10 Short Romance Books (Under 300 Pages)

Nora’s life is about to get a rewrite…

Nora Hamilton knows the formula for love better than anyone. As a romance channel screenwriter, it’s her job. But when her too-good-to-work husband leaves her and their two kids, Nora turns her marriage’s collapse into cash and writes the best script of her life. No one is more surprised than her when it’s picked up for the big screen and set to film on location at her 100-year-old home. When former Sexiest Man Alive, Leo Vance, is cast as her ne’er-do-well husband, Nora’s life will never be the same.

The morning after shooting wraps and the crew leaves, Nora finds Leo on her porch with a half-empty bottle of tequila and a proposition. He’ll pay a thousand dollars a day to stay for a week. The extra seven grand would give Nora breathing room, but it’s the need in his eyes that makes her say yes. Seven days: it’s the blink of an eye or an eternity, depending on how you look at it. Enough time to fall in love. Enough time to break your heart.

Filled with warmth, wit, and wisdom, Nora Goes Off Script is the best kind of love story–the real kind where love is complicated by work, kids, and the emotional baggage that comes with life. For Nora and Leo, this kind of love is bigger than the big screen.

All I wanted was a quiet summer on my family’s ranch in Idaho…

I didn’t think that was too much to ask. With my fiancé in California, I was back home for three months to plan my wedding. I had colors to pick, cows to milk, and a wedding dress to squeeze into.

Which was why I didn’t need anybody messing with me.

Especially not the guy who had dedicated his whole life to making mine a joke. The guy who filled my high school locker with frogs and my hot car with cans of tuna. I mean…I always got him back. But not this summer. Things were different now. I was engaged. I had grown up. I would NOT fall victim to Cade’s pranks, teasing, or his manly charms.

If only my dad hadn’t hired the moron to cowboy for him this summer.

Now my childhood enemy is living on our ranch and seems to think we have a score to settle.

And all bets are off.

Is Zoey too much of a disaster for even TV’s hottest handyman to fix?

When Zoey returns home to California to live with her ailing grandmother, she’s less than enthusiastic when Nana tries to set her up with Harry, the handyman who’s been helping her out around the house for years. But then she discovers Harry the handyman is actually Harrison Beckford, the handsome host of the hottest home renovation show on television.

To Zoey, Harry seems too good to be true. He’s got the job, the house, the dog, and even two adorable kids whom Zoey quickly falls in love with. But as she gets swept up in Harrison’s glamorous life, Zoey starts to let go of things that have always mattered to her in the past. Her career. Her friends. Soon she starts to wonder: Will fitting into Harrison’s life require too much renovation of her own, or will the two of them be able to build something amazing together?

There are a million and one reasons why I shouldn’t fall for my BFF’s twin… Too bad love isn’t reasonable.

For years, I’ve successfully hidden my crush on Zane–my best friend’s ultra grumpy, ultra hot twin brother.

But now that he’s hired me to fix a tech glitch for his startup, I’m having trouble keeping the feels under wraps.

I SHOULD just keep my head down and do my job like a good employee.

I should NOT go to the investor’s weekend that will keep me up close and personal with Zane.

Like … couple’s massage kind of personal.

I’ve got a lot on the line: my friendship, my job, and my stupid little heart that just won’t stop beating for him.

But I’ve never met a risk I didn’t like to face head-on. Here goes nothing! (Or, maybe, here goes everything…)

Falling for Your Best Friend’s Twin is a laugh-out-loud, closed-door romcom.

Catherine played it safe with book boyfriends—until Kellan, her nemesis, writes himself into her story.

Let’s not talk about how I was let go from my job and had to take a position as a coffee girl at a publicity firm. We definitely won’t discuss their newest client and how he was the former love of my life. However, it’s fair to mention that Kellan Connelly is now my fiercest adversary.

I’ve spent the last decade playing it safe with book boyfriends—avoiding frustratingly attractive and three-dimensional guys like him.

When my roommate finds the Boyfriend Book, a silly relic leftover from my teens, it prompts a dare: go on five dates and pick one to be my Valentine. I can’t say no, especially if it means proving to myself and Kellan that I’ve moved on.

Despite braving the dating jungle, none of the guys comes close to being my one true love. Except Kellan. He’s infuriating, confusing, catnip…and it turns out he has a secret.

With a love letter and a plane ticket in hand, can I leave my baggage behind and decide between love, hate, and the lies I told to protect my fragile heart?

Single-dad Mac needs a temporary nanny for his daughter, Daisy. I need a second job until my promotion kicks in. Since our arrangement is only for one month, I am positive I won’t get attached. Medium positive. Okay, I’m negative.

This is a terrible idea.

