15 Must Read New Summer Romance Books of 2025

One Golden Summer
by Carly Fortune

I never anticipated Charlie Florek. Good things happen at the lake. That’s what Alice’s grandmother says, and it’s true. Alice spent just one summer there at a cottage with Nan when she was seventeen—it’s where she took that photo, the one of three grinning teenagers in a yellow speedboat, the image that changed her life.

Now Alice lives behind a lens. As a photographer, she’s most comfortable on the sidelines, letting other people shine. Lately though, she’s been itching for something more, and when Nan falls and breaks her hip, Alice comes up with a plan for them both: another summer in that magical place, Barry’s Bay. But as soon as they settle in, their peace is disrupted by the roar of a familiar yellow boat, and the man driving it.

Charlie Florek was nineteen when Alice took his photo from afar. Now he’s all grown up—a shameless flirt, who manages to make Nan laugh and Alice long to be seventeen again, when life was simpler, when taking pictures was just for fun. Sun-slanted days and warm nights out on the lake with Charlie are a balm for Alice’s soul, but when she looks up and sees his piercing green gaze directly on her, she begins to worry for her heart.

Because Alice sees people—that’s why she is so good at what she does—but she’s never met someone who looks and sees her right back.

The Love Haters
by Katherine Center

Katie Vaughn has been burned by love in the past—now she may be lighting her career on fire. She has two choices: wait to get laid off from her job as a video producer or, at her coworker Cole’s request, take a career-making gig profiling Tom “Hutch” Hutcheson, a Coast Guard rescue swimmer in Key West.

The catch? Katie’s not exactly qualified. She can’t swim—but fakes it that she can. Plus: Cole is Hutch’s brother. And they don’t get along. Next stop paradise!

But paradise is messier than it seems. As Katie gets entangled with Hutch (the most scientifically good looking man she has ever seen . . . but also a bit of a love hater), along with his colorful Aunt Rue and his rescue Great Dane, she gets trapped in a lie. Or two.

Swim lessons, helicopter flights, conga lines, drinking contests, hurricanes, and stolen kisses ensue—along with chances to tell the truth, to face old fears, and to be truly brave at last.

It’s a Love Story
by Annabel Monaghan

Rules for growing up in Hollywood: Love is a lie. Laughter is the only truth.

Jane Jackson spent her adolescence as “Poor Janey Jakes,” the barbecue-sauce-in-her-braces punch line on America’s fifth-favorite sitcom. Now she’s trying to be taken seriously as a Hollywood studio executive by embracing a new mantra: Fake it till you make it.

Except she might have faked it too far. Desperate to get her first project green-lit and riled up by pompous cinematographer and onetime crush Dan Finnegan, she claimed that she could get mega popstar Jack Quinlan to write a song for the movie. Jack may have been her first kiss—and greatest source of shame—but she hasn’t spoken to him in twenty years.

Now Jane must turn to the last man she’d ever want to owe: Dan Finnegan. Because Jack is playing a festival in Dan’s hometown, and Dan has an in. A week in close quarters with Dan as she faces down her past is Jane’s idea of hell, but he just might surprise her. While covering up her lie, can they find something true?

Problematic Summer Romance
by Ali Hazelwood

Maya Killgore is twenty-three and still in the process of figuring out her life. Conor Harkness is thirty-eight, and Maya cannot stop thinking about him.

It’s such a cliché, it almost makes her heart implode: older man and younger woman; successful biotech guy and struggling grad student; brother’s best friend and the girl he never even knew existed. As Conor loves to remind her, the power dynamic is too imbalanced. Any relationship between them would be problematic in too many ways to count, and Maya should just get over him. After all, he has made it clear that he wants her gone from his life.

But not everything is as it seems—and clichés sometimes become plot twists.

When Maya’s brother decides to get married in Taormina, she and Conor end up stuck together in a romantic Sicilian villa for over a week. There, on the beautiful Ionian coast, between ancient ruins, delicious foods, and natural caves, Maya realizes that Conor might be hiding something from her.

 And as the destination wedding begins to erupt out of control, she decides that a summer fling might be just what she needs—even if it’s a problematic one.

All’s Fair in Love and Pickleball
by Kate Spencer

Bex Martin’s racquet club is her entire world. But the business she inherited from her mother has started to feel more like a sinking ship. That is, until Nikolaus Karras—a former tennis bad-boy with an ego as big as his serve—makes himself at home on her courts.
 
Niko has something to prove, and a high-stakes pickleball tournament is just what he needs to get back in the game after a career-ending injury. When he is finally able to set his ego aside to ask for Bex’s help, everyone assumes that they are a couple—on and off the court.
 
But she needs the prize money to save the club, and he needs a win to restore his reputation. So now they have a fake relationship as well as a doubles partner that they can’t seem to resist. Game on!

