Illicit Liaisons: Romance Book Recs for New Romance Readers

This week, I'm solo (Jenna) with an update to a blast-from-the-past episode from 2021 on what romance books I'd recommend to people who've never read romance but are willing to give it a try, with my updated picks for 2026.

BOOKS MENTIONED ON THE SHOW

Classic Romance

Persuasion by Jane Austen https://amzn.to/4gGRvX7

Persuasion movie https://amzn.to/4cpXUVk

Contemporary Romance

Big Rock by Lauren Blakely https://amzn.to/4gJuCCe

Can't Get Enough by Kennedy Ryan https://amzn.to/4h78ja3

Category Romance

The Return of Rafe MacKade by Nora Roberts https://amzn.to/4yfahfi

Historical Romance

The Duke and I by Julia Quinn https://amzn.to/4h4oTIA

Paranormal Romance

First Grave to the Right by Darynda Jones https://amzn.to/3T7gHy7 (for some reason, the cover on this book is weird on Amazon, although the covers for the other books in the series are right.)

Dark Lover by J.R. Ward https://amzn.to/4zO6Y0f

Romantic Suspense/Mystery

Envy by Sandra Brown https://amzn.to/3SMcoYK

Naked in Death by J.D. Robb https://amzn.to/3UjkOHP (there are now over 60 books in this series!)

The Doucet Series by Tami Hoag https://amzn.to/3UuLh57

Sweet Romance

Harlequin Love Inspired Suspense (Sept 2026) https://amzn.to/3T7hmj5

Romcom

The Hating Game by Sally Thorne https://amzn.to/3T7hmj5

Chicago Stars Series by Susan Elizabeth Phillips https://amzn.to/3UM7zPS

Welcome to Temptation/Bet Me (2 books in one) by Jennifer Crusie https://amzn.to/4iGITCh  (Jennifer has several books co-written with Bob Mayer that are fun too https://amzn.to/4clkzSH).

Romantacy

A Court of Thorn and Roses by Sarah J. Maas https://amzn.to/4gHAaNv

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ILLICIT LIAISONS PRODUCED & HOSTED BY

