Most read Contemporary Romance books

When a fake dating scheme to get a Harvard professor to fund her research goes awry, PhD candidate Olive Smith finds herself in an unlikely relationship with the notoriously cold and brilliant Adam Carlsen. What starts as a mutually beneficial arrangement quickly becomes complicated as Olive navigates the cutthroat world of academia and her growing feelings for Adam. This charming romance is perfect for anyone who loves witty banter and a slow-burn connection.

• fake dating
• grumpy sunshine

Hazel Grace Lancaster is sixteen and has lived with terminal thyroid cancer for years, kept alive by an experimental drug and tethered to a portable oxygen tank. Wry, guarded, and impatient with the platitudes that surround the dying, she attends a support group mostly to appease her mother. There she meets Augustus Waters, a confident seventeen-year-old in remission from osteosarcoma who lost part of a leg to the disease and who is preoccupied with the fear of leaving no mark on the world. Their friendship turns into a tentative, clear-eyed romance built on shared humor, a love of books, and an unwillingness to pretend that illness is noble. Hazel's favorite novel, An Imperial Affliction, ends mid-sentence, and Augustus arranges a trip to Amsterdam so the two can ask its reclusive author what happens to the characters after the final page. John Green writes about young people facing mortality without sentimentality or easy uplift. The Fault in Our Stars is a story about first love, the search for meaning, and the difference between being remembered and being loved while you are here. Sharp and funny as often as it is devastating, it became one of the defining young-adult novels of its decade.

When seventeen-year-old Isabella "Bella" Swan leaves sunny Phoenix to live with her father in the perpetually rain-soaked town of Forks, Washington, she expects little more than a dull, gray exile. Instead she becomes fascinated by Edward Cullen, a strikingly beautiful and aloof classmate who seems to alternate between saving her life and warning her away from him. As Bella pieces together the truth about Edward and his family, she realizes he is a vampire — one who has chosen to resist human blood, but whose very nature makes loving her dangerous. Their bond deepens into an intense, all-consuming romance, even as Bella learns that not every vampire shares the Cullens' restraint, and that being close to Edward may cost her everything. The first book in Stephenie Meyer's blockbuster Twilight Saga, this is a moody, atmospheric teen romance about desire, danger, and the pull between what we want and what is safe. Told in Bella's earnest first-person voice, it launched a global phenomenon and defined a generation of paranormal romance.

• forbidden love

Hannah Wells has worked hard to leave a painful past behind and build a steady life at Briar University. She has good grades, a plan, and a hopeless crush on a boy who barely notices her. What she does not have is any idea how to get his attention—until she winds up tangled with the last person she would ever choose. Garrett Graham is the star of the college hockey team, a golden boy whose future depends on keeping his grades up. When he fails a midterm badly enough to threaten his spot on the roster, he needs a tutor, and Hannah is the only one who can save him. She refuses, so he proposes a deal: she coaches him through the class, and in return he pretends to date her to make her crush jealous. What starts as a transaction turns into something neither planned. As fake dates blur into real feelings, Hannah has to decide whether to trust Garrett with the parts of herself she has kept hidden. The first book in the Off-Campus series, The Deal is a warm, funny new-adult sports romance about two people who agree not to fall for each other and fail spectacularly.

• fake dating

Lily Bloom moves to Boston to open a flower shop and meets Ryle Kincaid — a successful neurosurgeon opposed to relationships — and Atlas Corrigan, the boy who was her first love and whose return complicates everything. What begins as a love story becomes something more difficult: an unflinching examination of the cycle of domestic violence, how it begins, why it continues, and what breaking it actually requires. Hoover has said the novel was inspired by her own parents' relationship. Originally published in 2016, the book went viral on BookTok in 2022–2023, spending over two years on the New York Times bestseller list and selling more than 20 million copies worldwide. It was adapted into a major film released in August 2024, starring Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni. Continued in the sequel It Starts with Us.

