To explain a little about what this post will be about, every Trope Tuesday post starts with the same introduction. In every romance book you read there are tropes or archetypes you find inside its pages. You can also see them in shows, movies, plays, etc. Every type of entertainment and media. Romantic tropes are everywhere, and they are fabulous. I adore them and I always tend to find my favorite ones in romance books so I can enjoy them even more. Trope Tuesday is a weekly column where I share books that I know people will enjoy with a specific central trope.
What is a trope? Urban Dictionary explains it best: “Despite the erroneous definitions already published here, trope on the interwebs really refers to an often overused plot device. It can also be described as another variation on the same theme. TV shows, movies, comics, games, anime’, & books are full of tropes & many rabid fan-sites now name & track said tropes with a self-explanatory title for each one.” We can name a few: accidental pregnancy, best friends to lovers, sibling’s best friend, marriage of convenience, and so many more. Your favorite couples? They probably got a trope too! It’s always so nice to realize or find out your favorite romance trope and keep searching for books with the same theme. So really? I’m just helping you find that new favorite book of yours. If ever you want a post on a trope I haven’t done yet, do drop me a tweet at @thebookvoyagers and let me know!
Don’t you just love enemies to let’s have a fake romance to oh hell I’m actually catching feelings? The journey, the angst and the yearning in these tropes just screams goodness. It also makes for really fun moments, because most of the time our protagonists will be bickering non-stop while pretending to date in front of a crowd but slowly realizing that they might love each other. I love this kind of trope and I wish more books had it because it always makes my day!
The Ex Talk by Rachel Lynn Solomon
I seriously couldn’t love this novel more. Rachel Lynn Solomon has become one of my favorite authors. She writes enemies to lovers or hate to love romances so lovely, so perfectly, so fabulously. The Ex Talk made me go so soft! Fluff and steam: the best of both worlds.
Get ready to read coworkers who don’t really like each other who suddenly have to become fake exes (yup, you heard that right!) because of a new job. Obviously because of this and the closeness they suddenly find themselves having, Shay and Dominic soon realize that this hatred just isn’t happening anymore. There is also a height difference, a heroine who is older, and lots of fun moments!
Act Like It by Lucy Parker
Another hate to love queen, Lucy Parker never misses. In this book, you get the delicious goodness of characters who literally do not like each other, who don’t have any reason to talk to each other, but find that little something that just makes them go so happy, so at ease, in that other person, that the only thing left to do is to fall for each other.
Act Like It is all about theatre. And we have two actors in the spotlight: the bad boy actor and the English rose actress. Their people talked and they came up with a plan to benefit them both: to make the world think they are dating. But in reality, these two just can’t stand each other. Until, you know, that changes.
The Spanish Love Deception by Elena Armas
This upcoming novel is actually my current read. I am so happy to have found Elena Armas’s book, because I am having so much fun reading it. Every time I have to stop reading, to either go to sleep or to go to work, I can’t wait to read it again.
This has a very enchanting trope, or more like circumstance, because our main characters just… don’t have the best relationship at work, or anywhere else. They bicker every single time they see each other and can’t agree on anything. But then Catalina needs to go home, to Spain, for her sister’s wedding. And she has told her parents that she is bringing her boyfriend. Cue screams because Lina does not have a boyfriend. So of course she has to ask someone to become her fake boyfriend for the wedding, and Aaron is right there.
Written in the Stars by Alexandria Bellefleur
This is a Pride and Prejudice-inspired queer rom-com that will make your year. Written in the Stars is all about two women, a blind date gone wrong, a lie, some fake dating and a romance to remember.
Darcy and Elle didn’t have a good date, but Darcy, tired of her brother’s matchmaking, tells him that the date actually went good when in fact it didn’t! So when her brother tells Elle that he is so happy that they hit it off, Elle is so confused. What is happening? So Darcy asks Elle to play along to save face! But Elle also has some conditions: Darcy must help Elle navigate her overbearing family over the holidays. They never really expected feelings to develop and you know I love when that happens!
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