Here are 100 books that After Ever Happy fans have personally recommended if you like
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I have a little secret. I was late to the romance table. Though I grew up with a romance reading mother, my initial interests lay in the fantastical worlds of Paulo Coelho, Anne Rice, and David Gemmel. Romance seemed forbidden, and I didn’t touch the genre until my late twenties, when a nasty breakup sent my disillusioned heart looking for more. And what a revelation! Romance taught me to expect more from myself and my relationships. At the close of one creative career, it lit an unstoppable passion to become a contemporary romance author. And here I am, a decade on, writing romance and sharing my book recommendations with you!
On the New Adult side of contemporary romance, Archer’s Voice is heartfelt escapism at its best.
The heroine seeks to find a moment of peace in the quiet Lakeside town of Pelion, Maine. Both hero and heroine hold an element of innocence that leaves you wanting them to succeed, while Mia Sheridan does an impressive job of building the character arc of silent hero, Archer Hale.
And yes, I mean he’s literally silent—whilst still being a hugely intriguing and fully developed character.
This is a book for those who like wounded characters and against-the-odds battles of will.
A Goodread's "Top Romance Novel of All Time" A New York Times, USA Today, and Wall Street Journal bestseller
I wanted to lose myself in the small town of Pelion, Maine. To forget everything I had left behind. The sound of rain. The blood. The coldness of a gun against my skin. For six months, each breath has been a reminder that I survived -- and my dad didn't. I'm almost safe again. But the moment I meet Archer Hale, my entire world tilts on its axis . . . and never rights itself again.
I’m a survivor of childhood and domestic violence who grew up and still lives in South Africa. We don’t talk about abuse much, but it's everywhere. It’s a beautiful place to live, and a hard and heartbreaking place, as well. I wanted to write my books to make sense of my experiences, then also to extend hope and possibility to others dealing with similar things. I admire hard-headed female characters who are making their way on their own terms, and I'm a believer in the power of love. I hope that readers will see themselves in Iris, and even though they might want to shake her at times, they’ll cheer for her through it all!
I am always interested in stories about women surviving and overcoming abuse, and Easy depicts that sort of violence in a careful and mature manner, but never downplays the seriousness of it all. Tammara Webber doesn’t avoid the issue, but she doesn’t let it be a book of darkness and despair, either. Jacqueline is a great character, complicated and maybe even messy, who faces a lot of difficult choices. The storyline is mostly about her own search for hope and love. Maybe even forgiveness. There’s plenty of sweet and sometimes steamy romance, too!
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Easy is the New York Times Bestseller by Tammara Webber and first novel in the Contours of the Heart series, for fans of Colleen Hoover!
Rescued by a stranger. Haunted by a secret. Sometimes, love isn't easy...
He watched her, but never knew her. Until thanks to a chance encounter, he became her savior...
The attraction between them was undeniable. Yet the past he'd worked so hard to overcome, and the future she'd put so much faith in, threatened to tear them apart.
Only together could they fight the pain and guilt, face the truth-and find the unexpected power of…
I’m a survivor of childhood and domestic violence who grew up and still lives in South Africa. We don’t talk about abuse much, but it's everywhere. It’s a beautiful place to live, and a hard and heartbreaking place, as well. I wanted to write my books to make sense of my experiences, then also to extend hope and possibility to others dealing with similar things. I admire hard-headed female characters who are making their way on their own terms, and I'm a believer in the power of love. I hope that readers will see themselves in Iris, and even though they might want to shake her at times, they’ll cheer for her through it all!
I love books that inspire me and remind me that there is a way to overcome every hardship, if we will just keep our heads up and make the right choices. Tess Wakefield makes me remember too, that no matter what, there is always someone who will want to help, in the best way they know how. Her main characters, Cassie and Luke, do all the right things for all the wrong reasons, or maybe all the wrong things, for all the right reasons. They do suffer the consequences of those choices, but they learn a lot about themselves along the way. My favorite thing about Purple Hearts is how it teaches us that life is short and that we shouldn’t live with regrets.
When a soldier with a troubled past and a struggling songwriter agree to a marriage of convenience for the military benefits, neither expects much after saying "I do." Then tragedy strikes, and the line between what's real and what's pretend begins to blur in this smart and surprising romance perfect for fans of Nicholas Sparks and Jojo Moyes.
Cassie Salazar and Luke Morrow couldn't be more different. Sharp-witted Cassie works nights at a bar in Austin, Texas to make ends meet while pursuing her dream of becoming a singer/songwriter. Luke is an Army trainee,…
I’m a survivor of childhood and domestic violence who grew up and still lives in South Africa. We don’t talk about abuse much, but it's everywhere. It’s a beautiful place to live, and a hard and heartbreaking place, as well. I wanted to write my books to make sense of my experiences, then also to extend hope and possibility to others dealing with similar things. I admire hard-headed female characters who are making their way on their own terms, and I'm a believer in the power of love. I hope that readers will see themselves in Iris, and even though they might want to shake her at times, they’ll cheer for her through it all!
