41 books like Reluctant Royals

I’m usually all about the hero, but in this sweet book, it was the heroine whom I fell for. Lacey Pope plays Princess Sweet Pea at a fairytale theme park, and she takes her role seriously. She has a list of royal rules that include: “Always make friends with birds and butterflies, and always, always be kind.” When she shares them with two visitors to the park, she doesn’t realize that she’s talking to a real—and grumpy—prince and his daughter. 

Lacey lives by her royal rules in real life, too—like Amy Adams in the movie Enchanted—and the prince falls in love with her bright spirit. 

This delicious book is like the featherlight meringue of the macarons that Lacey nibbles on when she travels to Henry’s home country, Bella-Moritz.

Don’t we all dream of being a queen? In this fun modern fairy tale, a forty-something single mom from Philadelphia suddenly discovers she is the heir to the throne of the Grand Duchy of Saint Gilbert. It would be a fish-out-of-water story, except that Annie takes on the job with a can-do attitude that I adored. Her whole family, including her kids, gets involved. She fends off antagonistic councilors—and a kidnapper—to drag Saint Gilbert into the modern era and prosperity. You gotta love that Philly attitude. 

This story skews more towards women’s fiction, but do not fear: there is a very handsome, suave captain of the guards, Max Belleme, who provides a delicious frisson of romance for the Grand Duchess. He can be my bodyguard anytime!  

I fell in love with all the characters, not just Bex and Prince Nicholas, but their delightful, quirky friends and family members. The ensemble cast reminded me strongly of Notting Hill, a favorite movie of mine.

The snappy dialogue and dry, British wit made me laugh out loud, while the real emotional struggles occasionally brought me to tears. The details about how difficult life is when you fall in love with the heir to the British throne were well-drawn, authentic, and painful.

I found myself sneaking extra time to read this book because I enjoyed hanging out with the profoundly human characters and was deeply invested in their lives.

For fans of slow-burn, enemies-to-lovers fantasy, this book is gold.

With Beauty and the Beast and Hades and Persephone vibes, this book tells the story of a human woman who is kidnapped and wed to the Frost King, a brooding immortal.

The writing is beautiful, and I appreciated how it took a long time for the heroine and hero to trust each other and break down their walls. Both characters are deeply flawed, yet you still root for their happiness.

The world-building is lovely and folkloric. Getting into the steamy parts takes a while, but it’s worth the wait!

This book was one of the first male/male romance novels I ever read.

I loved how the author took an interracial gay love story set in the early 1800s and made it believable and sweet without glossing over the harsh realities of the time. The romance follows the trope of “opposites attract” between a disgraced English gentleman and a Black former boxer who runs a pub.

The two characters complimented each other well, and altogether I was worried they could never truly have happily-ever-after in Regency England, the author found a wonderful way to make sure they did.

The book delves into concepts like found-family, healing from sexual trauma, classism, racism, consent, and boundaries—a wonderful, uplifting escape into history.

I’m a sucker for stories about two outcasts who find belonging together, and this book does that beautifully.

It’s about a ballerina who haunts her beloved home after being murdered in the 1920s. She’s bored and desperately lonely until a crazed vampire becomes imprisoned in her mansion.

Because he’s not human, the vampire can see the beautiful ghost, and sparks fly.

This book is a master class in writing sexual tension since the characters can’t touch initially. Once they could touch, I loved how the heroine was fully comfortable in her sexuality and assertive with her less experienced vampire partner.

The author also does a great job of showing how the two progress and change through their own character arcs, with love being the catalyst for their growth. 

This non-fiction book is probably the most categorically comedic on my list. Greenberg, a comedian, and Meinzer, a critic, are the hosts of a podcast called By the Book, in which every episode documents their attempt to follow a new self-help book to the letter for two weeks. After a few years of doing this, they co-wrote their own self-help book based on their experience and narrated the audio version. The result is insightful, irreverent, and hilarious.

This murder mystery deals with some dark topics. But the snarky narrator, Willowjean “Will” Parker, brings an upbeat, devil-may-care vibe to the book. I love Will for being clever and hilarious. I also love her for presenting as gender-nonconforming, not in an “ahead of her time/normal for our time” way, but in a way that’s historically accurate for a butch girl in the 1940s. And rather than framing Will as Not Like Other Girls, the book gives her a badass matronly mentor, a femme fatale, and a whole world of women, men, and others who live outside of 1940s gender norms in spite of the consequences.

No, this isn't the title of a B-movie—it's the fun, sexy, and surprisingly sweet start of a series with wonderful world-building and likable characters.

This book is about how a group of human women abducted by evil aliens crash-land on a planet full of hunky, endearing aliens and the adventures they share.

I loved how the aliens cherished and celebrated the women in this story instead of reviling their humanity, as I've seen in other sci-fi stories. The spicy scenes are hot, and the heroine is a natural leader who doesn't passively wait around to be rescued.

This is a dual-POV story, and the alien hero's confusion over human quirks is quite funny. Escapism at its best!

Doing slapstick in prose is so hard, and this succeeds brilliantly. It's a cozy murder mystery with rom-com flair and is a delight to read. I love the way the family comes together to help one another, even if it’s not always welcomed.

It’s funny and charming and had me laughing out loud. The story has so many ridiculous moments and, at the end of the day, it’s about the strength of the relationships.