**Recommendations Based on Books I Didn't Enjoy**

I've been thinking about my reading experiences lately and how some books just didn't click with me. While I couldn't finish "Spanish Love Deception" by Elsa Jay, I still think you should check out other books by the same author or in similar styles. If you liked "Spanish Love Deception", I really think any of Elena's stories would work for you.

I'm a big fan of romance novels and I always look for new authors to try out. One book that I thought was going to be a good fit for me based on the blurb was "Marriage for One" by LMAS. I'm glad I decided to give it a shot, despite not loving the first book in the Spanish Love series.

In "Marriage for One", the main character Rose is trying to open her own coffee shop, but she needs someone's help because of an inheritance clause that states she must get married to inherit the money. Her husband-to-be, Jack, is a gruff but kind-hearted attorney who agrees to marry her in order to help her achieve her dream. I found their relationship to be delightful and I loved how Jack went above and beyond to prove himself to Rose.

One of the things that I think makes "Marriage for One" stand out from other romance novels is its slow-burn romance. It's not a insta-love story, but rather a relationship that develops over time as the characters get to know each other. I also appreciated how Jack was always looking out for Rose, even when she had health issues. He was like a caretaker for her, and it felt really sweet.

Another thing that I think sets "Marriage for One" apart from other romance novels is its writing style. It's not too sappy or over-the-top, but rather a nice balance of wit and emotion. The author has a way of making you feel like you're right there with the characters, experiencing their joys and heartbreaks.

If you're looking for a steamy audiobook romance to listen to, I highly recommend "Marriage for One". The narrator is great and really brings the story to life. Plus, it's a relatively short book compared to some of the other romance novels out there.

Overall, I think "Marriage for One" is a great choice for anyone who loves romance novels. It's a sweet, slow-burn love story that will keep you turning the pages until the very end. So if you haven't already, I highly recommend giving it a try!

**The Books I Recommend (Even If I Didn't Enjoy Them)**

I've been thinking about some books that are really hyped up on the internet, but didn't quite live up to my expectations. One book that comes to mind is "Marriage for One" by LMAS. Another one is "Spanish Love Deception" by Elsa Jay, which I mentioned earlier.

If you're looking for more books like these, I think you should check out some of Elena's other stories. She has a similar writing style and romance vibe that makes her books really appealing.

Let me know in the comments down below if you have any other recommendations based on books that didn't quite work out for you!

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhello welcome back to my channel in today's video i am going to be recommending six romance books that did it better than other similar romance books i asked you all a couple of weeks ago if you wanted to see me do this video because i feel like i've been reading a lot of books lately that all kind of feel the same with differing levels of success there are a lot of romances that i have just not been enjoying lately and when i finish them i'm like you know what this reminds me a lot of another book that i think had similar tropes similar ideas similar heroin hero dynamics but just did it a little bit better so in this video i'm going to be giving you six technically seven i just like the number six better six recommendations for books that are better or similar to books that you maybe either loved or didn't love so much without further ado let's get into it first up the book that inspired this video was book lovers by emily henry right before i read book lovers i finished the roughest draft which was written by a husband-wife author duo and the book had such a similar idea such a similar premise i think did these sort of like enemies to lovers angst-filled tension thing better so let me kind of break down what book lovers is about if you haven't heard of it before and then i'll let you know what the reference draft's about and maybe why you might want to pick that one up instead so book lovers is a story about naomi and charlie i want to say it's been a second since i read the book and i always forget hero and heroine names but they are kind of rivals in a sense one is an editor and one is a literary agent literary agent naomi pitches a story to charlie he's not interested in it sort of a dick about the fact that he doesn't like this book in the beginning and since this is naomi's first interaction with charlie she's sort of like not super into him and doesn't think he's like a super great guy unfortunately they are tasked with working together whenever they run into each other one summer he is going to edit a book that naomi is representing and naomi's actually going to help him do it now my issue with this book and maybe it's because i read the roughest draft right before it was that i didn't really love that we didn't get a lot of charlie and naomi working together this story heavily focused on the relationship between naomi and her little sister end up traveling to this small town that charlie's actually from that's where they meet and end up doing the editing together but the story itself really focused on that familial relationship and it felt a little bit more like typical literary fiction or chiclet as opposed to romance which i didn't love i also just didn't feel like charlie was the swooniest hero ever and overall i just feel like the story didn't totally go there in what it promised i thought this was going to be angsty and tension-filled and give me a little bit more of a beach read by emily henry vibe but unfortunately it just wasn't for me i ended up giving that book two stars the book that i think did it much much better is the roughest draft which again is written by a husband-wife author duo which i think makes the story all the more delicious the book itself is about katrina and nathan and there are pretty much i don't want to say no side characters there are very few side characters in the story the story itself is about these two authors who have to work together come together after a bit of a falling out and write a book together so the entire story is them writing this book about a divorce having to write steamy scenes