Most Read New Adult Romance Books

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

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

Beyah Grim has grown up in near-poverty, raised by a mother whose addiction defined the household. When her mother enters rehab, Beyah is sent to spend the summer with a father she barely knows — in a lake community in Texas where the houses are large and the expectations are foreign. Samson is her next-door neighbor: at ease in this world, and carrying a grief she recognizes without needing to be told about it. A summer romance that does not flinch from the class divide at its center, Heart Bones examines what it means to love someone when your entire life has taught you not to count on anything lasting — and whether someone from a completely different world can truly understand what you have come from.

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

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

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

Cath is a devoted writer of Simon Snow fan fiction, and starting college means facing the world outside her stories for the first time. Without her twin sister at her side, she must contend with a prickly roommate, an unnerving new romance, a skeptical writing professor, and a father back home she worries about. A warm, funny coming-of-age novel about fandom, first love, and finding your own voice.

• coming of age
• slow burn

Nineteen-year-old Cecelia Horner takes a job at her estranged father's company in small-town North Carolina in exchange for an inheritance — and meets Sean and the guarded Dominic, two men bound by secrets and a matching raven tattoo. Drawn into their intense, unconventional world, she uncovers a hidden brotherhood and dark truths about her father's empire. First in Kate Stewart's Ravenhood trilogy — a morally grey dark romance.

• love triangle
• morally grey
• forbidden love

Stanford diver Scarlett Vandermeer is rebuilding her career after an injury and has no room for distractions — until swim captain Lukas Blomqvist pulls her into an arrangement that starts as convenience and turns into something neither of them planned. Set against the pressure of Olympic qualification, Deep End pairs Ali Hazelwood's trademark banter with an unusually frank, consensual kink storyline.

When shy, anxious Shannon Lynch transfers to the prestigious Tommen College in Cork, she is used to being invisible — and to protecting herself from a home life defined by abuse and a family barely holding together. The last thing she expects is to be noticed by Johnny Kavanagh, the school's golden boy and a rugby prodigy destined for stardom. But Johnny sees the girl with the midnight-blue eyes, and slowly, patiently, he begins to earn her trust. As Shannon learns what safety and gentleness can feel like, and Johnny faces the pressures and injuries threatening his future, the two build something fragile and real against the odds. The first book in Chloe Walsh's beloved Boys of Tommen series is an emotional, slow-burn Irish romance about trauma, tenderness, and found family. Content note: it deals frankly with domestic abuse.

Sky Davis has kept her world deliberately small — no internet, no television, a tight circle of friends — when she meets Holder, an intense and persistent young man who seems to recognize her in a way she cannot explain. As their relationship develops, Sky begins to uncover truths about her own past that have been deliberately concealed from her: revelations that explain why Holder knew her before they met and why so much of her childhood feels like a gap she cannot see across. Hopeless deals extensively with childhood trauma, the long-term effects of abuse, and the courage required to reclaim a stolen history. It debuted at #1 on the New York Times bestseller list in 2013 and is the first novel in the five-book Hopeless series.

• coming of age

The second Magnolia Parks Universe novel follows Daisy Haites, the sheltered younger sister of the man who runs London's criminal underworld, and Christian Hemmes, BJ Ballentine's magnetic best friend, whose ties to that world draw him into her orbit. As high society and its ruthless underbelly collide, Daisy and Christian fall into something neither planned. A darker, dangerous chapter in Jessa Hastings's interconnected romance saga.

• forbidden love

A sheltered freshman at Washington State University crosses paths with Hardin Scott — her reckless, scarred stepbrother who has been expelled from a previous school for fighting. What starts as mutual dislike and constant bickering turns into an undeniable attraction neither of them can resist, forcing Tessa to confront the truth about his troubled past while he struggles to let anyone in.

• forbidden love
• enemies to lovers
• slow burn
• grumpy sunshine

Erika Fane has spent three years fantasizing about her boyfriend's older brother, Michael Crist — the untouchable college basketball star at the center of a dangerous, secretive group of young men. When Michael and his friends return home, the fantasy curdles into something far darker. There are debts to be paid and a game of revenge already in motion, and Rika finds herself caught between the boy she thought she wanted and the man determined to make her pay for a betrayal she may not even fully understand. The first book in Penelope Douglas's Devil's Night series is a dark, steamy revenge romance about power, obsession, and the thin line between fear and desire.

