This Rec League comes from Steph! Thanks, Steph!
Elyse: Oh man. Virgin River maybe?During the past year or so, I have realized that one of my comfort reads are large series where the same characters appear in multiple books. I love the chance to see them develop overtime not just during the arc of their story, and I get way more invested in the characters than during a single book. In the past few months I’ve read Kit Rocha’s Beyond series, Zoe York’s Pine Harbor series, and am currently speeding through Beverly Jenkins’s Blessings Series. I would love recommendations for large series that focus on the same group of characters.
As an aside, I am loving the Blessings series. They’re not strictly romance (each book does not feature a central love story) but they are loaded with optimism and characters get the justice they deserve. The books are a little over-the-top and they are so much FUN!
Tara: Radclyffe has some f/f ones that are great. My faves are the Provincetown and Honor series. ( A | BN | K | AB )
Sarah: The Psy Changeling series ( A | BN | K | G | AB ) would work though the early books are very much early 00s hero style, and characters don’t consistently reappear. But each person is part of the whole.
Also Murderbot but I could rec that series for literally anything. It’s like six degrees of Bacon except it’s Murderbot.
Elyse is totally right about Virgin River. Debbie Macomber has some community series as well.
My brain keeps thinking mostly of trilogies which isn’t enough for this request.
Maya: Also the Guild Hunter series! My library has all the audiobooks, so I’m working my way through the series. I’m on book eight right now!
Tara: Ooh, yes to Guild Hunter. Especially in audio. I looooove Justine Eyre’s narration.
How about the In Death series? I don’t even particularly like murder investigations, but I really enjoyed some of those and seeing the relationship grow between the leads as the series goes on (caveat: I think I read 10 and there are WAY more than that)
Maya: Ohhhh or Phyrne Fisher!! ( A | BN | K | AB | Au )
(but it’s not romance)
Shana: I also keep thinking of trilogies.
RG Alexander’s The Finn Factor ( A ) is an erotic romance series with mostly m/m pairings. The stories center around a big family, and there’s lots of overlap across the books. The first few in the series aren’t my faves, however.
What series would you recommend? Let us know!
And that title was supposed to say Always and Forever.
Oh, I love series. If I pick it up in the middle I will go back and read from the beginning.
You named a lot of my favorites, but I didn’t see:
Samantha Christy — several linked series, starting with the Mitchell sisters.
Pippa Grant — romantic comedies, linked series.
Aly Martinez — Wrecked and Ruined — definitely NOT comedy, with an interesting twist
I just finished reading the “My Favorite Band” series by Lisa Suzanne. There are also linked prequel and sequel series. I’ve read some other rock band series, but I can’t remember them off the top of my head.
In addition to Sarina Bowen’s True North series (which she has turned into a whole “world” with books by multiple authors), there is her Brooklyn Bruisers series (and yes, there’s a crossover).
Lauren Rowe — I’m not a fan of the multiple books to tell a story genre (with an exception I’ll mention below), but her Morgan brothers books and the linked rock band books are very good.
Okay, I said I didn’t like multiple books about one relationship, but the exception is Ella Frank. I devoured the Temptation series — all six books (she wrote the first trilogy, then came back a few years later and wrote the second trilogy). There are linked prequel and sequel series and some series she co-wrote with Brook Blaine (who also has series). Except for the Exquisite series, they are all MM.
If you like old-school Silhouette Special Editions, I still love Susan Mallery’s Hometown Heartbreaker series. They are often available in ebooks through libraries.
Also, on old Silhouettes and worthwhile, Suzanne Brockmann’s first Seal Team series (Tall, Dark and Dangerous). Again, I’ve seen them as ebooks in libraries.
Brenda Novak — her “straight” romance (not romantic suspense) series: Silver Springs, Whiskey Creek, Dundee Idaho. Even if you don’t read the whole Dundee Idaho series, I recommend “Big Girls Don’t Cry” and “The Other Woman.”
Nora Roberts Chesapeake Bay series and Bride Quartet. Some of her best work.
Most authors of series put a reading order on their website.
I’m sure I’ve forgotten something and will kick myself later.
Lots of great ones already mentioned but I will just add one more that I didn’t see yet–I love the Stage Dive series by Kylie Scott and how she weaves the characters from previous books in to the subsequent ones. It is contemporary/rock star romance so may not work for you if that is not your thing, but for me it is one of my favorites!
