Romance readers are series readers. The genre's structure — found family, ensemble friend groups, small-town neighbourhoods, royal courts, sports teams — practically invites books that follow one couple to their HEA and then hand the next book to a supporting character. The best romance series build an entire universe across five, eight, ten or twenty books, and reading all of them feels like visiting old friends. Here are the series worth the commitment, organised by subgenre.
Romantasy
The Empyrean (Fourth Wing) — Rebecca Yarros
Books: 3 of 5 (ongoing). Start with: Fourth Wing.
The series that took romantasy mainstream. Dragon-riding war college, enemies-to-lovers, rebel politics. Each book is 500-800 pages of commitment.
A Court of Thorns and Roses — Sarah J. Maas
Books: 5 + novella. Start with: A Court of Thorns and Roses.
The series that built the modern romantasy audience. Fae courts, faerie politics, the most-quoted mate bond in romance fiction. Book 2 is the one that made the series famous.
Crescent City — Sarah J. Maas
Books: 3 (ongoing). Start with: House of Earth and Blood.
Maas's adult, urban-fantasy-tinged series. Modern cityscapes, shifters, angels, demons. Darker and more explicit than ACOTAR.
From Blood and Ash — Jennifer L. Armentrout
Books: 6+ across main series plus spinoffs. Start with: From Blood and Ash.
Faster-paced and steamier earlier than ACOTAR. Now expanded into a sprawling universe with multiple interconnected series (Blood and Ash, Flesh and Fire, A Shadow in the Ember).
Historical
The Bridgertons — Julia Quinn
Books: 8 main + prequels + epilogues. Start with: The Duke and I.
The benchmark Regency series. Eight siblings, eight books, the most-adapted romance series of the 2020s. Read the main eight first, then branch into Queen Charlotte and the Rokesby prequels.
The Wallflowers — Lisa Kleypas
Books: 4. Start with: Secrets of a Summer Night.
Four Regency-era friends scheming their way to the altar. Devil in Winter (book 3) is widely considered one of the greatest romance novels ever written.
Outlander — Diana Gabaldon
Books: 9 + novellas. Start with: Outlander.
Genre-defying historical romance with time travel, Scottish Highlands, and a thirty-year love story spanning continents. The largest commitment on this list — tens of thousands of pages — but one of the most devoted readerships in genre fiction.
Dark / Spicy Contemporary
Twisted — Ana Huang
Books: 4. Start with: Twisted Love.
The BookTok gateway series for the darker end of contemporary romance. Billionaires, morally grey love interests, and an interconnected friend group.
Kings of Sin — Ana Huang
Books: 4. Start with: King of Wrath.
Huang's follow-up universe. Four billionaire friends, four different flavours of dark contemporary romance. Can be read standalone from Twisted.
Devil's Night — Penelope Douglas
Books: 4. Start with: Corrupt.
Four friends with a dangerous history. Revenge, enemies-to-lovers, and Penelope Douglas's signature cruel-to-tender arc played out across four books.
Contemporary Rom-Com / Drama
Emily Henry's Connected Universe
Books: 6 standalones with shared characters. Start with: Beach Read.
Henry's books aren't a series in the strict sense but her characters cameo across titles. Read in publication order — Beach Read, People We Meet on Vacation, Book Lovers, Happy Place, Funny Story, Great Big Beautiful Life — for the full effect.
The Windy City Series — Liz Tomforde
Books: 4. Start with: Mile High.
Sports contemporary centred on Chicago professional athletes. Mile High (hockey) and The Right Move (basketball) are the fan favourites. Tomforde is one of the most-recommended rising voices in sports romance.
Sports
Off-Campus / Briar U — Elle Kennedy
Books: 8 across two series. Start with: The Deal.
The college-hockey benchmark. Sharp, funny, steamy, binge-able. Off-Campus is the original four books; Briar U continues the universe.
Maple Hills — Hannah Grace
Books: 3 (ongoing). Start with: Icebreaker.
The BookTok hockey series. Lighter and less plot-heavy than Elle Kennedy's work, but delivers the trope-forward grumpy-sunshine formula cleanly.
Brooklyn Bruisers — Sarina Bowen
Books: 10. Start with: Rookie Move.
Pro-hockey romance with unusual emotional depth. Bowen is the pro-hockey equivalent of what Elle Kennedy does for college.
Paranormal
The Black Dagger Brotherhood — J.R. Ward
Books: 22+. Start with: Dark Lover.
The longest-running active paranormal romance series. Vampire warriors, interconnected mythology, each book following a different brother. A twenty-year commitment that rewards you with one of the most developed fictional worlds in romance.
Mercy Thompson — Patricia Briggs
Books: 13+. Start with: Moon Called.
Urban fantasy with a central romance. Coyote-shifter mechanic in the Pacific Northwest, werewolf Alpha neighbour, pack politics and genuinely earned slow-burn.
Immortals After Dark — Kresley Cole
Books: 18. Start with: A Hunger Like No Other.
Vampires, Valkyries, Lykae, witches and demons all in one interconnected world. Fated mates, paranormal politics, and the archetype-defining paranormal series of the 2000s.
How to Pick Your Series
If you want the biggest current cultural moment: The Empyrean (Fourth Wing). Commit to all three published books; the fourth is expected in 2026.
If you want the series that will outlast you: Black Dagger Brotherhood. Twenty-two books and counting.
If you want to binge four or five books fast: Ana Huang's Twisted series (4 books, each under 400 pages, steamy contemporary).
If you want the most critically-respected: Emily Henry's connected universe. Six standalones that read like a series.
If you want classic Regency: Julia Quinn's Bridgertons. Start with The Duke and I, make it to Romancing Mister Bridgerton (book 4) — the fan favourite.
If you want the deepest world-building: Sarah J. Maas's universe. ACOTAR → Throne of Glass → Crescent City, in that order, builds a 20-book arc.