together having to work in close quarters when they've had this falling out that we don't know much about at the start of the story and honestly it kind of combined what i loved about people who meet on vacation with the things that i wanted to love about book lovers you've got close quarters you've got this kind of falling out between two people that we don't know much about and the secrets are unveiled as the story continues on i loved the way this book was written i felt like it had a much more literary feel so when i think emily henry was going for and yet didn't really accomplish like the writing that emily henry does it definitely feels literary but it doesn't actually go into the romance territory whereas i feel like the roughest draft felt very literary it also was a little bit angsty and swoony and there were some hot ass sex scenes in my humble opinion now i will say this is not like the smuttiest romance ever if you're looking for something that is like super down and dirty i don't think you're gonna get it but i also think if you picked up book lovers by emily henry you're not necessarily looking for something where people are going to pound town and honestly i think this book will satisfy people who aren't looking for the sexy get down times but are also secretly hoping that there might be some this is one of the most delicious angsty books i've read in a while i don't think everyone will agree i think this book tends to be a little bit divisive what i've seen in the goodreads reviews for it and i think if you liked book lovers or if you wanted to like book lovers but or maybe a little bit disappointed and let down by the promise of an enemy still lovers book i think you're really going to enjoy this okay next up is a book that i sincerely didn't like and i've talked about it length so i'm not going to get too into the weeds on what i hated about this book but things we never got over by lucy score was just a story that didn't work for me it had a grumpy hero it had a sunshiny heroine she is in charge of taking care of her niece in this small town that she didn't think that she was going to wind up in her life is kind of on the rock she's trying to figure herself out so it's kind of a story of self-discovery it's also getting this grumpy older man to kind of care for her and also for the heroine to be there for the niece it attempts to do a lot of different things i don't think it did any one thing particularly well but i felt like the grumpy sunshine was a little bit over the top for me i wanted something the hero was grumpy but maybe wasn't such a dick so this book i'm actually going to recommend you four different stories that i think did different elements of this book better some are more of a one-to-one match for things we never got over some just have elements of that like small town garby sunshine thing without some of the other components and i'll explain with each of these four recommendations kind of what elements are going to be present in these books so if you liked one particular thing about things we never got over more than the others maybe one of these books will appeal to you more first up i think is the book that is more of a one-to-one match with things we never got over and that is all roads lead here by mariana zapata this book is exactly what i feel like things we never got over was going for got aurora and rhodes aurora is kind of trying to figure out her life when she shows up in a small town unlike our heroine she is not in charge of any young people she's just trying to figure out her own life her mom has passed away and she's trying to do the different hikes that her mom did before her mom passed away so she's in the small town she's trying to figure herself out and in the meantime she meets at this grumpy older man rhodes says i want to say like a park ranger or something so he has a lot of knowledge that our heroine doesn't and she learns a lot from him throughout the course of the story there is also a child element in the fact that rhodes has a son that's living with him he's not a young child that necessarily like brings the couple together though he does play a part in the story which i found pretty charming the only real difference i would say between this story and things we never got over is the fact that there aren't so so many characters in all roads lead here and we also have slow burn that i personally found quite charming i think one of the big things i didn't like about things we never got over is that our hero and heroine fell into bed pretty quickly together they have this sort of like insta-last attraction have sex and then our hero was like yeah but i can't actually be with you and to me that's not really a turn-on i don't know i'm sure it happens real life quite often but i don't want to read that in an escapist kind of romantic setting and i like all roads lead here because by the time that our hero and heroine are in bed together our hero is very open to the idea of committing to our heroine so i personally really like all roads lead here it's also not that different in length from things we never got over so i feel like if you're looking for a book that did it better and you want something that feels a little bit more summery has more of looking nature vibe to it i think all rinsing here is something that you'd be really satisfied with if you didn't totally love things we never got over or you're looking for something very very similar another book recommendation based off of things we never got over wow that's a long title to say over and over again the drive me wild by melanie harlow i have really enjoyed melanie harlow's books in the past there's something about her stories that just really work for me admittedly i did not actually finish this one but i am recommending it because i think y'all will really enjoy it and the reason i didn't finish it is because honestly in some ways it leaned a little bit too much into the grumpy sunshine thing and the commitment phobe guy thing so if that's something that doesn't bother you but you do want a kind of swoony small town romance i really highly recommend this one melanie harlow writes sex scenes like no other i think the real big similarities here are ones that i kind of just pointed out we have blaire and griffin blair is coming to the small town in sort of similar circumstances i would say to the heroine and things we never got over blair is escaping her old life she's trying to start a new but she doesn't really know what she's after she doesn't have like a clear-cut goal and finish line she ends up