12 Romance Reads If You Only Read Business and Self-Help Books
A historical sapphic couple strike a deal, an eccentric florist and her mysterious Harlem beau, a Black cowboy (hell yes!), and poly partners in baseball.
There are an innumerable number of books written to help progress your career, your personal life, your off the grid gardening practices, etc. These books can be really helpful and are easy to gravitate towards in the era of being on 24/7.
I have distinct memories around the first times I considered freelancing, starting my business, or advancing my career. Those memories involve books. Books about women taking charge and writing their own paths really called to me. I loved reading about the blueprints women build to infiltrate the systems that exist, leveraging them, and then creating their own rules.
It makes no surprise that I gravitated towards romance books telling similar stories. Maybe you’ll resonate with some of these self-help inspired romance titles too.
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Women in Charge
Rachel Rodgers’ We Should All Be Millionaires is about shortening the millionaire gender gap. She knows it’s not just about opportunity but overcoming money mindset gaps, imposter syndrome, and lack of wealth building knowledge.
Her book is about the emotional and tactical methods to gain millionaires where these romance books are about the women already being the ones in power. Book millionaires/billionaires is absolutely a romance trope, but let’s twist it and put the ladies in charge.
Set in 1899 Paris, An Island Princess Starts a Scandal (Adriana Herrera) tells the story of Manuela having a final tryst before she marries to ensure her family’s prosperity. She strikes a bargain with Cora, a Duchess known for being a ruthless business woman in her quest for power. Lots of spicy things happen and the antagonists get their due (which makes petty Aleia very happy!).
Stella is a math genius on the autism spectrum with a fear (read: disgust) of intimacy. She decides she needs practice to get over her aversion to French kissing and hires an escort, Michael, to get it done. Sex lessons to HEA is a hell of a ride but it won’t stop you from shedding a tear or two if you’re the crying at books kind of person. No judgment here, you’re amongst friends. Especially if Helen Hoang’s The Kiss Quotient sounds right up your alley.
Dr. Sloan needs a new live-in nanny for her adorable twin girls after her previous nanny quits in the middle of a shift without notice. It just so happens that Rafe (Rebekah Weatherspoon), in all his glorious tattoos, muscles, and motorcycle riding goodness is available and more than competent. And incredibly hard for Sloan to resist.
Women Making Their Own Rules
Busy does not equal success is one of the major takeaways from the pages of Chillpreneur (Denise Duffield-Thomas). She talks about how to build a career making double the money with half of the work. Yes, please!
These romance counterparts talk about women who buck the systems in order to create success on their own terms.
Ricki Wilde (A Love Song for Ricki Wilde, Tia Williams) has many skills and one of those skills powers her current dream—being a luxury floral stylist. She has the perfect vehicle to make it happen, her family’s Atlanta mortuary business, only her family is not onboard. She doesn’t let that stop her. With the help of a fairy godmother who gifts her a Harlem brownstone, she goes after her dreams despite uncertainty. Then she meets a mysterious stranger in a mysterious night jasmine filled garden who feels unexpected and like destiny.
Mika Moon is a witch pretending not to be a witch on social media who gets contracted to be a witch-y tutor to three baby witches. So she trades her life in the city (good riddance, her wanderlust was spiking anyway) for a secluded life in the English countryside, three witches-in-training, a host of aged lovable caretakers, and a sexy grumpy librarian. The coziest of cozy paranormal reads is waiting for you in The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches (Sangu Mandanna).
Vanessa is a multimillion dollar tech entrepreneur. She’s so busy carving her space in a world that doesn’t always want her and has no time for relationships. When a series of circumstances leaves her scrambling for a barber to tighten up her fade, she ends up in Khalil’s chair. Khalil is a barbershop owner trying to get back on track building his business after a bout of acute depression. This doesn’t stop either one of them from falling for one another, even with the things in their heads, and sometimes heart, fighting them every step to the HEA. Getting His Game Back (Gia de Cadenet) is a story I don’t hear nearly enough about. BTW, I’m almost positive I ugly cried over the vulnerability in this.
