Hey bookworm friends! I’m a day late but in honour of Valentine’s Day, this week’s TTTopic is a ‘Love Freebie’. It’s been a while since I’ve done one of my bookish playlists and a romance-themed one seemed perfect! I’ll share 10 romance books that I’ve loved, of varying spice degrees. And I’ll highlight 10 of my favourite love songs, some dreamy or sweet while others are more brooding or melancholic. Please enjoy what I’ll call my Sweet & Spicy Playlist!
Link-ups
Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by Jana at That Artsy Reader Girl. Don’t forget to check out her post and link up!
Sweet Romance 💕
What I’m categorizing as ‘sweet romance’ is focused more on emotions and nurturing relationships rather than on lust. Most of the books in this category are YA aside from Emma and that was kind of by accident! In terms of songs I think of sweet, they tend to feel more assuring and comforting. Of course, neither real life nor art fit into strict categories and love can be messy and complicated. But for fun, I thought I would organize them loosely based on how they make me feel.
📚 Heartstopper (series) – Alice Oseman
Not that anyone by now needs a summary of this iconic YA romance series but let me give one anyway! It’s about two teenage boys, Nick & Charlie, who meet at their all-boys grammar school in England. Heartstopper is their love journey and coming-of-age story.
🎵Every time I hear Damini by the Canadian alternative rock duo USS, I get really emotional. But ever since I found out it’s inspired by an elephant named Damini that starved herself out of grief, this song destroys me every time. No-one loves like an Elephant 🐘♥
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📚 The Prince and the Dressmaker – Jen Wang
This delightful YA graphic novel is about Prince Sebastian. By nights, he dresses up in the latest fashions made by his best friend and dressmaker, Frances. While he’s secretly taking Paris by storm as Lady Crystallia, his parents are trying to find him a suitable wife. I adored this heartwarming story about acceptance, young love, and identity and I was in full tears by the end.
🎵I love Song For You by the Swiss symphonic metal band Lunatica. This love ballad stands out to me because I especially appreciate that it emphasizes friendship within a romantic relationship. “I am grateful to have such a friend by my side”.
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📚 Gwen and Art Are Not in Love – Lex Croucher
This fun YA romance is what you would get if a queer Arthurian retelling and a Rom-Com had a baby. This modern medieval tale is set 100 years after King Arthur’s reign. His descendant, Arthur, and his betrothed the current princess of England, Gwendoline, hate each other. But when Gwen sees Arthur kissing a boy and Art discovers Gwen’s crushing on Bridget, a lady knight, they realize how much they have in common.
🎵The Lyrics for Bring Me the Night eloquently speak of the loneliness that lovers feel when they’re apart. Sam Tsui and Kina Grannis beautifully sing “Bring me the night
That brings me to you”.
In Gwen and Art, the night is when friends and couples can spend time together and covertly get to know each other.
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📚 Emma – Jane Austen
Emma was the first Jane Austen I ever read and I was surprised by how much I adored it! This classic is dramatic and hilarious; I have such a warm place for it in my heart! And when Mr. Knightley says “If I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more”? Cue, swooning!! 😘
🎵 Another song that gets me teary every time is Endlessly by Amaranthe. Even though I didn’t play it at mine, I think it would make a great wedding song. The music video for this song is a recap of one of the band member’s wedding day and it’s gorgeous.
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📚 The Darkness Outside Us – Eliot Schrefer
I was not expecting this YA Sci-fi to also be a romance I liked but here we are! It’s about two rival spacefarers who are forced to travel on the same spaceship, the Coordinated Endeavor. When they find evidence of intruders, the two boys must learn to trust each other to have any chance of survival. My Review.
🎵 Conveniently, I also have a song in the vein of Sci-fi romance, Here to Mars by Coheed and Cambria. Granted, the two boys from The Darkness Outside Us travel farther than from Earth to Mars. And yet the sentiment of “you’re my everything from here to Mars” still stands.
Spicy Romance 🌶
What I’m categorizing under spicy romance has explicit language and the plot of the romance is focused on physical intimacy. This category is entirely adult romance and Carissa Broadbent’s entry is the least spicy. The songs in this category are not racy but rather tinged with some of the darker side of love. Possessiveness, regret, melancholia, heartbreak, and more. These love songs are a little bit heavier in terms of themes.
📚 Morning Glory Milking Farm – C.M. Nascosta
This extremely high-heat novella stars a Minotaur and a human. Violet is down on her luck and stuck in a rut of fruitless job-hunting. When she finds a very unusual job posting for milking Minotaurs, she decides to try her hand at it. And yes it’s exactly what you think. For such a spicy book, it was also heartwarming; it deals with making a home in a new place and making friends.
🎵 The Only One by Bif Naked is a very sweet song but it’s also a bit sad. It’s about two people who have been through a lot making a home for each other.