breaking down in the small town that griffin lives in and griffin is a mechanic so he decides that he's going to help blair and fix her car free of cost if she helps him clean up and kind of fix up his shop he's not getting as much business as he used to i think the commercial sort of garage that's close by is getting more business than him and so he's trying to bring in business and blair helps him do this blair is so sunshiny without in my opinion being too naive and too dormat-like we have griffin who is a bit of a commitmentphobe it did personally annoy me and it was part of the reason that i dnf'd this book but i do think ultimately that melanie harlow probably pulls it off i feel weird again recommending this book since i didn't finish it but i did really enjoy what i did read of it and i am planning on finishing it at some point so i felt like it was worth throwing in here i also feel like this story has a slightly more charming dialogue i do remember some of the like pillow talk i guess you could say between griffin and blair being really charming i felt like it was a much more realistic small town betrayal and i don't know i just there's something about melanie harlow's writing that really works for me she has nailed the small town thing so if you're looking in general for an author who writes small-town stories maybe you don't even like the grumpy sunshine trope you'll find other fantastic stories there's a melanie harlow book that has like a single dad that was surprisingly hot i'll flash a picture of it right here too if that's something that interests you totally different plot line but similar delightful vibes melanie harlow and draft me wild should definitely be under radar and also maybe this book too now we're moving into two recommendations that i think don't share as much in common with things we never got over as maybe the first two do but they are books that i think you should consider picking up if you really like grumpy sunshine or small town romances first up is maybe the one that i think is the most different debatable we have part of your world which is a story that i read recently and gave five stars to which kind of never do when it comes to romance or at least that's been the case this year this story is about alexis and daniel alexis is an emergency medicine doctor she's getting out of a really terrible long-term relationship where she was constantly gaslit and she is trying to kind of figure out what she wants from her life she loves her job she really likes being a doctor but she's not sure that kind of going the next step and becoming like chief of emergency medicine is really what she wants out of life and she is kind of guided through some of her struggles with daniel and daniel is not a grumpy hero which is why i think this book is maybe a lot less similar than some of the other books too things we never got over he is if anything a golden retriever he is a woodworker he owns a bed and breakfast that he is renting out and he's just trying to kind of figure out his life as well but he knows one thing for certain and that is that he adores alexis i think if you're looking for similarities between this book and things we never got over i feel like the small town vibes are definitely there and also the everyone who is trying to figure out her life i think that is a big component of things we never got over i didn't fully get explored in the way that i wanted it to be and i feel like part of your world really does that in such a delightful way getting to see our heroine overcome a lot of the struggles that she's going through it's just one of my favorite things and i think there are enough similarities between this book and that one in terms of the overall vibe and tone that i think the things we never got over was trying to evoke that i think you would enjoy this book if you picked it up and then lastly it feels weird recommending this book because i just finished it and didn't totally love it but i know a lot of y'all did and i know that this is probably a pretty safe recommendation for a lot of people you liked things we never got over might i recommend my killer vacation by tessa bailey now thematically this one is quite different than things we never got over there is a murder mystery plot it's set at the beach rather than in kind of a sleepy small town although it does it is like a sleepy small town in cape cod i guess you could say we have our heroine taylor who is a teacher she is not trying to find herself which makes it a little bit different than things we never got over but we do have the grumpy older hero with commitment issues in miles the cool thing about miles though is that while i do think he was a little bit over the top in the kind of like enemies to lovers grumpy sort of situation at the start of the story he quickly kind of like amends his ways and tries to convince taylor that he is a safe bet and that he is someone that she should be with that's something that i personally really liked i didn't feel like knox grovelled enough and i feel like if you're looking for a good grovel you're looking for a hero who's been kind of rude definitely amends his ways and you like kind of an alpha hero i think you'll really enjoy this book this one again i think is like a little bit more of a like a mature take on some of the jealousy elements that i noticed as well and things we never got over so i think honestly if you liked things we never got over i think you'll love my killer vacation even if you didn't like that book i think you might still enjoy my killer vacation okay so next up are two books that i'm surprised that i've never compared before in video format i feel like it's a fairly safe and or easy comparison that i know a lot of people have made before but i wanted to make it as well because i actually prefer one over the other and i don't think often that these are compared in these in this way i haven't read these books in a second so pardon me if my descriptions are a little bit lackluster the book that we're using for comparison here is credence by penelope douglas now i think you're probably going to guess what book i'm going to recommend based off of this and in fact you might think the opposite that the book that i'm going to recommend and didn't do it better but i disagree i just disagree so credence by penelope douglas is a story about our main character tiernan she is another character who is a little bit lost after her parents pass away and she wasn't very close with either of her parents but she had a lot of i guess you could say like trauma based off