84 books like Delicious

By Sherry Thomas,

Here are 84 books that Delicious fans have personally recommended if you like Delicious. Shepherd is a community of 11,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

Shepherd is reader supported. When you buy books, we may earn an affiliate commission.

Book cover of To Have and To Hold

Minerva Spencer Author Of The Footman

From my list on historical romance novels off the beaten path.

Why am I passionate about this?

I adore romance in all its forms. I’ll read Viking romance, contemporary rom-coms, alien adventure, and fantastical, magical shifter tales to romances that take place in prison or an equipment rental store. But my first love will always be Regency romance, which is probably why I’ve also chosen to write it. The stories that are always closest to my heart, no matter the subgenre, are the ones that succeed in breaking the mold. The five books on this list are only the beginning of the wonderful, unusual historical romances that are waiting for intrepid readers. Happy reading!

Minerva's book list on historical romance novels off the beaten path

Minerva Spencer Why did Minerva love this book?

I personally love this book because I can identify with the characters, who are both flawed and genuine. All too often I’ve started reading a romance only to discover that both characters are gorgeous, billionaires, and have IQs over 180. I find such perfection uninteresting.

The two leads in To Have And To Hold, Sebastian and Rachel, are both train wrecks, although it is initially easier to see Rachel’s problems as she is currently a convict who is being released from prison. Sebastian’s behavior steps over the line. Way over the line. And the tension in most of the book will give you white knuckles. I have never forgotten these characters and their journey toward love was all the more rewarding for how hard-won it was.

By Patricia Gaffney,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked To Have and To Hold as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

After spending years in prison for a crime she did not commit, Rachel Wade accepts the proposal of cynical Sebastian Verlaine, Viscount D'Aubrey, who offers her parole in exchange for becoming his mistress. Original.


Book cover of The Proposition

Anna Campbell Author Of One Wicked Wish

From my list on classic historical romance.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve always loved historical romance, ever since my mother gave me my first Georgette Heyer when I was eight, and my grandmother gave me my first Barbara Cartland shortly after. The fascination has never waned, which is a good thing because I grew up to become a historical romance author myself. Since publishing my first romance in 2006, I’ve written nearly 50 books, mainly set during the Regency period (first quarter of the 19th century). I’ve always adored how a good historical romance whisks me away to a larger-than-life world replete with dashing rakes, smart-mouthed ladies, and glittering high society, not to mention witty banter, glamour, and heart-stopping romance.

Anna's book list on classic historical romance

Anna Campbell Why did Anna love this book?

Judith Ivory has one of the most distinctive voices in historical romance. I wish she was still releasing new work! The Proposition is a fun take on My Fair Lady, where Henry Higgins is a down-on-her-luck duke’s daughter and Eliza Dolittle is a charming rat catcher. Yes, you heard that right. We’re a long way from the usual historical romance fare of dukes and rakes. Not only that, Mick Tremore, the rat catcher in question, has the most wonderful dog Win who threatens to steal the show every time she’s on the page. Charming, clever, witty and full of delicious sexual tension, this is a compelling read – and it has a serious message about how often the greatest barriers to our dreams are those our minds place on us. 

By Judith Ivory,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked The Proposition as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

No man, gentleman or otherwise, has ever looked at Lady Edwina Bollash the way the brash, handsome man standing before her is doing now. Edwina has accepted the challenge to transform incorrigible Mick Tremore into a gentleman in just six weeks. And although the linguist is sure she can rise to the task, she isn't at all certain she won't swoon under his frankly sensuous gaze before her job is done.

Mick has lived outside of London society long enough to know that appearances can be deceiving. Edwina might look all buttoned up-the perfect English lady-but there is unleashed passion…


Book cover of Dancing with Clara

Minerva Spencer Author Of The Footman

From my list on historical romance novels off the beaten path.

Why am I passionate about this?

I adore romance in all its forms. I’ll read Viking romance, contemporary rom-coms, alien adventure, and fantastical, magical shifter tales to romances that take place in prison or an equipment rental store. But my first love will always be Regency romance, which is probably why I’ve also chosen to write it. The stories that are always closest to my heart, no matter the subgenre, are the ones that succeed in breaking the mold. The five books on this list are only the beginning of the wonderful, unusual historical romances that are waiting for intrepid readers. Happy reading!

Minerva's book list on historical romance novels off the beaten path

Minerva Spencer Why did Minerva love this book?

