Romance

Compendium

Terminology

Have you ever wondered what to search for to find more of the romance books that you like? Or heard a term on BookTok and thought “what in the fluff does that mean?”, but were too nervous to put it in your google search.

Or do you just want to know all the different types of romance that are out there, to feel empowered the next time you are discussing a book with your besties. Well you aren’t alone!

Trying to keep track of the acronyms (MC, MMC, FMC,MM, POV, TBR), or decode the BookTok emojis( Im looking at you ⚔️ 👀), and remember which sub-genre to search for led us to create our own Blush & Bindings Compendium.

We hope this helps!

As a reminder some of the content on this page defines terms that contain mature themes and reader discretion is advised.

Use the buttons to jump directly to the sections your are interested in.

SUBGENRES

The subgenre list could be endless, we captured the most popular here.

Thematic Contemporary Romance

Cowboy

Billionaire

Mafia

Sports

Rockstar

Motorcycle Club

Medical

Billionaire

Fantasy Romance

Fae (High Fae Low Fae, Elf Punk)

Dragons

Magical Schools/Academia

Urban Fantasy

Myths & Legends

Fairytale Retellings

Inclusive Romance

LGBTQ+ Romance

BBW

Polyamory

Why-Choose Romance

Reverse Harem

Throuple

Omegaverse

Paranormal Romance

Witches

Vampires

Shifters

Monsters

Angels

Demons

Haunted Love (Ghosts)

Zombies

Dark Romance

Mafia

College Bully Romance

Motorcycle Club

Serial Killer/Assassins

Stalker

Dark Sports Romance

Science Fiction Romance

Aliens

Space Opera

SteamPunk

Dystopian

CyberPunk/Robot

Time Travel

Alternate Reality

Space Cowboy

Historical Romance

Victorian Era

Regency Era

Gregorian

Elizabethan

Civil War

Frontier

Pirate

Viking

Highlander

Terms/Tropes

Closed Door: No sex scenes described, also known as ‘fade to black’.

Slightly Ajar Door: All the way to second based with heavily implied subtext of sex

Open Door: Full sex scenes described

Meet-Cute: A charming first encounter between two characters that leads to the development of a romantic relationship between them

Shipping: Liking a relationship between two people

Slow Burn: Takes awhile for the main romance couple to get together.

Spice: Sexy scenes, may or may not be explicit. Common in Romance, where the love drives the story and the sexual elements are secondary but make you blush. Spice is a sliding scale from low to high spice. High spice can also be smut.

Smut: slang term for sexual material, adopted by book community to describe books with a lot of explicit sex scenes.

Erotica: literature or audio intended to arouse sexual desire. In the book world, these are books with minimal plot to sex scene ratio. The sex scenes drive the story.

Character Traits

Grumpy/Sunshine: One character is a grump and the other is positive and outspoke. Often creating contrasting interactions. The male is often the grump, female is the sunshine.

Black Cat/Golden Retriever: Opposite of grumpy/sunshine, the FMC has black cat energy (unbothered, prioritizes their needs, aloof, maybe introverted), and the MMC has golden retriever energy (energetic, affectionate, playful and extroverted personality)

Cinnamon Role: A person perceived as good, gentle and kind.

Morally Gray: a term used to describe a character who is neither purely good nor evil, and whose actions are not always clear-cut. They often have complex motives and redeeming qualities or actions.

Morally Black: a term used to describe a character who is the anti-hero, a walking red flag. They often have complex motives but less to no redeeming qualities or actions.

Touch Her and Die: Trope where the MMC is protective over their love interest to a point where if they are threatened or hurt, the MMC takes extreme action to protect them, often harming or even killing the threat.

Love Triangle: A romantic relationship dynamic between one person and two love interests, the main character has to choose between the two love interests in the end.

Why-Choose: A romantic relationship with more than two people of multiple or the same gender. They all get to get together in the end.

Throuple: A romantic relationship between three people who have all agreed to be in the relationship. Can be any gender.

Reverse Harem: A romantic relationship between one woman and many men (See relationship dynamic acronyms for more information).

Sapphic romance - Love stories between females characters, or a relationship between people who are attracted to women, regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity. The term "sapphic" is an umbrella term that encompasses a wide range of identities, including lesbian, bisexual, queer, trans, masc, and non-binary.

