Time for the most evil recommendation feature we have: READY, SET, GO!
Here are the rules:
We pick a specific sub-genre, trope, or type of romance, and we have to make ONE recommendation for that type.
ONE.
ONLY ONE.
And no more than two sentences as to why.
Yes, just one. Which one book do you pick to fill that rec?
What is the warmest, fuzziest, coziest romance you’d recommend?
Any genre, but just one rec.
Ready, set, GO!
Me: Act Like It, Lucy Parker. Every time, no question: Cat Richard, having pancakes after she runs a 5k, the whispered conversations, and Lainie’s family are the perfect warm, fuzzy, cozy read for me. I freaking love that book.
Amanda: A Week to Be Wicked by Tessa Dare! It has everything I could ever want in a comforting, sweet, and funny romance. Guaranteed to make me feel like I’m getting the best hug in the world.
Elyse: A Prince on Paper by Alyssa Cole. The hero even has a teddy bear. It’s all the warm and fuzzy. It’s like being wrapped in a blanket while cuddling a cat and drinking hot cocoa
Carrie: Jennifer Crusie’s Charlie All Night, which features a lot of puppy cuddling.
Sarah: Oh, good one, Carrie! Especially all the late night radio talking.
Carrie: Best book? No, it’s good, but not great. Most cuddly book? OH HELL YEAH.
Susan: Humanity For Beginners by Faith Mudge! (NB: Amanda here, so sorry to bum everyone out, but I could not find this book available anywhere.) The protagonist set out to run a B&B and accidentally ends up with a halfway house for lesbian werewolves.
Amanda: What?! SUSAN!
Susan: It’s true!
Gloria did not intend to start a halfway house for lesbian werewolves. It just sort of happened. Between running a small bed-and-breakfast with her friend Nadine, helping one young lycanthrope adjust to life after the bite and soothing ruffled fur when the other brings home an unexpected cat, Gloria has more than enough to keep her busy, but one thing is definite: she is not nor ever will be an alpha, whatever Nadine says. And the ever-expanding circle of misfits in her guesthouse is certainly not a pack.
If only Nadine and the rest of the world were as simple and clear cut as she kept wanting them to be.
Carrie: OMG I’m one clicking on that!
Lara: I have a wildcard: A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness. There are SO MANY BOOKS and for me that’s the epitome of cosy.
Claudia: Under duress since I can only highlight one, I will go with The Parfit Knight by Stella Riley ( A | BN | K | AB ). Fittingly for our times, hero first meets the heroine when he has to seek shelter from a snowstorm and gets stuck in her house for a week.
Tara: Poppy Jenkins by Clare Ashton is the one for me. It’s so sweet and makes me think of sunshine and rolling hills in Wales.
Aarya: Y’all already picked some of my potential answers. I was struggling to decide because my tastes don’t gravitate toward cozy/warm (hello, slow burn angst). But then it occurred to me that I love holiday novellas because they’re warm and comforting.
So if you don’t mind an out-of-season rec, my pick is Dance All Night by Alexis Daria (Elyse gave it an A- in a lightning review). It has all my favorite ingredients of a Christmas romance:
- Scrooge-like heroine
- prickly/sunshine pairing
- pining
- sexy
- low-on-conflict
- hot chocolate/cookies
- forced proximity via a snowed-in cabin and
- holiday traditions.
But my broader answer to this question is any holiday romance because they all make me feel cozy. Who says you can’t have Christmas-in-April?
Sarah: Holiday romances work at any time, says I!
Susan: Aarya, I can’t believe how many of my favourite tropes you fit into one description.
Catherine: I mean, I have a Jackie Lau and a Laura Florand book for every occasion right now, but trying for some variety… what about A Summer to Remember by Mary Balogh? You have Lauren, who is this perfect, kind, lady who has never let herself have fun, and Kit, who is rakish and disreputable, but again with a deeply kind streak, and they basically team up in a fake engagement to quietly make each other’s lives better and get their families off their backs, only they fall in love. It’s very sweet and always makes me smile.
Claudia: I love A Summer to Remember!
Catherine: It’s such a sweet book. I have a bit of a crush on Kit.
Sneezy: After much hemming and hawing, I think I’m going with The Kiss Quotient by Helen Hoang. At one point in the book, Stella says to Michael, “I like you better than calculus, and math is the only thing that unites the universe.”
