Here are 8 books that Never Too Late fans have personally recommended once you finish the Never Too Late series.
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I wholeheartedly believe that embracing your geeky side is an important part of life and self-discovery. When romance novels incorporate nerdiness, it gives characters (and therefore readers) the ability to understand themselves and what they want on another level, and to gain the courage to pursue what they want. I know that my own forays into TTRPGs, LARPing, Ren Faires, and other such interests have helped shape me as a person. I’m more confident and embodied because I embrace my inner geek, and I want that for my characters and my readers, too. That’s why I want to read and write as many of these stories as possible!
RPGs and romance novels are two of my greatest passions in life, and this book perfectly combines the two. It’s not often that a book feels so realistic and relatable and yet swoony and exciting at the same time, but this book nails the combination.
And bonus points for featuring more mature characters and for integrating the families so expertly. Both main characters are walking green flags, which is so refreshing!
From Cathy Yardley, author of Love, Comment, Subscribe, comes an emotional rom-com about two middle-aged gamers who grow their online connection into an IRL love story.
Maggie is an unapologetically grumpy forty-eight-year-old hermit. But when her college-aged son makes her a deal―he’ll be more social if she does the same―she can’t refuse. She joins a new online gaming guild led by a friendly healer named Otter. So that nobody gets the wrong idea, she calls herself Bogwitch.
Otter is Aiden, a fifty-year-old optimist using the guild as an emotional outlet from his family drama caring for his aging mother while…
I wrote my first romance with >40 characters in my mid-forties. It wasn’t like I never saw people of my age in the genre, but I have to say they were (and are) still rare, especially in traditionally published books. I love to see how people navigate what partnership looks like when people are established and their conflicts and experiences have changed. Elder care, relationships with adult children, fighting age-related stereotypes and discrimination: these are just a few of the nuances that set these types of books apart. But you still get that delicious well of emotion and the satisfaction of a happy ending.
A historical sapphic novella with women over 60? And they’re going to get revenge on a very bad man in very inventive ways? Do you really need me to sell this book harder to you?
Okay, fine: it’s Courtney Milan, whose wit, creativity, and compassion for humanity in general and her characters specifically always awe me. I’m pretty sure there’s nothing Courtney couldn’t do.
Mrs. Bertrice Martin—a widow, some seventy-three years young—has kept her youthful-ish appearance with the most powerful of home remedies: daily doses of spite, regular baths in man-tears, and refusing to give so much as a single damn about her Terrible Nephew.Then proper, correct Miss Violetta Beauchamps, a sprightly young thing of nine and sixty, crashes into her life. The Terrible Nephew is living in her rooming house, and Violetta wants him gone.Mrs. Martin isn’t about to start giving damns, not even for someone as intriguing as Miss Violetta. But she hatches another plan—to make her nephew sorry, to make Miss…
I wrote my first romance with >40 characters in my mid-forties. It wasn’t like I never saw people of my age in the genre, but I have to say they were (and are) still rare, especially in traditionally published books. I love to see how people navigate what partnership looks like when people are established and their conflicts and experiences have changed. Elder care, relationships with adult children, fighting age-related stereotypes and discrimination: these are just a few of the nuances that set these types of books apart. But you still get that delicious well of emotion and the satisfaction of a happy ending.
Kennedy Ryan is unafraid of making her characters go through hell.
Before I Let Go is maybe one of the hardest, rarest tropes in romance: ex-spouses sharing custody and running a business and working through their own mistakes and the heartache they caused each other. It’s akin to marriage in trouble, but in this case, the marriage isn’t in trouble: it’s in broken pieces on the floor.
At the outset, it seems irretrievable, but slowly, oh so slowly, with care and attention to a thousand tiny details that make this ring heartbreakingly then heartwarmingly true, we see these characters come back to one another stronger, more loving, and ready to take on all the challenges life will throw at them. Together.
