The Next Best Thing by Kristan Higgins (2010)

Check out the cover, with its head-cut-off couple, bare feet, mixing bowl and sunshine. Okay, now look past it. Although it seems like a light and charming mass-market contemporary romance, it's a bit more serious and a bit more strongly written than first appears.

Lucy, widowed at a very young age, and enjoying a friend-with-benefits with her brother-in-law, decides she needs to try to find love and marriage again. Who doesn't she consider? That brother-in-law. Meanwhile, the Greek chorus of her also-widowed mother and aunts (the Black Widows) provide running commentary.

This is a wonderfully thoughtful romance with complex characters dealing with issues of grief and forgiveness. The Black Widows add even more humor and charm to the story. Believeable, realistic and charming, this made me want to check out more Kristan Higgins.

Romancing the Duke by Tessa Dare (2014)

The first in the very delightful Castles Ever After series.

Utterly charming romance novel about the daughter of a famous author who inherits a castle, which just happens to have a reclusive, scarred Duke living in it. 

 Lovely romance with great characters, humor, and very slight and sly nods to contemporary life--blink and you will miss them. So very, very romantic and a little sexy. Yay!

Say Yes to the Marquess by Tessa Dare (2014)

Another absolutely adorable romance in the Castles Ever After series. 

This one is about Clio, who has been engaged to diplomat and world-wanderer Piers for eight years and has had enough. Once she inherits a castle, she decides to go it alone. But Piers brother, former prizefighter and yes, rake, is trying everything he can to keep them together. Even though the chemistry between them is amazing. 

It's very cute and funny and romantic. I love how Dare combines the tropes of historical romance with strong heroines, dishy romance and the smallest, subtlest nods to contemporary culture. Fun fun!

A School for Brides by Patrice Kindl (2015)

Young adult, Jane Austenesque sequel to the equally adorable Keeping the Castle, which was in its own way a nod to I Capture the Castle. 

Sometimes you just have to let a book speak for itself:

"Oh, she was pretty enough in the usual way, but she was not the heroine of a novel, fit for drama and a life of extraordinary jobs and griefs. No, she was one who would find contentment as the wife of a gentleman landowner and farmer, a magistrate and person of importance in a small country village. She was cut from a simple, strong cloth that would was and wear well, with modest trimmings for a holiday, she was not a fragile velvet or satin that must be kept for best."

"A happy marriage confers a great advantage upon all members of the union: the wife, the husband, and any children in their care. It is not essential for fulfillment in life; both sexes may live singly and be well satisfied with their lot. And not every marriage is happy; many married people must seek their contentment elsewhere. Yet where a sturdy bond does grow up between a wedded pair it becomes a source of strength and joy their whole lives through." 

 Great characters, lovely humor, adorable and sweet book. 

The Viscount Who Lived Down the Lane by Elizabeth Boyle (2014)

Lovely Regency novel about Louisa Tempest, a young woman who "comes face-to-face with the reclusive Viscount Wakefield. But even more dismaying than his foul temper is the disarray in which she finds his home. Convinced his demeanor would improve if his household were in order, Louise resolves to put everything to rights." (Thanks, Goodreads!)

What? Organizing AND romance? Yes, please! 

Don't forget the great characters, realistic relationships, and the very lovely romance. A new favorite author.

When a Scot Ties the Knot by Tessa Dare (2015)

Upon reading this book, I immediately decided that I LOVED Tessa Dare and must read all of her novels at once.

Third in the Castles Ever After series (all about women inheriting castles--how awesome is that?), this historical romance is about a shy woman who makes up a dashing imaginary Scottish soldier boyfriend and sends him letters (which gets her family off her back.) All goes well (and she inherits a castle) until the imaginary Scot shows up at her front door as real as it gets.

This novel has everything I love in a romance: rich, endearing characters, marvelous chemistry and romantic, uncontrived build-up. I love their joke about "remember when" when the thing is happening right now, and I love her calling him Captain MacGrumpy or whatever variation on his name she feels like. Trust me, it's far cuter than I'm making it sound. Just loooovely.

The CEO Buys in by Nancy Herkness (2015)

When I look at the title and cover of this book, I think: really? I liked this?  But I did.

This is a rather delicious romance novel about self-made, disillusioned billionaire Nathan Trainor, who makes a bet with two other billionaires that he can find a woman who loves him for him, not for his money. Enter temp Chloe Russell who is quickly promoted to his assistant after a flu outbreak, and when Trainor falls ill, finds herself spending time with him at his palatial penthouse.

