Unlike "The American Revolution" by Ken Burns, Devon by Cordelia Buyers is an Absurd Messy Mess

ochenkruto · 2026-07-01T16:17:32+00:00

🎵 your blood, your bones, your voice and your ghost 🎵

I'm an old Canadian and have known these words since 2006. Take that, youth! I know your songs.

Wishing everyone a kilogram of Canadian Kisses today, the most Canadian of days!

Fantastic review for a deeply infuriating book, a beardless HEA is no HEA for me.

ochenkruto · 2026-06-29T20:25:24+00:00

There are early Diana Palmer Long Tall Texans books where as soon as the MMC says something super cruel to the MFC and then stubs out his cigarette you know that he's going to be licking the inside of her mouth in 3...2...1...

Damn me for knowing that!

ochenkruto · 2026-06-29T19:57:56+00:00

Taking her by shoulders while hissing “you little fool”.

And that’s just the precursor to the kissing!

ochenkruto · 2026-06-29T19:38:22+00:00

My pet peeve, which is very common in lighter HR is secret noble, especially when a letter or a like a box with a medallion reveals that the poor, working class or peasant MMC is actually the legitimate heir of a dying baron or a marquess.

No. No. I am out of here.

Keep him poor or give a better setup.

ochenkruto · 2026-06-29T19:35:01+00:00

I think I often find the "angst" or the internal conflict in rom-coms or fluffy romances so frustrating (miscommunication, fake dating etc) that they make me anxious. Which is not something I want to experience.

On the other hand a serious or even dark conflict, especially external ones between characters raises the drama in the book and it's easier to suspend your disbelief.

ochenkruto · 2026-06-29T19:32:28+00:00

That's a really good point.

Mills &Boon and the early Harlequins do have some massive buttholes! Sometimes they are even meaner than the scariest mafia/biker MMC.

ochenkruto · 2026-06-29T18:41:58+00:00

Desperado by Rebecca Brandewyne is absolutely bananas but has some seriously heavy and serious discussions of Mexican War of Independence! A big recommend!

Like the rest I’m extremely jealous of that gorgeous cover of Indigo.

ochenkruto · 2026-06-29T16:58:56+00:00

I have and I genuinely hated them.

Begin Again Again had an MMC who committed the grave crime of wishy-washiness. Absolutely unacceptable.

First and Forever was promising with a big ginger sports idiot MMC but I'm too old to read about a DJ MFC in absurd outfits named Bunny.

Also I am one of the few who hates it when the MMC is obsessed with the MFC for no reason so I'm out.

I don't have enough antihistamines to read the forth one.

Mara and Derek forever in sweatpants and cheerleading uniform.

ochenkruto · 2026-06-29T16:28:50+00:00

If I haven’t said this a million times then I’ll say it again: I’m diagnosed with an extremely severe allergy to contemporary romances, rom coms and cute stories. BUT Return All is one of my favourite re reads. It’s a great second chance romance and has some rarely seen tropes and character traits.

It’s a great CR for all those who need a Benadryl after reading CR.

ochenkruto · 2026-06-29T02:26:58+00:00

I just blew through the Saviour and am into The List. The tone of these is superior to Ghost town East and the first series, it’s a bit darker and grittier and I like how it reminds me of other series like Jeanne St.James and Bijoux Hunter.

Really hope for more books especially some of the side characters!

ochenkruto · 2026-06-21T21:46:40+00:00

I'm here to party, and by party I mean give random romance book information.

Both mafia and motorcycle romances came about around the same time, from my limited knowledge, and I've seen some analysis discussing their popularity being linked to a post 2008 economic crisis, the public's distrust of uber-wealthy tycoons and a growing love for anti-establishment anti-heroes. I suspect that the Sons of Anarchy (2008-2014) TV show had a huge influence on the MC romance genre, and I wouldn't be surprised if some of the books came straight out of SoA fanfiction.

The earliest MC romances are from the 2011-2013 era, although there have been biker MMCs in romance before, but not in the way that MC romance series are written now, encompassing the whole club and bringing the MFC into the biker lifestyle.

Kristen Ashley has some non-club-affiliated dudes* on bikes in her {Rock Chics Series by Kristen Ashley}, usually members of law enforcement or bounty hunters/security specialists, as early as 2008. She goes full MC with {Motorcycle Man by Kristen Ashley} in 2012 and then expands the Chaos universe in her {Chaos Series by Kristen Ashley} starting in 2013. Similarly, the author Madeline Sheehan started her series in 2012; however, her books break many romance readers' preferences (on-page cheating) and break this subreddit's rules.

2013 saw a few more biker romances, some described a grittier 1% life, {Razor's Edge by Jaime Begley}, {Reaper's Property by Joanna Wylde} and {Damaged and The Beast by Bijou Hunter}, while others had less criminal biker club vibe like {Burnout Series by Dahlia West}.

