**If you keep up with me regularly, thank you and sorry for the short break this past week. A bunch of my best friends were home from school, so I packed my week with lots of time with them since they’ll be headed to a bunch of different post-grad things after May. Should be back to regularly scheduled programming now!

Romance is the genre that most people get back into reading with. In fact, it’s really the only genre my Gran reads! I tend to read the most romance in the summer for some reason, so as temps warm up, I’m thinking about what I am really wanting to check off in the next few months. I’ve picked a bunch that I’m super excited about and I’ll definitely add more as new books release – for new releases, check out my posts here and here!

• PS: I Hate You by Lauren Connolly – This book came out in December 2024 and sounds like it would fit right into the 2000s rom-com era. This is a worldwide adventure mixed with the stuck together only for this task trope. It is also sort of a play on the movie PS I Love You – so excited to see if the reviews (4.1 on Goodreads) are true!

• Behind the Net by Stephanie Archer – This is a KU find that I have been seeing everywhere! This is the first in an interconnected standalone, with the fourth book coming out in June. My plan is to read the first three of these pro hockey romances with all the tropes by release day of #4.

• Collide by Bal Khabra – Another hockey romance, this time in college! She needs this research project to go well for grad school applications, and he has somehow become the subject of the project. They can’t stand each other, especially because he’s go with the flow and she has a 25 year plan. The second in this interconnected series came out in January and the third will release in October.

• Butcher and Blackbird by Brynne Weaver – Hear me out…I think I’m going to hate this but I just HAVE to read it because I feel like everyone else has. This is a romance between two murderers that both are on a mission to kill off every serial killer. I think it’s going to be so crazy that I’ll laugh and I might hate it or I may love it. I’ll keep you updated!

• First Time Caller by BK Borrison – I got this as my February Book of the Month and I am so excited to read! I’ve never read anything by BK Borrison, but i feel like so many BookTubers talk about her all the time. This specific book is inspired by Sleepless in Seattle and follows a radio host of Baltimore’s romance hotline and a girl who thought she was doing just fine in life, though her daughter seems to disagree. Just a cute little rom-com!

• Better Than The Movies by Lynn Painter – I bought this so long ago and just have not gotten to it yet! I actually loaned it out to my Gran and she said it was so good she cried at the end because it was over.

• The Off-Limits Rule by Sarah Adams – This is the one Sarah Adams modern romance duo I haven’t gotten to yet (she does have Bridgerton-era romance). My sister loved these two based in Nashville and since that’s one of my favorite cities, I think I’m going to have so much fun with these!

• Funny Feelings by Tarah DeWitt – Another Kindle Unlimited read! We follow a standup comedian and a single dad. For some reason, this pair is forced to fake date and as I’m sure you can guess, chaos ensues!

• Love of My Afterlife by Kirsty Greenwood – This sounds like the craziest story but so many people absolutely loved it! Delphie meets the love of her life in the afterlife waiting room but turns out, he’s not supposed to be dead and gets sucked back to Earth. She somehow gets a deal where she can return to Earth for 10 days to find him – I just really need to know what happens!

• Out of the Woods by Hannah Bonam-Young – This is Bonam-Young’s newest release and continues the same world from Out on A Limb, one of my favorite romances of last year. This is a different kind of romance than I usually read, following a married couple trying to decide if they should stay together. I’ve heard nothing but great things, so this will be read as soon as I get it in from the library!

• Promise Me Sunshine by Cara Bastone – This is Cara Bastone’s newest release, one of my favorite new authors of 2024! Bastone writes real world stories that feel like a rom-com and relatable at the same time. Promise Me Sunshine follows Lenny after the loss of her best friend and Miles, the uncle of the kid Lenny babysits. Miles agrees to help Lenny with her “live again” list in exchange for Lenny helping him fix his complicated relationship with his sister.

• Only When It’s Us by Chloe Liese – I saw these books on TikTok forever ago and this is the first of seven. These books follow seven brothers through interconnected standalones and they are all just fun little romances! Perfect for a poolside binge read!

