We all love a good romance trope: enemies to lovers, fake relationships, forbidden love. What is at the core of so many of these tropes is the conflict between lovers. You know they’ll end up together, but you’re desperate to know how they’re going to overcome their obstacles.
Opposites attract is one of the best tropes because it can contain all those other tropes, and conflict is at the center of it. People fall in love with someone they seem to have nothing in common with, and that is exciting to watch. Beyond that, there is more than one way to be considered “opposite” — through personality, background, career, allegiances, looks and more. True love is about overcoming these differences, accepting that your partner isn’t going to change overnight, and finding that you are still able to love someone who is different from you. And, you may even find that you have something in common with them.
Check out these nine opposites attract books below:
It Happened One Summer by Tessa Bailey (Avon Books)
Can a big-city socialite and a gruff sea fisherman ever find something in common when they’re from two different worlds? Piper Bellinger fills her days with shopping, social media influencing and flings — until an out-of-control party lands her in jail and her stepfather sends her to learn some responsibility in Washington State running her late father’s bar.
Brendan is a widowed captain used to a rough life on the sea and lives in a shabby apartment in the fishing town. He ridicules the shallow, self-centered facade Piper puts on, knowing that can’t be all there is to her. Slowly, Piper lets down her guard and learns that she needs to figure out what she wants.
After exploring their pasts, they realize they both desire someone that balances them, and they want a place or a person with whom they can be themselves. (Read BookTrib’s coverage of Bailey’s books here.)
Amazon | Barnes & Noble | IndieBound | Bookshop
One Last Stop by Casey McQuiston (St. Martin’s Griffin)
First relationships shouldn’t be impossible, but time travel should. August Landry is just as surprised to find a girlfriend as she is to find out that her girlfriend has been displaced from a different time period. August is a newcomer to New York without any glamorized ideas about the big city — she is cynical, and she knows there’s no such thing as magic.
Jane, however, is confident, sexy — and always in the same subway car as August. Their flirtations and conversations uncover that Jane is trapped in a time loop. She should be living in the 1970s, and she’s been riding the subway for as long as she can remember. Romance and investigation overlap in an attempt to figure out how to get Jane back home. But do the women want to sacrifice this chance at great love to return Jane to the correct time period?
Questions of identity and history unite these lovers from two different eras, and only by working together can they figure out their pasts.
Amazon | Barnes & Noble | IndieBound | Bookshop
Grocery Girl by Virginia’dele Smith
A heart open to love meets one that is shut down and scared in this romance about coping with grief in different ways. Maree Davenport is desirable and hopeful, despite a childhood full of heartbreak. She isn’t letting her past stop her from doing everything she’s ever wanted. Maree has career aspirations, a town that cares about her — and definitely no time for dating. When she runs into (yes, literally!) an unfamiliar man at the grocery store, she thinks it’s destiny.
Rhys Larsen is a guarded, distant firefighter who has just moved to the small town of Green Hills. Every person he has ever loved has died, and he blames himself. Rhys vows to protect himself from further loss by never getting close enough to fall in love again. But that might be harder than he thinks, especially when Maree gets injured and he must take care of her. How can he keep Maree safe from what he believes is his curse?
Maree and Rhys are taken on an emotional journey of opening up and understanding one another so they can overcome their reservations about falling in love. (Read our review here.)
Amazon | Barnes & Noble | IndieBound | Bookshop
Beach Read by Emily Henry (Penguin)
Novels about death and darkness don’t pair well with a happily-ever-after story, so how can you expect their authors to get along?
January Andrews has three months to write her next romance, but she doesn’t believe in love anymore. Secluded in a beach house, determined to end her writer’s block, January realizes that the man next door is her college rival, once nicknamed “Sexy Evil Gus.”
Augustus Everett doesn’t hesitate to kill off his characters in his literary fiction. He also doesn’t believe in happily ever afters. In the spirit of competition, the pair bets they can beat writer’s block and sell a bestseller in the other’s genre. January teaches her craft by taking Gus to carnivals, sunsets, and all the romantic settings of her novels. Gus takes January to graveyards and interviews people who have had brushes with death and cults. The lines blur between writing partners and friends as they uncover more about one another.
