It’s Sexy Book Season

Just finished The Seven Year Slip because of this post and I just want to say thank you. I’ve been reading alot of critically acclaimed, and serious and non-fiction the past year and needed a break. Life is heavy my marriage has been feeling tired. Read this book and LOVED it. Finished last night and rolled over and saw my beautiful beautiful husband with fresh eyes and proceeded to have the best makeout (and eh hem more) session in ages. Romance books are lovely like that.

This is my jam! I have to admit that since this post came out I have already read two of the books recommended! I know someone already mentioned Mhairi McFarlane, but she’s an author I keep coming back to and pre-order the books. Along the same lines, Beth O’Leary is also amazing (The Flatshare). I happen to love angsty books because I want to feel all the things! There is nothing better than reading a book that makes your heart ache (and let’s be real, maybe shed a few tears too) and then finally reach the relief and joy of the happy ever after. If you also love angst with a HEA at the end, specifically the book Dear Emmie Blue by Lia Louis is a great contemporary one. Angsty + historical: Ravishing the Heiress by Sherry Thomas (I also love her Lady Sherlock series, but it’s more mystery novels with a long low burn romance). Finally, if you’re into the trifecta of angsty, historical, Pride & Prejudice variations then Being Mrs. Darcy is for you!

To be transported to a world of rich people but where there are hints at reality without the after-school-special vibe, I highly recommend Alyssa Cole’s romances which feature “reluctant royals” from various made-up tiny kingdoms in a contemporary and otherwise recognizable world. For the same feel, but with historical US settings and Black MCs, Beverly Jenkins is queen!

Had to come add my two cents with a few that haven’t been mentioned yet… If you like a sports romance: the Windy City series by Liz Tomforde If you like a cowboy romance: Wells Ranch series by Bailey Hannah and the Lucky River Ranch series by Jessica Peterson If you like a small town Gilmour Girls Stars Hollow sort of vibe: Lovelight Farms series by BK Borison If you want a protagonist that is a little older, divorced single mom: Summer Romance or Nora Goes Off Script by Annabel Monaghan If you’re looking for something cozy and charming with a touch of magical realism: The Seven Year Slip by Ashley Poston

I recommend anything and everything Kennedy Ryan, the woman can write a story. Her most popular ones have already been referenced, but I loved the Long Shot series, (read trigger warnings) and The Bennet Series!

Haven’t got through all the comments yet, but haven’t seen The Time Travelers Wife by Audrey Niffenegger. Maybe not sexy, but SOOOO romantic. I still remember just weeping on the couch, my husband thought I was nuts.

Hi, I’m an absolute romance addict. Most of my favourites have already been named, so I’ll add what I haven’t seen yet. Contemporary – Two wrongs make a right by Chloe Liese (I just finished it and absolutetly loved it!) – The wedding Date and The Proposal by Jasmine Guillory – The ‘I heart’ series by Lindsey Kelk – Boyfriend Material by Alexis Hall (a M/M romance) Historical -Has no one mentioned Elizabeth Hoyt yet? I love her and all her books. My favourite is ‘The Leopard Prince’. – I think no one mentioned Johanna Lindsey. – Loretta Chase – Lord of scoundrels – Eloisa James (I love almost all of her books, but here some favourites): A duke of her own, When beauty tamed the beast (how fun is it, that he’s a regency House MD? ;-)) – Tessa Dare – Goddess of the hunt – Teresa Medeiros – Yours until dawn – Anne Mallory – One night is never enough – Julie Anne Long – What I did for a duke

I love love LOVE the Vanished series by Stacey Lynn Hafner. The friendships are so fun, the women characters are bad-ass, and the romance is FIRE. Tattoo My Heart is the first of the series, and is *chef’s kiss.*

I have to give a shout out to “Early Morning Riser” by Katherine Heiny. It’s based in Petoskey, MI and features a second grade teacher falling in love with the town handyman. It is laugh out loud funny, bittersweet, and just lovely. I vacation every year in Petoskey and read this book during that week. It makes me laugh every time. Another great book is “The Jane Austen Society” by Natalie Jenner. It is just beautiful and a HEA story. Perfect for lovers of JA.

A note for fellow Romance readers to listen to the podcast, “Fated Mates.” The hosts, Romance writer Sarah Maclean (her books are incredible) and Romance editor Jen Prokop, discuss the history of the genre in such an in depth way ,how it reflects the times, and women’s rights. Each week the book recommendations are incredible, they will not steer you wrong.

