Book a Date With a Romantic Novel

by MK French

Love is in the air and there are plenty of romantic stories coming out this month. Whether you are looking for a rom-com, a paranormal romance, or a romantic fantasy you'll want to book a date with one (or more) of these novels.

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Get Lost With You by Sophie Sullivan

February 2025; Griffin; 978-1250875853
audio, ebook, print (304 pages); rom-com

Jillian Keller is back in her hometown of Smile, raising her little girl and helping her brother run Get Lost Lodge. Levi Bright returns from the big city intending to reconnect and bring his culinary skills to his hometown. The two meet, and their teenage attraction returns. Jilly loves structure and has been burned before, so she's cautious and would rather remain friends. When Levi is hired as the new chef at the lodge, proximity leads to emotions blooming quickly. Is Jilly's past going to repeat itself?

Jilly and Levi had crushes on each other years ago, but Levi was best friends with her older brothers and felt it would betray the bro code to date her, especially when he planned to leave for culinary school. He was ready for a change after high-end restaurant work when his father had surgery and his mother requested that he return home. Jilly had already returned after her divorce, and her ex had no interaction with her or their daughter for years. The two meet by chance and the sparks are still there from years ago. Their families are still friendly and the small town practically pushes the two together. Jilly and Levi's father feel he might leave again, and her ex suddenly decides to call again, bringing back all the old feelings of inadequacy.

This is sort of like a second-chance romance, though they never really got a first chance. Levi and his father don't get along, and he warns Levi away from Jilly, certain he'll leave and break her heart. In fact, his father deliberately asks anyone else but Levi for help, deepening the wedge. Levi recognizes that he needs to repair that relationship as well as prove to Jilly he doesn't plan to go anywhere, which is more mature than many romantic heroes. The romance here is indicative of small towns and their needs, and the only stakes here are their feelings. We see Levi and Jilly as well as other couples in town, who provide a nice contrast to the push and pull between them. This was a nice, easy read to cozy up with.

Buy Get Lost With You at Amazon

Never Planned On You by Lindsay Hameroff

February 2025; Griffin; 978-1250902948
audio, ebook, print (304 pages); rom-com

Ali Rubin is spontaneous, even getting a matching tattoo with a stranger during a trip to London. Graham suddenly appears in her favorite Baltimore cafe, and the two catch up. Ali wants to prove she's not a flake in her new job as a wedding planner and Graham is present to help his family's hotel with a flashy wedding to drum up business. Though the two have chemistry, Graham is engaged in a marriage of convenience. They have to stay apart, or it might ruin everything.

If Ali's best friend Lexi sounds familiar, it's because she had her own romance in Til Thee Was You. Now it's Ali's turn! Ali from the start is tempestuous, with many first dates and impulsive actions in her teens and early twenties. She's determined to settle down and move out of her parents' home once she is taken on as a full-time wedding planner when she runs into Graham again. Now she feels sparks for the first time, so it's an even bigger letdown for her to know he's in a relationship of sorts. The two still feel sparks, and revealing that they are in a marriage of convenience means that they start having a relationship of sorts: dates, time with Ali's family, jobs at the hotel, and planning the wedding.  They hide the truth from people and refuse to think about it as cheating. Because there's so much riding on the wedding happening, we get the inevitable breakup to get it done.

I don't normally enjoy stories with cheating in it. I think this is an exception because Graham and his fiancée have no romantic chemistry together and it was a move to give her a visa to stay for her job and a splashy event for his grandmother’s hotel. There's never a moment where the two are interested as anything more than friends,  though lying about the dates is still pretty scummy. Ali is ultimately the kind of person who does the right thing, even if it hurts and she disappoints others. We see the changes in her and family members so that she doesn't have to live up to impossible standards, and neither does anyone else. I liked the happily ever after, and how aware everyone was of the romcom formula, but still rolled with it. It was a fun book for the genre.

Buy Never Planned on You at Amazon

Wooing the Witch Queen by Stephanie Burgis

February 2025; Bramble; 978-1250359599
audio, ebook, print (304 pages); romantic fantasy

Queen Saskia is the wicked sorceress who took the throne from her evil uncle, determined to protect her people by experimenting with spells. She has no time to organize her library of spells, so she hires the dark wizard Fabian. He seems nerdy and writes her poetry, and is actually an Imperial archduke in disguise. He has no magical training and is on the run himself. When his identity is finally revealed, will their love save or doom each other?

Saskia was hunted by her own uncle, who had her parents killed, and was incredibly racist against magical species like orcs and trolls. Saskia wrested control back, but the eighteen years of neglect has left her castle library a wreck, and there are many magical scrolls and tomes. She put out a want ad of sorts and assumed Felix was an evil magician answering the ad. Prior ones had been destructive in their displays of power and condescending as all get out, so she undercuts a possible explosion by hiring him on the spot. He feels bad about the deception but wants to hide from his father-in-law who had been his regent and tormentor for years. Felix and Saskia dance around each other and their insecurities and get to know each other. At the same time, there are very real threats from the Empire and the kingdom that Felix left behind.

This is a classic mistaken identity romance, and I enjoyed seeing Saskia and Felix find a home where they are loved and appreciated for who they are. Of course, there are friends who suspect Felix; Saskia has an alliance and friendship of sorts with two other magical queens, and one clearly suspects Felix from the start. It all comes to a head in the final quarter of the book, when the threat of war looms and so does the truth. We not only get a happily ever after, but we also see glimpses of another novel in this series. It's bound to be fun, like all of Stephanie Burgess' romances, and I really look forward to it.