• second chance
• love triangle

Two best friends. Ten summer trips. One last chance to fall in love. Poppy and Alex have been best friends since college, and for a decade they've spent one week a year on vacation together, far from their regular lives. But after a trip that ended their friendship two years ago, they haven't spoken since. Poppy has everything she should want, but she's unhappy, and she knows the answer is Alex. When she calls and asks him to take one more vacation together, to try and salvage the friendship, he agrees. This might be the last chance they have to fix what went wrong, and it might also be their last chance to admit what they've been dancing around for years.

• friends to lovers
• grumpy sunshine
• dual timeline

Ava Chen is a warm, free-spirited photographer haunted by nightmares of a childhood she cannot fully remember. Alex Volkov is her older brother's best friend: ruthless, success-obsessed, and emotionally walled off by a tragic past that fuels his hunger for revenge. When Alex becomes Ava's de facto protector, the cold distance he keeps gives way to a possessive, all-consuming pull that neither is supposed to act on. Their grumpy-sunshine, brother's-best-friend dynamic plays out against the darker currents of Alex's history and the secrets surrounding Ava's own. The first book in the Twisted series, it introduces a tightly connected friend group whose members headline the books that follow, and it establishes the morally grey anti-hero that made Ana Huang a BookTok phenomenon.

• grumpy sunshine

January Andrews writes happily-ever-afters for a living, but she no longer believes in them. Reeling from her father's death and the discovery of the double life he kept hidden, broke and blocked, she retreats to the lakeside Michigan cottage he secretly owned to sort through his things and, she hopes, salvage her career. The catch: her new next-door neighbor is Augustus Everett, the brooding literary-fiction star who was her rival in college and who has never written anything that ends in anything but despair. Both are stuck. So they make a bargain — over the summer, January will try to write something serious and bleak, and Gus will attempt a love story with a happy ending. To research, they trade field trips: she drags him line-dancing, he takes her to interview the survivors of a local death cult. What begins as a competitive dare turns into something neither expected, as two people who write for a living learn how hard it is to be honest about their own lives. Warm, funny, and quietly devastating in its handling of grief, Beach Read is a romance about writer's block, disillusionment, and the stubborn possibility of hope.

• rivals

Daphne moved to the small lakeside town of Waning Bay, Michigan, for her fiancé, Peter — right up until he called off the wedding because he'd fallen in love with his lifelong best friend, Petra. Now Daphne is heartbroken, nearly homeless, and stuck in a town where the only person who understands exactly how she feels is Miles Nowak: Petra's dumped ex-boyfriend. With nowhere else to go, Daphne takes the spare room in Miles's apartment. They could not be more different — she's a careful, buttoned-up children's librarian; he's a warm, chaotic mess — and at first they barely speak. Then, almost by accident, they start pretending to be a couple, partly to save face and partly to needle the exes who left them. What's meant to be a performance turns into long summer days at the beach, honest late-night conversations, and a friendship that neither of them planned on. Funny Story is a warm, funny, tender romance about rebuilding a life after it falls apart, and discovering that the person who gets you might be the last one you'd expect.

• fake dating
• grumpy sunshine

Trauma nurse Aly fantasizes about a masked influencer she follows online, never expecting him to actually show up in her bedroom. After a drunken text, Josh makes her darkest dreams a reality, blurring the line between fantasy and obsession. But their dangerous game attracts the attention of a real stalker with sinister intentions. Now Josh must turn from predator to protector to save the woman he can't let go.

• morally grey
• anti hero

Nora Stephens is a cutthroat literary agent, not the sweet small-town heroine who gets swept off her feet in the novels she sells. So when her sister Libby drags her to the tiny town of Sunshine Falls, North Carolina, for a month-long escape, Nora doesn't expect a fairy-tale transformation — and she certainly doesn't expect to keep running into Charlie Lastra, a brooding big-city editor she already can't stand. But the more their paths cross, the harder it is to remember why they're supposed to be enemies. As Nora tries to give her burned-out sister the perfect getaway and untangle her own fear of being left behind, she starts to wonder whether the woman who never gets the guy might be writing her own story wrong. Emily Henry's sharp, funny, and surprisingly tender romance is a love letter to books, to sisters, and to the people who don't fit neatly into anyone else's plot.

