Do You Have Any Recs For Romance Novels That Are Like Fanfic (but With Original Characters Obv) In That

do you have any recs for romance novels that are like fanfic (but with original characters obv) in that they AREN’T those books w a shirtless guy on the cover that middle aged women love? idk ngozi posted a bit about sport news reporters on her pillowfort and it made me crave more stuff like that

1) don’t diss the old-school romance novels and, cliche as it may be, don’t judge a book by its cover. Romance writers and readers are dismissed all the time in spite of being one of the most successful genres in sales and reader numbers, and I have a lot of feelings about that. 

2) if you want romance recommendations regularly, I highly recommend following the bookstore The Ripped Bodice on social media. They’re in LA and while I’m internet friends with someone who works there, I have never been there, but their recommendations are always on point. There may be some other romance bookstores out there, but I like them. 

Okay now a few recommendations. Some of these feel more like fanfiction than others, but I liked them, so maybe you’ll like them, too. I’m linking them to bookshop dot org listings, because that benefits small bookstores; I signed up for an affiliate program, so full disclosure I could get money back if you choose to buy here, but I would just use that money to buy more books to read and recommend; also you can probably get e-versions from your library using Libby or Overdrive or Hoopla or whatever:

Red, White, and Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston. 

Short summary: The son of America’s first female president and the prince of England totally hate each other. Wait, actually, the son of America’s first female president is a disaster bi who didn’t realize he had an enormous (reciprocated) crush on the prince of England. 

Why it’s good: Beautiful writing, like no straight people, political drama that’s like West Wing levels of stress, not Real Life levels of stress, and just the best romantic emails.

Nota Bene: I keep seeing this on YA lists. It is not YA. It’s aimed at younger adults, but it’s not aimed at 13-18 year olds. There is some actual sex in here and everyone is like 22. It could be categorized as New Adult. 

Also I can’t wait for her next book. 

ANYTHING by Meg Cabot. 

Okay this is a broad recommendation. I guess it doesn’t count her books for kids, because I haven’t read those. But! Meg Cabot writes a lot of great stuff and I love her. 

Most recent is No Judgments, so I’ll recommend that first. It’s a standalone book where a girl, Bri, who’s falling apart after several family crises rides out a hurricane in the Florida Keys. Unfortunately, the hurricane is way more severe than people thought, and pets that would’ve been okay being left at home for a couple days are going to be alone for weeks. Bri and a very hot man go around rescuing pets. They are smooching on the cover so I think you can guess how that ends up. 

Ok the next couple are ones that I’ve heard recommended, but that I haven’t read yet. 

The Kiss Quotient, by Helen Hoang, and her other books. 

A book about an autistic woman written by an autistic woman! I’ve heard it’s fun and sexy and good. It’s on my shelf; I got it at my local used bookstore in The Before Times. 

Jasmine Guillory’s books

Haven’t read them yet, but they’re highly recommended by a bunch of people. She’s generally writing about black couples, weddings, fake dating, and a touch of enemies to lovers. They also seem to be in a shared universe situation, so if you like being able to see characters in different books from different perspectives, this might be good for you. 

Recommendations from the bookseller I’m friends with when I was lamenting how I don’t think I’ve read any wlw-focused romance, in spite of being myself a wlw; I haven’t read them yet but look I have about ten thousand books on my to-read list:

Something to Talk About, Meryl Wilsner- not out yet but there’s some buzz around it

The Lady’s Guide to Celestial Mechanics, Olivia Waite. Looks like it’s historical, but I am intrigued. 

The spy chasing me throws a tracking device at my car. The throw is perfectly timed and the small, round device hits the bumper perfectly flush. However, since the tracker is magnetic and my shitty car is plastic, it bounces off

tweet meme: steve rogers edition

#done with this American bs  

But the real reason I had to chime in was that Steve Rogers is my favorite superhero. Why? Because unlike other patriotism-themed characters, Steve Rogers doesn’t represent a genericized America but rather a very specific time and place – 1930’s New York City. We know he was born July 4, 1920 (not kidding about the 4th of July) to a working-class family of Irish Catholic immigrants who lived in New York’s Lower East Side.[1] This biographical detail has political meaning: given the era he was born in and his class and religious/ethnic background, there is no way in hell Steve Rogers didn’t grow up as a Democrat, and a New Deal Democrat at that, complete with a picture of FDR on the wall.

Steve Rogers grew up poor in the Great Depression, the son of a single mother who insisted he stayed in school despite the trend of the time (his father died when he was a child; in some versions, his father is a brave WWI veteran, in others an alcoholic, either or both of which would be appropriate given what happened to WWI veterans in the Great Depression) and then orphaned in his late teens when his mother died of TB.[2] And he came of age in New York City at a time when the New Deal was in full swing, Fiorello LaGuardia was mayor, the American Labor Party was a major force in city politics, labor unions were on the move, the Abraham Lincoln Brigade was organizing to fight fascism in Spain in the name of the Popular Front, and a militant anti-racist movement was growing that equated segregation at home with Nazism abroad that will eventually feed into the “Double V” campaign.

Then he became a fine arts student. To be an artist in New York City in the 1930s was to be surrounded by the “Cultural Front.” We’re talking the WPA Arts and Theater Projects, Diego Rivera painting socialist murals in Rockefeller Center, Orson Welles turning Julius Caesar into an anti-fascist play and running an all-black Macbeth and “The Cradle Will Rock,” Paul Robeson was a major star, and so on. You couldn’t really be an artist and have escaped left-wing politics. And if a poor kid like Steve Rogers was going to college as a fine arts student, odds are very good that he was going to the City College of New York at a time when an 80% Jewish student body is organizing student trade unions, anti-fascist rallies, and the “New York Intellectuals” were busily debating Trotskyism vs. Stalinism vs. Norman Thomas Socialism vs. the New Deal in the dining halls and study carrels.

Steven Attewell: Steve Rogers Isn’t Just Any Hero - Lawyers, Guns & Money

gotta love a well-researched takedown of such lazy, hoary tropes as “Captain America is a monolithic aryan crypto-fascist”

marvel: we put the civil war arc in the mcu

me: you fucked up a perfectly good captain america movie is what you did. look at it. its got iron man