They are both cinnamon rolls studded with blood thirsty blueberries (or is dark chocolate a more blood thirsty food?) so of course I want a whole tray of them.
(And look calculus is my enemy, and I firmly believe the universe is held together by an accident of fairy dust, but if Stella said that to me, I’d wife her too.)
Catherine: Ooh, good choice. This whole thread is full of wonderful things.
Shana: This is a truly impossible task, since I can’t even choose my favorite cozy Jackie Lau book! But since I’m being forced to…I recommend Wrapped by Rebekah Weatherspoon. It’s a holiday novella, and there’s nothing cozier for me than a quick path to a HEA. Heroine is a baker (treats abound), the hero is a cinnamon roll coworker from her former office job that she’d been secretly crushing on. They match on a dating app, and are toe-curlingly gooey together. There’s lots of friend banter to cheer them on while they go holiday shopping, canoodle on the couch, eat cupcakes, eat cupcakes again.
Sarah: Y’all made wonderful choices. Thank you!
OK, your turn! What about you? Give us your one (ONE) recommendation for the Warmest, Fuzziest, Coziest Romance.
Ready, Set, Go!
I could not wipe the smile off my face reading A Warriner to Rescue Her by Virginia Heath. The hero and the heroine are both two precious cinnamon buns I want to smother with icing.
Oh my, this is a hard one. Since Lucy Parker, A Discovery of Witches and holiday novellas are mentioned above I’ll go downn another road and say Roman Crazy by Alice Clayton.
It’s second chance, set in Rome, a bit angsty at times, but for me, it’s The Comfort Food. I’ve read it for the first time before setting out for a scholarship semester in Rome and Roman Crazy brings back the memories of preparing for the Big Adventure. It has Italian food, wine, family and a sexy architect hero, an artsy heroine reconnecting with herself after leaving her husband. It is just sooo warm and cozy for me.
Attachments by Rainbow Rowell! It’s a very low conflict office romance, and everyone is perfectly adorable, and the heroine and her friend have the perfect snarky friendship. It’s a comfort reread for me.
It was a tough choice, but I think I have to go with ONLY BELOVED by Mary Balogh. Her Survivor’s Club series in general will give you a pleasant case of the warm fuzzies, but this book is my favorite of that series. There isn’t too much conflict and the hero is one of my favorite betas, I’d even say say he’s the “sex puppy” type. Highly recommended .
Courtney Milan. Any Turner brother is fine by me, though Unveiled is probably my favorite, I love their support of each other and of the strong, capable women they end up deserving.
Cozy is not a favorite sub-genre for me, I usually need more angst, but a book I just finished yesterday might fit the bill: Kate Canterbary’s FRESH CATCH. It’s an opposites-attract m/m romance between a quiet boat captain/lobster fisherman and a talkative tech genius stuck in the small town of Talbott’s Cove, Maine, while his sailboat is repaired. The fisherman lives in the coziest little house on the shoreline, close to the lighthouse. A really sweet story and relatively low-angst.
Just in case others are interested in following up: Faith Mudge’s Humanity for Beginners turns out to be a novella from 2017 by a Queensland author; there’s a Goodreads entry here (with ISBN, which apparently means nothing to Amazon): https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/33301029-humanity-for-beginners . However, checking the author page at Goodreaads leads to the author’s blog, here: https://beyondthedreamline.wordpress.com/ which … oooooooooooh. She does year-long series of blog posts on topics like “Lands of Legend,” “The Year of the Witch,” and (this year) Arthurian legends.
Somewhere in there, there must be a way to get a copy (digitally? shipped from Oz?), but also … there’s enough in those blog posts to keep me happily distracted from cabin fever and trees falling over and the decline and fall of western civilization for quite a while!
“Red, White, and Royal Blue”. I’ve read it four times since it was published last year. Alex and Henry are wonderful and funny and real and, despite their very public lives, manage to have so many cozy moments: the house at Lake LBJ, night in the V&A, in Henry’s rooms at Buckingham Palace, etc.
Humanity for Beginners was published by Less Than Three Press, and when they went out of business I guess it went out of print. And it doesn’t look like it’s been republished anywhere else, unfortunately.
