Genre

The best Romance books

Two people with a problem. The problem is each other. The promise of the genre is that the problem resolves.

51 reviews in this genre.

Highest-rated romance on the shelf

The Cruel Prince

by Holly Black

The Cruel Prince by Holly Black 2018 review. Jude Duarte, a human raised in the High Court of Faerie, navigates Prince Cardan's cruel politics. Canonical contemporary YA romantasy.

A Court of Mist and Fury

by Sarah J. Maas

A Court of Mist and Fury by Sarah J. Maas 2016 review. The second ACOTAR book and the volume that broke the romantasy genre open. Feyre's recovery from Under the Mountain and the Night Court arc.

It Ends with Us

by Colleen Hoover

Colleen Hoover at her most daring. A romance that refuses to be comfortable, and is more powerful for it.

Onyx Storm

by Rebecca Yarros

Onyx Storm by Rebecca Yarros 2025 review. Third Empyrean novel and the volume that takes the war into its third year. Violet flies south. The fastest-selling adult novel in the past twenty years.

Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros 2023 review. Violet Sorrengail, a fragile scribe, is forced into the brutal dragon-riding war college. The first book of the Empyrean series and the romantasy novel that defined the 2023-2024 BookTok moment.

A Court of Thorns and Roses

by Sarah J. Maas

A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas 2015 review. A human huntress is taken to the faerie kingdom of Prythian after killing a wolf in the woods. The first ACOTAR book and the romantasy series that set the table for the genre's BookTok-era explosion.

Iron Flame

by Rebecca Yarros

Iron Flame by Rebecca Yarros 2023 review. The second Empyrean book picks up the morning after Fourth Wing's cliffhanger and runs eight hundred pages of war-college politics, signet escalation, and the slow-burn enemies-to-lovers payoff the audience came for.

Verity

by Colleen Hoover

Verity by Colleen Hoover 2018 review. A struggling writer hired to finish an injured bestseller's series finds an autobiographical manuscript in the family home. The Hoover thriller that broke out years after publication on BookTok and remains the most-discussed contemporary domestic thriller of the decade.

People We Meet on Vacation

by Emily Henry

People We Meet on Vacation by Emily Henry 2021 review. Travel writer Poppy and her best friend Alex have taken one summer trip together for ten years. Two years ago the trip ended badly. Henry's breakout contemporary romance.

Edge of Darkness

by Cherry Adair

A Cherry Adair Black Rose Chronicles entry. Romantic suspense with extra teleportation. Honest fun that never apologizes for itself.

Edge of Fear

by Cherry Adair

A Cherry Adair Black Rose Chronicles entry. Romantic suspense with telekinesis and a deeply ridiculous global threat. Honest fun.

Hide and Seek

by Cherry Adair

A T-FLAC romantic suspense from Cherry Adair. Mid-period, well-paced, the formula in full bloom.

In Too Deep

by Cherry Adair

Cherry Adair doing T-FLAC romantic suspense. Globe-hopping, ridiculous, and exactly as fun as it knows it is.

Kiss and Tell

by Cherry Adair

The first Cherry Adair T-FLAC novel. The book that launched a long career. Honest fun and the formula taking shape in real time.

Out of Sight

by Cherry Adair

A T-FLAC romantic suspense. Cherry Adair in mid-period form. The formula working hard.

Rescue Me

by Cherry Adair

A Cherry Adair Black Rose Chronicles entry. Paranormal-talents romance with the formula in confident hand.

Hunter's Moon

by C. T. Adams

The first Sazi novel by C. T. Adams and Cathy Clamp. Werewolf-hitman urban fantasy with one of the better paranormal romance setups of the 2000s.

Touch of Evil

by C. T. Adams

The first Thrall novel. C. T. Adams writing a different shape of vampire urban fantasy: courier, cult, and a heroine with one good day a week.

Moon's Web

by C. T. Adams

The second Sazi novel by C. T. Adams and Cathy Clamp. Tony Giodone learning to live as a werewolf in Chicago without becoming the kind of werewolf the Council wants.

Touch of Madness

by C. T. Adams

The second Kate Reilly novel. C. T. Adams deepening the Thrall world with serial-killer plot, vampire-court politics, and a heroine running short of good days.

The Last Time I Saw Paris

by Elizabeth Adler

The Last Time I Saw Paris by Elizabeth Adler 2001 review. A widow inherits a Paris apartment, a chateau, and a daughter she did not know about in this gentle expat romance.

Mourning Glory

by Warren Adler

Mourning Glory by Warren Adler 1996 review. A broke single mother in Palm Beach starts trolling funerals for wealthy grieving widowers. Then she actually falls for one.

The Casanova Embrace

by Warren Adler

The Casanova Embrace by Warren Adler 1978 review. A Chilean dissident in Washington beds a string of women for political intelligence. An FBI handler tries to piece it together after his death.