Til Summer Do Us Part
by Meghan Quinn

Scottie Price just started a new job and it’s a real sausage fest. She’s the only woman on a team filled with Brads and Chads. Expecting a bachelor pad atmosphere, she is quickly corrected when she finds out everyone is happily married.

In an effort to impress her boss, Scottie mentions her nonexistent husband in a company meeting. But eagle-eyed Chad points out her lack of wedding ring. Panicked, Scottie creates a story about her unhappy marriage. Unfortunately for Scottie, her boss has a solution—a one-on-one session with the best marriage counselor in the Northeast, who happens to be her boss’s husband.

With no way out of her lie, Scottie agrees to see him. Frantic, she calls in help from her best friend who sets her up with his brother, an improv-obsessed millionaire.

Enter Wilder Wells. More than happy to take on the job, he teaches Scottie the main rule of improv: always say yes. But the rule backfires during the session when Wilder signs them up for an eight-day summer marriage camp with all of Scottie’s co-workers where she’ll have to share a cabin with her way-too-handsome fake husband.

Slow Burn Summer
by Josie Silver

Talent agent Charlie Francisco has three problems: a divorce that ended his screenwriting career, a business he never planned to inherit, and a take-your-breath-away romance novel whose author wants nothing to do with its publication. The book is a surefire hit, if only his agency can find someone to “play” author on its summer book tour.

Enter Kate Elliott, a former soap actress who’s miraculously right for the part at the very moment her life seems to be going all wrong. Kate is still recovering from her own divorce and Charlie’s job offer is a lifeline.

She agrees to the pretense for all interviews, signings, and appearances surrounding the novel’s publication. But she can’t know who really wrote the remarkable story—the one so beautiful it’s made her believe in love again.

When Kate and Charlie meet they’re all friction and sparks—the one thing they have in common is they’re determined to play their respective parts. But as the summer heat ups and the lies get bigger and bigger, can they stick to their lines . . . or will they go off-script?

Sounds Like Love
by Ashley Poston

Joni Lark has a secret. She’s one of the most coveted songwriters in LA, and yet she can’t write. There’s an emptiness inside her, and nothing seems to fill it.

When she returns to her hometown of Vienna Shores, North Carolina, she hopes that the sand, the surf, and the concerts at The Revelry, her family’s music venue, will spark inspiration. But when Joni gets there, nothing is how she left it. Her best friend is hiding something, her mother’s memories are fading fast, and The Revelry is closing.

How can Joni write when her world is leaving her behind? Until she hears it. A melody in her head, lyric-less and half-formed, and an alluring and addictive voice to go with it—belonging, apparently, to a wry musician with an emptiness of his own.

Surely, he’s a figment of Joni’s overworked imagination. Then a very real man shows up in Vienna Shores. He’s arrogant and guarded—nothing like the sweet, funny voice in Joni’s head—and he has a plan for breaking their inconvenient telepathic connection: finish the song haunting them both and hope they don’t risk their hearts—or their secrets—in the process.

Because that melody, the one drawing them together . . . what if it’s there for a reason?

The Seven Year Itch
by Amy Daws

Alone and Looking to Bone! Loudmouthed Mountain Man Seeks Fiery Woman to Grow Old With. I might look like a tall, tattooed, bearded neanderthal…but like an onion, I have layers. Swipe right if you like a proud cat daddy who catches feelings after direct eye contact.

All I wanted was a casual plus-one to my brother’s destination wedding, but those idiots on my family tree hacked my dating profile and sabotaged my quest for the perfect weekend fling. Now I’m stuck on a tropical vacation with only my hand to keep me company.

Until I’m forced to share a room with the bane of my existence: my sister-in-law’s best friend. Dakota has hated me for the past seven years. I wasn’t losing much sleep over her screaming rants because she was some other guy’s problem. Or she was, until she got divorced.

Being stuck in paradise with a woman who loathes your very existence doesn’t sound hot, but after an unexpected moment in our shared palapa, she starts screaming at me in a different way.

What happens in paradise stays in paradise. That is, until Dakota shows up on my mountain with a proposition: be her wingman to help her regain her pre-divorce confidence. Suddenly, Dakota’s not just person I love to fight with. She’s the woman I want everything with. 

The Ripple Effect
by Maggie North

Burned-out former ER doc Stellar J Byrd can solve any crisis except her own life. But with her financial prospects dwindling, she’d do anything to stay in her beloved, pricey wilderness town—even take a job as a camp physician at The Love Boat, an unspeakably touchy-feely relationship therapy startup. If there are sing-alongs, she’s calling in sick.

What’s worse? Her boss is Lyle “McHuge” McHugh, the sunshiny psychologist she’s masterfully avoided since their disastrous hookup last year. Hardheaded relationship scorekeeper Stellar plans to dodge his pathological generosity from now until September, but after a scathing article puts McHuge’s romantic credibility into question, a fake engagement is the only way to salvage the camp’s crumbling public image.

