Just when I think nothing will surprise me anymore, I read a new f/f work that floors me! This SwanQueen fic is from 2013 and man, am I glad I found this now, 10 years later. MorganLeGaye wrote a truly magnificent romance with Of Love and Loathing 🥰. There is a catch though. I’ll explain later. Don’t read the last paragraph if you don’t want any spoilers 😉.

Regina Mills and Emma Swan don’t like each other. Hate is more like it. Nevertheless they have sex with each other, frequently. It just happened that way. It’s hot, angry and strangely satisfying, but they don’t have to like it. They don’t want to like it. Regina even wants to stop. Trouble is, she can’t. Therefore she visits Storybrooke’s own therapist Archie Hopper. He tells Regina to talk to Emma. The notion!

But they do, Emma and Regina. They start start talking besides the sex. It’s all very confusing because it seems that Regina starts to like Emma more and more. And Emma starts to show Regina more of herself and make her feel, dare she admit it, liked by her. It must stop there. Regina’s son Henry must never know, it will be too traumatizing for him when they have to end it.

For end it must. Never mind that when Henry does find out he’s happy for there is hope for a true love’s kiss to end the curse! Regina is the only one next to Henry who knows of course the curse is real. And that when the curse does break, all hope for true love with Emma will be lost.

This fic is one of the best romance novels I have ever read. It’s beautifully written, the dialogue, the angst, the character building, the love between Emma and Regina, the hot scenes 🥵, it’s all there. But, here’s the catch! The looming fear that Regina feels for losing it all is real. The story does not end in the HEA it actually was, until the very last sentence 😱. The story continues in a story twice as long in Transgressions of the Heart. And that story is not finished 😭. Why do I bother writing this rec then since it doesn’t meet my reading preference? Because it is that brilliant! And good, and so beautiful ❤️.