I’m new to this thread so hopefully im doing this right but i could really really use a new book suggestion as im having no luck searching on my own. Below i’ll list a small criteria, hopefully i’ll get some suggestions that give me a new favorite 🙂
Ps. Thank you ahead of time for ANY suggestions/responses.
So the main criteria would be that it has a romance theme, although i dont mind if romance is sharing the spotlight heavily with any other theme (excepting comedy). I dont like lighthearted/silly rom/com’s so thats my only big no-no.
The second would be that the story be interesting aside from the romance plot. Romance with more plot and depth and circumstance than just typical romance only books.
And finally i would like something that feels more serious, dark, intense, brooding, or high stakes. I want to read something that makes me feel and is a departure from the mundane.
The last thing i’ll say id really love romance that covers the rawness of love and feeling of fear, inadequacy, and desperation.
(Open to horror and dark themes)
by invisinet
4 Comments
Its not quite as brooding maybe but I really enjoyed the Cursebreakers trilogy by Brigid Kemmerer which starts out as a sort of Beauty and the Beast retelling 🙂
Sounds like you might like some angsty dark romances like Duke of Shadows by Meredith Duran, Not Quite a Husband by Sherry Thomas, Flowers from the Storm by Laura Kinsale, etc.
Or some angsty dark romantic fantasy like the Black Jewels novels by Anne Bishop, Daughter of the Forest by Juliet Marillier, Deerskin by Robin McKinley, or The Thief series by Megan Whalen Turner.
*A Town Like Alice* by Shute
An unsual suggestion, but *Theft of Fire* by Devon Eriksen seems to be [landing with people who like enemies-to-lovers as a theme](https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/6006547692) (it is not the main theme of the book), if you are open to scifi as a genre. There may be more action than you are looking for, but it’s largely driven by the battle of wills between the two characters, and then [spoilers!] them vs impossible odds against the rest of the solar system.
The book goes to some *dark* places, which has caused at least one reader to nope out, but it has an overall positive and hopeful vibe; light is brightest when it has shadow as a foil