Ruth L – I was coming here to say Pippa Grant! I read all 15ish books of hers that were on KU in early lockdown because it was all my brain could handle. (I wish there was more diversity, rather than straight white couples, but she does a good job with neurodiversity and family of choice).
Not romances, but Rhys Bowen’s Royal Spyness mysteries maintain the same small group of characters who reappear throughout.
A few authors with longer series that I haven’t seen here–all historical
Elizabeth Hoyt–Maiden Lane series
Edith Layton–“C” series (C stands for the first letter of some of the titles, e.g., The Conquest, The Cad, but it may be wise to research the chronology in order to get the arcs right. Also, at least one of the sequence doesn’t begin with “C”–maybe the last.)
Courtney Milan–The Worth Saga, The Brothers Sinister
@trefoil Pippa is silly fun. I dare anyone not to laugh out loud reading Beauty and the Beefcake.
I recommend: The Children of the Gods series; Wild Hunt series, Black Dagger Brotherhood.
Penny Reid! She has two interconnected series – Knitting in the City and the Winston Brothers. (It’s also now open universe with more authors writing books in the general vicinity of those series but I haven’t read any of those). The Winston Brothers series technically spins off from the Knitting in the City series, but I started with the first book in the Winston Brothers series Truth or Beard and was fine.
I have mentioned this series several times in other rec leagues, but I’m going to do so again. It’s a trilogy, but each book is about 600 to 700 pages long, so you get a lot of story. It’s called the Tea Rose Trilogy, and while each couple gets a happy ending the previous couple plays a major supporting part in the next book. One of the heroines, and two of the heroes, are siblings, so there is a lot about their family, and it goes from about the late 19th century through to World War I.
@Steph – I too am a huge comfort reader of long series where every book is a different couple’s happy ending but each book progresses the overarching plot.
I loved Kit Rocha’s Beyond series (I just finished a re-read).
I will second some recommendations and add a few, all of which I comfort re-read during quarantine:
– Nalini Singh’s Psy Changling and Guild Hunter series. Psy Changling is more like the Beyond Series, where each book is a different couple, sometimes in the same pack or family. The Guild Hunter series alternates between books at the development of the central couple and detours where their lieutenants get a happy ending.
-Andrea K Host Touchstone series- 5 books, fantasy with secondary romantic elements, with the same characters growing together
-Shelly Laurenston- Call of Crows trilogy and Shifter series- highly funny with each book a happy ending for another package.
-Ilona Andrew’s series- The Innkeeper Chronicles, and Hidden Legacy series. They are fantasy with secondary romantic elements so most books have a lead heroine and romance develops over a couple books and then we get some books with family members introduced earlier. Innkeeper was a really comfort read for me this year.
Then you’ve got your contemporary
small town/community series:
– Kari Lynn Dell’s 6 book Texas Rodeo series, starting with “Reckless in Texas”
-Stacy Finz’s small town contemporary Nugget 11 book series, staring with “Going Home”
-Penny Reid’s 8 book Knitting in the City series
Next, Rock Star Romance Series, so you see all of the band members from book to book as they grow and get their happy ending:
-Erika Kelly’s series starting with You Really Got Me
-Kylie Scott’s Stage Dive series 4 books and 3 novellas
-Kristen Callihan’s VIP series (4 books and counting) and Game On series
Similar to the Beyond Series, I just discovered Katee Robert’s fantasy dark (erotic) romance series, Wicked Villians. 7 books that retell Disney’s princess movies, but set in a fictional Carver City that’s divided into territories, and neutral ground is the bdsm sex club The Underworld, run by Hades and Meg (who get a happy ending threesome with Hercules in book 2).
Jessica Prince has several series such as the Cloverleaf series and Hope Valley series that fit.
This maybe stretches beyond a strict reading of the prompt but since a different Roni Loren series was named, I’ll recommend the Loving on the Edge series also by Loren. It’s erotic romance but Steph mentioned the Beyond Series so yeah. The first books are more connected than later ones.
Loren had started another series before stepping away from erotic romance to write contemporary romance and it’s a great sadness to me that there probably won’t be anymore Pleasure Principle books. Off the Clock was the first Loren I read and it rocked my world. (Lol, I’ll quit venting now)
So many favorites have already been mentioned! Three very different recommendations:
Conard County by Rachel Lee – Contemporary category romances. All centered in a rural county in Wyoming. Some are very old school, but then it has been going for 20+ years.
