25 Favorite Romance Books – Everyday Reading

If you are looking for good romance books, I’ve rounded up 25 of my favorites! Pop in your email address below and I’ll send it right to your inbox!

I love good romance books (and have since I first read Ella Enchanted when I was 11).

And every year, when I do the annual Summer Reading Guide, the section with romance books is head and shoulders the most popular part.

But somehow, I haven’t done a list of my favorite romance books in close to a decade!

Well, we’re fixing that now – here are 25 of my all-time favorite romance books. I hope you’ll find a few to love here (and please leave your favorites in the comments because I’m always looking for new suggestions!).

25 Romance Books You Don’t Want to Miss

The One with the Kiss Cam by Cindy Steel
This book was pure delight! Nora is on a disastrous first date at an NBA game. But when her date gets up to get concessions, the kiss cam hovers over her and the stranger sitting next to her…let’s just say it might just be love at first kiss! This one is clean and funny with great banter and led me down the rabbit hole of other Cindy Steel books!

The Bodyguard by Katherine Center
Hannah looks like a mild-mannered kindergarten teacher, but she is actually a private bodyguard who could probably kill you with your wristwatch. Her firm gets hired by Jack Stapleton, who is a massive movie star, and dealing with a stalker problem. He needs some protection while he goes home to visit his mom undergoing cancer treatments and Hannah gets put on the job. The lines get a little blurred when Jack wants her to pretend to be his girlfriend to keep his parents from worrying about him. What could possibly go wrong in this situation!? Katherine Center writes the most snappy, laugh out loud dialogue. This book is just so fun! (Don’t miss her some of my other favorite romances by her – The Rom-Commers and Things You Save in a Fire.)

The Last Love Note by Emma Grey
I read this in 48 hours – it was so compelling and sweet, yet heartbreaking at the same time. Kate is trying to hold everything together for her young son, while suffering through devastating grief. She has a few people she can rely on, like her mother, her best friend, and her boss, Hugh. When Hugh and Kate end up stranded on a work trip, Kate can finally plan the next stage of her life…but she ends up in an impossible situation.

Tangled Up in You by Christina Lauren
This one was so light and fluffy (it is a retelling of Disney’s Tangled) but it was just SO FUN and enjoyable and one of those books that I blew through in 2 days because it was just pure delight. Funny, romantic, and clever. (This book is part of the Meant to Be series – and the Beauty and the Beast retelling, called By the Book is also great!)

The Outlaw Noble Salt by Amy Harmon
DANG did I love this book. I knew basically nothing about Butch Cassidy and this made me want to know ALL the things. It’s a re-imagining of his life, so it’s not all that historically accurate but that’s part of the fun. What MIGHT have happened if he’d decided to go straight after a life of crime and then fell in love? The audiobook is TERRIFIC!!!

A Heart Worth Stealing by Joanna Barker
This one is such a delight to read. After her father’s passing, Ginny is devastated when his treasured pocket watch goes missing. When she hires a special investigator, Jack Travers, to help find the watch, he discovers there is more going on than just a missing watch. As Ginny and Jack work together, of course, there will be romance. This is a fantastic whodunnit story with snappy dialogue.

Beauty by Robin McKinley
I’ve always loved a good fairy tale retelling and this is one of the ones I remember best from my childhood. My mom read this Beauty and the Beast retelling aloud to us and I woke up in the middle of the night to see her reading it in the hallways because she couldn’t wait to see how it would turn out! I love that this one gives you way more backstory for Beauty’s family and I really love her sisters and their sweet relationship. It has such great character development and it’s just a delight all around.

The Accidental Beauty Queen by Terri Wilson
Charlotte is a school librarian and happy to spend her life buried in a book. Her twin sister, though, has spent her life chasing beauty pageant crowns and now is competing for Miss American Treasure. Except, the night before the pageant begins, Ginny has a horrible allergic reaction and begs Charlotte to take her place until Ginny is well enough to step back in. But even though they look alike, Charlotte and Ginny are wildly different – is there any way they can pull off a con at this level? I read this last summer and blew through it in a day – it was just so so delightful. It’s also squeaky clean! (Full review here)

It’s a Love Story  by Annabel Monaghan
This book was an absolute delight! This funny, heartwarming story is about former child star Jane Jackson, who’s built a polished new life on the mantra “fake it till you make it.” But when one little lie sends her to Long Island with her old crush (and current nemesis) to chase down a pop star from her past, Jane might just find something real where she least expects it.

The Flatshare by Beth O’Leary
I was drawn in by the premise of this book – two people who live in the same apartment, but have never met – but then I was drawn in by the characters, the story and the unexpected humor. Tiffy is coming off a bad breakup and needs a new place in a hurry and Leon only uses his apartment for sleeping during the day since he works a graveyard shift. As the two start leaving notes for each other (at first slightly snippy), they slowly come to like each other but. . . they’ve still never met.

Evvie Drake Starts Over by Linda Holmes
This was such a fun, delightful romantic comedy (with a little bit of heaviness) that I blew through in two days. Evvie Drake has just lost her husband (he dies in the first chapter) and Dean Tenney is a World Series winning pitcher for the Yankees who suddenly can’t pitch anymore and he has no idea why. When he escapes the endless news about his fall from grace in New York, he ends up renting the apartment in Evvie’s too-big-for-her house and the two strike up friendship, based on the agreement that he won’t ask about her late husband and she won’t ask him about baseball. You can imagine how long THOSE rules last. As far as swearing and sex, this one is about on par with Sophie Kinsella’s books.