of her upbringing like i don't think her parents were horrible to her but she doesn't know what the she wants out of life she is directionless she's a little bit but she gets taken in by her dad's step-brother jake and his two sons yes there is some sharing involved tiernan does at one point get with all of the men not all at once uh but throughout various points of the story she's with different men and she does end up with just one it is not a true polyamorous story but it is kind of about finding yourself in the wilderness i guess being shared by a couple of different men the thing that i liked about credence was again tyrann inviting herself i didn't totally love however the romantic entanglement she gets herself in in this story and i think that's what kept this from being like a five-star or really highly rated story for me i think when i initially read it i gave it like four stars in hindsight i feel like i probably should have given it like three it wasn't my perfect romance it was definitely steamy it definitely went there and i think that i never read a story like this before and had nothing to compare it to now that i've read flock by k stewart i could very much say that credence is um not as good i didn't enjoy it as much i guess you could say and i think it depends what you're looking for in a story what i enjoyed more about flock is that it is about our main character cecilia she's going to live with a father that she doesn't really know very well it's kind of giving like bella and twilight vibes she's going to this small town of triple falls to live kind of figure her out i think maybe she's also going to like a local community college or something like that that's paying for her schooling or something and cecilia ends up falling for a couple of the different guys that she meets in town all of them are friends for the most part uh and she does eventually end up with what just one guy this turns into i think a trilogy i haven't read all three of the books just the first two this story i just found more compelling i felt like the plot line was more interesting and i felt like the romantic entanglements that cecilia gets herself into are just healthier in a lot of ways i didn't totally love who our heroine ended up with in credence there's just something about the kind of like neanderthal vibe that he was giving off that i just didn't totally love and with flock i didn't feel that way i also liked the kind of like powerful brooding man that she ends up with i like the heartbreak and the angst that kate stewart involves in her stories i'm not saying that penelope douglas doesn't have any sort of like angst intention but there's just different vibes slightly different vibes similar vibes but like slightly different you're both in small towns you're both getting with a lot of guys but for some reason vlogs just don't say better for me and it's something that's not entirely tangible but i do think if you're looking for very similar stories and you just you know need something sexy i highly recommend flock although credence is not like a terrible book i do in fact recommend flock over credence and then the last book i think that did it better is marriage for one by lmas i think this book did it better than the spanish love deception by elena armas now i feel bad in some ways comparing these books because i know the authors are friends and it doesn't surprise me i guess that their writing is quite similar which is why i'm recommending these two books there are similarities besides the writing style but i think the biggest thing for me is the writing style if you liked the spanish love deception you're looking for more books like that i really think any of elemeza stories would work for you but specifically i think you're really going to enjoy marriage for one now the spanish love section if you were unfamiliar with it is a story about our main character catalina or lena she is i want to say like an engineer or something and she is asked by a co-worker if she wants a fake date to a wedding that she's going to i think her sister's getting married she needs a date she's too scared to ask someone and her rival at work decides that he is going to offer to be a fake relationship with her for a little while get her family off of her back and so she doesn't look uncool at her sister's wedding i liked the idea of the story with execution just didn't really work for me i didn't like the workplace harassment sort of storyline i didn't like that our hero aaron didn't really do anything to help lena when it came to the workplace harassment sort of thing i also didn't like that it felt like too little too late whenever he does finally apologize for the way that he treated her it just it wasn't my favorite story i also felt like it was a little bit too long granted i have not read the revised uh traditionally published version but from what i did read it just felt a little bit too long and it felt a little bit overwhelming marriage for one by elements is not any shorter of a story so if you like kind of a long drawn out slobber and story i think you're going to enjoy marriage for one if you didn't like erin blackford as a character and you were just looking for a different kind of hero i think you're really gonna like jack in marriage for one marriage for one is about jack and rose rose at the start of the story is trying to open her own coffee shop i want to say her own business she can't do this unless she marry someone there's something in her inheritance or something like that that states that she needs to get married if she wants the money that she needs to open her coffee shop and jack who i think is the attorney who is reading this will hears this and decides that he's gonna offer to rose to marry her and even though he's a little bit grumpy and a little bit gruff he decides you know to marry her to offer her this marriage and i found their relationship so delightful i felt like jack went above and beyond to kind of prove to rose that he was a good guy he helps her kind of get the coffee shop ready i think he helps her paint space even though he is this like high-powered attorney and doesn't really do a lot of manual labor i also liked the way he cares for her i think rose actually has um a health condition and jack's very understanding and is kind of like a caretaker for rose at certain points throughout the story he just felt like this story felt so similar to the spanish love deception did it a little bit better i also feel like the audiobook listening experience was superior so if you're looking for a steamy swoony