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18 Romance Books To Read In February

We’ve compiled a list of well-written books about romance to indulge in this Valentine’s Day (or anytime of the year for that matter). Some of these are fun, and some are serious! (Just like relationships, right?)

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Attached: The New Science Of Adult Attachment And How It Can Help You Find--And Keep-- Love

AMIR LEVINE AND RACHEL S. F. HELLER

Attached would be a great selection for those who want to better understand their own romantic attachment patterns and relationship history. It is uncanny how these doctors translate universal relationship psychology into very compelling, enlightening, and relatable content. It provides an illuminating breakdown of the psychological complexities behind your attachment style and issues, and inspires you to reflect on past relationships more clearly and alter your perspective on future romantic connections. 

Attached is a theory on romantic connections that breaks the dating pool into three attachment styles: Avoidant, Secure, and Anxious. You will start going through each of your exes and figuring out which style they were and how your two styles either collided or meshed. It provides an incredible insight into adult attachment, and it is the kind of book you will be recommending to all your friends after reading!

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All About Love: New Visions

BELL HOOKS

Written in 2000 by social activist, scholar, and feminist writer, bell hooks, All about Love: New Visions is a must-read contemplation on what the concept of love has come to mean in modern society. Her theory is an insistence that love needs to be remade into a verb, not a noun, in today’s culture.

All about Love is both a deeply personal reflection on hooks’ past failed relationships and modern society’s treatment of romance, and also a profound call to action from her readers. She contends for a shift in perspective of love and self-love, to move it from self-gratification and dispassionate division, to something more sacred, compassionate, and forgiving. Hooks crafts a radical vision for a new pathway to love, which would bring peace and compassion on a cultural level.

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The Five Love Languages

GARY CHAPMAN

A New York Times Bestseller for ten years, The Five Love Languages is a staple amongst books about love. Chapman’s concept of love and affection has taken a very popular place in modern understanding of romantic love and relationships. Nearly everyone knows their top love languages already, but this quick and insightful book delves a little deeper into the reasoning behind the five love languages: Acts of Service, Physical Touch, Words of Affirmation, Quality Time, and Receiving Gifts. 

The Five Love Languages goes into how and why people receive love a certain way, and why love can be miscommunicated and misdirected. Knowing how you give and receive love best is crucial to maintaining a healthy relationship, and this book about love has been accredited for enhancing many relationships, even more than just the romantic kind.

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The Love Hypothesis

Ali Hazelwood

Science and love? We’re into it. A New York Times Bestseller and TikTok viral rom-com read, The Love Hypothesis follows Olive Smith, a third-year biology Ph.D student, that just doesn’t have time for relationships. But to prove to her best friend that she is happily in love and dating, she falsifies a relationship with Adam…a young, ultra-hot professor that is the complete opposite of Olive’s personality. Their “fake” intimacy escalates and complicates the academic and personal lives of both Olive and Adam.

This book is the epitome of a cheesy, romantic plot line — and we just can’t get enough. Definitely pick this read up if you want to lose yourself in an easy-to-digest, witty, steamy and feel-good read. Bonus points if you’re also in STEM and love all kinds of science references and innuendos.

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The History Of Love

Nicole Krauss

This sweeping drama is written with the elegant hand of Nicole Krauss, centered around two individuals who would appear to have absolutely nothing in common. Instead, they are brought fatefully together through an extraordinary bond of grief, loss, and unique ties to a woman no longer living. Gursky is an old man spending his last lonely days mourning the loss of his one true love, a son who never knew him, and a book he once wrote. On the other side of New York City, Alma, a teenage girl still reeling from the death of her father, finds a book that inspires her to keep on living and search for its author and the story behind the story. The brilliantly-told novel is one for the romantics, for writers, and for those who don’t want a sappy Nora Roberts-esque romance.

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The Obsession

Nora Roberts

Cue Nora Roberts–sappy, but we are here for it. No list of romance books for Valentine's Day is complete without listing one of Nora Rober’s novels; the New Yorker nicknamed her “America’s favorite novelist,” and she has published more than 200 works. The Obsession is a thriller and romance to get eyes rolling but nevertheless pages turning. Tormented by a harrowing childhood, Naomi is a photographer who changed her name and escaped to a quiet, nowhere town in a search of anonymity and peace. As fate would have it, there’s a hotshot mechanic in town whose mystery (and muscle) is just oh-too-appealing, and they get closer and closer, just as Naomi’s past (and stalker) tracks her down to haunt her one last time.

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It Ends with Us

Colleen Hoover

Another romance novel that blew up on TikTok and is being raved about all across social media platforms is It Ends With Us by Colleen Hoover. This book is a rather hard hitting read and deals with heavy subject matter. 

It Ends With Us is set in Boston and follows the relationship of Lily, a flower shop owner, and Ryle, a super attractive and charming neurosurgeon. Their relationship starts out great — the two have an undeniable chemistry and spark that Colleen Hoover writes about beautifully. Lily would do anything for Ryle — even when he does horrible things to her.

This book switches back and forth between the present of Lily and Ryle’s relationship and letters that Lily wrote in her past — recounting details of her parents and their abusive relationship and her first love, Atlas. 

It Ends With Us is a heart wrenching and emotional rollercoaster of a read that deals with both physical and emotional abuse, self-sacrifice and a thorough exploration into what love really is.

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Everything I Know About Love

Dolly Alderton

If you’re looking to read about love and gain some insight into another person’s romantic affairs, this book is for you. Dolly Alderton writes about her experiences with bad dates, wild nights out on the town, heartache and relatable stories about friendship in this beautifully written memoir. 

