This is late in coming, but for mature romance try Eva Ibbotson's works. Her writing has a lyrical quality. I especially love A Countess Below The Stairs, A Company of Swans and The Morning Gift

Ceclia Ahern's novels are also pretty good examples. She's the author of P.S. I Love You, among other works like If You Could See Me Now and Where Rainbows End.

Another Mature romance Love Of Seven Dolls. It's a novella, so it shouldn't take up much of your time.

For a good dose of fantasy+romance try Daughter of Smoke and Bone and Chime. Both of them have haunting narrations and the female leads kick ass.




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Don't read. Play video games. And if you really have to read play some Visual Novels.
Sengoku no rance has everything you want. Male lead, definitely not idealistic) + you control armies, fight deamons, decide which girl hero will..... Oh right you didn't want bsdm. So that's one not for you.
Actually Visual Novels aren't good way to prove superiority of games over books. "Normal" games are better Skyrim,Dishonored, Bioshock Infinity. Everyone of them gives YOU chance to save a world.

Seriously now. I won't be giving recommendations. I'm too old . People in my age give advices.
1) Don't read anything that was written by women. Girls generally read sick things(some weird psycho-sexual relationships,femdom etc).
2) If you read in the author bio "he writes a little and slow" put the book back on the shelf. ( I have read this sentence on a book 17 years ago. The title of the book was Game of Thrones. 12 year old kids make mistakes...).
3) Be carefull if you see something like "Book 9 of...." Most likely author lacks idea for a new series so he drags the old one. What worse he can even DIE in the process and we will never know how the story would end( Whell of Time is the best example but I can think of two other).

Btw. You have right about First Wheel of Time book being exacly like LOTR. Never realized it before. Maybe because I was 11 when I read Eye of the World and 14 when I read LOTR. Later it becomes more like Song of Ice and Fire + Magic.

Hmm, since you pointed it out, Chalion's characters were pretty one dimensional. I was annoyed by it for other reasons (nearly raging by the end and wanted to toss my e-reader across the room) that made me not want to pick up the sequel. I just found everything too convenient at the end It felt forced and kind of dumb. Minor issue that makes me forget much about it. Characters did not help.

If you ever do restart Dresden, I would say maybe skip to book 3 (Grave Peril). It starts to pick up then. You may miss some introductions of some characters but you can pick up everything about them quite quickly. (my brother accidentally skipped from 4 to book 12 and could tell what is happening...and then spoiled it for me )

My bro says try the Iron Druid Chronicles by Kevin Hearne (I still need to get past the first book, Hounded~maybe tonight)
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I cannot think of any romances at the moment besides a webcomic recommendation:
Cheese in the Trap is great. Though the MC is a girl, the main dude, Yoo Jung is quite gray. He portrays himself as a "perfect" kind-hearted guy but he can be far from that. It's romance but a little different than what I usually see. Actually...they all have problems

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Haha, I'm sorry but I don't play any games T_T I guess I would need to play games as well after few months.

You mean not to read Vorkosigan Saga? I did read few more novels by female authors suggested hee & they were good.

Hehe, I know this feeling I was also surprised when I realized how much time Martin took in between the sequels. A Feast for Crows was the worst novel in the saga so maybe author took more time to make things right.

Oh right... Well, I'm only reading the novels suggested here & so I'm sure others are not suggesting anything which might end uncompleted or something.

I dropped the first book so I will need to resume it again.
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I forgot this one T_T It was dumb on how author just said that it was by God's will as the lead allowed himself to be used by gods... fate meetings are boring.

Oh sure... I would pick it up after few years. I will read Cheese in the Trap


Last edited by strixflash at 7:54 pm, Feb 19 2014

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No worries. I don't blame you. It took me a year and much boredom to try the next book in the series. I found it relatively decent and decided to just continue and see if it improves lol.

Hope you like Cheese

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Reading The Name of the Wind and it's a good story. The lead is smart & enjoyable. It's fantasy & the premise is really great. I really recommend it to those who haven't read it.

Edit: It's bad. Really bad... I enjoyed it till he got admission but afterwards it was frustrating to read.

Last edited by strixflash at 10:15 pm, Mar 14 2014

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It's pretty good but I got sick of the story during the second book. Didn't like the romance aspect at all. Got tired of the protagonist; story didn't go anywhere.

Are you still looking for recommendations?

If you don't mind something a little experimental, I loved David Levithan's The Lover's Dictionary. It's told in dictionary-style entries, each mapping out parts of the relationship. The writing is gorgeous and funnny and sad and raw and just terribly relatable.

And I actually can't think of any mature romances with male protagonists... I'll add more later...

Last edited by ImaginaryWishes at 8:27 am, Feb 22 2014

Lol~ I do like Rothfuss's writing though. So pretty
Felurian bit in book 2 was just hilarious~in the wrong kind of fluff way trololol
Oh Kvothe...you lil' *****

I also loved the first book. Liked the second one too, but I can see why a number of people hate it (I find it much weaker than the first and it kind of went against what I liked about book 1)

In for a while until book 3 is released~

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So I finally read (almost) everything recommended here... thanks a lot guys!

Now I'm looking for some good novels where protagonist is transfered to a new world/dimension. It can be fantasy or sci-fic. I guess Chronicles of Thomas Convenant or Narnia fits but I hated Narnia (it was full of preachy stuff ).

Secondly I'm looking for time travel novels. The only time travel books I have read are Outlander (which got too dragged out in sequels, and I didn't liked it much to begin with), The Time Traveller's Wife, The Anubis Gate and The Time Machine.

Thanks.

Last edited by strixflash at 12:30 pm, Mar 17 2015

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maybe:
AlterWorld (Play to Live, #1) russian author, first three books have been translated to english so far

Into The Abyss (Demons of Astlan #1)

Shadowmagic (Shadowmagic #1)

Heroes Die (The Acts of Caine, #1)

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Redemption of Althalus - one thick book, but it's a light read; action, adventure, romance and shrewd male lead (his love interest is pretty interesting in her own way); some parts of the book are quite hilarious (especially if the male lead is narrating them); the ending is a bit abstract, but I guess it was ok

Short summary:
A thief with brains is recruited by gods (actually just a single one of them and a very peculiar one at that) to save the world.

Last edited by jahu at 1:56 pm, Mar 17 2015

Try reading The Chronicles of Amber by Robert Zelazny for world-travelling fantasy.

There is also some new worlds beeing explored in Raymond E. Feist's The Riftwar Cycle. It's looooong though...

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~4400 manga completed
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