August is National Read a Romance Month (not that we need much of an excuse)!
Romance is the best-selling, most-borrowed, most-devoured genre in the country right now — and also the one people still apologize for reading, which we've never understood.
Independent presses are where romance gets to be strange, specific, and wholly itself — whether it's a sapphic retelling of Robin Hood, a rom-com narrated by a self-described spinster, or the revisiting of an old beloved classic, there's something for everyone; no apologies needed! Seventeen of them below, across six ways of falling, including a shelf of Spanish-language editions and the classics that started it all. Tap any section to jump in.
Modern Love & Meet-Cutes|Romantasy & Dark Fantasy|Sweeping Historicals|Queer Hearts|Romance en Español|Where It All Began
Modern Love & Meet-Cutes
The messy, funny, right-now business of falling for someone — from an Ibiza rom-com to the hockey rink.
The Romance Loop by Mary Shotwell (City Owl Press)
Romance writer Lacy Travers's career is flatter than the champagne at her own pity party — until a party invitation drops her straight into her own novels, cursed to live out every trope she ever wrote. Now she has to survive the clichés she used to mock, with her ex-boyfriend dragged along for the ride. A giddy, meta rom-com for anyone who has ever loved and side-eyed the genre in the same breath.
The London Man by Louise Bay (Podium Publishing)
Savannah Green has three months to turn her London lifestyle blog into a real career before small-town Indiana pulls her back home — until a viral post about saving a historic building drops the city's most powerful (and most infuriating) property developer straight into her path. A sizzling, slow-burn enemies-to-lovers romance from a USA Today bestseller, for readers of Emily Henry and Tessa Bailey.
Before Anyone Else by Leslie Hooton (Turner Publishing)
Leslie Hooton's Southern-set debut is a warm, wry love story about a woman with a carefully built life and the two men who threaten to upend it. Novelist Kevin Wilson calls it "a beautiful book," and Patti Callahan Henry "the romantic debut we've been waiting for." A charmer with a sharp streak.
Glow Job by Kristen Bailey (Storm Publishing)
Chloe is burnt out, overworked, and invisible to her boss — so she runs away to Ibiza, where a week of feral goats, beach raves, and wedding-crashing delivers a glow she never saw coming. Warm, laugh-out-loud, and fizzing with Kristen Bailey's signature humour, it's the escapist summer rom-com for fans of Emily Henry, Beth O'Leary, and Sophie Kinsella. Pack sunscreen and a sense of humour.
Hockey Boy by Brittanée Nicole (Podium Publishing)
Boston Bolts star Aiden hides real pain behind the golden-boy grin; Lennox is the girl who got away. When a fake engagement throws these former high-school sweethearts back onto the same ice, second chances get gloriously complicated. A warm, funny, found-family hockey romance — with a depression thread handled with genuine care — and the puck-drop of Nicole's beloved Boston Bolts series.
Romantasy & Dark Fantasy
Sea gods, fae courts, and forbidden magic — love stories where the stakes are life, death, and the fate of a kingdom.
The Girl Who Belonged to the Sea by Katherine Quinn (City Owl Press)
On the day her power-hungry father means to marry her off, Margrete is kidnapped instead — by Bash, the immortal king of a hidden island who needs her to reclaim a stolen relic. What neither of them expects is the secret binding her to the sea gods themselves. High-seas adventure, slow-burning forbidden romance, and the swoony opener of Quinn's Azantian Trilogy.
Reaper's Ruin by K.T. Martin (Vinci Books)
For eight centuries a merciless reaper has stalked the Shadowveil, harvesting fae souls without hesitation — until he's sent to destroy an anomaly and finds her instead: human, lost, and looking at him like he's salvation rather than death. To keep her from oblivion he'll break every Reaper law and defy the gods themselves. A brooding, slow-burn fae romantasy for the Fourth Wing crowd, and the opener of a new trilogy. Available to preorder.
Sweeping Historicals
Big feelings, bigger stakes, and love stories that sweep across whole eras.
