Happily ever after. These three words form the backbone of the romance genre. Because no matter how fraught the journey, in romance, the protagonists will be together by the story’s end. This is the reason so many readers return again and again to these books—in a tumultuous world, romance novels offer a guarantee.

And they’ve never felt so needed, or enjoyed such mainstream celebration, as they have over the past few years. Sales in the genre began to spike as COVID-19 shut down the world and readers sought a dose of warmth and levity in 2020; the emergence of TikTok as a platform for word-of-mouth book recommendations around the same time made romance novels both new and old go viral, shooting a handful of authors to the rarified territory of repeat no. 1 New York Times best sellers. Last year, romance book sales surged even higher, with nearly 40 million printed copies sold, according to market research company Circana. And the number of romance-specific bookstores in the U.S.—from Tropes & Trifles in Minneapolis to the Ripped Bodice in New York City and L.A.—has grown from just two in 2020 to more than 20 today.

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If you don’t understand the appeal of romance novels, we’re willing to bet you’ve never read one. Reading romance can be an escape into a sweeter, softer version of our world—or it can be a risky adventure into strange new lands. Romance can be contemporary, historical, paranormal, erotic. It can tell stories of enemies combusting into lovers, of childhood sweethearts reuniting as adults, of strangers begrudgingly forced together who find themselves catching feelings, of unintentional bedmates, of bloodthirsty vampires and clandestine witches and overworked doctors and amnesic spouses learning to love one another all over again. Romance can take place in a Regency mansion, in a boardroom, on the sidelines of a football field, in a tiny town. There is a subgenre, a trope, and a plot for every reader—a story to satisfy any particular taste.

To create our list of The 50 Best Romance Novels to Read Right Now, we began in early 2024 by speaking with booksellers, editors, authors, and other industry experts who helped us understand the nuances and evolution of romance. These conversations helped shape the entries on this list (all books in the English language), which TIME editors honed by considering key factors including ingenuity, commercial success, acclaim, and impact, aiming to curate a list that celebrates the burgeoning inclusivity of the genre.

Explore the list