Off Book with Amanda: Heated Rivalry, MM Romance, Forced Proximity & Finding Your Genre
- genredpodcast
- 2 days ago
- 11 min read
This week on Genre’d Off Book, Katy and Elyse are joined by a guest who has technically been part of the podcast since the beginning, just usually from behind the scenes: their little sister Amanda.
Amanda has previously appeared in more of a producer capacity. This time, she has her own microphone, a glass of wine, a severe sunburn, and something to say.
Specifically, she has a lot to say about MM romance.
Amanda has never considered herself much of a reader. Books have historically put her directly to sleep, and she needs to be approximately 100 percent sober if she has any hope of remembering what she read. But after discovering Heated Rivalry, something shifted.
She found her genre.
So naturally, we talked about Shane and Ilya, men who take nine years to discuss their feelings, stepbrothers, hockey players, forced proximity, gentleman witches, reverse harems, Black Honey lip gloss, Bob’s Discount Furniture, red wine, and the MM romance books that finally kept Amanda awake.
From Harry Potter to Heated Rivalry
Amanda’s early reading history is actually very sweet.
Some of her first memories of books are of Elyse reading Harry Potter to her when she was little. Elyse does not remember doing this, but everyone agrees that it sounds like something she would have done.
Amanda’s childhood reading interests leaned toward accessible fantasy and dystopian stories, including:
Harry Potter
Twilight
The Hunger Games
The Thousandth Floor
She was interested in fantasy, but not necessarily deep world-building, complicated magic systems, or pages of political history. She liked what she described as “pop fantasy,” meaning recognizable worlds with something supernatural or heightened happening inside them.
Also, less fighting. More love.
A fair request.
Amanda was also the person who convinced Elyse to read Twilight, which eventually became Elyse’s emotional support series during grad school. Elyse read all four books on a continuous loop, although she eventually began skipping New Moon.
Katy and Amanda were horrified.
This also led to the inevitable discussion of Twilight fanfiction, Fifty Shades of Grey, and the experience of recognizing a traditionally published book because you had already encountered its source material in a completely different corner of the internet.
The Heated Rivalry Awakening
Amanda’s current favorite genre is MM romance, and she credits Heated Rivalry with opening the door.
Before watching and reading the story, she did not think a romance between two men would be especially interesting or relatable to her. Then Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov arrived.
As they have for many.
What Amanda discovered was that she did not need to share the characters’ exact identities or circumstances to understand yearning, secrecy, fear, desire, emotional repression, or the panic of realizing that a relationship has become much more serious than anyone intended.
Anyone can relate to that.
She also found that MM romance often adds another layer of stakes to the central relationship. The characters may be navigating sexuality, family expectations, public identities, careers, teammates, coaches, communities, or the realization that what they want does not fit the life they expected to have.
For Amanda, that added tension makes the romance feel less predictable.
First-Act Encounter, Third-Act Relationship
Amanda’s theory is that many traditional male-female romances begin with emotional tension and slowly build toward physical intimacy.
MM romance, at least the corner Amanda has been reading, frequently reverses that.
The physical encounter may happen almost immediately. The feelings are the part that take 300 pages, six misunderstandings, one shared hotel room, a difficult father, an emotionally unavailable hockey coach, and approximately nine years to resolve.
So instead of the classic third-act breakup, Elyse suggested that MM romance sometimes gives us a third-act relationship.
The characters have spent most of the book physically involved, emotionally confused, secretly attached, or pretending that none of this means anything. The final act is when they finally admit that they are actually together.
Boys being boys, but with devastating yearning.
Why the Stakes Feel Higher
Amanda said one of the things she finds most compelling about MM romance is the unpredictability.
She feels like she has already seen many of the standard turns in a traditional romance: the meet-cute, the misunderstanding, the third-act breakup, and the inevitable reconciliation.
With MM romance, she is less certain about what the central obstacle will be.