So many possibilities… I’ll go with an oldie but a goody. Welcome to temptation by Jennifer Crusie.
“When a Scot Ties the Knot” is the snuggliest, coziest book that always fills me with marshmallow fluff. Maddie just wants to stay home and draw snails, and Logan wants to be a big tough alpha but is really a cinnamon roll who just wants to take care of his besties and Maddie and her lobsters and the whole book JUST FEELS SO GOOD.
Grrrrrr…..if I had to pick one, I found Devil’s Daughter by Lisa Kleypas deeply cozy and I read it during a time when my immune system had taken one hell of a beating from hurricane stress. But I will also cheat and say that When A Scot Ties the Knot by Tessa Dare got me through one hell of a flu some years back.
I’m going to go with my gateway romance (my childhood favorite): Beauty by Robin McKinley. Bookish (and gender nonconforming in the 1st half) heroine, strong sister bonds, and a horse win a strong personality.
It’s actually next up on the tbreread pile: Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand by Helen Simonson. Not your traditional romance, but I tell you it made me swoony. Small English village, retired army officer (imagine your favorite British actor in his 60s. I see Alec Guinness circa Bridge Over The River Kwai.), friendship to love, cultural differences, complicated families. I loved everything about this book.
Just read this, and since have been obsessively visiting the author’s webpage to read every free word of his available: Faux Ho Ho, by Nathan Burgoine, a super sweet friends to lovers holiday novella. Sweet, with humor, chosen family vs. birth family, all sorts of goodness, also by a queer male author, if M/M by women for women makes you a bit twitchy. CW for terrible family, homophobia. If anybody can recommend readalikes for this, I’d be so grateful.
Gotta go with Clare London’s SAY A LITTLE PRAYER! Nineteen-year-old Jonathan is living with his sassy grandmother in Brighton, where he pushes an ice cream cart to earn money for college. Enter the incredibly handsome (and naked) beachgoer Admael, who happens to be the guardian angel who’s loved the lonely Jonathan fram afar. Both guys are irresistible book boyfriends, and Admael has this glorious sex puppy quality (he’s been a virgin for millennia, you know!) that, coupled with his innocence, just melts me. It’s available in KU if you want to try it first…
Love in the afternoon by Lisa Kleypas. It has a quirky heroine, a great family, and they have a honeymoon in a cute little cottage.
Anything by Sarah Title!
BEARD SCIENCE by Penny Read (again… I know…)
Jeniffer is the small-town cake queen who is constantly downtrodden by her parents and unabashedly dreams about being a good mother and excellent partner for a husband that respects her, and Cletus is an intelligent, sneaky sneak that does nothing without an agenda. I love the small town feel, the Winston family, and Cletus’ inner monologues about how he imagines things are going to turn out (and how Jennifer constantly surprises him).
Talia Hibbert’s Mating the Huntress. cinnamon roll werewolf with kickass werewolf-hunting woman. BEHOLD, the greatest lines ever written in the English language:
“She wasn’t sweet or gentle or biddable. She was a bloodthirsty fucking murderer.
His heart sang.”
The Heir by Grace Burrowes is a great read. Lots of sibling love and an all around good guy hero. I wish I hadn’t just reread it before lockdown…then I could read it again.
I have almost nothing useful to add, but this was such a nice idea. I’ve loved several of the books mentioned, and for years Mary Balogh has been my go-to comfort when life gets to be too much. I remember writing a fangirl note to Anne Gracie several years ago telling her that the end of one of her Chance Sisters books (and I can’t at the moment remember which one!) made me feel just the way I used to feel when I was young and got to the end of The Little Princess. You can’t get much more cozy than that. Some days, right now, just seeing a new Smart Bitches email in my box gives me a warm, comfy feeling because the Johns Hopkins updates give nothing but anxiety. Thank you for always being there, fellow bitches.
@Claudia:
I guess it’s time to read the Parfate Knight. As much as I have loved every Stella Riley book I have read, the fact that the heroine is blind makes me nervous. I don’t tend to pick out books with people who have my disability because I’m afraid of how I will react, but I was happily surprised with the historical fiction ones I read where I found important supporting characters with blindness. Both of them strong women who felt appropriate to their time periods.
I was wondering when a post like this would show up on the website.
