the ask @AAR: What’s your favorite trope?
Secret baby, friends to lovers, amnesia, arranged marriage, opposite attract, road trip romances… there are many tried and true tropes found again and again in romance. Which ones do you love and which ones do you loathe? And why?
Personally, there are of course exceptions to the rule but generally speaking, I pretty much hate all secret baby plots–they seem like a betrayal of trust AND a dismissal of a child’s needs. (Although for some reason, Rachel Gibson’s Simply Irresistible works for me. Go figure.) Arranged marriage plots usually float my boat. Amnesia stories are almost always a hard pass.
How ’bout you? Little sister of his best friend bring you joy? Time travel love stories make you crazy and not in a good way?
Inquiring minds want to know….
@DiscoDollyDeb: there was no reply button, so I hope you see this. Yes, I liked Midnight Mass, too. It was darker, but we got Poppy and Tyler, so I was happy. I did think Sinner was better, however. This book series clued me in to Sierra Simone, who writes unexpectedly well. I love that she mostly sets her book in the mdwest, which is where I grew up. I think she lives in the KC area, so she has a handle on the culture and natural environment of the region. I now live in the mid-Atlantic area, and it’s very different. For one thing, there are trees…lol!! It’s fun to read something other than Little House set in the Great Plains.
Enemies to Lovers is my all time favorite trope (especially The Chocolate Kiss by Laura Florand, The Marriage Contract by Katee Robert, Playing with Fire by Kate Meader) but I’ve found that even tropes I don’t particularly care for (such as secret baby where the mom has hidden the birth of the child and the father finds out later) can be worth the read if done by the right author (such as Fumbled by Alexa Martin and Hold on Tight by Serena Bell).
Not sure if this is a trope exactly, but a lot of my favorite books involve characters who are really interested in something specific in addition to being really attracted to another person. Two of my favorite books are The Duke I Tempted and The Countess Conspiracy. They are great stories, but I also love them because the heroines are horticulturists (or a botanist in the latter case) and I am also a plant person and love how much care has been taken by the author to demonstrate their competence at what they do, and how much they clearly enjoy it. And a lot of Sherry Thomas’ books have a similar thread – an H or h who loves astronomy, or is interested in business, or art, etc. I am also a sucker for housekeeper stories because I love descriptions of someone working with competence to set an old disheveled house to rights.
Another vote for antagonists to lovers! And for road trips.
Also I love heroines with sexual pasts, as long as they’re not ridden with guilt over them. (Ambivalence is okay, but I don’t like it when the slutty heroine needs the hero to tell her she’s a worthy human being.) And I like a really good FWB story: done well, it’s sort of like a modern marriage of convenience without any need for contrived plot devices. (Sadly, they’re usually not done in a way that works, imo.) Also just plain Unusual Premises.
My favourite trope is both something I’m not sure there’s a convenient term for. It’s when the couple has extremely compelling external reasons why being together is a totally bad idea, struggle valiantly to do the mature thing about it, and ultimately can’t resist. External reasons like being the wrong person’s ex, or stepsiblings, or having parents who are exes, or someone took a religious vow, or she’s the brother’s widow in historicals where it’s literally illegal, and so on. Some boss/employee romances fall into this category if the hero behaves like a mature adult about it, but usually he doesn’t.
I also have two other tropes I don’t have names for and virtually never find. The first is when the author consciously subverts the expected tropes, especially when the reader doesn’t see it coming. Like when the historical hero is supposed to fall for a young debutante and instead falls for her thirtysomething aunt — that kind of thing.
The second is the Des Liaisons Dangereuses setup except that the two manipulative characters end up falling in love and having a HEA. I guess I also generally like watching vaguely terrible people fall goopily in love with each other for some reason, provided that they treat each other and their close associates well, so maybe the DLD thing is just a particularly specific version of that? Anyway, I have NO IDEA WHY and I know of exactly 0.5 books with this plot, but I desperately desperately desperately want to read this story.
I’m not a fan of anything involving kids, overly dominating heroes (BDSM or otherwise), or the best friend’s forbidden sister trope.
* both something I’m not sure there’s a convenient term for and pretty broad. Grrrrr!
@anonymous: Perhaps the term would be “taboo romance”—but that brings up some icky possibilities. How about “fully-consensual-but-socially-awkward-relationship-between-legal -adults romance”? One of my catnips is priests who fight to keep their vow of chastity but eventually give in. There are very few, but the best is Sierra Simone’s PRIEST.
