A wise romance writer friend once told me that the best romance novels have two love stories: one where the main characters fall in love with each other, and one where the main character learns to love herself a little better. Personal growth is a powerful theme in romance, which is why plants, gardening, and flowers make beautiful subjects in romance novels. The metaphors are ready to choose!
I love writing and reading about characters who are getting their hands dirty and learning something new about themselves by embracing the natural world. There’s something magical about watching plants and flowers grow alongside a character on a journey of self-discovery. These five romances (three coming now and two coming later this year) are perfect for plant and garden lovers, as they feature lush natural landscapes, farms, gardens and plant shops that create the perfect romantic vibes.
5 Romances for Plant and Garden Lovers
witch of the wild things By Raquel Vasquez Gilliland
This magical realism romance combines love and plants with a fantasy touch. Each woman in Sage Flores’ family has a magical gift. Since the death of her sister she has been on the run from her hometown and her magical ability to identify rare plants. After eight years away, she returns home and gets her old job growing roses – she is forced to work with a man she has not met since high school. With lush greenery, magical magic, ghosts, and a touching second-chance love story, this is the first book in a romance trilogy that will definitely leave you spellbound.
where wild flowers grow by Tera Shelton Harris
While this gorgeous story straddles the line between romance and contemporary fantasy, it has a love story and floral setting that is perfect for plant-loving romance readers. When the prison transport van Leigh crashes, she gets a chance to escape her painful past and start afresh. She flees the crash site and finds a field of wild flowers in rural Alabama where she is unlikely to be found. But she finds much more than just a safe place to hide: confidence in her ability to make things work, an unexpectedly found family, and new love with the farm’s gentle and kind owner. It is a powerful story of surviving tragedy and finding a new path to growth.
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among wild flowers by Anita Kelly
Having realized his dream of owning a farm, Emerson is happy to offer it as a wedding venue to his friends. But the farm is struggling financially, and it needs a lot of work to get it ready for the wedding. Emerson meets Luca, a fisherman and aspiring writer, who thinks working on a farm might be just what he needs to figure out what he wants in life. As they tangle in the farm’s overgrown but vibrant fields of wild flowers, Emerson and Luca realize that something new is blossoming between them. Anita Kelly has a remarkable way of weaving the natural world into her dreamy lesbian romances, and her latest book will surely delight plant and garden lovers.
so it grows By Andy Burke (from St. Martin’s Griffin on September 22)
Have you ever dreamed of quitting your job and making a fresh start by opening a plant shop? Felicity feels like this dream is coming true when she inherits her aunt’s shop in a small town in Kansas. But the handsome and incredibly annoying chef who runs the popular mac and cheese restaurant next door threatens to make Felicity’s dream a living nightmare. When a developer plans to build a giant parking deck on her block, Felicity must learn to work with Chef Nicholas to stop it. Like all of Andy Burke’s books, this lovely romance is balanced with poignant conversations about mental health, queerness, trauma, and healing. This is a beautiful story about blooming where you are planted.
sunflower season By Danica Nava (coming November 3 from Berkeley)
There’s nothing like the golden glow of a sunflower field. Jun hopes magic can cure him after becoming tired of his job in the tech sector. But when she buys a rundown sunflower farm in her rural Oklahoma hometown, she quickly realizes it’s not as easy a task as she expected. Luckily, June gets another chance at a fresh start when she meets Noah, her first love who wants to find out where they went wrong. It’s a luminous story about healing and planting new roots in a place that nourishes you.
We hope you’ve found some new romances for plant and garden lovers that will inspire you to stop and smell the flowers! You might also enjoy these romance books that feel like the first warm day of the year These are the seaside romance books to pack in your beach bag, and are the best recent romances to read in the summer.
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