Fall in Love With These 4 Romance Novels

by MK French

The weather is cooling, and a romance novel goes great with a warm beverage and a cozy blanket. I have a couple of rom-coms, a Regency romance, and a women's fiction/romance to recommend today.

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The Dating Prohibition by Taj McCoy

September 2025; MIRA; 978-0778368588
audio, ebook, print (320 pages); rom-com

Kendra is in her big brother’s shadow as soon as she returns home. He's got a successful business, everyone calls her by her childhood nickname, and her brother effortlessly is doing well while she tries to get her restaurant off the ground. She had a crush on his friend BJ for years, and there seems to be chemistry between them now. Though BJ supports her dreams, he says she’s “off limits” romantically. When her investors fall through, leaving home again seems like the only way to get another fresh start. Will BJ finally give her a reason to stay?

Kendra feels like the black sheep of her family, and returning home doesn't help her feel any better. She's immediately brought back into her childhood role, despite attempts to be more grown-up. She cooks and works to find investors to help open a restaurant that honors her mixed heritage. BJ works more in academia and landmark preservation. He believes in her and suggests locations, and their flirty banter scares him enough to set the boundaries between them. I was surprised, because I would have thought her brother, Logan, would have the talk. His reasoning is sound: her family is like family to him, so if things don't work out, he loses family members. Logan wouldn't even mind if they got together, which was another surprise. (It's in the first third of the book, not really a spoiler)

The push and pull between Kendra and BJ escalates as he helps her look at historical sites, and it soon comes down to two locations, one option which is far from family. She doesn't feel important or good enough in her family,  and the tension with BJ certainly didn't help. I like how she ultimately decided to follow her dreams and live for herself so she wouldn't feel as smothered or ignored. It forces BJ to face the feelings he didn't want to, and we get the happily ever after that we're looking for. 

Buy The Dating Prohibition at Amazon

Lady Like by Mackenzi Lee

September 2025; Dial Press; 978-0593730607
audio, ebook, print (384 pages); Regency romance

Harriet Lockhart enjoyed a life doing whatever she wanted, with an anonymous father who didn't seem to care that she never wanted to marry. When he suddenly threatens to cut off her trust fund unless she marries, she starts looking into a duke to marry. Looking into this same duke is Emily Sergeant, a social pariah following a youthful mistake that left her with only one despicable man in her small town willing to marry her. The two women compete for the duke's favor, but find that perhaps they like each other more than him.

Harriet wore her social pariah status like a badge of honor: daughter of a whore, actress, wore her hair too short, preferred to wear men's clothing, and preferred to have women in her bed. What allows her to do this is an allowance that was tied to her unknown but royal father, and he gives her four months to be respectable in exchange for an estate and an allowance. The small town man willing to marry Emily and make her family respectable in polite society is a ruthless and abusive man, painted in the most horrible light, and we can't help but hope that she finds a way out of that mess.

We have multiple occasions where Harry and Emily meet, allowing them to see different sides of each other and learn about the past and their vulnerabilities. The Regency era had its share of queer relationships, though they weren't openly acknowledged, and they didn't have same sex marriage. They discussed the options open to them at the time, and we have our heartfelt confession of love as well as a happily ever after for our heroines. Just because it didn't often happen in our world doesn't mean it can't happen in a book.

Buy Lady Like at Amazon

We Met Like This by Kasie West

September 2025; Saturday Books; 978-1250349149
audio, ebook, print (368 pages); rom-com

Hopeless romantic Margot Hart is a literary agent for romance novels and is holding out for a meet-cute of her own. It's part of why she and Oliver won't work out despite matching several times on dating apps and having an intense makeout session at the end of their first date. She meets him again when disaster strikes and her dream career is tanking. While her life is going down the tubes, maybe it isn't her app bias holding her back romantically or in life.

Margot and Oliver matched but didn't have a great conversation, even though their physical chemistry is great. Margot is an assistant literary agent, and her boss has zero interest in promoting her to a full agent. She tends to be emotionally driven more than a strict planner like her older sister or Oliver, with whom she had continued to match and message back and forth. She enjoys their conversations, and the two of them have more opportunities to talk and get to know each other. He helps her through the job issues, bringing them even closer together. They fit so well, and their emotional baggage makes them doubt this connection. It's a fun journey to watch them together, with deepening emotions and helping each other through problems.

Buy We Met Like This at Amazon

The Secret of Orange Blossom Cake by Rachel Linden

September 2025; Berkley; 978-0593816639
audio, ebook, print (384 pages); romance

Jules had an Instagram show making vintage recipes with her friend and roommate, which got her a cookbook deal. He's snapped up for a potential TV show, but she isn’t, and she's asked to go a more personal route for the cookbook. It leaves her feeling stuck and useless, so she returns to Italy to visit her beloved grandmother in the hopes that she can use her grandmother's recipes to create her cookbook. But Nonna's cookbook pages are blank for her, and the olive farm is in financial trouble. As much as there is magic in the kitchen, family secrets and a lost recipe for orange blossom cake might be the key to the future. All it would take is working with Nicolo, the boy who once broke Jules' heart, and now is the only one able to help her find answers.

Jules and her love of 60's fashion and vintage recipes are adorable and easy to get to know from the start. Her mother is a piece of work, using Jules' financial and emotional straits to push off Jules' younger half sister to Italy with her rather than spend time with her daughter in posh places. Of course, Alex is standoffish and appears disinterested at the start, since she and Jules haven't interacted and are practically strangers. I felt sorry for both of them, and the lack of connection to family they had. Nonna is wonderful, immediately showing them the love and affection they craved. The family farm was part of Jules' sense of self, as was her grief and guilt over her father's death, so it's devastating to know about the financial troubles.

The love of food in this book starts with page one, and there is an equal love for the Italian countryside. The markets and foods are all so lovingly described, as are all of the characters. Nicolo has his own tragic background and feels almost like an afterthought when introduced. The story picks up afterwards, where we see the cookbook, the blank pages, and the effect it has on Nonna Bruna. Eventually, we learn what happened to the ripped page and that the orange blossom cake is meant to show your happiest future moment. It's a big deal for the family and town, and news of the cake goes viral. It pushes Jules to make decisions she didn't feel comfortable with before, facing her emotions and sense of family as well as what she really wants for the future. 

As much as this is a romance novel, it also feels like Jules is falling back in love with her family again. The distance she put between herself and her family has to close, since that's the most important thing for her. It's good to see her come into her own and finally advocate for herself and her needs. It's a lovely story, with a bonus recipe for a nonmagical cake at the end.

Buy The Secret of Orange Blossom Cake at Amazon

Born and raised in New York City, M.K. French started writing stories when very young, dreaming of different worlds and places to visit. She always had an interest in folklore, fairy tales, and the macabre, which has definitely influenced her work. She currently lives in the Midwest with her husband, three young children, and a golden retriever.

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