Buy Wooing the Witch Queen at Amazon

A Circle of Uncommon Witches by Paige Crutcher

February 2025; Griffin; 978-1250905543
audio, ebook, print (320 pages); paranormal romance

Three hundred years ago, Ambrose MacDonald fell in love with a MacKinnon. Her family separated them, so he cursed the family and future generations to never find love. Ambrose was cursed in turn, trapped in a tempest, and doomed to outlive everyone he has ever loved. Today, Doreen MacKinnon is the most powerful witch and decides to set Ambrose free. She hopes they can break the curse, but Ambrose only agrees to help because he wants vengeance. Sparks flare between them and Doreen must decide how far she is willing to go to break the curse.

MacKinnon women were cursed to live to thirty years old unless they marry, the man enthralled to her will with little autonomy; once he regains it, he leaves. If MacKinnon doesn't want to risk that, she dies. In return, Ambrose was cursed to stay within a lightning storm spell, aware of his surroundings and intermittently tortured by some generations of MacKinnon witches. Over time, Ambrose became something of a fairy tale for those witches not of the main MacKinnon line, and Doreen hoped freeing Ambrose would make him feel obligated to help her. She is 29 and wants to marry for love, not to enthrall a man just to survive longer. Still heartbroken after his love was taken away, Ambrose doesn't believe in love as a healing force, only one of devastation and pain. We know how this is going to end up, and the trials that Doreen must endure with Ambrose to break the curse give them proximity and a mutual goal.

There are three trials, and along the way, we find out that they aren't what we thought they were. The curse that Ambrose placed also isn't what we thought it was, and even the past isn't what he remembered it. Things changed a lot as the novel progressed until we found out about the history of the families involved and Ambrose himself. The novel became a story about grief and family legacy more than lost love and moving forward, though Doreen still has that as her goal. The infatuation she and Ambrose developed for each other felt a little rushed to me, though we find out it took much longer than we thought for it all to come together. By the time we reach the end, we see the world of magic for what it is, and how using it for selfish reasons can cause so much pain and generations of harm. We have strong witches able to move on and develop a future, which I enjoyed seeing. 

Buy A Circle of Uncommon Witches at Amazon

Swordheart by T. Kingfisher

February 2025; Bramble; 978-1250400222
audio, ebook, print (448 pages); romantic fantasy

Halla unexpectedly inherited the estate of the wealthy uncle she's been caring for for the past decade. Unfortunately, money-hungry relatives want the inheritance. As he hides from them, she unsheaths an ancient sword. A man named Sarkis appears, explaining he is an immortal warrior who had been trapped inside it and sworn to protect whoever wields the sword. Sarkis doesn't have to fend off armies, only bandits and relatives, and ignore the threat of the sword itself.

Originally published in September 2024, there is now a special edition! As a childless widow, Halla's inlaws mostly ignored her until the inheritance. They were willing to lock her into her bedroom as a means to coerce her into marrying a cousin to keep the inheritance within the family, but Sarkis appeared and helped get her out of the house. The pair wind up having a hilarious adventure on the road to the city to find a lawyer, who is a priest of the God of the Rat, and the trio makes their way back for the inheritance. Along the way are priests of another god that harasses travelers, paladins of yet another god eager to fight demons, and a stretch of land that wanders about to catch travelers just because it can. Of course, the road isn't a smooth one for Halla, but she and Sarkis complement each other well and we get to watch them fall in love.

This is a great example of T. Kingfisher's writings and is the first of a trilogy of haunted swords. Sarkis' two captains had also been turned into swords, and I would love to see what happens to them, as well.

Buy Swordheart at Amazon

Two Friends in Marriage by Jackie Lau

February 2025; Indie; ebook (231 pages); rom-com

During the pandemic, Evan Mok and his friend Jane Yin promised to get married if they were both single on her thirty-third birthday. Fast forward three years, and Evan doesn't think he'll find love. Both he and Jane want to have a home and family and plan a marriage of convenience without a physical relationship. The problem with this plan is that there's some attraction between them after all, and Evan doesn't want to admit the truth and destroy his friendship.

We all remember the desperate uncertainty that came with the beginning of the pandemic. Evan was ill with COVID, had crushing depression and loneliness, and Jane isn't close to her family. To both of them at the time, it made sense to pool finances and use marriage as a way to make it legally binding and a signal of a serious commitment. Once it's done, however, living together becomes a whole different situation. Now there are the logistics of living with someone, and Jane is dealing with a family essentially for the first time. Jane has no role models for a healthy family life, and Evan doesn't want to push her too much.

We see how they both cope with gradually falling in love after they married and try to gather the courage to admit it. Like many of the characters in the novel, I feel terrible about how distant Jane's father is, and how little he considers her feelings. She builds connections with neighbors, her friends, her inlaws, and even her sense of self, though she doesn't think of it that way. Evan is supportive, and based on their earlier friendship knows how best to do this. The two get their happily ever after, both the relationship they dreamed of as evil as romantic love.

Buy Two Friends in Marriage at Amazon

Born and raised in New York City, M.K. French started writing stories when very young, dreaming of different worlds and places to visit. She always had an interest in folklore, fairy tales, and the macabre, which has definitely influenced her work. She currently lives in the Midwest with her husband, three young children, and a golden retriever.

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