would be very heavy-handed and not nuanced on archaeology's ethical dilemmas, since it's YA and also the current culture is to view said dilemmas as completely black and white with no nuance, but I was pleasantly surprised. It manages to examine that, queerness, and daddy issues, plus has time to be a genuinely fun and exciting adventure story. Highly recommend.

Too White to be Coloured, Too Coloured to be Black by Ismail Lagardien - 4/5 stars

I picked up this memoir in a bookstore at OR Tambo airport in Johannesburg as research for Six Places to Fall in Love, since Percy is coloured. A pretty brutal read, but good, and definitely good research. The author was a photographer and journalist through the most violent years of apartheid.

The Splendid and the Vile by Erik Larson - 5/5 stars

Two nonfiction books in a row?? This is the second book by Erik Larson I've read, the first being the excellent The Devil in the White City. I'm not, in general, all that interested in WWII when it comes to military history, but this book is about the day to day lives of Churchill and the people surrounding him (with brief stops to visit FDR and high-ranking Nazis sprinkled throughout). This is a very, very good book, and I recommend reading it if only as a reminder of the resilience and bravery of ordinary people under terrifying circumstances.

Some Desperate Glory by Emily Tesh - 5/5 stars

Holy shit. Holy shit is this book good. Imagine the love child of Lost, Person of Interest, and Battlestar Galactica, but queer and with multiverse shenanigans thrown in.

I need everyone to read this book. Now. Yesterday. Get to it.

[mildmayfoxe]

big fan of your romance novel complaint posts (love to see a fellow hater living it up) but i’m also curious if there are any you would recommend? not looking for anything in particular, just would love to hear your thoughts as someone else with nitpicky reading habits and a taste for trash

ok hello. i left you hanging for a FULL week and for that i am sorry but i wanted to be able to have some time to sit down and type out a real answer to which the short version is YES of course there are several that i have enjoyed!! my disclaimer is that i almost solely read gay romance so if you are looking for lesbian or even straight reccs i don't have much for you (although i will put a couple at the end anyway). hopefully something in this list is interesting to you or at least interesting to someone else! links are mostly to goodreads. break bc i'm gonna write too much

-kj charles is one of my fave authors in this genre bc they're all pretty reliable and there's a ton of them. they're all historical fiction and usually there's at least one murder- she's good at keeping a plot going while developing a romance. often supernatural or magical elements. sometimes cults! i've read almost all of the books she's written and have enjoyed them all

-charlie adhara wrote a really incredible werewolf series that i loved, the first of which is the wolf at the door. this is one of the only series i've read which keeps the emotional stakes up through the whole thing & kept me interested in a relationship after it was established bc sooo many series get boring the second the leads get together. i actually read the first book of the spin-off series (a pack of lies) first which is technically possible but i don't recommend bc i was like "wow they're really throwing me in here. i love it" and then i read the first series and i was like "oh i was supposed to know all this stuff." but i actually liked the dynamic between that couple better and i'm suffering every day because the next one still doesn't come out til 2025 and i read it in 2022. also worth noting that this (the original series) is cops-ajacent (~federal special agents~) and one of the characters is really prejudiced at the beginning & imo doesn't have enough character growth before it's waved away but if you can ignore that it's really good. mysteries! werewolves!

-speaking of werewolves (i could suggest several but i'll keep it to two) tj klune's wolfsong ends up at the top of a lot of gay werewolf novel lists (i'm keeping tabs) and there's a good reason. i enjoyed it a lot. made me kind of sad which is always a good sign to me. the writing voice was very fresh and novel at first but i did find it a little grating by the end so i've put off starting the second book in the series (it's also about a different couple which was disappointing) but i will get around to it. i enjoy tj klune in general although his recent stuff has a very different vibe than this and lightning struck heart is very 2015 in a bad way imo

-bone rider by j fally is a standalone that really delighted me. the russian mob? aliens? vaguely western? possession? throuple? it's got it all. very fun

-ok speaking of westerns there's this other series called magic & steam (yes it's steampunk. sorry. it's very silly) that starts with the engineer. a federal agent is sent to a town to apprehend a ~madman engineer~ except he runs into an infamous outlaw in the process. and the outlaw is really sexy. and probably why i enjoyed the series so much. the series also keeps them apart a lot in a way that i enjoy- i love when things take a long time. it's ongoing so this is another one that i keep checking for updates on

