Fall is the time of year when we all snuggle up with our blankets, cups of tea or coffee, and a good book! As the weather gets colder, that’s just how I plan to spend my fall. When I’m looking for a cozy book to enjoy, the genre I turn to most often is romance. This list of love stories coming out this fall will have a little something for everyone—from holiday romances to modern-day Cinderellas.
This post was originally published on GetLiterary.com.
What better way to kick off the spooky season than with a paranormal romance! While this book doesn’t come out until November, I have a feeling you’ll still be in the spooky mood to read the latest entry in Nalini Singh’s Guild Hunter series, Archangel’s Sun. The Archangel of Death and the Archangel of Disease may be gone, but the aftermath of the archangelic war is still being dealt with. Archangel Titus is responsible for watching over Africa, and he has growing concerns that the reborn are changing into more than mindless, zombie-like creatures. Meanwhile, the Hummingbird emerges, her mind old and broken, but she is the only person who can stand with Titus against this new threat.
Publication Date: November 24, 2020
What better way to kick off the spooky season than with a paranormal romance! While this book doesn’t come out until November, I have a feeling you’ll still be in the spooky mood to read the latest entry in Nalini Singh’s Guild Hunter series, Archangel’s Sun. The Archangel of Death and the Archangel of Disease may be gone, but the aftermath of the archangelic war is still being dealt with. Archangel Titus is responsible for watching over Africa, and he has growing concerns that the reborn are changing into more than mindless, zombie-like creatures. Meanwhile, the Hummingbird emerges, her mind old and broken, but she is the only person who can stand with Titus against this new threat. Publication Date: November 24, 2020
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If the spooky season isn’t your thing, maybe the holiday season is! The Christina Lauren duo try their hand at a Groundhog Day-esque take on the holidays with In a Holidaze, and it’s magical. When Maelyn Jones leaves the cabin where her family spends Christmas, she gets into a horrific car accident—but instead of waking up in a hospital room, she wakes up on the plane back to the cabin at the start of the family vacation. Mae keeps dying and waking up at the start of the holidays, so what does she need to get right to move on? Maybe confessing her feelings for the son of her parents’ best friends will set everything back on course. In a year when every day feels like Groundhog Day, this book is a perfect and delightful holiday read.
Publication Date: October 6, 2020
One Christmas wish, two brothers, and a lifetime of hope are on the line for hapless Maelyn Jones in In a Holidaze, the quintessential holiday romantic novel by Christina Lauren, the New York Times bestselling author of The Unhoneymooners.
It’s the most wonderful time of the year…but not for Maelyn Jones. She’s living with her parents, hates her going-nowhere job, and has just made a romantic error of epic proportions.
But perhaps worst of all, this is the last Christmas Mae will be at her favorite place in the world—the snowy Utah cabin where she and her family have spent every holiday since she was born, along with two other beloved families. Mentally melting down as she drives away from the cabin for the final time, Mae throws out what she thinks is a simple plea to the universe: Please. Show me what will make me happy.
The next thing she knows, tires screech and metal collides, everything goes black. But when Mae gasps awake…she’s on an airplane bound for Utah, where she begins the same holiday all over again. With one hilarious disaster after another sending her back to the plane, Mae must figure out how to break free of the strange time loop—and finally get her true love under the mistletoe.
Jam-packed with yuletide cheer, an unforgettable cast of characters, and Christina Lauren’s trademark “downright hilarious” (Helen Hoang, author of The Bride Test) hijinks, this swoon-worthy romantic read will make you believe in the power of wishes and the magic of the holidays.
Have you ever wondered what the Cinderella fairy tale would be like if it had a cowboy twist? Rebekah Weatherspoon has penned a modern take on the classic tale in If the Boot Fits. Amanda Queen is the personal assistant to one of Hollywood’s divas, but when that diva gets sick on one of Hollywood’s biggest nights of the year, Amanda takes the chance to get herself glammed up and party with the glitterati for one night. However, that one night has a few consequences when Amanda accidentally takes the wrong swag bag after having a steamy evening with Oscar-winning Sam Pleasant—that swag bag contains Sam’s Oscar. When a chance meeting has their lives intersecting for the second time, Sam isn’t willing to let Amanda sneak off again.
Publication Date: October 27, 2020
Have you ever wondered what the Cinderella fairy tale would be like if it had a cowboy twist? Rebekah Weatherspoon has penned a modern take on the classic tale in If the Boot Fits. Amanda Queen is the personal assistant to one of Hollywood’s divas, but when that diva gets sick on one of Hollywood’s biggest nights of the year, Amanda takes the chance to get herself glammed up and party with the glitterati for one night. However, that one night has a few consequences when Amanda accidentally takes the wrong swag bag after having a steamy evening with Oscar-winning Sam Pleasant—that swag bag contains Sam’s Oscar. When a chance meeting has their lives intersecting for the second time, Sam isn’t willing to let Amanda sneak off again. Publication Date: October 27, 2020
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To most people, a summer away from all of life’s stresses sounds idyllic, but it’s not part of Lila Reyes’ plan. Her plan was to take over as head baker of her abuela’s panadería, move in with her best friend after graduation, and live happily ever after with her boyfriend. However, even the best of plans can go awry: Lila’s parents are worried about her, so they send her off for three months with family friends in England. When Lila meets teashop clerk Orion Maxwell, she soon finds herself out of her funk and falling for England…and Orion…a little more every day.