“Real, raw, magnificent—Before I Let Go is the beautiful angst I love to read.” —Colleen Hoover, #1 New York Times bestselling author
A Good Morning America Book Buzz Pick! Their love was supposed to last forever. But when life delivered blow after devastating blow, Yasmen and Josiah Wade found that love alone couldn’t solve or save everything.
It couldn’t save their marriage.
Yasmen wasn’t prepared for how her life fell apart, but she’s is finally starting to find joy again. She and Josiah have found a new rhythm, co-parenting their two kids and running a thriving business together. Yet like…
I wrote my first romance with >40 characters in my mid-forties. It wasn’t like I never saw people of my age in the genre, but I have to say they were (and are) still rare, especially in traditionally published books. I love to see how people navigate what partnership looks like when people are established and their conflicts and experiences have changed. Elder care, relationships with adult children, fighting age-related stereotypes and discrimination: these are just a few of the nuances that set these types of books apart. But you still get that delicious well of emotion and the satisfaction of a happy ending.
This is less a romance novel and more a high fantasy novel with romantic elements, but the romance subplot is exceedingly strong.
(I can highly recommend a mental fan-casting of either Arhys or Ilvin as Pedro Pascal, because he’d absolutely knock one of those roles out of the park if this was ever made into a miniseries).
Ista is over 40, a queen, a new grandmother, a recovered madwoman, and…wait for it…a living saint. Seeking to get away from the suffocating (yet loving) arms of her family, she goes on a pilgrimage (Road Trip!) with a group of younger people and ends up getting into multiple adventures and a more than near miss with outright war. It’s an absolute romp and one of my all-time favorites.
Lois McMaster Bujold has won the Hugo award four times, and the Nebula award twice. This is her second epic fantasy and the sequel to Curse of Chalion.
The Golden General's curse has been lifted from the royal family and Cazaril can now rest easy and enjoy his new life with his bride Betriz.
However, life for Ista, the Dowager Royina has not improved. With the death of her mother, the Provincara, and with her surviving child Iselle now ruling Chalion from the Capital Cardegross, she is left without purpose. Her brother's family still think she's mad and aim to…
Reading and writing romance about characters who are beyond the first blush of youth is important to me because these characters represent who I am and the people I know. We live in an unapologetically youth-centric culture. When I wrote my first book, I wrote about a 40-year-old heroine, not realizing that in traditional romance publishing, no one over 30, maybe 35, gets to fall in love. Well, I had news for them. I joined forces with some other like-minded readers and writers and we created a group on Facebook called Seasoned Romance, where we say you’re never too old to fall in love.
This is one of my comfort reads. It’s been out a while, so it may be a little dated in terms of technology, but the heat is still there. One of the things I love most about this book is that it blows the perception that we should have everything figured out by the time we reach a certain age or level of success. Isabel thought she had a fool-proof guide to living a successful life free of messes. Well, you know that had to blow up in her face. But I also like Lorenzo Gage’s story as much. As one of the world’s most bankable movie stars, he should be riding high, but he finds himself inexplicably discontented with his career and life choices. This book reminds me it’s okay if I don’t have a handle on every little thing.
Isabel Favor is a life-style coach whose life is falling apart. Her accountant has run off with her money, her reputation is in tatters and her fiance has just dumped her for an older woman. Isabel needs to escape so she heads for Tuscany determined to find a little perspective - breathing room - and start over.
Instead she ends up in a hotel room with Hollywood bad boy, Lorenzo Gage. He makes his living killing people on the screen at least. Ren's reputation is blacker than black. But when you're everyone's favourite villain, it goes with the territory. Isabel's…
Reading and writing romance about characters who are beyond the first blush of youth is important to me because these characters represent who I am and the people I know. We live in an unapologetically youth-centric culture. When I wrote my first book, I wrote about a 40-year-old heroine, not realizing that in traditional romance publishing, no one over 30, maybe 35, gets to fall in love. Well, I had news for them. I joined forces with some other like-minded readers and writers and we created a group on Facebook called Seasoned Romance, where we say you’re never too old to fall in love.