Tara Leederman Substack: https://taleederman.substack.com/

Jenna Harte: https://jennaharte.com/

Outline and Show Notes: T.A. Leederman
Editing: Jenna Harte

Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:02

Hello, romance readers. Welcome to Illicit Liaisons, brought to you by Tender and Tempting Tales, where each week we talk about the good, the bad, and the naughty of romance fiction. I am Jenna Hart. I am the author of the Southern Heat Contemporary Romance series and the Sexy Valentine mystery series, as well as managing editor of Tender and Tempting Tales, a romance anthology for readers who like wickies. And normally at this point, my co-host Tara jumps in with her introduction and we start the show with news, gossip, hot takes, or any sort of thing going on in the bookish world. But this week is a little bit different because our guest that we should have interviewed last week fell ill, so we don't have a show to post for this week. Well, I didn't want you to miss out. So I have gone ahead and resurrected a show from five years ago. On the romance reads, I would recommend a new reader who has never read romance before might try out to see if they enjoyed the genre. I have also gone through it and have read more books since five years ago. And every now and then I might cut in to the old Jenna to share updates on what I might recommend today. So without further ado, I'm gonna go ahead and play the show from five years ago. And if I jump in with a new book, I will definitely let you know that it's today, Jenna. Basically, what I'm talking about today is if somebody were to come up to me and say, I've never read a romance, what would you recommend that I start with? My first question, of course, would be what do you normally read? One of the really cool things about romances is that they take place in all sorts of other genres. So somebody who loves fantasy, there's gonna be a romance in fantasy. Somebody who loves mystery, there's gonna be a romantic mystery. So I would want to get a sense of what they already like to read and then suggest a romance, possibly in that particular genre, to make the introduction to romance easier for them. Now I know that this is very subjective, so if somebody came to you and asked you, you would probably come up with different answers than me. But I thought I would take eight different subcategories of romance and share the books that I might recommend to people who had never read a romance and I thought might be a good introduction to romance. Now, of course, you're gonna disagree with me, and I'm gonna want to know what your choices are for these particular categories. Let me know in the comments what books you might pick instead. So the first category we have is classic romances. These are romances written a long time ago, and I've I've tried to read more past romances. Of course, I've read Jane Austen, I've read Jane Eyre from Charlotte Pronte. This last summer I read Lady Shatterly's Lover, which was pretty interesting. But I'm gonna go with the queen of the old classic romance, and I'm gonna pick Jane Austen. But I might surprise you in that I'm not gonna pick Pride and Prejudice, although that would be a very fine introduction. I'm gonna go ahead and pick Persuasion. There might be some bias on my part. Persuasion is a second chance at love, which is my all-time favorite trope. I'm also totally infatuated with the letter that Captain Wentworth writes near the end of this book. It is the swoonworthiest of all swoonworthy things, as far as I'm concerned. So you have, I have to consider that those are biases I have towards this book. But it is a great book. It's about Anne Elliot, who's the middle daughter of a baron. Her older sister and her father are conceited jerks, arrogant beyond belief, and spending money that they don't have. Her mother is deceased, and her younger sister is not much different, except now at least she's married off and just always needs to be the center of attention. Anne is the only one with any sense and practicality, and she's been doing everything she can to keep her family afloat. Now, 10 years before the start of the book, Anne met and fell in love with Frederick Wentworth. Frederick is a great guy, but he had no money, he had no connections, he had no name, and so a friend of Anne's mother, who kind of sees herself as a surrogate mother, persuades Anne to break off the engagement. Ten years later, Anne is living with regret at that decision. And of course, her family is now going broke. So they're packing up, they're moving to Bath where they can live more economically, and they're gonna rent out their big estate out in the country. Now, who should rent the estate but Frederick's sister and brother-in-law, Admiral Croft and his wife? That brings Frederick back into the area, and Anne has stayed behind. She doesn't like Bath, and she stayed behind to visit her sister and her sister's husband's family, who she's very good friends with. They all like her, they all wish their son had married Anne instead. So now Anne and Frederick are in close contact, but Frederick actually acts quite indifferent to her, and much of the book he actually looks like perhaps he is courting someone else. And so, you know, poor Anne, we're having to live with she's got this regret, and then of course, to have to watch the man that she loved and that she still loves and that she regrets losing, treat her like they hadn't ever been in love before, and appear to be actively courting another woman. That makes Frederick sound really bad, but he's not. One of the things about this book that's great is it's just it's subtle. It's very, very subtle. Kind of a slow burn, I suppose. And