Emily Henry Romance Novels, Ranked
- Greg Barlin
- 2 days ago
- 6 min read
Are you looking for the best Emily Henry books to add to your TBR, but don't know where to start? Whether you’ve just finished the People We Meet on Vacation movie on Netflix and need more Poppy and Alex energy, or you’re diving into her latest 2025 release, Great Big Beautiful Life, ranking these modern romance classics is no easy feat.
From the early "enemies-to-lovers" attraction of Beach Read to the small-town charm of Book Lovers, Emily Henry has mastered the art of the literary rom-com. But with so many five-star hits, which one truly reigns supreme? In this definitive 2026 guide, I’m ranking all six Emily Henry romance novels from best to worst to help you find your next favorite read.
#1 - Book Lovers
by Emily Henry | ★★★★★ | Full Review
I may have a soft spot for Book Lovers because it's where I started my Emily Henry journey, but I think it still holds up amidst all of the others as both her funniest novel and one of the most romantic. Nora Stephens is a literary agent in New York City, destined to play the "ice queen" in a romantic literary trope. Charlie Lastra is a rival editor and someone Nora can't stand. When her pregnant sister Libby suggests a sisters trip to a small North Carolina town where her top client’s most recent best-selling book is set, Nora reluctantly accepts. And who does she run into there, but none other than Charlie Lastra.
It's classic enemies-to-lovers, but the level of self-awareness and tongue-in-cheek mockery of the genre takes something that too often is formulaic and makes it something more, turning perhaps the most well-known trope in the genre on its head in an incredibly enjoyable, laugh-out-loud way.
#2 - Happy Place
by Emily Henry | ★★★★★ | Full Review
The first book where Henry branches a bit beyond classic romance tropes and goes for something a bit weightier, Happy Place is as much about lifelong friendship as it is about romantic relationships. Our story focuses on a trio of women who have been spending the week of "Lobster Fest" at a lake house in Knott's Harbor, Maine ever since their graduation from college years prior. It's a chance to reconnect and relive old times, even while life continues to move forward and threaten to drive a wedge into their friendship.
And, of course, over time they have added significant others. Eight years post-graduation, their group of 3 has swelled to 5, to include Sabrina's beau Parth and Cleo's longtime girlfriend Kimmy. Noticeably absent this year is Harriet's fiancé, Wyn, for one very good reason: he is no longer her fiancé, and hasn't been for the last five months. There's one problem, though—neither Harriet nor Wyn have told their friends. And when Harriet arrives, there's another problem: Wyn is there.
Henry uses flashbacks to help bring us into the early days of Harriet and Wyn falling in love. As the present-time week progresses, we then have the benefit of that foundation as see them try to reconnect and overcome differences. This isn't just re-attraction or romance, though; Henry explores the challenges of our characters trying to balance what their heart says with the pressures of careers, the expectations of friends and family, the challenge of a long-distance relationship, and the need for happiness outside of what a partner can give you. It's a more nuanced and mature look at relationships, and it's a better novel for it.
#3 - Great Big Beautiful Life
by Emily Henry | ★★★★★ | Full Review
Alice Scott is on the verge of something big. She's a mid-level celebrity journalist, living in Los Angeles and writing articles for a fictional publication called The Scratch. But through a combination of luck and perseverance, she has somehow managed to track down Margaret Ives. Ives is celebrity royalty—or at least she was at one point decades ago. Once married to Cosmo Sinclair (who was "Elvis before Elvis") and an heiress to the Ives media fortune, there was a time when Margaret had a Princess Diana-type hold over the American public and was a staple in every tabloid publication. But then, suddenly, Margaret disappeared, and no one has been able to locate her for over twenty years. Against all odds, Alice has somehow found her on a small island off the coast of Georgia, and moreover she has managed to get Margaret—now in her eighties—to take a meeting to discuss the two of them collaborating on a memoir detailing Margaret's unique and tragic life story.
