Spend April in the company of some breezy romance romps with this month’s light-hearted lineup.
Join us as we highlight notable romance book releases each month to add to your never-ending TBR pile. These lists will include a range of adult, young adult, LGBTQ+, and BIPOC novels to put on your radar. They could be stand-alone books or new releases in a best-selling series.
Our April rom-com picks include a new romance from Emily Henry, a haunted farmhouse, and a fake dating scheme with an astronaut.
In order of release date, here are 6 rom-com novels we are looking forward to reading this April:
1. Every Time You Hear That Song by Jenna Voris — April 2
Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo meets Daisy Jones and the Six in this star-studded scavenger hunt involving a spontaneous road trip with a coworker, a country starlet’s empty safe, and a secret romance between a singer and her songwriter.
Every Time You Hear That Song follows the split-POVs of present-day country music fan Darren and her idol, Decklee Cassel, in the 1960s. The novel explores queer love stories and how powerful music can speak to our hearts in this swoony-worthy joy ride.
Book Description: Seventeen-year-old aspiring journalist Darren Purchase has been a lifelong fan of country music legend Decklee Cassel, who’s as famous for her classic hits as she is for her partnership with songwriter Mickenlee Hooper. The same Mickenlee who mysteriously backed out of the limelight at the height of their careers, never to be heard from again. Now, Decklee’s televised funeral marks the unveiling of her long-awaited time capsule. But when it’s revealed to be empty, a long trail of scavenger hunt clues unfolds, leading to a whopping cash prize for whoever finds the real capsule.
Flashback to 1963, where a young, runaway Decklee has her sights set on fame and glory. As she claws her way to the top over the years that follow, it’s Mickenlee’s lyrics that help rocket her to stardom. But as their relationship evolves beyond the professional, it threatens everything Decklee has worked for. What else will she sacrifice to hold on to her dreams?
2. The Kiss Countdown by Etta Easton — April 4
The fake dating trope shoots for the stars in this galactic rom-com. Amerie is a single girl with a shaky start-up and a smug ex-boyfriend, so of course, she would seek out a stranger to be her new beau. Little does she know Vincent, her fake boyfriend, is a real-life astronaut.
Set to blast off into space in three months, he enlists her help to win over his nagging family. But as the final countdown to his departure begins, Amerie finds herself catching real feelings for the rocket man.
Book Description: Risk-averse event planner Amerie Price is jobless, newly single, and about to lose her apartment. With no choice but to gamble on her shaky start-up, the last thing she needed was to run into her smug ex and his new, less complicated girlfriend at Amerie’s favorite coffee shop. Panicked, she pretends to be dating the annoyingly sexy man she met by spilling Americano all over his abs. He plays along — for a price.
Half the single men in Houston claim to be astronauts, but Vincent Rogers turns out to be the real deal. What started as a one-off lie morphs into a for the three months leading up to his mission, Amerie will play Vincent’s doting partner in front of his loving but overly invested family. In exchange, she gets a rent-free room in his house and can put every penny toward her struggling business.
3. Late Bloomer by Mazey Eddings — April 16
Winning the lottery isn’t all it’s cracked up to be in this flower-filled, queer romance. Opal’s wealth means she is constantly accosted by requests for help that she cannot turn down. So she turns to a life of solitude and purchases a struggling flower farm.
Little does Opal know that the farm comes with an unwanted guest. The flower farm’s original caretaker refuses to abandon her post, and Opal will have to learn to live in harmony with polar opposite Pepper Smith. But when romance blossoms, things take an unexpected turn for the business partners.
Book Description: Winning the lottery has ruined Opal Devlin’s life. After quitting her dead-end job where she’d earned minimum wage and even less respect, she’s bombarded by people knocking at her door for a handout the second they found out her bank account was overflowing with cash. And Opal can’t seem to stop saying yes.
With her tender heart thoroughly abused, Opal decides to protect herself by any means necessary, which to her translates to putting almost all her new money to buying a failing flower farm in Asheville, North Carolina to let the flowers live out their plant destiny while she uses the cabin on the property to start her painting business. But her plans for isolation and self-preservation go hopelessly awry when an angry (albeit gorgeous) Pepper Smith is waiting for her at her new farm.
