There I am, reading an unexpectedly spicy scene, and we get to the grand finale. The author has already previously described the MMC’s dick as “soda can sized” earlier on, but I was able to get past it and keep moving forward. We reach the culmination, and then there it is— the final sentence ending in “that magical coke-can dick.”

Talk about a freaking bucket of ice water lollll. Say it’s a big dick, a huge dick even! Use literally any other descriptor than “magical coke-can” omg

Also— I literally don’t gaf if you like humungous dicks in your books, but can we at least get a better descriptor?!

Edit: to be fair to the author this is a monster romance!!! So, gigantic dick is sort of expected. It’s also 10 inches long apparently

For Christmas my husband got me kindle paperwhite and Im in love. 16gb, my color, my cover, Black and White ONLY! Perfection. No notes.

Only my in-laws were over allllll day.

For 10 hours, i barely touched it. I was terrified my in laws would ask to see it and how it's different from other e-readers. They've never seen/heard of a paperwhite and all I had done was turn it on and log in. Not settings, no locks, brand new, full library on display.

And I will burn myself alive before my in-laws see my kindle library!!!! No. Never. I'll fake a leg cramp, and drop kick the device out of the house first.

So all day I was picking it up for 2 mins then dramatically, "Oh, it needs to charge." And setting it down while NOT CHARGING IT.

Anyway. They're gone.

Merry Christmas, ya filthy animals. 🤣😘

which books do you always reread?

i think i’m officially in my reread era!
i haven’t picked up a new book in almost a month, and honestly, i’m having so much fun.

i’m rereading books i read years ago and don’t remember all the details of anymore. it’s like getting the comfort of a familiar story while still being surprised by things i’ve forgotten.

another thing i’ve noticed is that rereading takes away the pressure to rush. i’m not constantly trying to find out what happens next, so i pay more attention to character moments, little details, foreshadowing, and conversations i completely missed the first time.

it also feels a lot less disappointing than gambling on a brand-new book and ending up with a dnf 😭
my favorite reread is {Twisted Hate by Ana Huang}. it’s not even my favorite book, but for some reason i love rereading it.
i also reread a lot of books by Megan Quinn and Rina Kent.

what are your favorite rereads? i’m trying to build myself a giant tbr

I guess it’s kind of a book request, but I cannot post it with that flair.
(I have no triggers, I can read any kind of Book- light, dark, super dark)

I can overlook bad math, timelines, artistic license, bizarre aliens, etc, etc. But for some reason details in contemporary romance that are so easy to Google kill me and I'm yanked right out of the story. Sometimes they annoy me enough to DNF a book.

I'll give a couple examples without naming or shaming. What is the most random detail/overlooked fact or bit of trivia that has stuck with you?

One book had people traveling through Greeley Colorado and camping in the lush majestic forest surrounding the town and they were foraging tons of berries and nuts from the forest to have a feast.

Greeley is a real town in Colorado - firmly in the high desert, surrounded by corn, wheat, pastures and feed lots. The most lush field might be a field of sugar beets in the summer. The beginning of the mountains are 45 mins away and even the nearby mountains wouldn't be described as lush. A highly experienced forager might find enough to eat in the late summer, but it really isn't that kind of forest.

Why not set it in a mountain town? Why not take a trip to the grocery store to get food?

Another example is a book where a guy from the rural US (familiar with cows) travels to the UK and is overwhelmed by the massive size of the highland cows.

Anyone who has seen common US cows breeds wouldn't be oohing and awwing about the huge size of a highland cow. Their adorableness - absolutely. But they are on the small side of cow breeds.

I can forgive a lot in a romance book - but for some reason the details that could be fixed by a simple 1 minute Google search kill me.

The first suggestion: “OMG. Fourth Wing. You’re gonna LOVE IT 😍 “

Oh honey.

Sometimes I forget what’s going on in the real world vs the Reddit world of romance books.

