Please join us for the June Sweet & Spicy Romance Discussion Club. Location is still TBD - but I'd love to hear any Arlington/Alexandria/Maryland location suggestions. As long as it's metro accessible, we could get a little locational variety since the last two meetings were in DC. If you have ideas, please put them in the discussion below. Also, please note it's Pride Weekend that weekend, as well, so that may make things busier.
For next month, we'll be going from Austen to Aliens! Last month's subgenre choice was historical romance and we're traveling from the past to the future for June with Sci-Fi romance as the next subgenre. If you're more of trope-based reader, the trope for next month is either second chance romance or fated mates. Kudos to anyone that can find a Sci-Fi romance with second chance fated mates :) We might need to lean on Jasmine's suggestion of ChatGPT to hit all those factors in one book! As a reminder, you're welcome to read any variation from those themes - if you're a contemporary romance reader through and through, feel free to stay in that genre and read based on trope. As long as you have a book to chat about at the next meeting, we'd love to hear it. We're pro-women's opinions in this clerb.
June Subgenre & Trope: Sci-Fi Romance + Second Chance or Fated Mates
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Because of the annoyingly short character limit in comments, I've moved my suggestions to here. Please share any recommendations below in the discussion board!
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I've read a decent amount of Sci-Fi romance over the years, so I thought I'd take Nora's lead and share some suggestions or authors that you may want to check out.
- Author Suggestion: Jessie Mihalik – She writes about humans in the future/in space. No aliens. Her most popular book is Polaris Rising. It’s a *bit* like a historical romance set in space given there are political & arranged marriages between wealthy families.
- For a more plot heavy sci-fi suggestion, try the slow burn series The Firebird Chronicles by T.A. White. Reminiscent of the Kate Daniels’ chronicles and feels similar to Paranormal Romance, if that’s more your bread and butter. Does include aliens, but the love interests are human(ish).
- One of my favorite, fun series is the Clecanian series by Victoria Aveline. The first book is Choosing Theo. Interconnected standalones. The MMC is an alien. FMC is human.
- For POC representation, check out Elizabeth Stephens. Her series Xiveri Mates are interconnected standalones. Human FMC, MMC is alien. I remember greatly enjoying the first two books in the series.
- There’s always the popular TikTok series Ice Planet Barbarians, which if I recall was kinda light and fluffy. Similar to the Clecanian series (although I liked the Clecanian series better, personally). If you end up liking it, there are tons of books and spinoffs in the series.
Fated Mates could easily lean into Paranormal Romance (PNR) – so that’s a different ballgame and I don’t want this post to be too long (I have many suggestions there too), but a recent one I read that I enjoyed was the Wolf King by Lauren Palphreyman – 3 book series with the first 2 books being out. Set in Scotland. Has a sorta Outlander vibe, but with wolf shifters.
If you have suggestions for others, please share them below!
