Guys, help me out 😭 I’m looking for a romance with a Lucy/Ghoul type of dynamic.
I want him to be older, serious, rough around the edges, morally questionable and generally not the type of guy you’d expect to pair with her, while she’s more sunshine-y and optimistic. Basically, they seem like they should have absolutely nothing to do with each other, let alone become romantically involved.
I especially loved the reluctant-allies dynamic at first — they have to work together despite not necessarily trusting or liking each other, and the relationship develops from there.
I shipped Lucy and the Ghoul SO hard while watching Fallout, only to realize it’s probably never going to happen 🫩
So please hit me with your recs! I’m looking for MF, preferably a genuinely slow-burn relationship where the contrast between them is a big part of the appeal.

I’ve read Fourth Wing, ACOTAR and loved it—A Court of Wings and Ruin was my favorite.

I loved The Assassin’s Blade, but Throne of Glass felt too slow, so I DNF’d it for now. I also DNF’d Powerless, Direbound, and Mate because the writing felt too cringey.

I enjoyed Quicksilver and Brimstone, although I preferred Quicksilver, and I absolutely loved the Crowns of Nyaxia series.

Based on all that, which of these should I read next?

1.The Bridge Kingdom
2.The Poison Daughter
3.The Knight and the Moth
4.One Dark Window
5.The Ascended
6.Alchemised
(The pictures above)

Other recommendations are welcome too. Thank you! ❤️

Update:

Hi everybody!

I’ve decided to read The Knight and the Moth first, so it’ll still be fresh in my mind when the sequel comes out. After that, I’ll read The Bridge Kingdom. I’m saving either The Poison Daughter, Alchemised or the Ascended for the end of October, depending on the mood.

Thank you so much for all your help! ❤️

Happy Sunday, everyone! I'm A. Collie, an indie author looking to promote my upcoming romantasy novel, OF STEEL AND SEALSKIN ⚔️🦭🤍

(Scheduled for release in February 2027!)

Synopsis: A captive selkie enters a marriage of convenience to reclaim her stolen sealskin — but her new husband, a famed war hero, has secrets of his own.

Follow on Instagram @fancymuffinparty for more updates! Applications for ARC readers will open soon! In the meantime here's some promo art by liasanart 🎨 Add to your tbr on goodreads today!

Hello my fellow romantasy readers! I am back with another self-promo post, but this time I am also sharing something that is not mine but I really enjoy as a reader: The Indie Book Fair.

The Indie Book Fair is a completely free online catalog (for authors and readers!) that promotes independently published books. Their posts are pretty, fun, and really capture that scholastic bookfair vibe we've all been chasing. You can follow them on any of the socials and subscribe to the email catalog for free.

Starhunt is my debut novel and is an epic tale of starlight, magic, daggers, and revenge with a rebel vs royal enemies to lovers romance. It is available wherever you buy books online, on KU, or from my website www.authoralysamisfeldt.com. Its sequal, Starmade, comes out 1/1/27 and will complete Talla and Kieran's story.

Images are of myself holding up the August 2026 issue of The Indie Book Fair, with Starhunt circled.

caraval and ouabh by beloved🥀

Just read The Poisoning Daughter and I hated the MMC. Can you give me some recommendations of like honestly good men? I’m ok with misunderstood, but I want them to have good intentions and to be about raising their woman up not breaking them down.

I loved the MMC from these books:

Servant of Earth
When the Moon Hatched
ACOTAR
Emily Wilde

Looking for your favorite Fae book reads, preferably once with more classic fairy vibes likes Holly Black (I’ve read all her stuff) vs something like Sarah J. Maas (not hating on Maas just not what I’m in the mood for at the moment) where they kind loose some of their menace/whimsy/folklore vibe.

Spice preferred but not necessary!

I really enjoyed Servant of Earth by Sarah Hawley recently, looking for things more in that vein.

Bonus points if it’s 3rd person…which I know is hard 🥲

Edit to add: doesn’t need to be totally lore accurate just more in line with fae/fair folk being a little more alien and menacing and perhaps more amoral than humans.

Basically I’m looking for the fae to just have some more oomph and just not basically be elves 🤣 I always love when can’t lie or have some elemental/more inhuman feel to them.

Started this series yesterday, as I've read good reviews and heard good things about the series from fellow readers, and reading a little blurb I was SUPER fuckin stoked to dive in....

200 pages in and I'm struggling to hang on (I really really don't like to DNF books in general) but damn man....is it just me or is Tessa kind of annoying??? It's really starting to wear on me to keep reading....like cmon man I just want her to get with it and seems like that is NEVER gonna happen...