What these writers come to realize is they both want to take back control of their own narratives — in life, and in their own writing. (Read BookTrib’s coverage of Henry’s books, including Beach Read, here.)
Amazon | Barnes & Noble | IndieBound | Bookshop
Beast by Pepper Pace
This Beauty and the Beast retelling pairs an isolated man with a facial deformity, and a woman who pretends to have her life together, though she struggles with her weight and body image.
Christopher is a former Marine who hides his face and focuses on toning a perfect body. He only lets his coworkers see his face, and has resigned himself to a life alone — he has been labeled “the Beast” because of his appearance.
Ashleigh has always been the fat girl in a family of skinny people and is worn down by the societal pressure to conform to a certain kind of beauty. She is pushed over the edge when her boyfriend leaves her for a skinny girl, assuming that nobody can ever love her fully. When Ashleigh meets Christopher at the gym, they must unlearn their internalized biases and subvert the idea of who is the beauty and who is the beast.
As Christopher and Ashleigh begin to love each other, their physical appearances included, they begin to see past society’s expectations of physical appearance. (Check out other differently-abled romance recs here.)
Amazon | Barnes & Noble | IndieBound | Bookshop
Sweet Talkin’ Lover by Tracey Livesay (Avon Books)
It’s easy to have political differences, especially when you’re ambitious, stubborn, and trying to convince the handsome small-town mayor you hate that you’re in the right.
All Caila Harris does is work hard. But even with 10 years devoted to her company, being a Black woman means her career is never safe, especially when grief about the loss of her grandfather leads to a few missteps at work. Caila has one last chance to save her career — all she has to do is shut down an unprofitable cosmetics plant in a town so small she’s never heard of it. That should be easy, right?
Mayor “McHottie” Wyatt Bradley is rich, white and aspirational. He wants nothing more than to protect his townspeople, and to carry on his family’s political legacy. He is willing to lie to keep Caila in town, so he can buy time to save the factory that provides a number of people with jobs.
Sounds like two people who will never see eye to eye, right? Yet, these two potential lovers are able to set aside their differences and admire the other’s loyalty to their work and their care for other people.
Amazon | Barnes & Noble | IndieBound | Bookshop
This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar & Max Gladstone (Saga Press)
On a battlefield of time and space, two members of rival organizations are determined to destroy the other.
Red is from Agency, a mechanical and individualistic society, and her loyalty is to victory, even if it takes rewriting the timeline forever. Blue comes from Garden, an organic and communal society, and she wants to change the fabric of history to favor her side and erase everything Red has done. They edit the timeline in a chase, fixing mistakes that were just made, and leaving notes taunting their rival faction.
Told through a series of letters and poetry that evoke feelings rather than give specifics, this epic love story questions what can better outlast time — love, or victory? They must decide to abandon a war in favor of experiencing betrayal-worthy feelings for the first time in their timeless lives.
Amazon | Barnes & Noble | IndieBound | Bookshop
West Side Love Story by Priscilla Oliveras (Montlake)
A mariachi competition between two rival families in Texas is the landscape for this retelling of Romeo and Juliet.
Mariana Capuleta is devoted to her adoptive parents and her younger sisters. Winning the Battle of the Mariachi Bands is the perfect chance to help solve their financial problems, but it will escalate their decades-old feud with the Montero family.
Angelo Montero had shared one spontaneous kiss with Mariana at a New Year’s Eve party, before knowing who her family was. Then fate throws them back together, as rivals, during the mariachi competition, and they are helplessly in love. Mariana and Angelo keep up this secret affair as the contest grows more competitive, and family tensions rise.
Like Shakespeare’s lovers, they must choose between their feelings and their family loyalty — but maybe this time, they’ll get a happy ending. (Read the Tall Poppy Writers review here.)