finally, when Frederick starts getting his act together, now Anne has a cousin who is the only male heir to her father's title and state, and he's starting to pay attention to Anne. Now Anne thinks he's sketchy, but of course, all Frederick sees is Anne hanging out with this cousin who is the best match for her. And so it takes a while for them to kind of bring it together. But then he overhears Ann telling another friend of his where they're debating about whose love endures the longest after a loss, and they're debating about whether a man or a woman does that. And Anne finally says that it's a woman's love who endures the longest when there's actually no hope. Frederick hears this, he writes this swoonworthy letter that just every time I read it I I sigh. It's so lovely. Editing Jenna jumping in here, and I have gushed about this letter from Wentworth quite a bit, and I thought I would be remiss and not reading just a little snippet to you, so you can see how great it is. So here we go. The opening to Wentworth's letter and Jane Austen's persuasion. I can listen no longer in silence. I must speak to you by such means as are within my reach. You pierce my soul. I'm half agony, half hope. Tell me not that I'm too late, that such precious feelings are gone forever. I offer myself to you again with a heart even more your own than when you almost broke it eight years and a half ago. Dare not say that men forget sooner than women, that love has an earlier death. I have loved none but you. Okay, so if you love Swoony stuff like that, I highly recommend you read Persuasion by Jane Austen. It's kind of a more mature, more grown-up version of her writing. It's one of the last books I think she finished that was published, and it's just my all-time favorite. If you were to watch the movie, I did recently watch the most recent version, which was okay. I didn't hate it, I didn't love it. Editing Jenna is back. I'm sorry to interrupt, but I need to point out that five years ago, when I originally did this episode, the most recent version of Persuasion had been done by the BBC. And it was a pretty faithful adaptation. I just have a real fondness for an earlier version. But a newer version of Persuasion was released by Netflix 2025, 2024. I can't remember. I didn't watch it. I started to watch it, and then it was very clear to me that that was not Anne Elliott in terms of how I knew Anne from Persuasion. I don't know what Netflix was thinking. If you look on YouTube or other resources that talk about this version of Persuasion, I think most people who love this book are not happy with it. Adaptations definitely do change books, but generally, as long as they have the essence of the book and the characters, I'm okay with it. But as I was watching this movie, it very clearly did not feel like Anne Elliott to me, in which case I cannot recommend the Netflix version of Persuasion. But the previous BBC version from several years ago, as well as the one from the 1990s, those are good versions. You can watch those. The better version is the one starring Amanda Root, which came out, I want to say, in the mid-1990s. Alright, so let's move on to contemporary romance. This was a really hard one for me because even within the contemporary romance genre, there are so many different books I could pick. I decided to go with the author Lauren Blakely, and I picked Big Rock, although I think Wonderlust would also be another really good one, especially for two people's point of view in a book. Because Big Rock is pretty much only the male point of view, but that's part of what makes it so fun. Big Rock is actually told mostly from Spencer's point of view. He is a bar owner in partnership with Charlotte, who's also his best friend. His father is getting ready to sell a business, and for reasons that I can't remember, it requires Spencer to have a fake fiance. So he asks his best buddy and business partner, Charlotte, if she will be his fake fiance, and of course she will. And then of course, love blooms eventually. One of the things I really love about Lauren Blakely's books, though, is that they are not angsty-filled dramas. Now, I do like that, and I know a lot of people prefer that, but sometimes it's nice to have a very kind of low-key, sweet, realistic romance evolve. Now I use the word sweet in there because the romance aspect of it is kind of sweet, but that is not to say there's no sexy bits. She does use the F-bomb in there. So it does have explicit love scenes in it. But in terms of the level of tension angst-wise, it's not a lot. And yet it's still really satisfying to read it. I think part of what helps is it's told first person present. So you really think you're hanging out with Spencer as he's navigating all of a sudden the fact that he has fallen for his best friend. And is that a good idea? And then they have to work through that. Many of Lauren Blakely's books are like that. Many of them are friends to lovers, roommates to lovers, things like that. But not all of them. Wonderlust is another book that I really like. And the tension in that one, the conflict in that one actually comes when one of the characters has an opportunity to do something that takes them away from the other person. So they're not all just these light little romances. They are all fun to read. They are all told from first person present, at least, at least starting from Big Rock. Maybe her earlier ones weren't, but the ones since Big Rock after that are. And they're just really fun. If you have a chance to listen to them on audiobook, that's even better. She has a reader, Sebastian York, who is just, I could listen to him read the phone book. She has a whole host of other readers