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Me Before You
Jojo Moyes
This book is unlike anything you’ll read elsewhere; it’s a story about the love of family, and the anguish of loss, and how you find love in the least expected places. It will tear your heart out and dance on it, but you won’t regret a single second of it.
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The Sky Is Everywhere
Jandy Nelson
Whenever we get asked what our favorite book is—and we get asked that a lot—we answer without hesitation. The Sky is Everywhere by Jandy Nelson was one of the first books we read together when we became co-authors, but it isn’t only that sentimental link that makes it special. This is the story of Lennie, a girl who has just lost her sister, and how she struggles to find her way forward. It is an absolutely stunning, uplifting, and unforgettable book.
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Captive Prince
C. S. Pacat
I kid you not, we read these books so fast we did ZERO real work for a few days. The first book throws you in unprepared and expects you to keep up as you are sent through a wild storm of battling princes, politics, starkly different sexual culture and a queer romance to knock you over. Want your romance hero with a side of Another Romance Hero? Start here. You won’t be able to help loving Laurent, just trust us.
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Graffiti Moon
Cath Crowley
It’s just one night—one night of walking, and talking, and trying to find the elusive graffiti artist Shadow—but it is enough to make you obsessively love Lucy and Ed and remember those days of high school wandering and sweet, young infatuation.
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Loud is How I Love You
Mercy Brown
The first page of this book opens and you’re smacked in the face with the almighty VOICE—that sharp, singular style we authors try to wrestle out of every character (with varied success). Here, Mercy Brown nails voice—reminiscent somehow both of John Hughes and mid-nineties indie rock—and she does it while writing a compelling, smart, and sexy as hell romance.
The two of us (Christina and Lauren) met in 2009 when we were writing fanfiction. We’d both been fans of the romance genre our entire lives—Christina used to sneak-read her mom’s Harlequins, and Lauren dipped a toe into the romance world with Danielle Steele as a teenager and never turned back. But because we had other careers for many years before we became writers, when we started publishing romance, we were often asked for recommendations from people from our previous world, who didn’t think they were romance readers. So many people come into the genre thinking that romance is Fifty Shades of Grey or bodice rippers—and while romance is a lot of that, and those books are a ton of fun— romance is also so much more. Enjoy our list of romance novels for non-romance readers (listed, of course, in no particular order).
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