Amazon | Barnes & Noble | IndieBound | Bookshop
The Essence of Whiskey and Tea by Stacey Wilk (The Wild Rose Press)
A tea shop and a whiskey bar are the town’s biggest competitors, and their owners have a romantic history that never was resolved.
Savannah Savage-Montgomery is a rule follower with a failing tea shop she is devoted to saving. JT Davies is still fighting his childhood reputation of being careless while trying to run a number of whiskey bars, and opening up a new one in his former hometown. The last thing he expects is for Savannah, his crush from school days, to be the owner of the tea shop that is affecting his business. An opportunity to cater a town event might be the only chance for each of them to save their business.
In order to have a successful establishment and avoid going bankrupt, they might just have to team up. (Read our review here.)
Amazon | Barnes & Noble | IndieBound | Bookshop
It Happened One Summer by Tessa Bailey
Can a big-city socialite and a gruff sea fisherman ever find something in common when they’re from two different worlds? Piper Bellinger fills her days with shopping, social media influencing and flings — until an out-of-control party lands her in jail and her stepfather sends her to learn some responsibility in Washington State running her late father’s bar. Brendan is a widowed captain used to a rough life on the sea and lives in a shabby apartment in the fishing town. He ridicules the shallow, self-centered facade Piper puts on, knowing that can’t be all there is to her. Slowly, Piper lets down her guard and learns that she needs to figure out what she wants. After exploring their pasts, they realize they both desire someone that balances them, and they want a place or a person with whom they can be themselves. (Read BookTrib’s coverage of Bailey’s books here.)
One Last Stop by Casey McQuiston
First relationships shouldn’t be impossible, but time travel should. August Landry is just as surprised to find a girlfriend as she is to find out that her girlfriend has been displaced from a different time period. August is a newcomer to New York without any glamorized ideas about the big city — she is cynical, and she knows there’s no such thing as magic. Jane, however, is confident, sexy — and always in the same subway car as August. Their flirtations and conversations uncover that Jane is trapped in a time loop. She should be living in the 1970s, and she’s been riding the subway for as long as she can remember. Romance and investigation overlap in an attempt to figure out how to get Jane back home. But do the women want to sacrifice this chance at great love to return Jane to the correct time period? Questions of identity and history unite these lovers from two different eras, and only by working together can they figure out their pasts.
Grocery Girl by Virginia’dele Smith
A heart open to love meets one that is shut down and scared in this romance about coping with grief in different ways. Maree Davenport is desirable and hopeful, despite a childhood full of heartbreak. She isn’t letting her past stop her from doing everything she’s ever wanted. Maree has career aspirations, a town that cares about her — and definitely no time for dating. When she runs into (yes, literally!) an unfamiliar man at the grocery store, she thinks it’s destiny. Rhys Larsen is a guarded, distant firefighter who has just moved to the small town of Green Hills. Every person he has ever loved has died, and he blames himself. Rhys vows to protect himself from further loss by never getting close enough to fall in love again. But that might be harder than he thinks, especially when Maree gets injured and he must take care of her. How can he keep Maree safe from what he believes is his curse? Maree and Rhys are taken on an emotional journey of opening up and understanding one another so they can overcome their reservations about falling in love. (Read our review here.)
Beach Read by Emily Henry
Novels about death and darkness don’t pair well with a happily-ever-after story, so how can you expect their authors to get along? January Andrews has three months to write her next romance, but she doesn’t believe in love anymore. Secluded in a beach house, determined to end her writer’s block, January realizes that the man next door is her college rival, once nicknamed “Sexy Evil Gus.” Augustus Everett doesn’t hesitate to kill off his characters in his literary fiction. He also doesn’t believe in happily ever afters. In the spirit of competition, the pair bets they can beat writer’s block and sell a bestseller in the other’s genre. January teaches her craft by taking Gus to carnivals, sunsets, and all the romantic settings of her novels. Gus takes January to graveyards and interviews people who have had brushes with death and cults. The lines blur between writing partners and friends as they uncover more about one another. What these writers come to realize is they both want to take back control of their own narratives — in life, and in their own writing. (Read BookTrib’s coverage of Henry’s books, including Beach Read, here.)
