5 must-read romance books like The Last Romantics by Tara Conklin

If you liked the romance plot in The Last Romantics by Tara Conklin , here is a list of 5 books like this:

Similar categories in Kristin Hannah's The Women book and Tara Conklin's The Last Romantics

• romance
• adult fiction
• fiction
• adult
• book club
• audiobook

"Words were creators of worlds; you had to be careful with them."

-Kristin Hannah, The Women

"Love mattered in this ruined world, but so did honor. What was one without the other?"

-Kristin Hannah, The Women

"Love. A thing to be shouted from the rooftops, celebrated, not cultivated in secret and clipped into shape in the dark."

-Kristin Hannah, The Women

Similar categories in Amanda Peters's The Berry Pickers book and Tara Conklin's The Last Romantics

• adult fiction
• literary fiction
• fiction
• contemporary
• adult
• audiobook

Similar categories in Ariel Lawhon's The Frozen River book and Tara Conklin's The Last Romantics

• adult
• book club
• fiction
• audiobook

Similar categories in Ann Patchett's Tom Lake book and Tara Conklin's The Last Romantics

• romance
• adult fiction
• literary fiction
• fiction
• contemporary
• family
• adult
• book club
• audiobook

"You can’t pretend this [Covid] isn’t happening,"

-Ann Patchett, Tom Lake

"In the summer the pear trees were fine. In the summer, all that is hideous about a pear tree is hidden by leaves and pears. But once those disguises were removed they were nothing but acres of murder…"

-Ann Patchett, Tom Lake

"Hazel, listen to me. I'm going to tell you something important, you need to be brave.' I then explained to the dog how I have told myself for so many years that my career fell apart because I wasn't …"

-Ann Patchett, Tom Lake

"It's as if someone bought all the diamonds at Tiffany's, and crushed them into dust, then spread that dust across the water so that it sifts down evenly, filtering through the shards of light that cu…"

-Ann Patchett, Tom Lake

Similar categories in Fran Littlewood's Amazing Grace Adams book and Tara Conklin's The Last Romantics

• adult fiction
• literary fiction
• family
• fiction
• contemporary
• adult
• book club
• audiobook

Similar categories in Ann Napolitano's Hello Beautiful book and Tara Conklin's The Last Romantics

• romance
• adult fiction
• literary fiction
• fiction
• contemporary
• family
• adult
• book club
• audiobook

"The child inside Julia lay wide-eyed in the dark, knowing that she was Jo, but only because Sylvie was Beth."

-Ann Napolitano, Hello Beautiful

"You and your sisters have so many reference points, such a dense history," William said. "I never get used to it."

-Ann Napolitano, Hello Beautiful

"She was Julia's wild hair, she was the lake her husband had once been carried out of, and no matter what happened next, she was love."

-Ann Napolitano, Hello Beautiful

"You’re depressed, not crazy. It’s not insane to be depressed in this world. It’s more sane than being happy. I never trust those upbeat individuals who grin no matter what’s going on. Those are the o…"

-Ann Napolitano, Hello Beautiful

Similar categories in Holly Gramazio's The Husbands book and Tara Conklin's The Last Romantics

• romance
• adult fiction
• fiction
• contemporary
• adult
• audiobook

Similar categories in Rachel Khong's Real Americans book and Tara Conklin's The Last Romantics

• adult fiction
• literary fiction
• family
• fiction
• contemporary
• adult
• audiobook

"She wasn't normal and so I wasn't either. I resented that part the most."

-Rachel Khong, Real Americans

"It was a habit, with my parents: omitting information, not wanting to worry them unnecessarily. Though they’d raised me so American, I could never manage the sorts of American relationships my friend…"

-Rachel Khong, Real Americans

"With each other they spoke loudly: Their voices periodically rose to excited shouts, and they laughed raucously. In English they were milder mannered, polite. My mother had always spoken English to m…"

-Rachel Khong, Real Americans

Similar categories in Steven Rowley's The Celebrants book and Tara Conklin's The Last Romantics

• adult fiction
• literary fiction
• fiction
• contemporary
• adult
• audiobook

"My purpose, in this life, has been to love and spend it with you."

