There’s something about reading a romance book with sick characters that makes it so much better. You get to know a little bit about the character before they start falling in love and that’s just a great way to add to the story.
So if you’re looking for some books to curl up with, here are some of my favorites. All of them feature sick characters!
Two Rogues Make a Right
One of my favorite tropes in romance is the enemies-to-lovers story. I love how these stories show the inner conflict a hero and heroine must overcome in order to realize that they can fall in love.
It’s a common way to tell stories about love, and it’s also a great way to introduce new characters to your series. For example, the hero and heroine of Pride and Prejudice were considered scoundrels and outcasts by their peers, yet they fell in love with each other despite their differences.
But there’s more to the story than just internal conflict. It can be a conflict between countries, races, teams, packs, or any other group that has an enmity against the protagonists. This can be a big obstacle for the hero and heroine to overcome before they find love, and it usually has to be resolved by the end of the book.
The best enemies-to-lovers books often have an honest misunderstanding, and the hero or heroine must accept that they are wrong in order to get over it. Whether it’s something as simple as their worldviews being misaligned, or something as serious as an illness, the hero and heroine have to get over their obstacles before they can move on with their lives together.
In Two Moon Princess by Carmen Ferreiro-Esteban, a hopeless princess time travels between medieval and modern-day California to find her true love. In Betraying Season and Bewitching Season by Marissa Doyle, identical twin heroines must learn who they are and accept their magical abilities before finding love. If you like this list so far then we found an additional 23 Werewolf Romance Books of 2023 That You Won’t Be Able to Put Down!
These books also tackle issues like mental illness, sexuality, and consent. It can be a challenge to write these stories, but it’s important to make them real and realistic.
A young woman with a serious illness finds herself attracted to a handsome rogue who doesn’t approve of her condition, but he also can’t resist his attraction to the strong-willed heroine. And when a dangerous man threatens their relationship, it’s up to the heroine to decide what she wants most–her safety or her desire for her lover.
Intention
There’s a common theme that runs throughout romance books about sick characters. In many cases, illness is portrayed as a catalyst for positive character growth and love. This is particularly prevalent in books written by women, which are often praised for their empathetic depictions of adversity.
It’s also a common trope in movies. For example, “The Fault in Our Stars,” a YA novel about terminal cancer, features a melodramatic death scene that increases the audience’s empathy for the characters and heightens the emotions in the plot.
But the romanticization of sickness is problematic in another way. By romanticizing illness, creators are reducing the significance of a person’s life from a human one to a disease-related one.
This is especially true when the illness is portrayed as a form of divine intervention. Whether in religion or fiction, it is a dangerous tendency that can lead to a dehumanization of the patient’s experience and a reduction of their value as human beings.
The theory of intention as being embarked on intentional action provides an answer to this problem. It explains how ‘naive’ and’sophisticated’ rationalization are unified in terms of the fact that they all entail an underlying state of intending. It also explains why there is a means-end coherence of intentions and beliefs (Ross 2009).
While it might be possible to unify the various guises of intention, this is not an easy task. It is even more difficult to do so while arguing that the state of intending is not a mental state.
Some philosophers, such as David Marusic and Stephen Schwenkler, believe that the state of intending involves belief. They hold that ‘belief is part of what it is to intend, but not all.’ But this is an ambiguous position that can easily lead to confusion.
A more moderate ‘cognitivist’ view holds that the requirements of intention are best understood as requirements of theoretical reason. It is this view that enables Anscombe to enunciate a normative contrast between intention and ordinary belief. This contrast reflects her view that intention is a form of ‘practical not theoretical reasoning’ (Anscombe 1963, pp. 57-62).
In The Grey
When literature student Anastasia Steele meets young entrepreneur Christian Grey, she finds herself attracted to his business acumen and penthouse lifestyle. But the dark side of her childhood haunts her, and the scheming businessman Jack Hyde wants Ana for himself.
Christian exercises control over everything, and he knows what he wants from life–a neat, disciplined life filled with no more than the essentials. But when shy, unworldly Ana comes into his office, he finds himself overwhelmed by an emotional storm that he can’t resist. He is unable to get her out of his mind or out of his blood–and when he finally decides to win her back, he must confront his demons with the help of Dr. Flynn, his trusted confidant and therapist. But Elena, his seducer, and Leila, his former submissive, are determined to ensnare him back into their own demons.
But he will need all the help he can get. And when he recovers from Ana’s illness, he will have to face his past again–or risk losing her forever.
The Sick Girl is often portrayed as angelically pure and beautiful, which makes her affliction all the more tragic. But this can also create unrealistic expectations for readers and make it hard to say goodbye to a character they love.
One of the most common cliches in sick-lit is the Sick Girl who falls for a man too soon. This can happen for many reasons, but it usually involves a woman who is too naive or hasn’t been given the proper guidance by her parents.
As a result, the Sick Girl can often be a frustrating or even harmful character. She may be beautiful and likable, but she may not have been given the chance to grow into the person she is meant to be. And she will likely never be able to change the way that she thinks, feels, or acts.
In a bid to re-imagine sick-lit, some authors are choosing to depict characters that are more complex and who love themselves because they’re different. This is an attempt to address the stigma that often surrounds mental illness, as well as to challenge the idea that it can’t be overcome or changed.
Pennies
One of the first things that a newbie romance reader will notice about any given book is its cover. It’s a simple, clean design that will grab your attention instantly. In fact, it’s a good indication that you’re in for a treat — and a romp!
This is because a good cover can sell the story within. This is especially true if the story is written by an author who’s known for writing romance. The best cover design can also give the book an air of mystery. It can be a clue that you’re about to embark on a harrowing journey or a hint at a fun storyline.
So, in order to make a good cover design, the writer needs to find an interesting way to tell a story. Whether that story is about the relationship between two characters, or something more serious like the health of a character, the right cover can give a novel a sense of depth and complexity.
Another way that writers can show an audience that a story is worth reading is by giving it an extra twist. For example, this might be done by adding a sexy villain to the mix, or by creating an unexpected love connection between two unlikely characters.
It’s not often that we get to see this type of storytelling, so it’s a nice surprise when a book comes along that does it right. This is the case with this book, which takes readers on a hilarious adventure that isn’t for the faint of heart.
The book is a bit of a dark contemporary romance, but it has plenty to keep readers entertained. It mixes crime and forbidden student-teacher love stories that will make readers swoon.
So if you’re looking for a good book to add to your collection of dark romances, this one is a must-read. It is a book that will make you want to curl up with a hot cup of coffee and read all day long. It also has a lot of witty and sexy moments that will make you laugh out loud.