-i've read a lot of stuff by nr walker and they tend to be VERY hit or miss for me but one of my faves is evolved which is almost pure smut. it's about a sex robot that gains sentience. what more do i need to say. she also wrote a three-book series about an amnesiac that made me cry cry cry. and her cowboy (australian rancher) series is pretty ok. i could go through a list and tell you which novels of hers aren't worth it and which ones are good; i've read most of them

-salt magic skin magic by lee welch was a big surprise to me. cool magic, good folklore, fairies in there too. historical. big kj charles vibes which makes sense bc she edited it. welch also wrote a book called seducing the sorcerer which i had more mixed feelings about but had magic in it that i think about OFTEN (the horses)- that one's about an imposing sorcerer and a rundown groom cum handyman. and they're in their FORTIES!!! 🥳🥳🥳 (i love when books are not about 23 year olds)

-another one with a magic system i enjoyed was magician by kl noone. this was the first book i read by this author and i liked it but generally i find their books are too "nice" for me. i'm in the middle of one right now that i started months and months ago that i keep trying to go back to and it's sooo rough for me. but this one and the twelfth enchantment are pretty ok

-emily tesh wrote a duology of silver in the wood and drowned country that i loved because i am suuuuch a sucker for a wild man/green man story. really good. haunting! evocative! kj charles has a green man story too which was actually the first thing i read of hers (spectred isle)

-i complained about the monsterfucker book i was reading a while back but despite that i will also recommend the series it's from: lily mayne's monstrous, which starts with soul eater. are they messy? yes. are they repetitive? yes. are the monsters usually disappointingly humanoid? yes. are a lot of them about the military? also yes. so we're starting off on a bad foot. but the world building is interesting and there's LOTS of kinds of monsters and most of them were pretty fun. the one i just read (#7) was the worst one of the bunch though imo. and i have problems with #6. but 1 2 and 5 were good

-ok i should do a quickfire round. honeytrap: about two enemy agents during the cold war. put it off for a long time bc i didn't love that but it takes place over a VERY long period of time which is always interesting to me. zero at the bone: about a hitman who needs to protect a witness to a mob hit. really strong start but fell off a bit in the middle to the end imo.

-you'll notice a lot of these have subgenres of like fantasy historical supernatural etc but here's some regular contemporaries. a lot of these are about sad guys bc those are my favorite. best laid plans: hardware store owner helps a guy fix his house. in the middle of somewhere: same author actually. guy moves to small town to work at a college. mr jingle bells: this is a christmas one. bad title. fake dating. part of the reason i think i liked it so much is because i expected it to be awful but it was actually pretty good. good emotional stakes. published 2021 but feels very 2014. ignore that part. work for it: i rated this five stars but actually don't remember much what it was like. i think they were both really sad which i love. give me big emotions and i eat them right up with a spoon. i should read it again

-OK now i've got some straight & lesbian options. talia hibbert's brown sisters series is good and cute. she also wrote work for it, above. the unhoneymooners is the first real Romance Novel that i read and it really surprised me because i had fun! previously i had kind of written off romance novels as not for me but this kicked off a reading habit that is still going strong (primarily reading romance novels). i read this in 2020 so it might not be as good as i remember. as for lesbian options olivia waite has a series that i enjoyed that's also historical, and a friend of mine really enjoyed delilah green doesn't care (but i haven't read that one myself). and while not really romances i will always be a sarah waters fan: you may recognize her as the author of fingersmith, which is the novel park chan-wook's movie the handmaiden is based on. if you haven't seen the movie or read the book i recommend both. her books are very dramatic lesbian historical fiction; they don't always have happy endings but they're all very good

ok i think that's the end! regular disclaimer that romance is generally not a genre notable for Good Writing so a lot of these are just things i had fun with or just stuck out in my memory for having fun conceits etc. i can't guarantee that any of these are actually good, especially because this is a list solely based on my own taste and bad memory. would love to hear anybody's thoughts and/or if anybody has recommendations for ME!!! this post took me over three hours to write! crazy!

[islanddads]

thinking about tj klune opening my letter to him and reading the part where i was like “also i think i’m the biggest zoe and helen fan there is. i know they get like 3 pages together but they’re wives and i need to see more of them.” and just laughing to himself bc he knew he’d already WRITTEN more of them and that i WILL get to read it in just one short year. wow. he really did do that for me