Grimspace

by Ann Aguirre

The first Sirantha Jax novel. Ann Aguirre writing tough-femme space opera with one foot in Firefly and one in romance.

Wanderlust

by Ann Aguirre

The second Sirantha Jax novel. Ann Aguirre raising the political stakes and giving Jax a job that she should not be doing.

Eliza's Daughter

by Joan Aiken

Joan Aiken's sequel to Sense and Sensibility, told from the point of view of the illegitimate daughter Austen left as an afterthought.

Jane Fairfax : Jane Austen's Emma, Through Another's Eyes

by Joan Aiken

Joan Aiken telling Emma from the point of view of Jane Fairfax. The book Austen almost wrote, finally written.

And Only to Deceive

by Tasha Alexander

The first Lady Emily Ashton mystery. Victorian widow discovers her late husband's secret life among Greek antiquities.

The Fashionable P.I.

by Rida Allen

The Fashionable P.I. by Rida Allen 2002 review. A Boston PI series debut in which Mac Sullivan investigates a Newbury Street boutique murder that everyone wants to call accidental.

Garden Spells

by Sarah Addison Allen

Magical realism with Southern gothic edges. The Waverley sisters and a garden that pays attention to who comes near it.

Hero at Large

by Steffie Hall

Hero at Large by Janet Evanovich writing as Steffie Hall 1987 review. A pre-Stephanie Plum romance where a Chicago insurance investigator gets stuck with a witness who refuses to behave.

A Kiss at Midnight

by Shana Abe

A Shana Abe medieval romance. The kind of careful chivalric pastiche that the form sometimes still produces well.

Intimate Enemies

by Shana Abe

Intimate Enemies by Shana Abe 2000 review. A historical romance about a Scottish laird and the English noblewoman ordered to spy on him during the 1540s Rough Wooing.

The Last Mermaid

by Shana Abe

Shana Abe writing a dual-timeline romance about a marine archaeologist and the medieval mermaid she may or may not be tracking. Pretty and slight.

The Promise of Rain

by Shana Abe

Shana Abe in mid-career romance form. Lush, comfortable, slightly thin on plot.

The Secret Swan

by Shana Abe

Shana Abe writing pre-Drakon medieval romance. Lush, comfortable, slightly thin.

Dark Dreams

by Dominique Adair

A Dominique Adair paranormal romance. Vampires, telepathy, the formula in confident form.

Annie's Wild Ride

by Alina Adams

Annie's Wild Ride by Alina Adams 2002 review. A horse-racing romance from the figure-skating mystery author, transplanting her procedural eye from rinks to thoroughbreds.

When a Man Loves a Woman

by Alina Adams

When a Man Loves a Woman by Alina Adams 1998 review. A Manhattan tabloid newspaper romance pre-dating the Figure Skating Mysteries, with the same working-day-job texture transferred to print journalism.

Summer in Tuscany

by Elizabeth Adler

Elizabeth Adler doing what Elizabeth Adler does. Three generations of women, an Italian villa, and the kind of soft romance the form demands.

The Hotel Riviera

by Elizabeth Adler

The Hotel Riviera by Elizabeth Adler 2003 review. Lola Laforet runs a small hotel on the Cote d’Azur. Her husband has disappeared. So has a fortune in jewels.

Emma Watson : The Watsons Completed

by Joan Aiken

Joan Aiken completing the unfinished Austen fragment of The Watsons. Respectful, technically sound, slightly more sentimental than Austen was setting up.

Mansfield Revisited

by Joan Aiken

Joan Aiken's sequel to Mansfield Park. Pleasant, careful, slightly more polite than the original.

Midnight Angel

by Julie Beard

Midnight Angel by Julie Beard 1997 review. A medieval historical romance about a hardened English nobleman and a French noblewoman whose lives intersect against a tournament backdrop in 1377.

Books, Bullets and Blooms

by Cindy Bell

Books, Bullets and Blooms by Cindy Bell review. The 6th Sage Gardens cozy mystery. A retirement-community murder, a long-running ensemble, formulaic comfort.

A Deadly Serious Gardening Contest

by Cindy Bell

A Deadly Serious Gardening Contest by Cindy Bell review. The 7th Sage Gardens cozy. Retirement-community garden show, predictable comfort, the cozy formula in late form.

A Bridal Bouquet and a Body

by Cindy Bell

A Bridal Bouquet and a Body by Cindy Bell review. The 8th Sage Gardens cozy. A wedding-themed retirement-community murder. The form running on its established energy.

Early Evanovich

by Janet Evanovich

A collection of Janet Evanovich's pre-Stephanie Plum romance novels. Pleasant, slight, useful as career archaeology.

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