100 books like The Head That Wears the Crown

American snark meets cutting British wit: I loved the texts/emails/calls between Alex, the American president’s son, and Henry, the British prince. The contrast between the two characters was riveting: the brash, ambitious young politico versus the cultured, smooth, royal prince with decades of tradition bred into his bones. Let’s face it: power is seductive, and these two enemies-to-lovers move in the highest-powered circles on Earth.

What gives this love story extra depth is the struggle of these highly visible men to deal with being gay/bisexual both in private and on the public stage. Prince Henry’s pain at having to suppress his true sexuality almost broke my heart. Thank goodness it’s a romance, so they find a way to be happy together in the end! 

How can you not get hooked by a story that kicks off with a Nigerian prince email? Except it really is from an African prince! I rooted for heroine Naledi right from the start because, as a graduate student in epidemiology, she is forced to battle the sexism that women in STEM so often experience. She is no pushover, but she has to be careful not to sabotage her career.

Fish-out-of-water tropes always delight me, so when Prince Thabiso masquerades as a waiter to meet Naledi, I got a kick out of the fact that he was so terrible that she fired him. His first trip on a New York City subway is hilarious. When Thabiso convinced Naledi to return to Thesolo with him, I enjoyed experiencing royal life in an African country. Just the music of the names enchanted me.

I fell in love with all the characters, not just Bex and Prince Nicholas, but their delightful, quirky friends and family members. The ensemble cast reminded me strongly of Notting Hill, a favorite movie of mine.

The snappy dialogue and dry, British wit made me laugh out loud, while the real emotional struggles occasionally brought me to tears. The details about how difficult life is when you fall in love with the heir to the British throne were well-drawn, authentic, and painful.

I found myself sneaking extra time to read this book because I enjoyed hanging out with the profoundly human characters and was deeply invested in their lives.

I’m usually all about the hero, but in this sweet book, it was the heroine whom I fell for. Lacey Pope plays Princess Sweet Pea at a fairytale theme park, and she takes her role seriously. She has a list of royal rules that include: “Always make friends with birds and butterflies, and always, always be kind.” When she shares them with two visitors to the park, she doesn’t realize that she’s talking to a real—and grumpy—prince and his daughter. 

Lacey lives by her royal rules in real life, too—like Amy Adams in the movie Enchanted—and the prince falls in love with her bright spirit. 

This delicious book is like the featherlight meringue of the macarons that Lacey nibbles on when she travels to Henry’s home country, Bella-Moritz.

I love a good contemporary romance with a renovating premise. This one delivers all the tropes—an off-limits best friend, forced proximity, and a man with power tools.

Sometimes, you need an easy, joyful read, and I finished this in one day. It’s charming. The dialogue is witty and sparkling. Both main characters are so likeable. This is a funny, entertaining, and quirky novel. 

This book is the most fun I’ve ever had reading a romantic comedy—and I’ve read a lot of them! As the title suggests, a lot of this story is told through correspondence between our main couple, and while many authors strive for banter that is funny and flirty, these letters actually were—which is not easy to do!

I had an absolute blast watching Teddy and Everett get to know each other in the midst of a well-formed plot about building a life around what is truly important to you.

As a longtime fan of Jane Austen, this modern retelling of Sense and Sensibility is the epitome of romance for me, containing all the feels. There is a beautiful sense of longing, as Elaina attempts to be the voice of reason in her highly emotion-driven family while struggling between her natural caution and a yearning attraction for Ted Farris. It’s the sense of emotional constraint that makes this romance so powerful to me, as Elaina’s qualities of reticence seem rare these days. If you want an inspiring, sweet romance with a hint of Jane Austen, then this is a great book to check out.

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?

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I find such fun in an innocent miss wanting to explore a brothel. Curiosity and inquisitiveness are attitudes that I believe drive adventurous women. But they don’t always start a brawl in a brothel nor do they have the scientific mind to develop a small bomb that will allow them to escape. I always enjoy a heroine with a sharp mind who isn’t afraid to use it. Vivienne Lorret brings humor to her stories, making her characters incredibly relatable. I smiled throughout the story and loved the heroine’s little quirks.

You can’t go wrong with any Rebekah Weatherspoon book frankly, but Xeni has a special place in my heart because of the leads: Xeni, a witchy bi lead with a very complicated family bumping into a favourite romantic trope: the marriage of convenience (only, it’s very much not convenient, thank you); and Mason, a burly, bearded, bi bear who, I cannot express this clearly enough, is so instantly cuddle-worthy. That these bisexual characters are thrown into this marriage by someone they both loved as part of her will just adds to the trope joy. Beyond that, there’s so much steamy sex-positivity in this book, alongside Weatherspoon’s always brilliant supportive friend groups and mix of chosen and biological family that I found myself taking the dog for extra walks just to keep listening.