There’s something inherently romantic about the holiday season—just ask the Hallmark Channel and its hundreds-strong slate of wintery romance movies. Maybe it’s the season’s focus on generosity and spending time with loved ones, or it could just be all those cheerful twinkly lights casting everyone and everything in a charming glow. Whatever the reason, one thing we know for sure is that if you’re in the mood to lean into the romanticism of the holidays, there are plenty of movies and books that’ll help do the trick, perfect for when you’re traveling to visit family, looking for a quiet escape from said family, or couch-rotting during that awkward week between Christmas and New Year’s.
On the literary front, the canon of holiday-themed romances spans practically every popular trope of the romance novel genre, every spice level, and every winter holiday. Here, we’ve made a list and checked it twice, rounding up 14 of the very best holiday romance novels, all guaranteed to get you in the holiday spirit.
Cowboy romance is an uber-popular segment of the broader romance category, so it’s only to be expected that there are plenty of holiday takes on the subgenre. This entry in Jessica Clare’s Wyoming Cowboys serie is a particularly perfect one, with main character Holly forced to work alongside the very Grinch-y Adam—her hot nemesis, of course—at a ranch over the holidays. Forced proximity and enemies-to-lovers? Guess Santa reads our letters after all.
Niki and Sameer’s love story starts as a whirlwind love-at-first-sight fling at their mutual friends’s wedding in Mumbai during Diwali. When things continue to heat up over the next few weeks, Niki is forced to choose between taking a risk on love or continuing to play things safe and giving in to family and cultural pressures. Inevitably, it all culminates in a heart-pounding climactic moment on Christmas morning.
Another cozy queer romance, this 2024 novel takes place over the Thanksgiving holidays, when two former classmates, Murphy and Ellie, reunite and decide to forge a fake relationship to help Murphy earn the good graces of Ellie’s mom, a professor with Murphy’s academic future in her hands. The undeniable attraction between them is all just part of the “fake” relationship, right?
If the holiday season isn’t already magical enough for you, In a Holidaze adds in a healthy dose of magical realism. Maelyn finds herself trapped in a time loop spanning her family’s annual Christmas trip—giving her plenty of chances to figure out which of the handsome family friends she grew up with is her true soulmate.
Morgan and Rachel were best friends…up until a fateful kiss made things awkward between them. Thanks to the beauty of the forced proximity trope, however, they might get another chance at cracking the friends-to-lovers code when they team up to help save Rachel’s family’s Christmas tree farm in this hilarious and spicy queer rom-com.
The grumpy-sunshine dynamic between main characters Ruby and Rashid in Farah Heron’s heartwarming rom-com sets up a perfect friends-to-lovers arc. After a chance meeting, the duo strikes up a friendship, with Ruby promising to help Rashid get in the holiday spirit for his nieces if he helps her toward her inn-owning dreams via his family connections. All of this happens to create a powerful bond between them that’ll soon throw a wrench in Ruby’s original plans to move halfway around the world from him to pursue her dream job.
Stella enters an Instagram influencer’s contest to help save her struggling Christmas tree farm, then finds herself scrambling to produce the (nonexistent) loving boyfriend whom she claimed co-owns Lovelight Farms in the contest entry. Obviously, there’s only one solution: start fake-dating her longtime best friend, Luka, who’s only too eager to help out.
As fans of Ally Carter’s beloved Gallagher Girls YA series have aged up, so too have her protagonists, with the prolific author lately shifting focus to deliver delightful adult rom-coms. This 2024 novel is a rivals-to-lovers romance with a locked-door mystery twist, as two competing writers have no choice but to work together to solve the disappearance of a legendary author from her own sprawling estate.
Joanna Bolouri’s hilarious rom-com starts with Emily getting dumped by her boyfriend just a few days before Christmas, and unwilling to face her family alone. Her best option? Say it with me: Have her hot, mischievous neighbor pose as the boyfriend her family never met to keep up appearances. Of course!
Josie Silver’s bestseller opens with Laurie feeling an instant connection with a man she sees through a bus window. After a year of failed attempts to find him again, Laurie finally stumbles upon the man she’d assumed was her fated mate…introduced as her best friend’s new boyfriend. A montage of a decade’s worth of December days ensues, as Laurie and Jack weave in and out of each other’s lives, toward whatever fate has in store for the pair.
A bit enemies-to-lovers, a bit second-chance romance, this 2022 book follows Frankie and Ezra, former college sweethearts who haven’t spoken since they broke up before graduation. When they wake up on New Year’s Day a decade later, following their mutual friends’s wedding, they find themselves in bed together and with Ezra’s grandmother’s ring on Frankie’s finger—and no memory of how they got there.
In this sexy and refreshing take on dating after 50, Vivian joins her daughter for a work trip to Buckingham Palace over the Christmas holidays. She quickly strikes up a sweet-but-steamy vacay fling with the royal family’s private secretary. Their deepening connection makes it increasingly tough to imagine breaking things off before Vivian’s set to return home on New Year’s Day.
This heartwarming queer love story combines Christmas and Hanukkah for maximum holiday cheer. Season of Love stars Miriam, an artist who recently inherited her great-aunt’s Christmas tree farm, and Noelle, the grumpy manager of the farm. The two have to work past their intense differences (and despite the intense chemistry between them) to save the struggling business.
Of course, rom-com queen Tessa Bailey has dabbled in holiday romance! Window Shopping is full of her classic blend of romantic moments that’ll have you giggling and kicking your feet, interspersed with enough spice to make you blush. It tells the opposites-attract story of “black cat” Stella and “golden retriever” Aiden, who are simply unable to resist the insta-love connection between them after Aiden hires Stella to spruce up the holiday decor of the department store he owns.