audiobook romance to listen to i would recommend this one i feel like i specifically remember too they're being like a good male narrator for this book but overall whether you liked or didn't like the spanish love deception i still think you need to pick up marriage for one by lmas i think this book is one that's a little bit under hyped i feel like i hear about it every once in a while it'll come up for certain recommendation videos but it's not hyped in the way that i feel like it should be so i highly recommend you pick this book up and honestly pick up other books by lma's because they are equally as entertaining and have similar writing style similar vibes so that is it for me those are the six ish seven technically recommendations that i have for you based on books that i didn't personally like i hope that if you decided to pick some of these books up that you also find that they did them better in the comments down below let me know if you have any books that you see being really really hyped up on the internet that you didn't love that you have better recommendations based off of for me also let me know if you want to see a part two of this i've already started kind of crafting what books i think belong in that video i have one that i definitely feel like you'll want to hear about so let me know in the comments down below if that's something you want to see uh but thanks so much for watching this video i love y'all so much hopefully this was helpful in some way and until next timehello welcome back to my channel in today's video i am going to be recommending six romance books that did it better than other similar romance books i asked you all a couple of weeks ago if you wanted to see me do this video because i feel like i've been reading a lot of books lately that all kind of feel the same with differing levels of success there are a lot of romances that i have just not been enjoying lately and when i finish them i'm like you know what this reminds me a lot of another book that i think had similar tropes similar ideas similar heroin hero dynamics but just did it a little bit better so in this video i'm going to be giving you six technically seven i just like the number six better six recommendations for books that are better or similar to books that you maybe either loved or didn't love so much without further ado let's get into it first up the book that inspired this video was book lovers by emily henry right before i read book lovers i finished the roughest draft which was written by a husband-wife author duo and the book had such a similar idea such a similar premise i think did these sort of like enemies to lovers angst-filled tension thing better so let me kind of break down what book lovers is about if you haven't heard of it before and then i'll let you know what the reference draft's about and maybe why you might want to pick that one up instead so book lovers is a story about naomi and charlie i want to say it's been a second since i read the book and i always forget hero and heroine names but they are kind of rivals in a sense one is an editor and one is a literary agent literary agent naomi pitches a story to charlie he's not interested in it sort of a dick about the fact that he doesn't like this book in the beginning and since this is naomi's first interaction with charlie she's sort of like not super into him and doesn't think he's like a super great guy unfortunately they are tasked with working together whenever they run into each other one summer he is going to edit a book that naomi is representing and naomi's actually going to help him do it now my issue with this book and maybe it's because i read the roughest draft right before it was that i didn't really love that we didn't get a lot of charlie and naomi working together this story heavily focused on the relationship between naomi and her little sister end up traveling to this small town that charlie's actually from that's where they meet and end up doing the editing together but the story itself really focused on that familial relationship and it felt a little bit more like typical literary fiction or chiclet as opposed to romance which i didn't love i also just didn't feel like charlie was the swooniest hero ever and overall i just feel like the story didn't totally go there in what it promised i thought this was going to be angsty and tension-filled and give me a little bit more of a beach read by emily henry vibe but unfortunately it just wasn't for me i ended up giving that book two stars the book that i think did it much much better is the roughest draft which again is written by a husband-wife author duo which i think makes the story all the more delicious the book itself is about katrina and nathan and there are pretty much i don't want to say no side characters there are very few side characters in the story the story itself is about these two authors who have to work together come together after a bit of a falling out and write a book together so the entire story is them writing this book about a divorce having to write steamy scenes together having to work in close quarters when they've had this falling out that we don't know much about at the start of the story and honestly it kind of combined what i loved about people who meet on vacation with the things that i wanted to love about book lovers you've got close quarters you've got this kind of falling out between two people that we don't know much about and the secrets are unveiled as the story continues on i loved the way this book was written i felt like it had a much more literary feel so when i think emily henry was going for and yet didn't really accomplish like the writing that emily henry does it definitely feels literary but it doesn't actually go into the romance territory whereas i feel like the roughest draft felt very literary it also was a little bit angsty and swoony and there were some hot ass sex scenes in my humble opinion now i will say this is not like the smuttiest romance ever if you're looking for something that is like super down and dirty i don't think you're gonna get it but i also think if you picked up book lovers by emily henry you're not necessarily looking for something where people are going to pound town and honestly i think this book will satisfy people who aren't looking for the sexy get down times but are also secretly hoping that there might be some this is one of the most delicious angsty books i've read in a while i don't think everyone will agree i think this book tends to be a little bit divisive what i've seen in the goodreads