23 Irresistible Meet Cute Romance Books

Book Summary

Pippa is a neurodivergent air traffic controller and loves her job and the voices she speaks to from the planes. She does not love repeating patterns, tight clothes, or people asking why she’s single at school reunions.

Pilot Andrew is also single, and his parents won’t let him forget it. They have good intentions but are making him crazy. While he’s talked to Pippa over the radio for six months, they’ve never met and don’t even know they’re based at the same airport.

After Pippa and Andrew have an unexpected meet-cute moment and begin talking, they realize they can help each other. Andrew will attend Pippa’s ten-year reunion and Pippa will be Andrew’s girlfriend at a family wedding. Their fake dates take them around South Africa until sparks fly and things don’t feel so fake anymore.

Book Summary

Evie’s career depends on her ability to convince her agency’s biggest client, Ezra Chester, to finally write the romantic comedy screenplay that he owes producers. The only problem is that Ezra finds rom-coms completely unrealistic, and he’ll only agree to write the screenplay if Evie proves it’s possible to meet a man the way it always happens in romantic movies.

Evie is cynical about love herself, but she’ll do anything to keep her job, even if it means reenacting iconic meet-cute scenes in public. She tries everything from spilling orange juice on a stranger to leaving her number in books throughout London. But can a workaholic who’s given up on love really find a meet-cute of her own?

Book Summary

Amelia, aka Rae Rose, is a pop star feeling totally burnt out by years of maintaining her image for all of her adoring fans. She’s in desperate need of a break and would love to escape to Rome, as Audrey Hepburn does in her favorite film. But since she can’t discreetly get to Rome, Italy, she hops in the car and heads to Rome, Kentucky.

Noah runs his grandmother’s pie shop in Rome, and isn’t impressed when Amelia appears on his front lawn in her broken-down car. He’s the town grump, doesn’t have Wifi or a cell phone, and prioritizes privacy. But when the local B&B turns Amelia away because they don’t have any vacancies, he reluctantly agrees to let Amelia stay in his guest room.

Book Summary

Aiden Valentine is the host of Baltimore’s radio romance hotline, but the truth is that he’s fallen out of love with love. When a tween calls into his show asking for dating advice for her mom, the interview goes viral, thrusting his show into the spotlight.

As for Lucie Stone, she thought she was doing pretty well. She has a good job, a great family, and a very smart (if slightly devious) daughter. She’s too busy for anything more. But suddenly, her lack of a love life is the talk of Baltimore, leaving her to question if she’s really as happy as she thought.

The radio station creates a new segment aimed at helping her find love, co-hosted by Lucie and Aiden. All of Baltimore is invested in helping Lucie find her perfect match, but what if she’s already met him?

Book Summary

As the name of the collection implies, each of these novellas features a meet-cute. The stand-alone stories range from 40-100 pages, making them perfect when you just want a quick, fun read.

Book Summary

Delphie is recently deceased, having choked on a microwavable burger. Finding herself in the afterlife waiting room wearing her “sparkle and shine” nightie is embarrassing enough to start with, but to make matters worse, she comes face to face with the hottest man she’s ever seen.

He smiles… they chat… there seems to be a spark… But then someone runs in, shouting about a huge mistake, and sends the dreamy man back down to Earth.

When Delphie is offered an opportunity to return to Earth for 10 days to reconnect with her mystery man, she jumps at the chance to find her possible soulmate. But finding him in a city of millions won’t be easy.

Book Summary

After failing out of her interior design program and getting out of a disastrously short-lived marriage, Ada is clawing her way back from rock bottom. She’s started her own business, and a large ranch in Wyoming has hired her for what she hopes will be a career-making project.

Soon after arriving in Meadowlark, she finds herself at a dive bar where a handsome cowboy leaves her with a kiss most people can only dream about. She’s disappointed, thinking she’ll never see him again… until he turns out to be her new boss.

When Weston discovers that the woman from the bar is the interior designer for his dream project on his family’s ranch, he couldn’t be happier. Ada’s reaction is quite the opposite.