now, instead of just having one or two readers per book, she actually has an entire cast, so every character has their own reader. It's like a play on audiobook. It's really fun. So she is what I would pick, and again, Big Rock or maybe Wonderlust would be the two I might pick. Okay. Editing Jenna is back. I still do recommend Lauren Blakely for something that is light and easy to read. There's humor to it. These people are quite real. They are engaging and endearing and fun to be around. It's one of the reasons I really enjoy her books. So it's starter books, they're really good if you're okay with a little bit of spice as well. But of course, I have since read many books in the last five years. And I thought I would go ahead and recommend one more in the contemporary romance category. And that is Can't Get Enough by Kennedy Ryan. This book is a little bit more serious, it's a little bit more grown up. Our characters, Hendrix and Maverick, are a little bit older. They're both having very successful business lives. Uh, and when they come together, it's not an ideal situation, as he uh is just ending a relationship with a woman that uh Hendrix uh works with as a client of Hendrix. But I really enjoyed this book. The writing I thought was excellent. Hendrix is also having to uh deal with her mother who is suffering from Alzheimer's and trying to run her business, be there for her mother. So it's it's a much more serious book, and at the same time, again, the how the relationship grows, the writing, all of it I just felt was lovely. Now, this book, Can't Get Enough, is actually book three in the Skyland series. I haven't read the first two books. I didn't feel like I need to, although I could tell her friends in the books. Uh, they are in successful relationships, so I imagine those are the first two books. Uh, but this particular book I really enjoyed, and again, as a first read for something that's a little bit more grown up, a little bit more serious, uh, but still very well written, I would recommend Can't Get Enough by Kennedy Ryan. So let's now move on to category romance. These are the romances put out by Harlequin. Back in the past, there was Silhouette. I think the two of them merged. I'm gonna go with an old book, which is The Return of Rafe McCade by Nora Roberts. This is not the first time I've mentioned this book, so if you've listened to my Nora Roberts episode or almost any other episode where I'm having to recommend a book, Rafe McCade is going to be on it. Basically, Rafe and his brothers grew up in this small Maryland town and they were rough and tumble. They have reputations for being hotheads and hellions. Rafe left town after high school and ended up starting his own business and becoming successful in his own right. He's returned home and he's bought an old house that's probably haunted, and he's turning it into a bed and breakfast or a hotel. The love interest is Reagan, who's actually new into town, but she owns an antique shop, so she and Rafe begin working together in terms of how they're going to decorate this hotel. One of the fun things about this book is, of course, it's it's written a long time ago in the night and by long time I'm saying the 90s or something like that. There are parts of it that could be dated, but Rafe is sort of the old school alpha male, kind of closed off from his emotions and things like that. But he recognizes that he needs to really step up and be more obvious in his feelings for Reagan. And the only thing he knows about romance is that apparently poetry's good. So there's a scene where he reads poetry to her, and it's just it's just to me one of the all-time great grand gesture scenes. And it's the one that sticks out in my mind. It's probably the thing that really makes this book's great for me. I've read the other McCade brother books and and they were fine, but this one I thought was the best. It was probably the first romance I read. It was either this or the reef, I can't remember, but both by Nora Roberts. Uh, but that would be the one that I would pick. So now going to historical romance. I don't actually read a lot of this because the few I've read a lot of times feels sort of like the same story. And I think it just has to do with there or so much constraint back then about what men and women could do and were allowed to do. Because I haven't read a lot, that statement might be untrue. But the ones I've read, I've just sort of felt that way. However, I have been trying to expand my reading. I recently read Tessa Dare, one of her books, thought it was pretty good. I liked that book because our female person had a vocation. She was earning her own living, which I think was unusual back then. I'm gonna go ahead with the one I most recently read, which is The Duke and I by Julia Quinn. It is the first in the Bridgerton series. And really the thing that I liked about this book was I liked the Bridgerton family. Behind closed doors, they weren't stuck behind their conventions and and all that kind of stuff. They were an open, loving, laughing, happy family. They teased and they just felt really real to me when it was just them not out in the world, and I liked that. It felt real to me. Now, of course, they are a family bound by convention, so when they are out in the world, they do have to act in accordance to what is accepted in society. But when it was just them and they were in their house, they were just a family who loved each other, and I liked that about them. Now, if you don't know, didn't see the TV series, The Duke and I is about Daphne, who is in her second season of trying to find a husband, and she's got a lot of guy friends that like her, but they keep putting her in