I gobbled up the Fourth Wing series, then realized that Rebecca Yarros has written a bazillion contemporary romance novels, and they’re all excellent. My funniest romance novel story is that besides revving up my sex life, I think they make me a better parent. I was trying to figure out how to tell my 13 year old that he needed to be honest with me in order for me to go to bat for him on things. I decided to channel a standard Rebecc Yarros contemporary romance lead man – they’re all very secure and strong. I talked to my son channeling one of those dudes, with my husband quietly staring at me from our kitchen island. Afterwards, he said, “I think that is the single most effective thing you’ve ever said as a parent.” He had absolutely no clue I was channeling a male romance novel character 😂😂😂.

Jilly Cooper’s Riders and Rivals was the backdrop of my boarding school life as a teenager.. Jilly is very important to me. Also , Jane Austen forever. Persuasion is my favourite. I recommend Audrey Belezza and Emily Hardings retellings of Pride and Predjudice and Emma. Emma of 83rd St is a super fun Emma/ Clueless mash up. I think their next is a Persuasion retelling so cannot wait.

UPDATE! Emily O, your rec of The Roommate was fire – steamy for sure. Snagged it at the library yesterday morning – by 11am there was a hold on it, which wasn’t there first thing in the morn, and I was dying to know if it was a fellow COJer. Fortunately our library lets you check out if they haven’t yet pulled the hold, so home with me it went. And now I’m already done and back here for more ideas.

If any of you fellow readers also like tracking your books and TBR piles online, and no longer want to support (Amazon-owned) Goodreads, I just switched to Storygraph this week and like it so far! I just love this post, and seeing so many beloved titles mentioned here (+1 for Romantic Comedy and Seven Days in June especially)! I’m thankful ACOTAR was recommended by a COJ reader comment in ~2019 — what fun worlds to dive in to. I love steamy romantasy (a mates trope is so appealing), fantasy, rom-com, trad romance. Then when I think about romantic stories in fiction, I actually think of two of favorite movies I need to re-watch: Amelie and Sense & Sensibility!

You Made A Fool of Death With your Beauty by Emezi, Akwaeke. Great character development, well written AND hot. I don’t always have patience for mediocre writing. This novel hit all points for me!

I’ve always been a historical / regency romance reader, whether traditional (Georgette Heyer, Patricia Veryan) or the wonderful writers from the 90s (Julie Garwood, Judith McNaught) to the last decade or so (Lisa Kleypas, Loretta Chase – Lord Perfect is the book I hand out to get people to read regency romance. I describe it as sinking into a warm bath. So enjoyable all the way around). But someone at smartbitchestrashybooks.com somehow got me to take a hard left turn into contemporary M/M Hockey spicy romances and I have read Heated Rivalry and it’s sequel The Long Game, by Rachel Reid, more times than I care to admit. Whew! Love the evolution of the two protagonists from teenagers to a decade in the NHL, going from hot hook ups to devoted love, and all the fights (but not stupid misunderstandings) along the way. 10 out of 10 would recommend.

Can’t wait to dive into these!! I recently read The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley and while more of a sci-fi-ish book there is a really wonderful and sexy love story wrapped in it that I adored. Highly recommend!

If you enjoy historical fiction and live in Georgia, you might enjoy the St. Simons Island Trilogy by Eugenia Price. My daughter and I read them many years ago and later visited the family cemetery on the island. Emotional and heart warming.

Guys. No one mentioning Jane Eyre?? Love story to top them all. Also: North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell, if you’re looking for slow burn meeting-of-the-minds romance (aren’t we all). For spiciness, I always turn to fanfiction. Some of the best writers out there are doing it for fun and for free.

Do yourself a favor and read Nalini Singh. I especially adore the Psy-Changeling series. I think they are officially called paranormal romances. The worldbuilding is absolutely fantastic and there are a lot of books in the series! Plus they are really, really hot. The first one is called “Slave to Sensation”. I know… but please give it a try! She also wrote some contemporary romances that are nice.

I just finished reading Attachments by Rainbow Rowell and Funny You Should Ask by Elissa Sussman and I loved both. Not super spicy, but very romantic. And, anything by Emily Henry. I can’t wait for her next book to come out.

Yes yes the romance book topic will always be a top 5 Cup of Jo post for me!!!

I have to shout out Tia Williams, Yulin Kuang and Nora Nguyen as gorgeous writers of some of the best romance with great character development, gorgeous writing, very fun and complex protagonists and delightful stories. I’ve been looking and looking for something that comes close and only Hardly Strangers from 831 Stories has fit the bill.