However, things quickly become more complicated. Upon Alice's arrival on the small island, she runs into Hayden Anderson. Hayden isn't just another journalist; he's the author of a Pulitzer Prize winning biography of a musician suffering from dementia, a book that Alice admits was truly amazing. Hayden has all the credibility in the world, and both he and Alice found the reclusive Margaret Ives at the exact same time. Suddenly the prospects of Alice landing this project seem slim.
It's Henry's most ambitious novel by far, as she creates a dual timeline that splits a present day enemies-to-lovers romance with the reclusive elderly starlet's retelling of her own love story. It's also Henry's most complex novel to-date, by a fairly wide margin, and the added layers that the enigmatic Margaret and her life story provide take it up a notch. I appreciated the ambition of the novel, and the execution lived up to challenge of writing something that was quite a bit bigger and more nuanced than her previous books. It checked all the boxes that I wanted from this one, plus some.
#4 - Funny Story
by Emily Henry | ★★★★☆ | Full Review
Funny Story opens with Daphne Vincent unceremoniously being evicted from the home that she shares with her fiancé, Peter, after he cheated on her with his lifelong best friend, Petra, at his bachelor party. Short on friends in the northern Michigan town where they had been living (Daphne moved there specifically for Peter) and in need of an immediate place to stay, she finds herself moving in with Petra's ex-boyfriend Miles in a bizarro partner swap. Daphne has no interest in Miles (or anyone, for that matter), given the fresh emotional scars of the dissolution of her engagement.
Miles, for his part, is not exactly presenting an alluring alternative. He is embroiled in a deep depression after his breakup with Petra, and he spends his days getting high, listening to sappy music, and watching Bridget Jones's Diary on repeat in his bedroom.
This one is less "enemies-to-lovers" and more "zero attraction to 'hmm, maybe I was too swift to judge'". There was a lot that I loved about Daphne's and Miles's story, but the novel suffers from one fatal flaw: for some wholly unexplained reason, the exes who set this whole roommate scenario in motion send invitations to both Miles and Daphne. Wait...what?!? There is no planet where this makes sense, two months after ripping the hearts out of both exes, and Henry gives no plausible explanation. Setting that aside, it's quite good! Henry adds depth to the story of the emerging romance through an exploration of some more difficult themes—namely difficulty forming friendships, parental absenteeism, and child neglect. Those create baggage for our main characters to overcome. It's a more nuanced take helps to elevate the story beyond a pure rom-com.
#5 - Beach Read
by Emily Henry | ★★★★☆ | Full Review
The novel that birthed the romance juggernaut that is Henry! It's once again an enemies-to-lovers story, this time when novelist January Andrews, plagued by writers block since her father's funeral, retreats to the west coast of Michigan, only to run into her nemesis from college, Augustus Everett. Compared to Henry's other female protagonists, January skews a bit more heavily to creating drama than others, and that had me struggling to cheer for her as much as others, but this is still better than many offerings in the crowded literary rom-com genre.
#6 - People We Meet on Vacation
by Emily Henry | ★★★★☆ | Full Review
An homage to When Harry Met Sally explores the platonic-until-it's-not relationship of Poppy Wright and Alex Nilsen, best friends since college, who travel together every year, acknowledge a mutual attraction, but never cross that line into "something more"...until they finally do. While it's not out of the realm of possibility for two people to deny their shared attraction for over a decade, there's no solid reason given for why it has taken them this long to acknowledge that this could (and should) be more. Usually there's something that set them on that platonic path; instead, they seem to grow closer and more in love as we hear about each successive past vacation they shared.
Given the entire novel hinges on that relationship question, it's missing the tension, or the "a-ha" moment for one person who staunchly denies the attraction before finally realizing who they're meant to be with. Poppy and Alex both clearly love each other, they both acknowledge it throughout most of the flashbacks, and the only thing that's missing is the smashing (until it isn't). It's a sweet journey of two people who finally turn the corner on what's been obvious to everyone who knows them, but for a sub-genre that's well-trod, it's not peak execution. There's still plenty of Henry goodness in this one, it doesn't live up to the standard of some of her later novels.
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