• enemies to lovers

Connell and Marianne grow up in the same small town in County Sligo — he is popular and she is not, and his mother cleans her family's house. Over four years, through Trinity College Dublin and back again, they keep circling each other, drawn together and pulled apart by class, silence and the difficulty of saying plainly what they want.

• coming of age
• multiple povs

Bridget von Ascheberg never expected to inherit a throne, but when her brother steps aside she becomes the reluctant heir to a small European kingdom, her every move dictated by duty. Rhys Larsen is the stoic ex-military bodyguard assigned to protect her, a man with an iron rule against getting emotionally involved with the people he guards. Forced into constant proximity, the princess and her protector slide from wary friction into a romance that neither royal protocol nor his professional code permits. The second Twisted book trades the first's darkness for a forbidden royal-bodyguard slow burn, following one of the four friends at the heart of the series as she fights for a sliver of freedom and the one person she is forbidden to want.

• forbidden love
• slow burn

Matty McKnight has been out since he was fourteen, and David Kruk hasn't even admitted the truth to himself. When a drunken night leads them both into a compromising situation, their rivalry turns into something neither of them can ignore — until Matty's family finds out about David's secret.

• enemies to lovers
• forbidden love

Clementine West is a New York book publicist still hollowed out by the death of her beloved aunt Analea, who left her a coveted Upper East Side apartment. Analea always claimed the apartment was "a pinch in time" — a place where moments blur together like watercolours. Clementine never believed it, until she walks into her own kitchen and finds a warm-eyed stranger with a Southern drawl and a weakness for lemon pie standing where he shouldn't be. The catch is that he is living in the apartment seven years in the past, and she is seven years in his future. As their impossible visits continue, Clementine finds herself falling for a man she can only meet across a gap of time — and then she begins to encounter him in her own present, where nothing is quite as she remembers it. A tender, wistful romance about grief, timing, and the courage to love again, The Seven Year Slip blends a light touch of magic with a very grounded story of learning to live after loss.

• dual timeline

Dante Russo is a billionaire CEO who lives for control, until a blackmail threat against his family forces him into an engagement he never wanted. Vivian Lau is the poised heiress on the other end of the arrangement, marrying to elevate her family's standing even as she chafes at being treated as a pawn. What begins as a frosty marriage of convenience between two strangers slowly warms into something neither planned, even as Dante plots his revenge against the man who cornered him. The first book in the Kings of Sin series introduces Ana Huang's central conceit: seven morally grey billionaires, each embodying one of the seven deadly sins. Sharing a universe with the Twisted books, it opens the series on wrath, and on a forced union that turns dangerously real.

• marriage of convenience
• revenge
• enemies to lovers

For eight years, Harriet and Wyn were the couple everyone else measured themselves against — until, quietly, they weren't. Five months after their engagement fell apart, they still haven't told a soul. So when their tight-knit college friend group gathers for its annual week at the beloved cottage in Maine, Harriet and Wyn do the only thing that seems less painful than the truth: they pretend nothing has changed. That means sharing a room, sharing a bed, and performing a relationship they no longer have — all while the friends around them nurse secrets of their own, and the cottage that anchors every summer is quietly slipping out of reach. A surgical resident who avoids conflict at all costs, Harriet finds a week of forced proximity with the man she still loves almost unbearable, and slowly the reasons they broke up start to surface. Told across the golden week in Maine and the years that led to it, Happy Place is a tender, bittersweet romance about the difference between loving someone and being right for them — and about whether a second chance is worth the honesty it demands.

• fake dating
• second chance
• forced proximity

Two teenage boys at a British grammar school — one a rugby player, the other a quiet artist — find their friendship deepening into something more as they navigate school, identity, and the complexities of growing up.

