I watched this Tiktok video (link at the end of post) by an author named Nicole McKeon and it has made me realise that maybe it's not romance as a genre I don't like and choose not to read, but it's because there is no yearning in the way she has described it in Pride and Prejudice (there are spoilers if you're reading this).

For those that are more well versed in romance, historical romance, I would love some recommendations to add to my TBR because I have honestly brushed off any romance recommendations because I felt that I was just not a "romantic" person or I find "romantic grand gestures" and "enemies to lovers" tropes too cheesy to be enjoyable. Maybe I'm just not reading the kinds of romance that I like.

For example, I like Rin and Nezha's relationship across the Poppy War trilogy, and Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy in Pride and Prejudice, and Aragorn and Arwen in LOTR, and Elphaba and Fiyero in Wicked.

I'll link the video below, but know that you can click on the link and I've removed all tracking from the url, so you won't know my username and I won't know yours (X has watched your video). You can also find her directly her handle on Tiktok is: @nicolemckeon_author and as of today (9/12/25) it's the 1st video next to her pinned one.

Link:https://www.tiktok.com/@nicolemckeon_author/video/7581555898410159374

Edit: Thank you all for commenting and making recommendations! I will get around to responding to your engaging and well thought out comments soon. For those interested, I have created a public shelf for all the recommendations, so you can add them to you own collection.

loveislikebread's Romantic Endeavours bookshelf

How many books do you read at the same time? And how many is to much? 🤣 Most of the time I read up to four books at a time, switching between them, depending on my mood. I must say that I almost never read two books of the same genre at the same time. Otherwise I will mix up stories. 🥲

Do we think I can read 25 books before the end of the year? I need tips to get reading faster cause Jesus 😭😭😭😭

What was your TBR before and after Pagebound?

Mine was a humble 20, now it's 40+ and my interested in has over 90 books 😀

I honestly thought I'd go through my whole TBR by joining this but it seems to have the opposite effect 😂

one of the things i love most about this app is its being anti-AI. most of the users seem to be as well and considering how hard it is to find artistic communities free of AI now, it’s very refreshing. (side note: i am truly grateful to the founders for this delightfully cosy space they’ve made). so, i think (more accurately; hope) we can agree AI-written books are an offence to the writing and reading community and not real art. however…they still exist. despite my best efforts to avoid them i’ve come across a few now—such as the truthspoken heir—and i really would rather not. which brings me to why i’m writing this; i would like to avoid AI books as much as possible. so if you know of any, please give me the titles to i can know to run away if i come across them. (i also might make a list of them if people are interested.) and one more thing! this is something i would post in requests if i wasn’t broke and had pb royalty BUT what if there was a way to tag books as AI? like, if people could “report them” and staff could confirm and leave a mark on the book’s overview? alright! i’m done, sorry 😭 thanks for reading my rant, have a good day <3

How fast are you guys listening to audiobooks? It may just be the ADHD, but I almost always listen at 1.5x speed minimum if not 1.8x or 2x speed. And often if I think I don’t like a narrator, if I speed it up I do like them!

i love all the ways to sort books in my library on here. it’s a great way to specify what i’m going to read next. I was just wondering if there’s a way to sort the sections by author? I like doing it that way so series can be together. Anyone else?