It’s strictly business . . . but the more closely they work together, the more Stellar realizes her feelings for McHuge are anything but professional. With competitors hard on their heels and trade secrets at stake, they must find a way to marry his softness with her steel to build a business–and a love–that will last past summer’s end . . .

Cruel Summer
by Maisey Yates

“I think we should see other people…” That one sentence unravels Samantha Parker’s perfect life. She has a loving husband, three wonderful kids and a comfortable suburban lifestyle. But on the brink of their long-awaited empty-nest chapter, Will asks Samantha for something she never dreamed of: an open marriage.

Desperate to keep her husband happy, Samantha proposes a summerlong separation with no contact. She knows she has to use the opportunity to find herself, but she also has no interest in being with anyone but Will. She’s confident when the season is over, they’ll get back together like this time never happened. 

Then Sam gets an offer of adventure from an unlikely source: Logan Martin, a classic-car restorer who happens to be Will’s best friend, asks Sam to help him drive across the country to make deliveries.

Logan and Sam have never had an easy relationship. He’s prickly, aloof and a little too handsome. And as they traverse the winding roads and breathtaking backdrops of North America, her changing connection with Logan challenges everything she believed she wanted in life, love and passion.

When her summer with Logan is up, will she go home to the familiar stability of her past…or choose the thrilling uncertainty of her future?

Anywhere With You
by Ellie Palmer

Charley Beekman is thriving. Is she financially strapped, languishing in her legal career, and very likely the youngest divorcee at the Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse on a Friday night? Yes. But, now that she’s accepted the flaws inherent in all romantic relationships, she finally has life all figured out! She’s definitely due for an upswing.

So when her free-spirited sister announces her plan to elope with her messy on-again-off-again childhood sweetheart, Charley knows she has to stop the wedding, even if it means road-tripping into the northern woods of Minnesota in a camper van with her childhood best friend, Ethan, who’s as gorgeous as he is chronically unreliable.

But when their cozy journey ignites a spark she’s tried to ignore for years, Charley tries to write off her feelings as fleeting. Because after failing at marriage so spectacularly with the most responsible man she’s ever known, Charley definitely shouldn’t risk it all for her non-committal, nomadic, musician best friend . . . right?

Well, Actually
by Mazey Eddings

Eva Kitt never expected to be the host of Sausage Talk, interviewing B-list celebrities over lukewarm hot dogs, instead of pursuing the journalism career she dreamed of. But when Eva’s impromptu public call out of her college ex goes viral, she’s thrust into the spotlight.

It doesn’t help said ex is Rylie Cooper, a beloved social media personality that has built a platform on deconstructing toxic masculinity and teaching men how to be good partners.

Forced to confront Rylie on a live episode of Sausage Talk, he offers Eva a deal: allow him to take her on a series of dates to make up for his toxic behavior, then debrief them on his channel to show he’s changed. Eva refuses to play nice, but agrees to the scheme to advance her own career and continue defaming Rylie’s good name.

When these manufactured dates start to feel real, Eva has to wonder if the boy that broke her heart has become the man that might heal it.

If All Else Sails
by Emma St. Clair

When Josie’s brother sends her to a random address for their (sometimes) annual Super Summer Sibling Extravaganza, she finds neither siblings nor extravaganzas. Instead, ends up at a run-down cottage on the Northern Neck of Virginia occupied by a hockey player she knows and loathes.

A hockey player who isn’t just one of her sports agent brother’s clients. He’s also his best friend. And Josie’s sworn enemy. Oh–and her brother wants Josie to help Wyatt recover from his injury.

Dragging grumpy hockey players to physical therapy is a far cry from bandaging skinned knees, but for the price her brother offers to pay, Josie is willing to try.

Even if it means sharing what she dubs the quaint little murder cottage with Wyatt.

Begrudgingly, Josie starts to see a little more of the man behind the grumpy exterior. And when she finds out he was supposed to sail the Intracoastal Waterway south to Savannah scattering his uncle’s ashes, Josie surprises even herself by offering to be Wyatt’s first mate.

Smooth sailing is nowhere to be found, and Josie begins to wonder if they’ll be able to make it home without killing–or kissing?–each other.

And yet, the longer they share cramped quarters and canned food, the more of Wyatt’s layers she peels back until Josie realizes she misunderstood him, their shared history, and perhaps herself as well.

The Blond Who Came in From the Cold
by Ally Carter

Ten years ago, they joined the CIA. Six years ago, he left the game.  Five years ago, they fell in love.  One year ago, she ran out into the cold with absolutely no intention of ever coming back. And two minutes ago, they woke up, bloody and bruised and handcuffed together in the dark.

They don’t know where they are. They don’t know how they got there. And they have absolutely no idea who is after them or what this nameless, faceless villain wants. 

The only thing that’s clear is that, after ten years of covers and chemistry, secrets and lies, these two rival spies have been sucked into their greatest mission yet, and now they’re going to have to team up to stay alive. (If they don’t kill each other first.)