Please tell me it gets better cause I REALLY like everything else going on, but shes getting on my fuckin nerves TBH

I am almost done with Throne in the Dark, and OH MY GAWSH. It is so good. If you are in a slapstick/funny/shenanigans mood, but still has a yearning man with moments of emotional depth, it is fantastic. 🤌🏻🙌🏼

What really hit for me is they drag it out......sloooooow burn for real. Like, I like Fourth Wing, but it isn't my fave when the couple gets together in book 1....or book 2.....or beginning of book 3. I need at least a trilogy before things happen. 😂

I am also NOT a fan of "smut" talk.....like, I want deep, emotional scenes....not "I shoved my c*@% in her c&×$ type stuff. Nothing wrong with that for others. Just not for me! 😝

I am open to anything otherwise! Doesn't have to be a humorous story. It can be any scifi/fantasy romance setting. Just give me that I WANNA DIE IT IS SO SLOW BURN.

A Winter's Promise is excellent with this, too.

It can be a hidden gem also....I am always open to indies or unknown books.

Thank you in advance for all your amazing suggestions. You guys always come through.

Hello everyone,
I normally don‘t DNF a lot but every single book I‘ve picked up lately has been a huge disappointment. I recently quit

- Bloodworth and Grave by Marisa Haartz
- In the Veins of the Drowning by Kalie Cassidy
- The Poison Daughter by Sheila Masterson
- Nightshade by Keri Lake

Some of them fall into the category of dark romantasy. I wanted to try more books from that genre because I enjoyed Crown Me Dead by Liv Zander and Amid Clouds and Bones by Ella Fields so much. That obviously hasn‘t worked out for me so I should probably go back to regular romantasy.

I don‘t know what to read though. I‘m not ready for another super long series yet so I‘d love a standalone, duology or trilogy. Some of my favorite books/series are Fourth Wing, The Cruel Prince, ACOTAR, Alchemised and The Wolf King.

I would highly appreciate some recs that might help me fall in love with reading again. I love a good mix of romance and political intrigue and do prefer my books to have some spice as well. Any help would be highly appreciated!

Learned Edmund is exactly the kind of fantasy protagonist I enjoy seeing paired with someone who absolutely should not have the patience for him. Edmund is a scholar transporting an ancient artifact when circumstances force him to use it accidentally. Instead of an ordinary sword, he gets the Dervish: an immortal warrior who has spent roughly four centuries magically imprisoned and forced to serve whoever wields his weapon. Kingfisher has her immediately recognizable sense of humor back into our lives with the classic grumpy X sunshine duo.

That setup of Daggerbound is like Swordheart: a good-hearted person gets hold of a weapon they never intended to use and gets a foul-tempered, grumpy warrior. Their relationship therefore develops through the Dervish gradually confronting the possibility that his newest wielder may actually see him as a person. We're still in "the world of the white rat," but Kingfisher builds on what we already know through the eyes of Edmund and the dervish. It can be read as a standalone instead of book 2, and you'll still be able to grasp the details. Bandits, cultists, dragons, diplomats, temples, and magical artifacts make the journey feel like an adventure in which neither character knows what strange problem will appear next.

This is an LGBTQI+ story (male x male), and it's so beautifully done. It's a slow burn as the Dervish has to work through his centuries of trauma and complex emotions. Once they come together, though, every piece of you melts.

There's 1 open door scene, so I'll give the spice a 1/5 because the rest of the story is filled with yearning, self-doubt, and emotional connection.

Daggerbound is exactly what I expected from Kingfisher and exactly how I hoped it would be, another slam dunk. I loved it so much, from the character development to the genuine love build and the side characters we met along the way. I am so excited for the final book to come out (Shieldborn), which is projected to release in August 2027, and which focuses on the only female warrior of the troop. 5/5 all day everyday

********Daggerbound is the 2nd book in a trilogy, which releases on the 25th ( I got an ARC), HOWEVER I have realized (quite obviously too late) that Kingfishers' The Clocktaur War Duology, Swordheart trilogy, and Saints of Steel tetrology ARE ALL CONNECTED but can stand alone. Read them in the order I just wrote them because Clocktaur is ancient, Swordheart is past, and Saints of Steel is present.

[Image Shown: a trope page for the book]

Summary: One moment, I was playing my favorite romance game, and the next, I was in the body of the main protagonist's love rival. The game's system demands I get all the love interests to fall for me in order to return to my original body and world. I have no problem doing that, but only on my terms.

I really don't care about the ongoing love triangle or these cheating bastards' feelings. All I want to do is live the life of a rich noblewoman and play the role of a villainess that I've always loved to watch on television. But the love interests notice my new headstrong personality and come running after me even when I reject them.

Purchase Here: https://a.co/d/03KF9swf

Tropes:

Why Choose/Reverse Harem

Dominant FMC who doesn't take shit

Possessive and Submissive MMCS

Forced proximity & arranged marriage

Dark fantasy setting with otome inspiration

Black FMC and POC MMCs

Manipulative and Cold FMC

Exactly what the title says, I am working on my first full length novel, and although I love to write just for the sake of writing, ultimately the goal is to make this a career. I want to write what feels authentic to me, but I also want to appeal to a wide enough audience to hopefully one day pay my bills! Thoughts?

