This Rec League well and truly stumped us, which doesn’t happen often. Thank you to Rosemary for sending this one in:
What I am looking for are recommendations for books with sexy role play. When I look it up on Goodreads, it’s all Dom/Sub. What I’m looking for are couples pretending to be something they are not (cop, nurse, cheerleader, goth girl etc.). I’ve read modern novels where they play professor and student, historical novels where the Vicar and his wife pretend to be a farmer and a milkmaid. I even enjoyed a book where they play kidnapper and captive. As long as it’s pretended and consensual, I’m down.
We’ve got nothing, folks! Can you help us (and Rosemary) out?
Leave your suggestions in the comments below!
I’ve read one where the hero was (I think) in the air force and the heroinewas (maybe) a teacher and they role played picking each other up in all sorts of ways in the casinos in Vegas. I remember one where the heroine was thought to be a call girl. I’ll have to go through my kindle for title and author.
Not a Rec but I remember reading a romance where the heroine was accidentally kidnapped (mistaken identity) by an agency that specialised in ‘kidnapping’ partners for roleplay (consensual by both parties I hasten to add). It was quite a while ago and I’ve forgotten the title and author…
Dang!
One for a future HaBo?
Double Down by Katie Porter has a couple who like role playing.
It’s been years since I read it, so my memory is a little fuzzy, but I’m pretty sure that Sweet Filthy Boy by Christina Lauren has costumes and role playing.
My first thought was Anne Calhoun’s LIBERATING LACEY which involves an extended role-play scene where the hero plays a “bad cop” (handcuffs are involved). Julie Kriss’s FILTHY RICH features a couple whose relationship begins with role-play scenarios. Cara McKenna’s duet, WILLING VICTIM & BRUTAL GAME includes very intense rape role-play. I thought the books were brilliantly written, but cw/tw. Eve Dangerfield’s ACT YOUR AGE (and, to a lesser degree, the sequel, NOT YOUR SHOE SIZE) has a couple who play step-father/step-daughter role-play games. Again, their scenarios are very intense, so cw/tw if you think reading that would be upsetting.
I second @Laurel’s recommendation of Katie Porter’s DOUBLE DOWN. In fact, Porter’s entire Vegas Top Gun series involves couples who, in various ways, are role-playing. (I think Porter’s INSIDE BET might be the book @TamB is referring to above.) HARD WAY is my favorite of the series—but again, there’s abduction/rape role-play, which I thought was extremely well-done, especially because the h&h (a married couple going through a rough patch) both acknowledge that fantasy and reality tend to blur when they role-play (as opposed to the couple in Cara McKenna’s books who have very crisp, clear boundaries between their role-play and reality).
Also, a book I just finished, Lauren Blakely’s MY ONE-WEEK HUSBAND, features business partners in a fake relationship who pretend to be a married couple as they check out boutique hotels in France to possibly add to their business holdings. At every hotel, they pretend to be a different couple—aided by the heroine’s collection of wigs and lingerie. Very sexy.
Tessa Dare’s DO YOU WANT TO START A SCANDAL features a role-playing couple in a supporting role. Definitely not the main event though.
Aaaagh, I know of a short from a collection of connected stories that fits this, but I can’t recommend it because the revelation that it’s role-play is a spoiler. 🙁
Big Boy by Ruthie Knox.
There is a Harlequin Romance from the 80s that has 2 movie reviewers who love to roleplay. That one would take me a while to find the title.
I have a feeling I’ll be popping back in all day with “I thought of one more….” Ainsley Booth’s WICKED SIN (part of her Forbidden Bodyguards series) has a couple who incorporate role-play into their relationship and discuss how it will work. I feel as if I keep issuing content & trigger warnings for these recs, but I’d rather err on the side of being too cautious than inadvertently expose a reader to something they find upsetting, but WICKED SIN’s heroine has been exploited sexually in the past for her family’s political advantage (her story threads through the background of the earlier Firbidden Bodyguards books); she has been in therapy for a couple of years working through how she was used and manipulated. However, the dynamic between the h&h is full of consent and understanding.