4. Dear Wendy by Ann Zhao — April 16
Dear Wendy follows Sophie and Jo, two aromantic and asexual people who attend the same high school — and accidentally start competing relationship-advice columns.
As the two unknowingly become friends in real life, they deal with their dueling online personas, existential crises over gender, and a romantic love story that cannot — and will not — end with them falling in love.
Book Description: Sophie Chi is in her first year at Wellesley College (despite her parents’ wishes that she attend a “real” university, rather than a liberal arts school) and has long accepted her aromantic and asexual identities. Despite knowing she’ll never fall in love, she enjoys running an Instagram account that offers relationship advice to students at Wellesley. No one except her roommate knows that she’s behind the incredibly popular “Dear Wendy” account.
When Joanna “Jo” Ephron―also a first-year student at Wellesley―created their “Sincerely Wanda” account, it wasn’t at all meant to be serious or take off like it does―not like Dear Wendy’s. But now they might have a rivalry of sorts with Dear Wendy. As if Jo’s not busy enough having existential crises over gender, the fact that she’ll never truly be loved or be enough, or her few friends finding The One and forgetting her!
While tensions are rising online, Sophie and Jo are getting closer in real life, bonding over their shared aroace identities.
5. Funny Story by Emily Henry — April 23
Emily Henry girlies wake up; we have a new novel!
This time we follow Daphne and Miles, two reluctant roommates brought together by the tragic realization that their exes are in love with each other. For the most part, children’s librarian Daphne and scruffy agent of chaos Miles avoid one another until a drunken pity party has them agreeing to mislead everyone into thinking they are spending their summer together as a couple.
But this fake dating scheme must stay fake because Daphne falling in love with her ex-fiancé’s new fiancée’s ex would be a very bad idea.
Book Description: Daphne always loved the way her fiancé Peter told their story. He really was good at telling it…right up until the moment he realized he was actually in love with his childhood best friend Petra. Which is how Daphne begins her new story: Stranded in beautiful Waning Bay, Michigan, with a dream job as a children’s librarian (that barely pays the bills), and proposing to be roommates with the only person who could possibly understand her predicament: Petra’s ex, Miles Nowak.
Miles is exactly the opposite of practical, buttoned-up Daphne. The roommates mainly avoid one another until one day, while drowning their sorrows, they form a tenuous friendship and a plan. If said plan also involves posting deliberately misleading photos of their summer adventures together, well, who could blame them?
6. Happy Medium by Sarah Adler — April 30
A fake medium and a haunted farmhouse occupied by a very real ghost. What could possibly go wrong?
Get your cozy, spooky season fix this spring with Happy Medium, a rom-com set on the land of a cursed farmhouse. Gretchen is tasked with getting rid of the angry spirit disrupting the open houses, but as a fraud, she hopes to string the hot, young skeptic owner Charlie along until she can cash in.
Things go awry when she meets a chatty 1920s ghost by the name of Everett, who enlists her help to stop Charlie from selling the property and succumbing to the same curse that has him haunting the farmhouse for eternity.
Book Description: A clever con woman must convince a skeptical, sexy farmer of his property’s resident real-life ghost if she’s to save them all from a fate worse than death in this delightful new novel from the author of Mrs. Nash’s Ashes.
Fake spirit medium Gretchen Acorn is happy to help when her best (read: wealthiest) client hires her to investigate the unexplained phenomena preventing the sale of her bridge partner’s struggling goat farm. Gretchen may be a fraud, but she’d like to think she’s a beneficent one. So if “cleansing” the property will help a nice old man finally retire and put some much-needed cash in her pockets at the same time, who’s she to say no?
Of course, it turns out that said bridge partner isn’t the kindly AARP member Gretchen imagined — Charlie Waybill is young, hot as hell, and extremely unconvinced that Gretchen can communicate with the dead.
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What will you be reading in April? Share your picks in the comments below!
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Alicia Gilstorf
Alicia is a writer from Canada. She credits her passion for TV and film to superheroes, workplace comedies, cheesy holiday movies, and coming-of-age stories.
