It’s that time of year again where we dive into every single romantic comedy movie and let it consume our lives. A casual walk through the park becomes a meet-cute quest. Our fashion becomes, simply put, chunky knit sweater chic. And any reading plan we had gets thrown aside and replaced with books that give us the lovey-dovey feels. I’ve rounded up my favorite rom-com reads with dialogue that I’ve already memorized (just in case the moment calls for it) and characters I’ve already cast in my head.
Farm Cove Bliss by E.D. Hackett
She’s relearning to trust. He’s healing his heartache. Can two shattered souls piece together a happily ever after?
Crystal Whitman is determined to redefine herself. Pulling double shifts to break free from a cheating ex, the single mom worries her life can’t get any more chaotic until her own mother dies. The city gal returns to her painfully rural hometown in the hopes of flipping her vacant ancestral farmhouse fast, so she never expected her hunky hired hand would make her want to slow down and enjoy the view.
Derek Fischer can’t shake his grief. Twelve years after losing his wife, the devoted dad’s broken heart beats only for his daughter, until a sexy school teacher sparks a different kind of love. But with a dying home improvement business to keep afloat, the contractor fears muddling the line between business and pleasure could only end in financial ruin.
When Crystal hires Derek to fix the old farmhouse, so she can sell it and return to her frenzied life, she moves in for the summer to save some money and give him a hand. Fighting their growing attraction, she wonders if she’s destined to be alone and he wonders if his wife will ever forgive him for moving on. When a vivacious blonde sinks her claws into Derek, Crystal relives her ex-husbands betrayal, and may sabotage their growing relationship. Can Crystal and Derek fix the farmhouse and mend their fractured hearts?
Petty Betty by Ruby Smoke
During their weekly, drunken girls’ night, Betsey and her friends fantasize about revenge for all who have been scorned. Then, after one too many b!tching sessions and six too many shots…Petty Betty is born.
Glitter in his vents? Chargers missing? Large box of dildos delivered to your office during a work meeting? There are no limits to how just how petty Betty and her girls can get.
But things get complicated when Petty Betty’s first target, Nathan, turns out to be the man of her dreams. The goal may have been to sweep him off his feet, literally, but Nathan gets to Betsey first.
Sparks fly as Betsey and Nathan start to fall for each other, and the line between revenge and romance becomes blurred in this laugh-out-loud romantic comedy.
A Complete Game by Aven Ellis
A professional baseball player who needs to find himself—on and off the mound. A heroine passionate about animals—but not the life she’s living. And two ferrets who spark a romance that will change everything for Brady and Addison …
Addison Blakely should be happy. After all, so many items on her life list had checkmarks by them: self-sufficient and living on her own, enjoying life in DC with fantastic friends, happily single, and working at a professional job. So why isn’t she?
Addison knew life wasn’t going to be like the Regency romances she devours. The pages of her own book weren’t going to be filled with a dashing hero and a gorgeous romance. Nor would she be living the life she wanted by the last page. That wasn’t reality.
Or so she thought. Addison’s life changes when a celebrity photoshoot with the Washington Soaring Eagles baseball team brings Brady Jensen into her life. Addison is drawn to the gorgeous pitcher with a crooked smile and a soft spot for the underdog. The more Addison learns about Brady, the more she begins to believe she can rewrite her own story.
When Brady and Addison are both faced by the challenges of living an authentic life and accepting their own truths, will this relationship end without a happily ever after? Or will Brady and Addison’s love make it all nine innings?
Never Marry Your Brother's Best Friend by Lauren Landish
Opposites attract? In theory, maybe. In reality, doubtful.
When my brother’s best friend asks me to fake marry him to secure a business deal he desperately needs, I laugh in his face. Me help Carter Harrington? That’s split-your-pants, rip-roaring hilarious. I don’t even like him. Besides, no one would believe I’m Carter’s wife. It’s ridiculous.
He’s tall, blond, and attention-grabbing gorgeous. I’m short, curvy, awkward… and usually invisible. He’s never met someone he couldn’t charm. I can barely talk to friends, much less strangers. He’s a workaholic that lives and breathes money and business. I prefer to lose myself in my art. Believability factor of us as a couple? Zero.
But when he puts his hand on my thigh, pulls me to his side possessively, and whispers dirty things in my ear that make me go liquid, all the reasons why we shouldn’t be together start to fade away. And when we’re forced to share a bed to keep up the charade, this fake marriage begins to feel real. Dangerously real. What's a girl to do when the man she can't stand starts to feel like her husband?
Matchmaking a Roommate by Angela Casella and Denise Grover Swank
He’s her next makeover project. She’s his next mistake.
Ivy - I’m Ivy Anders, popular romance novelist and small-town success story. Or so they say. I tell myself I’m only back in my hometown because my father had a heart attack, but that’s not the full story. I can’t go home. And the longer I stay, the less I want to. I’m drawn in by my part-time job at Ziggy brewery, which I took to research for my next book, and by the mystery of Lou, my father’s stuffy lodger, a temporary transplant from New York.
Normally, I wouldn’t look twice at someone like Lou. He’s a rules guy, and I’ve never met a rule I didn’t want to break just for the fun of it. But it’s obvious he needs an intervention to avoid becoming an old man at thirty-four, and I am going to make that happen.
Lou - I came to Highland Hills to hide. It’s not every day a man loses his professional integrity, his fiancée, and his pet fish all in the same week. The last thing I want is for smoking hot Ivy Anders to get it into her head that I should be her project. But she has, and it’s hard as hell to say no to her. Believe me, I’ve tried. The more time we spend together, the more I realize that I have another problem on my hands: Ivy’s everything I’m not—young and wild and free—and she’s all I can think about.