• coming of age
• slow burn
• found family

Lily Bloom is rebuilding her life after leaving Ryle, cautiously beginning something real with Atlas Corrigan — her first love, who has been present at the edges of her life since she returned to Boston. But navigating a new relationship while co-parenting with an ex who is not ready to accept that the marriage is over requires more than love; it requires the kind of clear-eyed courage that It Ends with Us spent an entire novel establishing Lily had. The direct sequel to It Ends with Us, It Starts with Us focuses on what happens after the ending — the legal complexity, the co-parenting negotiations, the small ordinary moments of starting over — and completes the duology. Published in October 2022, it debuted at number one on the New York Times bestseller list.

• second chance
• multiple povs

Louisa Clark loses her café job and reluctantly becomes carer to Will Traynor, a wealthy former City financier left quadriplegic by a motorcycle accident. Six months, one narrow English town, and a decision Will has already made about how his life should end.

• grumpy sunshine
• workplace romance
• slow burn

When literature student Anastasia Steele stands in for her sick roommate to interview Christian Grey, a young, staggeringly wealthy entrepreneur, she expects a routine assignment and finds herself unnerved and intrigued in equal measure. Christian, in turn, pursues her with an intensity that is flattering, unsettling, and impossible to ignore. Their attraction is immediate, but Christian warns Ana that he is not a hearts-and-flowers man, and that any relationship with him comes on his terms. As Ana is drawn into Christian's carefully controlled world, she discovers the tastes and rules he lives by, and the contract he wants her to sign. What follows is an explicit, emotionally charged romance about desire, power, and the limits each of them is willing to test. Christian's guardedness hides a painful history, and Ana must decide how much of herself she is willing to surrender to reach the man beneath the control. The first book in E. L. James's global phenomenon, Fifty Shades of Grey became a cultural touchstone and one of the best-selling novels of its era. It is a frank, provocative adult romance whose depiction of a dominant-submissive relationship sparked wide debate, and which launched a trilogy followed by companion retellings from Christian's point of view.

Liz Buxbaum has scripted her senior-year romance with childhood crush Michael Young down to the last cinematic beat — except Michael barely notices her. Enlisting her prank-loving neighbour Wes Bennett as an unlikely coach, Liz starts to wonder whether the movie-perfect ending she planned is really the one she wants.

• enemies to lovers
• grumpy sunshine
• slow burn
• coming of age

Evan Zanders is the NHL's most notorious playboy, known for burning through one-night stands and clashing with authority. Stevie Shay takes a job as flight attendant for his team hoping for a fresh start, and instead finds herself sparring with Zanders on every flight. A team fraternization policy puts her job on the line if anything develops between them, but the friction between the two slowly gives way to something neither expected as the season wears on.

• enemies to lovers
• forbidden love
• slow burn
• multiple povs

John Logan has always been the dependable one—the Briar University hockey player who holds his team together and quietly holds up a family falling apart at home. He is not looking for anything serious the night he meets Grace Ivers, and their first encounter goes about as badly as a one-night stand can. But he cannot stop thinking about her, and when he decides he wants a real chance, he discovers that a first impression this bad is not easy to undo. Grace has spent her freshman year finding her footing and has no interest in being anyone's second choice, least of all a cocky athlete who already blew it. As Logan sets out to prove he has changed, he is also wrestling with pressures he hides from everyone: a struggling father, an uncertain future, and feelings for his best friend's girl that complicate everything. The second book in Elle Kennedy's Off-Campus series, The Mistake is a steamy, emotional new-adult sports romance about second chances, growing up, and earning back the trust you carelessly threw away.

• second chance

Josh Chen is a cocky, charming aspiring doctor who can usually get anything he wants; Jules Ambrose is the fiery best friend of his sister, and the one woman who has always seen straight through him. Their long-running, very public mutual hatred boils over when Jules turns up working at his hospital, and one night together leads to an enemies-with-benefits arrangement built on three rules: no jealousy, no strings, no falling in love. As the line between hate and want blurs, both are forced to face the private wounds they hide behind banter and bravado. The third Twisted book pairs sharp comedic sparring with real emotional stakes, continuing the interconnected friend-group saga and tying back to the cast of Twisted Love.

