Here are 51 books that More Than a Silly Crush fans have personally recommended if you like
More Than a Silly Crush.
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I started writing sweet romance during the COVID pandemic. At the time, it was the perfect antidote to all of the heaviness, grief, and sadness that everyone was experiencing around the world. When I began publishing my stories, and eventually moved into the sweet romcom genre, I was beyond happy to learn that my books were bringing smiles to peoples’ faces during these challenging times. I’ve always loved romcom movies, and discovering romcom books–not to mention beginning to write these stories myself–opened an entirely new world of possibilities. I pretty much only read romcoms now, and I hope you enjoy the books I’ve recommended here as much as I have!
This book sucked me in from the start, as do all of Katie Bailey’s books.
Liam and Annie are such an opposites attract couple, with the perfect amount of grumpy/sunshine chemistry… not to mention the exciting boss/employee trope. This story actually inspired the second book in my own romcom series, which ended up featuring the grumpy/sunshine trope.
Katie does an amazing job weaving heavier subjects with humor, and it put such a positive spin on my day whenever I picked it up. I love reading low spice romcom or chick lit stories with a heart, and this checked all those boxes for me!
A moving story of love, betrayal, and the enduring power of hope in the face of darkness.
German pianist Hedda Schlagel's world collapsed when her fiancé, Fritz, vanished after being sent to an enemy alien camp in the United States during the Great War. Fifteen years later, in 1932, Hedda…
I’ve adored fantasy adventures for as long as I could read. A good story is a mirror of life, and sometimes life can feel hard, cold, and impersonal. Yet life can also be an adventure, and like fictional heroes, the way in which we overcome our challenges is what makes us truly human. And sometimes it’s the actions of fantastical or inhuman creatures that show us true humanity.
When a hero overcomes their challenges in a way that shows humanity, I stand up and cheer. When they do it in a way that’s creative or funny, I laugh. When an author can do both, I treasure it.
Starting at zero may be typical for a litRPG, but Broccoli Bunch, heroine of the story, sets herself apart by humanizing all the creatures of her new world rather than devaluing them as objects to be slaughtered in the quest for power, glory, and loot. While fighting monsters in pursuit of some grand quest is commonplace in fantasy, within the litRPG subgenre, it’s practically the sole focus.
Which is why to me, our compassionate heroine Broccoli Bunch trying to make friends with all the monsters in the world is such a satisfying breath of fresh air.
I love the idea of taking a familiar story and making it fresh for a modern audience, which is probably why I’ve written two YA retellings. My first book (Match Me If You Can) is a retelling of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and my sophomore novel (How To Speak Boy) is an adaptation of You’ve Got Mail. When I’m reading, I give bonus points to any adaptation that includes a love story, because I am all about the happily ever afters. So, if you’re like me and you enjoy the comforting familiarity of classics but want to be able to put yourself in the story, this list is for you.
The moment I heard this was an adaptation of Sabrina, I was in! The main character Amelia has unreciprocated feelings for Ethan, but of course, it’s his brother Liam who’s her best match. The falling-for-the-brother trope is one of my favorites, and this one did not disappoint. The nerdy references in this book are also top-notch—as Liam is a slightly nerdy, cinnamon roll character you can’t help but root for. Short and sweet, this book was a super fun read.
In this YA retelling of Sabrina set in the glam fashion world, Amelia is whisked off to an amazing New York City fashion internship that changes her life--and quickly finds herself caught between two brothers.
A RITA finalist for Best First Book
If anyone saw the prom boards Amelia Blanco makes on her favorite fashion app, they'd think Ethan Laurenti was her boyfriend. They wouldn't know that all the plans she's made for them are just dreams, and that she's the girl who watches him from the kitchen while her parents cook for his famous family.
"She plunged her blade into his chest, feeling it grind along his ribs..."
Outcast swordfighter, Kyer Halidan, was abandoned in a cornfield at age three. Now, twenty years on, she’s searching for answers: Who left her there? And why?
Kyer doesn’t suffer fools, and when she kills a man in…
As a long-time expat in France, a creative and a Black woman, I get othered and rejected a lot. I’ve had to learn how to own my story – of starting over, of building something from nothing, of remembering where I’ve been, and reminding myself of where I’m going. I had to learn to reject the labels that others want to put on me and draft my own personal hype mantra – then embellish it with a little bombshell sparkle. The books I’ve chosen are meant to entertain while giving you the chance to remind yourself of who you are and who you can choose to be.
Not just anyone can grow up dirt poor, build a successful consulting business in Miami, survive being stalked, and keep the world in the dark about their crippling anxiety.
Brett Fontaine does it without letting a lock of hair get out of place – true bombshell style. A relationship with her new client, the media-clueless cinnamon roll chef Will Te’o, is completely ill-advised. So of course, that’s exactly what happens.
