We look forward to summer for many reasons, but Emily Henry is high on the list. We both devoured Beach Read, and ever since, she’s been a staple of our summer TBRs. While many of her recent titles have become household names among book lovers, she also has a backlist of books you might have missed.
With the recent release of her latest novel, we’ve seen a lot of questions popping up about whether you need to read Emily Henry’s books in order or whether any of her books are connected. We’re here to answer those questions and give you a synopsis of each of her books in order of publication!
Before Emily Henry became a household name among rom-com fans, she wrote young adult fiction that blended themes of romance, magical realism, science fiction, and mystery.
Since the release of Beach Read, Henry says she’s intentionally written books that give readers a “mini vacation.” While all of her books don’t necessarily feature travel, she channels the “feeling of being on vacation” in her work. While she draws upon many classic romance tropes in her work, she is also skilled at crafting realistic, three-dimensional characters with lives and challenges outside whatever romance they’ve found.
Young Adult Backlist Titles: 2016-2019
YA Romance & Magical Realism
The Love That Split the World
Publication Date:
01/26/2016
Setting:
Kentucky
Book Summary
After graduating high school, Natalie is enjoying her final summer in her small Kentucky hometown when she starts to get glimpses of an alternate reality. Soon these visions escalate from a quick snippet of her front door painted a different color than normal, to more dramatic and prolonged experiences, like her entire town disappearing for hours, replaced by rolling hills and grazing buffalo.
Natalie is visited by an apparition who tells her: “You have three months to save him.” The next night, under the lights of her high school’s football field, she meets a boy named Beau.
These teens are the only two who can see two different versions of their small town. Reaching through time, they work together in an attempt to solve the mystery of their magical connection before time runs out.
About This Book
This debut novel is described as Friday Night Lights meets The Time Traveler’s Wife.
June O’Donnell’s parents have always been very specific about one rule – stay away from the Angert family. Trusting her late father’s wishes, June never questioned the source of the century-old feud. So imagine her surprise when she literally collides with Saul Angert and feels an immediate spark between them.
The O’Donnells and the Angerts have mythic legacies, but the founding families of Five Fingers, Michigan, never speak of the rift that drove them apart. Now, it seems that the magic, ghosts, and coywolves of the town are conspiring to reveal the truth to June and Saul about the curse that has plagued their bloodlines.
Reader Thoughts on This Book
Readers say that this magical take on a classic Romeo and Juliet story has major Gothic vibes. This YA novel is available as a Book of the Month pick.
When the local steel mill exploded, it affected everyone in the small town of Splendor. If you weren’t a victim of the accident, chances are that someone you love was. Seventeen-year-old Franny, for example, has spent the five years since the accident waiting for her brother to wake up from his coma.
Franny’s only escape from her grief is her group of friends (they call themselves “The Ordinary”) who spend their free time exploring local ghost stories and legends while filming it all for their small YouTube following. But one night, truth becomes stranger than fiction when the friends film a bright light hurtling toward the Earth and go to investigate the crash site.
Reader Thoughts on This Book
Readers praise the balance of the supernatural with the real-world topics of grief and friendship.
Winona Olsen and Lucille Pryce have both been living with big secrets. Winona’s life with her celebrity weatherman father seems to be picture-perfect. But no one knows that he leaves her with unnoticed bruises and locks the pantry to control her eating.
Lucille has been scraping together her waitressing tips to meet her mother’s needs and feels trapped by her drug-dealing brother.
Their friendship is forged one night outside the local police station where both are deciding whether to report their families. The two decide that they can’t wait until graduation to start their new lives, so they leave Michigan bound for Chicago with just three thousand dollars and a stolen convertible.
You Might Enjoy This If…
If you enjoy a good road trip story with a healthy dose of revenge, then this coming-of-age novel might just be for you.
Best-selling romance novelist January Andrews is suffering from extreme writer’s block after finding out her parents weren’t the perfect couple she thought they were.
When she retreats to her dad’s secret Lake Michigan beach house in a last-ditch effort to meet her next book deadline as a romance writer, she finds another distraction instead.
Her college English department rival lives next door and is suffering from his own bout of writer’s block.
2009-2021, Palm Springs, Ohio, New York, and around the globe
Book Summary
Poppy and Alex became unexpected best friends on a car share ride home from college, but they have nothing in common. Poppy is an extroverted wild child and Alex is a pragmatic introvert. As the years go by, Poppy has a good life in New York City while Alex remains in their small hometown. For the next decade, the duo reunites each summer for a glorious week of vacation together.
But two years ago, everything changed. They haven’t spoken since. Poppy has everything she could want in life, but she feels discontent and realizes the last time she was truly happy was on her last trip with Alex.
In a desperate attempt to find joy again, she contacts Alex, hoping for one more trip to make everything right.
Format of This Novel
The book alternates between present-day and past trips, and it’s perfect when you’re craving a chick-lit romance reminiscent of When Harry Met Sally.
Book Lovers is about a literary agent named Nora. When Nora’s younger sister, Libby, begs her to take a month-long summer trip to a small town in North Carolina, she envisions all the possible romance novel tropes that could happen in her own life. Why couldn’t she run into a handsome country doctor and find her happily ever after?
Instead, Nora runs into Charlie, a brooding editor she has encountered several times back in the city. While neither of them is the ideal heroine or hero, they keep being thrown together in unlikely situations and must confront the stories they’d told themselves about who they are.
Genre Notes About Book Lovers
Despite having threads of romance, all of Emily Henry’s books have characters with real-life baggage and flaws. Book Lovers gives us a strong sister relationship and insight into Nora’s work, making her a well-rounded lead.