Re stepbrothers: Have you read Penelope Ward’s STEPBROTHER DEAREST? The best stepbrother romance ever—beautifully-written and emotionally-wrenching. (I’d also recommend reading NEIGHBOR DEAREST, a sequel of sorts.)
I’ve only read one romance really well-written romance where a man fell for his son’s ex—Penelope Douglas’s BIRTHDAY GIRL. I tried a couple of others, but they were badly-written and basically porny.
I also like the “man falls for his brother’s/best friend’s widow” books—again, if it’s handled correctly and the story explores some of the social/family pressures that discourage the relationship. I remember a few years ago, both Juliana Stone and Melanie Harlow published books featuring a hero falling for his late twin’s widow. Making the brothers twins (in Harlow’s book, they were even identical twins) added another layer to each story.
I love Sierra Simone’s Priest! One of my favorite erotic romances. She really takes a serious look at the H’s reasons for becoming a priest, his relationship to the church, to his parishoners, to the support system the church provides priests, to his own heart and mind. And it’s told almost exclusively from his POV, so you really get inside his head. Best of all, the quality of the writing is just superb. It does contain certain scenes that the devout might find shocking, but I have listened to this book many times and just love it. It’s definitely a five-star read, and the audio is perfect.
@KesterGayle: co-signed on everything, sister! PRIEST is one of my keeper shelf favorites and frequent reread. (Full disclosure: I’m a churchgoer, but not a Catholic. Possibly my attitude toward the book would be different if I were.) I love that Poppy is the first person who Intuits what Tyler has barely acknowledged to himself: he became a priest for all the wrong reasons. Such a great book. Love it!
I know, right? It’s one of my favorite books of the last 10 years or so. Sinner, a follow up about Tyler’s brother is also good. Not as good, but certainly worthwhile.
@KesterGayle: Did you read MIDNIGHT MASS? It’s a novella about Tyler and Poppy after their HEA. It’s a little on the downbeat side—although the ending is an optimistic one.
It doesn’t have a thing to do with DLD, but one of my favourite historical romances is Patricia Gaffney’s “Crooked Hearts”, which is notable for having BOTH characters be con artists with flexible moral codes (and both have delightful, screwball senses of humour that make you love them anyway). Usually you see the straightlaced hero fall for the street urchin or the starchy heroine fall for the rogue, but these two are so intelligent and cunning that they really are equal partners, and by the end the conflict has really evolved into whether their relationship can handle settling down and going straight for good!
YMMV on whether you will find them vaguely terrible (you do get to observe certain of their cons in detail), but in my opinion they are also actually one of the best depictions of a couple who are friends as well as lovers in all of romance.
“I also have two other tropes I don’t have names for and virtually never find. The first is when the author consciously subverts the expected tropes, especially when the reader doesn’t see it coming.”
I love the clever subversion of expected tropes. I remember reading Courtney Milan’s The Governess Affair, where at the start, Serena doesn’t realize Hugo is the man who solves problems for the duke who considers her a problem. OK, I thought, he’ll keep that a secret, they’ll be intimate, and at about the two-thirds mark she’ll find out in the most painful, humiliating way so there can be a separation. It’s the way most authors handle that trope.
Instead, within about two pages, Hugo told her the truth. Suddenly the story wasn’t predictable, I liked his honesty, and I wasn’t way ahead of her when it came to knowing how things would turn out. There’s much more to love in the story, but this was the point when I knew it was a keeper.
Probably still my favorite of all of Milan’s books, and she’s written some really good ones!
I like secret babies, antagonists to lovers, opposites attract, and sports romance. And I like a slow burn….yum.
Oops! My last comment was meant of Elaine S.
Ha ha! Good one! And yes to both.
I love forced marriage built around a baby like Rachel Gibson’s Any Man Of Mine or Suzanne Elizabeth Phillip’s Nobody Else’s Baby. I like the romantic tension created by a pair that had hot sex, got burnt, and now has to figure out their HEA.
If you like that trope and haven’t read Molly O’Keefe’s Indecent Proposal, you might check it out. It’s one of my favorite contemporary romances with that storyline.
