SBTB Goodreads Group discussion

Hey all,

I just wanted to open up this space for future challenge suggestions. Sometimes, I get stumped with trying to come up a theme or tasks.

Drop whatever ideas you have here!

Oh and thanks so much for being so involved with these challenges! <3

Hmm...

Sexy librarian (hey, aren't they all?)
Virgin hero
Side character who deserves a whole book (you can decide whether or not it's allowed if the character already HAS a starring role in a sequel)

Then I have some half-baked "shouldn't go together, but does" notion for a theme, but I don't know if that's more suited to weird genre/premise mashups, or character occupations (for instance, hockey player turned bartender moonlighting as a detective in Ethan Stone's BARTENDER, P.I.)...maybe someone would have a clearer idea.

I think expanding on the location specific challenges from the past is a good idea -
romance set in Montana,
in a country without English as an official language
at the beach
in the mountains
on a boat
in space
on a different planet
in Asia
south of the equator
north of the equator
on the equator

Also
- historical romance with a Hero/heroine who actually existed
- romance with Hero/heroine at university
- royal in hiding (in disguise, safe house, remote locale, etc)
- romance with a chef / baker/ caterer (this is always a good one!)
- fairy tale retelling with romance (this one was on the RPSB, and is a great category)
- book that involves the use of poison (either as a weapon or in a use unintended to harm)
- a book with a beta hero
- a book with an alpha Hero/heroine
- international sports / sporting event
- a book by a RWA lifetime award winner
- heavily featuring art or with an artist character
- time slip / time travel
- book considered a classic
- book by a First Nations author
- book that won a RWA award

Repeating previous themes would also be fine,

Love in dystopia
magical realism
featuring art or an artist
con person / gangster or bad boy/girl
steampunk
Hero/heroine is a pilot (plane, airship, spaceship, dirigible, boat)

Color challenge
Read a book that has a connection to the following colors (either in the title, author’s name, character name, some element of the story, or book cover)

Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, Violet, Black, White, Grey, Brown, Pink, Purple, Gold, Silver

Maybe a geographical one? Not state-by-state or country-by-country, but more east coast, west coast, upper midwest, lower midwest etc for the US or western Europe/eastern Europe, Africa, or South American romances (that don't involve being kidnapped by the locals or running from drug cartels) or that start in one country and end in another.

Or travel based might be fun, as in travel methods (read one with a car road trip, read one where the characters travel by train or bus or plane) or number of places visited.

Some more tropetastic favorites:

Friends-to-lovers (or enemies-to-lovers)
Snowed in

Great idea, tropes, tropes, tropes!
Slytherin falling for a Hufflepuff (recent Rec League).

Maybe a 'Rec League' challenge, finding tropes from previous SBTB Rec Leagues!

So many good ideas here!!

Hmm...what about an ABC challenge based off of Hero/Heroine's names (ex. A: Arthur, B: Bess, C: Chance, D: David, E: Elizabeth, etc.)

Granted there's more letters in the alphabet than the standard 15 slots per challenge, but you could group some of the harder letters (...U, W, X, Y, Z) together to narrow it down or feature some sort of "bonus" level if people complete all 26 letters.

- I like the main character is a librarian idea! I’d add bookstore owner to that too.
-I also second the dystopian romance. It’s a growing sub genre, I think.
-Revenge plot
- captive plot
- character works with animals (veterinarian/rescue/etc)
- gothic novel
- teen novel
- steampunk
- hockey romance
- adrenaline junky: hero is a race car driver or pilot (etc)
- title has a temperature in it “burning”, “hot” or “cold” for example
- fairytale retelling

Jae wrote: "Maybe a geographical one? Not state-by-state or country-by-country, but more east coast, west coast, upper midwest, lower midwest etc for the US or western Europe/eastern Europe, Africa, or South A..."

Great ideas all-around, but I especially like this one!

-Banned books
-Mythology or folklore
-#ownvoices
-Halloween (I know that a seasonal challenge might incorporate related tasks, but I LOVE reading challenges dedicated solely to Halloween)

YES for the banned books one, what a great idea! Banned books awareness week is in September; and we can find info that is cumulative and also updated yearly by the ALA at http://www.ala.org/advocacy/bbooks

I love competence porn in my romances - so how about some more featuring occupations?

Archaeologist, biologist, photographer, brewmaster, photographer, doctor, veterinarian, teachers, journalist, artist, park ranger, etc.

One idea would be to build a challenge around the surprisingly vast number of national days out there. Not all of them are helpful (National Apple Betty Day? National Online Bank Day? National Moldy Cheese Day????? (October 9th!))

But there are nice ones too, like October 6th being National Plus Size Appreciation Day (read a book with a plus size heroine); October 15 is National Grouch Day (read a book with a grumpy hero or heroine); November 17th is National Take a Hike Day (read a book that takes place mostly in the outdoors?); December 8th is Pretend to Be a Time Traveler Day (read a book with time travel).

Here are the links to October, November, and December. The site does have several popups, unfortunately (no, I do not want to subscribe, leave me alone):
https://nationaldaycalendar.com/october/
https://nationaldaycalendar.com/novem...
https://nationaldaycalendar.com/decem...

If nothing else, the list is fun to read (November 12th is National Pizza With the Works Except Anchovies Day!)

Oh, hey! That cover challenge from last year: Cover Hunt Quarterly Challenge: October - December 2017! That was fun, how about another find-stuff-on-the-cover challenge? Sometimes it is so arbitrary, what is put on book covers.

The previous cover hunt challenge had 6 categories, and you could choose to find 1-3 books per category. 5 Categories would be fine, too.

How about a 'cover snark' or 'worst covers' category.

What about "book you've been meaning to read for years, but haven't" or "book you keep trying to finish"? :-D

Old school alpha hero you have guilty love for anyway.
Might literally be called a bodice-ripper.
Both hero and heroine are writers.
Written by a guy under a feminine penname.

Okay this is totally a cheat because I tried to think of categories that would include my old school guilty pleasure Once More, Miranda by Jennifer Wilde [aka Tom Huff] to get more people to read and react to it. [hanging head in mock-shame]