The Last Love Stories I Read

Hello! I’m a little late, but I wrote this when it was Tuesday, so I’ll be posting my Top Ten Tuesday list. It’s in the middle of the Olympics, and I’m a big fan of that, so I’m kind of putting aside a lot of other things.

This Saturday is Valentine’s, and I got my husband a gift that I think he’ll really like. It’s also a love freebie over at Top Ten Tuesday, and to make it easy, I’ll just go over the last ten books with love stories in them. They don’t have to be romance novels, but they do have to have someone you would consider a love interest in them. So even though I just finished Demon of Unrest and there are married couples in there (and even a couple people that had romances) it’s not a book that you would think of having any sort of love story to it. So here we go:

1. Eclipse—Stephanie Meyer. I started rereading the Twilight series last summer when I went to the Twilight Forever museum in Forks. I’m currently on the third book (this has not been the only series I’ve been reading, and I mostly read this at work at lunch).

This is, as most people know, the story of Bella, a human, who falls in love with Edward, a vampire. When these books were coming out, some people seemed to be on Team Jacob and were rooting for the werewolves, but that might be a movie thing, because in rereading the books (and up until last year I had never seen the movies), it is fairly obvious that Bella is only in love with Edward, and likes Jacob as a friend. There’s a point where Edward leaves where she considers being Jacob’s girlfriend, but it’s only as a reluctant “oh, if I can’t be with the love of my life, I guess I’ll go for someone who’s just okay.”

2. Snowed in at the Cat Café—Rachel Rowlands. Jared just lost his beloved cat, and the last thing he wants is to be around reminders of his loss, but he needs the money, so he takes a job at Catpurrcino, a local cat café, as a driver. He tells his boss that he’s allergic to cats so he doesn’t have to be around the felines. Emmie recently got a job at the cat café in order to get away from her alcoholic brother.

They don’t really interact much until the storm of the century blows in and traps them inside the cat café—with Jared’s ex, who wants him back. This is a romance novel, so you know you’re going to have a happy ending.

Cake Off at the Cat Café, the next book in the series, is only $2.99 on Kindle, and since I had to request this book as an interlibrary loan, I just went ahead and bought it. I’ll probably read it after Eclipse.

3. The Swan’s Daughter—Roshani Chokshi. This book is very fairy tale-esque. We have Demelza, who is half magical swan, half human, and Arris, who is supposed to be the king someday, but is not likely to live past the wedding, because everyone that has his heart will be the queen, and this is often interpreted as a literal heart, so there’s some people that want to do away with him. Demelza initially just wants to help him and get away from her father, and never wants to fall in live, and Arris wants to live, but they eventually fall in love.

4. Opal—Jennifer L. Armentrout. This is the third novel in the Lux series. Katie is your typical book reviewer (I’m sure many of us can identify with that), but what’s not typical is that she moves next door to some aliens. In the first book, she starts to fall in love with one of the aliens, Daemon, and over the course of the first three books, we learn more and more about these aliens and their society. It had been a while since I read the first three books in this series, so it took me a while to catch up, but I have the next one on hold at the library.

5. Midnight in the Snow—Karen Swan. With the Winter Olympics going on, this is the perfect story to read about snowboarders. Kit was a champion surfer until he was blamed for an accident that caused a fellow surfer and former friend to suffer from a debilitating injury. Clover even made a movie about it, painting Kit as the villain. Kit moved to snowboarding to get a fresh start. When Kit’s sponsor contacts her in order to make a movie about him, not everybody thinks it’s a good idea. But Clover decides to go with it, thinking she’ll find more dirt on Kit. This is an enemies to lovers story, although there’s more snowboarding life and they don’t really start to fall for each other until close to the end.

6. Carve the Mark—Veronica Roth. I’ve read this book at least four times now. This is the story of Akos, a kid from one country, that gets kidnapped by another country, and we end up finding out that he has ancestry from the other country. His fate is to die for the family he was kidnapped by. He finds himself falling in love with Cyra, the girl who he’s assigned to help.

There is a plot twist that is revealed in the second book. There are some clues as to what the plot twist is in this first book. I suspected what it was shortly before it was revealed, and I remember thinking “Ha! I knew it!” when it was revealed. I will not reveal it here.

7. We Met Like This—Kasie West. This is the first adult love story I’ve read by Kasie West. This is the story about Margot, who wants to be a literary agent, but her boss is a jerk and doesn’t want to promote her (as a writer, it’s interesting to see life from the perspective of someone I’d want to impress so she could represent my stories). Oliver is someone she had one date with years ago, but it didn’t work out. She continues to match with him on dating apps; over the years, they sort of develop a friendship as a result, even though they’ve never met again.

Margot thinks she’s going to get promoted, and plans to celebrate with Oliver… but it doesn’t work out quite as expected. This is a romance novel, so of course it’s going to have a happily ever after (or at least for now).

8. A Christmas Truce—Emma Bennet. Libby is one of those ladies that drifts from job to job. All seemed okay with her life, until shortly before Christmas, she loses her latest job and her live in boyfriend in the span of one day. Fortunately, she has a friend in a temp agency that can hook her up with a new job as a live-in assistant to a billionaire (or at least a multimillionaire).

It doesn’t work out well at first, but she needs the job. Libby is a free spirit type, and her new boss, Seth, practically schedules his bathroom breaks. But as they work together, Seth learns to have a little fun, and Libby starts to like this guy. And because this is a romance novel, it will end happily.

9. Red Queen—Victoria Aveyard. Mare is an ordinary person living in a slum, trying to survive in a world where everybody that can’t find a job is conscripted to work in the military. Everybody with red blood, that is. There are people with silver blood that have magical powers. When her best friend’s boss dies and therefore, he loses his job and will soon be conscripted, Mare has to do something. That’s how she gets mixed up with the resistance group.

Soon, she finds out that she’s a new kind of person—a person with red blood that also has magical powers. She ends up getting caught up in the court. She seems to develop an interest in both of the princes. I won’t give away spoilers that aren’t resolved until mostly the end of the series, but this does have a main love interest, and it is a happily for now, at least. This is not a romance novel, so don’t expect a “we’ll certainly be together forever” at the end of this story.

10. I Am Not Jessica Chen—Ann Liang. Jenna, part of a family of overachievers, has been overshadowed by her more talented cousin, Jessica, for years. On the night that she finds out that she didn’t get into Harvard, Jenna makes a wish that she could be her cousin (who, of course, did get into Harvard). When she wakes up, she finds out that she’s living Jessica’s life. People think she’s Jessica! While she enjoys living that life at first, she’s worried about where the real Jessica went… and is worried about losing her true self. People are beginning to forget she ever existed.

The love story isn’t super prominent, but she does like Aaron, a boy who she thinks likes Jessica. Somehow, Jenna has to navigate that. You’ll have to read the book to find out how it works out.

So there are the ten latest books I read with love stories in them. I hope you all have a wonderful Valentine’s day, whether you have someone you love, or you just pick up chocolates at 50% off the next day.