-Steven Rowley, The Celebrants

"You only live once. That was the truth of it. But if you do it right, and he felt that he had, once is more than enough"

-Steven Rowley, The Celebrants

Similar categories in J. Courtney Sullivan's Friends and Strangers book and Tara Conklin's The Last Romantics

• adult fiction
• literary fiction
• family
• fiction
• contemporary
• novels
• adult
• audiobook

"But because she had put in the time, she could now go anywhere."

-J. Courtney Sullivan, Friends and Strangers

"Elisabeth pictured drunk teenage girls in cutoffs swinging back and forth, shrieking as they let go. Still making the kinds of bad choices that ultimately didn't matter."

-J. Courtney Sullivan, Friends and Strangers

Similar categories in Catherine Newman's Sandwich book and Tara Conklin's The Last Romantics

• adult fiction
• literary fiction
• family
• fiction
• contemporary
• novels
• adult
• audiobook

"What does loss look like, in your body? Where is it? It feels like an air bubble stuck in your psyche. It feels like peering down into a deep hole. The vertigo of that. The potential for obliteration…"

-Catherine Newman, Sandwich

"We're just ruined by sex, women---our bodies, our psyches. We're sexually assaulted every five minutes. We're infected with everything. Traumatized by conceiving, by not conceiving. But let's keep at…"

-Catherine Newman, Sandwich

Similar categories in Jessica George's Maame book and Tara Conklin's The Last Romantics

• adult fiction
• literary fiction
• family
• fiction
• contemporary
• adult
• audiobook

"A white person can date a Black person and still be racist."

-Jessica George, Maame

"I can't comprehend living to work, but then I'm afraid of working just to live."

-Jessica George, Maame

"A white person can date a Black person and still be racist. Because there’s levels to that sh*t. Like a lasagna."

-Jessica George, Maame

"It's about what love is. Which is trust, commitment, empathy, and respect. It means really giving a shit about the other person."

-Jessica George, Maame

Similar categories in Bonnie Jo Campbell's The Waters book and Tara Conklin's The Last Romantics

• adult fiction
• literary fiction
• fiction
• contemporary
• adult
• audiobook

"Maybe lions keep their promises not to eat your lambs just until they get hungry."

-Bonnie Jo Campbell, The Waters

"This is a dog town. A dog gets forgiven for his crimes here. A cat has to pay the price for every transgression. Meow."

-Bonnie Jo Campbell, The Waters

"Like any medicine, a tattoo would have its secondary side effect eventually--- might establish who you were or might transform you. Might even poison you."

-Bonnie Jo Campbell, The Waters

"Titus is going to come milk Delilah after seven." There was a long silence before Herself said grimly, "Don't tell me I raised the kind of girl who waits for a man to milk her cow."

-Bonnie Jo Campbell, The Waters

Similar categories in Lauren Grodstein's We Must Not Think of Ourselves book and Tara Conklin's The Last Romantics

• adult
• fiction
• audiobook

"We had never practiced Judaism before, and I thought myself too old to try believing something new, or to take advantage of an accident of birth to claim some brown patch of desert as my home."

-Lauren Grodstein, We Must Not Think of Ourselves

"Our task is to pay attention... To listen to the stories. We want all political backgrounds, all religious attitudes. The illiterate and the elite. Every ideology. Interview everyone. Learn about the…"

-Lauren Grodstein, We Must Not Think of Ourselves

"There should be another word for this feeling - a sort of sorrowful happiness, or a happiness that only deepens someone's sorrow. The closest I can come to it is the Portuguese word saudade, which ne…"

-Lauren Grodstein, We Must Not Think of Ourselves

Similar categories in Tara Conklin's The Last Romantics book and Tara Conklin's The Last Romantics

• romance
• adult fiction
• literary fiction
• fiction
• contemporary
• family
• novels
• adult
• book club
• audiobook

"I believe now that certain events are inevitable. Not in a fateful way, for I have never had faith in anything but myself, but in the way of human nature."

-Tara Conklin, The Last Romantics

"This then is the true lesson: there is nothing romantic about love. Only the most naive believe it will save them. Only the hardiest of us will survive it."

-Tara Conklin, The Last Romantics

"For many years love seemed to me not something that enriched or emboldened but a blind hole into which you fell, and in the falling you forgot what it was to live in your own light."

-Tara Conklin, The Last Romantics

"Caroline. Listen to me. You have to decide what you love. Joe wasn't the only one. You have to decide now and hold on. Start small. Begin with the small things and work up from here."

