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The Swooniest September Romances (According to Goodreads Members)

Posted by Lillian Boyd on September 1, 2021

Some people love books. Some people fall in love. And some people love books about falling in love. Every month our team sorts through the new romance books and sees how early readers are responding. We use this information to curate a list of soon-to-be-beloved favorites.

New in September: A scary accident transforms a platonic friendship in Helena Hunting’s When Sparks Fly. A matchmaking service delivers an extremely inconvenient verdict in Lillie Vale’s debut The Shaadi Set-Up. And Gaelic lust disrupts carefully laid plans in Evie Dunmore’s historical romance Portrait of a Scotsman. Also: Tech wunderkinds, bisexual witches, and scientists in love.

Add what catches your fancy to your Want to Read shelf and let us know what you're reading and recommending in the comments.

The Love Hypothesis
by Ali Hazelwood

When happens when a real scientist stages a fake romance with a hotshot professor? Third-year Ph.D. candidate Olive Smith is about to find out. Debut novelist Ali Hazelwood specializes in romantic comedy stories featuring women in science, and The Love Hypothesis documents fictional romantic adventures in the hallowed halls of Stanford University. Haven’t you always wondered? It calls to mind the famous bumper sticker: Scientists do it in the laboratory.

Portrait of a Scotsman (A League of Extraordinary Women, #3)

Portrait of a Scotsman
by Evie Dunmore

Scotsmen are famously dangerous in the arena of love. Everyone knows this. Their intrinsic awesomeness tends to throw all the rules out the window. Evie Dunmore’s popular historical romance series, A League of Extraordinary Women, explores this theme with the continuing story of London banking heiress Hattie Greenfield, who pairs up with handsome and brooding Scotsman Lucian Blackstone. In the world of 19th-century finance, strategic couplings are a viable business maneuver. But when you’re dealing with a handsome Scotsman, anything can happen. Anything at all.

The Ex Hex
by Erin Sterling

Witch Vivienne Jones proves that magical folks react to bad breakups just like the rest of us do. There's the sad music, maudlin bubble baths, vodka...and, oh yeah, maybe just a teeeeeeny tiny hex. What's could be the harm? Vivi discovers the answer to that question nine years (nine years!) later, when her ex Rhys Penhallow shows back up in town, clearly plagued by a curse of calamitous proportions. Oops. Can Vivi break this spell without losing her heart? Fun fact, Erin Sterling is the pen name of best-selling author Rachel Hawkins (The Wife Upstairs, Hex Hall).

When Sparks Fly
by Helena Hunting

Avery and Declan have been close friends since college. Now sharing a condo in Colorado Springs, their relationship has stayed squarely in the platonic realm. But when Avery is severely injured in a car accident, Declan insists on nursing her back to health, and the dynamic slowly starts to change. Author Helena Hunting, creator of the immortal hockey-themed romance series Pucked, re-examines the enduring question: Can old friends really become new lovers?

A Lot Like Adiós
by Alexis Daria

From the author of You Had Me at Hola, the second-chance romance A Lot Like Adiós reunites former teenage couple Michelle Amato and Gabriel Aguilar. Thirteen years after Gabe left his life in the Bronx behind—and Michelle along with it—the two are reunited by a chance business deal. Michelle has been hired to head up the marketing campaign for the new NYC location of Gabe’s successful Los Angeles celebrity gym. Can the two pick up where they left off, or will it be adiós all over again?

The Charm Offensive (The Charm Offensive, #1)

The Charm Offensive
by Alison Cochrun

When tech wunderkind Charlie Winshaw agreed to appear on the reality dating show Ever After, he was mostly hoping to rehabilitate his public image. Charlie never expected to connect with his female co-stars, but he really didn’t expect to connect with the show’s producer Dev Deshpande. And yet, he did, and here we are. Love is love, and now the two men must decide how to move forward when life doesn’t provide a script.

Witch Please
by Ann Aguirre

The title of Ann Aguire’s new romantic comedy is technically listed as Witch Please, but it’s better appreciated phonetically as “Witch, Please!” Subhead: “A Charming Small-Town Paranormal Romantic Comedy.” The gist: Happily bisexual modern witch Danica Waterhouse crosses paths with hopelessly earnest confectioner Titus Winnaker. Both have complicated family situations, and it doesn’t help that Titus is a “mundane” (think Muggle) with no real experience in the witchier side of life. But love blossoms, what can you do?

The Matzah Ball
by Jean Meltzer

Rachel Rubenstein-Goldblatt has a secret. For more than a decade now, she’s been working as a Christmas romance novelist, all the while hiding the fact from her very traditional Jewish family. But when her publisher asks her to write a Hanukkah book instead, it’s the kind of grim irony that Rachel can do without. Desperate for inspiration, she agrees to work with her old summer-camp nemesis Jacob Greenberg and attend the annual Matzah Ball. Romantic comedy ensues.

The Shaadi Set-Up
by Lillie Vale

In retrospect, it wasn’t such a hot idea. Rita Chitniss is determined to convince her Indian-American family that her new boyfriend, Neil, is The One. So she signs herself and Neil up on MyShaadi.com, a Desi matchmaking site, fully expecting the algorithms to confirm that they are indeed the perfect couple. Instead, the site recommends she get back with her ex, the smarmy Milan Rao. Now what? Author Lillie Vale’s debut rom-com is recommended for fans of Jasmine Guillory, Emily Henry, and Tessa Bailey.

Which new releases are you looking forward to reading? Let's talk books in the comments!

Check out more recent articles, including:
30 Hot Historical Romances to Light Your Fire in 2021
The Biggest Series Releases Dropping This Fall
Readers' Most Anticipated Books of September

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