• enemies to lovers

Alexis Montgomery has spent her life meeting other people's expectations. A thirty-seven-year-old ER doctor from a wealthy, prominent family of surgeons, she is under quiet pressure to carry on the family legacy, and is still entangled with a controlling ex. When her car goes into a ditch just outside the small town of Wakan, Minnesota, she is rescued by Daniel Grant, a twenty-eight-year-old carpenter who also happens to be the town's mayor — warm, capable, and utterly at home in the place he has no interest in leaving. Their connection is immediate and inconvenient. He is younger, works with his hands, and belongs to a place; she has a career, a family legacy, and a life two hours away that expects her back. As she spends more time in Wakan, both must decide how much of themselves they are willing to give up, and how much they are willing to claim. Abby Jimenez writes contemporary romance that mixes real humor with heavier emotional stakes. Part of Your World is a warm, funny, sometimes aching story about class, family pressure, and whether you can build a life on your own terms rather than the one you inherited.

Bree Prescott arrives in the small lakeside town of Pelion, Maine, hoping to outrun the violence that shattered her life the night she watched her father die. She plans only to pass through, but the quiet town — and one of its most solitary residents — gives her reasons to stay. Archer Hale lives on the edge of Pelion, watched over from a distance by a town that pities and avoids him in equal measure. A childhood tragedy left him unable to speak and largely cut off from the world, and he has spent his life in near silence, tending his land and keeping to himself. When Bree wanders onto his property, the two begin an unlikely friendship built on written notes, patient attention, and a slowly dawning trust. As Bree teaches Archer to reach beyond the walls his family built around him, buried secrets about his past — and the people who profited from his isolation — begin to surface. Archer's Voice is a tender, emotionally charged love story about two wounded people who find healing in each other, and about the courage it takes to claim a voice of your own.

• slow burn
• grumpy sunshine
• friends to lovers

Figure skater Anastasia Allen has built her life around a single goal: a place on the U.S. Olympic team. Her training, her diet, and her tightly managed routines leave no room for distraction, least of all the university hockey team that suddenly has to share her rink after the campus arena is damaged. Nate Hawkins, the hockey captain bound for the NHL, is everything Anastasia tries to avoid: loud, easygoing, and impossible to ignore. When a prank pushes the two teams into the same practice schedule and her own skating partnership falls apart, Anastasia and Nate strike an uneasy deal that forces them together day after day. What begins as friction slowly turns into something neither of them planned for. Set at the fictional University of California, Maple Hills, this hockey romance balances competitive pressure, anxiety, and a controlling skating partner against the easy warmth Nate brings into Anastasia's carefully ordered world. The first book in the Maple Hills series, it follows two driven athletes learning to let someone in without losing sight of who they are.

• grumpy sunshine

Shy, bullied Shannon Lynch transfers to Tommen College hiding bruises from her father — and is noticed by rugby prodigy Johnny Kavanagh. Book one of Chloe Walsh's Boys of Tommen: a 600-page slow-burn Irish sports romance about abuse, safety and found family.

• slow burn
• friends to lovers
• found family
• multiple povs

When Tate Collins moves in with her brother, she meets Miles Archer — a commercial airline pilot who is closed off to any emotional connection but not to a physical one. Miles offers an arrangement with two rules: no questions about the past, no expectations of a future. Tate agrees, certain she can manage the terms. Told in dual timelines — Tate's present alternating with Miles's past narrated six years earlier — the novel gradually reveals the trauma that made Miles who he is, while Tate discovers that agreeing to rules and living within them are very different things. Ugly Love won the Goodreads Choice Award for Romance in 2014 and reached #1 on the New York Times bestseller list.

• dual timeline