• enemies to lovers
• forbidden love
• revenge

The third Magnolia Parks Universe novel picks up in the wreckage of Magnolia Parks and BJ Ballentine's latest split. The long way home is never a straight line for these two, and the road back takes them through new relationships, old wounds, and a stubborn love neither can outrun. Jessa Hastings continues her addictive saga of privilege and passion.

• second chance

Driven pre-law student Sabrina has no room in her plans for a hockey player—until one night with kind-hearted Tucker leaves her facing an unplanned pregnancy. As they navigate family baggage and clashing futures, they weigh whether an accident can become something real. Book four of the Off-Campus series.

Lifelong pen pals Misha and Ryen have shared everything but never met — until they cross paths in real life as enemies, neither realizing the other is the person they've loved on paper.

• enemies to lovers
• secret identity

Hockey player and unrepentant playboy Dean strikes a no-strings deal with Allie, a theater major nursing a breakup—only to find there's a real person under his reputation, and that letting her see it is the scariest thing he's done. Book three of the Off-Campus series: a funny, steamy new-adult sports romance.

A friends-to-lovers romance spanning more than a decade, following Aurelia Ramirez Preston and Chadwick David from a chance audition at LaGuardia Arts as thirteen-year-olds through his rise to fame as "Maestro," a celebrated musician, and her own career as a cellist. Told across four movements, the story follows their on-and-off relationship through betrayals, family interference, and years of mistimed reunions.

• friends to lovers
• second chance

Rugby prodigy Johnny Kavanagh and anxious, traumatized Shannon Lynch fight to hold on to the fragile safety they've found together, as an injury threatens Johnny's future and Shannon's dangerous home life closes in. The emotional, slow-burn second novel in Chloe Walsh's Boys of Tommen series.

For three years, Lily Calloway and Loren Hale have faked the perfect romance to hide their secrets: her compulsive sex addiction, his alcoholism. Each shields and enables the other. But as their compulsions spiral, the couple must face whether real love could survive beneath the lie. An unflinching, emotional new-adult series opener about addiction and codependency.

• fake dating
• friends to lovers

Arianna has always believed first loves last forever, with her whole future built around the boy she's loved for years, until that certainty collapses. Then Noah Riley, the magnetic golden boy of Avix University's football world, refuses to let her hide from what she feels. The steamy first book in Meagan Brandy's Boys of Avix new-adult college romance series.

At Barrington University, the secret society known as the Lords rules through blood, debt, and violence. When the powerful Ryat Alexander Archer offers the heroine a way out of her mapped-out life, it proves to be another trap that turns her into a pawn and, eventually, a fight for survival. The high-heat first book in Shantel Tessier's dark college romance series.

• morally grey

A dark, steamy Lancaster Prep romance. Whit Lancaster is the untouchable, ice-cold heir who rules an elite prep school; Summer Savage is the scholarship girl who wants nothing to do with him. When Whit sets his sights on her, their combative attraction blurs the line between hate and need. A spicy, angsty enemies-to-lovers story of class, privilege, and desire.

• enemies to lovers

Lucy Albright leaves home for a California college and falls for Stephen DeMarco, a magnetic, manipulative fellow student. Told in alternating chapters from both their points of view, their on-again, off-again relationship unspools from campus parties to life in New York, laying bare the gap between how Lucy feels their love and how Stephen really operates. A sharp, addictive debut about desire, self-deception, and a first love that was never really love.

• multiple povs
• morally grey
• dual timeline
• coming of age

Book one of Nora Sakavic's All for the Game. Neil Josten has spent his life on the run — but the invented sport of Exy is the one thing he can't give up. When Coach Wymack recruits him to the Palmetto State Foxes, a scholarship team of misfits and survivors, Neil is pulled in by the game and its dangerous teammates. A dark, fast, character-driven sports thriller.

• found family
• secret identity
• morally grey