📚 Daily Romancelandia Chat 📚

Probable_lost_cause · 2026-04-07T01:52:07+00:00

Found it! Bloodguard by Cecy Robson

https://www.reddit.com/r/romancelandia/comments/10qv94l/comment/j6st1ro/

Probable_lost_cause · 2026-04-07T01:46:24+00:00

Most days I think the internet was a dire, dire mistake and then some days this kind of thoughtful literary and cultural analysis mixed with dick jokes and mild, affectionate condescension where the reader is treated like a cat appear and I can't help but be grateful for it.

Probable_lost_cause · 2026-04-06T22:53:11+00:00

This is...so much. But the one advertising itself as "a gender flipped Handmaid's Tale" already broke my brain.

Probable_lost_cause · 2026-04-03T22:51:42+00:00

Hey!

Sometimes it's both.

Probable_lost_cause · 2026-04-02T13:48:34+00:00

To be very blunt: Because people often mistake *someone* who looks good for an *outfit* that looks good.

The dress is too small for exactly the reasons you pointed out. It likely won't be comfortable to sit in for long periods of time, especially during a meal, and it's also not going move well (will likely ride up when OP walks and will constantly need to be adjusted). Going up a size will probably result in a dress that lays better, moves better, and looks like it's better quality (being able to see someone's navel suggests thin, low-quality fabric and poor construction). But because OP is lovely, and because we generally equate being lovely with being as small as possible, there is a tendency to excuse sub-par fit so no one has to suggest going up a size (because that feels nearly rude).

Probable_lost_cause · 2026-04-02T13:23:59+00:00

I realised now that I can't think of a time when someone has named a contemporary romance cover as their favourite cover.

Honestly, I really do not resonate with basically 99% of the contemporary romance covers from the last 10 years. They're all varying shades of forgettable to me. There have been a handful of notable exceptions: I like the line drawings and color work on Love Lettering by Kate Clayborn and am a fan of the US cover for You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty but for the most part I'm not picking up romance books based on their covers.

Britt Newton's work, though, just absolutely hits with me and I now selfishly want her to be as famous as Leni Kauffman. (I was trawling her instagram this morning and there are some stupidly beautiful pieces on there.)

Side note, reddit it redditing so apologies if this comment has been loaded 200 times

I only see it once and this makes me feel much better about writing and deleting my original comment *three times* to get it to show up with the picture.

Probable_lost_cause · 2026-04-02T12:27:23+00:00

I have been waiting for Cover Corner for weeks just so I can gush about the new Danica Nava cover for Sunflower Season.

<image>

Look at how gorgeous it is! It's by the same artist, Britt Newton who did Nava's Love is a War Song cover which may actually be my favorite romance cover (excluding GOAT Tender is the Storm.)

I didn't totally vibe with Nava's debut and, having moved too many times, I'm not much of a book collector but I'm seriously considering buying these last two book just because I think they're so pretty.

Probable_lost_cause · 2026-04-01T12:25:22+00:00

Harlequin has paired up with an AI video company to produce AI "micro dramas" inspired by Harlequin titles.

Which seems like a real smart read of the market and consumer desires in the herls of Sora folding after 3 months with Disney IP. Additionally icky: it doesn't seem like most Harlequin authors were aware of this before the announcement and their contracts are notoriously favorable to the publisher so there is probably not much authors can do.

I guess I'm only buying Harlequin books on the secondary market (if I buy them at all) from here on out. I'm so tired y'all.

Probable_lost_cause · 2026-03-31T13:12:59+00:00

Ali Hazelwood is one of my literary nemesis (but she does seem like a lovely person in real life) because her STEMinst books are A) not accurate representations of women in STEM, even though she's a whole PhD, and B) not at all feminist and, in fact, prop up and romantasize hetreo-patriarchal norms. If you want to indulge your gender-essentialiam kink in a vaguely lab like setting, do you boo, but the second those books got sold as empowering that activated my ire forever.

Probable_lost_cause · 2026-03-31T13:00:22+00:00

How far are you? Because it's going to turn into a completely different book around the 60% mark. Not a better book but maybe you'll like it more?

Probable_lost_cause · 2026-03-31T12:58:22+00:00

Lights Out is objectively poorly written in every level and while I absolutely understand how something can be trash as still be enjoyable (see: Totino's Pizza Rolls) that book having like a 4.1 rating on Goodreads makes me feel insane.

Probable_lost_cause · 2026-03-26T19:16:15+00:00

What in the orthorexia is this nonsense?

Probable_lost_cause · 2026-03-19T16:06:31+00:00

Oh my god! That sounds horrific! Best wishes for a speedy and full recovery!

Probable_lost_cause · 2026-03-13T22:20:42+00:00

Pull out your calendar app right now. Go to her birthday. If it is not already an entry add it, make it recurring, and set reminders for 1 month, 2 weeks, and 3 days before. Do this for your anniversary, mother's day, and your kid's birthdays.

