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[oyceter]

Lately the only thing I seem to be able to read is romantic comedy. So... rec me stuff!

I have just gone on a terrible binge through nearly all of Julia Quinn (rilina, this is all your fault!), whom I have been enjoying because her heroes tend to be less alpha, her couples genuinely seem to like each other, and she's funny. Also, it helps that her later books have been overcoming her tendency to put 100 pages too much at the end.

I am mostly looking for something rather like 1930s romantic comedies, with a lot of banter and extremely likable heroines. Non-alpha heroes are a HUGE plus. It doesn't have to be in the romance genre, although I only want recs for textual things; my brain just cannot concentrate on TV or movies lately. Sadly, this goes for manga too and basically anything visual.

I also enjoy Loretta Chase, Laura Kinsale's comedies, Connie Brockway's comedies, and Jennifer Crusie.

I have kind of bounced off Eloisa James (is she considered funny?). I don't read as many contemporaries because a lot of the romance genre rules work better for me in historicals, but if it is screwball and feminist, I am all for it. I tend to bounce off of adult chick lit because I frequently don't actually find it funny or enjoyable.

... Maybe I should finally start reading Heyer?

Comments

[rachelmanija]

Yeah, I would try Heyer. Sprig Muslin is the one which got me started. It's quite funny. (Extremely silly young couple runs off together; sensible older couple is caught in the crossfire.)

I also think you would enjoy Sylvester (heroine is snubbed by man with evil eyebrows and writes a Gothic in which a man who looks just like him is a villain; they meet and fall in love; the book comes out), Cotillion (my all-time favorite of her non-alpha heroes... Now that I think of it, most of her heroes are non-alpha), and Frederica (can't recall the plot, if any, only that it made me laugh and there's a hot air balloon, kids, and dogs.)

Two warnings:

The language may take some getting used to. I remember someone on LJ parodying it as, "Do you take me for a puff-antler, sir? What spiffery! What a squizzle!"

The Grand Sophy has an incredibly anti-Semitic scene. Either avoid entirely, or when Sophy goes to the pawn shop, skip ahead till she's out of the pawn shop.

[oyceter]

Haha, possibly I was saving Heyer just for a time like this.

[estara]

Dont't forget Venetia! With the heroine really running rings about the rake who actually doesn't act alpha at all with her and is really sorry he ever was a rake and she has to convince him with desperate measure that she'll have herself debauched anyway, if he doesn't do it. I also love the sidecharacters, especially her younger and older brothers.

[estara]

And The Unknown Ajax or The Tollgate - big, quiet men being underestimated and surely but firmly getting the heroines (who aren't in a pickle through their own faults, but through their family) out of all the troubles.

In some ways I see the heroine's love-interest in The Masqueraders similar. But that book mostly sparkles with Scarlet Pimpernel/Prisoner of Zenda antics of brother and father of the heroine. Though she does make a lovely gentleman, herself.