Episode Details

It's that time of year! We're talking about the Best Romance Novels of 2025. We've chosen ten books that we love and that cover a range of historical, contemporary and paranormal, featuring romance with werewolves and cowboys, vaudeville actresses and vikings, Dukes and the actual Devil.

This year, you can buy the Fated Mates Best of 2025 Book Pack from our friends at Pocket Books Shop in Lancaster, PA, and get eight of the books on the list! Scoundrel Take Me Away and Lazarus, Home from War (independently published) are not available. As always, you can add additional romances, or one of Sarah's books to your box.

We love the idea of you gifting yourself this box (you deserve it!), but maybe you’d like to slide into someone’s text messages with the link as a very excellent gift for you! Or…you can do what Sarah does, and buy the box and spread the love around—sending each of the books to someone on your list or wrapping them up and popping them in your local Little Free Library. Let us know what you end up doing with these fabulous books, and don’t forget to tag us on Instagram or Threads or Bluesky when you unbox!

Check out our “Best Romance Novels” lists from previous years: 2024, 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, and 2019. (We were 5 minutes old in 2018 and didn’t do a list that year), and please tell us what your favorite books of 2025 were!

If you want other people to discuss this list with, maybe you want to join our Patreon? You get an extra monthly episode from us and access to the incredible readers and brilliant people on the Fated Mates Discord! Support us and learn more at fatedmates.net/patreon.

The Books

• Fan Service by Rosie Danan
• Scoundrel, Take Me Away by Louisa Darling
• Son Of The Morning by Akwaeke Emezi
• Tempest Of Desire by Lorraine Heath
• Into The Woods by Jenny Holiday
• Lazarus, Home from the War by E.H. Lupton
• A Showgirl’s Rules For Falling In Love by Alice Murphy
• The Bone King And The Starling by Elisabeth Stephens
• Some Kind Of Famous by Ava Wilder

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