the friend zone, and the other men who might marry her are just not acceptable, so she's kind of having a hard time of it. The Duke has returned after being abroad for a long time, and his father has died, who he was estranged from since he was a boy. And now he's the Duke, and of course, it makes him very appealing to all the mothers and young women around. And the Duke has made a vow he's never gonna get married, he's never gonna have kids. So he and Daphne concoct a scheme where they will pretend to be courting, and it will elevate her appeal to men who might want to marry her, and for him it will keep all the mothers and other girls away. Now, as it happens, the Duke is her older brother's best friend, which does cause a little trouble for Anthony, but he finally kind of goes along with it as long as their mother never finds out, and it goes from there. One of the things I liked about the book over the TV show is you could really feel the snapcrackle pop between Daphne and the Duke from the first scene that they're in in the book, which is different from in the show. And you you feel that growing and coming on as they are carrying out their roots, and I felt it more in the book than I did in the TV series. In terms of the two, I do have an episode where I talk about the difference between the two and how I ultimately like the book better, but there were things about the show that I did enjoy as well. The real conflict in this book is really less about the fact that they're in this fake relationship because they do end up in a compromising position, in which case he has the Duke has to marry her or ruin her reputation. At first, he's he's like, I'm not gonna marry her, and so Anthony's like, well, then we have to duel. And everyone knows that Anthony will end up killing the Duke because the Duke isn't gonna shoot at Anthony. But finally the Duke relents, knowing that it's the best way to protect Daphne's reputation. But again, he reiterates he's not ever gonna have any kids, and so then the conflict is born of that, of them reconciling that. There is that questionable scene with Daphne and the Duke that takes place in the show. It's a little bit worse in the book because the Duke is also inebriated. As I was reading it in the book, kept thinking that Daphne would, her conscience would come to her and she'd recognize that this was not a good thing to do, and she never did. And afterwards, when he gets angry and leaves, he's saying he's leaving not because of what she did, that basically she's betrayed him, but because he was so angry it brought back his stutter. And in my mind, Daphne never really has to account for the act of taking advantage of him. And so that's my one real gripe about the book, but overall. I really enjoyed this book. Of course, it ends well. And the show I thought was fine too, but it's definitely different from the book in a lot of different ways. Okay, so number five, we're gonna go with paranormal. This was hard because then when it comes to romance, you know, a lot of the paranormals are really, really dark. And maybe people who are reading other paranormal, maybe they don't want it that dark unless maybe it's horror. So I went ahead and picked two, and I picked one that was darker and one that was lighter. I'm gonna go ahead and start with the light one, and that is First Grave on the Right by Dorinda Jones. And I like this book. It is a mystery series, so it actually could be under mystery or suspense because our protagonist, Charlie Davidson, is a private investigator. These books are humorous and light and funny, which is another reason that I really like them. But really, what makes Charlie stand out is that she is also a grim reaper. So she part of her job is escorting dead people over to the other side. Her love interest throughout the series, and I do believe they end up married in this series. I'm behind on that one as well, is the son of Satan. But again, these are light, funny, and each one has a mystery. And the first one is really where you get to know her. She has dead people who are coming to talk to her to say that they were murdered, and so she is trying to figure out who murdered these guys, and then of course, she's having to deal with the fact that she has an interest in this man who also happens to be the son of Satan. The other book that I would pick that is actually over in the darker realm would be Dark Lover by J.R. Ward. I know there's a lot of other books I could have picked in this, but I really like Dark Lover. It's probably my favorite book of the series. Actually, you know, the first four or five books of the series are really, really good. And I have read them all. I continue to read them all, but like in a lot of series, long-running series, a lot of times it's those first few ones that are the absolute best. Dark Lover is about Wrath, who is a big badass vampire, and he technically should be king, but he is reluctant to take that on. He lives in kind of a compound built by a friend of his, which I want to say his name was Damien. I'm forgetting because Damien's only in the first book. And he lives there with these other warrior vampires who basically protect humans from other vampires or uh a growing demonic entity that is in the area. One of the things about this series is that our vampires have names like Wrath and Vicious and Torment and Fury, but they're spelled differently. Although there's some other regular names too, like Butch. But, anyways, in this particular book, Damien, I think that's his name, comes to Wrath and tells him that he has a daughter that doesn't know about him, and that she is half vampire, half human. And in this case, the half vampires, half humans, they