I’ve always read Sci-Fi and Fantasy. It’s my comfort place and haven’t we all needed that in the roaring '20s? It took a long while to clock that the books that stuck with me longest were all in that odd space where fantasy and sci-fi collide, (like Helliconia or Fire Upon the Deep or Dune) When I started writing, the ideas just poured out of me but after I realised I’d written a book like those I loved to read.
This book is straight-up Fantasy, so it’s notable in my list because I read so little trad fantasy these days. But don’t be fooled, this book is not what you expect. Every trope of fantasy gets turned on its head, kicked over, rearranged, and then the characters just straight up do something other than what you expected. There are no hunky but boring heroes. There are no damsels in distress. Even the Gods in this world are… well that would be spoilers. Super well told gripping fantasy trilogy that you won’t regret picking up. Except you won’t be able to put it down.
Ancient Relics. Vengeful Gods. Shipwrecks. Strange Creatures. Secret Libraries and Kingdoms At Odds.
Sheltered and groomed for a future as a noble’s wife, Princess Eya envies the limitless opportunities men have—until they leave to defend their country and never return.
This damsel won’t sit around waiting for a knight in shining armor. Instead, she rescues herself by sailing away from the only life she’s ever known. When her escape plan shipwrecks on enemy shores, she must hide her identity and temper her impulses. This proves difficult as she discovers new powers she cannot control and winds up hopping from one…
Growing up in Alberta, Canada, I spent many summer days at the Calgary Stampede, where I became familiar with the idea of the Wild West. We would don our cowboy hats and trek to the fairgrounds to watch bucking horses and chuckwagon races. Thus began my obsession with popular westerns. I wrote my Ph.D. dissertation on the subject, and I still teach courses and write books about various aspects of the popular West. As a bit of an outsider myself, I especially love Westerns by folks on the margins, without a lot of power. Their takes on the West are always quirky and surprising. I hope you agree!
This book breaks every rule I was ever taught about popular Westerns. Sure, it has a handsome cowboy and a damsel in distress, but he doesn’t get the bad guy, and she doesn’t want or need him to rescue her.
I was all the more amazed that it was written more than 100 years ago yet takes on modern topics like marital breakdown, alcoholism, and divorce.
Its story of a Western marriage gone bad really resonated with me because I grew up in similar circumstances, and Bower’s characterization hit very close to home.
B.M. Bower was an American writer of Western novels and short stories who wrote over 55 novels. Several of her stories were subsequently adapted and made into movies.
Fantasy has always been a passion and an escape for me. It started with copious amounts of reading, then I found anime when I was only a child as Cardcaptors began to air on TV. I’ve watched hundreds of anime shows since then and continued my penchant for reading and writing almost exclusively in the fantasy genre. In college, I obtained a BA in English with an emphasis on Creative Writing, so I have a good grasp on literature analysis and many works. In addition, I studied Japanese for two years, lived in Japan for six months, and held a position at the anime club while I was in college.
Evermore has an anime-level mystical other world with copious drama and shenanigans afoot. There are strained friendships, romance, death-defying endeavors, and more. Who doesn’t love a good immortal chasing after his love through different lifetimes? I appreciate that the MC isn’t a damsel in distress even with the romance-heavy lean of the book. There’s plenty of mystery and action with the MC’s ability to see spirits and auras as she tries to discern the strange things happening around her. I have so much love for themes of life and death. I can see parallels between this book and the anime The Ancient Magus Bride. Both involve not-so-distant other worlds and a protagonist who has shut herself away for her gifts falling in love with an immortal.
Don't miss Evermore, the first book in Alyson Noël's #1 New York Times bestselling The Immortals series. Enter an enchanting new world where true love never dies. . .
After a horrible accident claimed the lives of her family, sixteen-year-old Ever Bloom can see people's auras, hear their thoughts, and know someone's entire life story by touching them. Going out of her way to avoid human contact and suppress her abilities, she has been branded a freak at her new high school—but everything changes when she meets Damen Auguste.
Damen is gorgeous, exotic and wealthy. He's the only one who…
I have a passion for fairy tale stories especially ones for adults because they are often the first stories we learned as kids. The ability to look back at how we interpreted them and how our understanding changes over time and culture makes for something that is truly timeless, and therefore like a beloved trope is never the exact same thing twice. Each time only builds on our enjoyment and the many possibilities we can imagine. Not only in worlds of magic, but our own.