I love stories with so-called beta heroes who are true leaders and so, to my mind, are actually alphas. This was reinforced by a TED talk by Frans de Waal where he discusses moral behavior in animals. He talked about those chimps who were true alphas because they were leaders: they resolved disputes as fairly as possible, avoided physical confrontation unless forced, showed respect for the others in their pack. These chimps were loved and respected in turn, and nursed in their old age when they fell ill. He differentiated this from the chimps who used brute force to dominate others. He said all too often people mixed up leadership with bullying, whether in relationships, business, or politics. I personally love Carla Kelly’s heroes because I think they are the heroes we need, true leaders — true alphas — who use their intelligence to outtalk, outthink, and out strategize others to protect the heroine and win her heart.
Well said! I completely agree. A hero shouldn’t have to be a dumb brute in order to be a badass. But when the time comes, he should be able to rise to the occasion.
In more than one sense of rising to the occasions? Sorry, couldn’t resist! (But you are absolutely spot on here.)
Ha ha! Good one! And yes to both!
Count me as one of the “enemies to lovers” fans, especially when it’s done well. Even better is if one of the romantic pair is “bad boy/girl” with a heart of gold. That said, if there is in any way, shape or form a Big Mis involved as a reason for the original animosity, then count me out.
I also love a good rescue story, and I’m glad that these days, the gal can do the rescuing just as easily as the guy.
Not a fan of secret babies or kids of any kind in a romance – just too difficult to suspend disbelief as far as the needs and work of having kids in your life. Also not a fan of lopsided power dynamics – billionaire business men types.
I tend to be drawn to the small-town sheriff trope.
And while I would be quite happy to see no more epilogues with babies (especially if the plot was about how the hero and/or heroine were certain they couldn’t have children), I love books where the heroine is pregnant doing a major chunk of the book. Especially if it’s a case of the biological father being out of the picture for whatever reason and the hero stepping up instead. (See eg Victoria Pade’s The Maverick’s Christmas Baby or the Carla Kelly novella Make a Joyful Noise.)
Secret baby only works for me if the heroine made an actual effort to find the hero to let him know, but couldn’t find him. (See eg Sarina Bowen’s Bountiful.)
Despite my complete lack of interest in RL sports, it’s always a plus for me in romance novels. Pretty much all sports, but baseball and hockey especially.
Unless it’s a very compelling blurb/review, I usually steer clear of mafia, MC and billionaires.
I mainly read HR so it’s in those settings that my preferred tropes tend to reside. I adore the Rake Redeemed. This is probably my all time favourite trope. And I love the hero who has been cast out by his family but, unbeknownst to them has made a huge fortune in India, for example, or is doing good works on the sly for though he appears to be doing something wrong, he is actually supporting an orphanage or something similar. I am drawn to May/December matches and the reverse though there are not many stories with the older woman and younger man. Although not a mother myself, and not that keen on the kiddies in fiction, I do warm to the heroine marrying the widower with a family or sometimes the reverse. I like stories with a military connection, especially those related to the Napoleonic era such as those like the wonderful Carla Kelly writes with her lovely beta heroes. And I like Beauty & the Beast stories as well whether HR or CR. I really miss the wonderful Signet Christmas Regency anthologies – I’ve got a nice collection on the keeper shelf for rereading, especially for the holiday season. And finally, I have always had a soft spot for brilliant supporting characters and how they can truly make or break a story, specifically wonderful servants such as Barbara Metzger gave us.
I won’t read the genres I mentioned in the previous The Ask but one more I neglected to mention – I can’t abide pirate stories and most definitely not female pirates. Yuck!
Second that Yuck! I just don’t get the pirate thing AT ALL
One of my favorite tropes is the hero or heroine in need of money. The more desperate the need, the more hooked I am. “Resources” can be substituted for money. In Pamela Morsi’s Simple Jess, the heroine didn’t need dollars per se, but she did need firewood and meat for the coming winter.
I also enjoy enemies-to-lovers, especially when both of them have good reasons for feeling the way they do. Though I don’t think enemies-to-lovers is necessarily two people who hate or distrust each other at the start. Sometimes it can be as simple as the heroine wanting something and the hero wanting the exact opposite. Either way, though, it can produce some great conflict.
I hate secret babies and anything where a character “disappears” for unknown reason for an extreme length of time. Just way too unbelievable.
