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Like in Love with You by Emma R. Alban is a regency era romance between two rivals going after the same suitor. It has a strong opening, and for the first third of the book I was hooked. Two strong cunning women vying for a boring man's obstenively vying for a man's attention while eye fucking eachother the entire time. The added drama of their mothers having once been close friends now turned enemies heightens the narrative and the drama. Neither of the women really want the man obviously but they feel they must to please their families. It was interesting to read especially as this was my first regency era novel. Then they confess and have raunchy sex and maybe that's historically valid, maybe it's not, but it rather took me out of the experience. Especially it felt like the author gave up keeping the prose and characterizations in line with the era they were from. And while reading I kept wondering where it was all heading too, how two women without much agency would fair against such a patriarchal society and heteronormative expectations. All too easily it seems, no one is outwardly homophobic and both families after their dispute is resolved are persuaded to let them have their happy ever after. While I am no fan of Tragik endings, this felt like a fairly unrealistic fantasy of what was otherwise a grounded depiction of regency life. I appreciated that the suitor both women are competing for is given no good qualities, little dialogue and basically barely exists other than as a plot device. 6:10

Any recent sports romance? Olympics always gets me in the mood for one. The last I read was It's a Love/Skate Relationship by Carli J. Corson.

>>4526396
The author's first book in that series, Don't Want You Like A Best Friend, does a pretty good job imo of depicting the difficulty two women in that situation would go through. They go through a fair amount of suffering on the way, and at the end their happy ending feels like the stars aligned for them specifically, and not like they were simply allowed to get away with it. I'll definitely read this one, interested to see how they compare.

>>4523669
>>The Book of Blood and Roses by Annie Summerlee
Got through it, not the worst, light on prose, somewhat simple characters, but all in all enough not to be a waste of time.
Sex is indeed hot.

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So I read three things that were entitled Playing for Keeps because why not.

The first, Playing for Keeps by Alexandria Bellefleur is basically what if Taylor Swift and her football boyfriend had lesbian publicists? Also one has a praise kink and the other one is very into soft dom dynamics. There isn't much to say about this one beyond that the author clumsily exposition dumps the mcs traumatic past at you in the least clever way imaginable. The sex is mid. 5/10

The second, Playing for Keeps by Pixie Chica is a short story that exists only for size difference smut. 5/10

The third, and best, was Playing for Keeps by Jennifer Dugan. It is a referee x baseball player teenage romance set against the grief both of them are experiencing due to a family member dying from cancer. It is an interesting forray into toxic relationship dynamics and managed to make both the toxic girl and the non toxic girl sympathetic and interesting. I felt myself relating quite a bit to the characters experiences as I myself lost my dad at an early age. The prose keeps well with the drama, easily getting you into the headspace of both characters even as they experience very different things. The ending resolution is predictable but the way the story is written, it doesn't feel like an obvious plot beat but rather a inevitable tragedy when the tension finally snaps. I quite liked this one 8/10

Anyone else reading middle grade stuff?

>>4526343
Don't use a clanker image for these threads, asshole.

In Charm's Way - Lana Harper

Book 4 of the Witches of Thistle Grove series. Book #1 is f/f, and you don't need to read the others to know what's going on in this one.

Not quite as good as the first one imo, but the purityfags will like this one better. The protagonist, Delilah is a stroppy little shit who, in a desperate attempt to free herself from magical brain fog, does a blood magic ritual that attracts assorted monsters to her, as well as a soft-butch monster hunter. It's a fun contemporary romance with a dash of fantasy and a smattering of decent action scenes that don't overstay their welcome. If you like (or at least don't mind) the American Halloween aesthetic, I'd say it's pretty good, and worth a read.

Waiting for a romance set in the Olympic village with the LC totally-not-based on Alysa Liu

>>4526788
If OP fixes the thumb, it looks fine. Do not discriminate the clankers, please.

Is there something that's literally like those shitty dystopian YA novel with a protagonist and rival love interests but lesbian

Books with well written sex scenes (don't care if it's just a porn book or not, as long as it has good writing)? I find sex scenes boring if the aren't particularly well written.
Goblin fires is my favorite for this. Icehole was pretty decent too.

>>4530427
I'm not 100% sure if any of these are exactly what you're after (I didn't read a lot of dystopia when it was big), but maybe something here will fit the bill:

Hearts Still Beating, Archer Brooke
The Last Bookstore on Earth, Lily Braun-Arnold
Charon Docks At Daylight, Z. R. Reed

And these are fantasy dystopias:

In The Vanisher's Palace, Aliette De Boudard
Ruinsong, Julia Ember
Crier's War, Nina Varela
The Never-Tilting World (contains het)

I found Ruinsong to be pretty skippable, but the others were at least a good time. Hopefully something here will suit you.

>>4526396
It was probably a mistake to just not end it with them having sex. Of course a regency-era lesbian romance wouldn't have a happy ending. Best-case scenario, the women involved, should they insist on staying together, would have to concoct some sort of lie for the sake of plausible deniability.

Sometimes ending right at the point of the release of maximum dramatic tension is the best idea. Not every story needs to reach its epilogue. Glengarry Glen Ross is a good example of this.

>>4531384
>muh realism
Fuck off. Stories that end right when it actually gets good fucking SUCK

whats the name of that butterfly hong kong gang book someone linked last thread

>>4531384
Could have gone with a Ladies of Llangollen ending, I guess.

>>4532020
Was it When They Burned the Butterfly, by Wen-yi Lee?

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Finnish anons, has anyone checked out Kultainen peura? Looks like some kind of historical kinda-fantasy yuri? Reading books in Finnish is a lot of time and effort for me, which is why I'm asking to know in advance if it's worth getting into.

>>4526343
Link to the previous thread?

>>4530474
>Goblin fires
That cover is really doing that book no favours

Any good rich girl/poor girl romance recommendations?

>>4533890

Nobody in Particular, Sophie Gonzales (YA, contains an unwanted het kiss)
Far From Home, Lorelie Brown (MC has het history)
Lover Birds, Leon Egan (YA)
Tryst Six Venom, Penelope Douglas (purityfags be warned, there's no het for the main couple but it's very obvious that the author's main shtick is m/f romance)
Love at First Set, Jennifer Dugan (starts with love interest breaking off a het engagement)
Not My Problem, Ciara Smyth (YA)
Malice, Heather Walter (YA)
The No Kiss Contract, Nan Campbell

>>4532430
Haven't read it, but Otava generally doesn't publish slop, so I'd expect more artsy prose attempts and less romantasy.

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>story is promising
>main character's name is something stupid like dice
Why do they always do this?

>>4532430
I have not personally read it, but it seems like it has gotten some glowing reviews. Don't know if the Karelian dialect is going to cause some difficulties for you if you are not a native speaker though.

>>4535109
Find and replace or get used to it

>>4535092
>>4535110
Thanks! I'll try to read it. My Finnish level is "I passed the intermediate exam for foreigners" so I'll definitely struggle with dialects, so far I've only read the two earliest Simukka's novels which I assume are on the much easier end of the language difficulty spectrum.