Most anticipated romance of fall 2024

Christmas rom-coms and paranormal romances abound in the last few months of 2024! (Sometimes in the exact same book . . .)

Available 09/24/2024

Contemporary Romance

A Jingle Bell Mingle

By Sierra Simone

There is a LOT going on in Julie Murphy and Sierra Simone’s holiday rom-com series, A Christmas Notch, and all of it is great. Ready? The setting is the titular little town in Vermont, host to a cottage industry of both squeaky-clean and gloriously dirty holiday movies. The heroine is Sunny Palmer, Christmas Notch’s jack-of-all-trades who’s just sold her very first screenplay. The hero is Isaac Kelly, widower and former member of Ink, the once-popular boy band that the previous two male leads of the series also belonged to. While helping each other work through their respective creative dry spells, Sunny and Isaac find that they also work together in other ways (wink, wink).

Available 10/01/2024

Paranormal Romance

How to Help a Hungry Werewolf

By Charlotte Stein

Charlotte Stein delighted us with her Roy Kent-coded rom-com, When Grumpy Met Sunshine, and her follow-up sounds just as charming, albeit with a paranormal twist. Billed as “What We Do in the Shadows with the small town feels of Gilmore Girls,” How to Help a Hungry Werewolf follows Cassie and Seth, two ex-best friends who reconnect when Seth reveals that he’s a werewolf and he needs help from Cassie and her burgeoning magical powers.

Available 10/01/2024

Contemporary Romance

Make the Season Bright

By Ashley Herring Blake

It’s always nice to balance out holiday hijinks with a mellower, more emotional, but still seasonal love story: Enter Ashley Herring Blake. The author of the acclaimed Bright Falls series will return with her first-ever Christmas romance, which follows exes Charlotte and Brighton as they rekindle their relationship while staying at the same house and attending a bunch of adorable dating events.

Available 10/01/2024

Contemporary Romance

Window Shopping

By Tessa Bailey

Tessa Bailey already releases two books a year (we loved both of 2024’s offerings), but demand for the rom-com queen’s work is so fervent that Avon has had to start printing the author’s previously self-published works to keep up! Those who fell in love with Window Shopping in 2021 will soon be able to snag an adorable new edition, and newcomers to decorator Stella’s romance with a dashing department store owner should prepare to be swept away.

Available 10/08/2024

Swordcrossed

By Freya Marske

Freya Marske’s dazzling Swordcrossed is an immersive fantasy with a rich love story at its heart.

Available 10/08/2024

Paranormal Romance

The Wedding Witch

By Erin Sterling

Erin Sterling’s two previous witchy love stories are some of the most acclaimed of the current paranormal romance boom. Her highly anticipated third romance, The Wedding Witch, will provide a welcome bit of spooky fun amid the annual blizzard of holiday romances. Taking place during a (literal) Yuletide wedding at an isolated Welsh estate, The Wedding Witch follows Bowen Penhallow and Tamsyn Bligh, two guests who are accidentally transported back to 1958 when a spell goes wrong. That’s right: It’s a witchy, midcentury, Christmas rom-com! Bless you, Erin Sterling.

Available 10/15/2024

Paranormal Romance

Bull Moon Rising

To certain adventurous readers (you know who you are), Ruby Dixon needs no introduction. But to those of you who haven’t ventured into romance’s wilder waters, Dixon is the author of Ice Planet Barbarians, a self-published, megaviral alien romance series. As you would expect, Ice Planet Barbarians took BookTok by storm and Dixon has now made the jump to traditional publishing. Bull Moon Rising is a fantasy romance starring Aspeth, a noblewoman who wants to join the Royal Artifactual Guild and rebuild her family’s fortune by hunting for rare magical artifacts, and her new husband-of-convenience: a minotaur.

Available 10/15/2024

Fantasy Romance

Desperate Measures

By Katee Robert

Those who have burned through Katee Robert’s viral Dark Olympus series will already know that there’s plenty more where that came from. The author has an extensive backlist of both traditionally and self-published titles, and one of her most infamous and popular self-published series is finally getting a traditional release. Taking inspiration from Disney’s iconic fairy-tale films, the Wicked Villains books are dark romances where characters such as Ursula, Captain Hook and Hades get a happy ending after all. Case in point: Desperate Measures stars Jafar . . . and a love interest clearly inspired by Princess Jasmine.

Available 10/15/2024

Paranormal Romance

Lightning in Her Hands

By Raquel Vasquez Gilliland

Lightning in Her Hands is a gorgeous friends-to-lovers romance that builds beautifully upon author Raquel Vasquez Gilliland’s debut, Witch of Wild Things.

Available 10/22/2024

Historical Romance

The Beast Takes a Bride

By Julie Anne Long

Regency romance queen Julie Anne Long already released one incredible entry in her Palace of Rogues series this year: the universally acclaimed My Season of Scandal. Can she match or even top herself a mere six months later with The Beast Takes a Bride? If anyone can do it, the author behind the beloved Pennyroyal Green series can. (Ahem, Bridgerton producers? Look this way.)

Available 10/22/2024

Contemporary Romance

Christmas Is All Around

By Martha Waters

One of the most delightful things about Martha Waters’ Regency Vows series was her knack for bouncy, clever dialogue. The close-knit group at the center of the series feels like the cast of Friends transported to the time of Jane Austen. So it’s wonderful to hear that Waters will be releasing her first contemporary romance, which will be a Christmas rom-com at that!

Available 11/12/2024

Contemporary Romance

Reel

By Kennedy Ryan

Another self-published gem about to get a wide print release for the very first time, Kennedy Ryan’s Reel is an epic love story between a rising Hollywood star and the director who casts her in her big break. Having been named to several “Best of the Year” lists during its initial release, Reel will surely win Kennedy Ryan even more fans than she already has thanks to her emotional Skyland romances.

Available 11/26/2024

Paranormal Romance

To Kill a Badger

By Shelly Laurenston

It has been three long years since one of Shelly Laurenston’s gleefully deranged, gloriously violent shifter romances graced shelves, and at long last, a new honey badger heroine awaits us. Nelle Zhao might not be as outgoing as her fellow honey badger shifters, but she’s just as chaotic and indomitable. So even though tiger shifter Keane Malone has announced that he’s going to take on a trafficking ring all by himself, Nelle’s definitely going with him, no matter what he says.

Available 12/03/2024

Paranormal Romance

Under Loch and Key

By Lana Ferguson

Here’s the thing about Lana Ferguson: She can take tropes and concepts that seemingly belong only in the more scandalous corners of BookTok, and somehow make them seem like the most natural thing in the world. This is the woman who made a romance between a nanny and her boss into an ode to sex positivity and emotional maturity, the genius who decided to make an omegaverse fake-dating rom-com. Ferguson turning her particular set of skills to what looks for all the world to be a Loch Ness Monster-shifter romance? The exact sort of insane perfection we’ve come to expect.

Fall most anticipated lists, by genre

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