Beast by Pepper Pace
This Beauty and the Beast retelling pairs an isolated man with a facial deformity, and a woman who pretends to have her life together, though she struggles with her weight and body image. Christopher is a former Marine who hides his face and focuses on toning a perfect body. He only lets his coworkers see his face, and has resigned himself to a life alone — he has been labeled “the Beast” because of his appearance. Ashleigh has always been the fat girl in a family of skinny people and is worn down by the societal pressure to conform to a certain kind of beauty. She is pushed over the edge when her boyfriend leaves her for a skinny girl, assuming that nobody can ever love her fully. When Ashleigh meets Christopher at the gym, they must unlearn their internalized biases and subvert the idea of who is the beauty and who is the beast. As Christopher and Ashleigh begin to love each other, their physical appearances included, they begin to see past society’s expectations of physical appearance. (Check out other differently-abled romance recs here.)
Sweet Talkin' Lover by Tracey Livesay
It’s easy to have political differences, especially when you’re ambitious, stubborn, and trying to convince the handsome small-town mayor you hate that you’re in the right. All Caila Harris does is work hard. But even with 10 years devoted to her company, being a Black woman means her career is never safe, especially when grief about the loss of her grandfather leads to a few missteps at work. Caila has one last chance to save her career — all she has to do is shut down an unprofitable cosmetics plant in a town so small she’s never heard of it. That should be easy, right? Mayor “McHottie” Wyatt Bradley is rich, white and aspirational. He wants nothing more than to protect his townspeople, and to carry on his family’s political legacy. He is willing to lie to keep Caila in town, so he can buy time to save the factory that provides a number of people with jobs. Sounds like two people who will never see eye to eye, right? Yet, these two potential lovers are able to set aside their differences and admire the other’s loyalty to their work and their care for other people.
This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar, Max Gladstone
On a battlefield of time and space, two members of rival organizations are determined to destroy the other. Red is from Agency, a mechanical and individualistic society, and her loyalty is to victory, even if it takes rewriting the timeline forever. Blue comes from Garden, an organic and communal society, and she wants to change the fabric of history to favor her side and erase everything Red has done. They edit the timeline in a chase, fixing mistakes that were just made, and leaving notes taunting their rival faction. Told through a series of letters and poetry that evoke feelings rather than give specifics, this epic love story questions what can better outlast time — love, or victory? They must decide to abandon a war in favor of experiencing betrayal-worthy feelings for the first time in their timeless lives.
West Side Love Story by Priscilla Oliveras
A mariachi competition between two rival families in Texas is the landscape for this retelling of Romeo and Juliet. Mariana Capuleta is devoted to her adoptive parents and her younger sisters. Winning the Battle of the Mariachi Bands is the perfect chance to help solve their financial problems, but it will escalate their decades-old feud with the Montero family. Angelo Montero had shared one spontaneous kiss with Mariana at a New Year’s Eve party, before knowing who her family was. Then fate throws them back together, as rivals, during the mariachi competition, and they are helplessly in love. Mariana and Angelo keep up this secret affair as the contest grows more competitive, and family tensions rise. Like Shakespeare’s lovers, they must choose between their feelings and their family loyalty — but maybe this time, they’ll get a happy ending. (Read the Tall Poppy Writers review here.)
The Essence of Whiskey and Tea by Stacey Wilk
A tea shop and a whiskey bar are the town’s biggest competitors, and their owners have a romantic history that never was resolved. Savannah Savage-Montgomery is a rule follower with a failing tea shop she is devoted to saving. JT Davies is still fighting his childhood reputation of being careless while trying to run a number of whiskey bars, and opening up a new one in his former hometown. The last thing he expects is for Savannah, his crush from school days, to be the owner of the tea shop that is affecting his business. An opportunity to cater a town event might be the only chance for each of them to save their business. In order to have a successful establishment and avoid going bankrupt, they might just have to team up. (Read our review here.)
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