Basically, this is its own trope in romance novels: the (usually grumpy or brooding) hero harbors deeper feelings for the heroine than he’d like to admit, the playboy is stopped in his tracks by the right girl or the usual . boy is in love from the beginning. Whatever the situation, there is something immensely exciting about a guy who falls in love with his girl.
many of the books on this list are my personal favourites, so this type of setting is clearly catnip for me, lol. Whether it’s lovers’ enemies, office romance, strangers to lovers, or something more complicated, each of these books presents a different situation or circumstance with heroes who only have eyes for one girl. they are all 4 or 5 star contemporary romance novels that kept me hooked while reading. I’ve included the blurb and links to amazon to easily add them to your collection. happy reading!
You are reading: Boy falls first books
⚠️ spoilers ahead ⚠️
Many of these heroes don’t reveal their feelings until later, so this list is for those looking for the trope
ten trends to seduce your best friend by penny reid
winnifred gobaldi and byron visser are not best friends. yes, they have known each other for years, but they are not even friends. Winnie thinks of them more as casual, distant acquaintances who are barely tolerable, especially when he’s being condescending (which is all the time). The truth is that they have nothing in common. she’s a public school science teacher with stars in her eyes, and he’s a pretentious, sad double doctorate turned world-famous fiction author. she loves sharing her passion for promoting women in strong careers and building community through social media, and he eschews all socializing, virtual or otherwise. she’s looking for a side job to help pay off a mountain of student debt, and her financial portfolio is the stuff of fiduciary wet dreams. so why are they faking a #bestfriend relationship for millions of online viewers? when a simple case of eye-for-an-eye tendencies between people who aren’t friends leads to a totally unexpected kind of simulation, nothing is simple. sometimes it takes a public hearing to reveal the truth of private feelings, and rarely, ever, should you believe what you see online. 10 Trends to Seduce Your Best Friend is a full-length, fully independent adult contemporary romantic comedy.
read the review here
the deception of elena armas spanish love
a wedding. a trip to spain the most irritating man. and three days of pretending. or in other words, a plan that will never work.catalina martín, finally, not single. Her family is happy to announce that she is bringing her American boyfriend to her sister’s wedding. everyone is invited to come and witness the most magical event of the year. without a doubt, that would be tomorrow’s headline in the local newspaper of the small Spanish town where I come from. or the epitaph on my tombstone, seeing the turn my life had taken in the span of a phone call. four weeks was not a long time to find someone willing to cross the atlantic, from new york to spain, a wedding. let alone someone eager to follow my charade. but that didn’t mean I was desperate enough to bring the 6’4 blue-eyed pain in my butt standing in front of me. aaron blackford. the man whose primary occupation was making my blood boil had just offered to be my date. right after sticking his nose into my business, calling me delusional and calling himself my best option. watch? outrageous. aggravating. boiling blood. and to my utter despair, also to the right. which left me with a surly, extra-large dilemma on my hands. Was it worth the suffering of bringing my colleague and ruin of my existence as my fake boyfriend to my sister’s wedding? Or was it better to come clean and face the consequences of my panic-induced lie? As my grandmother would say, may God catch us confessed. burn the romance perfect for those looking for a smoky slow burn with the sweetest happily ever after.
read the review here
those three little words of meghan quinn
I got my best friend’s sister pregnant.
I thought I’d get straight to the point because how it happened is just a part of the story I have to tell. the real meat and potatoes is what happened next.
Let’s start with how you decided to inform me and publish the news. . . together. imagine that nightmare. I was going to what I thought was a hockey marketing meeting and then bam! I’m going to be a dad and my best friend/teammate is trying to punch my face with his fist.
It wasn’t pretty.
Threats were made, friendships revoked, and then I was taken to her apartment, suitcases in hand, and forced to live with her so I could attend to her every need. given how much I’ve pined for the girl, you’d think it wouldn’t be a hardship. wrong.
This is my only chance to get my teammate back. pacey is the only family i have, so hooking up with his sister isn’t a mistake i can make twice. . . even though she is pregnant with my child.
But with every mood swing, ill-fitting pair of pants, and late-night scramble to find the perfect doughnut, it’s getting harder and harder not to fall for my best friend’s little sister.
especially when he kisses me…
read the audiobook review here
just my type by tara sivec
live in the best small town in the world? check.have the best job ever working on my family’s pumpkin farm? check. marry the village pharmacist and have a nice, quiet life with our son? check-cheque.
