The Best Romance Books
recommended by romance novelists, librarians and booksellers
Last updated: July 30, 2025
The Best Romance Books: 2019 Summer Reads, recommended by Frannie Cassano
Romance: it’s one of the bestselling and most widely-read genres, with thousands of books published each year. But where to start? And which books are at the cutting edge of the genre? We turned to Frannie Strober Cassano, the Romance Writers of America’s 2018 Librarian of the Year, for her choice of the best new romances published in the past 12 months.
The Best Love Stories, recommended by Jenny Davidson
From Jane Austen to James Baldwin, the best love stories in literature recommended by Jenny Davidson, novelist, historian and Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University.