A Sci-Fi Romance Special: 7 Fun Book and Movie Pairings

For your entertainment pleasure, here are companion movies (and two shows) you can pair with seven of my sci-fi romance and fantasy romance books. This list is especially geared towards folks who like to recapture story experiences by consuming similar versions in different mediums.

This list is also a helpful entertainment guide for adventurous adult readers, geeks, and cinephiles who know their own taste and are willing to try new-to-them books, movies, and shows. Many of the stories featured include graphic violence and sex, so make sure to check out the content notices for my science fiction romance books as well as for any that exist for the movies and shows listed here.

This post also serves to demonstrate that while my stories are off-the-beaten-path in some ways, they’re strongly commercial in others. Some readers need reassurance that they’ll encounter familiar characters, tropes, and plots in the books they read. Well, it doesn’t get any more reassuring than when a book shares elements with mainstream movies and shows! Here’s another layer of reassurance: all my romance books feature a Happily Ever After.

Julie & Winifred’s Most Excellent Adventure + Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure

Illustrated, comic-book style book cover for Heather Massey’s f/f time travel romance, Julie & Winifred’s Most Excellent Adventure. Features the two main characters walking through a rainbow-colored time tunnel. They’re holding hands and smiling. — Heather Massey’s time travel romance **Julie & Winifred’s Most Excellent Adventure**

Julie & Winifred’s Most Excellent Adventure: Two time-crossed lovers join forces to stop a diabolical time tyrant, only to discover that saving the world means having to end their romance.

Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure: Two best friends embark on an epic time travel journey to complete their history report and usher in the utopian future founded on their personal philosophy of “be excellent to each other.”

Common elements: buddy comedy, time travel twists and turns, likable characters, saving the world, humor, ensemble cast, time traveling friends, action-adventure.

Enjoy the book trailer for Julie & Winifred’s Most Excellent Adventure!

Romance book trailer for Heather Massey’s f/f time travel romance and buddy comedy Julie & Winifred’s Most Excellent Adventure. Features the plot information, the illustrated romance book cover and bonus book art of the Disaster Pets by artist Eileen Widjaja, romance tropes, time travel footage, and other fun visuals, all set to the adventure comedy indie rock trailer music of musician Leslie Brown.

The Watchmaker’s Lady + Lars and the Real Girl

Heather Massey’s clockpunk romance The Watchmaker’s Lady

The Watchmaker’s Lady: An adventurous watchmaker discovers his soul mate in a very unique woman (she begins life as a mannequin head!).

Lars and the Real Girl: A romantic comedy-drama in which a quirky young man embarks on a romantic journey with a sex doll.

Common elements: eccentric, nice guy main character, forbidden relationship, risk of discovery and danger from a judgmental community, unique, non-human female main character, character-driven story.

Notable difference: The Watchmaker’s Lady is an erotic romance while Lars and the Real Girl features a non-sexual relationship.

Queenie’s Brigade + The Dirty Dozen

Cover for Heather Massey’s science fiction romance Queenie’s Brigade. A black-haired woman dressed in black stands on a shadowy landscape with her back to the viewer as she gazes up at a planet in space. The horizon is awash in a fiery orange. — Heather Massey’s sci-fi romance **Queenie’s Brigade**

Queenie’s Brigade: An action-packed military space opera featuring an enemies-to-lovers prison romance with a grumpy outlaw heroine who goes soft for the sunshine hero during an alien invasion.

The Dirty Dozen: During World War II, a rebellious U.S. Army Major is assigned a dozen convicted murderers to train and lead them into a mass assassination mission of German officers. (via IMDB)

Common elements: War setting, a ragtag group of unlikely underdog heroes, military characters, tough-as-nails characters, graphic violence, action-adventure, vile villains.

Dangerous Rendezvous + Alien

Cover for Heather Massey’s sci-fi romance Dangerous Rendezvous. Features the sexy bare back of a muscular, bald Black man. Electric blue swirls circle his arms and waist as he stands against a starry space backdrop. — Heather Massey’s sci-fi interracial romance **Dangerous Rendezvous**

Dangerous Rendezvous: Agent Lucia Alvarez of Fortean, Inc. is investigating rumors of bizarre experiments on a distant planet when she encounters the man who broke her heart. Can they join forces to solve the mystery, or will his dark secret tear them apart?