Mary Balogh is truly the grand dame of modern historical romance. Not only is she a reader favorite, but she has done her share of pushing the envelope when it comes to writing new and unusual romances. Dancing With Clara tackles a couple of taboos in romance—addiction and infidelity. The hero in the story is riddled with faults, and you will rip out your hair as you watch him undermine himself—and his marriage to Clara—over and over again. 

I’ve read criticisms of Clara—that she is a doormat—but I think Ms. Balogh accurately represented a Regency woman when she wrote Clara’s character. Especially a woman who was confined to a wheelchair and without even the meager options wealthy women had during the era. Don’t worry! There’s a happily ever after, but Clara and Freddie will bleed on the pages before they get it.

By Mary Balogh,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Dancing with Clara as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Miss Clara Danford had no illusions about Frederick Sullivan. She knew that this handsome man was a rake whose women were legion and whose gambling debts were staggering. When he proposed marriage to her, she knew that he was in love with her fortune, and not with her.


Book cover of The Only Gold

Minerva Spencer Author Of The Footman

From my list on historical romance novels off the beaten path.

Why am I passionate about this?

I adore romance in all its forms. I’ll read Viking romance, contemporary rom-coms, alien adventure, and fantastical, magical shifter tales to romances that take place in prison or an equipment rental store. But my first love will always be Regency romance, which is probably why I’ve also chosen to write it. The stories that are always closest to my heart, no matter the subgenre, are the ones that succeed in breaking the mold. The five books on this list are only the beginning of the wonderful, unusual historical romances that are waiting for intrepid readers. Happy reading!

Minerva's book list on historical romance novels off the beaten path

Minerva Spencer Why did Minerva love this book?

I’ve read this m/m romance multiple times for many reasons. First, it takes place in NYC. Second, both characters are working men (no dukes or millionaires!!) and Third, it is a hot, hot, hot enemies to lovers romance that gives the reader a vibrant picture of both the banking business at the end of the nineteenth century, but also tons of fascinating details about daily life and work culture. 

My favorite part of this story is the development of the relationship between the two leads. Both Jonah and Reid practically leap off the page. I love having an anal-retentive control freak paired with a charming, easy-going rogue.

By Tamara Allen, Cory Clubb (illustrator),

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Only Gold as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Jonah Woolner's life is as prudently regulated as the bank where he works. It's a satisfying life until he's passed over for promotion in favor of newcomer Reid Hylliard. Brash and enterprising, Reid beguiles everyone except Jonah, who's convinced Reid's progressive ideas will be the bank's ruin. When Jonah begins to discover there's more to Reid than meets the eye, he risks succumbing to Reid's charms - but unlocking the vault to all of Reid's secrets could lead him down a dangerous path.Losing his promotion - and perhaps his heart - is the least of Jonah's difficulties. When the vengeful…


Book cover of Spending: A Utopian Divertimento

Leslie Morris Noyes Author Of Willing: A Contemporary Romance

From my list on for smart woman over forty.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m a creative director in Vermont with a few favorite things: laughter, standard poodles, and happy endings—in life and in fiction. Romance fiction abounds with young heroines and happy endings. But I prefer reading about mature women like myself, women who have experienced their share of disappointments yet face life’s challenges with courage and humor. I like the elements of both genres in one juicy book. After much-frustrated searching, I gave up and wrote the story I wanted to read. My wise, middle-aged heroine still has lots to learn about grief and joy, and learns many of those lessons with men—in bed.

Leslie's book list on for smart woman over forty

Leslie Morris Noyes Why did Leslie love this book?

Spending is about a divorced artist and mom. It starts with a middle-aged protagonist reluctantly giving a gallery talk. She complains that male artists often have muses to do their laundry and supply sex, thereby providing practical and “therapeutic” support. A man in the audience stands up and offers to be the artist’s muse. The story is about what happens when this stubbornly independent woman takes him up on it. I totally related to the crusty heroine who has fought for everything she has and distrusts fortune when it offers abundant gifts. 

By Mary Gordon,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Spending as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Monica Szabo, a middle-aged, moderately successful painter, encounters B, a wealthy commodities broker who collects her work. B volunteers to be her muse, offering her everything that male artists have always had to produce great art: time, space, money, and sex.
Passionate, provocative, and highly engaging, Spending displays Gordon's maverick feminism, her extraordinary wit, and her unique perspectives on art, money, men, sex -- and the desires of women.


