Books like Steadfast — picked by fans

An excellent friends to lovers romance with all the feels! This is the book that made me a die-hard fan of both Melanie Harlow and the friends to lovers trope.

Local deputy sheriff Noah and big city girl Meg have been burning some serious chemistry since they were teens and Noah saved Meg from drowning one summer when he was a lifeguard. What I loved was how their chemistry ignited when Meg comes home for her sister's wedding. She’s newly single and still heartbroken…and Noah happens to be the perfect fix.

I loved the close friendship they had from when they were younger, and once Meg came home, Noah realized that his crush on her never died. The delicious agony of push/pull from friends to lovers was so well orchestrated, making their HEA top-notch!

I absolutely loved this friends to lovers romance! Always Have is well-crafted, with great characters and a sweet complication between the pair of twins and their best friend.

I found the angsty “will they/won’t they” tension between the MC and the FMC to be perfectly crafted and utterly delightful. The buildup to the moment everything came together had me on the edge of my seat! Loved the bit of humor, too. Overall a very enjoyable story. I hear there is another book coming in this series, and I can’t wait to read it.

I am a sucker for lifelong friends to lovers with a bit of the taboo, and this book delivered!

Our hero is a sexy hockey player with a dark past, and our heroine is a dancer with an overprotective and controlling family. When, on her wedding day, she learns the jerk she’s being forced to marry has been cheating on her, she runs right into the arms of her childhood crush and friend Jasper, who offers to whisk her away so she can figure out what to do and how to face her parents.

Jasper and Sloane were made for each other from page one, and I loved rooting for them! Add in the delightful small-town vibes, the belonging that comes from being part of an amazing, tight-knit family, and some steamy times, and it’s a recipe for an all-nighter (reading, that is).

Though this story is part of a… show more.

This story had so much unique and charismatic personality! The characters leapt off the pages, and their “dilemma” created an irresistible hook.

Davis is about to graduate from college and has yet to lose her virginity. She turns to the one man she’s wanted for the job, her childhood crush, lifelong family friend, best friend to her brother, and bad boy extreme, Crew Taylor. These two have an intense history together that involved Davis’s older brother Memphis, and this relationship and how Memphis fell into addiction, dragging Crew down with him, was beautifully crafted by the author and the highlight of the story for me.

The angsty buildup between these two people who clearly were destined for each other was incredibly satisfying! I was on the edge of my seat, rooting so hard for Crew to overcome the demons of his past and just let Davis into his heart. I… show more.

Stories within stories, each honing and enhancing the other, is one of my favorite tropes across literature, and it finds a special expression in Erin Morgenstern’s The Starless Sea.

Unlike the other novels in this list, this one begins in our “normal” world, albeit a magically enhanced version of it. (You and I live there already, of course.) Fairy tales weave into and through the story as our young protagonist tries to find his way in the world, inextricably drawn back to these mystical tales.

Morgenstern’s prose will sweep you away while also meditating on the power of prose to sweep you away, and then we’re all in this tangle of a love of stories and the magic of fairy tales, exactly where we wanted to be all along. 

The City Baker’s Guide to Country Living drops you into the action from word one and immerses you in the main character, Livvy’s, life (and the wreck she’s made of it) immediately. The story sucked me in, and rural Vermont as the setting made me wish I could be there. Then there’s the food… Oh man, I would have made a hundred apple pies if I’d headed into the kitchen every time I wanted to when I read this book. Martin is the perfect book boyfriend, too. Their relationship builds slowly, and he is so delicately written that he almost seemed ghost-like to me sometimes – a wonderful foil to the boisterous Livvy.

Louise Miller’s writing is straightforward, beautiful, and sticks with me way after I’ve finished reading. She’s one of the first authors I look for if I want something real but perpetually hopefully even at the bleakest momen… show more.

This book is part of a top-tier cowboy romance series based on a ranch full of seductive men and their feisty women.

It follows Beau and Bailey in a marriage of convenience, but what really stuck with me in this book is the PTSD experienced by the male lead. Elsie Silver wrote about an injury she herself sustained, and this made for a very authentic, interesting character. Bailey grew up tarnished by the bad reputation of her family, and I adore how the character is both driven and sexy.

This book demonstrates the power in positive relationships, and the characters are both inspiring in their own right.

The horror and the humor! This book reminded me of just how absurd the life of an addict is. I found myself laughing out loud at unexpected turns. Of course, we’re talking very dark humor.

The story of his obsession with Candy also reminded me of my own doomed love affairs, the sick love that often mingles with addiction. I’ll never forget the story of his cats, though. Davies’ observations on the behavior of his cats are as compelling (and horrible) as his observations of the behavior of addicts.

All addiction stories are sad in their own way, but as comic John Mulaney has shown, they can also be hysterically funny. And Candy proves it. 

This book was THE book that made me want to write a marriage in trouble.

It features characters to absolutely hate in the first few chapters, but then they turn it around and become lovable by the end of the book. I love the idea of a married couple (or engaged one) sleeping in separate rooms because of their distance and then they slowly move back into the same room.

This book also features a terrible mom who gets owned by her kid who’s finally had enough of them, which is always my favorite part of any book. This is a novel to get hooked on, and the ending scene where she finds their wedding invitations in the trash had my jaw on the FLOOR!

I love books featuring strong chemistry between the two leads, and Nora and John’s chemistry leapt off the page. I also love series that have a strong family connection, and this is the first in a series with three sisters.

John enlists Nora’s help to uncover the identity of his birth mother, and this inspirational romance pulled on my heartstrings. I loved John, especially as he was the type of hero who was silent and impactful. The book was well-written and had enough scenes revolving around food to make me hungry. John and Nora’s story stayed with me long after I finished turning the last page.