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The 100 Most Popular Romances of the Past Three Years on Goodreads
Love stories never go out of style. If several centuries of fiction publishing have told us anything, it’s this. Perhaps we’re all romantics at heart.
At any rate, we’ve collected below the 100 most popular romance novels on Goodreads published in the past three years (that's 2022-2024 for the eagle-eyed). These are the books that show up most often on Goodreads members’ collective shelves, and we’ve further filtered the list to include books with a 4-star rating or higher, so you know these books are both well-read and well-loved. The books are sequenced in order of overall popularity among Goodreads regulars.
As you will quickly see, the romantasy subgenre has truly taken flight in recent years, thanks in no small part to a little dragon book you may have heard of.
We can also see the recent influence of BookTok and the rise of the mega-author—writers whose entire body of work has gone supernova, thanks to the sheer velocity of peer-to-peer recommendations in the digital age. It’s also interesting to note that many of the authors on this list started as self-published writers before striking deals with traditional publishers.
In addition to contemporary romance and romantasy, you’ll find many subgenre variations, often in combination: dark romance, sports romance, rom-coms, paranormal romance, Westerns, and so forth.
Click on the book cover images for more information about each title, and add any good leads to your Want to Read shelf.
Discover more great romance reading:
Comments Showing 1-50 of 350 (350 new)
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Chris
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Feb 01, 2025 12:35AM
Also interesting to note that, as far as I can see, there isn't a single queer romance on here.
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Chris wrote: "Also interesting to note that, as far as I can see, there isn't a single queer romance on here."Delilah Green Doesn't Care is right there, but the lack of representation is alarming :(
I’ve read 23 of these and I’m quite proud of myself! Meghan Quinn, Emily Henry, Elsie Silver and Elle Kennedy are top tier authors!
I don't see many authors of colour. However, I see one Black book, which is better than nothing.
I only see two Black books. Today is the first day of Black History Month. Can yall at least try?!
I've seen all these books before thanks to previous Goodreads articles, and know I don't want to read half of them. Some new picks please! And more BIPOC authors.
People complaining about the lack of rep, read the article first. "These are the books that show up most often on Goodreads members’ collective shelves."
"Today is the first day of Black History Month. Can yall at least try?!"But they just published an article on Jan31 titled
"177 New Fiction and Nonfiction Reads for Black History Month".
Can we appreciate the fact that there's NO colleen hoover ??
alone with you in the ether deserved a place. also no queer books???
The amount of dark romance in these compared to the lack of queer rep is devastating
I was itching to suggest one that I read recently but... I figure nobody here would appreciate it what with it being a very unconventional and dark romance.
Bastgr wrote: "People complaining about the lack of rep, read the article first. "These are the books that show up most often on Goodreads members’ collective shelves.""^This
Why only booktok romance books?
Rose wrote: "People, seriously? You won't even spare books to push your views? BOOKS HAVE NO COLOR, RACE OR GENDER. This is a list of the most popular books - FICTIONAL STORIES, for heaven's sake!"YES! What is important is the quality of a book, not the color, sexuality, religion, height, mass, feet fungus or whatever :)
Hara wrote: "Lack of diversity, yeah, that's booktok for you"so true tbh
I think is a little bit silly to make a list of book recs that have books 3 or 4 in a book series that *need* to be read in order to make sense...Like, why not include only the first book in those series when applied? There would be more room for different stories that way and people wouldn't be lost when clicking on a book to see "BOOK 5557122 ON THE TOKTIK HIT SERIES" on the book's blurb.
I do not know when these types of romances became a thing. I think of books like The Light Between Oceans, The English Patient, Jane Eyre. The only one I’ve read out of all of the is Nora’s Goes Off Script.
Chris wrote: "Also interesting to note that, as far as I can see, there isn't a single queer romance on here."YUUUUUP. Nothing suspicious here...
Bastgr wrote: "People complaining about the lack of rep, read the article first. "These are the books that show up most often on Goodreads members’ collective shelves.""Law wrote: "I don't see many authors of colour. However, I see one Black book, which is better than nothing."
They should really do a separate post for black history month to highlight the top 20 romances with black main characters or written by black authors.
Law wrote: "I don't see many authors of colour. However, I see one Black book, which is better than nothing."Do you mean The Dixon Rule or one of the other books?
Where are all the BIPOC and LGBTQ+ romances? I only see one LGBTQ+ romance but what about the others?