may or may not become vampires. And vampires in this world have very normal human-like lives up until maybe their teens, their late teens, something like that, where they go through the change. And the change is very difficult and dangerous and painful. But when they're half and half, you're they're never sure. So he's asked Raf, because Dan seems to think know that he's not going to be around, to watch out for her and if she does go through the change, to be there for her. Rath is not at all interested in babysitting this woman until he actually lays eyes on her. One of the funnest things about these series is when the vampires meet the person that they're fated to be with. It makes me think of the movie Up when the dog Doug would see a squirrel, totally take his attention away from whatever he's doing. That's what happens with these men. They see these women, and then it's just like laser focus on them. They emit some sort of pheromone or something like that. So all the other vampires around him know what's going on. They get razzed a little bit when it happens. And so then he does decide, yes, okay, I'm gonna watch out for her. And of course, what runs through most of these series is that there is a demonic entity and demonic other beings, and so we you have that going on in terms of trying to keep everyone safe. There is another book that features Rath and his wife. She eventually becomes his wife, Beth. I think it's called The King. I can't remember which one it is in the series, but every now and then J.R. Ward goes back and redoes the relationship of characters that she put together in a different book. I've I've actually only seen it between Wrath and Beth and Vicious and his wife Jane. But I like that because Vicious is one of my favorites. But anyways, later in The King, it talks about how Wrath is becoming blind, and and through the rest of the series, he actually is blind. But it doesn't take away from his fierceness and his strength, and people still fear him. So, anyways, Dark Lover by J.R. Ward or First Grave on the Right by Darinda Jones for Paranormal. Alright, moving on to next, we're into mystery suspense. This one was actually hard for me too. It's something I actually have read a lot about and picking a book. So I actually ended up picking two books. The first book is Envy by Sandra Brown. This was the first book I read that actually had me say out loud at the black moment or when the black moment is being resolved. Oh my god, I did not see that coming. I talked to my sister about it. She had the same reaction to that scene. So it's a book that has stuck with me. This book is about a woman who is um an editor at a publishing company. She's married to an author who's a one-hit wonder. He has not been able to be successful with a second book. He hasn't actually finished a second book. Their marriage is not great, but you know, she's she's sticking it out. And she's reading a manuscript from a man who is down in Florida. I want to say it is, and she's very, very intrigued by this book. It's only a partial manuscript, and the book's not finished. And in the real world, that won't happen. An editor might read a partial manuscript, but the book would still be done. So when they requested the rest of the book, they could get it. In this case, she ends up going down to Florida to meet with him to encourage him to finish the book. This is actually a book within the book. So we get to see the book that she's reading, and eventually you begin to discover this is not a work of fiction. And I don't want to say too much more because it spoils the fun. Part of the fun of reading Sandra Brown is that there's crazy twists and turns, things that you do not see coming, things you think you believe that turn out not to be true. And most of her books are like that, particularly her earlier books. And Envy does not disappoint. So I highly, I highly, highly, highly recommend Envy. The other book I would pick would be Naked in Death by J. D. Robb, which is Nora Roberts' other name. This is the series she writes as Eve Dallas, the kick-ass cop, and her billionaire Irish husband. But the Naked in Death is the first book of the series. It's where she is investigating a murder of a licensed companion, which is basically a prostitute, but they are regulated then. They have to be licensed. This particular licensed companion happens to be the daughter or the granddaughter of a U.S. senator. She grew up wealthy. She's like the black sheep of the family. And Eve is trying to solve this crime. And she goes to the young woman's funeral because she does want to talk to the family, but she also wants to see who's there. And at this funeral, Rourke walks in. They have a little meeting. She wants to interview him because I can't remember how she knows to interview him. I don't know if there's a date book or something where the licensed companion had his name in it or something. But, anyways, so he offers to give her a ride back to the transport to go back from Washington, DC, back up to New York. That scene I love. And that scene sets up so much for the other books because Eve loses a button off her coat in that scene. That button shows up in every book after that because Rourke carries it like a talisman, which I find really swoony. We also learn things like coffee and chocolate tend to be fake for regular folk, and only the rich folk get the real coffee and the real chocolate. So when Rourke offers her real coffee, that's also for anybody who loves coffee, you will appreciate that moment when she's drinking that. But anyways, so this is really about her solving this murder and whether Rourke is involved in it or not, or other people are involved. Of