Book cover of The Feast of Love

Leslie Morris Noyes Author Of Willing: A Contemporary Romance

From my list on for smart woman over forty.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m a creative director in Vermont with a few favorite things: laughter, standard poodles, and happy endings—in life and in fiction. Romance fiction abounds with young heroines and happy endings. But I prefer reading about mature women like myself, women who have experienced their share of disappointments yet face life’s challenges with courage and humor. I like the elements of both genres in one juicy book. After much-frustrated searching, I gave up and wrote the story I wanted to read. My wise, middle-aged heroine still has lots to learn about grief and joy, and learns many of those lessons with men—in bed.

Leslie's book list on for smart woman over forty

Leslie Morris Noyes Why did Leslie love this book?

I confess that almost everything Baxter has written is too intellectually frigid for me. But this novel is one of my favorites. At times sweet, at times intense, it is a meditation on the ways we love, and the various stages of love based on our ages and the duration of our relationships. Baxter explores romantic love, first love, old love, love for our children, and sexual obsession. Grief and hope figure prominently. At first, seemingly a series of short stories, the novel’s characters gradually drift into one another’s orbits and their stories become integrated. I love the author’s mastery of form while telling a brilliantly humane—and sexy—story about what it means to love.

By Charles Baxter,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Feast of Love as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A superb novel that delicately unearths the myriad manifestations of extraordinary love between ordinary people. 'The Feast of Love' is just that - a sumptuous work of fiction about the thing that most distracts and delights us. Shortlisted for the National Book Award.

In this latter-day 'Midsummer Night's Dream', men and women speak of and desire their ideal mates; parents seek out their lost children; adult children try to come to terms with their own parents and, in some cases, find new ones.

In vignettes both comic and sexy, the owner of a coffee shop recalls the day his first…


Book cover of Summer Hours at the Robbers Library

Leslie Morris Noyes Author Of Willing: A Contemporary Romance

From my list on for smart woman over forty.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m a creative director in Vermont with a few favorite things: laughter, standard poodles, and happy endings—in life and in fiction. Romance fiction abounds with young heroines and happy endings. But I prefer reading about mature women like myself, women who have experienced their share of disappointments yet face life’s challenges with courage and humor. I like the elements of both genres in one juicy book. After much-frustrated searching, I gave up and wrote the story I wanted to read. My wise, middle-aged heroine still has lots to learn about grief and joy, and learns many of those lessons with men—in bed.

Leslie's book list on for smart woman over forty

Leslie Morris Noyes Why did Leslie love this book?

A teenage girl in Maine steals a dictionary at the mall and is sentenced to do community service in her small town’s library. The middle-aged head librarian there has exiled herself from a divorce accompanied by public scandal. A much younger New York City stockbroker who had piles of money turns up in town after losing everything in the 2008 crash. He believes his aunt’s savings booklet from a bank long subsumed by another—he just needs to figure out which one—will put him back on his feet. I love how gently this novel reveals these damaged characters’ foibles and hopes. They seem to have nothing in common, yet they heal each other. And there is (spoiler alert) a sexy little romance between the librarian and the stockbroker.

By Sue Halpern,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Summer Hours at the Robbers Library as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

From journalist and author Sue Halpern comes a wry, observant look at contemporary life and its refugees.  Halpern’s novel is an unforgettable tale of family...the kind you come from and the kind you create.

People are drawn to libraries for all kinds of reasons. Most come for the books themselves, of course; some come to borrow companionship. For head librarian Kit, the public library in Riverton, New Hampshire, offers what she craves most: peace. Here, no one expects Kit to talk about the calamitous events that catapulted her out of what she thought was a settled, suburban life. She can…


Book cover of Harnessing Peacocks

Leslie Morris Noyes Author Of Willing: A Contemporary Romance

From my list on for smart woman over forty.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m a creative director in Vermont with a few favorite things: laughter, standard poodles, and happy endings—in life and in fiction. Romance fiction abounds with young heroines and happy endings. But I prefer reading about mature women like myself, women who have experienced their share of disappointments yet face life’s challenges with courage and humor. I like the elements of both genres in one juicy book. After much-frustrated searching, I gave up and wrote the story I wanted to read. My wise, middle-aged heroine still has lots to learn about grief and joy, and learns many of those lessons with men—in bed.

Leslie's book list on for smart woman over forty

Leslie Morris Noyes Why did Leslie love this book?

Ms. Wesley didn’t publish until she was seventy, which I find inspiring. She produced ten slim interconnected novels. Like the heroine of Delicious although a century later, this one cooks. She cooks for elderly ladies, visiting for a week or two to stock their freezers with fabulous meals. Her less innocent sideline is “visiting” with men. These occupations earn her enough to keep her fatherless son in an excellent private school. Then, the unthinkable happens: two men who were previously unknown to each other discover they may be sharing the same mistress. The problem is they thought their arrangements were exclusive. A comedy of manners ensues. Wesley’s prose cuts like a finely honed knife. And she does her cutting with very few words. I so admire that skill!  

