Hot for Teacher: Romance Novels with Teacher Leads

When teachers and romance novels appear in the same sentence, I bet nine out of ten romance readers think of student/teacher tropes. Theoretically, I understand the appeal of this popular pairing. Student/teacher romances promise forbidden love, sneaking around, and shared intellectual passion. But along with these come an imbalance of power, age gaps, and, often, behavior that can feel like grooming. Romance novels allow readers to explore taboos in safe, fictional worlds where we all know that everything will work out and the characters will get a happy ending. And many authors play with the power dynamics of their student/teacher characters to show that the relationships are not toxic or harmful. Teachers and students can meet outside of school first without realizing their academic relationship, or one of them can remove themself from class. These stories almost always are set in college or graduate school, to ensure both love interests are adults capable of giving consent. Even so, ever since I became a teacher, this is one type of romance novel I have a really hard time reading. So I have to sit this trope out 99% of the time. But teachers still deserve romance stories, and I...