Enemies to Lovers: Immediate conflict and negative feelings between the characters which they overcome throughout the story as they fall in love.

Friends to Lovers: Friends, either long time friends or a friends-with-benefits situation that grows into a real relationship and love. Usually characters are scared to risk their friendship for a shot at something more.

Second Chance: characters share a past history, either romantic, or a missed opportunity that they get a second shot at later in life.

Insta-love: Instantaneously in love with another person

Insta-lust: Instantaneously highly attracted to another person

Forbidden Romance: there is some rule either explicit, implied, or self imposed that classifies the relationship as forbidden. Most common: Age Gap, Brother’s Best Friend, Workplace Romance, (Employee/Boss or Coworkers), Doctor/Patient.

Taboo Romance (Forbidden): Relationships seen as taboo in the real world. Most common: Step Sibling/Step Family, Best Friend or (Ex)Boyfriend’s Father, Father’s Best Friend, Professor/Student.

Common Omegaverse/Shifter Terms

Alpha: Socially and physically dominant person, typically male but can be female. Also can refer to the leader of the pack.

Beta: Neither dominant or submissive, considered the normal ones. Can mate with alphas but can’t take the alpha knot.

Omega: Submissive person, usually the focus of a pack.

Heat: A time when the omega is most fertile and ready to mate. Usually a heightened sexual state.

Knotting: when the base of an Alpha's penis swells and locks in an omega's uterus.

Mpreg: Male Pregnancy

Go to our After Dark Compendium for additional Terms & Tropes

General Bookish Acronyms

TBR: To Be Read, often a TBR List of books you want to read

POV: Point of View, Single, Dual or Multiple POV

HEA: Happy Ever After

HFN: Happy for Now

ARC: Advanced Reader Copy, ARC readers will read a book for an author and provide a review ahead of its official release.

DNF: Did Not Finish

FMC: Female Main Character

MMC: Male Main Character

MC(Character): Main Character, either not gendered or non-binary

CW: Content Warning

TW: Trigger Warning

NSFW: Not Safe For Work

Subgenre or Trope Specific Acronyms

YA: Young Adult

NA: New Adult

MC: Motorcycle Club

RH: Reverse Harem

E2L/ETL: Enemies to Lovers

TSTL: Too Stupid To Live

A/B/O: Alpha/Beta/Omega, relevant in an Omegaverse or Shifter Romance

BBW: Big Beautiful Women

Acronyms

Relationship Dynamic Acronyms- Order matters for some of these!

F/F: Female/Female relationship/scene

M/M: Male/Male relationship/scene

MMF: One man is in a relationship/scene with one man and one women, either separately or together in a group dynamic, the men are also intimate and have their own relationship (throuple, and/or polyamory).

MFM: One woman in a relationship/scene with two men, either separately or together in a group dynamic, but the two men are not intimate but they may all be in a relationship together (throuple, and/or polyamory).

FFM: One woman in a relationships/scene, with one man and one woman, either separately or together in a group dynamic, the women are also intimate and have their own relationship (throuple, and/or polyamory).

FMF: Implies a man in a relationship/scene with two women, either separately or together in a group dynamic, but the two women are not necessarily intimate but they may all be in a relationship together (throuple, and/or polyamory).

MFMM: Reverse Harem or Why-Choose. One woman is in a relationship/scene with multiple hetero men. She is intimate with all of them, the action is focused on her. They are not intimate with each other.

MMMF: Reverse Harem or Why-Choose. One woman is in a relationship/scene with multiple men, some may be hetero and bisexual. With possible man to man action. Look for the addition of the crossing swords ⚔ emoji too.