I am not sure if this has another name, but Iet’s call my favorite trope “Sommersby.” It is a scenario that takes place in a time before genetic testing (so usually historical). There was a bad –maybe even abusive– marriage. One party (usually the husband) disappeared for a number of years and is thought to be dead as the story opens. Suddenly, he reappears– but he’s kind, considerate, charming, flirty, etc. The couple falls in love where love didn’t exist before. BUT… is he/she really the missing spouse or an imposter? If he/she is an imposter, are they really a good person or a weaselly con artist, criminal on the lam, etc.? And so on… I feel like this is a very gothic set up. In order to maintain the suspense, you generally just get one protagonist’s POV (typically the heroine’s). As it happens, I do like gothics, too (by which I mean authors like Victoria Holt, Dorothy Eden, Phyllis Whitney…). Perhaps I just like being on tenterhooks as to one protagonist’s true feelings.
My least favorite trope: secret baby for reasons others have already hit on. Though there was one historical secret baby that did work for me. The (unmarried) mother had been convinced by her relations that her child died at birth. The father managed to rescue the child (from the poor house or adoption or something– not mortal danger) but believed the mother had rejected it. When they meet again, there are many misunderstandings before all is revealed. I mostly admired the creativity of reversing the typical roles in a secret baby plot!
I too like the Sommersby storyline. Have you seen The Return of Martin Guerre? I’m always looking for THAT story but with a happier ending!
As a feminist and reader of mostly hetero romances, I gravitate toward ones that center mutual respect between the sexes or even ones where men have to work to win over their love. I’m not opposed to groveling scenes, though I dislike humiliation of either main character. I partly loved The Hating Game so much because of the extended scene where Josh cares for Lucy when she’s sick with the flu. Nurturing men are a healthy twist on the alpha protector, which I don’t generally like. Also, nurturing work has historically been ascribed to women, and so I like when the lines are blurred over gendered behaviors. There is a great scene in Luna and the Lie where a gang shows up to attack the main couple in an alley. The hero is all set to fight them off until the heroine slips off her shoe and throws it at a villain and knocks him flat on his back, much to the hero’s surprise.
I also for some reason tend to like stories where one or both characters have to reevaluate the other based on misperceptions, somewhat long the lines of Elizabeth & Darcy. I suppose that could be enemies to lovers, but not necessarily required. Along these lines, I love when characters believe they will be just fine once the object of their desire/love is gone from their lives – only as readers, we know how foolish they are in their thinking.
I like a reversal of nurturing roles, too.
In Dukes Prefer Blondes by Loretta Chase there is a long sequence where the H nurses the h because she contracts typhus. He had already had it, so he was immune. I just love that part of the book (I love the whole book, actually), because he’s so caring of her. Chase does a great job in this novel of portraying lovers who are intellectual equals, even if she’s a bit less worldly. The witty banter is among Chase’s best imo, almost as good as in Mr. Impossible. I think it’s one of her two or three best novels overall.
Yes, that long segment in Dukes Prefer Blondes when Raven takes care of Clara is so swooney. It’s one of my favorite books, and I too just adore that part especially.
Swooney….perfect description!
Clara’s clothes always make me laugh, too! I think there is a description of ‘sleeves the size of a butter churn’ which is hilarious. The hats sound pretty outlandish, as well.
I’m with you on nurturing characters and blurred gender behaviors. Showing a character caring for a sick partner, especially when the caregiver is male, is something I too enjoy- whether I’m reading or writing a scene.
Protector fight scenes can also be fun, just as long as the heroine doesn’t act like a screaming, helpless moron. This is a problem I’ve noticed a lot in old movies where the hero and villain are fighting to the death, and the woman just stands there doing nothing. Uh, lady, did it ever occur to you that your guy could lose the fight? What then? Sure, if the woman’s incapacitated in some way, she has an excuse. But if she’s able to move around, either run for safety or help your man save the day!
Tropes for me are usually the most fun when they are inverted in some way. For example, I am not a huge fan of Regency stories unless they have a unique angle. But “It Takes Two to Tumble,” an m/m Regency romance by Cat Sebastian, worked for me because of its unusual setup. A rigid sea captain and a vicar from an eccentric family get it on? It’s an intriguing premise and it works.
I also like unconventional HEAs and HFNs that don’t fall into the category of “Then they got married, had a bunch of kids, and lived happily ever after.” There’s nothing wrong with this ending, but it’s not the only option. Maybe for some characters, a HEA means cohabitating or even living in separate houses and just visiting each other periodically (I know a real life couple like this).