Picture-perfect couple Harriet and Wyn met in college and have been an inspirational duo ever since. But, as their annual week-long Maine vacation with their best friends approaches, they have a big decision to make. Do they finally confess that they broke up six months ago and still haven’t managed to tell their best friends?
The cottage they visit each year is being sold, and it’s the last time they’ll all be together in their sacred spot. It feels wrong to ruin the whole mood with their bad news. So Harriet and Wyn decide they can surely fake being in love for one week. After all, they’ve had years of practice.
This book alternates between chapters titled “Happy Place,” through which you see Harriet and Wyn’s relationship grow over the years, and chapters titled “Real Life” where you see them in their current broken-up status.
Our Thoughts on This Book
Happy Place tackles one of our favorite rom com tropes – fake dating. We absolutely loved the vivid descriptions of Maine that captured not only the sights but also the tastes and smells!
After Daphne makes a big move to her fiancé Peter’s lakeside hometown, he turns her future upside down by discovering he’s actually in love with Petra, his childhood best friend. Now, Daphne is stuck in a new town with no friends. She at least has her dream job as a children’s librarian (which barely covers her bills).
When Daphne needs a roommate, she comes up with Miles, the only other person who can understand her recent heartbreak. Miles was engaged to Petra before Peter moved back to town.
Daphne and Miles mostly avoid each other until they decide to team up and begin posting misleading photos of their summer adventures together. As they partake in fake adventures, surely Daphne won’t fall for her ex-fiancé’s new fiancée’s ex, right?
A Peek Behind the Scenes
Loyal readers may find it interesting to know that Emily Henry says that, of all the male main characters she has written, Miles is the most like her own husband.
Margaret Ives is the daughter of one of the most storied (and scandalous) families of the 20th century, but the former tabloid princess hasn’t been seen in years. Now in her 80s, this tragic heiress is ready to tell her story. She invites two authors to Little Crescent Island for a one-month trial period, after which she intends to choose one to write her memoir.
The two authors she has invited couldn’t be more different. Hayden Anderson is a Pulitzer Prize winner with the personality of a thundercloud. Alice Scott, on the other hand, is an eternal optimist still working toward her big break as a writer.
Margaret is only giving each of them pieces of her story, but because of their ironclad NDAs, Hayden and Alice can’t share what they’ve learned in order to put together a more complete picture. Whether her story is a mystery, a tragedy, or a love ballad is yet to be determined. The same can be said for the story between Alice and Hayden, who can’t deny the inconvenient pull between them each time they’re in the same room.
Why We Think You’ll Love It
We’ve always loved that Henry’s romance novels are more than just that, but Henry has entered new writing territory with this novel.
Angela picked up this book with a bit of trepidation after seeing very mixed reviews, including those from readers who felt it was too similar to The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo. But it didn’t take long at all before she knew it would work for her!
The book’s writing style is classic Emily Henry, but it’s even heavier on the plot and lighter on the romance. While on its face the storyline is quite similar to Evelyn Hugo, Henry has taken the concept of a reclusive socialite and combined it with a writing rivalry twist that we’ve seen her do so well before in Beach Read. The result is something truly original, providing fascinating behind-the-scenes glimpses into writing, publishing, and fame.
Emily Henry did not release a book in 2026. Her next contemporary romance novel is expected to be released in the summer of 2027. During a TODAY show appearance, she shared that the story is inspired in a small way by the 2006 movie The Holiday, though it is not a holiday-themed book.
Printable Emily Henry Book Tracker
Looking for a printable version of this Emily Henry book list? Our Buy Me a Coffee Members have access to a cute printable tracker featuring the covers of all her novels, including her 2025 release, Great Big Beautiful Life. Join our membership site today for instant access to your copy, along with some other fun perks!
Do you need to read Emily Henry’s books in order? Are any of her books connected?
No, each of Emily Henry’s books reads as a standalone. There are no common characters among her various novels, and no continuous storylines, so her novels can be read in any order.
Have Any Emily Henry Books Been Made Into Movies?
Yes! People We Meet on Vacation is currently available for streaming on Netflix. Beach Read is up next and is scheduled for a May 2027 theatrical release. It stars Phoebe Dynevor and Patrick Schwarzenegger.
Book Lovers, Happy Place, and Funny Story are also in active development — Book Lovers as a feature film, Happy Place as a Netflix project under Jennifer Lopez’s Nuyorican Productions, and Funny Story with Henry herself writing the screenplay.
About Emily Henry
Emily Henry is the New York Times best-selling author of contemporary romantic comedies. Born in 1990, she grew up in Ohio and Kentucky. She studied creative writing at Hope College and the New York Center for Art and Media Studies. Before becoming a published novelist, she worked as a technical writer. She would wake up at 5 a.m. to work on her fiction writing before starting work, and she also dedicated her weekends to her novels.
Although her books are set in a variety of locations around the US, she writes from her home in Cincinnati, Ohio, where she lives with her husband and dog.
More Book Recommendations You’ll Love
If you enjoy Emily Henry, we think you’ll also enjoy novels by Abby Jimenez and Katherine Center. Both authors blend romance stories with deeper topics. Additionally, don’t miss picking your next read from one of our rom-com and romance book lists below:
The Book Girls are best friends who jointly read over 200 books per year. We started Book Girls' Guide in 2019 to help others de-stress and find joy through the power of a great book. We do in-depth research on thousands of novels and non-fiction titles each year to provide curated book lists covering a variety of genres.
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