Top Ten Tuesday: It’s all above LOVE… My ten favorite love stories from this past year of reading (new & improved for 2023)

Top Ten Tuesday is a meme hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl, featuring a different top 10 theme each week. This week’s topic is Love Freebie, which means we all put our own spin on the topic of LOVE.

Focusing on my favorite love stories from the books I’ve read recently has become my go-to topic for the “love freebie” TTT topic — I’ve been keeping it going since 2020! Here are my ten favorite love stories that I read in the past year:

1. Boyfriend Material and Husband Material by Alexis Hall: I read both of these in 2022, and loved the development of the main characters’ relationship.

2. Tokyo Dreaming by Emiko Jean: This secretly-a-princess duology is a wonderful treat, and I really enjoyed the main character’s romantic dilemmas.

3. An Island Wedding by Jenny Colgan: The 5th and final book in the Mure series is a wonderful wrap-up (despite my frustration over one dangling plotline). So many of the characters get happily-ever-afters, which is great, because five books in, I adore these characters so much.

4. The Comeback by Lily Chu: The romance — between a non-famous woman and her incognito houseguest who ends up being one of K-pop’s biggest idols of all times — is definitely wish-fulfillment, but it’s just so much fun. Loved the audiobook!

5. The No-Show by Beth O’Leary: This book is heart-breaking as well as entertaining, and it takes quite a while to feel anything but exasperated with the male lead… but then? Boom. Loved this book, and highly recommend reading it with as little info in advance as possible.

6. Not Your Average Hot Guy by Gwenda Bond: I’m including this here because it’s so, so silly, and because I’m pretty sure this is the only book I’ve ever read with a romance between a woman who works in her family’s escape room business and the (literal) Prince of Hell.

7. By the Book by Jasmine Guillory: What’s not to love about a modern-day retelling of Beauty and the Beast?

8. A Season for Second Chances by Jenny Bayliss: I love a good small-town, new-chance-at-love story, and this one has so many great ingredients — lovely setting, a café, a sea rescue, and grown-ups in relationships!

9. Heading Over the Hill by Judy Leigh: Main characters Dawnie and Billy are absolutely #couplegoals! I need to read more (much more!) by this author.

10. The Unplanned Life of Josie Hale by Stephanie Eding: When’s the last time you read a romance with a single, pregnant woman as the main character? This was a first for me, and I really enjoyed it.

What were the best love stories you read during the past year?

If you wrote a TTT post this week, please share your link and let me know your topic!

Happy Valentine’s Day!

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14 thoughts on “Top Ten Tuesday: It’s all above LOVE… My ten favorite love stories from this past year of reading (new & improved for 2023)

  1. What a great idea to do the same running theme every year. I should do that since I can NEVER come up with good ideas for freebie weeks! I rarely read romance, so I’m not familiar with any of these, but I’m glad you’ve found lots of romances to love 🙂

    Happy TTT (on a Wednesday)!

    Susan
    http://www.blogginboutbooks.com

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