13 Best Steamy Romance Novels To Read This Year
Is it hot in here, or is it just this treasure trove of steamy romance novels? If you’re looking for your next read to keep the summer heat going, look no further.
1. Twisted Love
Cold, ruthless genius Alex Volkov wasn’t supposed to fall in love with anyone but himself. He’s on the path to success, and ain’t nobody was supposed to stop him. But now his frigid heart has the hots for his best friend’s sister. Oh no. What’s he to do? Ana Huang’s Twisted Love is a story of one happy go lucky girl and the grumpy billionaire that she’s certain to woo … just by being herself.
2. King of Wrath
Ana Huang’s King of Wrath is about a cold, ruthless billionaire who… wait. I’m sensing a pattern here? Is he in love with his best friend’s sister? Oh no, it’s something even more scandalous. Sociopath-adjacent CEO Dante Russo has been blackmailed into a marriage with the heiress Vivian Lau, the daughter of one of his enemies. How’s he gonna make things work with this lady he doesn’t even want? He doesn’t want her, right? So why can’t he stop looking at her?
3. The Love Hypothesis
Ali Hazelwood’s The Love Hypothesis is a classic fake relationship becomes real tale! Third-year Ph.D. candidate Olive Smith doesn’t believe in lasting love, and she’s going to prove her hypothesis to be true! How? By getting into a fake relationship with her dick of a professor Adam Carlsen! Olive swears that she isn’t attracted to Adam, that she only kissed him to prove to her friend that she can get over her ex. But what happens when she starts getting under Adam? I have a few theories of my own.
4. Hooked
This ain’t your mother’s Peter Pan. Hooked is the Depressive Demon Nightmare Man take on J.M. Barrie’s original Manic Pixie Dream Boy Peter. But Peter isn’t the real star of this story, that honor belongs to James Hook, the modern day brooding bad boy equivalent of the pirate captain himself. This dark romance tale has Hook trying to take down his arch-rival Peter by using Peter’s 20 year old daughter Wendy as a pawn. A very… sexy pawn?
5. Song of Achilles
You want steamy? Madeline Miller’s Song of Achilles will give you steamy. By the time you’re finished reading this book your eyes will be as misty as the air over Niagara Falls. This is hot, beautiful and tragic tale of the demigod Achilles and his lover Patroclus. The best friends turned lovers were born to eat fruit and get it on in a mountain cave, but forced to go to war and win glory for Greece.
6. Ugly Love
Colleen Hoover’s Ugly Love is about a young woman who meets an airline pilot. A really hot airline pilot. Their relationship starts are purely physical. He doesn’t want love. She doesn’t have time. Right. That’s what they all say. As they nosedive deeper and deeper into their “no strings attached arrangement” they find that there are indeed strings. And they are indeed attached.
7. Pucking Around
Kensington Emily Rath’s Pucking Around is about a physical therapist who hooks up with the man of her dreams. He’s sweet, funny, and totally hot, but it was all just supposed to be a one night stand. Months later, he walks into her office with a hockey injury. He’s a pro player. And his head must still be in the game because he doesn’t recognize her at all. Oops. Can she repair this broken man? And can the pair of them repair their emotionally broken relationship?
8. Cruel King
Private school romance? Relive the days of Abercrombie with Rita Kent’s Cruel King. It’s a dark romantic tale about a young woman named Astrid who gets into the prestigious Royal Elite Academy on a scholarship. There she finds herself at the bottom of the school’s social ladder, looked down upon by the rich popular kids, including captain of the football team Levi King. But Levi has a thing for Astrid, she’s not meek. She’s resilient. Maybe she’ll make him bend the knee for a change?
9. Things We Never Got Over
Knox is a bearded man that lives in the woods with no one but his dog. Is he a libertarian? Close. He’s a barber, and he doesn’t have time for anyone’s drama, at least that’s what he tells runaway bride Naomi when she shows up in his small, rural town. Lucy Score’s Things We Never Got Over is for you if you like burly grumpy dudes whose stone hearts are slowly cracked open by the main character, revealing the beautiful prismatic geode within!
10. Every Summer After
Persephone Fraser ran away from home. Literally and figuratively. Born in a lakeside small town, she now spends her life in the big city, seeing friends, pursuing her career and filling every spare moment with something to do. But what happens when she receives a phonically about her long lost love from her childhood home of Barry’s Bay? Carley Fortune’s Every Summer After is the story of young love reclaimed!
11. In Five Years
In Five Years by Rebecca Serle is the portrait of a career woman. Dannie Kohan is meticulous. Ambitious. Passionate. Focused. She just landed her dream job. She just agreed to marry her dream man. She’s living the dream The type of person who has answer for “where do you see yourself in five years?” 99% of the time. That 1%? Her doubts come from the moment she was magically transported five years into the future for only one hour. But one hour was enough to prove to her that she needs to rethink her priorities.
12. A Court of Thorns and Roses
The Gold Standard Booktok story, A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Mass is the tale of a young huntress who makes a spur of the moment decision to kill a faerie wolf in the wilderness. Everyone knows you shouldn’t mess with faeries, but she needed the pelt. It seemed like a good call at the moment, until a beastlike faerie man shows up at her door demanding she return with him to the faerie world to serve out her penance. And her penance involves being romanced by a whole court of hot immortal magical creatures. Maybe we should all do bad things more often?
13. Verity
Collen Hoover’s Verity is the story of Lowen Ashleigh, a down and out writer who gets a shot at saving her career when she’s hired by the husband of a rich author to help his ailing wife finish her book. It sounds like a dream gig! Until one day Lowen stumbles across an unpublished autobiography from the author that paints a disturbing picture of the lady’s former life. She has to uncover her employer’s skeletons in the closet, all the while trying to resist playing seven minutes in heaven with the author’s hot husband.
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