I'm confused by the comments."These are the books that show up most often on Goodreads members’ collective shelves." - a quote from the literal article that you are all complaining under.
The lack of diversity isn't because of any malicious intent, it's just not applicable based on the data they used to compile this list.
Chris wrote: "Also interesting to note that, as far as I can see, there isn't a single queer romance on here."Give Me More is one
Also-no historical romance or did I miss something.
Eia wrote: "Can we appreciate the fact that there's NO colleen hoover ??"word cause why is no one else noticing this lol
Eia wrote: "Can we appreciate the fact that there's NO colleen hoover ??"god of fury?
Chris wrote: "Also interesting to note that, as far as I can see, there isn't a single queer romance on here." Yes, Deliah Green doesn´t care is about queer love: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5...
The article states these books are/were the most popular. I don't think they intentionally excluded certain categories like LGBTQ or black authors as many comments suggest. They pulled from ratings.
Sevda wrote: "Happy Valentine's month everybody!" Happy Valentine´s month for you also!
Why is everyone complaining about "not enough representation?" That's literally not the point of this booklist--it's just the best romance books of the past few years. Shouldn't we judge books based on merit and not the sexuality or color of the characters/authors? 🤨
The list is based on readers shelves so that’s probably why it doesn’t include some of the types of romance some of you think should be on it. Goodreads compiles many lists specifically for what people have mentioned.
La gente se queja de la falta de representación... Pero creo que nos deberíamos preocupar con el hecho de que Hunting Adeline forma parte de la lista de romances.
Are these all adult? I don't see a single YA book in there T.TEdit: I know it's based on ratings and stuff though
Chris wrote: "Also interesting to note that, as far as I can see, there isn't a single queer romance on here."Delilah Green Doesn't Care
At any rate, we’ve collected below the 100 most popular romance novels on Goodreads published in the past three years (that's 2022-2024 for the eagle-eyed). ^^^^^. Ironic that were on Goodreads and most people aren't reading the article.
Very well said! 100% agree. Books do not and SHOULD NEVER be categorized based on race, color or gender. If you like the book, read it, otherwise, don't take away our right to enjoy it.
And I also recommend reading the article, or at least the title of it: "The 100 Most Popular Romances of the Past Three Years on Goodreads"
Chris wrote: "Also interesting to note that, as far as I can see, there isn't a single queer romance on here."EXACTLY!!!
probably would have been better if its one book per series and author, along with more queer and BIPOC books that's not tokenized as fuckbut it's just a suggestion.
Just wondering… are there any clean romances somebody could recommend to me? (Also crazy how people are so mad about there being no representation. If it bothers you that much, you don’t have to look at the list. Just make your own list or ignore it.)
Chris wrote: "Also interesting to note that, as far as I can see, there isn't a single queer romance on here."as if that's a bad thing lmao
58 of these books I've either read or they are on my tbr. I am quite proud of myself for that. And I also agree with many other people who have pointed this out, why aren't there any queer books on this list?
This is a list of top rated and most popular books shelved by readers, sequenced in order of overall popularity.. this has to do with VOLUME.. the masses are speaking.. but it does not mean that there aren't amazing books that are not on the list :)
Ann J wrote: "I do not know when these types of romances became a thing. I think of books like The Light Between Oceans, The English Patient, Jane Eyre. The only one I’ve read out of all of the is Nora’s Goes Of..."This is a list of the last 3 years.
I've not read any of these at all. I do have 1 on my tbr and 2 that I am interested in.While I am glad there's no CoHo, it's sad to see that there are still problematic authors on this list. Also a list with only 3 authors who are poc and one LGBTQIA+ book (Delilah Green) isn't diverse they are mere tokens that make this list (& Goodreads users) look awful.
Also why pick more than one by an author. Pick the most popular by an author if there's more than one released in the last 3 years
Also it'd be nice if you told us which books are not the first in their series series. You could easily make it clear by adding notes
There are books that are more popular than these that are more diverse that have released in the last 3 years so to say these are the top 100 I find it hard to believe.
There is literally no representation here???Wtf!!The only queer book here (what I feel) is male gaze lesbians. Where the hell are the female gaze lesbians? POC/BIPOC lesbians? Butch lesbians? Futch lesbians? Im honestly sick and tired of constantly seeing male gaze long haired basic white lesbians tbh. Where are the unique short haired lesbians with individuality? This is why I struggled to identify with lesbianism because I saw NO. REPRESENTATION. AT. ALL.