Will one character need to come out? Is the relationship secret because of family, sports, school, work, or public scrutiny? Is one character still figuring out his sexuality? Are they enemies? Teammates? Rivals? Roommates?
Stepbrothers?
We will get there.
The external stakes make the romance feel more urgent, while the emotional repression keeps Amanda waiting for the moment when someone finally says what he actually wants.
She loves the yearning.
She would simply prefer that the gentlemen eventually bring it up.
The Post-Heated Rivalry Reading List
After Heated Rivalry, Amanda’s first MM romance was The Kennedy Rule, another hockey romance.
The story follows players from different teams who end up together at the Olympics, creating the most important possible literary circumstance: forced proximity.
They have to share a room.
Amanda was immediately seated.
She liked that the story gave her a familiar bridge from Heated Rivalry into the wider MM romance genre. There were athletes, secrets, sexuality, family and coaching pressures, and at least one man struggling to understand what he wanted.
From there, she moved into darker and spicier books, including Rina Kent’s interconnected romance world.
Books discussed included:
God of Fury
Kiss the Villain
Hunt the Villain
Amanda described Rina Kent as the place she went when she was ready for something crazier, darker, and significantly more intense.
BookTok provided the syllabus.
Where Should a New MM Romance Reader Start?
Amanda refused to give one universal recommendation without first asking an essential question:
How spicy do you want it?
For readers who want a sweeter or more approachable entry point, she recommends Don’t You Dare by C.E. Ricci.
The book features childhood friends, college roommates, friends-to-lovers tension, and a lot of communication over text. Amanda likes the gap between how characters behave through their phones and what they are willing to admit face-to-face.
The texting becomes its own little emotional universe.
For readers who want something much spicier, more dramatic, and more complicated, she recommends For the Fans by Nyla K.
Amanda’s only major note is that it is long.
Very long.
She would have cut at least 100 pages. But the length also allows the enemies-to-lovers tension to continue for a genuinely satisfying amount of time. The characters are not mildly annoyed acquaintances pretending to be enemies.
They are really enemies.
There are family issues, money problems, school, secrecy, tension, and a central relationship that becomes increasingly difficult to ignore.
For the Paranormal Romance Readers
For readers who prefer their romance with violence, supernatural elements, and men doing deeply suspicious things, Amanda recommends The Mercenary and the Mortician by Alexandria St. Pierre.
The title alone was enough to get Katy interested.
The story involves a mortician and a man described as a mercenary, although Amanda suggested that he is doing quite a bit more than the job title implies.
It is paranormal, violent, very spicy, and apparently contains certain scenes that have remained firmly lodged in Amanda’s memory.
Amanda selected this as Katy’s personalized recommendation.
For Elyse, the resident “freaky Omegaverse gal,” Amanda suggested For the Fans.
Know your sisters. Know your audience.
Amanda also discussed the fantasy MM romance she was reading at the time, Malum Discordiae, which features college-aged witches, family lore, small-town history, and dark academia energy.
They are witches, not warlocks.
An important distinction, apparently.
Gentleman Witches and the Fantasy Threshold
Amanda has not yet gone fully into high-fantasy MM romance.
She still prefers stories grounded in a somewhat recognizable world, even if that world includes witches, paranormal violence, secret powers, or a suspiciously dangerous mercenary.
Small-town witchy romance works.
A 90-page glossary of ancient magical kingdoms may not.
Her reading taste still reflects what she enjoyed as a kid: romance and fantasy together, but with the emotional story taking priority over warfare, world-building, or complicated lore.
She is trying to see the love.
Why Choose and Katy’s Limited Emotional Bandwidth
The conversation briefly moved from MM romance into why-choose romance.
Amanda described her preferred version as something like The Bachelorette: several men pursuing and worshipping one woman.
Elyse explained that there should ideally be a pack of approximately five men devoted to one woman.
