Siblings are our first best friends — and sometimes our first rivals.
The romance novels of spring 2024 bring sibling bonds to their forefront. Whether it’s a heroine who is extremely protective of her sibling, two protagonists haunted by the death of a sibling, or the support system that comes from sisterhood, each of the love stories we’ve chosen to review this season delve into the ways those relationships shape and buoy the love in our life.
Here are our five favorite romance novels of spring 2024.
How to End a Love Story by Yulin Kuang
Avon
If you are tapped into romancelandia with an IV drip, you’ve probably heard of Yulin Kuang. The TV writer is adapting Emily Henry’s Beach Read and People We Meet on Vacation for the big screen, but she’s making her fiction debut with How to End a Love Story. It’s a tale that feels cut from the same cloth as Henry’s stories, albeit peppered with even more angst. Don’t be fooled by the pink cartoon cover of Kuang’s book; this is a heavy read, not a lighthearted escape. That’s not to say it’s not beautiful and heartrending. Helen Zhang and Grant Shepard share a tragic past — her younger sister committed suicide in high school by stepping in front of Grant’s car. Helen and Grant are forced back into each other’s orbit when he’s hired as a writer on a TV adaptation of her best-selling novels. Once they move past the shock and knee-jerk resentment, they realize there’s a simmering mutual attraction between them. But to make it something real, they’ll have to be willing to overcome the guilt of their pasts. Kuang deals very frankly with the collateral damage of suicide, including how Grant, Helen, and their families have never healed from the trauma of the accident. While Grant has struggled to find his voice amidst his crippling anxiety, Helen has shoved herself into a box of people-pleasing, particularly looking to make her parents happy. Their relationship untethers them from the expectations they and others have placed upon them, but they run the risk of getting pulled under without that familiar rope to hold on to. At times, it can be a bit challenging to see what makes Grant and Helen a good fit beyond their sexual chemistry. But by the book’s conclusion, Kuang sweeps readers up in their unlikely romance. She writes with a brisk, bruising emotion, innately understanding how tragedy can overtake our lives if we don’t fight to get out from under it. How to End a Love Story is a tale of grief and how love does not stop the pain of loss, but can help us to reframe it.
Heat Rating: 🔥🔥🔥🔥
Grade: B+
The Kiss Countdown by Etta Easton
Berkley
Etta Easton makes her debut with this delightful novel about an astronaut and an event planner who’s fake relationship becomes something real. Amerie Price is having a hard time — her mom is sick, she’s lost her job, and she might lose her apartment. A chance meeting at a coffee shop with astronaut Vincent Rogers offers her an unusual solution: a rent-free room in his house if she agrees to pretend to be his partner in front of his family until his next mission (to the moon). But the second they start sharing a living space, Amerie can’t stop thinking about Vincent’s caring attentiveness and rippling muscles. Soon, remembering that it’s all pretend becomes more challenging than the charade itself. Easton delivers a sparkling fake dating rom-com that is both delectably tropey and utterly believable. Vincent is a fascinating hero, a passionate student of the cosmos who is trying to make peace with his family’s fear surrounding his career choices. Amerie has spent a lot of time bending herself into a pretzel to please others, and it’s refreshing to see her putting herself first in her relationship with Vincent. The Kiss Countdown is a tribute to unexpected romantic connections, crackling chemistry, and the value of family.
