 Hey fellow reading warriors and welcome to today's video or welcome if you're new here So this video is going to be a little bit Different than what normal recommendations around this time would be I'm sure you're well aware whether you want to be or not That Valentine's Day is coming up soon Excited to do a little bit of a different recommendations video I feel like a lot of people around this time are doing like Romance recommendations to get into the spirit But I feel like not everybody wants to fully get into the spirit depending on their own personal situation and choices So I'm recommending you some books that have Romance in them, but are not specifically contemporary romances or just like romance genre Most of these books pretty much all these books I believe will be Fantasy with subplots of romance or romance is a major part or I personally love the romance in them without them being that straight like You know cheesy romance that everyone is recommending or that You know Now is the time to read them, but if you don't want to read them Here's some other recommendations to get you through the season So the first book that I would like to recommend is the first in a duology That would be spin the dawn by Elizabeth limb. I Love the romance in this book. It is about a girl named Maya and She wants to be a tailor and so she goes and she enters in the competition to be the emperor's new tailor but while she is there she meets the like head magic person the Enchanter for the emperor and that spoiler alert is love interest low-key though Like the romance in this gave me shadow and bone Vibes like the whole idon who's which is the name of the enchanter who ends up being the love interest I am going to spoil all the love interest, which is not a super big spoiler, but like I'm gonna talk about the love interest in these books. So just keep that in mind He gives me such big Darkling vibes from shadow and bone like he's this dark mysterious I know everything and you're interesting because you're different from everyone else and you're like a big deal and so Like if you like things like that or kind of like a darker bad boy without him actually being like a bad boy I Would recommend this book for you Moving on this next book is a little bit more on the younger side I I'm not sure if it's why are actually middle grade because I think it's meant to be YA, but the character acts So much younger in my opinion Then she is that it kind of brings it down to being a middle grade without it trying to be a middle grade but that is Tiger's Curse and this is by Colleen Hoke and in this one you have a girl named Kelsey who is 17 and she Volunteers to work for this zoo where she meets a tiger and she you know, it's a tiger tigers are cool You so she forms a connection with this tiger and then she finds out that the tiger is actually a human Who has been cursed and so she is invited to go to India with the tiger whose name is Ren And she gets to see him when he's human and tiger and she's she's to help him Break his curse So the kind of the love interest is definitely between Kelsey and Ren and you get that kind of right off the bat But it is like a younger type of romance neither character really knows how to have a relationship and so It's a fun. I thoroughly enjoyed this. I liked the beginning in the middle the ending with a little myth But again, it's the start of a series So I'm interested in picking up the next book in the series to see if it redeems itself so This next one is one of my personal Favorites on this list. I read this so long ago and it's still just one of my favorites And that is wither, which is the first in the chemical garden trilogy and this is by Lauren de Sifano Oh, okay. So this is in my opinion. This is a better version of the selection I mean, it's very different from the selection, but in terms of romance, it's quite similar So in this dystopian-esque society Men only live to 25 and women only live to 20 and that's a genetic thing. That's something that society has screwed up in their genetics Great job guys And so what they've started doing is many rich people have started taking many different wives in order to Have more kids in order to solve this problem whether it's have more kids train them in science so they can figure out the problem or just have more kids to keep Society going because if they're dying in 20 25 years like That's not a lot of time and most people out that age still aren't very mature. So I mean like oh boy So our main character here Ryan is 16 years old and she gets kidnapped to be a bride for a guy named Lyndon She however is upset because she was taken away from her brother so her main focus is to Escape this man and find her brother But as she is trying to figure out how to escape she runs into a servant named Gabrielle and he is there to help her now It's not like the selection in that There's someone from her past who she was previously in a relationship And then she has to choose not like that because that's what I admire about it I hate like with the selection and the Hunger Games where both it's like there's Who she was with and who she is with now and I hate that competition in terms of a triangle, but like here it's she She's a wife But she kind of falls for the servant But at the same time she learns a little bit more about her husband and is kind of develops more of an empathy for him And it's the first in a trilogy and so it's it has a very strong theme of romance Obviously, but the whole point of it is she is trying to find her brother So I thought that was a little cooler a little more