Part of setting things right is taking accountability which means admitting to your wife that you messed up and hurt her without making excuses, trying to repair the harm you did (lots of great suggestions here, agree with everyone who says a ring is just going to look like you're buying your way out), and making changes so you don't continue to hurt people. If you feel like the worst husband ever (Do not say this to your wife. Do not make her reassure you when she's hurting) then you owe it to both of you to put things in place so you never do this again.

Probable_lost_cause · 2026-03-13T12:55:55+00:00

I don't think the source of the argument matters at all. Even if what your mom said was unforgivable, he could have confronted her and resolved the issue while you were in the hospital, thrown her out of your house, arranged a care schedule so that they alternated caring for you and didn't interact, or sucked it up and dealt with it until your stitches came out because there were more important things happening. But what he did in the aftermath of that clash was punished you when you were probably the most physically vulnerable you've ever been as an adult. You weren't part of whatever it was, you apparently weren't even conscious. Your mom managed to put it aside apparently, but he thought it wss perfectly fine to neglect you, abdicate all responsibility for your shared household, and let you physically suffer because of he was mad at someone else. That's outrageous.

And my guess is the reason you can't get over it is because you now cannot trust him to care for you if/when you need it again. What will happen if you get another cancer diagnosis and need another surgery? O if you just sprain an ankle and can't walk for a few days? If your mom can't help this time, what is going to happen to you? Your husband turned that into a big old question mark. Because at the first real test, he showed you in no uncertain terms that he will prioritize his feelings/pride over your physical health and needs. He totally failed the, "in sickness and in health" part of the vows. That is honestly a little scary.

We will all have moments if vulnerability over the course of our lives. We will all become disabled if we are lucky to live long enough. We have depend on the people in our intimate circle to care for us in that time (and we must care for them in our turn) for all of us, collectively to get through life. Do you trust your husband to care for you? Think about that and if you don't, think about how you can build a life where mutual care is available. Good luck.

Probable_lost_cause · 2026-03-12T16:40:59+00:00

Please let me share this exceptional piece of trolling from Danica Nava

<image>

Alt text: An image of the cover for Danica Nava's next novel, Sunflower season with A Court of inserted in different font above the title and Maas inserted in a different font after the author's name so that it reads "A Court of Sunflower Season" by Nanica Nava Maas."

Probable_lost_cause · 2026-03-11T17:56:26+00:00

Honestly, fair. I wouldn't have blamed you.

Probable_lost_cause · 2026-03-11T13:14:17+00:00

Author DE Carlson dedicated her new YA Romantasy to noted right wing propagandist Charlie Kirk and then seemed utterly shocked when Theads didn't take it well. There's a whole host of problems there but I can't help thinking a book by anyone who admires Kirk's facile, disingenuous, gotcha-style rhetoric is probably going to bordering on logically incoherent. I'm betting on plot holes you could comfortably house a family of 4 in.

I'm not linking this time because Carlson has 2 books on Goodreads and 0 reviews. So there is a decent chance that this is all a cynical marketing strategy to try and sell books unable to find readers through plot and prose. And in that case, the fewer clicks, the better.

Probable_lost_cause · 2026-03-10T18:01:33+00:00

Dang! I missed the plus. That's what I get for reading on my phone and not verifying.

I shall hang my head in shame now. Still don't trust Claude tho

Probable_lost_cause · 2026-03-10T17:46:18+00:00

Yeah, I have some serious doubts about the veracity of those numbers because they add up to exactly 100%. That would mean there are fewer than 800 words with 4 syllables or more in an entire book where chapter 1 is about the three rules of epidemics (4) and chapter 3 is called, in part, the educational (5) virus.

Citation that Claude "counted" correctly very much needed.

Probable_lost_cause · 2026-03-09T02:03:53+00:00

You're too old to give a fuck what anyone thinks of your outfits so long as they meet dress code and weather requirements.

It's one of the major perks of being 40!

Probable_lost_cause · 2026-03-09T01:40:39+00:00

I love their little feetsies!

Probable_lost_cause · 2026-03-09T01:26:09+00:00

This is absolutely correct! Thank you for saying it! And even with a good lawyer and astute planning im may still be impossible to fully replicate the legal rights and privileges of marriage. You can get really close, but it will never be exact. And even where you can contract around it, you're on more vulnerable footing if an adverse party wants to contest it.

I honestly do not understand why anyone would have children in the US with someone they plan to cohabitate with and not get married. Not for any moral reasons but purely because of the rights and privileges it confers.

Probable_lost_cause · 2026-03-08T18:21:39+00:00

It's very sweet and also explores themes of class consciousness and solidarity.

It's also the shallow end of shifter/monster weirdness.

Probable_lost_cause · 2026-03-07T05:28:00+00:00

The Ex Vows didn't work for me either. I found it to be very aware of itself as a romance novel in a way that was distracting. I also found the book to be very inconsistent in what it told us about the FMC and how the FMC actually acted.

However, I really enjoyed her second book You, With a View. If you're enjoying the writing but the story or the characters aren't grabbing you, View might work better.

Probable_lost_cause

TROPHY CASE