“I carry you and your heavy chains
Throw away all your fear
Let me take your pain”
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📚 The Dragon’s Bride – Katee Robert
I’ve already mentioned this one quite a bit on the blog so apologies, but this is exactly what I look for in my monster romances! A little bit scary and a lot bit spicy. Briar Rose is trapped in a marriage to a dangerous man. Out of desperation, she makes a deal with a demon: freedom from her husband for 7 years of service. What she was not expecting: The service is to be a bride. To a dragon.
🎵 To me, I Love The Way You Say My Name by Scarlet Dorn, Feat. Chris Harms is the perfect blend of darkness and romance. It has the type of “touch her and die” vibes that many of us eat up in fantasy romance books. In real life though? That’s way too much, calm down. But this song is 🔥!
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📚 The Fool and the Sparrow – Dana Fox
The Fool and the Sparrow is a dual-POV Fantasy Romance based on Tarot cards. Kit the Fool is a member of the Major Arcana and lives in the Arcana Realm. When he spontaneously undertakes a journey to the Human realm, his fate collides with Thea’s. Unfortunately, she’s on the run from a shadow organization and a magnet for trouble.
🎵Until Eternity is the first Blackbriar song I ever heard and immediately became obsessed with it. It’s about a love that’s so strong that it transcends lifetimes. “We live on and on and on
Death is weak and we are strong“
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📚 Ice Planet Barbarians – Ruby Dixon
I first read this popular Alien-centric romance series because I kept seeing it popping up all over Instagram. Despite its overly intense start, it’s a fun, campy read and it had me laughing often. I enjoyed how much of the first book centered around language barriers and even though I’ve only read two books in the series I can see myself going back if I’m in the right mood.
🎵 The power metal ballad Blind and Frozen by Beast in Black has a bit of an 80s vibe to it. It’s probably the most dramatic selection on this list as the singer laments breaking a promise to his lover and asks for forgiveness. No matter how many times I listen to it, Yannis’ vocal range never fails to impress me!
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📚 The Serpent and the Wings of Night – Carissa Broadbent
The Serpent and the Wings of Night is more fantasy-heavy than the other books on this list. It’s about a young human girl who gets adopted by a vampire. As she grows up, she is tired of living like prey in a world of predators, so as the Kejari Tournament is announced, she doesn’t hesitate before signing up! Nyaxia, the Goddess of death, will grant the winner a wish and Oraya has nothing to lose and everything to gain. When she meets Raihn during the tournament, a tentative working relationship forms and slowly develops into something more.
🎵 I couldn’t make a Valentine’s Day playlist and not include the “Love Metal” icon! HIM has a ton of songs that I could imagine fitting well with The Serpent and the Wings of Night but come on, falling in love with a vampire during a tournament to the death? It has to be When Love and Death Embrace.
Did you like this post? Check out my other playlists here.
Let’s chat in the comments!
Have you read any of these? Or, what’s a romance book or love song you would add to this list?
How I love this creative post! I read Ice Planet Barbarians last year and I enjoyed the way the author wrote the language barrier too. Jane Austen is a favorite. Emma is great and so is Persuasion and my fav is P&P. I’d add Nicholas Sparks onto my romance list, I love his books especially Nights in Rodanthe. I got a picture with him at a book signing a few years ago and he was super nice. Happy Valentine’s Day! Love the playlist too.
Thanks so much 🖤! Yes, that was an unexpected part of IPB that I enjoyed and I’m glad you did too!
So far I’ve only read Emma and Persuasion but I definitely plan to read more because I loved both a lot! I can’t believe I still haven’t read P&P yet!
I’ve never read any Nicholas Sparks and that’s a book by him I’ve never heard of, so thanks for that :)! So lovely that you met him and he’s nice!! Happy Valentine’s to you too 🥰.
Wow! I love how you included both sweet and spicy and songs this post is so creative! A few are going on my TBR!
Thank you, Lottie 🥰! I’m glad you found some that piqued your interest 😊 !
I love your take on this weeks TTT topic and always enjoy checking out your bookish playlists. It’ll probably come as no surprise to you by now that I don’t know any of these songs. Although I also haven’t read any of the books 🙈
The inspiration for that first song is so heartbreaking. And I love a lot of the lyrics that you’ve highlighted, they’re certainly very powerful. I think Endlessly is the song I’m most drawn to overall. Definitely a powerful voice.
After seeing your review, and a few other people’s thoughts on it, I’m most curious about The Darkness Between Us from your sweet list. Although a couple of the others are on my TBR too. I’m not surprised that I haven’t gotten to Emma tbh as I’m terrible at getting to classics 🙈 I’m glad you enjoyed it so much.
