6 Best Romance Books of the Last 10 Years, Ranked

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Hudson Williams and Connor Storrie in Heated Rivalry

Published Jun 16, 2026, 8:56 PM EDT

Jennie Richardson is a TV Features and Lists Writer for Collider, and a graduate student pursuing an MFA in Fiction Writing. In other words, she really loves stories.

There's nothing like a great romance book. These books will captivate their readers with compelling characters, electric chemistry between their leads, and a beautiful story to enjoy and root for. There are so many phenomenal and iconic books in the romance genre, from David Nicholls' devastating One Day to Sophie Kinsella's swoonworthy I've Got Your Number. Whether they be tragic romances or adorable romantic comedies, romance books are perfect for pulling readers into the story.

While there are many iconic romance books spanning back hundreds of years, there are also many fantastic ones from recent years. Ranging from emotional tearjerkers to romantic comedies that will have their readers laughing and squealing out loud from the beginning to the very end, these are the six best romance books from the last decade, ranked.

6 'Boyfriend Material' (2020)

Written by Alexis Hall

The cover of Boyfriend Material by Alexis Hall

Boyfriend Material by Alexis Hall follows Luc O'Donnell, a cynical and self-sabotaging 28-year-old who's the son of two rock stars. Luc's once-famous father abandoned him when he was little, so they've never had a relationship, but the tangential fame has continued to disturb Luc's life in a number of difficult ways. Now reeling from a bad breakup with an ex-boyfriend who sold him out to the tabloids, Luc is just trying to stay distracted while keeping out of the headlines, as his father publicly redeems his own image. When Luc gets in trouble for his extracurricular activities, the charity where he works tells him that he's not the "right" type of gay man and pushes him to get a boyfriend and switch up his image.

This leads Luc to start up a fake relationship with Oliver Blackwood, a barrister and the friend of a friend. In Luc's eyes, Oliver is everything that he can't stand: stuck-up, judgmental, and embarrassed at the thought of the two of them dating. Luc and Oliver both need to put up the appearance of having a boyfriend, though, and they are both too particular to actually find one that will stick. As the two get to know each other out of necessity, they wind up surprising each other, and they form a deeper connection. Boyfriend Material is an amazing rom-com; it's deeply funny, and Luc and Oliver have excellent chemistry and delightful banter.

5 'Get a Life, Chloe Brown' (2019)

Written by Talia Hibbert

The book cover for Get a Life, Chloe Brown by Talia Hibbert.

Get a Life, Chloe Brown by Talia Hibbert is about Chloe Brown, a woman whose life has become limited and routine due to chronic illness. The worse her symptoms get, the more Chloe has found herself missing out on things and losing relationships with the people in her life. A sudden scare leads Chloe to reevaluate her existence, so she makes a list of everything she wants to check off in order to "Get a life." At the top of the list is moving into her own apartment, where she meets the building's superintendent (and her new neighbor), Red.

Chloe and Red are complete opposites, which is why she believes that he is the perfect person to help her change up her life. Chloe soon enlists Red to help her with her list, and the two get to know each other better through the process. Get a Life, Chloe Brown is as hilarious as it is emotional. The development of Chloe and Red's friendship and eventual romance is an absolute delight to read, and Chloe's journey of rebuilding her life while struggling with chronic illness is moving and nuanced.

Collider Exclusive · TV Medicine Quiz Which Fictional Hospital Would You Work Best In? The Pitt · ER · Grey's Anatomy · House · Scrubs

Five hospitals. Five completely different ways medicine goes sideways on television — brutal, chaotic, romantic, brilliant, and ridiculous. Only one of them is the ward your instincts were built for. Eight questions will figure out exactly where you belong.

🚨The Pitt

🏥ER

💉Grey's

🔬House

🩺Scrubs

FIND YOUR HOSPITAL →

A critical patient comes through the door. What's your first instinct? Medicine under pressure reveals who you actually are.

AStay completely present — block everything else out and work through it step by step, right now. BTriage fast and delegate — get the right people on the right problems immediately. CTrust my gut and move — I work best when I stop overthinking and just act. DAsk the question everyone else is ignoring — what's the thing that doesn't fit? ETake a breath, make a joke to cut the tension, and then get to work — panic helps no one.

NEXT QUESTION →

Why did you go into medicine in the first place? The honest answer says more about you than the one you'd give in an interview.

ABecause I wanted to be where it matters most — right at the edge, when someone's life is actually on the line. BBecause I wanted to help people — genuinely, one patient at a time, in a system that makes it hard. CBecause I was drawn to the intensity of it — the stakes, the drama, the feeling of being fully alive. DBecause medicine is the most interesting puzzle there is — and I needed a problem worth solving. EBecause I wanted to make a difference — and also, honestly, I didn't know what else to do with my life.

NEXT QUESTION →

What do you actually want from the people you work with? Who you want beside you under pressure is who you are.

