On The Run Romances
Sprinting our way to love
This isn’t quite a romantic suspense roundup, but they’re romantic suspense adjacent. And I do want more of adjacent and exact romantic suspense recommendations because I like to feel afraid for their lives while also watching dummies fall in love, so please send them my way if you have ‘em! In the meantime, please enjoy these three books where a significant portion of the story features our lovebirds literally running for their lives.
The Perils of Pleasure by Julie Anne Long. The Ballad of Colin Eversea! IYKYK. Famous unserious rogue Colin Eversea, youngest son of one of two prominent (and prominently feuding) families, is falsely accused of murder and sentenced to hang, with the one witness who could set him free mysteriously missing. Things look pretty bleak, but then a mysterious mercenary called Madeleine Greenway rescues him right out from under the hangman’s noose… not out of mercy, but because she’s been hired to hand him over to someone else. Then we get a third twist- whoever hired Madeleine (an unknown entity) to rescue Colin wants her dead. Both reeling from how little they know about why they’re both in mortal peril, they hit the road to find the truth, hiding from the authorities and less scrupulous pursuers in barns and forests and all manner of other places.
Colin also, separately, develops a deep and abiding love of sheep that persists throughout the rest of this series. This is book 1, you’re welcome, it’s SUCH a fun time. Though don’t think I didn’t notice when they had or had not recently bathed and yet still got up to some funny business in a barn…
How hot? 🔥🔥🔥
The Blonde Identity by Ally Carter. Spies! Twins! Amnesia! Paris! The plot doesn’t require a lot to recap, to be honest- a woman wakes up without remembering who she is, but what she does know (maybe) is that she’s apparently the identical twin of a rogue spy, she’s in a LOT of danger, and she has a reluctant, grumpy ally who might be the hottest guy she’s ever met in real life… that she can remember at least. They’re chased through Europe attempting to find her twin and the truth, they fall a little in love… it’s a good time. A real romp of a romance, though depressingly chaste. Can you imagine the spice these two would have gotten up to?? I can. And I’m sad I didn’t get to read it.
I saw one reviewer on Goodreads call this book’s tone “Disney Channel Original Movie” and they’re not wrong, and that’s NOT a bad thing. It’s just good wholesome fun and shenanigans, ok? Sometimes we’re allowed to just have fun!
This is book 1 of a duology, the second book (which I haven’t read but I do have saved on a TBR for when I’m in That Kind Of Mood, is about, I assume, the rogue spy sister).
How hot? 🔥 (closed door)
Fire In His Embrace by Ruby Dixon. Ok this is a wackadoodle dubcon post-apocalyptic dragon shifter series from our queen Ruby Dixon, so jot that down. If that doesn’t really feel like your vibe, you won’t like this book, but that’s all extremely my vibe, so here we are. This is book 3 of a series, and I think it’s worth reading in order because there’s a lot of worldbuilding stuff you miss skipping around. It’s far more serialized than Ice Planet Barbarians.
In this book, we’re following Emma, the sister of a member of a post-apocalyptic biker gang who is kinda but not entirely safe in her current situation. Even less safe is the dragon shifter Zohr, who’s been captured in human form after following her scent (a flagpole of her dirty undies, not a joke). There’s a lot of backstory about the apocalypse and dragons and scents and how they’re all crazy until they’re mated which gets covered in the first two books, but all that matters is that Emma needs Zohr’s help to escape, and also she feels guilty it was her scent that led to his capture, and she knows from previous books that mating with a dragon helps calm his mind, so… I think you can fill in that blank about what happens when she manages to get past his guards.
And then we’re off to the races! Literally, we’re racing away from a very mad biker gang and plenty of other post apocalyptic horrors. It’s a slightly darker version of the classic Ruby Dixon IPB formula, but still the same humor and shenanigans, which I enjoyed a lot.
How hot? 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥
Next time, staying on this same train of thought, I’ll be recommending books where our characters fall in love after forming a non-romantic partnership of another kind.
What should I be reading next? Let me know in the comments!
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I loved Partners in Crime by Alisha Rai - I want more romantic suspense(ish) to be funny! And Swept Away by Beth O'Leary, not literally running but two people with no special skills having to learn to survive in extremely bizarre circumstances
You've hit on one of my favorite tropes in The Perils of Pleasure. We often see heroes rescuing heroines, but I like to see the heroine doing the rescue. Not emotional rescue, I mean she literally busts him out of prison. Here's a few more books where that happens: The Forbidden Rose by Joanna Bourne, Vienna Waltz by Teresa Grant, No Longer a Gentleman by Mary Jo Putney and The Spy's Bride by Nita Abrams. They're usually also on the run afterwards!