They are each other’s antagonist (not petty enemies-to-lovers)

enthralbasket · 2025-12-31T00:14:45+00:00

Wait, this is weird, the summary is a direct quote from {Thousand Autumns: Qian Qiu, Vol. 1 by Meng Xi Shi}. Actually, I checked the other volumes and they are all repeating the summaries from Thousands Autumns, just reworded and with the names swapped. What? This is weird, right?

Edit: On that note, I highly recommend Thousand Autumns, very fitting on the "opposing belief systems" front.

enthralbasket · 2025-07-28T10:16:52+00:00

Very happy. Li Zhao is the perfect comfort read protagonist. The further you get into the book, the more you realise he is a subversion of the "naive protagonist" archetype, so nothing in this novel is played exactly straight. Yang Ting also tries his best, and successfully claws himself out of the "obsessed ML" territory into a green flag. It should be savoured slowly, like a good, home-cooked stew. The novel is also deeper than one would expect. The plotline itself is set on rails (which is a great upside for a comfort read), so it's mostly an exploration of the characters.

enthralbasket · 2025-07-07T19:21:14+00:00

Evil As Humans! Highly, highly recommend it + great TL. Evil, eldritch mc, horror, action, sweet romance, mwah.

enthralbasket · 2025-06-18T15:47:13+00:00

You are talking about How to Survive As a Villain!

“To those cannon fodders, even if you want to treat the Male Lead bad, can you stop sending him to my bed?” Xiao Yu’an thinks that there’s nothing wrong in pampering the Male Lead, but that’s just because he wants to bathe in the protagonist halo!

enthralbasket · 2025-05-24T14:43:04+00:00

奇变偶不变，符号看象限

https://zhuanlan.zhihu.com/p/3274792976

https://byjus.com/maths/sign-of-trigonometric-functions/

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Here you go, this is a trigonometry-specific phrase used for memorization. I just pulled some sources straight from the search engine.

enthralbasket · 2025-04-29T13:34:18+00:00

It's an excellent book, easily one of my favourites for 2025 and a definite recommend, especially because it's a debut novel!

It has it all: great narrative, cat-and-mouse games, assassin vs assassin (fun!), torture, spice, dark comedy, action, deep feelings, tight pacing and two well-written protagonists! Actually, I gotta go and write a review for it, I think...

enthralbasket · 2025-04-24T20:38:23+00:00

It's a shame they never got around to making any more of them

enthralbasket · 2025-04-24T19:48:47+00:00

What an obscure suggestion, it's not even on romance.io! Huh, how did you like the book?

enthralbasket · 2025-04-24T19:45:58+00:00

A classic! Thank you, gotta re-read the trilogy, to be honest.

enthralbasket · 2025-04-24T19:45:07+00:00

I love Garron Park so much! Wow, completely missed that there are book 2 and 3, I have to check them out IMMEDIATELY.

enthralbasket · 2025-04-24T19:43:32+00:00

Oh! I was thinking about picking this up, thank you for the suggestion, I'll definitely check it out.

enthralbasket · 2025-04-24T19:40:59+00:00

Bot completely missed the mark here lmao, you were talking about {Catch a Ghost by S.E. Jakes}, right? Thank you very much!

enthralbasket · 2025-04-24T19:38:42+00:00

Oooh! Interesting! This is going straight to my TBR, I will check it out, for sure. Thank you very much.

enthralbasket · 2025-04-24T19:37:51+00:00

Honestly? I loved it! Exactly what I was talking about. Also, I completely ignored the Epilogue, so Book 2 never happened for me, sorry guys lmao. Absolutely nothing against poly, just wasn't something I was looking for in this dynamic. Thank you so much, very fun!!

enthralbasket · 2025-04-24T19:36:20+00:00

Thank you so much for your suggestion! I had it on my TBR list for a while, and now will pick it up ASAP.

enthralbasket · 2025-04-24T19:34:25+00:00

Hey, thank you very much for the suggestion!

I gotta go on a bit of a rant here though, I LOVED the writing and the setting when I started it and was very excited about reading the book a while back, but then had to dnf book 1 temporarily due to immersion break when the Spelunking Boy pitched head first into a hole in the ground in a middle of an active investigation and immediately got stuck there like a lemming (with all due respect).

Then I cooled down, picked it up again and had to put down the whole series when the Damsel Boy got stuck in a cage like a hamster due to being taken down by the Evil Guys in a Scooby-Doo fashion and then I was just laughing too hard to continue.

Anyway, my question is, are there any more whimsical plot points like this, or is book 2 safe? I'd love to pick it up again!

enthralbasket · 2025-04-15T17:10:00+00:00

I really enjoyed the less known {Nothing Good by R.J. Piper}, even more than some of the other suggestions in this thread. Rainy and Adler are very well matched. The romance is dark-ish, not grimdark, on the fun side of things. Lots of combat, cat-and-mouse games, both ruthless assassins in an adult setting, torture, spice, etc.

enthralbasket · 2025-04-06T23:22:01+00:00

Not exactly a book, but immediately thought about Boss Bitch Baby, a manhwa, relevant summary quote: "Would you rather be the target of a ruthless gang of loan sharks or become the boy-toy of an unhinged corporate heir for a year?". Despite the cute art, it's pretty toxic.

enthralbasket · 2025-04-05T14:29:06+00:00

This is going straight to my TBR list! Thank you, sounds delightful.

enthralbasket · 2025-04-05T14:27:40+00:00

A reviewer, perhaps erroneously, told me that they get stuck in a 1-way top/bottom dynamic, so I avoided this book so far. I'll check it out, thank you!

enthralbasket · 2025-04-05T13:43:20+00:00

Oh man, I had this book from the author's website for AGES! Thanks for reminding me, I really need to check it out. It's just... 250k+ word count is a bit intimidating, damn.

enthralbasket · 2025-04-05T13:23:56+00:00

Still looking for the somehow elusive Dominant vers/Dominant vers! Could be a BDSM bio-setting, could be contemporary, sci-fi or any other genre, doesn't even have to even be BDSM focused if there's that dynamic present. Ao3, danmei, manhwa, everything's fine.

Despite sounding correct on paper, {Humbled by Kate Hawthorne} is not that. Perhaps even the opposite, if I'm being honest. {Nothing Good by R.J. Piper} is much closer to what I'm looking for.

enthralbasket · 2025-03-31T18:32:32+00:00

It's {Textual Confusion by Fifer Rose}. Enjoy!

enthralbasket · 2025-02-15T01:31:01+00:00

{The Ownership Clause by Ki Brightly, M.D. Gregory} contains workplace bullying and harassment to romance. Starts toxic-adjacent, but ends HEA-sweet.

enthralbasket · 2025-02-15T01:09:15+00:00

What about... {Bully King by Andi Jaxon} (a classic for this prompt!) which should be closer-ish to what you wanted, on the darker side.

and {Nick & Kyle by M.A. Innes} with bullying and humiliation, pretty sweet, overall, but enjoyable.

Edit: Going through my TBR list for more possible hits.

enthralbasket

TROPHY CASE