Self-Made Women Finding Love
I inhaled You Are a Badass at Making Money (Jen Sincero) sometime around 2018 when it was released. It’s about getting out of your own way to conquer your money making dreams. It’s told with equal dashes of tactical fixes and wit and is absolutely in a coveted place on my nonfiction shelf.
And these next three titles are about women conquering those goals and the men that support them.
Jesse (A Thorn in the Saddle, Rebekah Weatherspoon) is the grumpiest grump and happens to be the owner of a luxury Black dude ranch and considering a Senate run. Lily-Grace knows his grumpiness will disqualify him and decides to use the skills that allowed her to charge the big bucks as a tech consultant to help him appear less grumpy during his campaign run. She’s incredibly snarky and calls him out on his shit, especially when he’s trying to keep her father from getting with his grandmother. Also this is a Beauty & Beast retelling, what’s not to love.
Nikki Payne’s second take at BIPOC Jane Austen retellings is Sex, Lies, and Sensibility. Nora finds out at her father’s funeral/will reading that she is a part of his second family. She also finds out that her father didn’t leave her enough to maintain her standard of (luxe) living unless she can restore a dilapidated inn in rural Maine to working order. So she sets off with her sister (secret love child #2) on a race against the clock where she encounters Bear, an Abenaki man who’s been using the abandoned property as a stop for his tour business. They are almost instantly enemies, to lovers, with a whole lot in between. They team up because of colonialism and capitalism and it’s not hard to love how they love because you see every step of their adventure towards forever love.
I can’t say enough about the delightful mess that is Only For The Week (Natasha Bishop). She is a hardworking doctor and he’s a casual billionaire. Janelle and Rome are headed to Tulum for a pre-wedding bachelor/bachelorette party. Her sister is marrying his best friend who happens to be Janelle’s ex (say yes to the mess!) and all of the appropriate drama ensues. What’s more, Rome has been waiting on his chance to make a move and does so by producing vacation worthy Os and charting yachts so she can read in peace. Absolutely yes.
Women On Journeys Of Self-Discovery
Atomic Habits is about replacing bad habits with good habits. A guide on achieving big results through small behavior changes. It’s on many career/life improvement must lists and a great supplement for the heroines (and heroes) in these romances.
If you believe laugh out loud funny books absolutely have a place in your book arsenal, That Time I Got Drunk and Saved a Demon (Kimberly Lemming) should move to the front of your TBR. Cinnamon is a pink-haired spice trader in a medieval-esque village who gets roped into a quest with a demon, Fallon, to save her hometown. There’s (so much) laughter, a bit of stabby-stabby action, and a horny talking sword (yes, you read that correctly) named Alexis that steals the show. That is when we aren’t paying attention to the increasing lust and tension between the two fated mates in their journey to find and abolish the big bad.
Lotus (Hook Shot, Kennedy Ryan) is finally doing the damn thing. She left her home in the bayou and has hustled her way to living her designer dream at a New York fashion house. She’s talented, passionate, and takes crap from no one. Including Kenan who she almost instantly falls for, and runs away from. Kenan, is a veteran basketball player, newly divorced, and a single dad. This is book three in the series and they’ve been circling each other since book one. We get to see them battle between embracing love and finding the people they want to be without their pasts (her childhood, his messy ex-wife) dragging them down.
Outfield Assist (Cat Giraldo) is a polyamorous story that happens in the world of baseball. Jules is reeling from a recent best friend/roommate breakup when she gets her dream job as a strength and conditioning coach. Kitt is a star on the World Series championship baseball team Jules works on and Gideon a former Olympic hopeful suffering from the yips. They find each other as sources of strength when so many other things in life are debilitating. They also have a lot of fun in their bubble of three in a world not built to understand their love.
Did these twelve spring to the top of your TBR list? Are there any other self-help books you want to see the romance version of ? Tell me below!