Bright Captivity by Eugenia Price (Turner Publishing)
For decades Eugenia Price was America's queen of the sweeping historical saga, and this New York Times bestseller opens her beloved St. Simons Trilogy. Set on coastal Georgia in the early 1800s, it's a lush, old-fashioned love story of a kind they genuinely don't write anymore. Newly reissued.
The Liberators of Willow Run by Marianne K. Martin (Bywater Books)
It's 1943, and the war effort runs on the B-24 bomber — built, bolt by bolt, by the women of Willow Run. Against that backdrop Marianne K. Martin tells a tender love story between two women finding each other on the factory floor, in a period romance that doubles as a piece of hidden history.
Queer Hearts
From Sherwood Forest to a college campus — love that refuses the straight and narrow.
Nottingham: The True Story of Robyn Hood by Anna Burke (Bywater Books)
You know the legend; you don't know it like this. After a hunting accident sends her on the run, Robyn takes to Sherwood Forest and finds herself falling for exactly the wrong person as the Sheriff tightens the screws. A swashbuckling sapphic reimagining of Robin Hood with all the outlaw romance intact.
Beowulf for Cretins: A Love Story by Ann McMan (Bywater Books)
English professor and aspiring novelist Grace Warner has her quiet campus life upended by an impossible, inconvenient attraction — the kind that arrives with terrible timing and no regard for tenure. Winner of the 2019 Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Romance, it's a smart, funny, slow-burn charmer for anyone who's fallen for the wrong person at the right time.
Romance en Español
Some of the biggest names in romance, in the Spanish-language editions IndiePubs carries for bilingual readers.
Rey de la envidia (King of Envy) by Ana Huang (Planeta)
The Spanish-language edition of the fifth Kings of Sin novel from #1 New York Times bestseller Ana Huang, the BookTok phenomenon behind the Twisted series. A reclusive, scarred billionaire has quietly wanted one woman for years — and now she's engaged to his best friend, in a marriage neither of them is telling the truth about. Forbidden, obsessive, and deliciously steamy.
Una corte de rosas y espinas (A Court of Thorns and Roses) by Sarah J. Maas (Planeta)
The book that launched a thousand romantasy obsessions, in the Spanish-language edition IndiePubs carries. Huntress Feyre kills the wrong wolf in the woods and is dragged into the faerie court of a masked, immortal High Lord, where survival, hatred, and something far more dangerous start to blur. A Beauty and the Beast retelling with teeth — and the on-ramp to one of the genre's biggest series.
Todo lo que nunca fuimos (All That We Never Were) by Alice Kellen (Planeta)
One of the biggest names in Spanish-language romance, here in the movie tie-in edition. After a car accident takes her parents, nineteen-year-old Leah — an artist who no longer paints — is sent to live with Axel, her brother's older best friend and the boy she has quietly loved for years. A dual-voice, slow-burning story of grief, healing, and forbidden longing, and the opener of Kellen's beloved Deja que ocurra duology.
Donde habitan las sirenas (Where Mermaids Live) by María Martínez (Planeta)
One of Spain's most-read contemporary romance novelists, María Martínez writes the kind of emotional, twist-filled love stories that keep a devoted following up past midnight. Her latest, in Spanish, carries that signature blend of heartache and hope. A pick for the Spanish-reading romance fans on your list. New for 2026.
Where It All Began
Where the whole genre learned its moves, and still some of the finest love stories ever written.
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen (Mint Editions)
The one that set the template: Elizabeth Bennet, Mr. Darcy, and the most satisfying enemies-to-lovers arc in the English language. Two centuries on, every slow burn and every "she hated him first" still owes it a debt. If it's been since high school, Read a Romance Month is your excuse.
The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton (G&D Media)
Wharton's Pulitzer Prize winner is romance in a minor key: Newland Archer, engaged to the perfectly suitable May, quietly undone by the arrival of the unsuitable Countess Olenska. A gorgeous, aching study of the love you're not allowed to have — and the cost of doing the done thing.
However you like your love stories — slow burn or love at first sight, with dukes, detectives, or immortal sea kings — there's a version of it here, made by people who take the genre seriously enough to have real fun with it.
Read one, or read all seventeen. (We suggest the latter.)
Happy Read a Romance Month!