Favorite Romance Tropes

Seasoned romance (& some of Lisa's favourite titles!)

Hi, everyone! How are you doing?

It's been a slow reading week for me so I'm a bit uninspired to write a blog post today, but then I saw that today's #rombklove topic is Seasoned Romance a.k.a romance featuring characters who are 35+ years old. Guys, I squealed because I have lowkey been waiting for this day in the challenge because I'm old and I need more characters my age, demmit! I'm duly grateful to whoever responsible for coming up with the name seasoned romance because Romance Featuring Older Characters is a bit mouthful for a title. You can check out today's post here; most of the titles are new to me and I'm excited to check them out.

Anyway, here are some of my favourites:

Kristen Ashley is one of my ultimate favourite authors, and she's written so many older characters (35+) in her romance it's hard to pick just one, but for the sake of this post let me at least attempt it.

One of my KA favourites, Soaring featured a heiress heroine (47) and a firefighter hero (48), and both of them are single parents and neighbours. Good old KA combining all my favourite tropes in one book--a legend.

For You is also my KA favourite; H/h (in their 40s) were the It Couple in their town once upon a time, and they reconnected again when a dead body was found outside the heroine's bar, and the hero (a police lieutenant) was called upon to investigate. We're talking second chance romance after 20 years here, people!

KA's latest standalone, Complicated also featured older characters; the hero (42) is a recently divorced father of 3, and the heroine (38) is a hairdresser and a part-time lounge singer.

See? I'm literally unable to pick just one KA.

I've talked about my love for Pamela Clare's I-Team in this post. She wrote a seasoned romance novella in this series called Soul Deep. The hero, Jack (63) is a rancher and also a former Army Ranger, and the heroine, Janet (45) is FBI Special Agent. They met for the first time in the previous book in the series, and sufficed to say the meeting did not go well. They met for the second time after Janet got stranded in the snow and Jack rescued her.

I love Jack and Janet's relationship development; they bonded over good food (Jack's an amazing cook) and horses. Jack West is what I hope my future husband would still be when he's old (dude is fit, iykwim).

Pamela Clare also wrote another seasoned romance novel called Close to Heaven in her other series (hero is 47, heroine is 37, and they've been friends and colleagues for 20 years).

Nina Lane's Sweet Life is one of my favourite seasoned romances. The heroine, Julia turned 50 in the beginning of the story, while Warren, the hero, is a few years older, iirc? and a single father of seven grown up children (this book is  #5 in the series; books 1-3 are about his sons'). Also, it might be a deal-breaker for some but Warren is also Julia's brother-in-law (he was married to Julia's older sister until her death a decade or so ago). What I love about this book is how Julia and Warren are a solid team. They both co-parent Warren's kids, and both have high powered careers, but outside of that they have a separate, strong relationship together. 

I still love this quote by Warren, when Julia asked him how dating younger women was for him: "The sex was great. The rest... not so much. They went on about music and movies I didn't care about, and I kept wanting to advise them on their financial portfolio. Not a dynamic that worked."

I laughed so hard at this part. Poor Warren.

I also recently finished Maggie Wells' Play for Keeps, featuring H/h in their 40s (and the heroine is older than the hero!). The heroine, Millie is a PR specialist, while Ty is a basketball coach.I love Ty and Millie together, they're just meant to be. I'm a sucker for relationships where the hero and heroine flirt with and make each other laugh all the time. Their relationship is so easy, I'm a fan. They are also unafraid of confronting each other with their dissatisfactions, I love clear communication in a relationship.

I was told that Maggie also wrote other books with older characters, and I planned to check them out.

Honorable mentions

• So Sweet by Rebekah Weatherspoon (hero is 50),  
• Act Your Age by Eve Dangerfield (hero is 46), 
• Retrosexual by Ainsley Booth and Sadie Haller (H/h are in their 40s, iirc), 
• Liberating Lacey by Anne Calhoun (heroine is 36), 
• Completely by Ruthie Knox (heroine is 39), 
• The Love Experiment by Ainslie Paton (hero is 36), 
• Pretty Face by Lucy Parker (hero is 40), and 
• By the Hour by Roni Loren (heroine is 39). 

Okay, now that I'm done, time to check out the Twitter tag for more recs!

Do you read any seasoned romance?
Feel free to rec me titles in the comments!

I'm Here To Destroy Your 2018 Romance TBRs With More Books

Happy Tuesday, friends! 

