We chose the 10 best romance books of 2023. See the full list.
Falling in love with love has never been easier. Here are some of my favorite recent romance novels — steamy historicals, cutting-edge contemporaries and more. I’ll be updating this list all year, so check back for more recommendations.
I want a scorching-hot Regency romp
Wake Me Most Wickedly, by Felicia Grossman
In this “Snow White”-inspired romance set amid the complicated histories of Regency London’s Jewish families, we meet Hannah — a fence, and the daughter of two convicted thieves — and Solomon, the saucy scion of a once-wealthy family trying to brush off the cobwebs of debt and disgrace. Grossman will be writing two more books in this rich, complex series, and I cannot wait for the next one.
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Give me a spicy lovers-to-enemies-to-lovers tale
The Pairing, by Casey McQuiston
In the latest queer romance from the author of “Red, White and Royal Blue” and “The Last Stop,” Kit and Theo — who haven’t seen each other since their brutal breakup — find themselves on the same luxe European food tour. Soon our duo is back to their old game as they eat and drink and et cetera in every city of the journey — until they finally end up where they truly want to be.
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Steal my heart
Lady Eve’s Last Con, by Rebecca Fraimow
The neon gleam of pulp fiction illuminates this vivacious heist romance, set on a far-future satellite. Ruth’s only loyalty is to her sister — but their usual game of “fleece the wealthy idiot” got upset when Jules fell in love with their latest mark, Esteban, and ended up heartbroken. Now Ruth is determined to make the man pay: She’ll play the well-bred ingénue, get the jerk to propose and skip town with his cash. If only Esteban’s sister, Sol, weren’t so perceptive — and attractive! This is a romp that builds to a spectacular ending.
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I’d like a moody, mesmerizing time-travel romance
The Ministry of Time, by Kaliane Bradley
When the Arctic explorer Graham Gore is hauled into the 21st century along with a handful of other expats, their government handlers — bridges, they’re called — are granted an extraordinary amount of control. Bridges are not only responsible for explaining modernity, they also share quarters with their expats. Gore’s bridge and eventual lover is a protagonist whose name we never learn, like the second Mrs. de Winter from “Rebecca,” or the narrator of R.F. Kuang’s “Babel.” This bold, uneasy romance defines history as both something we make, and something that makes us.
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Take my breath away
You Should Be So Lucky, by Cat Sebastian
The journalist Mark Bailey is 16 months out from the death of his partner. He’s coasting. It’s when he’s assigned to write about a flailing baseball player on the sad-sack local team that he finds someone to connect to: “What’s happening to Eddie O’Leary is an end. That’s something Mark knows about; that’s something Mark can write about.” People think the ending is what defines a romance, and it does, but that’s not what a romance is for. The end is where you stop, but the journey is why you go. And this journey is breathtaking.
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I want something completely exuberant and over-the-top
Don’t Want You Like a Best Friend, by Emma R. Alban
Beth makes friends with another debutante, the mischievous, confident Gwen, whose widowed father has been pining for Beth’s widowed mother ever since their long-ago affair. And so a double romance begins, with the girls falling in love with each other while scheming to reunite their parents. The book is pitched as a Sapphic “Parent Trap” set during the Victorian era, but I found it to be a 1960s Technicolor spectacle of Victorian courtship, complete with buoyant teeny-boppers, a widow with all of Maureen O’Hara’s mournful glamour and an Ascot race scene straight out of “My Fair Lady.”
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I like romance steeped in a little magic
A Love Song for Ricki Wilde, by Tia Williams
Ricki, in 2024, has left her job at her tyrannical family’s chain of funeral parlors and started a flower shop in a Harlem brownstone. Ezra, in 1924, has fled the racist violence of his hometown and is making a name for himself as a musician in the speakeasies of the Harlem Renaissance. Eventually, their lives overlap. The book’s calculus of love and loss is brutal, and grounds the absolutely dazzling prose.
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I want some sizzle
When Grumpy Met Sunshine, by Charlotte Stein
When the soccer star Alfie Harding meets Mabel Willicker, who’s been hired to ghostwrite his memoir, he says, “You think I’m a big hairy manimal who’s never gonna be able to work well with this here human cupcake.” The story is charming, but sex is where Stein really shines. This, children, is how the professionals do it. Not a rote list of parts and positions, but a physical flow between two people. It’s the difference between seeing choreography laid out in footprints on the floor, and being swept away by the dance.
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Twisty, slow-burn stories are my favorite
The Takedown, by Lily Chu
Dee clings to positive thinking through layoffs, microaggressions and familial health challenges. Her one true comfort is the online puzzle game where she’s usually first in the rankings. Then she lands a new job, only to find Teddy, her nearest gaming rival, there — and even worse, he’s the son of the C.E.O. whose toxic corporate culture she’s being paid to improve. The difference between wishing for good things and working toward them is precisely where this sweet novel finds its footing.
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I want to go on a gorgeous Victorian road trip
A Shore Thing, by Joanna Lowell
In this charming queer Victorian romance, the recent invention of the safety bicycle leads to a summertime coastal road race as a widowed botanist and a trans painter-turned-mechanic try to outspeed a group of irritating penny-farthing riders. It sounds over-the-top, I know, but it’s utterly lovely.
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The post The Best Romance Novels of the Year (So Far) appeared first on New York Times.
