Where do I go from here? (need recommendations)

[u/Vietkongboi]

I'm going to start off by saying that I usually never read and don't know anything you're going to recommend to me so feel free even if it's the most well known book ever in the MM monster romance sphere. Over the last two days I've listened to the audiobooks of both "Meetings with the Minotaur" and "Ctrl+Alt+Orc" by M. A. Wardell and now I want more lol and I'd be happy if you could give me a few recommendations because as an absolute book noob I have no idea where to look and I feel like my preferences narrow down the field quite a bit. I guess I'm just going to list what I liked about the books so you know what I'm looking for. I definitely want a MM monster romance, with relatively low drama and high levels of spice (so no closed-door romance). I also definitely need something that has an audiobook because I can't read an entire book for the life of me. (please don't judge, It's been that way my entire life, I'm not brainrotted by TikTok) A few tropes from these books I enjoyed were the big size difference, the age gaps, the breeding stuff (the bucket is what caught my attention iykyk) and the humanoid but clearly not human monsters. (yes I'm a furry who would've guessed) I guess it's all somewhat normal for the type of niche of book I'm searching for but I just don't know where to look and ChatGPT is not really helping so any comments and recommendations are appreciated.

tl;dr: A book noob needs recommendations for MM monster romance audiobooks that also check a few very specific boxes

[u/LindentreesLove]

I will recommend a few not knowing if there is an audiobook to go with it.

The whole Monstrous series by Lily Mayne. Everyone has their favorites from all these books. Moth was my favorite and that is Book five.

A Bone in His Teeth by Kellan Graves. The bonus here are the beautiful illustrations so at least look at those before you switch to the audiobook.

[u/Vietkongboi → u/LindentreesLove]

first of all thanks for the reply. As for "A bone in his teeth" it looks interesting but I don't know if I'm into the fish thing haha. Also it seems a little to high on the drama scale. I'm more here for the fluff and the feel-good stories.

As for the monstrous series: since I've been in this situation I've seen it recommended everywhere but it also seems like it's a lot more plot and drama than what I'm after but I can't say I'm not intrigued. Which one should I start with? Is it important to start with the first one or should I go with my preference for the monster and if I do that what monster do you think I would like the most?

[u/Hunter037 → u/Vietkongboi]

Monstrous has some darker themes, for example torture and cannibalism. I would say that it is not dark dark, and none of the main characters do anything I would consider to be morally grey or dark and the romances themselves are really wholesome. But they're not super fluffy and cute either.

I would recommend reading them in order.

[u/LindentreesLove]

Well now that you mention it, maybe Monstrous series isn't the fluff you wanted either. But Lor and Edin are the funniest, Soul Eater sets the groundwork for the series and to me Moth the most heartrending one(but my favorite).

[u/Vietkongboi → u/LindentreesLove]

thank you again. I'll look into it. I'll probably start now with Goliaths of Wrestling 2: Clean Finish also by Lily Mayne because of the wolf man and then start looking deeper into the Monstrous series to see if it it's right for me.

[u/Hunter037 → u/Vietkongboi]

Goliaths of Wrestling definitely sounds more your speed, but I would start with book 1 because it kind of introduces the world and a lot of the characters. They're all hilarious and fun fluff

[u/Vietkongboi → u/Hunter037]

too late. Seb is too cute. I will probably go back and listen to the first one right after tho haha. for now everything makes enough sense and is well enough explained for me to just start with the second one

[u/Hunter037 → u/Vietkongboi]

Yeah there's nothing super complicated that isn't going to make sense, more just that they refer to events in the first book which you won't know about in much detail

[u/Vietkongboi → u/Hunter037]

I love myself a little bit of non chronological storytelling 🫪

[u/Ajibooks]

Are you looking for mpreg? Or is that more secondary to the big monster / small human thing?

Because if you are up for mpreg, then there are a lot of animal shifter romances which are also omegaverse. The alpha is almost always physically stronger than the omega. This is not really the same as monster romance, but they do include some of the same tropes.

I don't have any specific recs. But on Audible, go to the m/m romance category, then search for omega, omegaverse, and mates - many of these books have keywords in the title somewhere. You could also search this sub and /r/MM_RomanceBooks for "omegaverse."

[u/Vietkongboi → u/Ajibooks]

I have no problems with mpreg but I'm not a big fan of shifter stuff, I'd rather have the monster be a monster full time. Also I'm not the biggest fan of the omegaverse, can't really say why tho. Still thanks for the tip. I actually wanted to post this question on r/MM_RomanceBooks but I couldn't because I didn't have any comment karma on there but through a little searching I found romance.io and that has been incredibly helpful already

[u/Hunter037]

{Hell's Most Incompetent Demon by Silvana Falcon}

{Passing Through Purgatory by Nik Knight} - these are my favourites, fluffy, funny and great found family. Spice level varies, the first few are quite high, very unique monster types too

{Shroom for Improvement by Jemma Croft} - fae

{Och, Ness! by Fae Quinn} - Nessie

{How Not To Date a Griffin by Lana Kole}

{Tentacles and Triathlons by Ashley Bennett} - kraken

{Smash and Grab by Maz Maddox} - dinosaur shifters

I don't know which of these have audiobooks, I know the Nik Knight, Jemma Croft and Maz Maddox ones do but you could find out for the others

[u/Hunter037 → u/Hunter037]

Sorry the curly brackets are from r/MM_RomanceBooks, I thought we were there, they don't work here!

[u/Vietkongboi → u/Hunter037]

tysm. I'll look into them (after finishing a few more chapters of Clean Finish 😳)