r/RomanceBooks

I am really, really craving a book with a stern brunch daddy / alpharoll who lets the FMC feel safe enough to judt shut her brain off for a bit. 😭

I know there’s a mega thread for stern brunch daddies, but it hasn’t been recently updated, and I’m looking for something a little bit more specific.

As much as I want the alpha energy and everything, I really don’t want heavy BDSM. I’m not really that interested in DD/LG play, sex clubs, etc.
If there are slight/light elements, I don’t mind, like small things such as daddy name-calling and all of that, but I just don’t really want the strict dom/sub relationship with BDSM.

I just want the vibes of it. Like, I’d like a little bit of spanking. I don’t mind a little bit of punishments, or him giving orders and taking control and everything.
But even more than just in the bedroom, I really, really want more so a book where it’s like this: a girl who’s very burnt out, probably undiagnosed ADHD, taking care of everybody and rarely gets the chance to just shut off her brain and BREATHE.

I want a book where she just gets to just be, because his presence is so safe and so comforting, and she knows that if he’s there, he’s going to take care of everything for her and she can rely on him.

I just really want that caretaking vibe, words of affirmation, praise etc.

I feel like maybe I’m being a little bit too greedy with all of these asks, but maybe I need a little bit of self-healing lol. I want someone who takes care of her and takes control while still encouraging and fostering her independence, wants and desires.
Some basic asks:

- I’d prefer M/F
- Contemporary but I wouldn’t mind historical or fantasy
- Praise. Praise. PRAISE.
- Caretaking

Would be nice but not necessary
- BILLIONAIRE. Take me shopping, buy me food and give me your unlimited Amex and tell me to go wild
- Comedy that makes you laugh so hard you ascend and or throw your phone at a wall - perhaps at the same time
- Slowish burn, not insta love. I get bored if they fall in love in the first two chapters and spend the rest of the book banging like bunnies
- May seem random but kids, cats or dogs somewhere!

Hard nos:
- Tentacles. I have a phobia of octopi so I can’t deal with anything that reminds me of them 😭
- MMC who claims he loves her but treats her like trash
- Strict dom/sub relationship like with the contract and everything, subspace etc
- Extreme Exhibitionism (people watch them do it or he strips her in public etc)

I know this is a lot so even if it’s not exact, as long as it’s close enough 🥹

Please hear me out because I'm looking for a very specific dynamic and I'm having a hard time finding books that capture it.

I recently watched a French film called Les Égarés (Strayed, 2003).

>!It takes place in 1940 and follows a 17-year-old boy who has escaped from the Mettray reformatory. He meets a young widow in her late twenties who is fleeing the war with her two small children. He stays with them, helps them survive, becomes attached to the children and eventually falls in love with the widow.!<

>!Unfortunately, he is eventually caught and taken back into custody, where he commits suicide.!<

>!To explain what affected me so much about this story, I need to give a little context about Mettray.!<

>!Mettray was a reformatory/penal colony for boys. You did not necessarily have to be a hardened criminal to end up there. Boys could be sent there for relatively minor offenses, vagrancy, theft, or simply because adults had essentially given up on them. Some came from extremely deprived backgrounds and had very little experience of a normal childhood or family life.!<

>!The conditions were brutal. The institution operated under an extremely harsh, quasi-military system. The boys were subjected to exhausting labor, hunger, cold, severe punishments and isolation. There are accounts of boys deliberately injuring themselves just so they could spend a few days in the infirmary and get a temporary break from work and punishment. Add violence among the inmates to all of that and it isn't difficult to understand the desperation these boys experienced.!<

>!So when the hero of the film escapes, what gets to me isn't simply that he falls in love.!<

>!For the first time, he gets a taste of life.!<

>!Freedom. A home. Eating together. Helping with ordinary chores. Children becoming attached to him. Someone caring whether he comes back. Physical affection. Being wanted. Falling in love.!<

>!All those completely mundane things that most people wouldn't even notice are extraordinary to someone who has barely experienced normal life.!<

>!And the heroine becomes his doorway into that world.!<

That's the dynamic I'm looking for.

>!There is also a sexual scene in the film that illustrates what I mean particularly well. When they sleep together, she undresses and he uses his lighter to illuminate her body because he wants to look at her. He tells her he has never seen a naked woman before.!<

>!Later, he turns her onto her stomach and begins preparing her for anal sex. Confused, she asks what he's doing. He tells her that it's the only way he knows and that she should tell him if it hurts and she wants him to stop.!<

>!The film never explicitly explains what happened to him before, so I don't want to claim a specific backstory that isn't confirmed. But the scene gives us a pretty disturbing glimpse of how limited and abnormal his previous experience of intimacy has been. He knows sex, but he doesn't know intimacy with a woman. Even that is something he has to discover with her.!<

This is the kind of MMC I'm looking for.

