15 Love Triangle Books Full of Angst That Will Tear You Up Inside
If you’re looking for books about a love triangle, then look no further as these love triangle books are the best in the genre. Just be prepared to have your heart ripped out when reading them because these authors don’t go easy and really bring the angst!
Below you’ll find my favorite love triangle books as well as those on my TBR list that you should add to yours as well. Be sure to also listen to the podcast episode:
Episode 31: The Best Love Triangle Romance Books
Happy reading…because life is better with a love story!
*Disclosure: This post may include affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.
My Favorite Love Triangle Books:
Drive
by Kate Stewart
Stella is a music journalist at the top of her career who after just conducting a mega interview with a highly coveted star hears a song and gets some earth-shattering news that sets her on a road trip home reminiscing and reflecting on the past that got her to this point.
Remembering the past takes her back to the moment she falls for a young drummer who then breaks her heart moving to the moment she finally gets a job at a local paper run by a young editor who pursues her despite her heartache.
Why I Loved This Love Triangle: Drive is THE love triangle book of all love triangle books. It’s the type of love triangle book I enjoy reading but that rips my heart out because I fall equally as hard for both men.
I loved both Reid and Nate so totally and completely in this one that I really didn’t envy Stella’s choice when it came down to it because she did have to choose between two men who had stolen her heart.
Stewart’s writing is phenomenal in this book and keeps you guessing the entire time which is why it is unputdownable and one of the best love triangle books worth reading.
Check out my book review of Drive.
Related: Best Rock Star Romance Books
Say You Swear
by Meaghan Brandy
Ari just graduated high school and is excited to spend the summer before college with her friends, including her brother’s best friend, Chace. She’s loved him since he first moved in next door so she’s determined to finally make her move, but that move does not have the ending she was hoping for.
Starting college with a broken heart, she starts hanging out with football quarterback, Noah who becomes her best friend and more. But when Chace throws his hat back into the ring, how is she supposed to choose?
Why I Loved This Love Triangle: This love triangle romance is the best and it’s all because of Noah who is hands down one of the best book boyfriends you’ll ever find. He’s got some serious sadness and baggage going on but he just becomes this incredible friend to Ari knowing full well that she’s still in love with her brother’s best friend and nursing a broken heart.
This love triangle absolutely broke my heart in more ways than one as the story developed but you’ll just have to read it to understand why!
Check out my book review of Say You Swear.
Related: Best College Romance Books
One is a Promise
by Pam Godwin
All it took for Danni was one look to fall in love with Cole, the hot stud on a motorcycle who moves in within a month and soon proposes. They’re planning a wedding when he returns from a job that sends him overseas for a year only that day never comes.
Danni’s heart is severed but several years later she’s approached by a man in a suit with a job offer she can’t refuse to dance at his casino. Only just as she’s given her heart to Trace, the unimaginable happens and now she’s faced with two men she loves, but only one can have her.
Why I Loved This Love Triangle: This love triangle book has the absolute BEST meet cute I’ve ever read which hooked me and never let go as I got swept up in their love story. This is one of the best kind of love triangles where for me there is no clear-cut man I loved more.
The book ends on an OMG moment and cliffhanger which will have you instantly grabbing for book two in the Tangled Lies series and then onto book three for the resolution. So worth it!
The Kiss Thief
by L.J. Shen
Francesca Rossi is in love with and promised to Angelo Bandini, the heir to one of the most powerful families in the Chicago Outfit. But instead of marrying her intended she is forced to marry Senator Wolfe Keaton, the man blackmailing her father.
Why I Loved This Love Triangle: Francesca may have been young (19 yo) but this woman does not just sit back and play the pawn when she was forced into her marriage with a 30-year-old. This book is such a good, enemies to lovers story with the best slow burn between the anti-hero and the woman he underestimates.
Related: Best Arranged Marriage Romance Books
One True Loves
by Taylor Jenkins Reid
Emma Blair and Jesse are two high school sweethearts who marry and travel the world together. But on their one-year wedding anniversary, Jesse disappears in a helicopter crash over the Pacific. Trying to pick up the pieces of her life, Emma moves home and begins working in her parents’ bookstore where she reunites with her old friend from high school, Sam.
When Emma and Sam get engaged, the unbelievable happens: Emma receives a call that Jesse is found alive and is coming home. Faced with both a husband and a fiancé, Emma has to now figure out who she is and what she wants.