course, spoiler Rourke isn't involved, and so then you can go to the next book, which I think is Glory and Death. The first three books of that series are probably my favorites, but there's others strewn throughout that are also good. There's one where Rourke discovers that the woman he thought was his mother is not his mother, and he realizes he's not as old as he thought he was, and he realizes he has other family. That is a really good one. And there's just there's just a whole bunch of them. There's maybe 50-51 books in that series. So if you're looking for something new to start, that might be it. Editing Jenna back here again. I read a ton of Romantic Suspense, most of them written in the 90s, like Sandra Brown. And I do still recommend Envy, but I'm kind of surprised I didn't mention Tammy Hogue, who has a series, the Du Set series, which I love as well. I'm kind of surprised I didn't pick one from that, even above Envy. I love Envy. I don't want to say I don't want to not recommend it, but the Du Set series is really good. Crywolf is one of my all-time favorites, but there are several books in that series, including Thin Blue Line and Lucky's Lady. They are set in New Orleans and Louisiana area, and you get a really wonderful sense of Louisiana, the language, the Cajun, without it being difficult to read. I have read some books set in Louisiana where they do the dialogue phonetically and it's very difficult. Tammy Hogue doesn't do that. So you get the sense of the Cajun and the French without having to work too hard to understand what's going on. These are dark romantic suspense. Tammy Hogue is no joke when it comes to suspense. In fact, after she stopped writing romantic suspense, she went straight into suspense thriller. Those are good too, but my favorite is the Ducette series, Cry Wolf, Thin Blue Line, Lucky's Lady. Now, Sweet Romance. That's a category I do not read. I have nothing against it. I just I do like a little bit of Snack Crackle Pop and sexy bits in my romance. So I haven't read books that are specifically categorized under sweet. So if somebody wanted something like that, I would probably send them back to Jane Austen and I'd probably pick something like Pride and Prejudice. You probably know that story, so I won't go into detail about that one. Yes who, I'm back again. I still don't read sweet romance per se. But there was a time when my agent suggested to me that I write for the Harlequin inspirational suspense line. And I haven't actually done that yet, but to prepare and to look at if that would be something I'd want to do, I started reading them. Now these are sweet in the sense that there is no steamy bits to it, no real sensuality. Most of them don't even have any kissing in them. And I do like that in my romance books. But what this line does have is right out of the gate, thrills and chills, suspense. And I enjoyed those. I enjoyed that aspect of it. So if I were going to recommend some sort of sweet romance, I would send you to take a look at whatever is new and current in the Harlequin uh inspirational suspense line. If you do read sweet romance though, I would be curious to know what you might recommend because I should probably start reading some sweet romance. Alright, so the last category I have is rom-com. And this was hard because rom-com and contemporary romance, there's a lot of overlap to them in terms of an introduction to a rom-com. The hating game by Sally Thorne is the one that I'm gonna pick. It was probably my favorite book I read all of last year. I hear they're making a movie. I hope it's good. It's always a crapshoot when they make a movie out of a book you love, isn't it? But, anyways, the hating game is about Lucy and Joshua, who each worked for a publishing company and both of them had financial difficulties, and so they have merged. And both their CEOs are now partner CEOs, and Lucy and Joshua have to share offices as being their assistants. And the book opens with the idea that Joshua, for reasons that Lucy cannot fathom because she's so nice and sweet, he doesn't really like her. And so a lot of the games they play are little bickering things and sometimes snide or snarky little games that they have. And some of them are just games in her head that she plays, although you have a sense that Joshua is aware of them. Lucy is petite and tiny and small and sweet, and everybody does really like her. She's quirky and fun. And Joshua is her opposite. So, you know, we have an office romance, we have an enemy to lovers, but we also have an opposite's attract going on here. And eventually what ends up happening is the two CEOs have decided to create a new position, and Lucy and Joshua are going to vie for that one position. So now they are definitely competing for this particular job, which puts them at odds, and they are having to do a variety of projects and tasks to try to earn the job. But through the course of that, a relationship develops. And we learn more about Joshua. You know, he can come off, because it's really only told from Lucy's point of view, so he can come off. Sometimes he comes off mean. I remember thinking he was kind of mean. On the other hand, there were some things that happened in the book that made it so obvious to me that he really liked her. It's kind of like the bully on the playground that tugs on the pigtails of the girl that he really likes. But there were some things he did that showed that he really liked her that she seemed oblivious about. It didn't even occur to her that he would have done something nice like that. But eventually we learn kind of why he is the way he is, and their relationship develops, and it's just a really a fun, enjoyable read. My