Because I can’t give Mac and Daisy what they need, and I won’t risk breaking their hearts, but his green eyes and her crooked pigtails have me dreaming about forever. And who can resist a dad buying pink ballerina tights after a day spent in a hard hat?

The thing is, Mac is a fixer, and I need to repair my own life. Better yet, I don’t want to feel broken. So it’s a good thing the worst has already happened to me. Nothing will hurt more now. Water can’t get wetter. That’s what I keep telling myself.

Too bad I’m all wrong…

Butterflies? Levi Bailey does not get butterflies. Well, at least he didn’t until Meredith Porter spilled coffee all over him.

Meredith has plans. Big plans. She is done being safely wrapped in bubble wrap. She is ready to live. That’s what her list is all about—living and experiencing. Is it fate that her list of learning, trying, and experiencing continues to bring her into the path of grumpy Levi Bailey? She isn’t sure—but she doesn’t mind. Levi is just a misunderstood cinnamon roll, and Meredith plans to enjoy every second of helping him realize that.

Levi’s life has a routine. He’s been running it for years. Go to work, care for Mom, watch over the siblings. If he’s lucky, he’ll get to play with his niece Alice, before his head hits the pillow at night. It may sound boring, but it’s worked for years. Why mess with a good thing?

Only… it’s not that great. And now that his mother isn’t sick and his siblings are grown, they don’t really need him. Where does that leave Levi? It would seem, in the hands of quirky, unpredictable Meredith Porter and her list. This girl is too young and too innocent for the likes of Levi. He has no business taking her to yoga or teaching her to ride a bike.

He certainly has no business falling for the twenty-three-year-old who has pretty much been living under a rock her entire life. Yep… no business at all, and yet there are a million butterflies disturbing his insides, telling him to kiss the girl, to give this thing with Meredith a chance. Telling him that maybe, just maybe, he is worthy of affection from someone as good and pure as Meredith.

Then again, what do dumb ol’ butterflies know anyway?

I hated Miles Crowe more than poison ivy, itchy socks, the stink of the French Quarter on the hottest day of summer, people who didn’t use turn signals, “namaste” puns on yoga tank tops, and chigger bites. Combined.

26-year-old New Orleans native Elle Jones used to be the internet’s most famous meme for rejection thanks to an embarrassing teenage TV appearance. But she’s finally put that past behind her, and now she’s killing it as a commercial real estate agent in the coolest neighborhoods in the city.

When Miles Crowe—the former pop star who made her notorious—insists on hiring her to find a property for his jazz club, she’ll do everything she can to get herself fired before he realizes who she is.

But Miles has grown up, too, and Elle soon discovers that he is as passionate about the city as she is…and even sexier now than he was then. Will she risk exposing her humiliating past to claim a future with the guy who once nearly ruined her life?

Whitney Award winner Melanie Jacobson returns with her trademark wit and warmth in this delightful story about taking a chance on love.

Let’s play a Two Truths and a Lie.
1. I am a self-help influencer who is a hot mess.
2. If I don’t get some quiet time between planning my sister’s wedding to finish my book, Happily Single, I’m in hot water with my publisher.
3. I’m blackmailing the hot grump next door into letting me live with him until this book is done.

Okay, they’re all true, but what’s a desperate girl to do?

Then, while cleaning out the house Asher (the above-mentioned hot grump) inherited from his grandpa, we discovered a box of secrets his grandpa had been hiding for years. Not his grandpa’s secrets, oh no—but everyone else’s in The Palms Retirement Center. As everything from embezzlement to natural hair colors is revealed, Diamond Cove is suddenly on guard—including my Grandma Winnie.

It’s fine (wait, there’s the lie!), as long as no one figures out my secret, since I may be keeping the biggest one of all. Because here’s another. After meeting Asher, I’m wondering if I’m actually Happily Single after all.

Conor Brady is the hottest man I have ever laid eyes on. Ever. He’s also my new roommate. In the past few days, I became jobless, homeless, and boyfriendless.

So, I did what any 28-year-old woman with her life together would do: I ran. Far, far away from my life in New York and straight to my big brother’s house in Atlanta.

Only, it turns out that my brother is away on a business trip. And, he failed to tell me that a full-on, godlike hottie—who happens to be a premier house flipper—has taken up residence in the spare bedroom while his enormous new house is being renovated.

There’s a million reasons why I shouldn’t fall for Conor.

But our chemistry is undeniable.

Which means I have a teeny, tiny situation on my hands…

The Roommate Situation is a laugh-out-loud funny, swoony, closed-door romantic comedy. Expect some mild language and suggestive jokes alongside sizzling hot chemistry and tension you could cut with a knife—all without the explicit scenes.