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Happy 2025, friends! This year I decided to do something different. Instead of sharing my top ten books of 2024 (too stressful! I don’t like it at all!) I am choosing to share my 5 star reads in every genre last year.
We are starting off with romance. YESSS! Now let me say that a couple of these books steer towards women’s fiction, but I chose to put them in the romance category. My general fiction list is REALLY long, so I had to move a few over.
As always, you can find ALL of my book reviews (from 1 to five stars, and DNFs) on Goodreads.
You can also follow me on Tiktok at @bookpushersteph and on Instagram at @stephaniehowell . Happy reading! xoxo
Mrs. Nash’s Ashes by Sarah Adler
Tropes: Road Trip, Only one Bed, Forced Proximity
My Review: I freaking ADORED this book. Grump/Sunshine is my most favorite trope- I married a grump! The banter, the wit, the awkwardness, the STEAM, the dual timeline love stories – chefs kiss. Sunshine in book form.
The Art of Scandal by Regina Black
Tropes: Age Gap, Forbidden Romance
My Review: This book is EVERYTHING and it has everything too.Main characters you’re guaranteed to fall in love with and root for, sizzling chemistry (swoon), amazing banter, and a heroine who finds herself and her worth separate from her identity as a wife and mother.Plus I learned so much about art as I googled my way through each page. Five shiny stars!
Last Call at the Local by Sarah Grunder Ruiz
Tropes: Opposites Attract, Neurodivergent Representation
My Review: Oh my heart I adored EVERYTHING about this precious book. Just perfect.
The Love of My Afterlife by Kristy Greenwood
Tropes: Enemies to Lovers, One Bed, Fake Relationship
My Review: Quirky and deep and sad at times, this premise seems like it wouldn’t work but it does. So so perfectly. Unlike any romance I’ve ever read!
The Most Wonderful Crime of the Year by Ally Carter
Tropes: Locked Room Murder Mystery, Enemies to Lovers
My Review: This book is absolute PERFECTION. I devoured it in a handful of hours. It has everythingggg. Wit, banter, chemistry, humor, an amazing cast of characters…and the most perfect Agatha Christie-esque mystery. Can I read it again immediately please ? OBSESSED.
A Little Magic by Lindsey Lanza
Tropes: 2nd Chance/First Love, Brother’s Best Friend, One Bed
My Review:Oh my gosh this book was so sweet and steamy and endearing and I just adored it!!!
One Summer in Savannah by Terah Shelton Harris
Tropes: Forgiveness
My Review: Forgiveness, I have learned, is like a door. You can open yourself up to it or close yourself off from it at any time. We can’t rewrite history, or change the outcome. Life is a series of choices. And we live in and with those choices we make.
What a moving, beautiful, complicated and compelling novel this is. Sooooo much nuance. It made me think and cry and cringe at times. But black and white just doesn’t work in this space. You have to embrace, dissect, and acknowledge the gray.
Summer Romance by Annabel Monaghan
Tropes: Forced Proximity, Over 30 Romance, Closed Door
My Review: It’s going to be hard to put my love for this book into words. Annabel Monaghan writes the most endearing and special adult love stories. The world would have you believe that romance and excitement ends at 30 and that irks me to my core. I’m so incredibly grateful for Annabel’s books.As a mom to girls this one was especially poignant. The mother daughter relationships (Greer+Ali / Ali + Fancy) are so beautifully written…I found myself in tears more than once.Just read it okay? It’s perfect. P.S. Don’t skip the author’s note. It’s sublime and incredibly moving.
Pictures of You by Emma Grey
Tropes: Friends to Lovers
My Review:Put this phenomenal, transcendent, magical, special book at the very top of your TBR. Emma Grey has done it again. Do yourself a favor and go into this blind. Evie wakes up in the hospital after a devastating car crash that has killed her husband. The problem is, she doesn’t even remember that she has a husband. She thinks she is still 16. Thus begins a novel that is nothing I expected to be, yet everything I needed. It’s a roller coaster of longing, loss, emotion, and above all love.
And I adored every moment of it. Evie and Oliver and Harriet and Drew will never leave my mind or my heart. Please read this, I promise you’ll love it.
Better Than the Movies (BOOK ONE)/ Nothing Like the Movies(BOOK TWO) by Lynn Painter
Tropes: Book One: Enemies to Lovers, Fake Dating Book Two: Second Chance
My Review:I usually do NOT like YA romances for a variety of reasons, but I flew through this set in a matter of days and immediately shoved BTTM into the hands of my 14 year old. She read it in two days. Love everything about these sweet books.
Thank you for this list!! Saving for future reads