Why I Loved This Love Triangle: Not going to lie, I had to get over the premise of how Jesse survived his helicopter crash which is very reminiscent of the movie “Castaway.”
But if you can get over that bit of the story then you’re really sucked into this horrible but amazing predicament where she’s faced with choosing between her first love and the man who helped repair her heart. I really enjoyed how this book also reflects on self-growth and how you change as a person with age and life circumstances.
Related: Taylor Jenkins Reid Books in Order
It Ends With Us
by Colleen Hoover
When Lily feels a spark with a gorgeous neurosurgeon named Ryle Kincaid, everything in Lily’s life suddenly seems almost too good to be true. Ryle is assertive, stubborn, and maybe even a little arrogant, but Ryle’s complete aversion to relationships is disturbing.
As questions about her new relationship overwhelm her, so do thoughts of Atlas Corrigan – her first love and a link to the past she left behind. He was her kindred spirit, her protector. When Atlas suddenly reappears, everything Lily has built with Ryle is threatened.
Why I Loved This Love Triangle: This was such a hard story to read because I could see how Lily’s relationship with Ryle could be like so many other women’s. I fell so hard for both men but Lily’s strength is what shined through the most.
There are trigger warnings for this book so be sure to check them out or read my review before picking it up though I highly recommend this popular read! Read it before catching the It Ends With Us movie!
Related: It Ends With Us Series Order
The Notebook
by Nicholas Sparks
At thirty-one, Noah Calhoun, back in coastal North Carolina after fighting overseas, is haunted by images of the girl he lost more than a decade earlier. At twenty-nine, socialite Allie Nelson is about to marry a wealthy lawyer, but she cannot stop thinking about the boy who long ago stole her heart.
When she returns to the town where she fell in love with a boy one summer, she is faced with the ultimate choice – her first love or the man whose ring she’s wearing.
Why I Loved This Love Triangle: I sometimes think of this as a second chance romance because it’s all about Noah and Allie for me, but it is a love triangle because she is engaged to marry another man before she learns of Noah’s return and the promise he kept.
Sparks writes one of the best love stories of all time with this one that remains at the top as one of my favorite romance books.
Related: Nicholas Sparks Books in Order
Outlander
by Diana Gabaldon
In 1945, Claire Randall, a former combat nurse reunites with her husband on a second honeymoon when she walks through a standing stone circle. Suddenly, she’s thrust back in time to 1743 and a Scotland engaged in battle where she meets a young Highland warrior.
James Fraser, a young Scotsman, shows her a love so absolute that Claire becomes a woman torn between fidelity and desire—and between two vastly different men in two irreconcilable lives.
Why I Loved This Love Triangle: This too is one of my all-time favorite romance books because of its epic love story along with a suspenseful plotline that keeps you hooked in this must-read time travel romance.
I loved being swept away into the Scottish Highlands and learning about its history just as much as I was glued to the pages to see how Claire would fit into this new world, if she could find a way to return back to her time or how she would ultimately choose between two men she loved.
Related: Outlander Books in Order
Something Borrowed
by Emily Goodwin
Rachel White is the consummate good girl. Always the sidekick to her best friend Darcy and now maid of honor for her friend’s upcoming wedding. But that suddenly changes the night of her thirtieth birthday when Rachel finally confesses her feelings to Darcy’s fiance, and is both horrified and thrilled to discover that he feels the same way.
As the wedding date draws near, events spiral out of control, and Rachel knows she must make a choice between her heart and conscience. In so doing, she discovers that the lines between right and wrong can be blurry, endings aren’t always neat, and sometimes you have to risk everything to be true to yourself.
Why I Loved This Love Triangle: This is a bit of a different love triangle book where the heroine isn’t the one choosing between two men but she becomes the person coming between her friend and her friend’s fiancé.
Goodwin weaves such a compelling story about friendship, love and choices you make and the consequences you have to live with. I highly recommend it as well as the follow up novel, Something Blue.
Maybe Someday
by Colleen Hoover
When Sydney discovers that her boyfriend is cheating on her with her best friend and roommate, she has nowhere to go. But then she meets Ridge, the neighbor she watches and listens to play music across from her balcony, who offers her a room in the apartment he shares with his roommates.
Though Sydney and Ridge are soon drawn to one another, their love story isn’t as simple as it may seem because Ridge has a girlfriend.