First thing that popped into my mind was Katee Robert’s Taboo series. First book is a woman and her ex-fiance’s dad and second book is a couple and the husband’s best friend. I do believe role play was involved, probably more in the second book, but some in the first.
I think Captivated by Eve Dangerfield and Tessa Bailey fits the bill.
@Kit: I think I know the book you’re talking about, but your description is a major spoiler, so I’m putting it in a tag.
@Amanda & Kit: While I love that book (if indeed it is the book Kit is referring to), I don’t think it qualifies as role-play because one MC has no idea there’s “play” going on. However, that same author has another book involving a woman who is caught “trespassing” on land belonging to two men. They had already warned her to stay away, but she didn’t. You can guess what happens next. The ending reveals that all is fully consensual and everyone was on board with the scenario and how it played out.
As an aside, I think there are a number of stories where the reader doesn’t know until the ending that role-play is going on. It’s kind of like some of the the “virgin hero” books where part of the fun of reading the book is the revelation/discovery that the hero is a virgin. In the same way, it often diminishes the enjoyment of a book if you know beforehand that events are part of a role-play scenario.
The Friend Zone by Kristen Callihan has a role playing scene. The hero and heroine talk about their fantasies and the heroine’s involves role play, so he gives that to her.
Another vote for Liberating Lacey and Willing Victim, with the caveats mentioned by DiscoDollyDeb.
There are a short but fun roleplaying scene near the end of Miranda Neville’s The Amorous Education of Celia Seaton – a recreation of a smutty story that Celia has been reading.
Susan Elizabeth Philip’s Breathing Room is exactly on point. The hero is an actor and the couple have a trunk of props so that they can role play.
I’m not sure this qualifies since it’s non-sexy role play but maybe WELL MET by Jen DeLuca? Ren Faire setting, he plays a pirate, she’s a wench.
That’s Double Down by Katie Porter, the first title in their Vegas Top Guns series.
The Ronnie Lee & Brendan story in The Mane Event by Shelly Laurenston has some role play.
The Earl I Ruined has that, sort of, and the last story (and the second, too, somewhat) in It Stings So Sweet also, iirc, has some role-play!
Carry Me Home is by Rosalind James. The heroine is a professor of geology and the hero is a rancher and a former athlete. There’s definitely a few scenes of role play, though the only one I remember was teacher-student.
James has a really long backlist, and it varies a bit from suspense to fluffy comfort. Most of her stuff is sporty, but there’s plenty that isn’t.
There is a role playing scene in Shelly Laurenston’s Bear Meets Girl–a hot but funny encounter between ursine cop and female suspect.
TW/CW: Giving It Up by Audra North centers rape role-play as the path for both MCs growth and trust. I enjoyed the book (and the follow-ups) very much, but realize it isn’t for everyone.
The only role play I can remember is in A Marital Education, which is a Pride and Prejudice fan fic on archiveofourown (dot) com where Jane admits that she and Mr Bingley enjoy a bit of role play.
It’s a lol moment, but probably not what you’re looking for.
TW/CW: Lilah Pace’s Asking For It series centers rape role-play and are VERY emotionally dense books. I’ve only gotten to book 2, as they’re rather intense for me.
The short story “Play” by Karina Bliss in the anthology “You Had Me At Christmas” features a couple who role play to help spice up their marriage. I downloaded it ages ago on KU.
Another vote for an Ainsley Booth book: I just finished Tempt. While role playing is not the major focus of the book, there are definitely several instances. The heroine writes erotica; they role play some of her book ideas/fantasies.
Here’s another shout out for Ruthie Knox’s novella Big Boy. Man and woman meet online and develop a relationship based on once-a-month role playing. He suggests a year in history and they meet on a designated historical train at a train museum. Only Ruthie Knox could take such a crazy idea and make me cry.
There are dom/sub elements and it’s an erotic fantasy as opposed to straight up romance, but The Red by Tiffany Reisz has a LOT of role play (and is absolutely bananas).
@Amanda it isn’t that book. The book I read was more of a comedy romance and set in the UK. Sadly, it was on my old nook e reader which went to the digital book store in the sky a while ago.