ACompetence and calm — I need people who don't fall apart when things get bad. BTrust and reliability — I want to know that when I pass something off, it's handled. CConnection — I want colleagues who become family, even if that gets complicated. DIntelligence and the willingness to be challenged — I have no interest in people who just agree with me. EFriendship — people I actually like spending twelve hours a day with, because those hours are going to happen either way.

NEXT QUESTION →

You lose a patient you fought hard to save. How do you carry it? Every doctor who's worked a long shift has had to answer this question.

AI carry it. All of it. I don't look for ways to put it down — that weight is part of doing this work honestly. BI process it and move — you have to, or the next patient suffers for the one you just lost. CI feel it deeply and lean on the people around me — I don't think you're supposed to handle that alone. DI go back over every decision — not to punish myself, but because I need to understand what I missed. EI grieve it genuinely, find some way to laugh about something unrelated, and try to be kind to myself — imperfectly.

NEXT QUESTION →

How would your colleagues describe the way you work? Your reputation on the floor is usually more accurate than your self-image.

AIntense and completely present — no small talk during a shift, but exactly who you want there. BSteady and dependable — not the flashiest in the room but never the one who drops something. CPassionate and occasionally chaotic — brilliant on the hard cases, prone to drama everywhere else. DBrilliant and difficult — right more often than anyone else, and everyone knows it, including me. EWarm and self-deprecating — not the most intimidating presence, but genuinely good at this and easy to like.

NEXT QUESTION →

How do you feel about hospital protocol and procedure? Every institution has rules. What you do with them is a choice.

AProtocol is the floor, not the ceiling — I follow it until the patient needs something it can't provide. BI respect it — the system is broken in places, but the structure is there for a reason and I work within it. CI follow it until my instincts tell me not to — and my instincts are usually right, even when they cause problems. DRules are for people who haven't thought hard enough about when to break them. EI try to follow it and mostly do — with a few memorable exceptions that still come up in meetings.

NEXT QUESTION →

What does this job cost you personally? Nobody works in medicine without paying a price. What's yours?

AEverything outside these walls — I've given this job my full attention and the rest of my life has gone around it. BMy idealism, mostly — I came in believing the system could be fixed and I've made a complicated peace with that. CStability — my personal life has been as chaotic as the OR, and that's not entirely a coincidence. DMy relationships — I am not easy to know, and the people who've tried to would probably agree. EMy sense of gravity — I use humour as a coping mechanism, which not everyone appreciates in a hospital.

NEXT QUESTION →

At the end of a long shift, what keeps you coming back? The answer to this question is the most honest thing about you.

AThe fact that it's real — that nothing else I could be doing would matter this much, right now, today. BThe patients — individual human beings who needed something and got it because I was there. CThe people I work with — I have walked through impossible things with these people and I'd do it again. DThe next unsolved case — there's always another puzzle, and I'm not done yet. EBecause despite everything — the exhaustion, the loss, the absurdity — I actually love this job.

REVEAL MY HOSPITAL →

Your Assignment Has Been Made You Belong In…

Your answers have pointed to one fictional hospital above all others. This is the ward your instincts, your temperament, and your particular brand of dysfunction were built for.

The Pitt

You are built for the most unsparing version of emergency medicine television has ever shown — one that puts you inside a single fifteen-hour shift and doesn't let you look away.

You need your work to be real, not romanticised — meaning over drama, honesty over aesthetics.
You find purpose inside the work itself, not in the chaos surrounding it.
You've made peace with the fact that this job takes from you constantly, and gives back in ways that are harder to name.
Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center demands exactly that kind of person — and you would not want to be anywhere else.

You are the person who keeps the whole floor running — not the most brilliant in the room, but possibly the most essential.

You show up, do the work, absorb the losses, and come back the next day without needing the job to be anything other than what it is.
You care about patients as individual human beings, not as cases to solve or dramas to live through.
You believe in the system even when it fails you — and you understand that emergency medicine is about holding the line just long enough.
ER is television about endurance. You have it.

Grey's Anatomy

You came to medicine with your whole self — your ambition, your emotions, your relationships, your history — and you have never quite managed to leave any of it at the door.

You feel things fully and form deep attachments to the people you work with.
Your personal and professional lives are permanently, chaotically entangled — and that entanglement drives both your greatest disasters and your most remarkable saves.
You understand that extraordinary medicine often happens at the intersection of clinical skill and profound human connection.
It's messy at Grey Sloan. You would not have it any other way.

House

You are drawn to the problem above everything else — the symptom that doesn't fit, the diagnosis hiding underneath the obvious one.

You're not primarily motivated by the patient as a person — though you are capable of caring, even if you'd deny it.
You work best when the stakes are highest and the standard answer is wrong.
Princeton-Plainsboro exists to house one extraordinary, impossible mind — and everyone around that mind is there because they're smart enough to keep up.
The only way forward here is to think harder than everyone else in the room. That is exactly what you do.