Book Summary

After watching her mother’s love life implode time and again, Nora has created some pretty strict rules to protect her own heart. The primary rule is a simple one – avoid relationships.

Nora’s friends, however, think that she needs more fun in her life. She reluctantly agrees to a blind date at a Utah Jazz basketball game. The date is terrible, and Nora is counting the minutes until she can go home!

She thinks it couldn’t get any worse, but just when her date steps out to the concession stand, the kiss cam zooms in on her and the stranger sitting on her other side. At least he’s cuter than her current date. To kiss or not to kiss?

When Nora’s life takes a nosedive, it’s the man from the kiss cam who seems bent on proving to her that good men do exist.

Book Summary

Bookish Harriet realizes that, while she’s lived a million lives between the pages of her favorite novels, her life in New Zealand hasn’t included any adventures of her own. When she’s invited to visit her sister in New York City, she decides it’s the perfect opportunity to reinvent herself as Harriet 2.0 – the bold and outgoing version.

She gets a chance to put her new alter-ego to the test sooner than expected when she inadvertently lands in the lap of a handsome man on the second leg of her transpacific flight. The old Harriet would be embarrassed and apologetic after such a meet-cute, but what would Harriet 2.0 do? Certainly, she’d take advantage of the opportunity, especially since she’ll never see him again.

But then she sees him again… Not only are they unexpectedly reunited in New York, but it turns out he’s totally off-limits! But he gets all of her nerdy references, and Harriet 2.0 wants to do the most outrageous thing of all – take a chance on love.

Book Summary

Chloe Brown is a wealthy 28-year-old computer geek with chronic pain who resolves to stop being boring – or in her words, to “get a life.” From riding a motorcycle and traveling to having meaningless sex, she has a six-step action plan to become a more exciting person.

Along the way, while attempting to be spontaneous, she meets (or more accurately, “meet cutes”) a tattooed handyman with a rough exterior, but maybe his rebel status isn’t all he has to offer.

Book Summary

Holland Bakker has a major crush on Calvin, the street musician who plays in the subway station near her apartment, but she’s never had the nerve to talk to him. Fate brings them together one night when he saves her from a drunken attacker, but then he disappears when the police arrive. Holland wants to find a way to repay Calvin, so she gets him an audition with her uncle, a Broadway musical director.

The audition goes very well, but Calvin’s Broadway debut is in jeopardy because his student visa expired years ago. He’s been in the country illegally ever since. So, hoping to help both her uncle and Calvin, Holland proposes a scheme in which she’ll marry Calvin without letting him know about her long-held infatuation with him.

Soon, Calvin is a Broadway star, but when will Holland finally stop acting?

Book Summary

Wren is an architect in the UK, but when her fiance breaks off their engagement, she decides to head to the States to visit the father she hasn’t seen in years. She hopes that spending a quiet summer on his Indiana farm will help her begin to heal.

Anders is a racing engineer in Indianapolis, but he’s been unable to move forward since losing his wife in a tragic accident four years ago. The only place he finds peace is on his brother’s farm. That is until his peace is disrupted the night he unexpectedly meets Wren.

Book Summary

Kimi is a high school student who aspires to attend art school. Her mother is a well-known painter who wants Kimi to follow in her fine art footsteps, but Kimi has become much more drawn to fashion design – a field that her mother strongly disapproves of.

After an explosive fight with her mom, Kimi receives a letter from her estranged Japanese grandparents inviting her to visit them in Kyoto for spring break. Even though she’s never met them, she sees it as the perfect opportunity to escape her troubles at home.

When she arrives in Japan, the cultural customs and language and completely familiar to her – as are her grandparents.

While exploring, she has a meet-cute with a young aspiring med student named Akira (he’s literally wearing a mochi costume). He helps to show her even more of the city, and soon she discovers that inspiration is everywhere – from Kyoto’s outdoor markets, art installations, and the cherry blossom festival.

As the week goes on, Kimi gets to know her grandparents and learns so much more about her mother back in America, herself, and her art.

Book Summary

Annabelle is brilliant, and despite coming from a very poor family, she has earned herself a place in the first cohort of female students admitted to the prestigious Oxford University. As a condition of her scholarship, Annabelle must volunteer for the rising women’s suffrage movement, and her specific task is to recruit influential men to champion the cause.