He doesn't literally have to have grown up in a prison or reformatory. He could have been imprisoned, institutionalized, held captive, severely isolated, raised somewhere cut off from normal society, abused, hidden away, etc.

What matters to me is that he has been deprived of ordinary life for so long that after meeting the FMC he begins experiencing things that are completely mundane to everyone else for the first time.

I want to see him discover normal life through her.

A proper home. Going somewhere just because he wants to. Choosing his own food. Sleeping somewhere safe. Celebrating something. Being touched affectionately. Having someone worry about him. Having a person who is his. Maybe discovering sex and physical intimacy with her too.

Ideally, she is the first woman he has ever been genuinely close to, both emotionally and physically. She doesn't need to be older than him. That isn't the important part for me.

And because she represents not only romantic love but his first connection to a normal life, I especially love when his attachment to her becomes extremely intense. Clingy, possessive, obsessive, almost desperate. Not simply "I love her", but more like "she is the first good thing I've ever had and I don't know how to exist without her."

The closest book example I can think of is Archer's Voice by Mia Sheridan. Archer hasn't been imprisoned, but he has lived in extreme isolation for years. Bree becomes his connection to the outside world and through her he begins experiencing things that are completely ordinary to everyone else. That's a huge part of why his attachment to her feels so intense to me.

Another Mia Sheridan book I've read that scratches a similar itch is Unwanted.

So please give me more recommendations!

Genre doesn't matter at all. Contemporary, historical, fantasy, sci-fi, dystopian, dark romance, alien romance, whatever. I genuinely don't care.

I'm looking for the dynamic, not the setting.

MMC has been imprisoned, isolated or otherwise deprived of normal life for years. He meets the FMC. She becomes his first real connection to ordinary life and intimacy. He starts discovering the world with her and forms an incredibly intense attachment to her.

The more emotionally intense it is, the better.

Thank all of you for taking time to read this request and all the recs.

You deserve each other by Sarah Hogle! I felt like the trope was done so well by the author. I also give the book bonus points because it was done in a different way. The main characters are actually already engaged with each other, so how can yall hate each other this intensely. I love how petty Naomi and Nicholas are towards each other and neither are willing to back down easily. But as the story unfolds you can see how their walls start to come down and they slowly start to fall in love again. Tell me have you read this book already and how didyou feel about it?

I’ve seen numerous authors post that they’re pulling out of RARE 2027 in London. It’s been alluded to that bad “behavior and language” but no additional details were given…

Anyone in the know??!!

I want the FMC to be completely oblivious to the world's dangers before meeting MMC (E.g. not a mafia princess, cop's daughter, child of addicts etc). She goes through life happy as Larry. He sees her laughing with her friends or something and it breaks through his dark mood and he falls in love with how carefree she looks and he decides he's going to have her without any coincidental dangerous circumstances forcing his hand, but he doesn't want to dim her light so he has to court her rather than threaten, or kidnap her into a relationship, and there isn't a point where he thinks he's going to stay away for her own good. She likes him from the first but expects things to progress like a regular relationship with dates (no forced proximity, moving in together on day one, but maybe he needs to secretly protect her or something).

His endgame is getting to come home from his high stakes job to find her gardening, or baking or something wholesome and listen to her low stakes problems over a homely dinner. Ideally she shouldn't have to give up her job and hobbies though

Bonus if no miscommunication breakup (he doesn't lie about his job and she gets scared or thinks he doesn't trust her and breaks up with him).

I've used the search but haven't found any mafia x sunshine books where the MCs aren't somewhat forced together due to her being in a dangerous situation.

I think the way the MCs met in {Silent Flames by Cate C Wells} could have been close to this if only the MMC hadn't turned out to have been manipulating the FMC and all her psychological things.

No BDSM or motorcycle club please

Excerpt from {Broken Beginnings by Clio Evans} first in the {Citrus Cove Series by Clio Evans} she’s SO creative with her scenes and I melt every time!

Like are you kidding me with this… (Background: FMC is injured and can’t have sex, so she asks MMC to perform for her. He starts going to town on a pillow talking about how he wishes it was her….)

