Just in time for the month of love, Goodreads has assembled a list of 100 of the most popular romance books according to their millions of members. They focused on books from the last three years—so ones that were published 2022-2024—that have been placed on Goodreads members’ shelves the most and that have a 4-star or higher rating.
They also made a couple of interesting observations, including how the genre has gained a few “mega-authors” courtesy of TikTok and how a good chunk of the authors on the list self-published before getting big publishing deals. One thing we noticed ourselves, which is not unusual for Goodreads lists, is that the books are really lacking in diversity. There are only a few nonwhite authors and a couple of queer books in the whole list.
Still, if you are curious about which romances Goodreads members have been shelving the most, below is a small sampling of the list:
Fourth Wing (The Empyrean, #1) by Rebecca Yarros
King of Sloth (Kings of Sin, #4) by Ana Huang
A Love Song for Ricki Wilde by Tia Williams
Delilah Green Doesn’t Care (Bright Falls, #1) by Ashley Herring Blake
Flawless (Chestnut Springs, #1) by Elsie Silver
The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches by Sangu Mandanna
Before I Let Go (Skyland, #1) by Kennedy Ryan
The full list includes everything from the ever-popular romantasy to Westerns, sports romance, rom-coms, and more. To see it in its entirety, visit Goodreads.
Find more news and stories of interest from the book world in Breaking in Books.