There’s definitely teacher/student role play in Eve Dangerfield’s Something Else, which is the sequel to Something Borrowed–I can’t remember if Something Borrowed also has it or not, the two books tend to blend together because they’re about the same couple. It’s also femdom, if that matters.
Also, while absolutely echoing DiscoDollyDeb on the cw for Act Your Age, I loved the way Dangerfield makes it clear that this is something they’ve discussed and negotiated extensively beforehand and sprinkles references to those conversations throughout the first scene. I wasn’t sure if I’d enjoy the book, and details like that were why I ended up liking it.
I’m trying to remember the title of a book by Megan Hart that had some role playing.
Sweet Irish Kiss (1Night Stand book 39) JoAnne Kenrick https://www.amazon.com/Sweet-Irish-Kiss-1Night-Stand-ebook/dp/B005QQ3OMO
Shaun Bell, a divorced workaholic, spends all his time tending bar in his Irish Pub. He’s ready to love again, but the women who visit his bar are only after his infamous Irish cocktails. At the advice of his darts team, over a tanker or two of Beamish, he applies to 1Night Stand to get back into the swing of things and enjoy the company of a woman specially selected for him by Madame Evangeline.
Rachel Taylor has issues. Her father broke her mother’s heart with his cheating and Rachel swore never to let that happen to her, but one ruined relationship after another and she’s realized she’s got to get over being closed off to men. Perhaps a one-night stand is just the baby step she needs to begin to build trust again.
A match seemingly made in heaven…until morning rolls around and Shaun can’t bring himself to say good-bye. Can he win her over with his secret weapon, a Sweet Irish Kiss, or is Rachel still too scared to love?
@Amanda good news I’ve found the book! It’s Tied Up With Love by Holly Martin. It’s more chick lit than dark romance and definitely doesn’t meet the rec requirements. It is on KU in the UK and I still have a few weeks on my free membership so going to read it again to see if it’s still good/dated hideously.
Thank you!
Not a romance, but there’s a book by G.K. Chesterton called “Man Alive!” In it, people become concerned because their lovely governess seems to be seduced by and run off with a man who pretty much comes from nowhere.
It turns out that the couple are married and they do this periodically to keep their marriage, um, interesting.
There are some of these in K J Charles’ various male/male historical romances. Particularly in the Charm of Magpies books, which have strong fantasy elements
Lucien Vaudrey, Lord Crane, didn’t want to come back from his “exite” in Shanghai and certainly doesn’t want the title inherited from his dreadful father and brother.
Meanwhile, Stephen Day, whom Crane called in because he needed a local shaman to deal with a nasty little magic problem, is short and uninteresting–move along, nothing to see here.
Except Stephen is a very powerful practitioner, and the “looking boring” thing is a bit of an act,
Despite Lord Crane’s considerable physical power, if anyone does one thing Stephen Day does not consent to, Stephen will be quite capable of throwing them across the room.
So when Lord Crane does or says something domineering and Stephen Day demurely lowers his eyes and says, “yes, my lord”, both of them know quite well that they’re playing the roles of a lord (which Vaudrey doesn’t want to be) and a defenceless commoner (which Stephen Day certainly is not) for erotic purposes.
Susan Elizabeth Phillips’s Breathing Room and Cassandra Gannon’s Exile in the Water Kingdom both have fun role play scenes! (Breathing Room is a standalone contemporary romance, but Exile… is Book 3 in a paranormal series and might not work as a standalone.)
@Wub, The Charm of Magpies series was my introduction to K.J. Charles and will always have a special place in my heart. I love the books. I listened to them on audio (borrowed) and recommended them to my husband because I knew he’d like the (mild) horror element, so we ended up buying them on Kindle. Great price though, and we found out they were whispersynced for just $1.99 each. He loved the series as well.
Wonderful set of books! The eye thing was seriously creepy
Speaking of K.J. Charles,I just finished her new book, The Gentle Art of Fortune Hunting, and it fits this Rec. It’s a relatively lighthearted Regency m/m and in it one young man introduces an slightly older, more staid gentleman to what he calls “playing” which is basically talking, and acting, through a fantasy. It’s a great book.