The 11 best romance books without spice to add to your TBR
Ready your Kindles and your shelves!
Romance has been a powerhouse genre long before BookTok turned it into a viral phenomenon. The genre is often belittled and underestimated because that’s what happens when something is targeted mostly toward women, but romance has been filling bookshelves around the world for centuries.
There are many flavors of the romance genre. While the current trend is somewhere along the lines of “the spicier the better,” there are plenty of stories around that will cater to pretty much everyone’s tastes. So, if you’re looking for some spice-less titles to add to your TBR, here are 11 suggestions that may be just what you’re looking for.
11. The Mirror Visitor by Christelle Dabos
The Mirror Visitor quartet—which includes A Winter’s Promise, The Missing of Clairedelune, The Memory of Babel, and The Storm of Echoes—has an undoubtedly controversial ending but an incredibly fascinating premise and worldbuilding. And like all great romances, it starts with what has to be one of the best-loved tropes in the whole genre: an arranged marriage that neither party is particularly happy about.
10. Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo
Now, granted, the Six of Crows duology—which comprises Six of Crows and its sequel, Crooked Kingdom—isn’t exactly a romance, as it’s one of the best examples of a heist story ever put to paper. But it does feature romance, and boy oh boy, is it spectacular. There’s something for everyone. Do you want some good old-fashioned enemies-to-lovers of the witch/witch-hunter inclination? Check. A constantly bickering (and queer) gunslinger and explosives expert parading their undeniable chemistry all over the book? Double check. A hardened, calculating crime boss who only softens when his second-in-command waltzes into the room? Triple check.
9. By the Book by Jasmine Guillory
Jasmine Guillory’s By the Book falls into another category that is very dear to the romance genre, the fairytale retelling. Forget Beauty and the Beast. Meet Isabelle, a down-on-her-luck book editor willing to take any assignment to get the promotion she deserves, and Beau, the recluse and ill-mannered author she has to convince to deliver his manuscript on time. The series this story is part of, titled Meant to Be, includes a whole array of different authors, and consists of a larger collection of modern retellings of classic fairytales. You’ll have plenty to read after By the Book.
8. Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Sáenz
A great 2010s classic that was all the rage on BookTube, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe is a queer coming-of-age story that follows the titular teenage Aristotle and Dante as they meet, become friends and later fall in love throughout several summers in the late ’80s. This book is filled with beautiful recurring images, as well as deep reflections on both characters’ Mexican-American identities.
7. Emily Wilde’s Encyclopedia of Faeries by Heather Fawcett
If you’re a fan of light academia and some faerie folklore of the more traditional type rather than the infinitely more popular BookTok style, then this might be the perfect read for you. Our main character, Cambridge professor Emily Wilde, is one of the foremost experts in her field—the study of faeries, of course—but is not good at dealing with people. Especially not when “people” is none other than her academic rival, whom she of course finds in the isolated little village she travels to looking to complete her research.
6. Reggie and Delilah’s Year of Falling by Elise Bryant
The universe seemingly conspires to bring together two people who are polar opposites; yes, please! The main characters of this story couldn’t be more different—Delilah is a seemingly go-with-the-flow kind of girl who finds herself singing for her best friend’s punk band, while Reggie is a D&D Dungeon Master who pretty much spends all his free time plotting quests or critiquing various aspects of D&D. They have nothing in common, but they just keep meeting every time a major holiday comes around, from New Year’s Eve to Saint Patrick’s Day—and of course, that’s how it all starts.
5. The Henna Wars by Adiba Jaigirdar
The enemies-to-lovers trope—or rivals-to-lovers, in this case—holds up a good chunk of the entire romance genre, and The Henna Wars proves why it’s so popular. Nishat and Flávia are two teenagers who choose to start the same small business, henna, for a school competition and so of course clash time and time again over it—especially considering they have a past together, and certain matters need to be brought out of the closet.
4. Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones
The banter that Sophie and Howl bring to the original iteration of Howl’s Moving Castle is unparalleled—and translates pretty well into the Ghibli movie that really propelled this story into worldwide popularity. While some things have been changed between the original story and its adaptation, the main plot points remain the same. A young girl, Sophie, is turned into an old lady by the powerful Witch of the Waste—an event that completely upends what would have been a quiet life and puts Sophie directly in the path of the powerful, oh-so-charming and self-absorbed wizard Howl and his moving castle.
3. To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before by Jenny Han
Jenny Han’s TATB trilogy—consisting of To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before, P.S. I Still Love You, and Always and Forever, Lara Jean—were quite the phenomenon back when they were first published in the 2010s, and the Netflix adaptations starring Lana Condor only helped that popularity grow. The story follows Lara Jean through the trials and tribulations of an over-active imagination and a series of love letters that were never meant to be read “accidentally” being sent to their recipients. What follows is teenage romance at its best.
2. The Girl Who Fell Beneath the Sea by Axie Oh
Inspired by one of the most classic Korean folktales, The Tale of Shim Cheong, The Girl Who Fell Beneath the Sea follows our heroine Mina as she finds herself in the Spirit Realm, where both a quest and a mysterious young man named Shin await her. The fantasy vibes of this book are the same you would find in the works from Studio Ghibli, or stories like Naomi Novak’s Uprooted and Catherynne M. Valente’s Deathless—not high fantasy, but still dazzlingly magical.
1. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
You can’t go wrong with the classics, especially if the classic in question is one of the very pillars the whole genre is founded on. Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice follows one of literature’s most famous heroines, Elizabeth Bennet, as she meets the seemingly cold Mr. Darcy—whom she will, of course, end up marrying after a series of confrontations that showcase both characters’ sense of pride and prejudices towards one another. Ten out of ten, always. It is a truth universally acknowledged that reading Pride and Prejudice is always a good idea.
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