Favorite Romances
I love a good beach read.
Would I choose it over it’s less-hyped cousin: a cozy winter read? No. But to be fair, I’m more of a warm-cup-of-tea girl than a lemonade-by-the-pool girl, so this is not shocking.
However, there is something special about a beloved summer read. Those books that you’re not worried about getting all beat up with sand, sunscreen, and sunshine. The ones that you fly through in hours, eager to get to the next.
For me, these reads tend to be romance. And this year especially, I have read some absolutely amazing romances! I would be remiss not to share them via this blog so that I can look back and feel the sunshine on my face while I think about these books.
Practice Makes Perfect by Sarah Adams
This book really kicked off my summer reading, so are you shocked I’ve had so many hits in such a short amount of time?
The only reason I read When In Rome was to get to this book, and it was so worth it. Sometimes the trope of “naive heroine meets bad boy hero” grates on my nerves, but this was *chefs kiss* perfectly done. I loved how Annie was more than just this innocent flower that everyone painted her out to be and how Will saw that and encouraged her to be her true self! These two are one of my favorite pairs and I’m excited for the next story in this series!
Love, Theoretically by Ali Hazelwood
Queen Ali Hazelwood strikes again! This has been the biggest comeback by an author in my reading career. After being thoroughly ‘meh’ on The Love Hypothesis, I expected to write her off my list completely but picked up Love on the Brain on a whim and it ended up being one of my favorite romances of all time. Ditto on this one!
While sometimes the conflict on this felt a little drawn out and the “enemies” of the “enemies-to-lovers” overdone, the tension between Jack and Elsie was so delightful and of course Jack is a great grumpy yet misunderstood love interest, as I’ve come to expect from these books!
Is every AH STEM novel the same? Yes. Will I eat them all up anyway? Absolutely.
Business of Pleasure by Rachel Lynn Solomon
Guys, this was the biggest surprise of 2023. I have been SO meh on RLS’s adult romances and this was absolutely a hail mary for me. If it didn’t hit, I was done with trying, despite how much I love these vivid, grainy covers.
Thankfully, more of these covers will be gracing my shelves! This was spectacular. Finn is one of my favorite love interests of this year, and I really enjoyed Chandler as a main character. The sex-positivity was a huge highlight *and also just super steamy!* and the plotline of Chandler being a ghostwriter for this famous actor was unique and fun.
Yay for second third chances!
The True Love Experiment by Christina Lauren
I cannot tell you what in the world inspired me to read this. It couldn’t have been the first book in this series, which follows the founder of a dating app that genetically matches people with their soulmates (cringe). What it might have been is all the hype this got online.
And for good reason! Fizzy is the quintessential “second book heroine” – outspoken, unmoored and deeply, adorably weird. This book also did what I’m finding I love in romance: strangers, to friends, to lovers. Seeing Connor and Fizzy develop a friendship before they became more helped to build the tension and create even higher stakes for their romance!
Could’ve taken or left the whole reality dating show premise, but we love a reason for the brooding male love interest to be jealous.
You, With a View by Jessica Joyce
A sleeper hit! An undercover BookTok star! A 2023 romance favorite!
A debut by Jessica Joyce, this book is what I wanted Mrs. Nash’s Ashes to be. Following a young woman who lost her grandma recently, this is a story about love and grief, which was really well done and well balanced.
This is enemies to lovers, but it’s also one of those books were even though it’s never explicitly stated, you can see through actions and little moments that the love interest is in love with the main character from way before she catches feelings.
Again my criticism is primarily that the ending was a little contrived and I could’ve gone with a few pages less of the borderline cringey confessions of love. But hey, if that’s the worst it gets, sign me up!
So there are some of my favorites! This year has been a hit romance year for me and I’m just loving this huge flood of adorable, steamy romances that we are all collectively swooning over. There are SO many coming out in the next year that I’m excited about, and I hope I get the same success rate as this year!
What are some of your favorite romance books from 2023? Do you have any you’re looking forward to reading before year-end?