reviews for it and i think if you liked book lovers or if you wanted to like book lovers but or maybe a little bit disappointed and let down by the promise of an enemy still lovers book i think you're really going to enjoy this okay next up is a book that i sincerely didn't like and i've talked about it length so i'm not going to get too into the weeds on what i hated about this book but things we never got over by lucy score was just a story that didn't work for me it had a grumpy hero it had a sunshiny heroine she is in charge of taking care of her niece in this small town that she didn't think that she was going to wind up in her life is kind of on the rock she's trying to figure herself out so it's kind of a story of self-discovery it's also getting this grumpy older man to kind of care for her and also for the heroine to be there for the niece it attempts to do a lot of different things i don't think it did any one thing particularly well but i felt like the grumpy sunshine was a little bit over the top for me i wanted something the hero was grumpy but maybe wasn't such a dick so this book i'm actually going to recommend you four different stories that i think did different elements of this book better some are more of a one-to-one match for things we never got over some just have elements of that like small town garby sunshine thing without some of the other components and i'll explain with each of these four recommendations kind of what elements are going to be present in these books so if you liked one particular thing about things we never got over more than the others maybe one of these books will appeal to you more first up i think is the book that is more of a one-to-one match with things we never got over and that is all roads lead here by mariana zapata this book is exactly what i feel like things we never got over was going for got aurora and rhodes aurora is kind of trying to figure out her life when she shows up in a small town unlike our heroine she is not in charge of any young people she's just trying to figure out her own life her mom has passed away and she's trying to do the different hikes that her mom did before her mom passed away so she's in the small town she's trying to figure herself out and in the meantime she meets at this grumpy older man rhodes says i want to say like a park ranger or something so he has a lot of knowledge that our heroine doesn't and she learns a lot from him throughout the course of the story there is also a child element in the fact that rhodes has a son that's living with him he's not a young child that necessarily like brings the couple together though he does play a part in the story which i found pretty charming the only real difference i would say between this story and things we never got over is the fact that there aren't so so many characters in all roads lead here and we also have slow burn that i personally found quite charming i think one of the big things i didn't like about things we never got over is that our hero and heroine fell into bed pretty quickly together they have this sort of like insta-last attraction have sex and then our hero was like yeah but i can't actually be with you and to me that's not really a turn-on i don't know i'm sure it happens real life quite often but i don't want to read that in an escapist kind of romantic setting and i like all roads lead here because by the time that our hero and heroine are in bed together our hero is very open to the idea of committing to our heroine so i personally really like all roads lead here it's also not that different in length from things we never got over so i feel like if you're looking for a book that did it better and you want something that feels a little bit more summery has more of looking nature vibe to it i think all rinsing here is something that you'd be really satisfied with if you didn't totally love things we never got over or you're looking for something very very similar another book recommendation based off of things we never got over wow that's a long title to say over and over again the drive me wild by melanie harlow i have really enjoyed melanie harlow's books in the past there's something about her stories that just really work for me admittedly i did not actually finish this one but i am recommending it because i think y'all will really enjoy it and the reason i didn't finish it is because honestly in some ways it leaned a little bit too much into the grumpy sunshine thing and the commitment phobe guy thing so if that's something that doesn't bother you but you do want a kind of swoony small town romance i really highly recommend this one melanie harlow writes sex scenes like no other i think the real big similarities here are ones that i kind of just pointed out we have blaire and griffin blair is coming to the small town in sort of similar circumstances i would say to the heroine and things we never got over blair is escaping her old life she's trying to start a new but she doesn't really know what she's after she doesn't have like a clear-cut goal and finish line she ends up breaking down in the small town that griffin lives in and griffin is a mechanic so he decides that he's going to help blair and fix her car free of cost if she helps him clean up and kind of fix up his shop he's not getting as much business as he used to i think the commercial sort of garage that's close by is getting more business than him and so he's trying to bring in business and blair helps him do this blair is so sunshiny without in my opinion being too naive and too dormat-like we have griffin who is a bit of a commitmentphobe it did personally annoy me and it was part of the reason that i dnf'd this book but i do think ultimately that melanie harlow probably pulls it off i feel weird again recommending this book since i didn't finish it but i did really enjoy what i did read of it and i am planning on finishing it at some point so i felt like it was worth throwing in here i also feel like this story has a slightly more charming dialogue i do remember some of the like pillow talk i guess you could say between griffin and blair being really charming i felt like it was a much more realistic small town betrayal and i don't know i just there's something about melanie harlow's writing that really works for me she has nailed the small town thing so if you're looking in general for an author who writes small-town stories maybe you don't even like the grumpy sunshine trope you'll find other fantastic stories there's a melanie harlow book that has like a single dad that was surprisingly hot i'll