Heat Rating: 🔥🔥🔥🔥
Grade: A-
Wake Me Most Wickedly by Felicia Grossman
Forever
Felicia Grossman returns to her Once Upon the East End series with this gender-bent retelling of Snow White. To repay the brother who raised him, Solomon Weiss is determined to make good, working hard for money, influence, and respectability. But when Sol crosses paths with pawnshop owner Hannah, he’s irresistibly drawn to her, even if she can only imagine herself as a villain in his story. Grossman’s tales are creative and smart in the ways they invoke the fairy tales she spins them from (in this case, her use of apples, mirrors, and her twist on the seven dwarves are all quite clever). But what is so moving and engrossing about her novels is how she reclaims not only fairy tales but history itself. Using the history of antisemitism against Jewish pawnbrokers (one of the few professions permitted to them in the 19th century), Grossman crafts a gripping tale of a woman who has swallowed the prejudices of society as surely as a poisonous potion. In her own eyes, Hannah cannot escape the shadow of her crimes, which are the innocent mistakes of a young woman criminalized by a prejudiced populace. But it’s Sol’s kindness and care that helps her to understand that she deserves happiness and a second chance. Both Hannah and Sol have complicated relationships with their siblings, and Grossman offers a compelling view of the lengths they will go to for the siblings they love. But while Hannah’s sister wants her to find love, Sol’s brother has internalized antisemitism to a dangerous degree. The portrait of sibling dynamics adds extra depth to the love story at the novel’s center. Wake Me Most Wickedly is an outright invigorating yarn, a tale of back alley wheeling and dealing and daring rooftop escapes. Beyond its mere charms as a gripping romance, it heightens Grossman’s revolutionary storytelling. It’s not only that she’s centering Jewish stories within the trappings of Western fairy tales, but it’s how she’s subverting and exposing historical reality. In taking the Jewish stereotype of the pawnbroker and making her a complex heroine, Grossman is asking readers to examine long-established caricatures — and offering those historically besmirched their chance at redemption and happy endings.
Heat Rating: 🔥🔥🔥🔥
Grade: A
The Other Side of Disappearing by Kate Clayborn
Kensington Books
The arrival of a new Kate Clayborn book is the only thing that can make me actually excited about the prospect of being emotionally devastated. Her latest, The Other Side of Disappearing, delivers her usual bruising authenticity and signature ability to combine a deeply romantic love story with a tale that explores the snarled and wounded corners of our hearts. Here, she also adds a page-turning mystery to the mix. Hairstylist Jess Greene has spent the last decade of her life raising her half-sister, Tegan, after her mother disappears with her latest beau. But when Tegan discovers that their mother ran off with Lynton Baltimore, the man who was the subject of a hit true crime podcast, she pulls Jess into a quest to find their absent parent, sending them on a road trip destined to bring them heartbreak and answers in equal measure. Handsome, wholesome podcast producer Adam Hawkins complicates Jess’ life further, as she finds herself drawn to his corn-fed brawn and innate decency. As a world of hurt and selfishness swirls around them, the two find unexpected refuge in each other. Jess hasn’t let anyone into her heart in years, fearing abandonment, but Adam makes it easy with his upright honesty and deep sense of care. The Other Side of Disappearing is, in so many ways, a novel about heartbreak. It’s about the shattered pieces left in the wake of someone’s disappearance and the fragile loved ones left with no choice but to attempt to put themselves back together. Clayborn writes of how someone can sneak into your heart, wiggling their way into the crevices and sinews of your body and soul when you least expect it. There’s a soulfulness to her work, a beauty in how she grants her everyday characters dignity and depth. The Other Side of Disappearing is a cathartic, emotionally attuned novel about the double-edged sword of emotional boundaries — and the trust required to open the gates to one’s heart. In Clayborn’s novel, heartbreak really does feel good in a place like this.
Heat Rating: 🔥🔥🔥🔥
Grade: A
Old Flames and New Fortunes by Sarah Hogle
G.P. Putnam’s Sons
Sarah Hogle’s whimsical, charming novels have a new member in their bookish family with Old Flames and New Fortunes, a tale of second chances and light magic. Romina Tempest is a floral fortunist, meaning she uses the language of flowers and floral arrangements to help manifest love in her customers’ lives. But her track record when it comes to romance isn’t exactly blooming. And things go from bad to worse when she discovers that the future stepbrother of the friend she’s pretending to date is none other than the boy who got away: Alex King, her high school sweetheart and the love of her life. When Alex and Romina re-enter each other’s orbit, there’s plenty of hijinks and bursts of enchantment. But the real magic comes in their mutual sensitivity, as they uncover all the wounds etched in their hearts during the years they spent apart. Neither of them ever really stopped loving the other. Hogle’s books are as spritely as a perfect spring day, packed with genuine heartache, deep romanticism, and a fanciful sense of humor. Old Flames and New Fortunes grants us two lovers whose greatest lesson is that the true magic of love lies within our own vulnerable hearts.
Heat Rating: 🔥🔥🔥
Grade: A-