Will and are wonderful characters, childhood lovers who try to make a go of it again as adults. Since I am very much interested in how our past choices shape our current lives, I was drawn to this book right away. From first love to the pain of lost love, and then its possible return, NS Perkins does a great job showing the past vs present and how suffering has changed Will and Violet, and how the passage of time has perhaps healed some of that suffering. It’s all here; complicated and often painful family dynamics, mental health trouble, and the melodrama of high school romance!
Eighteen years of summers spent in a beach house in Ogunquit, Maine, have brought Violet Mitchell and Will Seaberg together. For two perfect, beach-filled months every year, they spent every waking minute together. First as friends, until one summer changed everything.
But before the two even had a chance to claim the love they’d spent their entire lives creating, disaster struck, tearing the two lovers—and their families—apart.
Heartbroken and haunted by the memories of that fateful summer, Violet struggles to move on from the past. Still, she promises herself to never contact Will again. But five years later, when Violet…
As a woman, wife, and Mom, I’m always looking to get lost in a good fictional romance. I’ve always been drawn more to the messy kind of love stories than the sappy sweet. If you’re like me, and need a bit of flaw in your characters and lots of steam, then you’ll want to read all of these books for sure. Always make sure to check trigger warnings before reading these books, though!
The After books brought me back to reading! I fell in love with Hardin and Tessa. These books are messy, a bit toxic, but so realistic that most people can relate to them. If you’re looking for a very long binge read about a couple who fought like hell to be together, then you will for sure love these books. Hardin Scott is the bad boy we all want and need!
Tessa is a good girl with a sweet, reliable boyfriend back home. She's got direction, ambition, and a mother who's intent on keeping her that way. But she's barely moved into her freshman dorm when she runs into Hardin. With his tousled brown hair, cocky British accent, tattoos, and lip ring, Hardin is cute and different from what she's used to. But he's also rude - to the point of cruelty, even. For all his attitude, Tessa should hate Hardin. And she does - until she finds herself alone with him in his room. Something about his dark mood grabs…
I’ve played the game of baseball, rooted for its teams, and even written a book about baseball (and the protagonist in my novels is a baseball nut), so I’m more than a casual observer of the sport. I’ve read more than two hundred baseball books–fiction and non-fiction–in my life. As such it was nearly impossible to come up with my top five books on the sport. I’m recommending these five because they transcend the subject of baseball, exploring universal themes with exemplary writing that evokes deep feelings within the reader. Whether you like baseball or not, if you love fine writing you can’t go wrong with any of these works.
Set on a small college campus, this book explores personal relationships and the human spirit through the story of Henry Skrimshander as he navigates his way from high school ballplayer to college baseball phenom with life throwing him and his friends curveball after curveball along the way. As a former high school and college player, I could very much relate to this book, which evokes the unique ethos of small college life. The story and characters are memorable, but it is Harbach’s creation of a time and place that really moved me. A literary masterpiece.
Introducing the Collins Modern Classics, a series featuring some of the most significant books of recent times, books that shed light on the human experience - classics which will endure for generations to come.
Henry Skrimshander, newly arrived at college, shy and out of his depth, has a talent for baseball that borders on genius. But sometimes it seems that his only friend is big Mike Schwartz - who champions the talents of others, at the expense of his own. And Owen, Henry's clever, charismatic, gay roommate, who has a secret that could put his brilliant college career in jeopardy.…
I’ve loved learning about history since childhood, as attested by my bookshelves full of American Girl series, Laura Ingalls Wilder, and The Royal Diaries (Cleopatra was my favorite). After writing my first book about reenactors pretending to be French explorers, I worked as a history writer for Smithsonian Magazine. I especially love the philosophical and political questions of how we still interact with the past and how history is presented. I hope you’ll enjoy thinking about that and learning some history from these books!
This is the only fiction on a list otherwise full of nonfiction, but it more than deserves a place on this list. There are so many things to love about this book—its audacious opening line, the lush writing, the twisted relationships—but what I think history lovers might appreciate most is how deeply entwined the characters get with the history of Antiquities.
After all, the main group of characters in this dark academia only come together because they’re all studying Greek and Latin. In fact, the plot hinges on their obsession with Antiquity—but I won’t get too much more into that. I just recommend picking the book up and going along for the ride.
'Everything, somehow, fit together; some sly and benevolent Providence was revealing itself by degrees and I felt myself trembling on the brink of a fabulous discovery, as though any morning it was all going to come together---my future, my past, the whole of my life---and I was going to sit up in bed like a thunderbolt and say oh! oh! oh!'
