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Readers' Top 100 Romances of the Past Three Years
Since the dawn of publishing—of storytelling itself, really—people have been drawn to romance. As a culture, we seem to appreciate the idea of people falling in love with other people (or, occasionally, vampires). Sometimes the love is elevated and noble. Sometimes it’s dangerous and exciting. Often it’s delightfully explicit. Everybody wins!
We wanted to see what romance has been looking like lately during our particular slice of history, so we’ve collected below the 100 most popular romances of the past three years, as determined by Goodreads regulars. Specifically, we looked for individual romance novels that Goodreaders have rabidly shelved and recommended—each title listed here has an overall rating of 3.5 stars or higher.
The results below are split into contemporary and historical romances, but you’ll find plenty of variety within those broad designations, including lots of queer love stories and a good dose of fantasy elements. Also: Scotsmen.
Trendwise, it’s clear that the top of the list has been informed by the constantly churning online conversation known as #BookTok. The viral nature of such discourse tends to favor contemporary rom-coms from a handful of authors you'll spot again and again in the rankings—Colleen Hoover, Ali Hazelwood, and Tessa Bailey, to name three. It also seems that Goodreaders tend to find an author they like, then drill down into their backlist of available books. Can’t argue with that. It’s a reliable strategy.
Check out the list below, add anything interesting you spot to your Want to Read shelf, and feel free to register your delight and/or disagreement in the comments section below. But play nice! Be the comments section you wish to see in the world.
Contemporary Romance
Historical Romance
What's your favorite romance published in the past three years? Let us know in the comments below!
Find more romance recommendations in our recent coverage:
Comments Showing 51-100 of 124 (124 new)
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Persephone
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Feb 12, 2023 02:36PM
Stella wrote: "Read 7 of them" me 2
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Pixie 🍜 wrote: "Can you stop putting Colleen hoover books on romance lists? It ends with us etc is not a romance but an abusive relationship and written by someone who defends her own son sexually assaulting someo..."Can you read? The book's title is "It STARTS with us". I'm currently reading it and so far it is a romance.
And it's a list of romance books, not an author biography, so what author does or doesn't do is irrelevant.
I read almost exclusively romance and only read 35 of these, yikes.
Connie in the Trees wrote: "zero...lamoo, indeed! People like to give 4 & 5 stars to every book they read. To me a 5 star book is Pultzer Prize material not your average good romance or mystery. I read 6-8 books a week, most ..."
Precious wrote: "How is this list missing books by Kennedy Ryan? Christina C. Jones? Alexandra Warren? Nora Roberts? Who made this list?" I think it's the 'readers'' favourites i.e. the ones that were read the most according to Goodreads users.
Rose wrote: "Pixie 🍜 wrote: "Can you stop putting Colleen hoover books on romance lists? It ends with us etc is not a romance but an abusive relationship and written by someone who defends her own son sexually ..."they said "etc" after listing it ends with us, indicating hoover's works as a whole, which largely do romanticize abuse. also pretty telling + gross you're willing to dismiss hoover's behavior. when she writes the subjects she does, her actions regarding those subjects in real life absolutely matter
This proves my theory that all romance book covers can fit into maybe three categories
I have read a lot of these :) But...Where is a touch of darkness (3.85)? You have Ruin and Malice but not Darkness *pensive face emoji*
Currently reading One Last Stop so absolutely cute love the reader who reads the audiobook!
Book Lovers by Emily HenryPart of Your World by Abby Jimenez
Love Hypothesis by Ali Hazelwood
"The house in the Cerulean sea" by TJ Klune.Absolutely amazing, I highly recommend!
this time its real by ann liang !
no more Colleen Hoover, she and her books are toxic and SJM is fairly toxic too
Well that's interesting. I've read a grand total of two of those books, one of which I have no recollection of having read at all.Fair to say contemporary romance isn't really my thang.
Sweetener ™ wrote: "Where the gay at??"Sarina Bowen writes some lovely M/M romances. New title coming out Feb. 28 is The New Guy!
T.HiggsReviews wrote: "no more Colleen Hoover, she and her books are toxic and SJM is fairly toxic too"They ain't real bruh
I only like clean romance, no sex scenes. I liked Authentically, Izzy by Pepper Basham.