While covering deep and profound topics, Alderton still finds a way to make it lighthearted and humorous. This is a refreshing read about romance and the relationships, both good and bad, that we experience throughout the course of life.

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Pride & Prejudice

Jane Austen

Some of the best romance stories come from the classics, and Jane Austen knows how to write about love. To avoid giving anything away (and because you’ve probably already read this or seen the movie), we won’t go into too much detail. But here’s a brief overview: first published in 1813, Pride and Prejudice follows the relationship of Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy. Set in rural England, the novel incorporates love, high society and witty banter. 

While classics and historical romances aren’t for everybody, this book is a bestseller for a reason. We definitely recommend this if you’re in the mood for a clever historical romance

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Red, White & Royal Blue

Casey McQuiston

This LGBTQIA+ novel focuses on America’s first son, Alex Claremont-Diaz, and Prince Henry of England — two young men, very much in the spotlight…who can’t stand each other. 

They have to “play nice” and tolerate each other for publicity purposes because Alex’s mother is in the midst of her Democratic reelection campaign and Prince Henry is royalty, afterall. Alex and Henry learn to put up with each other, but not without an array of trials and tribulations. The relationship that stems from this publicity stunt ends up being…well, you’ll have to read the book to figure it out.

This steamy and smart contemporary romance novel deals with coming to terms with sexuality and how hard that can be as a young man constantly in the eye of the media. This book is extremely clever, funny and an overall easy read. 

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The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo

Taylor Jenkins Reid

Monique Grant, NYC-based journalist, gets a once in a lifetime opportunity to interview and write a tell-all biography about Evelyn Hugo–one of the world’s most famous, old Hollywood actresses–who’s finally ready to reveal all the details about her glamorous life full of fame, lust and scandal. 

The novel shifts between the present day with bits of Monique as the narrator, to Evelyn as the primary storyteller — recounting her early life, her rise to fame and detailed accounts of the relationships she shared with each of her seven husbands, one of which being Mick Riva: a character that also appears in a couple of Taylor Jenkins Reid’s other bestselling novels. 

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo is a heartbreaking and insightful story that deals with loss, betrayal, sexuality and the true cost of fame.

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A Walk to Remember

NICHOLAS SPARKS

Cue the waterworks. A well-known story, partly in thanks to its 2002 film adaptation, A Walk to Remember is a love story that doesn’t have a happy ending, but does promise a tragic and beautiful romance. Two teenagers with extremely different backgrounds and social circles find unexpected love - isn’t it always unexpected, Nicholas Sparks?- and have to face a tragedy that no young love should have to suffer.

This film adaptation with Mandy Moore and Shane West is another fun, tearful way to celebrate February after reading the novel!

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The Hating Game

SALLY THORNE

No despair or tragedy here, just a pure do-I-hate-you-or-love-you predicament between two colleagues who make each other’s lives a living hell during the work day, but can’t shake the feeling that there is more between them than rivalry. Lucy and Joshua are competing for the same promotion at their publishing house, and the tension building between them is not quite entirely professional. This fun and scathing romance story is one that will have you highly entertained throughout!

The film adaptation of The Hating Game starring Lucy Hale is yet another fun way to celebrate February after giving this novel a read!

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Wuthering Heights

EMILY BRONTE

Wuthering Heights is the original wallowing-in-misery-for-love novel that all the rest of modern romance novels attempt to live up to- but simply cannot. Being an incredible work of literature, Wuthering Heights is a beautiful and emotionally-ripping novel that drags readers through the depths of passion and despair, and you will relish every second of it.

Since its publishing in 1847, this novel has been cherished for generations for its lingual elegance, epic love story, and irreplaceable literary characters. It is a classic that, if you have not read it yet, you should definitely put it on your booklist!

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The Time Traveler’s Wife

Audrey Niffenegger

Love that can surpass the constraints of time? We love to hear it! There’s no time like Valentine’s Day to have a love that defies all odds. This tragic, dramatic romance tells the star-crossed story of an art student and librarian, whose love story is complicated by Henry’s involuntary time traveling episodes. His wife, Clare, has to endure Henry’s frequent, abrupt disappearances and absences, triggered by spikes in emotion, into both the past and the future. The book won several awards and much acclaim, and while a film series was released based off the book, it was not received well by audiences.

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Heartburn

Nora Ephron

Did you love the movies Sleepless in Seattle and When Harry Met Sally? Both screenplays were written by the esteemed Nora Ephron, who published this popular romance fiction in 1983. Heartburn is famously touted as the supreme revenge novel, because this semi-autobiographical novel is uniquely–and unfortunately for her–based on Ephron’s own real life affair and failed marriage to well-known journalist, Carl Bernstein. In Heartburn, a pregnant food writer is horrified to discover her husband’s infidelity. No revenge like airing your husband’s cheating scandal in a national bestseller, right?

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Alexa, What Is There To Know About Love?

Brian Bilston

This unassuming modern poetry collection is heralded as a witty and beautiful offering to the world of love poems. The Guardian quotes author Brian Bilston to be “a magician with words.” It’s a perfectly brief and clever assemblage of poems that covers all forms and discussions of love, and it also makes for a great Valentine’s gift!

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Our Souls at Night

Kent Haruf

You are most likely to recognize this title from the popular Netflix film rendition of Kent Haruf’s novel. Respected American novelist Haruf delivers his last work of literature in this powerful and moving story of two elderly neighbors who live alone and who haven’t yet given up on living a full life. While it is a short book, readers will be inspired by the charming, touching premise of two old souls who have found a renewed hope for living and loving through one other.