I’m just getting into romance and there’s the tiniest, funniest, feistiest romance bookstore one town over from me. In the heart of super-Mormon Utah Valley, no less! It’s called Lagg (stands for “like a good girl”) and it’s packed full of anything you could want, classic and contemporary and everything in between, LGBTQIA+, YA, spicy, sweet—and including girly romance-y goodies. (I bought a gorgeous copy of Jane Austen’s Persuasion, a queer romance called The Honey Witch by Sydney J. Shields, two hair bows, and a bookmark with boobs all over it.) If you spend over $69, they snap a Polaroid of you to go up on the Good Girl Wall. It’s a riot! It makes me want to patronize their shop again and again!

Some of my favorites: *The True Love Experiment by Christina Lauren (this is technically the 2nd book in the series, so you could read The Soulmate Equation first) *Love and Other Words – Christina Lauren *Practice Makes Perfect – Sarah Adams *Fourth Wing – Rebecca Yarros *This Summer Will Be Different – Carley Fortune *All of Emily Henry’s books *The Kiss Quotient by Helen Hoang *The Hating Game by Sally Thorne (don’t watch the movie – they did not capture the book’s magic!) *The Spanish Love Deception by Elena Armas *The Love Hypothesis, Love on the Brain, and Love, Theoretically by Ali Hazelwood

I love CoJ posts in general, but especially ones that require me to open 11 new tabs with book title searches and max out my library holds. You are all magic beans.

For a literary swoon, I love Possession by A.S. Byatt. I wish I could read this for the first time again.

Like many others, I’m a devoted reader of classics and contemporary literary fiction, but after devouring In Memoriam by Alice Winn and The Sparsholt Affair by Alan Hollinghurst (two novels that cracked open unexpected emotions) I took a deep dive into queer romance and it’s been a sweet and hilarious ride. So I would love to recommend the lovely Cat Sebastian and her mid-century NY romances: We Could Be So Good and You Should Be So Lucky. These books are brimming with longing, charm, and delicious slow-burn pining that makes my heart flutter in the best way. The setting makes everything moodier and better.

If you like lightly humorous, wacky, magical reality than “Out of This World” by Jill Shalvis will be a very light, fun read. She has a particular voice – it could be annoying but it was fine for me as a change of pace and I enjoyed this particular story, though many people did not, so, proceed at your own risk. The bottom line is, it is just silliness, and that’s the point. I have reread it several times when I needed a reliable, mental break. I’ve enjoyed several of her books, so far, all more conventional romance but with a similar voice and needless to say, very easy reads.

I don’t think anyone has mentioned Helen Hoang yet! The Kiss Quotient is SO GOOD! It’s the perfect combo of smart and sexy. Her other two books are great too. They all feature neurodivergent and diverse characters. I highly recommend Helen Hoang!!

I’m not gay but my favorite recently was the audio version of Big Swiss. Is good for fans of On All Fours. I can’t get big swiss’s voice out of my head, a month later, lol! Will probably re-listen.

I must be the only one who doesn’t love or even like the Court of Thorns books. They seem sexist and weird, with the focus on violence (assasins? I’ll never understand the appeal and romantification of assasins, like in The Gorge and all the Tom Cruise type movies. I love the adventure and self-mastery but the vehicle: assasin – makes no sense and seems wildly toxic and weird), and the abuse the main character suffers from her ‘master’ or whatever. ick? Very 1890’s. Can we have an sexually empowered female that does not have a ‘master’ and does not tolerate straight up abuse from him? Baffled and frankly embarrassed about why these are so loved. I know I sound so unhip but whatever! Enlighten me, please! I was reading my first and only book on the ferry and had someone ask me how I was liking them as she’d been reading them too and when I told her they read as totally sexist and misogynist to me she didn’t get it and the conversation sadly died. lol

If you’re looking for a good queer romance recommendation, I think one of the most romantic books I’ve ever read is “A Lady for a Duke” by Alexis Hall. A trans woman in 1800s England reconnects with her male best friend, who thinks she died in the battle of Waterloo. It was a breathtaking read.

Wuthering Heights. A classic love and a tortured, Byronic hero. Loved it. Who could forget the immortal lines! And who else could write so but a woman!

I love romance and love a historical (I love something that takes me out of the present/suspends my judginess of the characters a little more, haha). I like Julie Anne Long, specifically “It Started With a Scandal.” Courtney Milan is good, too but there are tons of others on a similar wavelength if you go down this rabbit hole!

