It’s Friday and on top of this, Valentine’s Day. I’m not celebrating myself, but happy Valentine’s Day if you do celebrate. This day is mostly known for love and romance, so therefore this week’s Let’s Talk Bookish topic is favourite romance tropes. I’ve been reading a lot of romance in 2024, mainly because they are easy to digest, and I just was in need of these type of books. But have I found my favourite romance tropes yet?
Let’s Talk Bookish is a weekly meme that was originally created and hosted by Rukky @ Eternity Books starting in August 2019, and was then cohosted by Dani @ Literary Lion from May 2020 to March 2022. Since April 2022, this meme is hosted by , Aria @ Book Nook Bits and since February 2025, Dini @ DiniPandaReads is the co-host. Let’s Talk Bookish is a meme where participants discuss certain topics, share their opinions, and share their love by visiting each other’s posts.
Prompts:In all honesty, I’m not someone who cares for tropes that much. I enjoy romance, but I have – of course – my preferences. For instance, I like romance with deeper layers. This is a general preference of mine, whereas I value character development and growth. I therefore prefer character driven books over plot driven ones and most character driven books tend to have more depth. They often are told in a dual POV narrative, which only adds up to said growth and depth. A great example of books that are working for me because of the character growth and deeper layers are the book sin the “Windy City” series by Liz Tomforde. They have a dual POV narrative and both characters have had a lot to endure in their life. I’m fine with sports romances, but the ones set in college are less and less compelling to me. Maybe because I’ve outgrown the setting and find the characters a bit more juvenile. Yes, they often show character growth, but I’m just in another phase of life right now.
Another trope I enjoy is the small town. This romance trope has become very popular lately, e.g. the “Chestnut Springs” series by Elsie Silver and the “Rebel Blue Ranch” series by Lyla Sage. These are cowboy romances as well, but that’s not typically a trope I enjoy. I mean, I do like those books, but I prefer the smalltown trope. We usually have a small cast of characters which therefore makes it easy to get to them very well. One of the best smalltown romances I recently read was Archer’s Voice by Mia Sheridan. This novel contains many elements I like: smalltown, depth and character growth.
Where’s favourite tropes, there’s also least favourite tropes. There’s a popular one I really don’t enjoy: fake dating. Can you not? I mean, I just… Can’t deal with it and I don’t know why. It feels so formulaic to me. Okay, most romances are formulaic, but in my opinion fake dating is so awkward. Apart from this trope, I also do not enjoy dark romance. This is a bit too dark and unbelievable to me. I enjoy smut, but it has to add something to the actual story and not be there for the sake of being there. Finally, office romances aren’t my cup of tea either, I just don’t feel it. I mean, it feels so… set up? I don’t know, I just avoid them.
For a list of romance books on my TBR, please check out the following posts:
Do you enjoy reading romance? What are your favourite and least favourite tropes? Do you have favourite romance books?
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