Publication Date: November 10, 2020
A Reese Witherspoon x Hello Sunshine Book Club YA Pick
“A Cuban Girl’s Guide to Tea and Tomorrow is an absolute delight. Cozier than a hand-knit gray cardigan and richer than Abuela’s pastelito recipe, Namey takes you from Miami to Winchester, and leaves your heart belonging to both.” —Rachael Lippincott, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Five Feet Apart
Love & Gelato meets Don’t Date Rosa Santos in this charming, heartfelt story following a Miami girl who unexpectedly finds love—and herself—in a small English town.
For Lila Reyes, a summer in England was never part of the plan. The plan was 1) take over her abuela’s role as head baker at their panadería, 2) move in with her best friend after graduation, and 3) live happily ever after with her boyfriend. But then the Trifecta happened, and everything—including Lila herself—fell apart.
Worried about Lila’s mental health, her parents make a new plan for her: Spend three months with family friends in Winchester, England, to relax and reset. But with the lack of sun, a grumpy inn cook, and a small town lacking Miami flavor (both in food and otherwise), what would be a dream trip for some feels more like a nightmare to Lila…until she meets Orion Maxwell.
A teashop clerk with troubles of his own, Orion is determined to help Lila out of her funk, and appoints himself as her personal tour guide. From Winchester’s drama-filled music scene to the sweeping English countryside, it isn’t long before Lila is not only charmed by Orion, but England itself. Soon a new future is beginning to form in Lila’s mind—one that would mean leaving everything she ever planned behind.
Fake dating is one of my favorite tropes, and Gloria Chao takes a fun twist on this concept with her YA novel Rent a Boyfriend. When it’s time for Chloe Wang to introduce her parents to her boyfriend, she runs into one tiny problem: he doesn’t exist. Enter Rent for Your ’Rents, a company specializing in providing fake boyfriends trained to impress even the most traditional Asian parents. Chloe needs a convincing boyfriend so that her parents will stop trying to set her up with a creepy suitor. Drew Chan, the fake boyfriend, is the perfect pick to impress her parents, but Drew Chan, the real man, might just be perfect for Chloe herself. When she starts to fall for Drew’s real persona, she’s torn between what she really wants and the life she’s expected to pursue.
Publication Date: November 10, 2020
To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before meets The Farewell in this incisive romantic comedy about a college student who hires a fake boyfriend to appease her traditional Taiwanese parents, to disastrous results, from the acclaimed author of American Panda.
Chloe Wang is nervous to introduce her parents to her boyfriend, because the truth is, she hasn’t met him yet either. She hired him from Rent for Your ’Rents, a company specializing in providing fake boyfriends trained to impress even the most traditional Asian parents.
Drew Chan’s passion is art, but after his parents cut him off for dropping out of college to pursue his dreams, he became a Rent for Your ’Rents employee to keep a roof over his head. Luckily, learning protocols like “Type C parents prefer quiet, kind, zero-PDA gestures” comes naturally to him.
When Chloe rents Drew, the mission is simple: convince her parents fake Drew is worthy of their approval so they’ll stop pressuring her to accept a proposal from Hongbo, the wealthiest (and slimiest) young bachelor in their tight-knit Asian American community.
But when Chloe starts to fall for the real Drew—who, unlike his fake persona, is definitely not ’rent-worthy—her carefully curated life begins to unravel. Can she figure out what she wants before she loses everything?
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Eloisa James has been on my shelves ever since I started reading romance at 16 years old, and some of her books are my favorites of all time. Historical romances are peppered with widowed dukes in search of a duchess, but it’s a little more rare to find a blended family like the one you’ll meet in My Last Duchess. Hugo has eight children and no wife; Ophelia has one daughter and no husband—by historical romance math, that means these two should marry instantly. While it’s love at first sight for Hugo, Ophelia will take more convincing.
Publication Date: October 27, 2020
Eloisa James has been on my shelves ever since I started reading romance at 16 years old, and some of her books are my favorites of all time. Historical romances are peppered with widowed dukes in search of a duchess, but it’s a little more rare to find a blended family like the one you’ll meet in My Last Duchess. Hugo has eight children and no wife; Ophelia has one daughter and no husband—by historical romance math, that means these two should marry instantly. While it’s love at first sight for Hugo, Ophelia will take more convincing. Publication Date: October 27, 2020
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I’ve loved all the books Kerrigan Byrne has produced over the last few years, and this book is no exception. The second book in the Devil You Know series, All Scot and Bothered, follows an opposites-attract couple, Cassius, Lord Chief Justice of the High Court, and Cecilia, the owner of a gambling hall that Cassius is investigating. Little does Cassius know that the woman he’s investigating at night in the dens of greed in London is the same woman he’s drawn to in high society’s ballrooms.