“oh, sorry. did you say you were happy? lololol!” ~ life
Ember Hastings never thought that she would be swept away from the whitewood and everything she loved, pushed into the middle of a big city she hated, or have her husband of nine years say, “I can’t do this anymore,” all in the span of three months, but here it is.
He misses his family, he misses the farm, and he misses having a backbone and caring if the stain on his shirt is chocolate or shit. she works from home doing transcriptions. Does she really she need to shower or leave the house?
baker matthews has been bringing everyone down lately with his grumpy attitude. Her job is stressful and sometimes depressing, but I wouldn’t change a thing about it. When a glitch with the transcription company she’s using mistakenly sends her notes she wasn’t supposed to see, Baker laughs out loud for the first time in months.
You’ve never met a woman who says whatever’s on her mind and doesn’t flatter you when she finds out what you do for a living. until Ember Hastings bursts into her life, calling him a shitmouth and asking if he has any balls.
but she wants to maintain this professionalism. she made him swear with his little finger, and she doesn’t play around with swearing with his little finger. Baker will have to get creative if she wants to prove to Ember that she’s just her type.
read the audiobook review here
ali hazelwood’s love hypothesis
When a bogus relationship between scientists meets the irresistible force of attraction, it throws one woman’s carefully calculated theories of love into chaos.
as a third-year Ph.D. The candidate, Olive Smith, doesn’t believe in long-term romantic relationships, but her best friend does, and that’s what got her into this situation. Convincing Anh that Olive is on her way out and on her way to happily ever after was going to take more than Jedi mind tricks: scientists need proof. So, like any self-respecting biologist, Olive panics and kisses the first man she sees.
That man is none other than Adam Carlsen, a renowned and well-known young professor. That’s why Olive is positively surprised when Stanford Lab’s reigning tyrant agrees to keep his charade a secret and be his fake boyfriend. But when a major scientific conference goes haywire, putting Olive’s career on the Bunsen burner, Adam surprises her again with his unwavering support and even more unwavering… ripped abs.
suddenly, your little experiment feels perilously close to combustion. and olive discovers that the only thing more complicated than a hypothesis about love is putting her own heart under the microscope.
read the review here
hook, line and sinker by tessa bailey
See Also: 19 Best Kissing Scenes in YA Books | Epic Reads Blog
In the sequel to What Happened One Summer, Tessa Bailey delivers another deliciously funny rom-com about a former gamer who accidentally falls for her best friend while trying to help her find a different man…
king crab fisherman fox thornton has a reputation for being a sexy, easygoing flirt. everyone knows it’s a guaranteed good time, in bed and out, and that’s exactly how he prefers it. until he meets hannah bellinger. she is immune to his charm and looks, but seems to enjoy his…personality of his? and want to be friends? weird. but she likes him too much to risk having an affair, so they are platonic friends.
right now, hannah is in town for work and is staying in fox’s guest room. she knows he is a notorious womanizer, but they are definitely just friends. In fact, she is desperately in love with a colleague and Fox is just the person to help her with her lackluster love life. Armed with some advice from Westport resident Casanova, Hannah sets out to catch the eye of her co-worker…however, the more time she spends with Fox, the more she wants him. As the line between friendship and flirtation begins to blur, Hannah can’t deny that she loves all things Fox, but she refuses to be another notch up the bedpost from her.
living with his best friend should have been easy. except now she’s walking around in a towel, sleeping across the hall, and fox is fantasizing about waking up next to her for the rest of her life and…and…man overboard! he has fallen in love with her, hook, line and sinker. Helping her flirt with another guy is pure torture, but maybe if Fox can face her inner demons and show Hannah that he’s up for it, she’ll choose him over her?
read the review here
breaking the speed limit by melanie moreland
Single, but unstable, Stefano Borelli spends his days creating masterpieces loved by his clients. surrounded by family and friends, his loneliness still haunts him. until she bursts into his life. a stubborn woman with too much baggage, too much to say, and a child in tow.
too many problems.
except he likes her sparkle. the way he refuses to listen. that she is cute with her son. how good she feels in her arms.
the way she makes him feel complete.