-Tara Conklin, The Last Romantics

Similar categories in Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney's Good Company book and Tara Conklin's The Last Romantics

• adult fiction
• literary fiction
• family
• fiction
• contemporary
• adult
• audiobook

Similar categories in Elizabeth Wetmore's Valentine book and Tara Conklin's The Last Romantics

• adult fiction
• literary fiction
• fiction
• contemporary
• adult
• audiobook

"The only thing I hate more that being home with Alice all day long is feeling guilty about not wanting to do it. Corrine's voice breaks and she pushes her fist against her mouth. She is trying not to…"

-Elizabeth Wetmore, Valentine

"He wears a Stetson so clean you could eat a sandwich off the brim. All hat, no cattle. Keith leaned forward and looked me right in the eye,. Family's been in Texas since forever. Probably got a whole…"

-Elizabeth Wetmore, Valentine

"Yeah. What do you need, Corrine, to be happy with me and Alice? She doesn't hesitate. I need to go back to my work, Potter. Honey, you work, taking care of Alice and me. Yes, I do. I'd prefer to teac…"

-Elizabeth Wetmore, Valentine

"In the church where I grew up, we were taught that sin, even if it happens only in your heart, condemns you all the same. Grace is not assured to any of us, maybe not even most of us, and while being…"

-Elizabeth Wetmore, Valentine

Similar categories in Jean Kwok's Searching for Sylvie Lee book and Tara Conklin's The Last Romantics

• adult fiction
• literary fiction
• family
• fiction
• contemporary
• adult
• audiobook

"While nothing can replace that which is lost, emptiness creates room for new growth."

-Jean Kwok, Searching for Sylvie Lee

"Ma told me that while nothing can replace that which is lost, emptiness creates room for new growth."

-Jean Kwok, Searching for Sylvie Lee

"Once you loved him, everything in your life fell into a before and after. Nothing would ever be the same."

-Jean Kwok, Searching for Sylvie Lee

"Helena's eyes glittered with naked intensity. I could not tell if they were filled with greed or a desperate need to be loved. I was not even sure if it made a difference: it came down to hunger. Per…"

-Jean Kwok, Searching for Sylvie Lee

Similar categories in Julie Yip-Williams's The Unwinding of the Miracle: A Memoir of Life, Death, and Everything That Comes After book and Tara Conklin's The Last Romantics

• audiobook

"Paradoxes abound in this life. Living is an exercise in navigating within them."

-Julie Yip-Williams, The Unwinding of the Miracle: A Memoir of Life, Death, and Everything That Comes After

"Walk through the fire and you will emerge on the other end, whole and stronger. I promise. You will ultimately find truth and beauty and wisdom and peace."

-Julie Yip-Williams, The Unwinding of the Miracle: A Memoir of Life, Death, and Everything That Comes After

"I think God is beyond what my little, limited, human brain can fathom. But, perhaps, something my limitless soul can just being to grasp in my moments of utmost clarity."

-Julie Yip-Williams, The Unwinding of the Miracle: A Memoir of Life, Death, and Everything That Comes After

"It is in the acceptance of truth that real wisdom and peace come. It is in the acceptance of truth that real living begins. Conversely, avoidance of truth is the denial of life."

-Julie Yip-Williams, The Unwinding of the Miracle: A Memoir of Life, Death, and Everything That Comes After

Similar categories in Cara Wall's The Dearly Beloved book and Tara Conklin's The Last Romantics

• adult fiction
• literary fiction
• family
• fiction
• contemporary
• adult
• audiobook

""

-Cara Wall, The Dearly Beloved

"She would never be free again. But she would also never be alone."

-Cara Wall, The Dearly Beloved

"This minister, a small, balding, quick-spoken man, said often that faith, at its simplest, was the acceptance of the possibility that things one had never seen could be real."

-Cara Wall, The Dearly Beloved

"Nan had known, as a child, that God did not answer prayers for more candy or new shoes. Those were worldly things, not sacred. God answered prayers about being a better friend, or being able to get a…"

-Cara Wall, The Dearly Beloved

Similar categories in Claire Lombardo's Same As It Ever Was book and Tara Conklin's The Last Romantics

• adult fiction
• literary fiction
• family
• fiction
• contemporary
• novels
• adult
• audiobook

"Parenthood was a persistent cruelty, a constant, simultaneous desire to be together and apart."

-Claire Lombardo, Same As It Ever Was