While my series tend to be on the shorter end, if you want something to really sink your teeth into try Angela J. Ford’s interracial romance collection full of action, adventure, and steam. Celtic Mythology is the theme for this six standalone novel collection that tops out at over 600 hundred pages! In a world like it is now, sometimes I just want to escape into a fantasy world a fantasy series is so perfect for that.
This collector's edition includes six stand-alone adult fairy tales blending fantasy action-adventure with steamy fantasy romance.Tales of the Enchanted Forest is a collection of six fantasy romance short stories. The series is inspired by fairy tales with a hint of Celtic Mythology and a nod to the TV show, Once. However, you won’t find your traditional damsels in distress. The women you’ll meet in these tales take the future into their own hands, regardless of the challenges. They also have magic. Some of it beautiful, like the magic of the healer, but others have dark magic which torments them as…
I wholeheartedly believe that embracing your geeky side is an important part of life and self-discovery. When romance novels incorporate nerdiness, it gives characters (and therefore readers) the ability to understand themselves and what they want on another level, and to gain the courage to pursue what they want. I know that my own forays into TTRPGs, LARPing, Ren Faires, and other such interests have helped shape me as a person. I’m more confident and embodied because I embrace my inner geek, and I want that for my characters and my readers, too. That’s why I want to read and write as many of these stories as possible!
This rom-com is as lighthearted and fun as it gets, but it maintains the nerdy bent we’re all here for. I love LARPing, and this book paints it in the most exciting light! I loved how Daisy used her alter ego, Lade Alenthaea, on her journey to growth, and how this story kept the agency around her personal growth firmly in Daisy’s own hands.
She's no damsel in distress, and he's certainly not wearing shining armour. But one knight can change everything...
Daisy Hastings has always thought she was born in the wrong era. So when she bags a summer job at the Tower of London helping to run their Knight school, it feels like a step in the right direction.
Theodore 'Teddy' Fairfax is a loose cannon. A disgraced distant relative of the royal family, he's tall, dark and now (begrudgingly) helping with the Tower of London's summer programme - and there's nowhere he'd like to be less.
This book had the perfect balance of guy saving the girl and
girl kicking a$$ in the boardroom.
I don’t love a damsel in distress and the
FMC is never that, but she does get into some trouble and the MMC is right
there to step in and support her however she needs it. That is something to get
swoony over!
This is a sweet romance, but with a backdrop of boardroom drama
that kept me turning pages well into the night. I had to see how Galen and Jax
would get out of the bind they were in and get the happily ever after they
worked so hard for.
Jax learned early on that it's a bad idea to mix business with pleasure. But he has to question his resolve when small-town spitfire Galen crashes into his world.
A killer in the boardroom? Check!
Beauty as well as brains? Check!
Loves hole-in-the-wall restaurants, local markets, and greasy cheeseburgers? Where has she been all his life?
Galen's entire life has been controlled by her overbearing father, who's tried to mold her into a carbon copy of himself. When she arrives in the sunny haven of Daytona Beach, Florida, the only thing on her mind is sealing the deal on an…
As an Arab American woman who grew up in Nashville in an evangelical church, I’ve always maintained complex understandings of myself as both an Arab and a woman. My experiences coupled with my love for reading led me to become a journalist where I could explore stories about Arab women in hopes of learning more about myself. After 9/11, watching my family face racism and hate from a country we're so proud to be a part of, I wanted to change the narrative. I got a Ph.D. in Media Sociology from the University of Missouri and started writing critical analyses of media’s poor representation of Arab women and how we can help change the game.
Segall’s book introduced me to so many incredible Muslim women that I hadn’t even heard of!
We’re talking about grassroots and famous protestors that engage with digital media to change the landscape of protest. Segall positions these women in positions of power, which we rarely see in literature, and lets them tell us why their stories matter.
The icon of the female protester and her alter-ego, the female superhero, fills screens in the news, in theaters, and in digital spaces. The female protester who is Muslim, though, has been subject to a legacy of discrimination. Superheroes in the Streets: Muslim Women Activists and Protest in the Digital Age follows the stories of both famous and grassroots Muslim female protestors, bringing careful attention to protest modes and online national icons.