Alien: The crew of a commercial spacecraft encounters a deadly lifeform after investigating an unknown transmission. (via IMDB)

Common elements: investigations of Lovecraft-style aliens on distant planets, battling dangerous aliens, action-adventure, mystery, body horror, graphic violence, weird SF, futuristic tech, chase scenes, strong female protagonist.

The Blacksmith’s Lover + Lady Chatterley’s Lover (2021 movie version; based on the book of the same name by D.H. Lawrence).

Cover for Heather Massey’s steampunk romance, The Blacksmith’s Lover. A raven-haired, conventionally attractive white woman in a frilly, off-the-shoulder yellow dress looks at the viewer while sitting against a painted, vintage background. — Heather Massey’s clockpunk romance **The Blacksmith’s Lover**

The Blacksmith’s Lover: A grumpy blacksmith goes soft for a sunshine scullery maid.

Lady Chatterley’s Lover: An unhappily married aristocrat begins a torrid affair with the gamekeeper on her husband's country estate. (via IMDB)

Common elements: The most important similarity between my erotic clockpunk romance and the film? Both stories feature a scene of the female MC catching the male MC giving himself a sponge bath outside while naked. Nice, eh?

Both stories include muscular, sexy men who work with their hands; both stories are period pieces and sizzle with hot sex scenes. Each story has a female protagonist who yearns for a life of freedom. They also share the romance tropes of opposites attract and forbidden love.

A Villainous Affair + Arcane + Carnival Row

Illustrated covers for Heather Massey's steampunk romance quartet: A Tale of Two Thieves, The Wizard of Aether, Dark Queen Rising, and Battle Royale. — Heather Massey’s epic steampunk quartet **A Villainous Affair**

(Slight deviation here. Arcane and Carnival Row are TV shows, but that’s because they’re more similar to my steampunk romance quartet than any Victorian steampunk movie I’ve encountered.)

A Villainous Affair: Supervillains, steampunk, and social justice rebels collide in an epic adventure about an unlikely pair of thieves who join forces to battle mobs, evil scientists, and a fascist regime for control of a powerful aether invention. The outcome of their revolutionary mission will determine the fate of Victorian England—and beyond.

Carnival Row: A human detective and a fairy rekindle a dangerous affair in a Victorian fantasy world, where the city's uneasy peace collapses when a string of murders reveals an unimaginable monster. (via IMDB)

Arcane: Set in utopian Piltover and the oppressed underground of Zaun, the story follows the origins of two iconic League champions—and the power that will tear them apart. (via IMDB)

Common elements: gritty Victorian steampunk aesthetic, social justice themes, class conflict, exploration of the dangers posed by technology falling into the wrong hands, action-adventure, graphic violence, strong female protagonist, high stakes, passionate sex scenes, superhuman characters, fantastical elements, an ensemble cast of diverse characters.

Lord of Snow and Ice + Beauty and the Beast

Lord of Snow and Ice:

An innocent Beauty. A fearsome Beast. A dangerous passion.

Mystery and speculation surround "the Dark Prince," a sorcerer who dwells in a kingdom cursed by endless winter. Though shunned by all, Prince Stellan secretly crusades against a zombie plague unleashed by his tyrannical father against the Five Lands. But only an alliance with Aldebaran will provide the support he needs to eradicate the plague once and for all.

Clarysa, daughter of the Aldebaran king, struggles under the weight of her role as princess. She yearns for adventure, but her father prefers to keep his youngest daughter safe within the palace walls. During one of her rare sanctioned trips beyond the walls of the castle, Clarysa comes face to face with the answer to her prayers.

She's heard the tales of Stellan's dangerous nature. She knows a romance with him is forbidden. But one smoldering glance draws her deep into a world of dark magic and sensuous rapture.

Beauty and the Beast: Take your pick of descriptions from the Disney movie Beauty and the Beast, the CW’s Beauty and the Beast 2012 TV series starring Kristin Kreuk and Jay Ryan, the 1987 Beauty and the Beast TV series starring Ron Perlman and Linda Hamilton, or the beauty and beast romance in the ABC TV series Once Upon a Time!

Common elements: Enchanted, fairy-tale kingdoms, ensemble casts, loveable secondary characters, magic, grumpy/sunshine couple, epic battles. Romantic tropes include forbidden love, tortured male main character, strong female protagonist, taming the beast, unconditional love, grumpy/sunshine, and innocent cohabitation.

Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoy some or all of these entertaining pairings!