10 Ways to Expand Your Bookshelf: Romance

Although we all have different tastes in books, there are simply some days where we need to settle down with a good romance novel and soak up the sappiness! In this week’s 10 Ways, we’re going to take a look at ten romance novels that will make a fantastic addition to anybody’s book collection!

1. Beautiful Disaster by Jamie McGuire

When Abby Abernathy moves away to start college, she is determined to put her dark past behind her for once and for all. With her best friend in tow and a healthy attitude, she almost feels like she can achieve her dreams. However, when resident college bad-boy Travis Maddox comes onto the scene, Abby realises that running from her past is perhaps a little more difficult than she had initially thought.

2.The Time Traveller’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger

Clare and Henry have a thoroughly unusual love story. Henry is a time-traveller – at any point in time, he can be pulled into the past or thrown into the future without any notice. Without the knowledge of when they will be able to stay together, and for how long they will spend with one another before his next time-travelling adventure sends him hurtling through his own timeline, Henry and Clare try to live as normal a life as they can – for better or for worse.

3. The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks

For Allie Nelson, life is seemingly perfect. She is about to marry a lawyer and her life couldn’t be running more smoothly. However, there is one slight bump in the road – a boy she met as a teenager, Noah Calhoun. After moving from her childhood home twenty years previous, the pair had lost contact but she cannot stop thinking about him. What follows is a whirlwind of love, heartbreak, and a story so powerful that it will leave even the strongest-hearted individual in tears.

4. The Truth About Forever by Sarah Dessen

When Macy’s boyfriend leaves for summer camp, she believes her days will be filled with studying and working. However, when she meets budding artist Wes, she realises that this is completely untrue. As her relationship with him blossoms and his past becomes apparent, Macy begins to question anything and everything she really knew about her own life.

5. Hush, Hush by Becca Fitzpatrick

When Norah Grey meets an endearing young man by the name of Patch, she begins to think that life is turning around for her. Always the one to reject romance, she begins to wonder if Patch might be the one to change her mind about boys. However, when a series of disturbing events causes her to re-think all she knows about Patch, she finds herself thrown headfirst into a battle between her heart and her mind.

6. Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins

For Anna, moving to a French boarding school is one of the biggest disasters of her life. Forced to leave behind a plethora of friends and the prospect of her senior year in Atlanta, she resolves to hate every single second of life in Paris. That is, until she meets Étienne St. Clair, the one boy in the entire city that she shouldn’t have fallen for.

7. North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell

Margaret Hale had life relatively easy up until her parents uprooted her stable world and moved it to Northern England. Upon arriving in the small mining town of Milton, she is introduced to a world of poverty and injustice that she had never experienced before, including a torrid romance with the man orchestrating the poverty: mill owner John Thornton.

8. Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel García Márquez

For Florentino Areza, his childhood love Fermina Daza marrying another man is devastating. Turning to the solace of other women – 622 women, to be precise – he buries himself in his work. However, when her husband dies, Florentino is given a second chance to win over the heart of the only woman he ever truly loved.

9. P.S. I Love You by Cecilia Ahern

When Holly loses her husband to a terminal illness at the young age of thirty, she is lost. Unsure of how to live without her best friend, she sets upon a course of complete grief. But when she discovers a series of letters that Gerry has left her in his absence, she realises that with the help of these small pieces he's left of himself, she can pick up the pieces and rebuild her life.

10. Stardust by Neil Gaiman

Hopelessly in love and desperate to do anything to get the girl, Tristan embarks on a dangerous course of action – collecting a star that has just fallen and bringing it to Victoria, his sweetheart. In doing so, he finds himself on a greater journey of mystery and magic – all accompanied by the star, a young woman with an explosive temper.

Special thanks to Audrey T and silent hearts. for editing!