The Best Contemporary Romance Books To Inspire Your Love Life
Romance books are full of big sweeping gestures and dramatic confessions; just what we’re looking for! Romance books can inspire you to spice things up with your current partner, or figure out what you’re looking for in a relationship!
You need to check out these contemporary romance books. Your love life will become inspired by the adorable couples that grace these pages!
1. Anna and The French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins
Anna and The French Kiss stars Anna Oliphant whose father sends her off to spend her senior year of high school in Paris, France. While Anna isn’t immune to the charm of the city of love, she misses her family and friends back home in Georgia.
Upon meeting the handsome and charming Étienne St. Clair, Anna realizes maybe France isn’t so bad.
Follow Anna’s story as she makes friends, has Parisian adventures, deals with drama, and maybe even falls in love!
The setting of this book creates the ideal romantic whirlwind! This book is all about how friendship can bloom into true love and the choices you have to make to get there!
2. Love And Gelato by Jenna Evans Welch
Lina’s mother’s dying wish was that she gets to know her father. That’s how she ends up on a plane to Italy to meet a man she’s never even met.
Set in the beautiful countryside of Italy, Lina is given the diary her mother kept when she was in Italy. Spurred by the mysteries of her mother’s thoughts, Lina becomes more open to Italy and the romance it might hold.
As she explores Italy, Lina grows into herself. She deals with her grief and gets a chance at true love.
There’s just something about the excitement of foreign countries that makes us yearn for love! This book tackles family problems and cute Italian boys in one fell swoop! This book illustrates a couple that will always be there for each other.
3. To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before by Jenny Han
You may have heard of this book through its very swoon-worthy movie adaptation on Netflix! We recommend reading the book first and watching the movie after!
This book follows Lara Jean Covey. As her oldest sister Margot goes off to college, Lara Jean has to become the responsible one in her family. After all, ever since her mother died, her oldest sister took care of everything.
Lara Jean has a loving father, a sassy little sister, and a huge problem. After she gets over a crush, Lara Jean always writes a love letter that she never actually sends. When these letters are sent out in the mail, Lara Jean is in huge trouble!
To save herself from humiliation, Lara Jean makes a deal with one of her letter recipients Peter Kavinsky. The deal is that they’ll pretend to date. But, what happens when their feelings for each other aren’t pretended anymore?
This book has an interesting premise full of hijinks and the perils of high school romance. This book is all about unlikely pairings and how people aren’t always what they seem at first. Lara Jean herself is a self-proclaimed hopeless romantic, so you’ll love her thoughts on love and romance!
4. The Sun Is Also A Star by Nicola Yoon
This book takes place in a very short period of time. The perfect background for a sweep-you-off-your-feet romance!
Natasha’s family is being deported to Jamaica and Daniel is feeling the pressure of his family’s college expectations for him. While they deal with their problems, Natasha and Daniel are inexplicably attracted to each other.
They spend a romantic day running around New York City getting to know each other while ignoring the ticking clock that is bound separate them.
This book has beautiful writing and an electric romance. This book is all about meeting that perfect stranger and the surety of knowing when someone is right for you.
5. I’ll Give You The Sun by Jandy Nelson
This book follows twins Jude and Noah. It bounces back and forth from before and after a traumatic event.
While closer than close when they were young, something has happened that has created a rift between the two. The twins are both very artistic but very different from each other. They struggle to find a way to exist as their own people.
In a dark period of her life, Jude meets a very handsome British boy. Noah also meets a boy whose unlike anyone he’s ever met in his coastal town.
Jude and Noah learn to fall in love as well as reconcile with each other.
This book deals with their close-knit family and their experience of exhilarating love. This book is perfect for creative couples.
6. Love, Rosie by Cecelia Ahern
Rosie and Alex have been best friends since they were in diapers. They just can’t seem to get the timing on their relationship right whether the barrier be a blackout drunk night that may have involved locking lips or a teenage pregnancy.
This book is structured uniquely as it follows Rosie and Alex’s relationship through texts, emails, and letters to each other as well as other people in their lives.
This book emphasizes that it is never too late for two people to get together, even if it takes longer than expected! Follow Alex and Rosie as they follow their dreams and finally catch up to each other!
7. Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell
Cath and her twin sister Wren are just starting college. Dealing with her anxiety, Cath is having a hard time adjusting.
Her only bright spot is writing fanfiction. A friend of her roommate named Levi can’t seem to leave her alone. While annoyed and confused at his attention at first, Levi and Cath become friends. They have a few crossed signals and frustrations with each other, but they eventually become more than friends.
This college romance will make you laugh and cry. This book emphasizes respecting what your partner likes and how different people can fit perfectly together.
In the book Cath writes Simon Snow fanfiction, a Harry Potter-like series that only exists in the Fangirl universe. If you’d like to step out of the contemporary genre, Rainbow Rowell has written a fantasy book about Simon Snow called ‘Carry On’ which explores the chosen one character trope as well as an enemy to lovers romance between Simon and his nemesis Baz.
