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Any recs? By the lovely Grace Farris.
P.S. Stuff I just love and Friday vibes.
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So many great recommendations!
I feel like modern romance authors are well covered here (+ Ali Hazelwood)
But for historical romance readers Lisa Kleypas and Evie Dunmore are a wonderful starting point!
Stuff by Emily Henry (although I didn’t love the most recent one where the gal gives up her entire career gleefully), Curtis Sittenfeld’s “Romantic Comedy,” anything by Sloane Crosley even though I wouldn’t call them all romance per se.
Someone in a previous post recommended the historical mystery series by Ashley Weaver starting with A Peculiar Combination and I tore through this whole series so quickly. A slow burn romance, WWII, spies, yes please!
Helen Hoang, Jasmine Guillory, Tia Williams and Taj McCoy are my go-tos! Open door girl here with real-life characters that I want to be friends with IRL. (Noting that Williams weaves a bit of magic in her most recent book which was absolutely perfect for the Leap Year trope).
Just wanted to comment that the spark in the grazing fingertips image in the bottom right reminds me of the graphics overlayed on the Heartstopper TV show, and I suspect the same graphics are used in the graphic novels. Love this show – new season out now.
The Bridgerton novels are a delight! And as audiobooks they are wonderful too – the narrator is excellent. If you’ve watched the Netflix series I don’t think you’re spoiled – it’s no surprise and in fact a cozy comfort that all of the stories are HEA!
Kiki Astor is a newer author I discovered through TikTok- her books transport you to really fun settings. Try Low Season in St Tropez for a pre holiday vibe.
I think it was someone in a Big Salad who recommended Tessa Bailey so thanks for that. Wow.
Oh goodness, just surfacing after a month (?) long plunge into SO MANY of M. C. Beaton’s historical fiction romances, thanks to a COJ commenter on the earlier book recs post. Hoopla, I love you.
If you are looking for the bush pilot in Alaska trope – The Simple Wild, K.A. Tucker. All of her books are great.
Came here to say that! I love her books!
I loved every one!
Recently enjoyed Big Fan, the release from 831 Stories. Also really liked Heavy Hitter by Katie Cotugno and How to End a Love Story by Yulin Kuang. Other authors that are always a win for me include: Sarina Bowen, Kate Meader, Tessa Bailey, Sarah MacLean, B.K. Borison, Liz Tomforde, Tarah DeWitt, Scarlett Peckham, and Alisha Rai.
If you enjoy a celebrity romance like BIG FAN or HEAVY HITTER, highly recommend SCANDALIZED by Ivy Owens (aka Lauren from Christina Lauren) — excuse the cover, but the content is great. Also loved ROMANTIC COMEDY by Curtis Sittenfeld!
I was a teenager in the 1990s and started reading lots of them then. You can’t go wrong with classics from Nora Roberts (Sea Swept, Daring to Dream, or Jewels of the Sun) or Judith McNaught, Stephanie Laurens.
Emily Henry. I love her books, laugh out loud funny, with characters that you feel you could actually know rather than the same old formula.
I went to college with Emily Henry! She was in my creative writing class. We were all writing very angsty stuff back then, too cool for beach romances. I love that she found her voice and her niche and is making it at this thing that none of us believed you could turn into a living. So proud whenever I see her name mentioned!
Thanks for the rec! Found one of hers in the library after reading this and am loving it.
I just finished “The Pairing” by Casey McQuiston (who wrote “Red, White & Royal Blue” and others), and it was PERFECT. A bi pastry chef-for-bi sommelier on a European tour dreamscape! I don’t want to say much more about it, but if you want something that swirls “Under the Tuscan Sun” with “Call Me By Your Name,” enjoy this!! As a bi AFAB non-binary hottie married to a bi dude, this was just right for me.
omg I’m SO DEEP in my romcom novel era, haha, but I am also strongly opinionated and feel like I’m into the less popular tropes… so recently I’ve been like, maybe I should just write my own? 👀
I am also strongly opinionated on romance novels and feel like I must be on a different wavelength than most readers because the vast majority of popular ones are somewhere between “meh” and “extremely annoying” for me. I highly, highly recommend setting up a GoodReads account (or similar) to find other readers who liked (and disliked!) the same ones as you and then see what else they enjoyed.
And you should also write your own :)
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