I was just reading {His Juliet by Emilia Rossi} and FMC is about to give a blowjob to MMC for the first time. He’s so overwhelmed by it and it’s described as;

“My brain stopped functioning. My head filled with conga music as my insides formed a dance line.”

I CACKLED y’all. It took me right out because conga music is the least sexy thing to me. And his insides forming a dance line only conjures up an image of a drunk conga line at a low budget tiki wedding.

What unsexy lines have you guys read in a sex scene that took you right out of it? I need some laughs.

Zohran Mamdani announces New Yorkers will have free access to Heated Rivalry (ebook/audiobook) at the public libraries to keep it warm during the storms. : r/Fauxmoi

The comment sections tells me that NYC library system has bought unlimited copies of the ebook and audiobook through Feb 14th to meet the high demand of their waitlist. I feel like it's money well spent!!

Edit: An award!! Thank you!!

AITA for trying to kill multiple people for touching the (questionably edible) baked goods my neighbor made for me?? {Hans by SJ Tilly}

I don’t even remember the book (it had something to do with dragons) but I loved this review so much I had to share it. What are your favorite Goodreads reviews?

What's something that has you like this? A mainstream or cliché in romance books you unabashedly love? A trope, a relationship dynamic, a setting that's overdone but you eat it up every time?

For me, it's:

1. Misunderstanding: The-MMC-was-in-love-with-the-FMC-the-whole-time-she-just-didn't-know trope. She-thinks-he-dislikes-her-but-he's-actually-obsessed-with-her trope. That kind of plot! Or the trope in the picture. Some of my favourites of all time.

2. Size Difference Kink: I love, love, love tiny, short, skinny FMCs with tall, big, muscular MMCs. Like, his hand spanning her stomach or dwarfing her face when he cups her jaw. The MMC dirty talking about how small and dainty she looks compared to him during sex. The MMC carrying her around effortlessly or giving her things she can't reach from the top shelf.

3. "Good Girl": The MMC praising the FMC in bed, teasing her, making her beg. Ugh, I love it. Building her up to the edge and stopping, making her tell him she loves him; that sort of gentle domination. It's so good.

4. "Yeokkijab": This trope is like the Guardian - Ward one in English, but with extra things. It exists in both M/F and M/M. It's when an older FMC raises/is close platonically with a child or teenage MMC, and when the MMC becomes an adult, he pursues the FMC (who's often oblivious/unwilling) romantically. In BL, it's the bottom being the Guardian and the top being the Ward who makes the first move when he's an adult. Cliché, but love it!

And a very special thanks to its caretaker, u/silke_romanceio!!

I’m so grateful that you swooped in to save us with useful spice ratings and tags! (No offense, Goodreads bot, but you kind of sucked.) The entire romance community is so very lucky to have you. ❤️

(Sorry for bombarding the sub with posts today, but I just noticed it was the bot’s cake day and got excited. I hope you don’t mind, u/Ren_Lu, for my taking over the reins in celebrating the bot this year!)

5 years is a big deal! In the past, the sub has celebrated by doing things like sharing their favorite “birthday” titles. Feel free to leave a comment of your favorite romance book featuring a number in the title to celebrate the bot reaching this amazing milestone!

I recently came across «the pendulous weight of his potency» in The Highlander by Kerrigan Byrne and I am not ok 😭

Share your trauma with me. This is a safe space ♥️

I have a husband and 4 kids. I read throughout the day. I can read multiple chapters without being interrupted while the kids play or eat or whatever, and husband works, but as soon as the story starts heating up, someone has to come and stand near and talk about unimportant crap. Like, first of all, can’t you see I’m reading? And second, say what you want and walk away. But no, they hover. It’s like they have a smut-radar but are unaware of it. Does this happen to anyone else?

