The most recommended contemporary romance novels

This book is powerful to me because of the intense mother/daughter conflict she relates. My mother was lovely, well-read, and held an important position at our state university. However, she was also extremely critical of her children. Because I never rebelled against my mother, I was entranced with Joanne Harris’ young character, Framboise, who plans and carries out a rebellion against her mother that is worthy of the French resistance. Many years later, when Framboise Simon returns to a small village on the banks of the Loire, the locals do not recognize her as the daughter of the infamous woman they hold responsible for a tragedy during the German occupation.

The past and present are inextricably entwined in a scrapbook of recipes and memories that Framboise inherited from her now-deceased mother. The journal contains the key to the tragedy that indelibly marked that summer of her ninth year. The mother… show more.

It was such a pleasure to read about a teen navigating high school with arthritis, as I had. Better yet, a sweet, awkward romance is the heart of this book rather than its focus being on Isabel’s chronic illness. In my experience, life with chronic illness is just that—life, with all its ups, downs, pleasures, absurdities, etc. Sasha is a swoon-worthy love interest, and neither character’s chronic illness is downplayed or mined for soapy dramatics. There’s an authenticity here, particularly in the often mundane hospital scenes, that signifies this is an author who’s sharing, to at least some degree, her own lived experiences. 

I mentioned that I love a well-crafted update of a classic tale. Twisted Fate is Shakespeare’s The Tempest in modern dress, moved across the Atlantic to Staten Island with a brief stop in the Bahamas. I was hooked immediately when protagonist Laina, a bookshop owner grieving the death of her beloved brother, is a last-minute fill-in at her cousin’s Bridezilla wedding (wearing the gown of the absent pregnant bridesmaid, which keeps falling down). Laina over-imbibes at the reception and (briefly) even sets herself on fire. Hey, we’ve all been there...as events progress, there’s fate, mistaken identity, misplaced love, and of course the requisite tempest. Only great character development can immerse me in a story. This author’s dry humor is a deft foil for that. Which isn’t always the case; comic romances can suffer from cliches and worn caricatures. Not this book; it’s a gem.    

Not only do we have a summer romance, but we’ve combined it with French pastry. Literally a recipe for success! Anne-Sophie Jouhanneau’s debut YA novel follows seventeen-year-old ballerina, Mia, as she travels to Paris for the summer for an elite ballet program. Of course, she meets the charming Louis, and together they explore all that Paris has to offer. Rife with beautiful descriptions of Paris and plenty of croissants, this is the perfect summer romance.

Welcome to the sweet romance of Isa, a dancer, and Alex, a baseball player, teenagers in New York with very different upbringings. Isa is a blonde, half-Cuban/half white, private school girl from a well-off family that’s falling apart behind the scenes. Alex is Dominican, attends public school, and divides his time between his divorced parents. He’s also a secret poet and leaves his poems for Isa to find on the subway train where they first met. Both have professional sports potential, but the reality is more complicated. The couple navigates challenges with their families and neighborhoods, including mental health and gangs, and you’ll be rooting for them the entire time. The author has a beautiful poem in the Rhyme and Rhythm anthology that I mentioned above.

I loved how Diane made the characters, particularly Shorty, so relatable in terms of her exploration of her sexuality and her coming out experience alongside her peers.

The book made me feel less alone, and the representation was something I would have loved as a teenager. The scene settings and imagery descriptions were so vivid and refreshing; it made me laugh and cry and the story had so much heart it was a joy to read. 

Who knew hot farmers with a dirty mouth were my kind of thing? Not me... at least not until I read this delight of a book and met Noah Barden, that is.

Whoo boy... The gist of the story is that Shay Zucconi’s step-grandmother ran a tulip farm in the place she always viewed as her hometown. It’s where she went to high school... and where she became good friends with Noah Barden. Fast forward by a decade or so and Shay gets left at the altar by her truly subhuman fiancée.

While drowning her sorrows on a friend’s couch, she learns her step-grandmother has passed away and left her the tulip farm. With a catch – she’s got to live there for a year and get married in that same year. Guess who’s only too willing to help her out with that pesky little clause?

I love this book… show more.

Twisted Games is my number-one read of the year. The connection I felt to Bridget was unbreakable. Her family obligation and inner strength resonated with my childhood. 

I was sucked into the page-turning story of  Bridget, the dutiful Queen of Eldora, who took on the crown for her brother, allowing him to be with the one he loved. In turn, she sacrifices her own. Anyone who has siblings can understand her character’s plight.

Reading this book, I connected deeply with Bridget and fell in love with her ability to understand how to use her power to change her relationship with her love, Rhys. Bridget stood against outdated laws and gave herself everything she wanted.

Her strength to sway an entire empire, prove she could fulfill her duties as queen, and have Rhys by her side was epic heroine power. I recommend this book and dare readers to try… show more.

A multiple POV thriller that kept me up all night. This book awed me with its multiple POVs combined with unreliability and timeline jumps.

As the book shifted from one POV to the other and from one timeline to another, I loved how the author weaved in the backstories of the characters by showing the impact it had on the present timeline.

The writing. The style, the words used, and the way the sentences spun the story is something I still think about, years after I first read this book. It drew me in, lulled me into a false sense of security, then sprung a small nugget of what really happened. A brilliant tactic.

Galway-based writer Kate Thompson heard the Scottish folk song "Annan Water" in her local pub. It tells of a doomed rider who crosses a flooded river to meet his Annie. Thompson fills out the sparse narrative into a modern setting, and makes the ballad a character in her story when Michael is haunted by the words: "And woe betide you, Annan Water / By night you are a gloomy river." She harnesses its resonance, harness being apt as the story centres around Michael's horse-dealing family as well as his attraction to another Annie. There is tragedy in the story, as in the ballad—Thompson believes children should not be protected from death. Certainly children brought up on ballads, as I was, face sisters killing sisters, hangings, and, of course, drownings.