The Bookish Mindset

Romance is my genre. I’m a hopeless romantic and love a happy ending (behave). It’s my comfort genre, it’s a genre I’ll always come back to and I just love it.

So if you’ve not always been a romance fan or you’re just overwhelmed with the choice, let me start you off with some recommendations:

Standalones –

You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty – Akwaeke Emezi. Chaos in a love story, you’ll never look at a mango the same way.

Cakes for the Grump – Sookh Kaur. Glorious grumpy/sunshine trope and lots of cake.

Rosewater – Liv Little. Leaning towards literary but beautiful nevertheless.

Say You’ll Be My Jaan – Naina Kumar. Set around arranged marriages and pushy parents. Loved it.

In at the Deep End – Kate Davies. Queer choas, good fun!

The Situationship – Taylor-Dior Rumble. Another that leans into literary and a great read.

Seven Days in June – Tia Williams. A brilliant friends to lovers, expect tears.

Interconnected Series –

Get a Life Chloe Brown / Take a Hint Dani Brown / Act Your Age Eve Brown – Talia Hibbert. Three sisters, all the tropes. One of my all time favourite series.

Dating Dr. Dil / Tastes Like Shakkar / Marriage and Masti – Nisha Sharma. Another of my favourites. All three made me feel so seen.

A Merry Little Meet Cute / A Holly Jolly Ever After / A Jingle Bell Mingle – Julie Murphy and Sierra Simone. Filth in a Christmas setting with great sex worker rep? Sign me up!

King of Wrath / King of Pride / King of Greed / King of Sloth – Ana Huang. Billionaire romances that are absolutely bingeworthy. Another four to come!

The Kiss Quotient / The Bride Test / The Heart Principle – Helen Hoang. Brilliant books and great autistic rep. The first is a pretty woman flip.

Before I Let Go / This Could Be Us – Kennedy Ryan. Another legend on the romance scene, you won’t regret reading these.

Lovelight Farms / Mixed Signals / In the Weeds / Business Casual – B. K. Borrison. I’m obsessed with this series and gutted it’s over. One per season and just perfection.

Young Adult –

Four Eids and a Funeral – Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé and Adiba Jaigirdar. The way teen romance should be, this is adorable.

Highly Suspicious and Unfairly Cute – Talia Hibbert. More from the queen of romance. Loved it.

Pride – Ibi Zoboi. A modern retelling of Pride and Prejudice set in the Bronx.

Felix Ever After – Kacen Callender. Lots of coming of age growing up in this one.

Excuse Me While I Ugly Cry – Joya Goffney. Yes it will make you cry.

A Pho Love Story – Loan Le. Set between rival restaurants this was really sweet.

Chaos Theory – Nic Stone. Brilliant mental health rep, one of the best books I’ve read.

The Henna Wars – Adiba Jaigidar. So much fun was had! Read it.

Short Stories –

Love in Colour – Bolu Babalola. Myths and legends from around the world, reimagined with women at the centre.

For Such A Time As This – Shani Akilah. Such a brilliant read! Stories of Black love and friendship.

Utter Filth –

Neon Gods – Katee Robert. I’m obsessed with this series – currently on book 7/10, it’s olympus on earth and full of drama.

Romance continues to be a favourite genre of mine and I’m excited to hear what you’d suggest for here. Have you loved any of the above too? Let me know in the comments below!

You can find all these recs and more great romance reads in my Bookshop.org store here.

If you like what you’ve read and would like to access more content, I’d love if you could take a look at my patreon and consider supporting my content on there too.

Last updated 30/10/2024