Nothing makes me hotter than a Sally Rooney sex scene!

So, to me there is romance: slow burn, an ever present glow on the charcoal, quiet, yearning,butterfly inducing and then there’s romance that’s hot, sensual, an stimulating. For the former, I like books like The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, Water for Elephants, Like Water for Chocolate, etc. For the latter, the first few Outlander books in the series had me. Aside from finding out how much I enjoyed historical fiction, I was surprised how turned on I got reading the spicier parts. My husband was the lucky recipient to all that built up energy… haha!!

If you’d like the most romantic – The Idea of You by Robinne Lee for something more sophisticated-romantic, and Casey McQuiston’s The Pairing for more angsty/yearning romantic. I read both of those for the first time more than a year ago and I still think about both probably weekly!

One of the best romance books I’ve read is The Intimacy Experiment by Rosie Danan about a hot rabbi and a former porn star/sex educator- I read it years before Nobody Wants This (which has a similar kinda setup and I even though I enjoy this show, I still think this book plot would have made for perhaps an even more compelling show). I recommended it to a friend and after she finished it she introduced me to all her other friends at her birthday party as “the girl who recommended a hot rabbi romance” hahaha… could be worse, memorable intros to have! But I loved it because as a Jewish person, our culture isn’t always given the best treatment in literature, as we are often missing from romance books (but this is slowly changing over the last few years). And Rosie did a fabulous job of depicting a loving, sexy Jewish relationship!

Me Before You by Jojo Moyes gutted me! What an amazing love story which led to absolute sobbing while my toddler napped on a trip to Aruba!

Definitely not a “happy ever after” kind of book, but I literally just finished Atonement this morning and it’s a masterpiece. I still haven’t seen the movie, so even though there were parts of the story I was familiar with just through the cultural zeitgeist, it was nice to be able to read the book fresh without much influence.

I read, or listen to books absolutely every single day. Mostly fiction. I worked at a library for 25+ years in the circulation department. I’ve certainly seen every type of book, and reader in all the combinations. No judgement! As for romance, I loved this essay by Katherine Center: http://booksbywomen.org/love-stories-can-save-the-world-katherine-center/ My wish with picking a new read is finding books with characters that have some life experience. I’m in my sixties, and romance between all the very young folks is less than inspiring, and all too common. An all time favorite series are the Outlander books, by Diana Gabaldon. The parts of the books that are about day to day life, and long relationships very much like real life. Glowing coals that burst into flames at times. If we’re lucky, life is long, and plenty of it isn’t exciting. Nice to read a series where passion is still there. Another favorite author is Linda Holmes. “She co-hosts the NPR podcast Pop Culture Happy Hour. She has been a guest host on Bullseye, too – maybe you heard her conversations with the Indigo Girls, Elisabeth Moss, or Giancarlo Esposito on this very program. In 2019, Linda wrote a novel: Evvie Drake Starts Over – a terrific mix of rom-com and baseball.” She’s just released her third novel.

I’ve enjoyed many romance books but the romance that haunts me decades later is in a movie. A man who is a soldier volunteers for a dangerous mission to travel back in time to protect the woman he loves, a woman he has never met because she lived in the past. He has heard of her reputation for being a badass and had a picture of her that was given to him once. And when he meets her, she is terrified by the danger she is facing and hasn’t become a badass yet and she asks him if he is disappointed at meeting her and he says NO. And the most haunting part is his description of the expression on her face in the picture of her that he had been given. It haunts me because how can it get more romantic than traveling back through time for the woman you’re in love with but have never met and you’re going there as a soldier on a mission to protect her from great danger and do not intend to tell her how you feel. The movie is The Terminator.

I loved Freya Marske’s books from the Last Binding series. Queer, historical fantasy. Read them in order.

Re: the legitimacy & genesis of the romance genre I highly recommend two special seasons of the fantastic podcast “Hot & Bothered” by Vanessa Zoltan + Lauren Sandler – they invite wonderful scholars and do an in-depth chapter-by-chapter reading and analysis of 2 of the greatest novels of all time: “On Eyre” – about Charlotte Brontë’s “Jane Eyre”: https://www.hotandbotheredrompod.com/on-eyre “Live From Pemberley” – about Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice” https://www.hotandbotheredrompod.com/live-from-pemberley It’s insightful, inspiring and their love for and knowledge about romance fiction is truly infectious. Plus they often link aspects of depicted women’s lives to current topics and debates. It really is the best!