Why I Loved This Love Triangle: This was the first book by Colleen Hoover that I read and I was instantly hooked by the love triangle as well as the surprise that you learn about Ridge.
I felt for the position that he was put in, having his long-time girlfriend but also feeling such a connection to Sydney. Be prepared for your heart to hurt while reading this one but it’s so worth it!
Related: Maybe Someday Series: The Complete Guide
The Summer Proposal
by Vi Keeland
Georgia first met Max Yearwood when she was supposed to be on a blind date. Only as it turned out, Max wasn’t who she was there to meet.
Before he left, he slipped her a ticket to a hockey game a few blocks away, apparently not as an invitation to watch hockey with him, but to watch him play. From that initial meet cute he offered a proposed she couldn’t refuse- spend the summer with him to help her forget her ex.
Why I Loved This Love Triangle: Putting this one on the list is a bit of a spoiler as Georgia isn’t totally up front about where things stand with her ex. That being said it’s not your typical love triangle where you meet the two men someone is connected with.
The focus is totally on Max and Georgia’s connection and how Max was all in after just one look. He was the best book boyfriend in this one!
Related: Best Hockey Romance Books
Love Triangle Books On My TBR List:
One Day in December
by Josie Silver
Laurie is pretty sure love at first sight doesn’t exist anywhere but the movies. But then, through a misted-up bus window one snowy December day, she sees a man who she knows instantly is the one. Their eyes meet, there’s a moment of pure magic . . . and then her bus drives away. Certain they’re fated to find each other again, Laurie spends a year scanning every bus stop and cafe in London for him.
But she doesn’t find him until they “reunite” at a Christmas party, when her best friend, Sarah, introduces her new boyfriend to Laurie. It’s Jack, the man from the bus. What follows for Laurie, Sarah, and Jack is ten years of friendship, heartbreak, missed opportunities, roads not taken, and destinies reconsidered.
Holy moly just reading the book summary of this love triangle book has my heart aflutter. I cannot imagine what either Laurie or Jack feel when they finally see each other again.
Part of me already wants to say, why didn’t Jack say anything right then and there but I guess I’ll just have to read it to know more. Check out this romance if you want to see what fate has in store for their happiness.
Hold the Forevers
by K.A. Linde
Lila is in love with two men but she can only marry one. And today is her wedding day. Her groom is waiting for her but as she walks down the aisle prepared to say I do, there’s a shout from the back of the room, “I object!” She should have known it couldn’t be that easy.
After more than a decade of push and pull, neither of her loves is going to let her go. They’re a trio that should have never been. One that she will marry and one that she’ll leave behind.
OMG a wedding objector romance! That alone shows you the level of suspense and angst that will keep you flipping the pages on this one. Lila must choose between her first love Ash and Cole, the man she falls for in college. This book spans ten years so get ready for a ride.
Bring Down the Stars
by Emma Scott
Autumn fell for Connor Drake. She didn’t want to, but she fell in love with him anyway. With his words. With his poetry. With him. She’s in love with Connor…so she doesn’t understand why she also feels an inexplicable pull to his best friend, Weston.
Grouchy, sullen, brooding Weston Turner, who could cut you down with a look. When they both sign up for the Army Reserves during a time of increasing strife overseas, she fears she’ll never unravel her own heart that sometimes feels as if it will tear straight down the middle…for both of them.
Emma Scott is one of those authors who doesn’t hold back and writes the sweetest yet angst-filled love stories that rip your heart out. The fact that this love triangle book also involves military heroes already tells me that I need to keep a box of tissues next to me while reading it.
What He Doesn’t Know
by Kandi Steiner
Torn apart by grief, Charlie’s marriage has been slowly crumbling for years now. She knows her caring, loving husband is still there somewhere, but he’s hidden by the shell of a man who has replaced him since the day their lives were turned upside down. She can handle the lack of affection. She can hold onto their vows even as he breaks them one by one.
But when Reese comes back into town to teach at the school where she works, she finds she can’t hide her pain from her brother’s best friend. He sees right through her, and he won’t accept anything but having her for his own.
Oh boy, Steiner isn’t going to make this love triangle book an easy one to read. Grief has a way of destroying relationships but when do you fight and when do you give up? I don’t envy Charlie’s predicament, having to choose between the man she married or the first crush she lost. Read it to see who you’d choose!
Related: Best Brother’s Best Friend Books
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