It is that time of year again when we consume all of our favorite romance movies and books alongside chocolates and time with those we love, aka, Valentine’s Day! This year I am sharing some of my favorite romance reads that I think are great for Valentine’s Day! I have recently read all of these, and I really recommend them!
The Flatshare by Beth O’Leary
I just read this book last week, and I am in love. I had heard so many amazing things about this book on Bookstagram, and I knew that I had to pick it up because it follows one of my favorite romantic tropes—the “having to share a bed” trope. Both characters are so flushed out and three dimensional, and I fell head-over-heels in love with them in the first chapter. I love the voice and feel of this romance, and I honestly couldn’t put it down!
A trigger warning: It tackles some really tough topics like domestic abuse and stalking.
Synopsis:
Tiffy and Leon share a flat
Tiffy and Leon share a bed
Tiffy and Leon have never met…
Tiffy Moore needs a cheap flat, and fast. Leon Twomey works nights and needs cash. Their friends think they’re crazy, but it’s the perfect solution: Leon occupies the one-bed flat while Tiffy’s at work in the day, and she has the run of the place the rest of the time.
But with obsessive ex-boyfriends, demanding clients at work, wrongly imprisoned brothers and, of course, the fact that they still haven’t met yet, they’re about to discover that if you want the perfect home you need to throw the rulebook out the window…
Loveboat, Taipei by Abigail Hing Wen
This wonderful YA romance (the only YA romance I included in this list) just recently released and has taken the internet by storm, for good reason. This book was so wonderful, heartfelt, passionate, and real. I loved every minute of reading the protagonist, Ever’s, story and I NEED MORE from these wonderful characters. This story is a very strong coming of age romance that has many different layers. It made me laugh, cry, scream out in anger, and want to hug the book to my chest. Abigail Hing Wen is a very talented author, and I cannot wait to see more from her in the future.
Synopsis:
When eighteen-year-old Ever Wong’s parents send her from Ohio to Taiwan to study Mandarin for the summer, she finds herself thrust among the very over-achieving kids her parents have always wanted her to be, including Rick Woo, the Yale-bound prodigy profiled in the Chinese newspapers since they were nine—and her parents’ yardstick for her never-measuring-up life.
Unbeknownst to her parents, however, the program is actually an infamous teen meet-market nicknamed Loveboat, where the kids are more into clubbing than calligraphy and drinking snake-blood sake than touring sacred shrines.
Free for the first time, Ever sets out to break all her parents’ uber-strict rules—but how far can she go before she breaks her own heart
Get a Life, Chloe Brown by Talia Hibbert
This book. This book! I remember seeing this romance all over social media and loving the cover. That was honestly what pulled me into this book, how adorable the cover was. But once I picked it up, I realized why everyone was really talking about it—it is such a heartfelt, honest, beautiful romance with so much depth. Both of the characters are so human on the page. This story isn’t just Chloe’s, it is Red’s story as well, and both of the narratives they tell are impactful and strong. More people need to be shouting about this book from the rooftops! I recommend it to everyone.
A trigger warning: One character deals with overcoming trauma from emotional abuse. The book does talk a lot about the abusive relationship and how the character is working to move on from it.
Synopsis:
Chloe Brown is a chronically ill computer geek with a goal, a plan, and a list. After almost—but not quite—dying, she’s come up with seven directives to help her “Get a Life”, and she’s already completed the first: finally moving out of her glamorous family’s mansion. The next items?
Enjoy a drunken night out.
Ride a motorcycle.
Go camping.
Have meaningless but thoroughly enjoyable sex.
Travel the world with nothing but hand luggage.
And… do something bad.
But it’s not easy being bad, even when you’ve written step-by-step guidelines on how to do it correctly. What Chloe needs is a teacher, and she knows just the man for the job.
Redford ‘Red’ Morgan is a handyman with tattoos, a motorcycle, and more sex appeal than ten-thousand Hollywood heartthrobs. He’s also an artist who paints at night and hides his work in the light of day, which Chloe knows because she spies on him occasionally. Just the teeniest, tiniest bit.
But when she enlists Red in her mission to rebel, she learns things about him that no spy session could teach her. Like why he clearly resents Chloe’s wealthy background. And why he never shows his art to anyone. And what really lies beneath his rough exterior…
Unhoneymooners by Christina Lauren
Who here also loves the trope “Hate to Love”??? RAISE YOUR HANDS! I will honestly read anything that has “hate to love”. I don’t know why, it is just the way it is. This book is one of my favorite romances I’ve ever read, and I think it is a romance everyone should pick up. Christina Lauren (a team of two authors) is a powerhouse author duo that never disappoints. I always love their books and this one is no exception, especially with such strong characters. This story is fun, hilarious, and will pull at all of your heart strings.
Synopsis:
Olive is always unlucky: in her career, in love, in…well, everything. Her identical twin sister Ami, on the other hand, is probably the luckiest person in the world. Her meet-cute with her fiancé is something out of a romantic comedy (gag) and she’s managed to finance her entire wedding by winning a series of Internet contests (double gag). Worst of all, she’s forcing Olive to spend the day with her sworn enemy, Ethan, who just happens to be the best man.
Olive braces herself to get through 24 hours of wedding hell before she can return to her comfortable, unlucky life. But when the entire wedding party gets food poisoning from eating bad shellfish, the only people who aren’t affected are Olive and Ethan. And now there’s an all-expenses-paid honeymoon in Hawaii up for grabs.
Putting their mutual hatred aside for the sake of a free vacation, Olive and Ethan head for paradise, determined to avoid each other at all costs. But when Olive runs into her future boss, the little white lie she tells him is suddenly at risk to become a whole lot bigger. She and Ethan now have to pretend to be loving newlyweds, and her luck seems worse than ever. But the weird thing is that she doesn’t mind playing pretend. In fact, she feels kind of… lucky.
Red, White, and Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston
This lovely and gorgeous book took the world by storm for a reason. If you haven’t already picked up Red, White, and Royal Blue yet, you must—and if you have, now is a great time to reread it! I think I’ve reread this book close to ten times, and I love it more every single time. Henry and Alex’s story is so magnetic and beautiful, and I need more! I cannot wait to see what Casey McQuiston writes next.
Synopsis:
What happens when America’s First Son falls in love with the Prince of Wales?
When his mother became President, Alex Claremont-Diaz was promptly cast as the American equivalent of a young royal. Handsome, charismatic, genius—his image is pure millennial-marketing gold for the White House. There’s only one problem: Alex has a beef with the actual prince, Henry, across the pond. And when the tabloids get hold of a photo involving an Alex-Henry altercation, U.S./British relations take a turn for the worse.
Heads of family, state, and other handlers devise a plan for damage control: staging a truce between the two rivals. What at first begins as a fake, Instragramable friendship grows deeper, and more dangerous, than either Alex or Henry could have imagined. Soon Alex finds himself hurtling into a secret romance with a surprisingly unstuffy Henry that could derail the campaign and upend two nations and begs the question: Can love save the world after all? Where do we find the courage, and the power, to be the people we are meant to be? And how can we learn to let our true colors shine through? Casey McQuiston’s Red, White & Royal Blue proves: true love isn’t always diplomatic.
(All synopses found on Goodreads)