Can you convince her to give love a second chance?
author’s note: do you love it when men whisper sweet words in Italian? prepare to swoon over stefano.
read the review here
cream and punishment for susannah nix
She’s not just my ex-girlfriend. she is my new co-worker.
i knew lucy dillard was the first time i met her. Yeah, I’m dumb enough to believe in love at first sight. When I fell in love with Lucy, I fell hard. everything was great between us, until the moment she left me.
Now I just want to forget about her. instead, I’m stuck staring at her face all day. but I need this job, so I’ll find a way to be courteous and professional.
There’s just one small problem: I’m nowhere near over it.
first, we were lovers. then enemies. now we are trying to work together.
I didn’t set out to break Tanner King’s heart, but you know what they say about the road to hell.
I have too many responsibilities and I don’t have room in my life for love. i can deal with tanner’s resentment until she starts working at the desk right across from mine. obviously, a truce of some kind is required. we are both adults. we can handle this situation like professionals.
There is only one thing that threatens this fragile peace we have negotiated: all these inconvenient feelings that I apparently still have for him.
Cream and Punishment is book #2 in the King Family series set in the small town of Crowder, Texas, home of the King’s Creamery ice cream company. each book is a stand-alone, full-length contemporary romance that follows one of six king brothers as they find and fight for love.
read the review here
twice shy by sarah hogle
Can you find true love when your head is always in the clouds?
maybell paris has always been a dreamer and hopeless romantic. but living in her own world has long been preferable to dealing with the disappointments of real life. So when Ella Maybell inherits a charming house in the Smoky Mountains from her Great Aunt Violet, she jumps at the chance to start over.
However, when he arrives, it seems that his problems have only just begun. not only is the house falling apart around her, but she’s not the only heiress: she has to share everything with wesley koehler, the gardener who is as grumpy as he is beautiful, and it turns out he has a very different vision for the future of the property.
Convincing taciturn Wesley to stop avoiding her and commit is a more formidable task than the other death wishes Great Aunt Violet left behind. But when Maybell discovers something unexpectedly sweet beneath Wesley’s frown, and as the two begin to slowly let their guard down, they may learn that sometimes the smallest steps outside one’s comfort zone can lead to the biggest rewards. /p>
read the review here
kayley loring attachment theory
An actor, a model, and a younger man walk into a therapist’s office…they’re all Dylan Brodie. It’s only fun if you’re not the therapist single mom he can’t stop flirting with.
dear mr. brother,
I hope this email finds you well. your well-being and personal growth are of the utmost importance to me, as a therapist. As such, I have decided that it is in your best interest to continue individual therapy with another professional. this is due to the possibility of crossing the boundaries between us. attached is a list of colleagues I would recommend to you.
sincerely, scarlett shepard, mrs. mft
dear scarlett,
great. consider our sessions over. now i can tell you how beautiful you are and how attracted i am to you. let’s start crossing boundaries over dinner tonight. a few sessions. You’ll cite the age difference, and I’ll tell you how hot it is that you’re six years older than me. you’ll say you’re a mom, and I’ll remind you that I think your son is amazing. we don’t have to talk about my old ties to former co-stars anymore. this is due to the fact that clearly my only personality problem is that I’m irresistible.
See Also: The 9 Scrum Books Every Scrum Master Must Read
yours in wellness and personal growth,dylan brodie, w.m.h.t.a.t.y.e.h. (much more handsome and talented actor than your ex-husband)
***This is a 74,000 word stand-alone novel with funny business crossover characters as well as sleepy and charming ones***
read the review here
love lease by falon ballard
Reading on the beach meets flatshare in this warmly funny and delightfully sharp debut rom-com about an unlucky young woman who turns an innocent mix-up between a dating app and a roommate app into a new opportunity in love.
She wasn’t looking for love until it landed on her doorstep. After being passed over for a long-overdue and much-needed promotion, Sadie Green desperately needs three things: a strong drink, a new live venue, and a one-night stand. night. When one drink becomes too much, Sadie mixes a long-ignored dating app with a roommate-finding app and finds herself on the doorstep of Jack Thomas’s beautiful Brooklyn brownstone. Too bad she’s more attracted to her impressive real estate than to the man himself. so even though she doesn’t know what to do with the vivaciously wordy sadie, she’s willing to offer her her guest bedroom while she recovers. And with the rent unbeatably low, Sadie can finally pursue her floristry job full time. The two are polar opposites, but as Sadie’s presence begins to turn the brownstone into a home, they both begin to realize they may have made the deal of a lifetime.
read the review here
josh and gemma make a sarah ready baby
new years resolution:have a babypreferably with josh lewenthal
meet gemma jacobs. she is impulsive, energetic and a positive thinker. She has a great career working for famed self-help guru Ian Fortune, she lives in a nice studio apartment in Manhattan, and her family is supportive and loving (if a little wacko). her life is perfect. absolutely wonderful.
except for one tiny little thing.
