AYESHA RASCOE, HOST:
It’s almost August, and you know what that means – time to start hustling on your 2025 reading goals. Me – I’m doing pretty well, thanks to all the books they had me reading for the show. But how about you? Books We Love, NPR’s list of best reads, has lots of recommendations for your next book. We asked some of our colleagues to share their favorite romance novels from 2025 so far.
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HAFSA FATHIMA, BYLINE: I’m Hafsa Fathima, and I’m assistant producer at Pop Culture Happy Hour. A book that I adored reading was “There’s Something About Mira” by Sonali Dev. Our hero, Mira, is not having a great time of things. Her fiance is too busy to go on their engagement trip to New York, so she’s going alone. But in the city, she finds a mysterious ring and becomes determined to return it to its rightful owner. She finds the help of a surly but very handsome journalist named Krish Hale. But that’s not all there is to the story.
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FATHIMA: We also learn about another story happening in 1980s India, between two girls who are friends and are forbidden to be anything else. They’re also connected by – you guessed it – a ring. This book had me hooked for days, and it is such a beautifully unexpected love story.
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BRITTNEY MELTON, BYLINE: My name is Brittney Melton, and I am the Up First newsletter writer at NPR. I submitted “Sounds Like Love” by Ashley Poston. The book is about a songwriter who’s experiencing writer’s block. In the midst of not being inspired, she returns to her hometown in North Carolina. I mean, after all, her family does own a music venue in the town. As her life seems to just be chaotic and nothing going her way, she has one more nuisance – a melody in her head. And not just that – also a man’s voice. That voice belongs to a real person, who she invites to meet her in her hometown to write a song to the melody in hopes that it will rid them of being in each other’s heads.
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MELTON: I’m a big fan of magical realism in romance, and this book just does it right. I found it to be funny, thought-provoking and emotional. The book is a romance, but honestly, it’s a book about love – love for music, love for family, love for friends, love for yourself and love for that special someone. The writing truly felt like a song to me that I would play over and over again.
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CHRISTINA CALA, BYLINE: My name is Christina Cala, and I’m the senior producer of Code Switch. The book I want to share with you today is called “Too Soon” and it’s by author Betty Shamieh. I picked it up. I could barely put it down. It follows three generations of Palestinian American women who are really just trying to find a little bit of love, a little bit of joy in this wide, wide world that isn’t necessarily made for them. The first character you meet is Arabella, who’s the granddaughter. She lives in New York and she’s a director, and things aren’t quite going exactly the way she wants them to. And she ends up getting this opportunity to direct “Hamlet” in the West Bank.
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CALA: While she’s out there, her grandmother wants to introduce her to somebody – a doctor who’s saving lives. But she really can’t stop thinking about the Israeli American that she’s leaving behind in New York. It’s a really fun read, and it’s a great conversation starter, too.
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LAUREN MIGAKI, BYLINE: Hello. My name is Lauren Migaki. I’m a senior producer at the Education Desk, and I read “Promise Me Sunshine” by Cara Bastone. Most nights, Lenny rides the Staten Island Ferry until sunrise. She just can’t bear to go back to the apartment she once shared with Lou, her now-dead best friend. She’s struggling to bear each day without Lou when a grumpy stranger named Miles falls into her life. And like some sort of guardian angel of grieving, Miles offers Lenny a balm for when the pain is just too much – something good for you, something bad for you and a change of scenery. Using this formula, Miles slowly coaxes Lenny back to life. And while its themes on the surface may seem kind of heavy for a romance novel, really, what is grief if not the purest expression of love?
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RASCOE: Those recommendations again were “Promise Me Sunshine,” “Too Soon,” “Sounds Like Love” and “There’s Something About Mira.” For the full list of books we’ve loved so far this year, visit npr.org/summerbooks.
(SOUNDBITE OF LUIS KIERKEGAARD & ANA ESCARIO SONG, “TERCERO C (CON ALBA COBAIN)”) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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