Right, so booktok recs... honestly, a lot of them can be really fast-paced. The thing is, slow-burn on there tends to get tagged pretty specifically, which is handy. The easiest move is just to search the actual hashtags. #slowburnromance and #slowburnbooks are obvious, but #grumpysunshine often has that drawn-out tension, especially if you pair it with #enemiestolovers. A lot of those 'for fans of' searches work, too. Like, if you see someone saying 'if you liked the pining in 'The Love Hypothesis', try...' that's usually a good sign. My personal gripe is that sometimes a book gets called slow-burn on booktok when it's really just a medium simmer—they get together by the 40% mark, and that's not it for me. The real glacial stuff, where the payoff is almost painful, seems to live more in the fantasy romance side of things on there, even within the rom-com label. Authors like Emily Henry or Ali Hazelwood get recommended constantly, but their burns feel more moderate to me. For a truly agonizing wait, I'd lurk in the comments of a popular slow-burn video; that's where people drop the deep-cut titles you won't see on the main page.
I found 'Book Lovers' by Emily Henry through that, and while it's wonderful, the core tension resolves a bit earlier than I expected from the hype. A better example for me was seeing a clip about 'The Unhoneymooners' by Christina Lauren, but again, not super slow. The algorithm eventually fed me 'The Flatshare' by Beth O'Leary, which has that wonderful, built-up intimacy through notes rather than physical proximity, and that felt like a different kind of slow burn that really worked. Lately, I've seen more buzz for authors like Elena Armas or Kate Canterbary in those spaces for a spicier, but still tension-filled, wait. It's all about following a breadcrumb trail of comments and related videos, really.