Your spicy list has the book I’m most desperate to get to and I doubt it’ll surprise you to hear that it’s the Nyaxia one. I do really want to check out The Dragons Bride one day though (I need to try something by the author, after all given how much you’ve mentioned her 😂) and I’m going to have to add The Fool & The Sparrow to my TBR. Any mention of Tarot in fiction intrigues me.
I’m honestly not sure what I’d add 🤔 I have plenty of couples that I adore but they’re generally within fantasy centric plots. Ooh one that works for sweet though is the Emily Wilde series which I utterly adore. To be fair it does come with a side of the macabre but there’s something about the romance that just makes me melt.
Thanks Charlotte, well I really appreciate you checking out my playlists even if you don’t know any of the songs in them and I would definitely recommend all of these Romances (depending if they look good to you) 🙂
Right? When I found that out, I was so moved. The singer from USS is so good at putting so much emotion in his voice even though most of their songs are super upbeat and so fun to dance to.
Endlessly is one that makes me teary often when I listen to it too so I’m glad you liked it.
I highly recommend The Darkness Outside Us and I hope to read the sequel this year. & I understand not getting to classics, I don’t pick them up often either but I want to read more Austen this year!
Aha Yess I am not surprised you want to get to the Nyaxia one the most! Aw I’m glad you’re interested in The Fool and The Sparrow, the author is good at weaving in details about the Arcana so you can follow along, you don’t need to know anything about Tarot in advance which was good for me 🙂
Nothing wrong with a fantasy-centric plot! I’ve grown to appreciate romance but the fantasy-centric ones are still my fav! Aww, I hope to read Emily Wilde soon and I’m glad the couple in there seems to work for a lot of people!
Okay, this is seriously a fun way to tackle this! I have never heard these songs before (and only read a few of the books), but love the pairings 🙂
Thanks so much Rebecca, glad you enjoyed my pairings. Honestly these are some of my fav posts to make ♥ Which ones did you read?!
I really enjoyed The Prince and the Dressmaker! It was indeed a sweet book.
Yeah it was adorable all around 💗!
I feel like Emma, out of all of Austen’s protagonists, grows the most on paper. She’s such a flawed character, but I loved seeing her become better as the book goes on. I really enjoyed the latest adaptation of the books with Anya Taylor-Joy.
I haven’t read that many Austens to be able to compare but I agree that the growth is wonderful to see! I loved the newest Emma movie too, what a delightful adaptation and the cast was so good too!
Morning Glory Milking Farm was such an unexpected favourite!
Honestly, yeah! Like why was it so cozy and adorable? I fully wasn’t expecting that but I loved it!
Oooh nice list and way of doing the topic! I am terrible at picking songs for books. My brain just can’t function that way for some reason.
Thanks for visiting my TTT!
Thanks so much, Jessica 🙂 & haha that’s fair. I totally understand and my brain doesn’t automatically think of songs for books that way I just pick 10 songs that fit a theme and 10 books and then I try to see which pairings ‘go better’ together. Just because I find it fun. haha
My pleasure. thanks for visiting mine!
What a great TTT post! I loved Emma and will definitely give Endlessly by Amaranthe a listen!
Thank you 🥰! Emma is fantastic and I hope you like Endlessly. I feel like Emma & Mr. Knightley love each other endlessly haha 😛
Oh, what fun! I see a lot of books I love, even though I don’t know the music. 🙂 Super creative — great job!
Oh, wonderful I’m glad we love a lot of the same romance books! I really appreciate your kind words 🖤!
I didn’t realize that Emma was a romance, a great list for this week!
Oh yes, when I first read it I wasn’t expecting that either because I just heard it was funny but it’s a gorgeous romance too!
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I am a huge fan of the Heartstopper series and I don’t know why you feel the need to destroy me too with that story about Damini the grieving elephant. 😭
I love your topic and the music you shared! This is such a great idea!
I know Haze, that was super rude of me to share that sad story about the sweet elephant, sorry 💕 & Yay Heartstopper!!
Thank you so much, I’m glad you enjoyed my post 🥰🥰
The Prince and the Dressmaker sounds cute.
It’s adorable! 🙂
What a fabulous post. I am always SO impressed when others can make posts like this. I’m not sure why I struggle to make the music connection when I love both things- reading and music! lol Great job!!
Thanks so much, Leslie I’m glad you enjoyed it 🙂 & I love seeing posts that combine music and book as well as making them, I find it so satisfying 🖤
Oh, this is such a creative take on Love Freebie!
I haven’t read anything from this list but I’m glad to see Merthur coded books here: Heartstopper and Gwen & Art Are Not in Love..
Thanks so much, Shaine! I did a bunch of these for Halloween and miss doing them so I thought why not! I really enjoyed Gwen and Art and I love an Arthurian retelling! I don’t know how many other Merthur books I’ve read though. Any others you’d recommend for that?