This is the first time I’ve ever seen Waiting by Ha Jin on a list like this! I read it probably 8 years ago and still think about it. Excellent book.

As a woman in STEM who loves the trope of “man hopelessly in love and woman is oblivious”, Ali Hazelwood hits every one of my buttons. She’s an automatic pre-order for me!

I did not read all the comments yet… but I one day I spiraled into a Booktok universe and did not come out the same. The things I read since then make ACOTAR seem like child’s nursery rhyme. I also am beyond the YA teenage angst, like the Fourth Wing, with a young woman who cannot comprehend how to move on past a silly problem (looking at the second book but not wanting to kill the plot for anyone). Basically, if like me, you are older, perimenopausal, and aren’t rattled by unhinged dark romance (read trigger warnings first), do read Hunting Adeline by H.D. Carlton, and Credence by Penelope Douglas. Then, your phone will most likely know you read this and will point your algorithm on TikTok or Insta to Booktok girlies giving you further unhinged recs. Listen to them and read them. I have not been the same. In a good way. And I am still in a book club where we read all the lofty/literally things. The smut is my guilty pleasure. We can be both :)

‘The Well of Loneliness’ by Radclyffe Hall is one of the most beautiful, sexy love stories I’ve ever read.

echoing others here when I say I turned my nose up at romance, but tried ACOTAR last year and it had me in a chokehold. Fourth Wing, too. I’ve since moved onto contemporary romance. Romance gives me that new crush feeling and they provide an incredible dopamine rush! Couldn’t recommend leaning into the romance world more, while living under chaotic facism. My fave contemporary romances: -Book Lovers and Beach Read by Emily Henry -every Abby Jimenez book. They have all made me cry, too. -Snowed In and Holiday Romance by Catherine Walsh (Ireland setting) -How to End a Love Story by Yulin Kuang (INCREDIBLE, premise shouldn’t work and *somehow does*) -The Paradise Problem by Christina Lauren HAVE A GREAT TIME <3!

Check out all the books by 831 stories! The ladies who do the podcast/newsletter A Thing or Two started it and all the novellas are AMAZING! Also, anything by Jessica Joyce, Lyla Sage, Sarah Adams, Jasmine Guillory, Alexis Daria, Mia Sosa, and Falon Ballard should satisfy the itch!

Love these recommendations and I do second the “long game that is female libido”. Especially during perimenopause and menopause. On that note, I would love to see some content on navigating perimenopause and menopause on Cup of Jo. It seems like there’s more focus on the childbearing years, but there’s so much to share, learn and connect over that other transition in our lives as women. Hoping that the Cup of Jo community can be a place I go to for comfort, inspiration and belonging for this part of my life, as it has been for my earlier years.

I had a long hiatus from reading when my daughter was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes and I suddenly wasn’t sleeping; either from her emergent middle of the night care or anxiety. A year in, as we starts to get the hang of things and settle into our new normal and my anxiety was starting to abate, I still couldn’t concentrate on reading and I really missed it. My dear friend mailed me a copy of Book Lovers and assured me – this I could read! She was right! Emily Henry’s books were the perfect light and sexy, but still real and smart, antidote to my reading block. After a quick dive in her oeuvre, I was back reading not only my newly discovered genre of romantic comedy, but the full breadth of what I’d enjoyed before.

You have to read Thirst for Salt, by Madelaine Lucas. The romance, the language, the deep of it. Beautiful.

Ooh I have so many recs! Contemporary: Lucy Score, Stephanie Archer, Emma St Clair, Jenny Proctor, Catherine Cowles. Fantasy: Carissa Broadbent (Crowns of Nixaya series). Historical: Sarah MacLean.

I picked up 11/22/1963 by Stephen King again (my 3rd read, I think) and I still believe the first 50 pages are the best first 50 pages ever written. That beginning is amazing.

I read a few of Abby Jimenez’ novels last year and then fell in a Jilly Cooper rabbithole. Despite some outdated and horribly sexist aspects of especially her earlier books I love them unapologetically. what fascinates me is the mixture of beautiful landscape and music descriptions, some scenes that moved me to tears, extremely highbrow intellectual jokes, the spoils of the English upperclass and all. the. sex.