For m/m romance in particular, it would be nice to see some more options for HEAs and HFNs rather than the hetero-normative “And then we got married and lived happily ever after.” Maybe there’s a reason why even a contemporary pair might want to remain “partners” or live in secrecy. What I like about historical m/m is that the characters have to be in the closet because of the time period, so their HEA has to be more creative by necessity. Plus the stakes are automatically higher. But just because they have to be discreet doesn’t mean they can’t have an HEA. :)
Oh, and here’s a fun fact about nurturers: Did you know that before the Civil War, about 95% of nurses were male? When Florence Nightingale became a nurse, that was a really radical decision. A lot of people thought it was indecent for women to perform nurturing tasks outside the home with strangers because their duties would include bathing naked men.
As my post may imply, hurt/comfort is fun to read and write- have no idea why. I guess it’s that whole nurturing thing.
Oh, yes, I too love unconventional HEAs. I really dislike the drum beat of women bearing babies in book after book and am always happy to see happiness defined in a multitude of ways. I like the idea of separate homes or even long-distance, as long as the couples make it work for them. I would like to read more books like this.
Friends to lovers and road trips. I’m easy that way!
My favourite trope by a LOOOONG way is (diffferent sides) enemies to lovers. The Spymaster’s Lady by Joanna Bourne is my favourite book of any genre and Shards of Honor by Lois McMaster Bujold is the book that convinced my to try reading an actual romance book.
Kudos for the attempt to popularize antagonists-to-lovers (although I would go with hatred-to-lovers). Hopefully one day I will be able to give my favourite trope its more streamlined name.
Sex before romance generally leaves me cold.
I’m not sure I have a favorite, it depends more on execution than anything else.
I am drawn to road trip stories, and I like stories where someone finds kids thrust upon them (not secret baby, more like the parents die and leave the kids in the care of another), and I like military/cop related stories. Stories about K-9 partnerships are interesting to me, too. And, for whatever reason, hockey romance has become my jam. Even pretty bad hockey romance. And cute animals are always fun! I can’t recall the title, but there was a road trip story where they picked up a fainting goat named Pixie that was really adorable. If anyone knows that one, I want to re-read it so let me know?
In HR I keep an open mind. I like smart women who stand up for themselves, but I also like when a shy young thing wins over the jaded rake without even trying. But I don’t like the kidnapping trope.
I won’t read mafia stories at all, or much bdsm, or much in the way of polyamory.
And see I almost never like animals in romance. And I have a dog! No clue why that is!
Animals, like kids, have to be done correctly. Unless the dog is Lassie or the horse is Trigger, it can’t be a mind reader. I either want a pet who is just an object of love and humor or a highly trained working animal who helps resolve critical situations because of innate skill, partnership with a human handler, and said training. K-9 stories that are correctly told are extremely rare imo, and are often not romances.
But I did love that fainting goat…
Julie Anne Long does cats well in the Pennyroyal Green series. And I enjoyed the pets in Jill Shalvis’ Animal Attraction series.
Actually, I’m not a big fan of animals in romance where they’re the focus of the story. I’m a cat person – I don’t dislike dogs, I’m just ambivalent about them. One of my favourite animals in romance is in Amy Lane’s Fish Out of Water romantic suspense series – one of the MCs has a big bruiser of a tom cat called Billy-Bob, and the way he talks to him (the cat) is hilarious.
I’m more of a cat person, too, but I rarely see a book that has a good cat character. Dogs can be more interactive in a story.
There are few tropes I don’t like or won’t consider reading, although it’s no secret I’m not a big fan of the “chicks-in-strides” in historicals. A few authors have made it work well (Emily Larkin and Eva Leigh come to mind) but mostly, it doesn’t work for me. Secret babies… again, I wouldn’t NOT read a book with that trope, but it’s not someting I’m drawn to. I just read my first “mafia” romance, and I don’t think that’s one for me, either. Opposites attract can be hit and miss – if you’re talking about a ridiculously ditzy heroine paired with an uptight hero, I’m more likely to be annoyed than charmed – but otherwise, I tend to like that one.
My favourites are marriage of convenience, friends to lovers, antagonists to lovers, forced proximity, second chance… but if it’s well written, there’s a chance I’ll read it regardless.
I do love second chance love affairs–it’s some comforting to get a redo. It makes me believe that we are more than our mistakes!
For me it depends on the genre and the writing but I like opposites attract, enemies to lovers, marriage of convenience, rich guy/poor girl if the author makes the dynamics between them balance out… mostly tropes where the main couple has to work in the relationship while letting go of assumptions and then..falling in love.
I dislike lovers reunited, where a huge part of the plot is based on remembering past events or romantic scenes: i prefer to see the experience of the couple falling in love, not rekindling things.
Friends to lovers isn’t a favorite but done well, I read it.
I don’t mind secret babies lol, probably because I don’t have many of those in my TBR. I still remember fondly one of Nora Roberts’ single titles where this happened. When he hero found out about the son he didn’t know existed, the loss, the guilt over not being there, the attempt to get to know the son… it was done so well, when others books present this trope, I don’t immediately dismiss it.
Opposites
Enemies to lovers
I can also get on board with an office co-worker romance (a la The Hating Game)
I’m also not opposed to hot neighbors who are single.
Are we all using the antagonist to lovers thing now? okay. I love it either way. :)
I don’t know – I used it because it’s just how I tend to think of it. Is it a thing now?
There’s always an exception that proves the rule, but I don’t go out of my way to read “sibling’s friend/friend’s sibling is forbidden” stories. It just seems so unrealistic—I’m sure many of us have dated or had relationships with people we met through our siblings—plus there’s a rather patriarchal notion in the idea that a man can’t approach a woman because she’s “under the protection” of her brother. On the other hand, Jackie Ashenden’s duet, HAVING HER and TAKING HIM, use the sibling’s friend to excellent effect. They’re the best use of the trope I’ve encountered.
I also don’t care much for friends-to-lovers. I know it happens irl, but I just feel the chemistry should have been obvious from the start and not just—voila! Whaddya know, after ten years I’ve suddenly realized my best friend is HOT! Yeah, just not able to suspend disbelief enough for that.
My favorite tropes are bodyguards and enforced proximity (if that can involve a snowbound cabin, so much the better). A lot of bodyguard romances feature enforced proximity, so they’re double treats for me. I have two favorite bodyguard series: Sybil Bartel’s Alpha Bodyguards and Ainsley Booth’s Forbidden Bodyguards.
I also like the “enemies-to-lovers” trope, but someone at SBTB suggested the term “antagonists-to-lovers” might be more appropriate and I agree. I read quite a lot of dark/mafia/crime/mob romance and that is a frequent trope in those types of books.
As for secret babies and unplanned pregnancies, they’re such a staple of Harlequin Presents, I hardly notice them except as a plot device. I tend to adjust my expectations based on the sub-genre I’m reading.
I too find the “you can’t date my sister/brother” trope unsettling. Really? Wouldn’t you want someone you already love to be a part of your made family?
The friends-to-lovers romances that work best for me are the ones where they were always low-key aware of each other but had some concrete reason why they never went there — like, maybe they were never single at the same time, or they originally met in a context where getting together would have been ill-advised (.e.g. co-workers) and then sort of got used to the other person being off-limits. I’ve totally had chemistry like that with male friends and co-workers that never got acted on, so that kind of setup would feel realistic to me.
I just read a really good story like this yesterday, actually, a NA romance where two recent college grads get married in order to qualify for married grad student housing. They had been friends and off-campus roommates for years, but he had had a fiancee until very recently. The progression of their relationship felt very natural. But that isn’t usually the way these stories work.
It doesn’t help (imo) that these stories always seem to start at the moment one of the people suddenly decides the other is HOT, so you never really get a sense of what the friendship was like. I’d rather have a sense of how they were before.
Did I need to clarify that the 4 tropes I mentioned were the ones I like? :-D
1. Enemies to lovers, or two people who presume to dislike each other based on assumptions (about each other) that each gradually comes to realize are wrong. For some reason, Mary Balogh’s Christmas Promise comes to mind, where a cash-poor aristocrat must marry a (shudder!) wealthy tradesman’s daughter for her money.
2. I like amnesia stories IF they are done well. I personally loved Sherry Thomas’ Tempting the Bride. :-)
3. Arranged marriage/marriage of convenience where the H/h are surprised (even better, horrified) to find themselves falling in love …
4. Beauty and the beast
Really hard pass? Instalove, especially when the H/h are both beautiful/handsome. I don’t like stories where the love happens early and the rest of the book is just about overcoming obstacles, such as one family’s objection to the marriage. Yawn.