US Muslim women have long navigated public and digital spaces aware of the complex and nuanced histories that trail them. Given the pervasive influence of mainstream feminism, Muslim…
Fantasy romance is a broad genre that simply captivates and enthralls me. The combination of romance, passion, action, humor, magic, mystery, and drama ignites this spark in my heart, filling my metaphorical cup of happiness. But what makes these books so amazing is the strong female perspective they are told from. It’s not making tough decisions or embodying their masculine energies that make them strong. It’s their ability to balance dealing with external conflicts while struggling with self-confidence and loving others so completely that makes them such incredible women to read. Those are the stories I want to read, and those are the stories I want to tell.
I had never read a romance novel before, and it only took a few pages to absolutely fall in love with it and the fantasy romance genre. It really set the bar for every romance novel I’ve read since!
Witty bantering, sweet, and touching moments—sexy ones too—and the best part is the main character wasn’t a total damsel in distress! She had her s*** together…mostly. Very relatable! Smart, funny, and she’s a fighter? Sign me up.
Though the male main character was hot as hell, powerful, and darkly funny, it was really the way they played off each other and worked together that really hooked me and resonated. I absolutely love this book and I have read it easily ten times.
Amanda Devereaux has a crazy family. Her mother and older siblings are witches and psychics, and her twin sister is a vampire hunter. All Amanda wants is a quiet, normal life. Only when she finds herself the target of an attack meant for her twin, she wakes to find herself handcuffed to a sexy, blond stranger. He is Kyrian of Thrace. And while Amanda's first thought is that this might be another of her sister's attempts at extreme match-making, it soon becomes clear that Kyrian is not boyfriend material.
For Kyrian is a Dark-Hunter: an immortal warrior who has traded…
Gruen paints her scenes with vivid brush strokes, her people are so real you can hear them talk, and her animals likewise - especially Rosie. Incredibly sad in parts, at the end the tale is properly uplifting. The author’s notes are highly worth reading, adding to the heartbreak in some instances. It was a different world back then.
THE INTERNATIONAL PHENOMENON AND NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER NOW A FILM STARRING REESE WITHERSPOON AND ROBERT PATTINSON
'Great story, loads of fun; hard to put down.' STEPHEN KING
The Great Depression, 1929. When Jacob Jankowski, recently orphaned and utterly adrift, jumps onto a passing train, he enters a world of freaks, grifters, and misfits in the Benzini Brothers Most Spectacular Show on Earth: a second-rate travelling circus struggling to survive by making one-night stands in town after endless town. Jacob, a veterinary student now unable to finish his degree, is put in charge of caring for the circus menagerie. He…
I’ve been fascinated by bad-boy heroes since I started reading romance books in my teenage years. Throw me a story about a rebel, player, a guy who likes living on the edge with a wild streak, and you’ve got me sold. There are a few rules when it comes to what I don’t want in a bad boy – abuse, pedophiles, violent men, and lack of consent. I love happy endings and believe that every bad boy and his lover (or lovers if it’s a consensual polyamorous relationship) deserve their happily ever after endings. I’m an ex-journalist who has published romance stories from erotic to sweet.
I personally recommend Edgeplay by Annabel Allan to readers who enjoy high-quality erotic and BDSM romance readers. The chemistry between Ava Goode and her hunky lover, Gabriel Burton, is a passionate one that sizzles, not fizzles. Gabriel is a high-powered CEO who dares to try new kinky things in the bedroom with Ava. He knows when to be bad, and he knows when to be good. Ava personifies empowerment – she’s a real hero with a strong voice, and she's no damsel in distress. This is great, as I’m not a fan of weak voices. Edgeplay accurately portrays BDSM—the author has done her research into the lifestyle and knows what she's writing about.
By day, Ava Goode is in the insurance game, getting her work done and being a model employee. But by night, she retreats to her secret world where she Dominates those that seek to submit to her.This private world gets turned upside down the moment she meets Gabriel Burton; a man who is not only successful, but works for her father—and dating men in her father’s office is a big no-no. But, it’s hard to resist your deepest desires, especially when they kneel before you and kiss your feet, like a good boy.