• This Summer Will Be Different by Carley Fortune – Just got this in from the library! This is Carley Fortune’s release from last summer, and I just never got to it. Her books just feel like a grown-up version of The Summer I Turned Pretty in the best way. I’ll let you know what I think!

• Expiration Dates by Rebecca Serle – I read “In Five Years” last year and still think about it. It was such a good romance while actually being really thought provoking and memorable. This book was her 2024 release that I never got to and continues on that slight magic mixed with romance. Daphne receives a piece of paper every time she meets a love interest, with their name and how long they will be together, except she doesn’t when she meets Jake.

• The Last Love Note by Emma Grey – I got this on a $1.99 Kindle deal after seeing it as a Book of the Month pick that many BookTubers raved about. This is Grey’s debut novel, and it is a bit more emotional than several of the other options on this list. Our main character, Kate, lost her husband two year prior and is struggling to juggle grief and single parenting. Suddenly, she’s stranded in Australia with her boss for a weekend and starts to see there may be more out there for her.

• You Again by Kate Goldbeck – This cover is gorgeous and that’s really the main reason I want to read it TBH. It’s described as a gender swapped When Harry Met Sally and won NPR’s Best Book of the Year. It’s just such a cute sounding story of enemies to best friends to dating so I can’t wait!

• The Wake-Up Call by Beth O’Leary – This is such a unique idea! We follow two hotel receptionists that really don’t like each other. The hotel they work at is on the verge of closure until Izzy and Lucas earn a hige reward for the hotel by returning a lost wedding ring. There are four more rings in the lost and found and Izzy and Lucas are racing to see who can return them faster to save their jobs and the hotel. Nancy Drew-esque romance!

• The Dead Romantics by Ashley Poston – This magical realism inspired book follows Florence, a ghostwriter for lots of famous authors. She gets bad news from her editor and then that’s followed by bad news from home. She has to go home to a place she did her best to run away from. Once home, she suddenly meets a ghost in her family business, the funeral parlor.

• You, with a View by Jessica Joyce – I read Joyce’s more recent release Ex-Vows and just loved it! Saw this on a $1.99 deal and had to grab it. We follow high school enemies reunited for a roadtrip. Noelle finds old pictures of her grandma with a man she doesn’t recognize, and by posting it on socials, she finds out the man is the grandpa of her high school nemesis. After speaking to this man, he asks them both to join him on the honeymoon he never got, forcing Noelle and the annoying Theo together for way longer than they wanted.

• The Way I Hate Him by Meghan Quinn – On Kindle Unlimited! Meghan Quinn’s books are just good, cheesy romances. I wouldn’t say any of them are life-changing but they are always fun. This is the first in an inter-connected world that I have yet to read, and the third one came out in January. Perfect for a beach/pool read!

• Deep End by Ali Hazelwood – This is Ali Hazelwood’s newest release (February 2025), and I just need to read this. I have heard such mixed reviews and this is so different than any other Ali Hazelwood book, but I just have to know what everyone else knows. This is a college sports romance following swimmers…may be a fun read!

• Story of My Life by Lucy Score – Lucy Score’s newest release, out this month! This is an entirely new interconnected stand alone world set in Story Lake. I really enjoyed the comedy mixed with small town mixed with romance in the Knockemout trilogy, so I am excited to see what she does next. This is on Kindle Unlimited too!

• Camera Chemistry by Chelsea Curto – On Kindle Unlimited! I’ve been wanting to read this series since I saw it in a TikTok, and the fifth comes out this May. These cover all the tropes, including sports, and this first book is a novella length to set the series up – an easy pool read!

Let me know what you would add to this list! I’m normally reading most of my romance in the summer when I’m laying by the pool. This will be my first 9-5 summer though, so I’m definitely going to have to make time for the pool. Check out my Goodreads below!

https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/158424531-riley-stull