After a decade of disastrous relationships and an infertility diagnosis, Gemma doesn’t want a Mr. right (or even a lord right now), she just wants a baby.
and all you need is an egg, some sperm and IVF.
so gemma makes a new year’s resolution: to have a baby.
josh lewenthal is a laid back, laid back guy who finds humor in life. the opposite pole of gem. he is also the best friend of his brother. For the past twenty years, Josh has attended every Jacobs family birthday, holiday, and event – he’s always around.
gemma knows him. he’s nice (enough), he’s funny (-ish), he’s healthy (she thinks), and he didn’t burn ants with a magnifying glass when he was a kid. which, in gemma’s opinion, makes him the perfect choice for a sperm donor.
so gemma wants to make a deal. an emotionless and serious arrangement. no strings attached, just a baby.
To Gemma’s surprise, Josh agrees.
They have nothing in common except their agreement to have a baby and their desire to keep things in order.
But the thing about creating babies… it’s hard to keep it serious, it’s almost impossible to keep it emotionless, and it’s definitely impossible to keep your heart out of the mix. because when you’re making a baby together, things start to feel like you’re making other things too, like a life, a family, and love. and when the baby’s creation is done, you wish everything else didn’t have to end as well.
read the audiobook review here
maggie goes ahead for lucy score
can these opposites raise the temperature… without burning down the house? YouTube star and house moving sensation Maggie Nichols can’t wait to dive into her next challenge. Arriving in Tiny Kinship, Idaho, with just a cot and a coffee pot, Maggie is prepared to restore a dilapidated Victorian mansion in four months or less. she has her to-do lists, her blueprints and her gear. What she doesn’t have is time for sexy, laid-back landscaper Silas Wright. man takes flirting to a whole new level. and he does it shirtless…sometimes pantsless. he and his service dog who dropped out of school are impressively persistent. but he is not interested in putting down roots. Not when fans tune in to see her travel the country turning dilapidated houses into dream homes. a short-term fling, on the other hand, could fit nicely into her schedule. after all, maggie remembers what fun is like. vaguely. As their summer turns downright steamy, Silas manages to demolish the emotional walls she’s spent years building, sending Maggie into a panic. he is the wrench in her carefully constructed plans. With the end of the project just around the corner, she has to make a decision. but how can he stay with her when her entire career is based on moving forward?
read the review here
a brush with love from mazey eddings
nine out of ten dentists agree, mazey eddings romantic comedy a brush with love makes your smile brighter! collides (literally) with dan. Harper would rather endure a novocain-free root canal than face any distraction, even one this adorable. A first-year dental student with a family legacy to deal with, Dan doesn’t have the same passion for pulling teeth as Harper. although he falls in love with her, he is willing to follow the rules of the harpist. so with the greatest of intentions and the worst of follow-ups, the two made it a point to be “just friends.” But as they get to know each other better, Harper fears that trading fillings for feelings could throw her off balance and she can’t risk her carefully ordered life unraveling, no matter how slime-worthy Dan is. long roots? No problem. the idea of falling in love? torture.
read the audiobook review here
wild hearts by j.t. singer
wild (adjective): 1) not domesticated; wild and untamed2) a brutal or vicious person3) malek antonov
When my older sister calls out of the blue to announce that she’s getting married, it’s a shock. she’s not one to settle down and we haven’t spoken in almost three years.
Even more shocking? sloane wants him to visit her and meet her new fiancé. Curious, I decide to accept the offer.
I should have known something was wrong when she didn’t tell me where she was going. she should have known things were weird when she sent a private jet to pick me up. but she in no way could have guessed what would happen when she finally met her fiancé.
declan o’donnell.Irish mob boss.target of a savage bratva killer who wants revenge for his brother’s murder.
Now, I’m thousands of miles from home, I’m right in the middle of a mob war, and I have a Russian assassin who has decided he likes the way I look.
They say that revenge is a dish that is served cold. they never met malek antonov.
read the review here
Want more romantic recommendations? check out some of my other lists!
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