Small town romance + coming home + second chance? This book was like catnip to me. Dakota and Dexter felt like real people I would know. I love any story that explores how our needs and ambitions change as we grow older, and this book delivered. Dexter made choices when they were young. Dakota made some career choices that have set her life in a tailspin. I also very much enjoyed the friendship between Dakota and her best friend, Sinclair (Sin). Enduring friendships are another facet of a character’s ability to love that I enjoy seeing in a good romance.
In this heartwarming second-chance romance, a woman returns home and discovers that, when it comes to finding love, there's no place like home.
Since leaving her North Carolina town and the boy who broke her heart, Dakota Jones has focused on making it big as a journalist. But when a mistake in her personal life gets splashed across the tabloids and causes her to lose her job, she has no choice but to return home until she can figure out what to do next.
Dexter Roberts never forgot Dakota, and he's always regretted the way things ended between them. Now…
Reading and writing romance about characters who are beyond the first blush of youth is important to me because these characters represent who I am and the people I know. We live in an unapologetically youth-centric culture. When I wrote my first book, I wrote about a 40-year-old heroine, not realizing that in traditional romance publishing, no one over 30, maybe 35, gets to fall in love. Well, I had news for them. I joined forces with some other like-minded readers and writers and we created a group on Facebook called Seasoned Romance, where we say you’re never too old to fall in love.
This books is a delightful mash-up of romantic suspense, a spy thriller, and a cozy mystery. While I was reading it, I couldn’t help thinking how much more interesting James Bond would have been if he’d been paired with women who challenged him. And it’s funny. If an author can make me laugh out loud while reading, they have me hooked. Sandra does a masterful job of infusing her characters with all the best things we learn are important to a romance as we grow older: equality, mutual respect, and a desire to form true partnerships.
A butler. A spy. A toilet brush. A romantic suspense cosy spy-thriller-mystery with a dash of grittiness and humour. It's Charade meets Remains of the Day.
After three years in the employ of a former British army officer turned Risk Assessment Specialist, widowed butler Mae Valentine is familiar with Major Kitt’s taste for scrambled eggs, bourbon, and brawling. Kitt knows of Mae’s fondness for order, her beloved dead husband, and the millions the man left her in trust. Their easy bond is tested the day Mae kills the man sent to murder her and the trust fund vanishes.
Reading and writing romance about characters who are beyond the first blush of youth is important to me because these characters represent who I am and the people I know. We live in an unapologetically youth-centric culture. When I wrote my first book, I wrote about a 40-year-old heroine, not realizing that in traditional romance publishing, no one over 30, maybe 35, gets to fall in love. Well, I had news for them. I joined forces with some other like-minded readers and writers and we created a group on Facebook called Seasoned Romance, where we say you’re never too old to fall in love.
This was the first book in Natasha’s Men of Lakeside series. Most people don’t realize that this book was one of the launch titles for an entire line of romances geared to readers who are looking for “older” characters. Personally, I loved The July Guy for the heroine. Anita is an independent, sexually-confident woman who makes no apologies for her life choices. In other words, she is like many of the women I know. And Noah is not your typical romance hero. He is a widower whose only experience had been with his wife. I love how skillfully Natasha flipped the near-virgin widow(er) trope.
Art professor Anita Delgado spends eleven months of the year working. July is her month to cut loose, paint, and pick a guy to make the summer memorable. But this year she isn’t in a tropical location with an exotic man like she'd planned. She’s stuck in small-town USA dealing with a lake house she doesn’t want, inherited from a grandmother she never knew. A summer fling might be the only thing to get her through the next few weeks.
Salvage specialist Noah Colburn is running for mayor. If he doesn’t, an absolute idiot is going to ruin his beloved…