Publication Date: September 29, 2020
I’ve loved all the books Kerrigan Byrne has produced over the last few years, and this book is no exception. The second book in the Devil You Know series, All Scot and Bothered, follows an opposites-attract couple, Cassius, Lord Chief Justice of the High Court, and Cecilia, the owner of a gambling hall that Cassius is investigating. Little does Cassius know that the woman he’s investigating at night in the dens of greed in London is the same woman he’s drawn to in high society’s ballrooms. Publication Date: September 29, 2020
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These days, it seems we’re all in dire need of romantic comedies, and Olivia Dade is one of my go-tos in that category. Spoiler Alert fulfills every fangirl’s daydreams. When April Whittier goes viral for her plus-sized take on the fictional character Lavinia, not all of her online commenters are positive. In order to spite her critics, Marcus Caster-Rupp, who plays Lavinia’s beau, Aeneas, on TV, takes April out on the town. But Marcus has a secret: while the world knows him as Aeneas, Marcus is better known to fan fiction readers as Book!AeneasWouldNever. The secrets don’t stop there, because while Marcus and April have only just now met in person, they’ve known each other online for months. As Marcus’s feelings for April grow, he has to choose between the lies that protect his identity and the love and career he’s worked so hard for.
Publication Date: October 6, 2020
These days, it seems we’re all in dire need of romantic comedies, and Olivia Dade is one of my go-tos in that category. Spoiler Alert fulfills every fangirl’s daydreams. When April Whittier goes viral for her plus-sized take on the fictional character Lavinia, not all of her online commenters are positive. In order to spite her critics, Marcus Caster-Rupp, who plays Lavinia’s beau, Aeneas, on TV, takes April out on the town. But Marcus has a secret: while the world knows him as Aeneas, Marcus is better known to fan fiction readers as Book!AeneasWouldNever. The secrets don’t stop there, because while Marcus and April have only just now met in person, they’ve known each other online for months. As Marcus’s feelings for April grow, he has to choose between the lies that protect his identity and the love and career he’s worked so hard for. Publication Date: October 6, 2020
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Love, grief, and healing are at the center of this newest YA novel by Mikki Daughtry and Rachael Lippincott. When Kyle goes to his high school graduation party, he never would have guessed by the end of the night that his girlfriend, Kimberly, would break up with him and that they would get into a car accident that leaves Kimberly dead and Kyle himself with a brain injury. While recovering, Kyle meets Marley, who has some healing of her own to do. But as they each heal their own wounds, the feelings between them grow. While this love story has plenty of sweet moments, be sure to have some tissues handy! Lippincott and Daughtry also brought us Five Feet Apart—another tearjerker—which was recently turned into a movie with Cole Sprouse.
Publication Date: September 29, 2020
From the team behind #1 New York Times bestseller Five Feet Apart comes a gripping new romance that asks: Can you find true love after losing everything?
Kyle and Kimberly have been the perfect couple all through high school, but when Kimberly breaks up with him on the night of their graduation party, Kyle’s entire world upends—literally. Their car crashes and when he awakes, he has a brain injury. Kimberly is dead. And no one in his life could possibly understand.
Until Marley. Marley is suffering from her own loss, a loss she thinks was her fault. And when their paths cross, Kyle sees in her all the unspoken things he’s feeling.
As Kyle and Marley work to heal each other’s wounds, their feelings for each other grow stronger. But Kyle can’t shake the sense that he’s headed for another crashing moment that will blow up his life as soon as he’s started to put it back together.
And he’s right.
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A perfect marriage may not be all it's cracked up to be in ReShonda Tate Billingsley’s A Little Bit of Karma. Shannon and Jay Lovejoy are a rich and successful power couple…on the surface. However, three years into their marriage and their radio show, everything’s falling apart, and the couple is in the midst of a messy divorce. But things are about to get even messier when Jay’s mistress winds up dead. While this book isn’t your usual romance novel, it will surely appeal to those who like a heaping dose of suspense with their relationships.
Publication Date: September 29, 2020
Nationally bestselling and award-winning author ReShonda Tate Billingsley returns with an evocative and steamy romance about the secrets and lies that exist within a seemingly perfect marriage.
Meet Shannon and Jay Lovejoy—the rich and successful power couple who, to the fans of their call-in radio show, seem like they’ve got it all. But after three years, their once passionate and loving romance has fizzled and the couple’s divorce becomes embroiled in not only a mess of infidelity and deceit, but the untimely and shocking death of Jay’s mistress, as well.
This fast-paced and emotionally powerful page-turner boldly goes where ReShonda Tate Billingsley has never gone before with her fiction, delivering the perfect combination of romance and suspense in one thrilling novel.