I’m gonna mention Kennedy Ryan’s books. Specifically “Before I Let Go” and “This Could Be Us”, romantic! Third book coming out this year in this series

Deep Cuts by Holly Brickley! The writing is so smart, the music references are so good, and the love story is so specific. Bonus for extremely satisfying female friendship and need-to-read-this-in-a-room-alone romance.

Not Another Love Song by Julie Soto is easily the sexiest book I’ve read… And I’ve read a lot! The tension is perfection and the writing truly poetic.

I’m not really into romance/smut books…but I picked up the Cinnamon Bun Bookstore by Laurie Gilmore to see what all the fuss was about….and liked it! It’s kind of an anti romance, and the couple in question were very likeable. The sex scenes were more playful than graphic, and the characters were funny and imperfect. Set in a picturesque New England seaside town, it’s a seasonal Hallmark -ish romance with spice! Waiting to read the Pumpkin Spice Cafe…!

I just started reading romantasy (I’ve read ACOTAR and all the Fourth Wing books) and am soooo excited for more book recommendations on this thread. These books are such a nice escape from the dumpster fire of reality and have been amazing for my sex life!

Mhairi McFarlane and Katherine Center are great… One of my favourite books though is Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver. Not a romance author but there are definitely romantic parts and I love how empowered her female characters are.

The two books that come to mind for me are Shine On, Bright and Dangerous Object, by Laurie Colwin, about a young widow who falls in love with her late husband’s older brother, and Romantic Comedy by Curtis Sittenfeld, about an unlucky in love writer on a fictional TV show that is clearly modeled after SNL who falls in love with the very handsome and famous guest host, but keeps screwing it all up.

My favorite romance novel BY FAR is Georgette Heyer’s ‘Cotillion’. It’s in my top five books of any genre, actually. Heyer is regarded as the author who made Regency-era stories A Thing, and she wrote dozens of books, many of which are great, but ‘Cotillion’ stands alone. It’s SO funny and SO smart, and I love the way it includes all kinds of genre tropes—seductive rakes, exquisitely beautiful and innocent ladies, conniving relatives—but they’re all side characters. Meanwhile the main couple starts off as friends, spends the story enjoying one another’s company, and eventually realize they have fallen in love and that getting married is really the only sensible choice.

Coming back to add Charm City Rocks by Matthew Norman. Really sweet love story of a couple in their 40s.

I’ve only read one of her books, but Every Summer After by Carley Fortune was a perfect romance book for me- Summer, young love, the lake ❤️ Abby Jimenez writes great romance books and I love are good rom-com typically by UK and Irish authors- Jenny Colgan, Jill Mansell, Mhairi McFarlane are some of my favorites.

I can’t recommend Glynnis MacNicol’s I’m Mostly Here to Enjoy Myself – One Woman’s pursuit of Pleasure in Paris enough! It’s an incredible book! I want every woman I know to read it.

The love story that haunts me is Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller (sob!) The favorite very steamy read is The Roomate by Rosie Dana My favorite romance is the three book “Brown Sister” series by Talia Hubert I also loved “One to Watch”, anything by Emily Henry, ‘Romantic Comedy’, anything by Alyssa Cole, “Seven Days in June”, anything by Elissa Sussman, I started reading romance novels when I had chronic health issues and my kids were babies. It really helped to dissociate from pain with a good book and connect with my sexual self at a time when I was ‘touched out’ from kids. I’m also an ex-evangelical and reading stories about relationships that include emotion AND physical connection was healing. However, the more I read romance the more I’m inclined to say- I don’t need a reason! It’s okay ❤️

OMG I live to provide romantic/sexy book recommendations! -Contemporary romance: Anything by Abby Jimenez; Beach Read and Book Lovers by Emily Henry; Thank You for Listening by Julia Whelan; The Bodyguard by Katherine Center; The Roommate by Rosie Danan -Small town romance: Anything by Elsie Silver -Supernatural romance: Bride by Ali Hazelwood; The Ex Hex by Erin Sterling -Romantasy (romance in fantasy settings): ACOTAR (as mentioned) but also other series by Sarah J. Maas (Throne of Glass, Crescent City); Quicksilver; Fourth Wing; Zodiac Academy (somewhat dumb but oddly compelling) -Sports romance: The Off-Campus series from Elle Kennedy; Deep End by Ali Hazelwood -Reverse harem/why choose (one woman with 3+ men): Pucking Around by Emily Rath; Triple Duty Bodyguards by Lily Gold -Unhinged but delightful: Lights Out by Navessa Allen; Morning Glory Milking Farm by C.M. Nacosta -Literary: The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller; The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley