Enemies-to-Lovers Romances | The Worst Best Man & The Unhoneymooners

I just adore a good enemies-to-lovers romance. Everything about this trope gives me life—from the completely ridiculous reasons the characters hate each other, to the petty pranks, the wicked banter, the bristling sexual tension, and finally to the ANGST of surrendering to their “”worst enemy””… I could go on and on. I just love it. I love all of it. I lap all that up to fill the void in my soul.

But as much as I love the trope, I can also get very nitpicky about it in a way that I don’t get with other tropes, mainly because I want the elements to be done a certain way—i.e., The Hating Game (2016) way. I like a lot of banter, competitiveness, and sexual tension, plus a lot of steamy scenes and maybe a couple of pranks tossed in on the side.

While the books below aren’t quite The Hating Game, Mia Sosa’s The Worst Best Man is probably closer to how I like my enemies-to-lovers done. The Unhoneymooners was cute, but it wasn’t steamy enough for me. (My rule for a hate-to-love romance is that the strength of hatred should be proportional to the steaminess of the sex. While I have no way to quantify this, the proportion just felt off-kilter for this book.) Also, weirdly enough, I only started liking The Unhoneymooners during the “lovers” part, and was bored out of my mind during the “enemies” part.

Still, both were fun, breezy reads, a great way to pass the time during this quarantine.

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Can’t-Wait Wednesday #5 | Romance: Beach Read by Emily Henry

Can’t-Wait Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Tressa @ Wishful Endings to spotlight the books we can’t wait to read. Typically, these books are yet to be released. It’s based on Waiting on Wednesday, which was previously hosted by Breaking the Spine.

This week, I’m spotlighting another contemporary romance I can’t wait to read: Emily Henry’s Beach Read.

Can’t-Wait Wednesday #4 | Romance: The Switch by Beth O’Leary

Can’t-Wait Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Tressa @ Wishful Endings to spotlight the books we can’t wait to read. Typically, these books are yet to be released. It’s based on Waiting on Wednesday, which was previously hosted by Breaking the Spine.

This week, I’m spotlighting a book from the romance genre: The Switch by Beth O’Leary.

Book Review: The Flatshare by Beth O’Leary

THE FLATSHARE by Beth O’Leary (Published by Quercus in 2019)

My Rating: ★★★★★ (4.5 stars)

Ahhh. Ahhh.

(That’s the sound that the male protagonist makes when he’s freaking out. Argh, he’s such a precious cinnamon roll.)

I needed something light and ridiculous and distracting, and this hit all the right notes.

#Februwitchy Readathon TBR!

I’m late to the party, but I just stumbled on Asha’s delightful #Februwitchy Readathon and I couldn’t resist! Here are the basic mechanics of this readathon:

Read witchy books!

The aim is super simple: read books about witches for all of February. There are no prompts, but any books with ‘witch’ in the title, or where the main character is a witch, will count – and to be specific, that’s where the main character is explicitly referred to as a witch on page, not just a book with a magical heroine. Non-fiction about witches is also welcome!

I grew to love reading through fantasy and romance books, so there’s nothing that spells ‘comfort read’ to me as much as a book with both. And also, who doesn’t love witches? There’s just something about this dark and powerful female archetype that really calls to me.

Here’s my TBR for this month. I won’t be reading exclusively witchy books for the month and I might not even be able to finish everything here, but in any case, I feel like I’m really going to have fun with this.

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Sea Witch by Sarah Henning

This isn’t only about a witch; it’s also a fairytale retelling. I hear it’s basically a witchy retelling “The Little Mermaid”, and it sounds to be right up my alley. Also, it’s been on my TBR for awhile, so I guess it’s time to finally pick this up!

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Truthwitch by Susan Dennard

Two witches on the run, a richly imagined fantasy world, and an imminent war – count me in! Among everything on my list this sounds to be the one with the most plot and adventure, so I’m hoping it’ll be a wild ride.

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Serpent & Dove by Shelby Mahurin

Okay, I have such high hopes for this one because it uses one of my favorite tropes of all time – the enemies-to-lovers trope! (Not sure about the arranged/forced marriage, though, but I like the former more than I dislike the latter.) Also, it seems to be a witch x witch-hunter sort of romance, which makes it extra delicious for me because there’s bound to be a change of heart on both ends that would lead to major Character Growth. I’m expecting a fast-paced plot with a slow burn romance replete with steamy build-up and banter, and I’m fervently hoping I won’t be disappointed.

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The Rules of Magic by Alice Hoffman

I haven’t read the first book, Practical Magic, but I saw this on sale and I couldn’t resist the pretty cover. Also, a family of witches coming of age in 1950s New York – what’s not to love?

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That’s it for my TBR! Are any of these on yours, too? Any witchy books that you read and loved? Let me know in the comments!