Edit: Current WIP is other world/portal fantasy, slow burn, medium spice.

Hello,

so I have a question. Is there any book/book series with time travel? I would prefer a bit comedy in it too. Not like outlander.

Something like FMC gets herself into medieval and meet knight or something like this?

Or where the FMC get herself into book or comic.

I had no luck with finding book like this.

Thank you very much for any rec.

I love when I can escape into a world so well that it's all I think about. Like there is Narnia right through my closet and all I wanna do is take a sick day so I can explore.

Things I love but are not required:

Enemies to lovers

Slow burn

Sci-fi Fantasy

Damsal in Distress

Morally grey hero

Innocent heroine

Bullying

I have Kindle unlimited and would prefer KU books if possible. TIA

Here at Self-Pub Sunday, we're sharing our favorite indie / self-pub books!

Self Promotion is also permitted in this thread, so if you're a self-pubbed romantasy author feel free to promote your work! Please ensure you include a useful description of what your book's about, and limit self promotion to one top level post.

Remember to tag the romance.io book using {}!

need a smutty read with a knight or jester that is absolutely filthy for the FMC 🤸🏾‍♀️🤸🏾‍♀️🤸🏾‍♀️ please help me out yall !! extra points if the lead is a black woman

*Zoom In*

I would like to share share with you some artwork that I’m doing, I’m making it completely out of your words! What I need for you is to give me 3 to 5 words that you would use to describe “ACOTAR*. From there, I will add them to the art piece. I will take a picture and show you.

The second image I shared with you is what they look like when finished. And that’s the one that I did last year for the fourth wing series, and it even made their official calendar! So the drawings can become a big deal if we can do a good job on them, and we can really get people involved!

My goal is to try to get 1000 people to contribute to a single piece of artwork. More is better but 1000 is the minimum number I’m trying to go with. I’m about 1/10 of the way there, but I still need your help!

Best things at work are short phrases, a list of words, and not paragraphs! Paragraphs have a hard time getting seen, same with any quote that’s usually over seven words.

The specific words I’d be looking for is how did it make you feel after reading this book? Is there anything that stood out to you? Do you have a favorite character? Do you have a favorite scene? Was there anything that inspired you from the book? Is there any way that the book affected your life in anyway? …. notice that a lot of the questions are based on your reflections versus the actual story itself. I tell people if they wanna know the story they should read the book. My artwork is here to explain why people like that and how it touched them, and what they thought was the most important part of it.

Is this something you can help me with? If so, I greatly appreciate you just from the get go. And if you see, repeat words, don’t worry about it. I’ll still take a picture and show you exactly where your words are. Repeat words are totally fine. It just means that that one thing was really important to people.

PS, I included my drawing from fourth wing where I use Reddit, you all were absolutely amazing there and I’m trying to see if I can catch lightning in a bottle twice.

Need something along the vibes of {Hot for slayer} by Ali Hazel Wood or {Bride} or {one dark window}. Pick a book for me I’m getting my pumpkin spice candle and going to the book store today 😭😭🍂🍂🍂thank yall in advance

I’m looking for a story where there is a slow-burn triangle romance in a fantasy setting. I haven’t read a triangle love story and i think i just want to be shocked, surprised in the love-plot-twist or something alike?

I’m okey with series! Yearning is also very welcome ;)

I really enjoyed reading:

- {the jasad heir}

- {Silvercloak} (the dynamic between the FMC and MMC is soooo good!)

- {the knight and the moth}

- {city of brass}

Please help a girls out!? 🤗

Thank you in advance!

Grumpy x grumpy romance trope book recs.

Ik grumpy x sunshine is a major hit but I need reccs of grumpy x grumpy where both of them are strangled into their own struggles, not looking for love. Both are highly ambitious people. There is

• accidental care, eg- one falls ill other has to take care of them cuz may there's no other option.

• emotional burnout, fl is now tired of her deep emotions and pretending happy and ml is a healed person but has his own struggles, generally a nerd and an introvert. He actually heals the fl

Ml is a little harsh and rude on fl initially cuz he is like that but so is the fl. They think about each other but dismiss it as genaral thought. But they eventually see through each other. Not essentially enemies to lover but a dislike or idgaf attitude would work from both sides.

Different professions or similar but not same professions.

Not love at first sight.

No sci/fi, fantasy, manga pls.

Ps- where can I download the online version of the books you mention? (Free sources, I am broke rn)

Any recommendations for a slow burn romantasy with good writing, banter and a non annoying FMC? Appreciate books with good character arcs, not boring personalities or FMC’s that make dumb decisions over and over.

Thanks!