Most Read Paranormal Romance Books

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

When Clary Fray discovers a hidden world of demon hunters, her ordinary life is turned upside down. She's drawn into a dangerous conflict in New York City, where vampires and werewolves are real, and forbidden love might be the least of her worries. This is the start of an epic urban fantasy adventure.

• chosen one
• found family
• secret identity
• forbidden love

In a world where supernatural beings and humans coexist, Misery Dueña and Lowe Proctor enter into a marriage of convenience to unite their warring factions. What begins as a political alliance soon sparks an undeniable attraction between them. As they navigate the complexities of their union, they must decide if their arrangement is truly just for show or if it's destined for something more.

• marriage of convenience
• enemies to lovers

Chosen from birth, Penellaphe — known to the kingdom of Solis only as the Maiden — has spent her life in isolation, forbidden to be touched, to speak unless spoken to, or to look anyone in the eye. She waits, veiled and guarded, for the day of her Ascension, a sacred rite that will supposedly lift her people closer to the gods. But Poppy is restless, curious, and desperate for a taste of the life she has been denied. When Hawke, a charming and lethal guard, is assigned to protect her, the careful walls around Poppy's world begin to crack. Their forbidden attraction pulls her toward everything she is supposed to resist — and as the bloodthirsty Craven threaten Solis and the truth behind the Ascension begins to surface, Poppy must decide how much of what she has been taught is a lie, and how much she is willing to risk to be free. The opening book of Jennifer L. Armentrout's runaway-bestselling Blood and Ash series, this is fast-paced, high-heat fantasy romance built on a forbidden guard-and-charge romance, a richly drawn kingdom, and secrets that reshape everything Poppy thought she knew.

• forbidden love
• slow burn
• forced proximity
• enemies to lovers

Bella Swan is left devastated when the Cullens leave Forks, and slowly finds comfort in a deepening friendship with Jacob Black — who carries supernatural secrets of his own. As she's drawn back into a dangerous hidden world, Bella faces an ancient vampire authority. The second book in Stephenie Meyer's Twilight Saga.

• love triangle
• forbidden love

Reunited with Edward, Bella is torn between him and her bond with Jacob as a wave of mysterious killings in Seattle signals a growing danger aimed at her. Old enemies must form an uneasy alliance to protect her. The third book in Stephenie Meyer's Twilight Saga.

• love triangle
• forbidden love
• rivals

The fourth and final book of Stephenie Meyer's original Twilight Saga brings Bella and Edward's story to its climax. Long-awaited choices arrive with unexpected consequences that test the Cullen family, the Quileute wolves, and the fragile peace between them — until the ancient Volturi threaten everyone Bella loves.

• forbidden love
• sacrifice

Oraya is the only human in a court of vampires — the adopted daughter of the Nightborn king — and to stop being prey she enters the Kejari, a lethal once-a-century tournament held by the goddess of death, allying with a rival competitor whose agenda could destroy her.

• enemies to lovers
• slow burn
• found family
• morally grey

The second Mortal Instruments novel. With her mother in a coma and Valentine loose in New York, Clary Fray must free Jace from the Inquisitor's custody and stop her father claiming the Soul-Sword — while discovering she can draw runes no Shadowhunter has seen before.

• love triangle
• forbidden love
• betrayal
• found family

Reeling from betrayal and the truth about the man she trusted, Poppy is taken deep into the kingdom of Atlantia — captive, bargaining chip, and something harder to name. As she navigates a court that may want her dead and a bond she can't deny, she clings to one goal: finding her brother and learning what of her old life was ever true. The second Blood and Ash book widens the world and raises the stakes.

• enemies to lovers
• marriage of convenience
• secret identity
• betrayal

To save her mother, Clary must venture into the forbidden City of Glass, the Shadowhunters' hidden home. But entering without permission means death, and Jace doesn't want her there. As secrets of her family's past surface and Valentine gathers his forces, Clary must find a way to unite Downworlders and Shadowhunters against a common enemy, even if it means confronting deadly truths and making impossible choices.

• quest
• betrayal
• found family

Serena Paris is orphaned, pack-less and one of a kind: the first known Human-Were hybrid. Coming forward was meant to heal a centuries-long rift between species; instead it made her prey to the political machinations of Weres, Vampyres and Humans alike. Her one remaining option is Koen Alexander, Alpha of the Northwest pack, whose authority is absolute — and who has claimed her as his mate whether or not she returns the feeling. A companion novel to Bride, leaning hard into fated mates, banter and heat.

• forced proximity

Florence Day ghostwrites bestselling romances for a famous author — which is awkward, because after a brutal breakup she no longer believes in love at all. Worse, her handsome new editor, Benji Andor, refuses to grant the extension she desperately needs. Then a phone call sends her career worries reeling: her father has died, and Florence must return for the first time in a decade to Mairmont, the small Southern town she fled, where her eccentric, loving family runs the local funeral parlour. Florence has always been able to see ghosts — a family gift she resents. So she is thrown when a ghost appears at the funeral home's door: not her father, but Benji, her own editor, with no idea why he's still here. As Florence helps her grieving family lay her father to rest, she also tries to help Benji find his unfinished business so he can move on — even as she starts to wish he never would. Warm, funny, and quietly devastating, The Dead Romantics is a paranormal romance about grief, going home, and rediscovering a belief in love in the most unlikely place.

• workplace romance
• forced proximity
• grumpy sunshine

Twin sisters Tory and Darcy Vega have spent their lives in the foster system, scraping by and looking out for each other, with no idea where they come from. On the eve of their nineteenth birthday, they learn the impossible truth: they are Fae, the lost heirs to the throne of the magical kingdom of Solaria, and their power is only beginning to wake. To claim their birthright, the sisters must enrol at Zodiac Academy, an elite and brutal school where students are sorted by star sign and Order—dragons, sirens, werewolves, and worse—and where magic is currency and cruelty is a lesson plan. Standing in their way are the four Celestial Heirs, impossibly powerful young men who have been raised to rule Solaria and have no intention of letting two clueless outsiders take the crown. What follows is a savage test of survival, as the Vega twins fight to master their gifts, endure relentless hazing, and resist the dangerous pull of the very people determined to break them. The first book in Caroline Peckham and Susanne Valenti's wildly popular Zodiac Academy series, The Awakening is a dark, addictive, and steamy bully-romance fantasy set in a richly built magical world of star signs, elemental power, and shifting loyalties.

• enemies to lovers
• academy
• chosen one
• multiple povs

Grace Foster's parents are dead, and she has been sent to live with her uncle in Alaska, where he runs Katmere Academy — a boarding school she quickly learns is not what it seems. Its students are vampires, witches, shifters, and other supernatural beings, and Grace, the only human among them, becomes a target the moment she arrives. Jaxon Vega is a vampire who has kept himself isolated for a hundred years, but something about Grace unsettles the walls he has built. As Grace tries to work out where she fits among factions that mostly agree on hating her, someone at the school appears to want her dead — and the reasons may be tied to why she was sent there in the first place. The first book in Tracy Wolff's Crave series, set at a paranormal academy where survival depends on figuring out who can be trusted.

• academy
• forbidden love
• dark academia

The first book in Shelby Mahurin's bestselling YA fantasy trilogy. In a French-inspired kingdom where witches are burned, Lou le Blanc has hidden among the thieves of Cesarine for two years -- until a scandal forces her into marriage with Reid Diggory, a devout witch hunter sworn to destroy her kind. Bound to her sworn enemy and living a dangerous lie, Lou must navigate crackling attraction and an old threat closing in. A sharp, sensual enemies-to-lovers romantasy.

• enemies to lovers
• marriage of convenience
• forbidden love

A full-length companion to Twilight that retells the first novel from Edward Cullen's perspective. Edward's restraint, torment, and century of loneliness reframe the romance, exposing the constant danger his vampire nature poses to Bella. Published in 2020 after years of anticipation.

• forbidden love
• slow burn

Sera Swan, once a powerful witch, lost most of her magic and was exiled after resurrecting her great-aunt. Now, she reluctantly helps run an enchanted inn, dealing with quirky guests and a talking fox, all while longing for her lost future. When she discovers an old spell that could restore her powers, a handsome and icy magical historian, Luke Larsen, arrives and might hold the key to its secrets. Despite his initial disinterest, Luke finds himself drawn into Sera's madcap world, and together they navigate reclaiming her magic and staying ahead of a watchful Guild, discovering the strength of their unexpected family along the way.

• second chance
• found family
• grumpy sunshine
• slow burn

After surviving a brutal initiation at the Zodiac Academy, twin sisters Darcy and Tory Vega refuse to be broken by the powerful Celestial Heirs. Realizing they cannot win a direct fight against their tormentors, the sisters must use stealth and cunning to strike back from the shadows. As they plot their revenge, they must navigate a dangerous magical school where one wrong move could cost them everything.

• enemies to lovers
• academy
• revenge
• morally grey

Two months after the Mortal War, Shadowhunters who once followed Valentine are turning up murdered across New York, Simon Lewis is struggling with life as a vampire, and Jace is pulling away from Clary for reasons he will not explain. The fourth novel in Cassandra Clare's The Mortal Instruments.

• love triangle
• found family
• secret identity
• sacrifice

Winnie Darling has spent her life haunted by a shadow that visits her in the dark — and on her eighteenth birthday, that shadow finally drags her to Neverland. There she is claimed by Pan, the beautiful and merciless Never King, and his equally dangerous Lost Boys, who need Winnie's Darling bloodline to hold their fading magic together. Trapped on an island where trust is a weapon and desire is a trap, Winnie refuses to be a pawn. But the longer she survives among Pan and his boys, the harder it becomes to tell captor from protector — and to deny the pull she feels toward the very men who took her. The Never King opens Nikki St. Crowe's Vicious Lost Boys, a dark, explicit adult reimagining of Peter Pan. It is a fast, steamy why-choose fantasy romance built on morally grey antiheroes, sharp banter, and a heroine who bites back.

• enemies to lovers
• morally grey

To save her younger sister, Ophelia Grimm must survive Phantasma — a deadly, ever-shifting haunted mansion that appears for one week each year and challenges the desperate to clear nine terrifying trials. Clear all nine and any wish is granted; fail, and the house keeps you. A necromancer who has spent her life hiding her powers, Ophelia isn't sure she can survive the game alone. Then she meets Blackwell, a maddening, seductive stranger who offers to help her through the trials — in exchange for ten years of her life. As the challenges grow bloodier and the line between ally and enemy blurs, Ophelia realizes the greatest danger in Phantasma may be losing her heart. Kaylie Smith's dark fantasy romance is a gothic, competition-driven romantasy full of ghosts, bargains, and slow-burning temptation.

• forbidden love
• forced proximity
• morally grey
• survival

Leeds meets Layla at her sister's wedding and falls for her over a single weekend. Months later an obsessive ex-girlfriend shoots her, and the woman who survives the attack is not quite the woman Leeds fell in love with. Hoping to repair what is left of them, he takes her back to the bed-and-breakfast where they met — and there he finds himself drawn to another presence in the house, a woman who calls herself Willow and who seems to know things she should not. Hoover's first paranormal romance: an unsettling love story about grief, guilt and the cost of a second chance.

• love triangle
• unreliable narrator
• mystery box

At Zodiac Academy, Hell Week has begun, and the senior students are determined to make the freshmen's lives a nightmare before the final trial: the Reckoning itself. Twins Tory and Darcy Vega must survive a brutal week of elemental trials while the Heirs, furious that the sisters have proven themselves too powerful to sideline, plot to eliminate them for good. With a lunar eclipse approaching and dark magic closing in, surviving Zodiac Academy will take more than raw power.

• enemies to lovers
• academy
• multiple povs
• morally grey

A thousand years ago, in the deserts of Eoria, Dianna Martinez traded her life to save her dying sister. What answered her was Kaden — and the bargain left her an Ig'Morruthen, a shapeshifting monster bound to his service for as long as he wants her. What he wants now is the Book of Azrael, an ancient relic rumoured to hold the one thing capable of killing a god. It is guarded by an army, and that army answers to the oldest monster of them all. In the old world he was Samkiel: son of Unir, King of Rashearim, the World Ender who broke his own realm to end the Gods War. In the new one he is only Liam, hidden for centuries on the wreckage of that homeworld, refusing the crown and the people who once needed him. An attack on the few he still loves drags him back to Onuna, and into the path of an enemy he believed imprisoned eons ago. To keep every realm from following Rashearim into ruin, two of the oldest enemies alive have to learn to stand each other first. Book one of the Gods & Monsters series.

• enemies to lovers
• slow burn
• sacrifice
• secret identity

In the fifth installment of The Mortal Instruments, Clary discovers a terrifying magical bond between Jace and her evil brother Sebastian. Jace is now under Sebastian's control, and harming one means harming the other. As allies race to find a solution, Clary must play a dangerous game, questioning if Jace is truly lost to darkness or if she can still reach him.

• found family
• sacrifice
• betrayal

Newly crowned queen of the Blood Court, Saeris Fane cannot make the journey home through the Quicksilver without dying under Zilvaren's suns. So she sends Kingfisher and the smuggler Carrion Swift in her place — and as a darkness spreads across Yvelia, the fight to protect their realm becomes a fight to survive each other. The dual-POV sequel to the global romantasy phenomenon Quicksilver.

• multiple povs
• found family
• court intrigue
• quest

Sookie Stackhouse is a telepathic waitress in the small Louisiana town of Bon Temps, where vampires have recently come out of hiding after the invention of synthetic blood. When Bill Compton, a vampire, walks into the bar where she works, Sookie is drawn to him partly because his mind is silent to her telepathy — a rare relief. Their romance develops against a backdrop of small-town suspicion and a string of murders targeting women who have been intimate with vampires, pulling Sookie into a mystery that puts her own life at risk.

Violet, a millennial burdened by debt, takes an unusual job at Morning Glory Farm, where the clientele are minotaurs. She's determined to make a fresh start, but her professionalism is tested when a particular deep-voiced client takes an interest in her. As her feelings grow, Violet must decide if a one-sided crush on a minotaur is worth the risk, especially when it might not be so one-sided after all.

• workplace romance
• forbidden love
• slow burn

When historian Diana Bishop discovers a magical manuscript, she's drawn into a hidden world of witches, vampires, and daemons. Her unexpected connection with the enigmatic vampire Matthew Clairmont ignites an ancient conflict, forcing them to confront dangerous secrets and forbidden feelings. This is the start of a magical romance where history and magic collide.

• forbidden love
• chosen one