daughter ended up reading it twice. She lent it to me to read, and I didn't get to it fast enough, and she took it back and read it again. I'm back again, editing Jenna. And of course, the hating gay movie came out, and I didn't watch it because I was told it wasn't that great, and I didn't want to be disappointed. If you watched it and you liked it, especially if you read the book, let me know. Because it's I could probably stream it somewhere. The other thing I would like to mention is an author named Susan Elizabeth Phillips, who has been writing romance for a long time, but didn't immediately come to me as a rom-com author because rom com felt fairly new, like Sally Thorne, Emily Henry, authors, you know, since you know 2019 or maybe after that. Susan Elizabeth has been around longer. But every time I read her books, there is something funny about it. It's not quite as quirky weird as, say, a Janet Ivanovich in her books, but there there is a humor to it. There are some interesting characters to it. So I wanted to toss out her name out there as somebody who was writing funny or humorous romances uh back before we had the term rom-com. I might also mention Jennifer Cruzy, who did actually have funny romantic books that did have quirky characters in them or interesting situations. I'm thinking of like Agnes and the Hitman is one of her books. She has a several of them. And I enjoyed hers as well. They were humorous uh long before we had rom-com. So I just wanted to share those with you as well. So these are the books. If somebody came to me and said, you know, I want to read something funny and light, The Hating Game by Sally Thor. Of course, Lauren Blakely would be in that group too. All right, Editing Jenna is back again. And I am thinking that you might be wondering, what about romanticy? Well, when I did this episode back in 2021, there was no romanticy, which is not to say there weren't any romance books that didn't have fantasy or fantasy that had romance, but that term didn't really exist until after A Court Thorn and Roses and more people began writing those types of books. And in fact, I believe most of these came out of the YA genre. I think A Court of Thorn and Roses was initially a YA book. Um, I can think of Six of Crows was a YA book, although that's sort of a romance, maybe not necessarily a romance. But back in 2021, we really didn't have that as a category. Now, I'm going to be honest, I have not read too much Romanticy, although I have many books on my shelf to read that I have not read yet. I did read A Court Thorn and Roses back, I think during COVID. Uh Beauty and a Beast Retelling is what attracted me to it. That, and of course, it was getting a lot of buzz on Booktube. And I did enjoy that book for what it was, A Beauty and the Beast Retelling. Of course, there's more books after that. Have not read those, but if I had to recommend something to somebody, I guess I would start with that one because that is the one that I read. But like I said, I have a lot of romancey on my shelf to read. I just haven't gotten to it yet. If you have a romanticy book that you love that you would recommend to a first-time romance reader, I would love to hear about it. And I'd be curious for all these categories: classic, old romance, contemporary romance, category romance, historical romance, paranormal romance, mystery and suspense romance, sweet romance or rom-com. What would be your choices if somebody came up to you and said, I've never read a romance, what would you recommend? I'm dying to know what you think. You can let me know in the comments because I'm curious. I want to know. In 2026, Jenna is back again. I want to thank you for listening to this episode or re-listening to this episode, along with my interruptions and updates on books that I now recommend that maybe I didn't recommend back in 2021. And I hope you found some of these books interesting that you might check them out. And like I said before, if you have others you suggest, please let me know in the comments below. I just want to give a reminder that Tender and Tempting Tales has a brand new anthology coming out on September 14th, Starlet and Spellbound. These are all stories that have a fall vibe and a little magical woo-woo otherworldliness to them. We've got all sorts of categories and tropes in there, and I hope that you will check it out. I think it's one of our best anthologies yet. I also want to remind you to visit our Substack Gender Intempting Tales, where we have articles about romance books, about the genre in general. We have uh articles that talk about various specific genres, whether it's old school romantic suspense or historical romance. Last week I had a post over there trying to figure out how I could pick the next book on my TBR shelf because I keep looking at my shelf and become paralyzed by my choice. I cannot pick my next read. If you have thoughts on how I can do that, please let me know. You can visit our Substack and let me know in the comments below. Please don't forget to click follow or subscribe wherever you are listening to this. And of course, please come and follow us over on Instagram. That's TinderTemptingTales at Instagram. Uh we're also trying to get our TikTok moving and shaking a little bit, which is T and Tales. We will have links to this so you can go ahead and click and go and visit us over there as well. And I'm gonna go ahead and let 2021 Jenna close us out so you can hear our outro song. We haven't used any music uh under this reboot, but you can hear our outro music uh as I lead us out. I want to thank you so much for listening in. Until next time, this is Jenna Hart wishing you peace, love, and happily ever after.