This coming up weekend, February 16-18, 2019, is a Romance Readathon hosted by romancebooks.blog. Actually, the readathon lasts all month, but this coming weekend is the big read-all-day-all-weekend push, which is pretty exciting, if you ask me! I love to have excuses to shut out the world and get lost in a bunch of books.
There are 24 book categories to help you get a “Book BINGO” to win prizes, so I thought I’d share my romance recommendations for each category from books I’ve read (and loved) in the past.
Friends to Lovers
My Favorite Half Night Stand
by Christina Lauren
This was a fun rom-com about a group of college professors who need dates to an upcoming big event. They decide to give online dating a try, but Millie and Reed seem to have chemistry both online and off.
A Book Set In Paris
Wanderlust
by Lauren Blakely
Joy is visiting Paris on business with her job in the perfume production industry. When the sexy guy she notices in a coffee shop ends up becoming a familiar and flirtatious acquaintance, sparks fly, but turns out Griffin is the man paid by her company to be her translator.
Beautiful description of the Paris scenery in this book!
A Book With A Famous Hero
Love Unscripted
by Tina Reber
Taryn is a small town bar owner who enjoys her quiet life, until Ryan Christenson, an A-List movie star bursts in one day looking for cover from a horde of screaming fans, and turns her life upside down.
Angsty Romance
Gravity
by Dannika Dark
This is the 4th book in a 5 book series that I cannot recommend enough. I’d shout from the rooftops to read this whole series if I weren’t so damned afraid of heights. But this book was soul-wrenching, and beyond what words can express as a good and angsty book. A great book. Super-stakes, all the feels.
Silver is a Mage, and her captor turned lover, Logan Cross, would do anything to protect this woman, his little raven, from anyone and anything who would mean her harm. But to save his life, she must make him believe she’s chosen another, his mortal enemy, Tarek. Not even Christian Poe, her vampire body guard, can keep her from Tarek’s claws and his quest for vengeance, but can Logan risk his life to save the woman who no longer loves him?
I’m so re-reading this book. I need this back in my life.
Enemies to Lovers
The Hating Game
by Sally Thorne
Of course this book is super-well-known, and there’s a reason for that. It was a very cute, memorable, endearing book. Lucy and Josh are competing for a promotion, and neither can live while the other survives. Wait, that’s a different story. 🙂 They’ve both declared that either they get the promotion or they leave the company, but when they start spending a little more time together amidst the push of these new changes, they start learning maybe they didn’t hate each other as they’d have liked to let on.
An Audiobook
Hating You, Loving You
by Crystal Kaswell
This book could have also gone under the categories of Enemies to Lovers, as well as A Book That Makes You Ugly Cry.
Chloe has her walls up, and who can blame her? She’s a breast cancer survivor, and when she discovers she might be facing that dreaded news a person never wants to hear, that her cancer might be back, she has to decide if she should take the selfish route and let Dean in, or to let him go and spare him the pain of losing her.
The reason I put this under the Audiobook category is because of the duet narration that was done really, really well, in my opinion. Very fun, very deep and emotional read.
Athlete Hero
Power Play
by Maria Luis
A journalist and a pro hockey player. His career is in her hands. What could possibly go wrong? This could have gone under the Sexy Rom-Com category, but Duke Harrison made quite a great athlete hero, and Charlie is just feisty enough of a woman to take him on. Very fun read!
A Sexy Rom-Com
Wrong
by Jana Aston
Luke is a gynecologist. Sophie is a college student who works at the coffee shop Luke frequents in the mornings on his way to work. When he has to cover her gyno appointment and she realizes she’s going to be felt up by the guy she’s been crushing on, all bets are off. There were a few cheesy moments in the very beginning, but I promise, once you get into the story, it gets really good!
A Book With Non-Human Characters
Iron Kissed: A Mercy Thompson Novel
by Patricia Briggs
Really, any of the Mercy Thompson novels, but I particularly liked Iron Kissed. Probably because Zee is one of the coolest characters, and the level of loyalty and faith Mercy has in those she calls friend is inspiring. But Mercy the coyote shifter and her mate, Adam, the wolf pack alpha, are an icon for #couplegoals. <3
Reverse Harem
I surprisingly had no books to reference for this category! Give me your best recommendations in the comments below!
A Modern Spin On A Classic
A Curse So Dark and Lonely
by Brigid Kemmerer
This could have gone under the fairy tale retelling as an original take on the Beauty and the Beast story, as well as the Enemies to Lovers, and as you may have already seen from my recent review, I loved this book so much. Harper and Rhen were such fun characters to read. Noble, brave, courageous, flawed. Highly entertaining.