While trying to lobby support by handing out fliers outside of Parliament, Duke Sebastian Devereux’s companion pushes Annabelle aside. She lands right in the arms of the Duke of Devereux. It would be the perfect meet-cute, if only he didn’t oppose everything she stands for.

The two find themselves locked in a battle of wits with rising passion.

Book Summary

When Sadie doesn’t get the promotion she both needs and expects, she immediately adds three things to her to-do list – a drink, a one-night stand, and a new place to live. Unfortunately, she tackles these tasks in the wrong order. The drinks turn into Sadie mixing up a dating app and a roommate app. Whoops!

Jack has been dealing with the unexpected death of his parents by escaping into movies and video games alone. After hearing her story, he offers Sadie the spare bedroom in his gorgeous Brooklyn brownstone at an excellent price.

The cheap rent lets her grow her former side business as a florist into a full-time gig. But how long can these polar opposites happily coexist in one house?

Book Summary

Arthur is spending the summer in New York, and he’s hoping for his very own showstopping romance like those you’d see on Broadway. Ben, on the other hand, knows the universe doesn’t work that way. If it did, Ben wouldn’t be headed to the post office to mail a box of belongings to his ex-boyfriend.

On his way into the post office, however, Ben meets Arthur and they immediately strike up a conversation. Sparks fly, but before they can exchange phone numbers, they get separated by a flash mob.

Both Ben and Arthur and left wondering what might have been. How far would you go to be reunited with a person who might just be the one?

Book Summary

Juliet is working hard to grow her dog grooming business when her best friend needs a big favor. Her future mother-in-law runs a company that provides seat fillers to Hollywood award shows. It’s an easy gig. She just has to move around to sit in any temporarily empty seats so the audience looks full the whole time. And she must do that without speaking to all the celebrities in the audience.

Except she’s forced to speak to heartthrob Noah, whose poster she had on her wall as a teenager. Her night and life take an unexpected turn as their relationship builds, but it’s all based on one lie that can cause everything to fall apart.

Book Summary

Twenty-four year old Ella Durran earned a Rhodes Scholarship, allowing her to fulfill her lifelong dream of studying literature at Oxford University. At the same time, she’s also been offered a position working for the political campaign of a rising political star. She works out an arrangement to work remotely from England, with the plan to return to Washington D.C. at the end of her Oxford year.

Things get off to a rough start on her first day when she has a run-in with a smart-mouthed local at a fish and chips shop. And things get even worse when she discovers that the same man – Jamie Davenport – is also the professor of her English literature course.

During a night out with her classmates filled with drinks and poetry, she discovers an unexpected connection with Jamie. Her classmates warn her about his reputation, but she can’t help how she feels.

The two begin their relationship understanding the timeline – Ella is set to leave as soon as the semester ends. But things quickly become more complicated and Ella is forced to decide what her heart really wants.

Book Summary

A bad boss forced 27-year-old Annie to walk away from her promising chemistry career. Then, her fiancé walked away, saying he needed some space. She’s vowed to let no new people into her life because they just end up causing trouble. But when glamorous Harper moves in next door, Annie is intrigued and finds herself spying on her. And she’s not the only one spying.

After their awkward meet cute, she finds herself teaming up with another amateur detective to keep Harper safe – but does Harper really need their help at all?

As Annie winds up getting sucked into her neighbor’s drama, she ends up with not one but two new people in her life.

Book Summary

Franny, usually vibrant and chatty, is having the worst day imaginable. Despite her job not being great, she still feels bummed about being laid off. To make matters worse, subway doors snagged her favorite dress, ruining it and exposing her to everyone within sight.

Fortunately, a handsome stranger in a stylish Gucci suit comes to her rescue. However, he vanishes as quickly as he appeared. She assumes she’ll never encounter him again, but the whole incident gets posted online and quickly goes viral. Surprisingly, in the midst of a bustling city, their paths cross repeatedly. Should Franny trust these signs and pursue the love she has always desired?