By Mary Wesley,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Harnessing Peacocks as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Hebe sits in the darkness and listens to her hypocritical grandparents and her older siblings discuss how her unexpected pregnancy must be terminated to avoid the shame it will bring. Determined to raise her child, she flees into the night with only her mother's jewellery to support her.

Twelve years later she is living happily alone in Cornwall, whilst her son attends an expensive private school. Hebe has harnessed her two great talents - cooking and making love - to make a living for herself, but when the separate strands of her life become intangled the even tenor of her…


Book cover of Private Arrangements

Carolyn Jewel Author Of Scandal: A Regency Historical Romance

From my list on historical romances to warm your heart.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve been reading historical romance since I was a teen and writing it since I published my first historical romance in 1987. Since then I’ve written over forty romance novels, short stories, and novellas, many of which are historical romances. I adore history and research is never a chore for me. Graduate school and a project on Eleanore Sleath, an English author of Horrid Novels from the early 19th century, honed the research skills that I bring to my historical novels. There are times when readers need the certainty of the happy ending that Romance promises, and I love delivering on that promise in all my books. I hope everyone finds a new author to love from this list!

Carolyn's book list on historical romances to warm your heart

Carolyn Jewel Why did Carolyn love this book?

Private Arrangements was my introduction to Sherry Thomas’s absolutely exquisite prose and story-telling. The setting is the Edwardian period and gives us a couple who were once passionately in love. The day after their wedding everything goes wrong with no way to pick up the pieces. Indeed, the two have lived apart for the last ten years. Now she wants a divorce, and he has a shocking proposal for her. How on earth can two people who have made such terrible mistakes find their way back to each other? Thomas takes you on an emotional ride on the way to the answer. She’s an amazing writer whose characters come to life on the page in a way few can match. If you haven’t read her work, you should.

By Sherry Thomas,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Private Arrangements as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Love has designs of its own.…

To all of London society, Lord and Lady Tremaine had the ideal arrangement: a marriage based on civility, courteousness, and freedom—by all accounts, a perfect marriage. The reason? For the last ten years, husband and wife have resided on separate continents.

But once upon a time, things were quite different for the Tremaines….When Gigi Rowland first laid eyes on Camden Saybrook, the attraction was immediate and overwhelming. But what began in a spark of passion ended in betrayal the morning after their wedding—and now Gigi wants to be free to marry again. When Camden…


Book cover of The Course of Love

Pouline Middleton Author Of One Woman Three Men: A Novel about Modern Love and Sex

From my list on how to get a deep and fulfilling love life.

Why am I passionate about this?

I was living one of the darkest periods of my life when a friend took me to a Louise Bourgeois show. I wandered among her pieces feeling numb. Then I entered a large room filled with Passage Dangereux from 1997. A most depressing art piece that put me into contact with the restrictions in a family, the limitations we set for each other, and the unhappiness everywhere. When I left the room, I felt a lift in my spirits. I’m a writer to try to put more precise words to what goes on inside ourselves when we are alone and when we fall in love and enter into a relationship with another person. 

Pouline's book list on how to get a deep and fulfilling love life

Pouline Middleton Why did Pouline love this book?

A philosopher writes about love in the most extraordinarily ordinary way. It is a story about a couple and how they fall in love and why the two of them fall in love with each other. That is fascinating in itself. Then he follows how the love between them develops—and he comments on it as they move along. It is a book that gives a deep insight into how love works when it works—and when it doesn’t. I felt much better about the mistakes I’ve made in love when I read his book. 

By Alain De Botton,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Course of Love as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

“An engrossing tale [that] provides plenty of food for thought” (People, Best New Books pick), this playful, wise, and profoundly moving second novel from the internationally bestselling author of How Proust Can Change Your Life tracks the beautifully complicated arc of a romantic partnership.

We all know the headiness and excitement of the early days of love. But what comes after? In Edinburgh, a couple, Rabih and Kirsten, fall in love. They get married, they have children—but no long-term relationship is as simple as “happily ever after.” The Course of Love explores what happens after the birth of love, what…


5 book lists we think you will like!

Interested in romantic love, marriage, and magical realism?

Romantic Love 927 books
Marriage 129 books
Magical Realism 449 books