I hope everyone is doing well! I'm still very overwhelmed with school, but 3 more weeks, and I'll be done with this semester. Spring break can't come fast enough! Anyways, let's get to today's post. You all are going to frown at me!

I went looking for 2018 romance novels to add to my TBR the other day, because I clearly don't have enough books on my TBR. I'm very excited to share them all with you. I hope you find some gems too! If you missed my previous list, you can check it out here.

“So, what comes after the HEA?”

Happy February, everyone! Did you get to see the Super Blue Blood Moon? My family and I went out to see it but we only stayed to watch for maybe an hour before heading back home since it was a school night for my sister. Still, it was an experience, and my social media timelines today are all moons, which is super great.

I’m still not reading :/ so instead of reviews today I will share with you my favourite books featuring *drum rolls* married couples. 

As I get *coughs* older, I gravitate more towards characters who are in the same age bracket as me or older, and sometimes that includes married ones. For someone who avoids marriage talks like the plague, I sure love my married romance. I love watching these characters keep the flame alive, work through their marriage and reconnecting, you get my drift.

Bonus points if they're angsty—I even have a Goodreads shelf I dedicate to stories with ‘marriage on the rocks’ trope.

RETROSEXUAL BY AINSLEY BOOTH & SADIE HALLER

This is the most recent book I read in this category. I adore this book! I was actually in the middle of reading Prime Minister when I picked up this book, and I finished it in one sitting. Stew didn’t really jump at me in Prime Minister, which is why I was surprised to find him attractive and weirdly sexy in Retrosexual, LOL.

In this book, Stew and his wife, Adrienne, squeezed in time to reconnect as partners because they realized both of them (especially Stew) had been so busy with work and kids. I really like that they worked so well together, and how close they were to each other. Bonus: it’s still free on Amazon!

HAPPILY EVER NINJA BY PENNY REID

OMG I love Greg and Fiona so much #couplegoals. I’ve been rooting for them ever since they met in college (the battle of wits! the tension!) in Ninja at First Sight, their prequel novella. Married Greg and Fiona is a whole new level of awesome. I didn’t want to talk about the plot because it’s best to discover it yourself (it was a direction I’ve never expected Penny to take, and I loved it) but I will leave this quote here:

“It occurred to me in that moment: marriage is an ultimate sport in emotional multitasking. I'm never only mad at Greg. I'm mad and madly in love; angry and concern for his wellbeing; he frustrates and delights me in the same second. We were arguing, but we were still a team.”

MAKING IT LAST BY RUTHIE KNOX

The couple in this book first appeared in How to Misbehave, where they first met. Making it Last is set a decade and so after How to Misbehave, with Amber and Tony together for thirteen years, and married for ten. They were under a lot of stress; Tony’s company wasn’t doing financially well so he was working himself to death to save it, and Amber was physically and mentally exhausted trying to handle three growing boys in his absence. 

I have so many feelings for this couple because they were just trying so hard. Reading this made me realize how dangerous it is to keep your feelings bottled up, and how important it is to communicate with your partners and listen to each other. I also cried a lot reading this because the hopeless feeling that Amber and Tony experienced re: life and their marriage were overwhelming I just want to give them a hug and make them hot cocoa. 

Other titles that I reread from time to time that are all super angsty and have made me cry: 

Turning Up the Heat by Laura Florand  

Arouse by Nina Lane

Still into You by Roni Loren

I think what I love most about this kind of romance is that it depicts the life after the happily ever after, where loving and caring for somebody is continuous work and not always sunshine and roses and smooth sails. There are all sorts of emotions and not all of them are happy; there are frustrations, stress and anger, and hard work work work. It's fascinating to see this side of the story, and it is so satisfying to see these characters come through difficult times a whole lot stronger and more in love with each other. 

Have you read any Married Romance? 

Share with me in the comments!

Books You May Have Slept On In 2017

Hi everyone!

Happy Tuesday! I hope your week is going swimmingly well. I'm here to share a list of romance novels (obviously, duh!) that I read and loved in 2017, but that I think you may have missed. I hope you guys find something to add to your list!

Upcoming Romance Books That Sound So Amazing They Make Me Weepy

Hi everyone! 

I hope your Tuesday is off to a good start! I'm here today to share with you all some romance novels I'm super excited to read, that will be releasing soon-ish. Hopefully, you guys are just as excited as I am about some of these books and maybe you'll find a book or two to add to your TBRs as well! 

So let's get started!