Browse Reviews by Topic

Interested in a specific time, place, or subgenre?

All of our reviews about Scotland / Ripped Bodices / Governesses / etc. are handily sorted for your viewing pleasure.

Time Period

Location

Subgenre

The Hero

The Heroine

Trope

Mood

Representation

Note: We are talking about the protagonists here. Sassy Gay Best Friends do not count.

Age of Protagonists

Sexytimes

No Sex | Safe Sex | Lots of Sex | Kink

Other Categories

Fairy Tale Retelling | Austen Retelling | Shakespeare Retelling | Other Retelling

Deep Dives!

Want more from us on certain tropes, archetypes, and settings? Our most recent tropes discussions are below; you can find all of them here.

Let’s Talk Tropes: Enemies with Benefits…Podcast Edition!

We’re back with another podcast episode! This month, we’re talking Enemies to Lovers (aka, the most popular trope in Romancelandia that none of us really like), as well as all the books called Enemies with Benefits that we read this week.

April 28, 2023April 28, 2023

Let’s Talk Tropes: Woke Up Married…Podcast Edition!

Hi everyone! The podcast experiment continues, this time with a discussion of the Woke Up Married trope! Books discussed in this podcast: We discuss both Lick and What I Did for Love in depth, so here’s your spoilers warning. Also, N.B. we refer to What I Did for Love as the SEP frequently. It’s easier…

March 20, 2023April 28, 2023

Jingle Jingle, Here’s Chuck Tingle

Anybody who spends as much time as we do in romance and romance-adjacent book circles has heard of Chuck Tingle, but how many of us have purchased and read any of his books? Well, we couldn’t hold back our curiosity any more, so this year we’re diving in feet first. Dinosaurs? Cryptids? Animated inanimate objects?…

December 5, 2022December 5, 2022

Let’s Talk Archetypes: Cowboys

Our theme week for this month is cowboys and to kick it off, the Smut Reporters sat down to talk about the cowboy archetype. Bottom line: Do you like the Cowboy archetype? Erin: With this question I compare myself to my college roommate, who was all about the cowboys when I was not. So I…

November 7, 2022May 20, 2023

Let’s Talk Archetypes: Blue Collar

Every now and then Erin will send something that captures her attention to the group chat, and for whatever reason when she saw this post from @LadySadieReads on Insta she sent it along… …which, combined with SuperWendy’s August TBR Challenge, inspired our August buddy read week. Several of the books on Sadie’s list were already…

August 15, 2022August 17, 2022

Let’s Talk Tropes: Fake Relationship

Here’s a fun one for us! We just happened to have several fake relationship ARCs, so this month we’re talking about the fake relationship trope. Bottom line: Do you like the fake relationship trope? Erin: Even though I often think the reason the protagonists think they need a fake relationship is absolutely ridiculous, there is…

July 4, 2022July 4, 2022

Let’s Talk Settings: Between the Wars

Normally we do a buddy read focusing on a trope or archetype, but when we were talking about our goals for the year, Erin wanted to explore the setting of the 1920s. This (mostly) aligned with the TBR Challenge prompt for June: After the War, so we decided to do a “Between the Wars” week…

June 13, 2022June 13, 2022

Let’s Talk Tropes: Accidental Pregnancy

When we were discussing our goals for this year, Holly said she wanted to talk about the accidental pregnancy trope even though she hates it. So here we are! As usual, we’re starting the month with a discussion of the trope, but we have to say in advance…none of us is super pumped about it.…

May 23, 2022May 22, 2022