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Reading with Matcha

A personal space where I share what I love, what moves me, and what I would recommend without hesitation.

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Ari

Hi, I'm Ari

I read in the margins of the day — before work, on trips, sometimes late into the night. I'm drawn to stories that make my heart race and change how I see things. Here I write honestly about what I read: what I loved, what challenged me, and what I'd read all over again. Always with a matcha nearby.

★ My favorites

Shattered Hearts

Shattered Hearts

★★★★

Bride

Bride

★★★★★

The Fake Mate

The Fake Mate

★★★★★

Hymn of Ashes

Hymn of Ashes

★★★★★

Hunt the Villain

Hunt the Villain

★★★★★

Lotus

Lotus

Jennifer Hartmann

Dark Romance
★★★★

To the rest of the world, Oliver Lynch was the little boy who went missing on the Fourth of July. To Sydney Neville he was everything. She was seven when her best friend vanished without a trace, and ever since she learned to build her life around that missing piece. Twenty two years later, the last thing she expects is for that piece to come back. Oliver reappears alive, but as a man who spent decades in captivity and who no longer recognizes the world he returns to, not the technology, not the customs, not even his own body. Almost nothing is left of his memories from before, except one, the girl who kept him company in his head all those years. As Oliver learns how to exist on the outside again and Sydney tries to find the boy inside the man, the two of them discover that the connection between them never broke. But there are still unanswered questions about what really happened that night, and the truth will not be easy to carry.

Dark RomanceFriends to LoversHealingSecond ChanceSlow Burn
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Love in the Wild: A Tarzan Retelling

Love in the Wild: A Tarzan Retelling

Emma Castle

Contemporary Romance
★★★★★

Eden Matthews travels to the heart of Africa to photograph gorillas in their natural habitat, the job she always dreamed of. Everything falls apart when her group is attacked by a band of treasure hunters and she is left as the only survivor, saved by a man who appears among the trees and looks like no one she has ever seen. Thorne grew up in the jungle after an accident left him alone as a child, raised by a family of gorillas with no language other than the one the wild taught him. Eden cannot stop wondering who he is and what happened to him, and for the first time he finds himself facing someone of his own kind who takes his whole world apart. The attraction between them is impossible to ignore, but the threat that arrived with the hunters is still out there, and protecting the jungle and the family that raised him becomes a race against time.

Language BarrierForced ProximityHealingSuspense
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Matteo

Matteo

The DiMaggio Crime Family · Book 1

T. Priceton

Mafia Romance
★★★★

In Matteo DiMaggio's world, marriage is a contract between families and nothing more. So when the head of the Mancini crime family offers him his daughter's hand in exchange for what he needs to destroy his enemy, he accepts without hesitation. What he does not expect is to find the name of a woman he has never heard of on the contract. Luxtyn Stockwell is living a completely normal life until her mother disappears during a work trip. The search takes her to New York and there her world turns upside down, she discovers that her father is a mobster, that there are rival families willing to use her and that the only way to find her mother is to marry Matteo. She arrives ready to fight for every inch and he intends to simply honor a deal, but the attraction between them is immediate and neither of them manages to dodge it.

MafiaForced MarriageForced ProximityEnemies to LoversSuspense
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Twisted Emotions

Twisted Emotions

The Camorra Chronicles · Book 2

Cora Reilly

Mafia Romance
★★★★★

Nino Falcone is genius and monster. As the right hand man and brother of the Capo of the Camorra, his lack of feelings is a blessing, not a curse, until his brother asks him to marry for the sake of the Camorra. Kiara Vitiello, cousin of the Capo of the New York Famiglia, is chosen to marry Nino Falcone to prevent war with the Camorra, but what she hears about Las Vegas makes her veins pulse with terror. After her father betrayed his Capo and paid with his life, her family thinks marriage is her only chance to bring honor to her name; but only Kiara knows she's a faulty prize given in return for peace. A man incapable of emotions and a woman scarred by the past: an arranged marriage with the potential to unite, or destroy...

Dark RomanceMafiaArranged MarriageSlow BurnGrumpy x Sunshine
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Reading Order - Ice Planet Barbarians
Alien Romance25 books

Reading Order - Ice Planet Barbarians

Ruby Dixon

💕 Georgie & Vektal (Book 1) + 18 more couples + novellas

The BookTok phenomenon that put alien romance on the map. A group of human women is abducted by aliens and abandoned on an ice planet called not-Hoth. There they meet the sa-khui: tall blue men with horns, fangs and a biological quirk called resonance, their chests start to purr when they find their fated mate. Each book follows a different couple within the same tribe, building an interconnected world where the fated-mate trope reaches its purest form. Guaranteed HEA, no cheating, and some of the most addictive stories in the genre.