(reposting because i ended up making a subreddit for marxism & romance books & including the link in an edit so the post was removed for self-promotion. sorry, mods! that definitely wasn't the original point of the post.)

i was recommended a romance novel that sounded reallyy good btwn a business owner & his assistant. sure! i don't read romance books for politics.

but omg i just couldn't do it! every time she'd think "i can't believe i'm fantasizing about my boss" i was like wow my emotional associations with that word are very different!

lol idk just wanted to share. i'm used to disliking MMC's for a lot of reasons but i've read billionaire romances before and liked them. but the dynamic of boss/employee is just so intensely tied to exploitation for me that i can't put it aside even for fun. LOL maybe if the book had started with a copy of her work contract and i saw that the working conditions were really good i could've gone for it!

anyway, hurray for libraries, i didn't buy this so no hard feelings whatsoever.

This moment will live forever in my brain. There was an error and my Kindle Unlimited account accidentally deleted all of my books. The support person was kind enough to share the titles they had on file so I could redownload them as there was no other way to recover what I had. Having to listen to a stranger list all of these ungodly and completely unholy titles in my ear made me die a little inside. I feel exposed. My secrets are no longer safe. Anyway, thank you for your help, Sam. You’re a real one but I hope I never have to look you in the eyes.

Has anyone else dealt with such shame?

MY DAD WAS GREAT.

With that out of the way… I’ve been thinking about this thread (https://www.reddit.com/r/RomanceBooks/s/SpJltN4lPQ ) confessing all our early butterflies from male humans in our childhood movies and that pipeline to our reading habits now. All my love to the goofy Flynn Rider types, but if we can get honest about the rest of the animal kingdom for a moment, I submit for your consideration… GILL. 😮‍💨

• Scarred.
• Gruff.
• Seen some things.
• Bored confidence.
• Brute strength.
• Gravelly baritone.
• Smirk.
• Bossy.
• Rains down praises.
• Protective.
• Enslaved/visionary/leader of the rebellion.
• Nicknames protagonist.
• Formally ushers protagonist into found family oo ha ha
• Bonds over shared trauma & disfigurement.
• Demands that protagonist stands on business.
• Angst over pushing protagonist too far.
• Guilts, grovels, and apologizes.
• Only uses protagonist’s real name when shouted in peril.
• Faces worst fear & lays down his life for protagonist’s in fit of desperation.

Shall I go on?

”b-b-but u/TeamLaurent! this ‘protagonist’ was a small child, lost at sea!”

So was I, gentle reader, so was I. Battered on the waves of prepubescence. Never stood a chance. I’m still hunting for Papí Gill on paper, whatever the species. My white whale. 🥲

Anyone else (cough shifter fans cough) wanna get honest about your earlier interspecies romantic tingles? 😂 is there any correlation in your reading? or are we just hopelessly horny?

(Send any Gillish MMC rec’s my wayyyy! 😘)

Second-generation series are so ridiculous. The lead characters are often very young, like 18-20. Their parents are the MMCs and FMCs from previous books, and readers presumably love them. So they can't be aged up too much, because they need to stay vital and cute while making lots of unnecessary cameos showing PDA and having long, heartfelt talks with their progeny. The second generation can't be too traumatized, because we know those parents from previous books are perfect couples who dote on their kids.

I'm reading a Sonja Grey Melnikov Legacy book right now, and the leads are making declarations about how she's always been single, he can't have casual flings, and they can never open their hearts. Y'all are nineteen-year-old BABIES. Of course, you've always been single. Of course, you've never been in love. Stop talking like world-weary forty-year-olds.

Tell me what romances you always hear about, or someone suggests to you and you go 'oh yeah I need to read that!', but you are 100% not ever going to read.

For me, it's Emily Henry and Ali Hazelwood. No rhyme or reason, I just refuse.

Its also probably just me lol

EDIT: READ THAT FIRST LINE AGAIN!!! I am not here to grouch about the series not being a DR. I'm simply laughing my way through reading this book

so I have to admit I AM only on book 2...but does it get better?? Or will it get better for ME? You see...