I love a nice, substantial, competent heroine and Chloe Russell definitely fits the bill. Great character work all around and some lovely love scenes add up to a delightful romance novel.

Also, if you've ever watched the fabulously gorgeous Miss Fisher Mysteries and eyed Detective-Inspector Jack Robinson with interest, you'll love this book. The hero is a dead ringer for DI Robinson, just transferred to the present. Nothing wrong with that.

The Uninvited by Cat Winters (2015)

This historical novel is set during WWI and the influenza epidemic. Ivy recently recovered from a bout of the flu, and is finding the world has changed radically since she took to her bed. Not only is she dealing with the loss of family members, she still has her lifelong ability to see ghosts.

She struggles with the overzealous American Protection League and her feelings for a German living in her town while taking on the job of driving a Red Cross ambulance. And did I mention she see ghosts? So very lovely and romantic.

See also the romantic ghost stories of Simone St. James.

The Ghost Bride by Yangsze Choo (2013)

Oh my gosh, I LOVED this book. I have no idea where it came from, why I requested it but it's marvelous.

Li Lin lives in colonial Malaya with her opium-addicted father and her beloved Amah. All is satisfactory pretty much until she receives a marriage proposal from the son of an influential neighbor. However, the son is dead and the proposal is for Li Lin to be his ghost bride. When her intended haunts her in her dreams and she falls in love with the new (live) heir to the family, Li Lin embarks on a fantastical voyage among the dead. 

Choo creates a marvelously rich and detailed world of the dead, from paper funeral offerings and hell money, to the Plains of the Dead and the afterworld bureaucracy. Along the way, she meets Er Lang, a guardian spirit who is not at all what he appears to be. 

This novel is utterly original and impossible to label in a particular genre. It's historical fiction, and fantasy, and a bit of horror, and a bit of romance as well as being wonderfully suspenseful and beautifully written. Much of the mythology is based on Chinese folklore, and Choo's notes section outlines the original stories and her own creations. CRIPES, I loved this book.

Pride and Pleasure by Sylvia Day (2011)

I recently read about a huge advance that Sylvia Day got for a recent book and decided I'd better check out her work.  Day is one of the authors who got very popular after the Fifty Shades of Grey phenomenon and her books were published with covers suspiciously similar in appearance.  (By the way, you should really read Brigid *Flying Kick-a-pow!*'s GIF-laden GoodReads review of Fifty Shades.  It's stinking hilarious.)

Back to the book.  And I have to tell you:

OOH, Sylvia Day writes a good romance. Pride and Pleasure is a Regency-set romance with a great plot, about a heiress who's been through six seasons and has no desire to marry.  However, (there's always a however) she's in danger by someone, so she hires Jasper Bond, thief-taker, to pose as her suitor and track down whoever is trying to scare her. Fabulous simmering of chemistry and tension, strong, likable characters, and of course, great dishy love scenes. Quite well done!

[I don't love that cover, though.  It makes the characters look inert and vapid--neither of which they (or the plot) are.]

A Room With a View by E. M. Forster (1908)

How can you not love a book with a chapter titled "The Reverend Arthur Beebe, the Reverend Cuthbert Eager, Mr. Emerson, Miss Eleanor Lavish, Miss Charlotte Bartlett, and Miss Lucy Honeychurch Drive Out in Carriages to See a View; Italians Drive Them."  In this 1908 novel, a young British woman is transformed by Italy. Lovely and witty and romantic.  Sigh. Made into a perfectly marvelous Merchant-Ivory movie, which I completely credit with introducing me to opera.

Lynn Kurland - Adored Author

Lynn Kurland writes time-travel, paranormal and historical romances. Most are about the members of two large, sprawling families and characters from one novel make appearances in other novels.  I first discovered her work with Stardust of Yesterday, a funny and charming ghost story about a woman who inherits an English castle that comes complete with a ghost. A very engaging and sexy ghost. See also The More I See You, a time travel romance about a contemporary woman traveling back to 1260. And yes, meets a handsome, battled-hardened knight.  And This Is All I Ask, an excellent historical romance novel about a plain girl sent to the legendarily dangerous "Dragon of Blackmoor." Though a bit more somber than her paranormal books, this is a very romantic tale with incredibly well-drawn characters.

Truer Than True Romance by Jeanne Martinet (2001)

This author takes old romance comics, removes the dialogue from the balloons, writes new modern stories and fits the dialogue into the existing comic art. The result is utterly hilarious. Laugh out loud fun.