Sign in with Facebook
Colleen Hoover's Sweet-to-Scorching Must-Read Romances
Beloved writer (and BookTok sensation) Colleen Hoover is the bestselling author of several novels, including It Ends with Us, Verity, and Ugly Love. She won the Goodreads Choice Award for Best Romance three years in a row—from 2015 to 2017—for Confess, It Ends with Us, and Without Merit. Last month, her latest novel, Reminders of Him, hit the shelves.
We asked her to share her favorite romances, and we got back three lists that are sweet, simmering, and scorching. Check out this must-read roundup of romance!
We asked her to share her favorite romances, and we got back three lists that are sweet, simmering, and scorching. Check out this must-read roundup of romance!
I’m not quite sure how I completely evaded romance novels throughout my teens and 20s, but I have a former coworker, Brenda, to thank for introducing me to the world that would eventually change my life.
It started with her recommendation of the Sookie Stackhouse series by Charlaine Harris. Brenda loaned me the first book, and I was…pun intended…sucked in. I was intrigued by the paranormal aspect, but I stayed for Vampire Bill.
From there, Brenda and I read Twilight, The Hunger Games, Fifty Shades of Grey, and anything else we could get our hands on. We’d come to work each day swapping book recommendations and discussing whether we were #TeamJacob or #TeamEdward. It didn’t matter if the book was a sweet young adult or a scorching erotic romance—we’d read it if the other recommended it. Bonus points if it had a love triangle we could discuss.
The only drawback to our reading addiction was that we worked in a busy office frequented by a lot of people, many of whom would see the books stacked up in our offices and ask for reading recommendations. Which is why the books we would read at work and keep out on our desks were vastly different from the books we kept on our nightstands at home.
"Scorching" was our literary version of NSFW before the acronym came about. We saved those books for the readers who preferred more mature content.
I eventually put down the books and picked up a pen and began working on my own novel. Now that I’m an author and am completely immersed in the book world, hardly a day goes by that I’m not asked for book recommendations from people who are either brand-new to romance or those who feel they’ve read everything under the sun and are looking for something more daring. Thanks to my days working with Brenda and her exposing me to a genre I never knew I needed, I have an extensive list of recommendations I like to fall back on.
I’ve broken down some of my favorites by categories.
The sweet books are the ones I’d recommend to just about anyone new to romance. They’ve all got great story lines and captivating characters who will more than likely make any non-romance reader a fan.
The simmering recommendations are the books I find have a good balance of sweet and scorching. These are the books I find myself recommending the most often.
The scorching list I reserve for the seasoned romance reader—those who are looking for a bit more heat. The nightstand books.
Sweet
Simmering
Scorching
Comments Showing 51-59 of 59 (59 new)
date
newest »
newest »
message 51:
by
Agatha
(new)
Feb 19, 2022 06:43AM
I would recommend the Swanson courts series by Serena Grey
flag
Heather wrote: "Some authors who are POC or write characters who are POC I've liked have beenAlyssa Cole (simmer), Alisha Rai (sweet), Sara Desai (sweet), Farah Heron (sweet)."
Alisha Rai for sure, but would say scorching, at least for the Forbidden Hearts series!
Bright Side by Kim Holden, Making Faces by Amy Harmon, Life’s Too Short By Abby Jimenez, The Chase by Elle Kennedy
Kiandra wrote: "When you don’t know what to read & wanted to read some Colleen Hoover & instead this is what you get 🤣😂. & FML I’m single … well I guess let’s see how steamy these are"Kiandra wrote: "When you don’t know what to read & wanted to read some Colleen Hoover & instead this is what you get 🤣😂. & FML I’m single … well I guess let’s see how steamy these are"
Sofia wrote: "Shannon wrote: "Nomadic Librarian wrote: "I would argue that Red, White and Royal Blue does NOT belong in the sweet category…lots of steamy scenes!"
And I would argue it's definitely NOT steamy, i..."
I definitely think simmering is the correct category.
I just read The Idea of You based on several comments in this thread, and I can’t believe how profoundly I disagree. I’m actually pissed that I wasted a few hours of my life only to be left hanging. I think it was an extremely lazy ending that required a sequel. As much as I love a May-December romance, I didn’t care for Solene at all. I won’t waste anymore time with all the reasons why I didn’t like her or the sexist double standard depicted. And what the hell was going on between Hayes and Oliver? Waaay too many loose ends!
Crystal wrote: "wow this list is super white and not diverse."Umm, over half of these books have no real description of the characters and there is at least one book that is LGBTQ.
Alicia wrote: "Not one diverse recommendation?"There are several LGBTQ recommendations.
I love the Winston Brothers series from Penny Reid.