unique. So I highly recommend this if you have not read it already Next continuing on I have the Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern. Yes, this copy is very beat up very well loved so the Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern and this has a more of a slow burn romance because it is These two kids a boy and a girl who are told that they're in a competition magically with an opponent and Not only one of them can survive, but They don't know who they're fighting against But you know, it's a boy and a girl It's on this list. What do you think it's gonna happen? I also just want to add in a little side note here saying that so Pretty much all of these books are straight romances and that's not because I am against the LGBTQIA plus community in any way It's just that I haven't read very many LGBTQIA plus fantasy romance like I've read Contemporary romance of these books and I plan on reading more in the future, but I just haven't found very many like fantasy books where the main character is By or gay or pan or trans or just I haven't yet read any Fantasy versions like those and that's why there aren't very there aren't any on this list So if you guys know of any Please let me know in the comments below Please recommend them to me because I really do want to find them and read them. I just I feel like LGBTQIA plus romance is huge in romance, but not in fantasy yet and that's Annoying so if I am wrong and there are actually like a plethora of books like this, please let me know in the comments below Anyway back to regularly programs next I'm gonna talk about a book that I love and I've talked about quite a bit So I won't say too much about it and it's pretty big right now anyway and so that is Serpent and Dove by Shelby Mahirran and If you don't already know this book is interesting because she is a witch He is a witch hunter and unknowingly of well She knows that he's a witch hunter He doesn't know that she's a witch and they end up getting married at the very beginning of the book Now again, you can imagine why the book is on this list. It's it's such a fun book It's entertaining and obviously the element of romance is very different than what it is in many of these other books But it's still there just in a much more fun way more enjoyable way to experience in my opinion So if you seriously if you somehow have not heard of this book or you've heard of it and haven't picked it up I I encourage you to do so I just finished the sequel for it, which is Blood and Honey and I love that one as well And I'm really looking forward to the third one So seriously if you have not please pick up this book Alrighty and then I would like to talk about Wicked Fox by Kat Cho This is a Korean mythology book where our main character Myung is a Gumiho Which is the nine-tailed fox in Korean mythology Basically what she does well other than be awesome and be like a pretty nine-tailed fox She eats the souls of men to survive and now then Jihoon comes along and he knows what she is So does that mean she can not eat his soul and live happily ever after or is it a lot more complicated than that? I'm gonna tell you it's a lot more complicated than that and it was a really great read and So I recommended the second book Vicious Beers is also out just so you know, it's it's also a series You should read that one too. I don't have too much to say about it. I liked it And I still have much more to say about it So then the last book on this little list here is going to be How to Stop Time by Matt Hague This book is different than the others because it's not like it's not fantasy. It's kind of sci-fi, but it's not very sci-fi so it So the main character is a man they call himself Tom and he He like a certain few people in the world are actually immortal and just live Very or at least they live very slowly they age extremely slowly And so he belongs to a society called the Aqua Trash Society Which is made up of people like this and they have certain rules to live by so that you don't get Caught basically and one of the rules is that you cannot love you cannot have a relationship with anyone Well, this story is interesting because it goes in Back into the history of when Tom was younger and in modern day both follow romance plot lines Back in the day before he really came to the Aqua Trash Society before he kind of knew too much about what was going on He has a relationship and it's like way back I think it's in like the 1800s like it's old and then like his mom was burned for being a witch and Then a modern day he moves back to London and he finds this French teacher and she's cute and He starts to fall for her and he's like okay. Is it worth living forever without love? But then the Aqua Trash Society is like yes Yes, it is and he's like is it really and so it's kind of his turmoil of Falling in love again after living so many years without love and Seeing if it's really the best decision for him anyways Thank you guys so much for watching this video if you'd like to give it a thumbs up comment down below again If you know of any books that are fantasy but have LGBTQIA plus main character or if what you plan on reading this Valentine's Day whether or not it is Contemporary romance or just what your plans are this Valentine's Day if you're comfortable sharing otherwise hit the subscribe button I post every Thursday and so if you don't want to miss anything the best way to do that is hitting subscribe and hitting the bell So you can get all the notifications when I upload and until they see you guys in the next video I wish you all a happy reading