Katy understood the fantasy in theory but could not imagine having enough emotional energy to care for that many romantic partners.
One is the maximum.
She has a cat.
All remaining time and energy must go to Lola.
This may be because Katy is a Scorpio. Further research is required.
Why Women Love MM Romance
The sisters also discussed why so many women have connected with Heated Rivalry and MM romance more broadly.
Katy referenced Rachel Reid speaking about the appeal of watching men communicate about consent, desire, boundaries, and the changing power dynamics between them.
Amanda questioned whether Shane and Ilya should be used as the leading example of open communication, considering it took them nine years to tell each other how they felt.
Fair.
But the delay is also part of the appeal.
The stakes are high enough that the reader understands why the characters cannot simply announce the relationship, update Facebook, and move forward. There are steps they have to take, fears they have to work through, and lives they may have to restructure.
The secrecy is painful.
The eventual emotional payoff is the point.
Stepbrothers, Forced Proximity, and Christmas
Amanda’s favorite MM romance trope is also the one she initially found the most polarizing:
Stepbrothers.
At first, the setup felt a little too close to a category on a website nobody needs named here. The characters live in the same house, their parents are married, and the entire situation sounds designed for scandal.
But For the Fans changed Amanda’s mind.
She realized that the trope creates multiple layers of tension at once. The characters may need to reckon with their sexuality, their relationship, their parents, their living arrangement, and the fact that they will still be expected to appear at family Christmas.
There is nowhere to go.
Forced proximity is built directly into the family structure.
You are sharing a house.
You are sharing a family.
Someone is going to have to explain this over the holidays.
One Bed, Shared Dorm, Immediate Interest
Amanda’s broader favorite trope is forced proximity.
She likes:
One bed
Shared hotel rooms
Shared dorm rooms
Teammates traveling together
Olympic roommates
People trapped in the same house
Enemies who cannot avoid each other
Any logistical circumstance that makes emotional avoidance impossible
Characters may insist that nothing is happening.
The room assignment says otherwise.
Amanda likes when the setup forces the characters into repeated contact until attraction, resentment, tension, and feelings become impossible to separate.
The Tropes That Do Not Make Amanda Yearn
Amanda’s least favorite trope is age gap, and that applies to both MM romance and traditional romance.
She is also not especially interested in professor-student relationships or romances built around a major imbalance of power.
Kiss the Villain was discussed as an example of an age-gap and professor-student setup that she could still find interesting, but it is not naturally the trope she reaches for.
The powerful older person dynamic does not speak to her.
It did not speak to her in Fifty Shades of Grey, either.
She needs forced proximity.
She does not need office hours.
Books That Actually Keep Amanda Awake
Amanda said she would choose MM romance if she could only read one genre for the rest of her life.
She would not even cheat.
The genre is broad enough to include sports, dark romance, fantasy, paranormal stories, why choose, Omegaverse, and different combinations of gender and relationship structures. There is always another corner to explore.
More importantly, MM romance is the first kind of book Amanda has found since childhood that consistently keeps her interested.
She estimated that she has read 10 to 15 MM romances in the past year.
For someone who claims the written word places her into a medically concerning sleep state, this is significant.
The books kept her awake.
How MM Romance Changed Amanda’s Perspective
Amanda also said that reading MM romance has changed how she thinks about men.
Growing up in a family of sisters, she felt that there were parts of male friendship, emotional development, sexuality, and social pressure that she did not fully understand.
Reading these books gave her a different way to think about how men are raised, how they relate to each other, what they are encouraged to suppress, and why emotional communication can become so difficult.
The stories made her more interested in male vulnerability and more aware of experiences that she had previously dismissed as unrelatable.
They also introduced her to a few logistical possibilities she had not previously considered.
Educational.
Accidental Sponsorships and Missing Lip Gloss
This was, importantly, not a sober academic discussion from beginning to end.