flash a picture of it right here too if that's something that interests you totally different plot line but similar delightful vibes melanie harlow and draft me wild should definitely be under radar and also maybe this book too now we're moving into two recommendations that i think don't share as much in common with things we never got over as maybe the first two do but they are books that i think you should consider picking up if you really like grumpy sunshine or small town romances first up is maybe the one that i think is the most different debatable we have part of your world which is a story that i read recently and gave five stars to which kind of never do when it comes to romance or at least that's been the case this year this story is about alexis and daniel alexis is an emergency medicine doctor she's getting out of a really terrible long-term relationship where she was constantly gaslit and she is trying to kind of figure out what she wants from her life she loves her job she really likes being a doctor but she's not sure that kind of going the next step and becoming like chief of emergency medicine is really what she wants out of life and she is kind of guided through some of her struggles with daniel and daniel is not a grumpy hero which is why i think this book is maybe a lot less similar than some of the other books too things we never got over he is if anything a golden retriever he is a woodworker he owns a bed and breakfast that he is renting out and he's just trying to kind of figure out his life as well but he knows one thing for certain and that is that he adores alexis i think if you're looking for similarities between this book and things we never got over i feel like the small town vibes are definitely there and also the everyone who is trying to figure out her life i think that is a big component of things we never got over i didn't fully get explored in the way that i wanted it to be and i feel like part of your world really does that in such a delightful way getting to see our heroine overcome a lot of the struggles that she's going through it's just one of my favorite things and i think there are enough similarities between this book and that one in terms of the overall vibe and tone that i think the things we never got over was trying to evoke that i think you would enjoy this book if you picked it up and then lastly it feels weird recommending this book because i just finished it and didn't totally love it but i know a lot of y'all did and i know that this is probably a pretty safe recommendation for a lot of people you liked things we never got over might i recommend my killer vacation by tessa bailey now thematically this one is quite different than things we never got over there is a murder mystery plot it's set at the beach rather than in kind of a sleepy small town although it does it is like a sleepy small town in cape cod i guess you could say we have our heroine taylor who is a teacher she is not trying to find herself which makes it a little bit different than things we never got over but we do have the grumpy older hero with commitment issues in miles the cool thing about miles though is that while i do think he was a little bit over the top in the kind of like enemies to lovers grumpy sort of situation at the start of the story he quickly kind of like amends his ways and tries to convince taylor that he is a safe bet and that he is someone that she should be with that's something that i personally really liked i didn't feel like knox grovelled enough and i feel like if you're looking for a good grovel you're looking for a hero who's been kind of rude definitely amends his ways and you like kind of an alpha hero i think you'll really enjoy this book this one again i think is like a little bit more of a like a mature take on some of the jealousy elements that i noticed as well and things we never got over so i think honestly if you liked things we never got over i think you'll love my killer vacation even if you didn't like that book i think you might still enjoy my killer vacation okay so next up are two books that i'm surprised that i've never compared before in video format i feel like it's a fairly safe and or easy comparison that i know a lot of people have made before but i wanted to make it as well because i actually prefer one over the other and i don't think often that these are compared in these in this way i haven't read these books in a second so pardon me if my descriptions are a little bit lackluster the book that we're using for comparison here is credence by penelope douglas now i think you're probably going to guess what book i'm going to recommend based off of this and in fact you might think the opposite that the book that i'm going to recommend and didn't do it better but i disagree i just disagree so credence by penelope douglas is a story about our main character tiernan she is another character who is a little bit lost after her parents pass away and she wasn't very close with either of her parents but she had a lot of i guess you could say like trauma based off of her upbringing like i don't think her parents were horrible to her but she doesn't know what the she wants out of life she is directionless she's a little bit but she gets taken in by her dad's step-brother jake and his two sons yes there is some sharing involved tiernan does at one point get with all of the men not all at once uh but throughout various points of the story she's with different men and she does end up with just one it is not a true polyamorous story but it is kind of about finding yourself in the wilderness i guess being shared by a couple of different men the thing that i liked about credence was again tyrann inviting herself i didn't totally love however the romantic entanglement she gets herself in in this story and i think that's what kept this from being like a five-star or really highly rated story for me i think when i initially read it i gave it like four stars in hindsight i feel like i probably should have given it like three it wasn't my perfect romance it was definitely steamy it definitely went there and i think that i never read a story like this before and had nothing to compare it to now that i've read flock by k stewart i could very much say that credence is um not as good i didn't enjoy it as much i guess you could say and i think it depends what you're looking for in a story what i enjoyed more about flock is that it is about our main character cecilia she's going to live with a father that she doesn't really know very well it's kind of giving like bella and