>!“He kept fucking the pillow, thrusting into it, until he tossed it to the side. He let out a guttural growl, stroking his cock until he finally came. I watched his cum shoot out, landing on his thigh and dripping down his hand. “Good boy,” I whispered. I blushed again, excited by saying such a thing.  He moaned softly, relaxing into his seat. I watched as he lifted his hand to his lips, his tongue licking up his own cum.  “Cam,” I breathed out.  “What?” He smirked. “Isn’t that what you would do?” “Yes. I would…” “Then open your mouth,” he said.  My eyes widened, but I did as he said. I parted my lips for him as he licked up the rest of his cum, but he didn’t swallow. Instead, he stood and walked to the edge of the bed, leaning over me. He gripped the headboard behind me, his face hovering right above mine.  And then he spat his cum on my tongue. “Swallow,” he instructed. “This is what you do to me, sunshine. This is what you made me do.” I swallowed, shivering beneath him. I’d never been this turned on in my life, and there wasn’t a goddamned thing I could do. “Good girl,” he whispered. “I promise when you’re better that I’ll make it up to you. Maybe you can call me a good boy again.” “Please,” I whispered. His lips pressed against mine, the two of us sharing a depraved kiss. I moaned against him, my mind whirling. He always wound me up in a way no one else had ever done.”!<

And I don't mean something like Love Hypothesis where she is clearly in love but doesn't want to admit It while he has been in love for a long time, no, I want something like Jinshi and Maomao from Apothecary Diaries, or Katniss and Peeta from Hunger Games, where the guy has heart in his eyes and the girl is like "Jesus Christ, what an annoying man" and slowly develop feelings

I’m looking for a 1st-person POV, slow-burn where the MMC hides his feelings so well that I genuinely have NO idea what he’s thinking or feeling. I want the confession to completely blindside me—like he’s finally reached his limit and the dam just fucking breaks, and he spills everything he’s been holding back.

I NEEEED the confession to hit me like a BRICK. And I need it to feel raw, emotional, genuine and heartfelt. I’ve come to a point now where I’ve read way too many love confessions that underwhelm me, don’t feel really genuine or all just blend together….. i miss when a confession would truly make me feel the feels

So my gold standard for this would be Rhysand’s confession in Chapter 54 in ACOMAF. Still one of my favs and I've been chasing that high ever since 😩

I’d like all the delicious slow-burn tension, longing, denial, and frustration... leading up to that one moment where he snaps!! Bonus points if the confession is angry (he is absolutely outraged) , desperate, and is followed up with some good spice 🤌🏾

Werewolf shifter romance book where he is a werewolf and she is a vet. He goes to her in injured wolf form.

May be misremembering the next part but: because of his injuries he can’t shift back so he has to go to her for healing. When he’s healed he can’t stop thinking about her and goes back to her a bunch of times in Wolf form just so he can hang out with her. Then it’s revealed he’s a warewolf!

We finally have the answer for....if I were a worm question

—“if you were transformed into a worm, I’d keep you in a jewel-encrusted box with the most luxurious dirt available. I’d feed you worm-food delicacies hand-prepared by a gardener whose sole purpose was the creation of your cuisine. I’d carry you around with me everywhere I went, and your box would rest on a pillow beside my head at night. People would say, ‘What’s in the box, Gabriel?’ and I’d regale them with stories of my incredible worm wife and tell them, ‘the love of my life is in this box.’ I would travel vast oceans and arid deserts, devoting the entirety of my existence to the pursuit of a cure. And, finally, when you stood again by my side, Vengeance would become my middle name. I would seek out and destroy the villain who dared to transform my love into a worm and smite the ever-loving fuck out of him with your name falling from my lips so that, as he passed through the portal of hell, he did so knowing he’d burn for eternity for his trespasses against you.”

She covers her smile. “Okay, that’s funny.”

“The only funny part is that you think I’m kidding.”

{Love What's Left by Evangeline Williams}

Hii so im looking for romance books where the FMC and MMC are both super desired/wanted by people and they’re like THE hot girl/man in town !!

Kind of like what we almost always see with the hot/cocky MMC who every girls in the neighborhood/town/college/high school wants him

For example : Jake & Brenna (the risk) Aoife & Joey (redeeming 6), Rika & Michael (corrupt), Melody & Liam (ruthless people) etc..

Preferences :

- 18/19 or 20s MCs
- Contemporary Romance or Dark Romance no Fantasy or Historical Romance)
- Slow burn (please NO insta-love/lust !!!!)
- No fake dating, arranged marriage or seconde chances !!
- M/F (no RH, poly or why choose)
- No doormat FMC
- Well written
- No Novella

Thank u !!

Hello,

So I sadly don’t remember much of the premise of the book, however I do know the ending!

It’s the fmc and mmc driving to his mothers house with their baby and his mom comes out running and grabs the baby out of joy, and I believe this isn’t too long after the fmc gave birth.

The epilogue? Or the last chapter of the book is the mmc introducing his baby and the fmc who is know his gf? To his hometown and highschool friends, and they sort of pass the baby around until she starts crying and the mmc comes and holds her and the friends all sort of swoon and say something along the lines of not believing he’s a father now.

There was also this one couple that was also hesitant to interact with the baby because they had a miscarriage a while ago

They also go to an out of state university and if I’m not wrong the mmc plays a sport.

Thanks in advance!