I adored this book because it so easy to identify with Brett. We all want to be together on the outside and respected in our fields. But there’s still the fear that we’re whatever weaknesses we may have had in the past.
Will helps Brett see the badass inside of her. Walden-West does the same for her readers.
Trading her red-dirt roots for the title of Miami’s go-to image consultant, Brett Fontaine refuses to let anything jeopardize her new life.
…Not an influential client-turned-stalker who’s up for parole…
…Not post-kidnapping panic attacks…
…And certainly not the stubborn, attention-phobic chef with the tempting tataus she’s been challenged to transform into a celeb in ninety days.
Will Te’o can almost taste the dream he sacrificed American Samoa, culture, and cherished family ties for—opening a four-star restaurant in the most cut-throat culinary location in North America.
Unfortunately, that requires navigating its equally ruthless social scene.
I’m a complete bookworm and romance addict. I love to see the old tropes being written with a fresh feel, and I’m a true believer that romance is so hard to write because everyone knows the end, but it’s up to the writer to bring you on a worthy journey. After reading countless friends-to-lovers novels, I can say with certainty I have the list with the best books written by the contemporary romance rock stars. Let’s get to it!
I’d talk about Mariana Zapata for days without coming out for air. The queen of slow-burn will leave you squirming in your seat shouting “Just kiss already!” on the top of your lungs. It’s a sweet blooming romance between childhood friends who spent years apart. If you read The Wall of Winnipeg and Me, you were probably waiting for Zack’s story. Bonus? Zack is the sweetest and the pure definition of a cinnamon roll hero.
Before he was “Big Texas,” he was “Zac the Snack Pack.”Bianca Brannen knows time—mostly—heals all wounds. Including those your once loved ones might have unintentionally given you. (Those just take longer.)She thinks she’s ready when a call has her walking back into her old friend’s life. Or at least as prepared as possible to see the starting quarterback in the National Football Organization. Before the lights, the fans, and the millions, he’d been a skinny kid with a heart of gold. Waltzing out of Zac Travis’s life should be easy. Just as easy as he walked out of hers.
I love to read (and write) books about badass heroines who do the saving. They’re not passive. They’re not dragged along by the alpha a-hole, swooning over his muscles and domineering personality. They take charge. They wield the sword, or the gun, or their fists and rescue the dude in distress, who may act the monster but is really just a secret cinnamon roll who wants to be loved. These heroines are the real role models, the women I want to be like. Their stories are the ones I get lost in and remember long after I’ve put the book down.
Mephistopheles is one of my favorite male love interests. I loved that he’s a demon, but he’s a secret cinnamon roll. Even when he turns into a monster that feeds on fear and sucks the life from people. I literally felt his pain in the scene where Iris breaks his heart. It gripped me by the throat. I was so invested in his emotional awakening. I just wanted to give him a big hug.
A hot-headed witch and a lovable bad-boy demon add up to a scorching enemies-to-lovers tale, in the latest spicy paranormal romance from instant New York Times bestselling author Aurora Ascher.
They can run from their demons . . .
The jokester of the demon brothers, Meph wears his grin like armor and uses humor as a mask. But lately, his composure has been slipping, especially around her. Iris. The blue-haired witch with a vicious temperament. Something about her soothes the darkness within him . . . but he’s not looking for a savior. There’s no such thing for someone like…
A mysterious stranger traps teen siblings in a precarious game where each must overcome their embittered past for the other to survive.
This suspenseful, yet winsome novel explores the power of family and forgiveness. But take heed. The truth can cut like shards of glass, especially for those who’d rather…
I’m an award-winning children’s book author and photo-illustrator of over sixty picture books. I got my first camera when I was five years old and have been taking pictures ever since. I realized in college that photography was my passion, and I studied photojournalism at the Newhouse School at Syracuse University. Soon after I received graduate degrees in early childhood education and museum education at Bank Street College of Education. After teaching kindergarten, first, and second grade, I combined my passions to create books. My books have always been about inclusivity and diversity. I hope all children can find themselves in my books to help them navigate the world they live in.
This book is great for young kids as an introduction to the fact that we all come in many different skin colors and the joy of these differences is a good thing.
I really like the rhymes which add a playful tone for young readers. I also really like the energy of this book that makes for a fun read aloud.
“A cheeky meditation on the everyday miraculousness of skin. . . . It’s freewheeling fun.” — Publishers Weekly (starred review)
Is there anything more splendid than a baby’s skin? Cocoa-brown, cinnamon, peaches and cream. As children grow, their clever skin does, too, enjoying hugs and tickles, protecting them inside and out, and making them one of a kind. Fran Manushkin’s rollicking text and Lauren Tobia’s delicious illustrations paint a breezy and irresistible picture of the human family — and how wonderful it is to be just who you are.