twilight vibes she's going to this small town of triple falls to live kind of figure her out i think maybe she's also going to like a local community college or something like that that's paying for her schooling or something and cecilia ends up falling for a couple of the different guys that she meets in town all of them are friends for the most part uh and she does eventually end up with what just one guy this turns into i think a trilogy i haven't read all three of the books just the first two this story i just found more compelling i felt like the plot line was more interesting and i felt like the romantic entanglements that cecilia gets herself into are just healthier in a lot of ways i didn't totally love who our heroine ended up with in credence there's just something about the kind of like neanderthal vibe that he was giving off that i just didn't totally love and with flock i didn't feel that way i also liked the kind of like powerful brooding man that she ends up with i like the heartbreak and the angst that kate stewart involves in her stories i'm not saying that penelope douglas doesn't have any sort of like angst intention but there's just different vibes slightly different vibes similar vibes but like slightly different you're both in small towns you're both getting with a lot of guys but for some reason vlogs just don't say better for me and it's something that's not entirely tangible but i do think if you're looking for very similar stories and you just you know need something sexy i highly recommend flock although credence is not like a terrible book i do in fact recommend flock over credence and then the last book i think that did it better is marriage for one by lmas i think this book did it better than the spanish love deception by elena armas now i feel bad in some ways comparing these books because i know the authors are friends and it doesn't surprise me i guess that their writing is quite similar which is why i'm recommending these two books there are similarities besides the writing style but i think the biggest thing for me is the writing style if you liked the spanish love deception you're looking for more books like that i really think any of elemeza stories would work for you but specifically i think you're really going to enjoy marriage for one now the spanish love section if you were unfamiliar with it is a story about our main character catalina or lena she is i want to say like an engineer or something and she is asked by a co-worker if she wants a fake date to a wedding that she's going to i think her sister's getting married she needs a date she's too scared to ask someone and her rival at work decides that he is going to offer to be a fake relationship with her for a little while get her family off of her back and so she doesn't look uncool at her sister's wedding i liked the idea of the story with execution just didn't really work for me i didn't like the workplace harassment sort of storyline i didn't like that our hero aaron didn't really do anything to help lena when it came to the workplace harassment sort of thing i also didn't like that it felt like too little too late whenever he does finally apologize for the way that he treated her it just it wasn't my favorite story i also felt like it was a little bit too long granted i have not read the revised uh traditionally published version but from what i did read it just felt a little bit too long and it felt a little bit overwhelming marriage for one by elements is not any shorter of a story so if you like kind of a long drawn out slobber and story i think you're going to enjoy marriage for one if you didn't like erin blackford as a character and you were just looking for a different kind of hero i think you're really gonna like jack in marriage for one marriage for one is about jack and rose rose at the start of the story is trying to open her own coffee shop i want to say her own business she can't do this unless she marry someone there's something in her inheritance or something like that that states that she needs to get married if she wants the money that she needs to open her coffee shop and jack who i think is the attorney who is reading this will hears this and decides that he's gonna offer to rose to marry her and even though he's a little bit grumpy and a little bit gruff he decides you know to marry her to offer her this marriage and i found their relationship so delightful i felt like jack went above and beyond to kind of prove to rose that he was a good guy he helps her kind of get the coffee shop ready i think he helps her paint space even though he is this like high-powered attorney and doesn't really do a lot of manual labor i also liked the way he cares for her i think rose actually has um a health condition and jack's very understanding and is kind of like a caretaker for rose at certain points throughout the story he just felt like this story felt so similar to the spanish love deception did it a little bit better i also feel like the audiobook listening experience was superior so if you're looking for a steamy swoony audiobook romance to listen to i would recommend this one i feel like i specifically remember too they're being like a good male narrator for this book but overall whether you liked or didn't like the spanish love deception i still think you need to pick up marriage for one by lmas i think this book is one that's a little bit under hyped i feel like i hear about it every once in a while it'll come up for certain recommendation videos but it's not hyped in the way that i feel like it should be so i highly recommend you pick this book up and honestly pick up other books by lma's because they are equally as entertaining and have similar writing style similar vibes so that is it for me those are the six ish seven technically recommendations that i have for you based on books that i didn't personally like i hope that if you decided to pick some of these books up that you also find that they did them better in the comments down below let me know if you have any books that you see being really really hyped up on the internet that you didn't love that you have better recommendations based off of for me also let me know if you want to see a part two of this i've already started kind of crafting what books i think belong in that video i have one that i definitely feel like you'll want to hear about so let me know in the comments down below if that's something you want to see uh but thanks so much for watching this video i love y'all so much hopefully this was helpful in some way and until next time\n"