A Fairy Tale Retelling
Paper Princess
by Erin Watt
This could have also gone under Enemies to Lovers, and I just nearly put it under Royalty Romance, but they aren’t really royals in the proper sense, though they might be rich enough to be. But this, my lovelies, goes under Fairy Tale Retelling because of the Cinderella theme, right down to the main character named Ella, and her wicked new step-brothers who are really the sons of her recently deceased father’s best friend, Callum Royal, her new legal guardian. All these step-brothers are devilishly handsome and forces to be reckoned with, but Reed Royal is the one she just can’t get out from under her skin.
A Hero With An Accent
The Muse
by L.M. Halloran
One of my favorite books of all time, The Muse follows Iris Eliot, a writing major student, and her British writing professor, James Beckett, as they explore an undeniable attraction amidst so many walls and obstacles. These characters are so flawed and so broken. Emotions run deep in this story, and it’s so artfully written, so devastating and beautiful. A romance lover’s dream.
Royalty Romance
Heartless
by Marissa Meyer
Full disclosure, I have not read this book yet, but it is one I plan to read this weekend for the readathon. It had me at “the infamous Queen of Hearts.”
Long before she was the terror of Wonderland—the infamous Queen of Hearts—she was just a girl who wanted to fall in love.
A Medical Romance
Here’s another category I came up blank on. Have I seriously not read that many medical romances? No hot doctors to gush about here? What are your best medical romance recommendations? Tell me below in the comments!
Romantic Suspense
Boss Unwavering
by Nicole R. Locker
So here’s a shameless plug. Elaina and Sebastian are quite a pair, both just as hard headed and stubborn as the other, and while Elaina isn’t the damsel in distress type, she ends up relying on Sebastian when he makes her a deal she finds hard to take but even harder to refuse.
Also fits under Enemies to Lovers and Protector Hero. It’s a steamy one!
Alpha Billionaire Hero
Richer Than Sin
by Meghan March
This fast-paced, action-packed, forbidden love romance was addictive to the Nth degree. Lincoln Riskoff is the sole heir to the Riskoff business (to his brother’s dismay and his sister’s disinterest), and he’s old money beyond fathom. Whitney Gable is the woman who got under his skin and he can’t let her memory go, so when she strolls back into town after a ten year marriage to a rockstar that went south, he’s got his sights set, come hell or high water… literally. Move over Capulets and Montagues… there’s a new family rivalry in town.
Also fits under Modern Twist to a Classic and Forbidden Lovers.
A Book That Makes You Ugly Cry
The Atomic Weight of Love
by Elizabeth J. Church
This book leans heavily into the Women’s Fiction category, but the romance in this novel cannot be denied. It follows a span of years in the life of Meridian, whose patience, loyalty, and sense of duty knows no bounds, God bless her. From new love, to stale love, to new beginnings, to missed chances, they don’t make women like this anymore. Grab your tissues because the end will have you bawling like a baby.
A Book With A Love Triangle
Forward
by J. Saman
This is a book I’ve been holding onto for a while now, and I think this weekend is the perfect time to read it.
The story follows Lara and her quest to find where her heart truly lies; with a past she never truly got over, or a present with a man more perfect than she deserves.
Tom or Levi… Who will she choose????
A Short Story
by Lauren Blakely
This book is only available in audio if you are into that kind of thing, but it’s such a super-cute little story. I just reviewed it here if you want to take a look.
Kristen and Cameron are set up matchmaker style by Kristen’s grandma, but sneakily since Kristen decided she was done with the In-Real-Life set-ups her family kept pushing on her. Super sweet, super endearing, and just enough to get everything you need in a good romance.
A Futuristic Romance
In Blood We Trust
by Elodie Colt
This is sort of a realistic novel with a sci-fi-ish spin. It’s set some years into the future, and a cure to cancer has been found, but it comes with a cost… people who take the Cure are forever henceforth reliant on consuming human blood as a side-effect of the drug. Jordan Lively is an NYPD detective, and she and her new boss, Lieutenant Aiden Davis, must solve a mystery when a string of murder victims could lead to a complete uncovering of corruption in the very system that runs the world.
Super steamy, action-packed, and highly creative… this author should be on everyone’s radar.
Forbidden Lovers
Beautiful Mistake
by Vi Keeland
This book follows Professor Caine West and his student teacher, Rachel. These two have an undeniable and irresistible attraction, pasts they must overcome, and a connection beyond what they even know or realize exists. The characters, main and side, are so endearing in this one, and the music is an added layer of artistic flare. Very fun, deep, and emotional read.
A Protector Hero
The Protector
by Elin Peer
I’m seriously obsessed with this series. The opposing cultures, the characters, the dynamics, the history, the psychology, the conflict. This series is everything. The protective nature of these men because women are so rare in the North, they are fragile and must be protected at all costs. Little do they know, they are about to see just how “fragile” these women from the Motherlands, aka Motlanders, are not!
Delectable and addictive… must-read series.
Comment Below!
and let me know what you think of this list. See any new books you want to try? Have any recommendations of your own? Let me know!