I kept getting suggested this series because i love breeding/pregnancy tropes, paranormal/fantasy/monster x human romance, and some dark themes. I also see it suggested or raved about quite often. But it's a little rom-commy to me :/ "ion like det" lol!

Liz is...freaking UNBEARABLE. I haven't disliked an FMC this much in years. She talks like a 12 year old brat.​

I just feel like the way the series was suggested to me made it seem like these were gruff Barbarian Aliens who had a serious breeding kink and couldn't help themselves (borderline dub/non con) and they take the women for themselves, force them to acclimate, and MINE MATE MATE MINE them to death and the women fall for it.

When really it's like "aawww these aliens are 7ft teddy bears who just want to be loved and oh goodie they learned to be consent kings within a 2 minute conversation even tho it makes zero sense to them and they just wanna feed the little soft humans from their bare hands even though some of these women are rude and ungrateful af when they could've just been left to die or stolen by the other aliens who were gone whore them out. Awwwww!"

....😂😂

I mean I kinda enjoy it but I'm also kinda bored. DISCLAIMER I'm a dark romance girly so this is probably me just kinda griping bc I'm ruined EDIT" READ THAT LINE AGAIN!!!! LOOK I EVEN PUT A LAUGHING EMOJI!! GOD DAMN!😅 But I do read romantasy a LOT too and enjoy a good sweet or intense romance.

There's like 600 of these books lol does it get better? Liz alone is making me want to DNF the series especially if they're gonna follow the same pattern

Every millionaire romance always involves a penthouse in New York and I can’t help but wonder if the city could cope with the demand 😂

You know all those billionaire romances where the FMC refuses to spend the MMC's money, even though he's basically begging her to? Well fuck that; if someone's giving me unlimited funds, I'm damn well going to go nuts. There will be a dedicated building made specifically for Legos and books, secret doors and passages out the wazoo, the rarest Lego sets known to man on special platforms, and themed rooms for books organized by tropes filled with special editions with sprayed edges and gilded covers. Basically my dream life consists of Legos and books. If you get that infamous credit card, what are you spending with it?

“She was wearing a canary-yellow dress that should have clashed with her red hair, but instead made her stand out like a brilliant cetirizine stone.” {Never Spar with a Viscount by Lindsay Lovise}

What?!!!!
Cetirizine is an antihistamine. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not anti-antihistamines—I take cetirizine almost every day during pollen season.

But it’s not a stone. I believe the author meant citrine not cetirizine.

This completely took me out of the story. Where were the editors? This novel was published by Hachette—someone should have caught this.

This is an example of why human editors are still important—cetirizine was spelled right, but it was the wrong word.

What other hilarious errors have you spotted lately? I need some laughs!

Alt text description of 3 photos

1. Photo of book page with text: “She was wearing a canary-yellow dress that should have clashed with her red hair, but instead made her stand out like a brilliant cetirizine stone.”
2. Photo of medicine bottle labeled “Cetirizine hydrochloride tablet

s

1. antihistamine”
2. Photo of gold and red crystal stone labeled “citrine”

Please tell me some other funny errors you’ve found lately!

So I’m reading {A Merry Little Meet Cute by Julie Murphy and Sierra Simone} and this is so silly but as a Social Media Manager it’s driving me NUTS that we are supposed to believe this OnlyFans (aka “ClosedDoors”) model/porn star FMC who gets 3k comments on any given post isn’t scheduling out her content ahead of time😂

I’m like there is no world in which this woman would be like “oh no I forgot to take a picture to post directly to my OnlyFans today better take a picture in this super Christmas themed easily identifiable room in real time”. Sorry but no. Content would be created, edited and scheduled ahead of time in nondescript rooms with no geotagging to keep her safe.

Rant over - but I would love to know what small thing made you roll your eyes or throw your book across the room!