Spicy Scene Acronyms

DP: Double Penetration

DVP: Double Vagina Penetration

BDSM: Bondage, Domination, Submission and Masochism

For more Spicy Acronyms, Go to our After Dark Compendium

😈: Naughty, Devil, Demon

🔥: Spice is on fire

💦: Squirting or Orgasming

🫦: Bites lip, Tension

💥: Orgasm, Climax

👀: Side-eye, Suggestion of something illicit

👅: Oral

💨🍆: Oral, Blow Job

🍑: Butt, Anal Play

🤬: Dirty Talk

🏰: Castle, Fantasy Romance

🗡️: Sword, Fantasy Romance

🧚: Fae/Faerie romance, Fantasy Romance

🐉: Dragons or Dragon Shifter

🐺: Wolf Shifter, Paranormal Romance

Bookish Emojis

🌶️: Spice level/Spiciness/Spice Rating

🍆: Male Genitalia

🌮: Female Genitalia

🔪: Knife, Touch her and die/Knife play

🥵: It’s hot, steamy, metaphorically

⚔: Sword-Crossing: Male genitalia touching other male genitalia

🐫: Camel, Humping

☠️: Usually for Touch her and Die

🍇: Sometimes used to signify Sexual Assult, Grape/Rape

🏳️‍🌈: Queer or LGBTQIA+ 

♥️: Love, DUH!

👶: Accidental Pregnancy or Single Parent Trope

🤫: Shhh, forbidden or taboo romance

🧛: Vampire, Paranormal Romance

😮‍💨: Steamy, Hot, Blowing out a Breath

⭐: Star Rating

🫄: Breeding Kink

🤭: Blushing

🙏: Praise Kink

🛏️: One Bed Trope

💨: Breath Play

🩸: Blood Play

❤️‍🩹: Second Chance

🔫: Mafia, Weapon, ooooor Gun Play (👀 at you Haunting Adeline)

⛓️: BDSM or just bondage

😷 🎭: Mask Kink

🙅⛔🌶️: no spice, closed door

If you have additional emojis you think we should add, shoot us a DM or message!

Trigger/Content Warnings

Here at Blush & Bindings, we strongly encourage readers to always check trigger/content warnings before jumping into a new book, though it may spoil some plot lines, it will ensure your mental health remains safe while exploring the literary world. We also encourage you to be mindful when recommending books to others and mention a book has trigger warnings or pass along the reminder to check them. This keeps our book lovers community safe and informed.

We will always provide content warnings in the show notes of our episodes and prior to our Book Club segment.

Dark Romance tends to have trigger/content warnings by default, and it is implied that every book recommended in the After Dark episodes and TBR may have content warnings and we ALWAYS suggest you check them.

Happy Reading and Stay Safe!

A trigger warning in a book is a statement that alerts readers that the book's content may be disturbing or upsetting. Trigger warnings are a type of content warning that are intended to help people with anxiety disorders or Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) avoid content that could cause intense psychological or physiological symptoms. 

Trigger warnings can appear in a book's back jacket, on its digital detail page, or in an author's note. They allow readers to avoid content that could be harmful, help readers prevent revisiting past trauma, and keep your mental health safe.

Definition adapted from Writer unBoxed

Common Trigger/Content Warnings

These may include explicit descriptions within the storylines or mentions of it in the past. This is not a compete list.

  • Abuse, physical and emotional abuse/manipulation

  • Alcohol abuse

  • Animal cruelty

  • Body shaming

  • Cannibalism

  • Child abuse, parental neglect, pedophilia

  • Childhood emotional and physical abuse or neglect

  • Chronic physical pain

  • Claustrophobia

  • Domestic violence

  • Drug abuse

  • Explicit, detailed sexual content, sex scenes, kinks and behaviors that some readers might find triggering, including but not limited to: anal, adult toys, BDSM, bloody play, breath play, choking, cock warming, consensual non-consensual role (CNC) play, dubious consent (Dubcon), genital piercings, impact play, knife play, praise, unequal balance of experience/power, rough sex, spitting. 

  • Explicit language, profanity

  • Grief/Loss - Death of a loved one, pervasive grief

  • Incest

  • Infertility and forced sterilization

  • Kidnapping/Abduction

  • Medical trauma / hospital settings

  • Panic attacks and undiagnosed PTSD, Untreated PTSD, including flashbacks

  • Parental neglect, child abuse, pedophilia

  • Pregnancy, pregnancy loss & infertility, child loss, miscarriages, and abortion

  • Physical violence including warfare fighting, killing, torture

  • Religious trauma, references to cults, including manipulation and degradation

  • Rituals involving cutting and blood

  • Self-harm, suicide or suicidal ideation