Pixie 🍜 wrote: "Can you stop putting Colleen hoover books on romance lists? It ends with us etc is not a romance but an abusive relationship and written by someone who defends her own son sexually assaulting someo..."Thanks for the warning, now I can avoid her books :)
Read 26. Mostly contemporary, but some historical.
Janine wrote: "Goodreads seems to have lumped historical romances together with historical fantasy romances and historical fantasy novels with romantic elements. And there is not a single paranormal romance (shif..."Very true. I skipped half of the list before I even got to one I read much less was interested in reading. Contemporary romance is too "cutesy" for me.
I've read 7 and have 1 on my TBR list. This style of contemporary romance is so lame. It's clear they're the popular ones, but are they only popular because no one promotes the other styles of romance? When you go to bookstores this is all you see too. No wonder I never buy any books.
GR - here is how you can improve this list - include those books not only that have been purchased on Amazon, but those that have been read on KU. Then you'd get a much more interesting list.
Louisa ☆ wrote: "This proves my theory that all romance book covers can fit into maybe three categories"What sucks is they're making the historical romances have the same book covers as the contemporary ones, so you have to look for the word "duke" in the tittle if you want historical ;)
Rachel Reads Ravenously wrote: "I read almost exclusively romance and only read 35 of these, yikes."Me too! And I only read 7 ...
Hannah:) wrote: "So... do clean romances not count as romances or what 😭😭"yes
Becky wrote: "None of them I read lol. What is first book I should read?Feel free to send me message or add me first! :)"
Boyfriend Material. Funny, romantic, emotional and terrific character arcs and secondary characters add to making this one of the best romances around.
funny how there's barely any queer books, says a lot about 'trends'
Becky wrote: "None of them I read lol. What is first book I should read?Feel free to send me message or add me first! :)"
Read Hana by K T BOWES :)
Anne Gracie and Mary Balogh should definitely be on this list.
Love these!
I'm always looking for more books & ordering them if they catch my eye. My problem is, I don't seem to have enough time to read them all. If one interests me enough I will read it more than once before I go to another one.
I don't know how these books can be the top Romance books when most all the ratings are below 4 or slightly above. So many great authors and books missing from here. Give me a list with ratings above 4.3 then we will call that a good list.
Jayda wrote: "Persuasion, Pride and Prejudice, and To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before"Yes! But it does say books "in the last three years"......
they should add 'have' to the shelf list (as in- I have this book and I will read it); to me, 'want to read' implies- sound like a good book and I should get it, so I can read it.'Love Sarah MacLean's books- Bareknuckle Bastards was enjoyable and surprising. The Rules of Scoundrels and Scandal and Scoundrel series have great titles!
Hell's Belles: read Bombshell; have Heartbreaker; pre-ordered Knockout and will get #4 when it comes out!
The comments section is miles ahead of the article :(
I'm glad I read the comments, they made me feel better about only having read a few of these titles. And those few were mediocre. There are soooo many thousands of books out there, and tastes vary so widely, I find lists like this pretty stupid, especially when it contains the same authors over and over again. It's just a list of the books (moreso authors) that have expensive marketing teams behind them and that have successfully cultivated a following of loyalists who'll think anything that author writes is pure gold. Take with a grain of salt any "top" lists published by a site that allows authors to give themselves 5 star ratings and readers to rate books that haven't even been written yet. Also, these hand-drawn covers are hideous; romances already lack dignity in the public eye, these cover designs aren't helping. I can't wait for this trend to end. Anyway, don't let lists like this peer pressure you into feeling you have to read these books or you'll be culturally irrelevant; read what you like and find others with similar tastes. Happy reading.
I’ve read 27 of this list and added most of the rest to my TBR 😅
Ali's wrote: "Some truly perfect contemporary romance books here. But sadly, some of the most overhyped and overrated books are included as well. Would love more lesser-known (and often just as good, if not bett..."Agree to both the overrated books as well as many authors missing. I read three authors alone who just published in the last year or so who are SO MUCH better than many on this list, for writing style, content and storyline! I hype those up in my reader groups as often as I can.
why am I not surprised that most of these romance books are just straight up ass
Great list! I was surprised by how many I have read. I would love to see more lists like this posted. Thanks!
Angie wrote: "This list only probes that the Booktok and what the masses put on Top are not always the best of some field..."We all forget the basic rule for programming: shit in=shit out. these algorythms are always wrong, because a computer is so dumb, it can only racognise I or 0. How could it even distinguish between sub genres of a genre?