The episode also includes:
Amanda accidentally interacting with strangers on TikTok while falling asleep
A debate over “safety tips” versus “safety cigarettes”
Amanda stopping the conversation to search for her Clinique Black Honey lip gloss
An unsolicited sponsorship pitch to Clinique
An unsolicited sponsorship pitch to Bob’s Discount Furniture
Multiple unsolicited pitches to wine companies
A red wine bottle with a phoenix that was immediately classified as fantasy-adjacent
The acknowledgment that any audio issues were potentially caused by Penley wine
Amanda repeatedly provided variations of a management email address for interested brands.
None can be legally guaranteed.
Books and Authors Mentioned in This Episode
The Silent Hollow series
Fast Facts
Guest: Amanda
Relationship to the hosts: Katy and Elyse’s youngest sister
Favorite genre: MM romance
Gateway story: Heated Rivalry
Books read in the past year: Approximately 10 to 15 MM romances
Favorite tropes: Forced proximity, one bed, shared rooms, stepbrothers, enemies-to-lovers, and characters struggling to communicate their feelings
Least favorite tropes: Age gap, professor-student, and major power imbalances
Best first recommendation for a sweeter reader: Don’t You Dare by C.E. Ricci
Best recommendation for spice and drama: For the Fans by Nyla K.
Best recommendation for paranormal readers: The Mercenary and the Mortician by Alexandria St. Pierre
Vibe: Three sisters, several glasses of wine, one unexpectedly thorough MM romance syllabus, and absolutely no genre shaming unless it is funny
Mini FAQs
Who is Amanda?
Amanda is Katy and Elyse’s youngest sister. She has appeared on Genre’d before in more of a behind-the-scenes or producer role, but this is her first episode as the featured guest.
What is Amanda’s favorite book genre?
Amanda’s current favorite genre is MM romance. She previously gravitated toward accessible fantasy and dystopian books, but Heated Rivalry introduced her to the genre that finally made her want to read consistently.
Why does Amanda like MM romance?
Amanda likes the heightened emotional and external stakes, including secrecy, sexuality, family expectations, sports, careers, and characters learning to admit what they want. She also finds the story structures less predictable than many traditional romances.
What MM romance does Amanda recommend for beginners?
For a sweeter friends-to-lovers entry point, Amanda recommends Don’t You Dare by C.E. Ricci. For readers who want more spice, conflict, and complicated family dynamics, she recommends For the Fans by Nyla K.
What are Amanda’s favorite romance tropes?
Amanda loves forced proximity, shared rooms, one bed, enemies-to-lovers, and stepbrother romances. She especially likes any setup that prevents the characters from avoiding each other.
What romance tropes does Amanda dislike?
Amanda is generally not drawn to age-gap romance, professor-student relationships, or stories with a major power imbalance.
Is this episode only about MM romance?
MM romance is the main topic, but the conversation also covers childhood reading, Twilight, fanfiction, fantasy, Omegaverse, why choose, TikTok habits, wine, and Amanda’s unofficial campaign to secure several podcast sponsors.
Is this episode spoiler-free?
The episode includes light discussion of romance setups, tropes, and character dynamics in several books, particularly Heated Rivalry and For the Fans. It is not a full plot recap, but listeners who prefer to know absolutely nothing may encounter minor setup details.
This episode is for anyone who thought they were not a reader, anyone who discovered an entire genre because of Shane and Ilya, anyone who needs significant external stakes to care whether two people stay together, and anyone who understands that “we have to share a room at the Olympics” is not a problem.
It is also for anyone who has accidentally used TikTok while half asleep, paused an important conversation to find a lip gloss, or attempted to manifest a sponsorship after several glasses of white
wine.
Amanda spent years believing books simply were not for her.
It turns out she was waiting for emotionally constipated men, dangerous levels of forced proximity, and a relationship nobody is willing to define until the final 50 pages.
Sometimes you do not hate reading.
Sometimes you just have not found your genre.
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