Can You Keep a Secret? by Sophie Kinsella
Sophie Kinsella always comes up with the most ridiculous scenarios and then makes them so funny. I can’t help but to laugh my face off when I read her books. This is one of my favorite books of hers. Emma spills all of her secrets to a stranger she meets on a plane. But when that stranger becomes her new CEO at work, she realizes that he knows every embarrassing thing about her. How much worse could things get? (If you love this one, don’t miss another of her romances, I’ve Got Your Number!)

One True Loves by Taylor Jenkins Reid
Imagine you married the love of your life. Then he was in a plane crash and after grieving for a couple of years, you finally start to move on. And just when things with your new relationship are going smoothly, your husband is discovered not to be dead after all and is rescued. I stayed up all night reading this one (and I only regretted it a little bit the next morning when my children all got up at the crack of dawn). Full review here.

Edenbrooke by Julianne Donaldson
Marianne is invited to visit Edenbrooke by her twin sister who intends to marry into the family that owns the country estate and Marianne, mourning the loss of her mother and lonely in Bath with her grandmother, quickly agrees. She has no interest in romance herself, but is very anxious for a change of scenery. Lucky for her, she’s going to get both. I especially loved the snappy dialogue in this one.  (Full review here).

The Little Lady Agency by Hester Browne
My mom sent me these books a decade ago after she read them and I blazed through them in a couple of days about a woman who starts a little dating business which, of course, couldn’t POSSIBLY get complicated. This is one of those perfect beach read romances for sure (although warning that the last book is pretty dumb. You’ve been warned).

Attachments by Rainbow Rowell
I am SUCH a fan of this book about a computer security guy who starts reading the emails between two women who work at the newspaper after their emails get flagged by the filtering software and then falls in love with one of them despite the fact that she has no idea he even exists. (Full review here)

What Alice Forgot by Liane Moriarty
Alice comes to on the floor of the gym, with a bunch of worried friends around her. They aren’t the only ones that are worried – Alice is expecting her first baby and she’s concerned that the fall might have hurt the baby (she also can’t figure out why she’s at the gym; she hates the gym). The surprise of being at the gym, though, takes a quick backseat to the shock Alice receives when she realizes that it’s not 1998 like she thought, but instead it’s 2008. She’s not pregnant – she has three children. And the happy, new-ish marriage to Nick that she remembers is now on the verge of divorce. It’s a lot to take in. (Full review here)

How to Kiss Your Best Friend by Jenny Proctor
This is your typically best friends to lovers romcom. He’s a swoony small-town science teacher still pining for his globe-trotting best friend, and now that she’s back in town (and their chemistry is off the charts), he’s ready to risk it all for a second chance at love that might finally make her stay.

To Charm a Lady by Joanna Barker
You know those books where you just immediately want to spend EVERY WAKING MOMENT reading that book? This book was that for me! It is the 2nd book in this regency romance series, but it completely stands alone. While attending a house party, Cora is is under strict instructions by her mother to find a husband, but will she pursue a man her mother would approve of, or a longtime crush she has never gotten over.

The Blonde Identity by Ally Carter
I loved this funny spy romantic comedy with a dose of action packed adventure. Zoe wakes up in Paris with zero memory, but when she is mistaken for her spy twin sister, there are a lot of people who want her dead. This one has dual narrators (there are two narrators on the audiobook, which was extra fun) and I just loved every second of this book. (I actually think her Christmas mystery romance is even better!)

One Foggy Christmas by Kortney Keisel
I read this in a day – it reminded me a little of one of my all-time favorite books, What Alice Forgot. Sadie wakes up after a ski accident with no memory of the last 3+ years including her husband. In her mind, she’s still dating her high school boyfriend and can’t imagine why they broke up and how she ended up married to some guy she doesn’t even know. Nash is devastated but spends the Christmas season trying to help her remember their romance. This one has some heavier themes that lent some substance to it while still being funny and swoony (no language and no spicy scenes).

Romantic Comedy by Curtis Sittenfeld
This is one of those books like Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow that is very divisive. Some people LOVE it and other people cannot stand it. I loved them both! Romantic Comedy is actually one of the few books I read TWICE – during a busy week last fall, I opened it to read my favorite scenes again and ended up re-reading the whole thing. I love this smart, thoughtful book about a writer for a SNL-type show and her relationship with the heartthrob musician who is the guest host.

Meet Me in the Margins by Melissa Ferguson
This is such a cute fun romance! An editor at Savannah’s dream publishing company is asking for the manuscript of a romance novel she has been secretly writing behind the scenes, while working at a different publishing company. She hides her manuscript in a hidden room, but later discovers someone has found it and started jotting very critical edits in the margins. This mystery editor is not only helping make her manuscript better, but could she be falling for him too?

Something Borrowed by Emily Giffin
I’ve read pretty much every one of Emily Giffin’s books, but I still think her first one, Something Borrowed, is her best, about Rachel who has always played second string to her very vivacious and gorgeous best friend, Darcy. Until on her thirtieth birthday, Rachel confesses to Darcy’s fiance that she’s always had feelings for him and it turns out it’s not one-sided. With the wedding day getting closer, Rachel has to decide whether she’s going to let the wedding go through or take a stand for what she wants for the first time in her life.

To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before by Jenny Han
If you haven’t read these yet, consider this your sign. The story begins when Lara Jean’s secret love letters (written to every boy she’s ever had a crush on) are accidentally mailed.  (Full review here)

And if you’d like a printable copy of this list of romance books that you can take to your library or screenshot on your phone for easy access, just pop in your email address below and it’ll come right to your inbox!

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