Scrubs

You understand that medicine is tragic and absurd in almost equal measure — and that the only sane response is to hold both of those things at the same time.

You are warm, self-aware, and funnier than most people in your field.
You use humour to get through terrible moments — and at Sacred Heart, that's not a flaw, it's a survival strategy.
You lean on the people around you and let them lean back. The laughter and the grief are genuinely inseparable here.
Scrubs is a show about learning to become someone worthy of the job. You are still very much in the middle of that process — which is exactly right.

↻ RETAKE THE QUIZ

4 'Heated Rivalry' (2019)

Written by Rachel Reid

The cover for Heated Rivalry by Rachel Reid over a blue background

Before it was a hit TV show, Heated Rivalry was a fantastic romance novel, and the first of three of Rachel Reid's Game Changers books that are dedicated to the romance of Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov. Starting with a flash-forward to their secret fling, then moving back in time, Heated Rivalry shows the two rival NHL players meeting for the first time at the very start of their careers. From there, Shane and Ilya continue to cross paths, and they realize that there is an undeniable spark between them.

Heated Rivalry is an amazing romance novel that balances a beautiful love story with heavy real-life stakes. Shane and Ilya initially ignore and deny their feelings for each other, opting to just have a physical relationship and nothing more. By doing so, though, they are risking everything. At this point in time, there are no openly gay NHL players, and getting outed could ruin both of their careers. Additionally, Shane and Ilya are very public rivals, so their romance is also forbidden in that regard as well.

3 'This Is How You Lose the Time War' (2019)

Written by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone

this is how you lose the time war book cover max gladstone

This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone is a science fiction romance novella that takes place in a post-apocalyptic future. Two feuding organizations have sent their agents to travel through different threads of time to manipulate the future to meet their specific goals. Rival agents Blue and Red continuously cross paths while on their assigned missions, although they never actually meet each other.

One day, Blue leaves a letter for Red, and the two begin a correspondence that changes both of their lives forever. Of course, Blue has her duties, and Red has her own. They are doomed to forever be on opposing sides, and eventually, they won't be able to keep up their game of writing each other letters that self-destruct upon reading. This doesn't keep the two from falling for each other through their words, though. Told largely through Red and Blue's letters, This Is How You Lose the Time War is a beautiful and emotional romance book that takes readers on a powerful and nail-biting journey.

2 'Beach Read' (2020)

Written by Emily Henry

A paperback of Beach Read by Emily Henry

The first of Emily Henry's iconic rom-coms, Beach Read follows a romance novelist named January Andrews. In the wake of her father's death, January has to spend the summer at his Michigan lake house to get it ready to be sold. Unfortunately for January, her neighbor for the summer just so happens to be Augustus "Gus" Everett, a former college classmate of hers that she absolutely couldn't stand back then. While January is a successful author of romances with happy endings, Gus is a successful writer known for dark and cynical literary fiction. Both January and Gus are struggling to come up with ideas for their next books despite pressure from their agents.

Both in need of something that will strike up inspiration, January and Gus make a bet to each write a novel in the other's genre. They spend the summer properly getting to know each other for the first time, through going out to research their books together and trying to beat each other at the bet. Beach Read is fun and entertaining, but best of all, it has a phenomenal romance at its center. January and Gus have excellent chemistry, and their banter-filled arguments are as enjoyable to read as their deeper and more emotional conversations. Beach Read is the perfect summer read, but its compelling premise, lovely main romance, and books-within-a-book plot make it the sort of novel that can easily be read year-round as well.

1 'Red, White, & Royal Blue' (2019)

Written by Casey McQuiston

A paperback of Red White and Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston

There have been so many phenomenal romance books released this last decade, but Casey McQuiston's Red, White, & Royal Blue stands out as something special. The novel follows Alex Claremont-Diaz, the son of the President of the United States, Ellen Claremont. Ellen is preparing to campaign for reelection, and as the first female president of the US, there's a lot of pressure on her. She can't slip up for even a moment, and her family can't, either. Unfortunately, Alex messes up at a wedding hosted by the British royal family due to his long-running rivalry with Prince Henry. Both now in hot water for causing a scene, Alex and Henry have to very publicly fake a close friendship in order to get out of it.

While getting to know each other over the course of the next few months as fake best friends, Alex and Henry learn that their misconceptions about each other were wrong. They start to become very close, and they realize that they have feelings for each other. With all eyes on each of them and neither allowed to stir controversy, though, Alex and Henry can't be together. Thus, they have to struggle to navigate their very private feelings with their very public friendship. Red, White, & Royal Blue has it all: forbidden romance, fake closeness that becomes real, and an initial dislike that turns into real love. Alex and Henry's story is deeply emotional, funny, and sweet, and it is the perfect read for those who love a great romance. The novel has since been adapted into a hit film with a sequel on the way, but even those who have already watched the adaptation will fall in love with and be surprised by the book.