I’ve adored holiday love stories ever since I was a kid watching Hallmark movies. There’s something about the magic of the holidays that makes two people falling in love even more special. That’s why I chose a contemporary holiday romance for my debut. And we see so much straight romance on TV and in bookstores, but I want to contribute to the queer community with my writing. I write a mix of sexualities;Make the Yuletide Gay features two lesbian women. All that to say, I just love queer holiday romances!
I learned about the existence of Don’t StopBelieving through Gwen Hayes’ writing craft book Romancing the Beat.She used it as her example outline. It was the first thing I read to pick out story beats, and I meant to focus on writing craft while reading, but I fell in love with the characters. Both leads are precious! It gets me in the holiday mood but I reread this one all year round. Snowed in at Christmastime when they both secretly like the other already? Gimme gimme gimme (this book after midnight). It’s just so festive and cute.
The Ogre from the HillSimon Powell, the town recluse, only comes to town to deliver firewood and get supplies. Two days before Christmas, he sees the new librarian’s car in a ditch and knows he can’t leave him on the road, but it’s too late to take him back to town. He’ll have something he’s never had in his cabin in the ten years that’s he’s lived there…company. The Book Nerd from the CityAdam Parker moved to the small community to make big changes in his life, but being snowbound with the bearded lumberjack in his rustic cabin was something…
Since I was a child, I’ve loved stories of people who live, unseen, among or close to us. I prefer the spelling “Faerie.” Fairies are pretty, butterfly-like creatures that fly around gardens. “Faeries” suggest, to my mind, the word “fear.” They can be both benevolent and malevolent, but are primarily other. In my novel, Beautiful, and the follow up that’s in progress, faeries feature as characters both in their own realm and ours. They can cause a lot of trouble for humans, but also be well-intentioned. These books feature faeries that play similarly ambiguous roles.
This book, the first in a trilogy, ticks off several of my favorite genres and tropes. It’s a retelling of the Scottish ballad of Tam Lin (which I love), it’s set in a small college town, and it deals with a strange otherworld community beneath the surface. Following her older sister’s suicide, Finn Sullivan and her father relocated to upstate New York. Here, Finn’s path crosses that of the powerful, mysterious Fata family, and gets herself pulled into a strange new world that’s as beautiful as it is threatening.
Combining the sorcery of The Night Circus with the malefic suspense of A Secret History, Thorn Jack is a spectacular, modern retelling of the ancient Scottish ballad, Tam Lin-a beguiling fusion of love, fantasy, and myth that echoes the imaginative artistry of the works of Neil Gaiman, Cassandra Clare, and Melissa Marr. In the wake of her older sister's suicide, Finn Sullivan and her father move to a quaint town in upstate New York. Populated with socialites, hippies, and dramatic artists, every corner of this new place holds bright possibilities-and dark enigmas, including the devastatingly attractive Jack Fata, scion of…
In Renaissance Venice, the deadliest weapon isn’t a blade… it’s a secret.
Angelo Mascari is a master swordsman whose greatest battle isn’t fought for crown or country, but for love. When treachery strikes and the Republic turns against him, Angelo is forced into a desperate flight that leads him across…
I’m a writer and history buff who loves to make fiction out of facts. For me, the best stories are imagined out of truths we have all lived, real places that are mapped in our memories, real people whose names conjure events, past times that are prelude to our own. I like to read books built on plots and puzzles, so I write mysteries. I love books about real people, so I write biographical novels bent around the secret selves of people we only thought we knew: Eleanor Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower, Laura Ingalls Wilder, Georgia O’Keeffe.
Food history—why and how and what we eat—is one of my favorite topics. The first edition of Irma Rambauer’s The Joy of Cooking inspired 1930s American cooks to make an eight layer cake, a celery aspic, a chicken bisque, cinnamon toast, shrimp wiggle, and green peppers filled with macaroni. Recently widowed, Rombauer self-published the book to support her family—and thereby became a heroine for 1930s homemakers. Her Cheese Custard Pie, so far as I know, is the first recipe for quiche in an American cookbook. It is introduced with these memorable words: “In Switzerland we had a vile tempered cook named Marguerite” whose quiche varied with “her moods and her supply of cheese.” (I love recipes that tell us something about the cook.)
In 1931, Irma Rombauer announced that she intended to turn her personal collection of recipes and cooking techniques into a cookbook. Cooking could no longer remain a private passion for Irma. She had recently been widowed and needed to find a way to support her family. Irma was a celebrated St. Louis hostess who sensed that she was not alone in her need for a no-nonsense, practical resource in the kitchen. So, mustering what assets she had, she self-published The Joy of Cooking: A Compilation of Reliable Recipes with a Casual Culinary Chat. Out of these unlikely circumstances was born…