Under the influence of a charismatic classics professor, a group of clever, eccentric misfits at a New England college discover a way of thought and life a world away from their banal contemporaries.…
Like all of us, I was raised on promises, and now I’ve veered off to another perspective. I love football. I played in high school, college, and for a brief time, in the NFL (didn’t make the final roster!) Philosophy has been a life-long pursuit, but I didn’t find what I was looking for: the truth. Except for the existentialists, most of it is a mere history of how mankind thought. But philosophy has taught me how to examine the essence of important issues. That’s why I wrote a book about tribalism, because to me, tribalism is the strongest dynamic in humanity and morality is subordinate to tribalism.
Back to fiction. I loved how everyone, including the adorable young woman from a hardscrabble background, Charlotte, took their own big bite of hypocrisy pie. Everyone, except for one character, did it and I’m not going to spoil it for you (it was the star basketball player.) I think I’ve read everything Tom Wolfe had ever written and this is his finest work. This novel took me on a ride, I was there, the emotions I felt reading it were visceral and real. At the end, the feeling I had was—what the hell is college all about? And then I answered myself: it’s four years of summer camp and I can’t wait until my youngest graduates.
A scandalous exploration of elite undergraduate life from the author of The Bonfire of the Vanities
Dupont University: the Olympian halls of learning housing the cream of America's youth, the roseate Gothic spires and manicured lawns suffused with tradition... or so it appears to beautiful, brilliant Charlotte Simmons, a sheltered freshman from Sparta, North Carolina, who has come here on a full scholarship. But Charlotte soon learns that for the upper-crust coeds of Dupont, sex, status, and kegs trump academic achievement every time.
As Charlotte encounters Dupont's elite, she gains a new, revelatory sense of her own power, that of…
When I was a teen, I had zero aspirations to become a writer. I didn’t discover my passion for writing until I was thirty! But once I started writing, it was these books and the way they made me feel that I drew on. I wanted strong heroines that I wanted to be—and be friends with. I wanted a slow burn, skin-tingling romance with a lot of push and pull. I wanted to be part of something bigger than myself. To go on a quest. To feel victorious. And it is my hope that I can give my readers all the feels these books gave me.
The best kind of books are books that are your friends, aren’t they? As a reader, I usually feel connected to characters and don’t think much about authors (and I feel this is how it should be. I think once they leave an author’s hands, books belong to the reader!) but in this case, I also feel like Lucy Maude and I are kindred spirits. We both had two imaginary friends growing up, after all. That’s enough to make us BFF’s, right? 😉 Anyway, I have visited with all my Anne book friends many times, but the one I always come back to is Anne of the Island. This is probably because I love a slow-burn romance, and this is the book where Anne and Gilbert finally get together. After three books of will-they-won’t-they banter the payoff is totally worth it! (And on a side note, would this book…
In the third installment of the Anne of Green Gables series, Anne enrolls in college and must face new challenges inside and outside the classroom. The young student attempts to balance a vibrant social life with an intense course load that will push her to her limits.
Anne has left the comforts of Green Gables to embark on her college career. While attending Redmond College in Nova Scotia, she meets a new friend, Philippa Gordon and a potential beau, Roy Gardner. As her social circle grows, Anne maintains her connection with childhood cohort, Gilbert Blythe. When his undeniable affection becomes…
I am an astrophysicist with a passion for narratives that stare unflinchingly at the inherent hostility of outer space. Professionally, I study graduate astrophysics and research the ways high-energy celestial objects impact cosmic evolution. Creatively, I use my training to write science fiction horror exploring the spookiest things the universe has to offer. I particularly love stories that throw wrenches in the best-laid plans of star-faring protagonists, and will never get tired of a good old space mission gone terribly and tragically awry.
Binti combines some of my favorite flavors of science fiction into one bittersweet treat: brutal interspecies politics, cultural misunderstandings, and the struggle for coexistence in a galactic community.
The tragic encounter between students on their way to attend a prestigious university on another world and a violent alien species starts this story off with heart-pounding, heart-rending stakes. It goes on to interrogate war and peace between species and the act of true communication and tolerance.
Those who are interested in stories with a raw but hopeful outlook on what it would mean for multiple civilizations in the Milky Way to find harmony will enjoy this read.
Her name is Binti, and she is the first of the Himba people ever to be offered a place at Oomza University, the finest institution of higher learning in the galaxy. But to accept the offer will mean giving up her place in her family to travel between the stars among strangers who do not share her ways or respect her customs.
Knowledge comes at a cost, one that Binti is willing to pay, but her journey will not be easy. The world she seeks to enter has long warred with the Meduse, an alien race that has become the…