forced proximitypregnancyslow burn
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The Gorison Traveler Incident

The Gorison Traveler Incident

Veslor Mates · Book 1

Laurann Dohner

Other
★★★½

Vivian is a cultural specialist on the United Earth fleet ship Gorison Traveler. It's the perfect job for someone who wants to learn everything about aliens. The only problem? The commander won't let her anywhere near the visiting Ke'ters aboard the ship. The only way she gets a peek at the lizard-like race is when her brother opens a live camera feed during a meeting, a meeting that turns tragic when the Ke'ters attack the crew. She's horrified. Scared. The Ke'ters are murdering her people. Rushing from her quarters to get help from a control center, Vivian finds the station abandoned. It's all on her to try to rescue the crew. Brassi is a Veslor trader who picks up a distress signal from a nearby space vessel. The attractive female who contacts him looks terrified, and needs his help. He'll board the Gorison Traveler with his crewmates, and fight the Ke'ters, but the longer he spends on the huge Earth vessel, the greater distraction Vivian becomes. Brassi will do whatever it takes to save her... and to discover if Vivian's his mate.

New PlanetSlow BurnMagic Myths & MonstersForced Proximity
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Kill Switch

Kill Switch

Devil's Night · Book 3

Penelope Douglas

Dark Romance
★★★★★

DO NOT READ THIS BOOK. IT IS HIGHLY INAPPROPRIATE. Sending Damon to prison was the worst thing Winter could've done. It didn't matter that he did the crime or that she wished he was dead. Winter thought he'd cool off in jail and be anything but the horror he was, or that at the very least she'd have time to disappear before he got out. But she was wrong. Three years came and went too fast, and prison only gave him time to plan. And while Winter anticipated his vengeance, she didn't expect this. He doesn't want to make her hurt. He wants to make everything hurt. Damon knows he needs to get rid of Winter's father, giving her, her sister, and her mother nowhere to run. The Ashby women are desperate for a knight in shining armor. But they won't be that lucky.

Dark RomanceEnemies to LoversUniversityMutual ObsessionSlow Burn
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Craving Revenge

Craving Revenge

Kings of Mafia · Book 6

Michelle Heard

Mafia Romance
★★★★

For years, I've been groomed to be my brother's shadow. To protect my father's heir, who will one day take over from him as the Kumichō of the Yakuza, I'm forced to dress and act like a man when I'm out in public. The ruse works, and when I'm grabbed off the street by the Sicilian mafia, I'm in for a world of pain. Augusto Vitale, a ruthless and unforgiving capo, wants revenge for what the Yakuza did to his younger brother, and I'm the one paying in blood. That's until Augusto realizes I'm a woman and I'm set free. I think it's the last I'll ever see of him, but then my father comes up with a plan that will ensure I live the rest of my life in hell. Once again, I find myself at Augusto's mercy, but this time he has no intention of letting me go.

Dark RomanceMafiaArranged MarriageEnemies to LoversSlow BurnSuspense
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Kiss an Angel

Kiss an Angel

Susan Elizabeth Phillips

Contemporary Romance
★★★★★

Wedding Day. Pretty, flighty Daisy Devreaux can either go to jail or marry the mystery man her father has chosen for her. Arranged marriages don't happen in the modern world, so how did the irrepressible Daisy find herself in this fix? Alex Markov, as humorless as he is deadly handsome, has no intention of playing the loving bridegroom to a spoiled little feather-head with champagne tastes. He drags Daisy from her uptown life to a broken-down traveling circus and sets out to tame her to his ways. But this man without a soul has met his match in a woman who's nothing but heart. Before long, passion will send them flying sky high without a safety net... risking it all in search of a love that will last forever.

Arranged MarriageGrumpy x SunshineHigh SocietySlow Burn
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Tempting Venom

Tempting Venom

Vipers · Book 3

Rina Kent

Dark Romance
★★★★

When two ruthless enemies collide. My name is Preston Armstrong, and I'm the most depraved bastard you'll ever meet. I take what I want, ruin what I don't, and live exactly how I please. That is, until I crash into the force of nature that is Marcus Osborn. Captain of our rival hockey team, and the perpetual thorn in my side. A migraine in human form and the one person who refuses to play by my rules. He's my brand of heartless and just as deranged. I set out to crush him, his career, and his infuriatingly gorgeous face. But Marcus hits back with equal force, turning our rivalry into a violent, addictive dance neither of us can walk away from. We were supposed to annihilate each other. Instead, we spark a fire that threatens to devour everything in its path. In this battle of two unhinged souls, our bodies become collateral damage. But I never expected our stone-cold hearts to get involved.

Dark RomanceMM RomanceEnemies to LoversUniversityMutual Obsession
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Reading with Matcha · Made with love by Ari