Linden Universe by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller – Space Opera and adventure ( and occasional giant turtles).
With Me series by Kris Jacen. M/M military, but more relationships than action.
Can’t forget Rebekah Weatherspoon! She has several series with overlapping characters that show up in multiple books – Beards and Bondage and Loose Ends in particular overlap. The author is queer and while most of these books are MF, with one MMF, there’s a lot of excellent bi and queer rep. And a lot of hot sex – some books are more kinky than others.
Xeni is my very favorite of her books – it’s in the Loose Ends series.
I recommend Elly Griffiths’ Ruth Galloway novels. They are quick reads with interesting characters. There are 13 books in the series.
The Lizzie hardwicke series by Georgina Clarke. It’s historical mystery and wonderfully written. Lizzie is a prostitute in mid 1800’s London. Not a romance yet but there are possibilities for it.
Sherry Thomas’ Lady Sherlock series is another favourite. I adore female leads who aren’t gorgeous, virtuous and perfect.
Suzanne Brockmann especially and also KJ Charles are the best at building and maintaining community over a series. JR Ward does it, although I don’t recommend her exactly. Also a lot of regencies seem to be built around the same family, so if that fits with your sense of community, authors like Julie Quinn, Mary Balogh, maybe Eloisa James.
As @Rebecca mentioned, Erin Nicholas’s Sapphire Falls series, but she also just excels at this, and her more recent Boys of the Big Easy, Boys of the Bayou, Hot Cakes, and Boys of the Bayou Gone Wild are all incredible small-town contemporary series with a strong sense of community and just are a pleasure to read and reread. A couple other excellent small-town contemporary recs–Samantha Chase with her Magnolia Sound, Enchanted Bridal, and Meet Me at the Altar series, among others; Tessa Bailey’s Made in Jersey; Carrie Ann Ryan’s contemporaries, including her new On My Own and the ever popular and growing Montgomery Ink and spinoffs…
Laura Kaye’s Warrior Fight Club is contemporary with ex-military characters. Delilah Devlin’s Bounty Hunters and others. Elle James’s Brotherhood Protectors, which includes not only her own stories but contributions from numerous fellow military romance writers…
Oh, and Kati Wilde’s Hellfire Riders–I don’t really read MC, but did pick this series up on @DiscoDollyDeb’s recommendation and WOW. Excellent world building, great characters and plotting… keepers, all.
I’ve recently reread the Hathaway family series by Lisa Kleypas – one of my favourite things about this series is that we get to revisit the MCs of previous books in the series. Each one has a lovely sense of family / community.
One of the things I really like about the Poldark series is the mining community and how they band together and pull through their tragedies. Ross/Demelza is the central relationship at the core of the books but every time I opened a new book in the series, I looked forward to hearing about how Jinny and her kid are doing and what Zacky Martin is up to.
@flchen1: Shame on me for forgetting Kati Wilde’s great Hellfire Riders MC books! They fit the request perfectly and I would classify them as “MC romances for people who don’t usually like MC romances.” Kati’s excellent N/A, GOING NOWHERE FAST, also includes a scene involving some members of the club—although it can be read as a stand-alone.
A more challenging rec league would be memorable standalone books! I don’t think most of the recs listed above really fit the definition in the original post of a genuine series with the same main characters developing over the course of several books. Instead everyone seems to be listing the typical romance ‘series’ with a different couple in each book. Everyone seems to write these now and it often strikes me as laziness, relying on reader loyalty to the brand and fear of missing something if you don’t read every book in the series. I never want to read every book, only the ones that have a premise that particularly appeals to me. That might only be one book in a series. Unsurprisingly, despite the book being marketed as a standalone I often feel like I’ve landed in the middle of the story. And God forbid if you happen to choose the last book in the series, with all the former main couples cluttering up the pages!
Thought of one more: The Once Upon a Con series by Ashley Poston. Set in the world of comic-cons etc. (not a scam kind of con!)
Cara Dee’s Camassia Cove series fits the bill. I’ve read 3-4 of the at least a dozen books she had already written and her webpage has a lineup of several more pairings to come and a recommended order of reading for them. The books are quite steamy and the pairings are very inclusive.