This is really, really hard to choose but I think Cotillion by Georgette Heyer. I love the female friendships, the family, the teasing, Kitty and Freddy just make me smile.
Think I have to go with Rebel Hard by Nalini Singh. Everything about it is warm and fuzzy and delightful – Nayna and Raj are adorable, their families, their friends, the sassy grandmother secretly dating the neighbor, the construction workers talking about how Wickham was shady and calling Sense and Sensibility “Sense and Shampoo.”
@Cat yes to Mating the Huntress! Work for it was also very good (just finished that one). Next up Talia Hibbert’s new novella Guarding Temptation…
The Viscount Who Loved Me by Julia Quinn. I think this was the second book I ever read by her. Kate and the Mallet of Death always puts a smile on my face.
The Hating Game by Sally Thorne. The middle bit where they’re figuring each other out gives me a warm giddy heart. It’s my go-to for all occasions – happy, sad, bored, sick, anxious. I’m glad my Kindle doesn’t keep track of how many times I’ve re-read it…
Beth O’Leary’s The Flatshare!
Tiffy and Leon share a flat
Tiffy and Leon share a bed
Tiffy and Leon have never met…
It’s just so sweet and gradual and lovely.
Evie Drake Starts Over for me, I think- such a nice cozy read with nice cozy characters.
(My actual top comfort read is Bite Me by Shelly Laurenston which is it’s own kind of cozy if you like hiding in cabinets and honey I suppose)
Agnes and the Hitman by Jennifer Crusie is as cozy as a book can get. The heroine pretty much starts each day making her, newly acquired and growing, family breakfast. Such a breakfast. There is lots of talk about butter and amazingly delicious sounding home-cooked food. And, one of the romantic highlights takes place when the heroine starts using her cozy. snug bedroom at the top of the house- iirc, it has sky blue walls with clouds. You would think the book would be all too-sugary with the food, family, and love. No. It is balanced with feminine rage, mayhem, murder, and some very good snark. (Seriously, I still use one of the heroine’s snarks.)
Okay Imma be hitting up and down ALL these suggestions eventually.
My contribution: The Blue Castle, by Lucy Maud Montgomery. Yes, THAT Lucy Maud Montgomery. Less well known than her Avonlea books, and that’s a shame. Valancy Stirling is trapped in a dreary life with a controlling family, but then she is diagnosed with a terminal heart condition and promptly ceases to give a single fuck, mouthing off her elders, hanging with the Wrong Crowd, and flirting with the local neighbourhood Sexy Bad Boy. The twist and the ending are kind of dumb and undermine things a bit but I guess it was probably necessary in 1926 to keep things from being TOO outrageous. Much description of beautiful Ontario scenery and cuddly domesticity with the Bad Boy who is actually very nice and has a cabin and cats.
This is one of my catnips, so most of my keeper shelf is cosy romances. Last night I reread ‘The Admiral’s Penniless Bride’s by Carla Kelly. An admiral, recently retired from the British navy after the defeat of Napoleon, marries a penniless woman he meets in a hotel dining room to avoid the marital interference of his two older sisters. I just adore the way that they recognise that each one is broken and damaged and not only make allowances for that damage but go out of their way to be tender and caring to each other. There’s a crisis, but there’s appropriate levels of repentance and grovelling.
Frog by Mary Calmes. OK, one of the heroes is of the “no-one in the world sees how wonderful I am” variety but really the whole book is a happy ending that just gets better and better.
I needed these recs so badly right now! Last night I read A Week to Be Wicked and it was so delightful. Warm and silly and funny like a 1930s screwball rom-com. So perfect. THANK YOU.
You are so very, very welcome. We’re here for you! <3
I’ve been smiling and nodding as I read through the other suggestions. I’ll add Daddy Long Legs by Jean Webster, Rafe: A Buff Male Manny by Rebekah Weatherspoon, and The Firebird by Susanna Kearsley.
I thought Julie Anne Long’s two recent Palace of Rogues books were extremely warm and fuzzy. There’s no big betrayal, just slow burn and a progression from friendship to love, lots of adorable side characters and house fix-up porn.
[…] I’ve been trying to decide what to do with it. Review site Smart Bitches, Trashy Books recently recced the book as a favourite comfort read and a reader reached out to me, asking where to find the book. Since my […]
Anticipatory squee!