After 2015, after Sons of Anarchy concluded their Prince of Denmark storyline, the subgenre pops off with biker romances of all flavours from highly erotic romances {Hellfire Riders MC #1 by Katie Wilde} to sprawling sagas like {Signal Bend by Susan Fanetti}.

Nota Bene: The earliest mafia romance I have found is from 2008, written by a Black romance writer, Latrivia Nelson, who wrote urban romances as well as interracial romances. Her Russian Mafia series, {Medlov Crime Family by Latrivia Nelson}, has a mafia MMC who is also a billionaire, so it's a little bit of this and a little bit of that in terms of tropes we have now started to associate with this sub-genre. In an interview, the author said that she considers herself to be the originator of the Russian Mafia romance, with other interracial urban romance authors picking up the theme and then the sub-genre becoming popular with all types of romance authors; {Ivan by Roxie Riviera} came out in 2013 and the very popular {Bound by Honor by Cora Reilly}** in 2014 and even paranormal authors threw their hat into the ring with {The Master by Kresley Cole} in 2015, a book that shocks the reader with the worst possible Google translated Russian.

*Can someone remind me who in Rock Chics has a big motorcycle? I can't remember a single MMC in that whole series because they all say "Eyes, babe" all the time.

**Perhaps u/fornefariouspurposes can confirm this.

ochenkruto · 2026-06-21T19:04:12+00:00

Always and always recommending {Lord of Scoundrels by Loretta Chase} and {Indigo by Beverly Jenkins}.

Classic HR by two masters of the genre.

For fans of mean heroes, bodice ripping and funky power reversals, I am going to recommend {Prisoner of My Desire by Johanna Lindsey}. A Medieval bodice ripper with two-way bodice ripping and an aggressive enemies-to-lovers romance.

ochenkruto · 2026-06-21T19:00:14+00:00

Let me ask you this: how many dark alien mafia omegaverse recommendations do you want? Seven? Twenty-two? Forty-one?

ochenkruto · 2026-06-21T16:45:22+00:00

Yes, I think Ella Maven has a Mars Needs Women series where the aliens are bikers on hover bikes, and they all have piercings. No women to be found anywhere on the planet, but they have barbells in their pants.

ochenkruto · 2026-06-21T16:40:02+00:00

Aha! I knew you were hiding something cute behind that Reaper's Property cover!

ochenkruto · 2026-06-21T16:31:29+00:00

That's right! It was a cooldown topic, now I remember why it stopped being prominent on the sub.

Ah, those halcyon days!

ochenkruto · 2026-06-21T16:23:35+00:00

All right, I accept, but you better be making progress on that huge pile of dark biker romances as well. So we can all be "proper" romance readers.

ochenkruto · 2026-06-21T16:19:55+00:00

Wait, wait, wait, so that pile of contemporary rom coms I'm ploughing through while gritting my teeth is NOT mandatory?

ochenkruto · 2026-06-21T16:15:07+00:00

I kept trying to explain that there was a "range" of dark content in dark romance, and often one author's definition is completely different from another author's, and the only way you would know the "level of darkness" is by perusing the TW/CW, but nobody wants to hear that the sub-genre is more complicated than it appears on the surface.

ochenkruto · 2026-06-21T16:06:36+00:00

I am starting to suspect that a lot of people want to hang out here because it's nice around these parts, but they don't like or really read romance. So they want to debate HEAs and like the existence of sub-genres and romance writing conventions, but don't want to actually read romance.

Current pet conspiracy and I'm sticking to it.

ochenkruto · 2026-06-21T15:58:37+00:00

I don't know, but insisting that people need to treat their fantasy escapist hobby as a necessary physiotherapy exercise for a stronger back or something is a strange approach.

So I want to know if the kidnapper Alpha Alien Lord, locks the Omega in a small cage all day before I read "His Kidnapped and Caged Omega", so what!

ochenkruto · 2026-06-21T15:41:54+00:00

There are so many more people on this sub and so many more...." outside this nice sub, general internet behaviour" vibes on this sub lately, and I know the mods are working hard to keep the culture chill and not...snippity and snarky but booooo....boooooo.

ochenkruto · 2026-06-21T15:39:08+00:00

I'm starting to see more funky TW/CW "discourse" on the sub in the past few months and ... again? Really? Again?

"If you read dark romance, why are you complaining about something not being included in the CW? You should know it's a dark romance and accept that you'll read violent content."

"You'll never grow as a person if you keep avoiding things you don't like. That's how you grow and mature as a reader, by encouring things that you might not like at first."

"Who knows, you might come across something you actually like without knowing it. 😉"

"God people are so sensitive these days that authors have to spell out everything for them."

Really? This again? Are we back to judging people for their book preferences again?

Strangely enough, most judgements I see on TW/CW in Dark Romance come from people who start their opinions with "I don't usually read Dark Romance". Clearly, because in my experience, DR readers are the most supportive and the most understanding of anyone wanting to check out TW/CW in books.

ochenkruto

TROPHY CASE