I’d also recommend the Shelly Laurenston/G.A. Aiken series. Love the constant quipping between the characters you’ve grown so familiar with. I’m totally comfort re-reading those books right now.
My super fave for funny, goofball community are Molly Harper’s Jane Jameson/Half Moon Hollow series. I love those characters and the relationships. Those books make me LOL, even on the re-reads.
Jill Shalvis has contemporary series with tight knit communities.
@oceanjasper- yes, stand alone romances would be an interesting and challenging rec league, but with regards to this request, at least two of the series Steph named as comfort reads- Kit Rocha’s Beyond (dystopian erotic) series and Pine Harbor (small town) series are those long running 8 book or more series where each book is a different couple but overarching plot threads are progressed in each successive book. For example, the Beyond Series introduces a stewing conflict that heightens tensions each book and breaks into war in the last few books before its resolution.
All that to say, while Steph may have some interest in series with a central duo that has a slow burn romance that develops over multiple books (ex I can think of: Nalini Singh Guild Hunter or Ilona Andrew’s Hidden Legacy or Innkeeper Chronicles), I do think many of these “the next book is the hero’s sister” recommendations are true to Steph’s request for a comfort read series you can start and get lost in and look up from two weeks later with a book hang over… though maybe to be really true to the comfort read request, we should not which series are complete and which are not.
4 more that I didn’t see mentioned–though I could have just missed them:
Lauren Layne’s Stiletto & Oxford series set in the now somewhat nostalgic world of magazine publishing.
Lucy Score/Claire Kingsley’s Bootleg Springs series set in quirky small town with somewhat over the top humor
Kim Harrison’s Hollows series set in a paranormal alternate Cincinnati, very community based, blends angst with humor, might be too violent for comfort
Patricia Briggs’ Mercy Thompson and Alpha & Omega series set in a paranormal Northwest with an emphasis on shifters with family emphasized, also contains violence
Staci Hart’s Red Lipstick Coalition is great! It starts with Well Played…four friends use red lipstick to find their sexual mojo and get the object of their desire. I also recommend Maya Hughes Fulton U series. Start with The Perfect First (Football) or Shameless King (Hockey). Both storylines are great.
Ok—one more and then I’ll shut up (“If only we could believe that,” sighs the Bitchery): Kate Stewart’s Underdog series: THE GUY ON THE RIGHT, THE GUY ON THE LEFT, and THE GUY IN THE MIDDLE. Angsty N/A with lots of tropes (unplanned pregnancy, older heroine, virgin hero, athlete falls for coach’s daughter, etc.). Although each story focuses on a different couple, the books really need to be read in order.
Stella Riley’s Rockcliffe series is historical romance at its best. She captures the individuals and the group dynamics in ways that are believably human yet fulfill every wish for a fairy tale ending. I like some of the people/couples better than others, and I don’t like the covers (they seem more Victorian sentimentality than Georgian glamour), but they are full of adventure and gorgeous clothes, sparkling dialogue, and sincere emotion, and all in all are great fun.
JR Ward’s Black Dagger Brotherhood and Black Dagger Legacy are both great series. Shelly Laurenston’s shifter series’. I also loved both Penny Reid series, Knitting in the City and the Winston Brothers.
The genteel but bad ass ladies’ community of Spindle Cove! “Here in Spindle Cove we ladies have a schedule. Monday, country walks. Tuesday, sea bathing. We spend Wednesdays in the garden, and on Thursdays, we shoot!”
Penny Reid is great for this. The Winston Brothers and Solving for Pie series have the best community vibes, but although her series differ in tone they are all connected by characters who appear and reappear, usually in organic and excellent ways. I don’t love all her books (the uber-awkward characters don’t work for me) but the ones I do love are up there with my favourite romances of all time. Super sexy, super smart, funny and cosy.
It’s not a super long series, but I enjoyed Kristan Higgins Blue Heron series (5 books), which is focused on a family who owns a winery in upstate NY an their small town community. I also enjoyed her Gideon’s Cove series set in Maine, but it’s only three books.
Main characters over the same series, two m/m recs:
The Widdershins series by Jordan Hawk – great world building, creepy lovecraftian beasties, super funny, female archeologist BFF who takes no shit.
The Cut and Run series by Madeleine Urban: law enforcement partners, lots of character development, compulsively readable.