There’s nothing I love more than to sit on the beach with a large iced coffee and a new book in my hands. I always find some difficulty starting a new book because I’m never truly hooked by the first couple chapters. So, listed below are some of my all-time favorite summer romance novels that intrigued me by the end of the first chapter, and ultimately had me stuck in a hammock reading until I knew the ending.

1. Sam’s Letters to Jennifer by James Patterson

This story is about a woman, Jennifer, who has dealt with much loss and grief in her life. Then, when her beloved grandmother, Sam, is in the hospital, she is brought back to the place she grew up to take care of her. Here she finds a stack of letters in Sam’s home addressed to Jennifer. These letters spill many secrets her grandmother has kept throughout her life that Jennifer has never known. These letters open up a new world for Jennifer to help find peace and strength to carry on with her life. Here intertwines two love stories that bring pain and intense emotion. Sam’s Letters to Jennifer is a beautiful novel that will captivate you until the end.

2. Suzanne’s Diary for Nicholas by James Patterson

Katie Wilkinson has finally met the love of her life until one day, he disappears, leaving behind a diary for her to read. This diary is a love letter written by a new mother named Suzanne and addressed to her baby son, Nicholas. Suzanne writes about how she and the boy’s father met and fell in love. Her hopes for marriage, family, and the love of having a child are poured into these pages that Katie is reading. Katie realizes that this story belongs to the new, young family of the man she just fell in love with. She continues to read on, scared and hopeful as she tries to understand what has happened and if her new love will survive. This is a powerfully moving and suspenseful novel about family, loss, new love, and hope that will have you reading and finishing in one day!

3. The Last Letter From Your Lover by Jojo Moyes

In 2003, Ellie, a journalist, discovers a letter from 1960 asking a woman, Jennifer Stirling, to leave her husband. The letter is signed by the mysterious B. Ellie becomes obsessed with the love story and is in search to find the two lovers in hopes of a happy ending and an enigmatic story to publish that will save her career. Perhaps this love story will help Ellie see the truth to her own modern romance.

What Ellie doesn’t realize is the story that she will uncover about Jennifer and this mysterious B. How in 1903, Jennifer woke up in the hospital with no memory of how she got there or the tragic car accident that put her there. She merely wakes up to an unknown husband, life, and that letter asking her to leave it all. One of my favorite spellbinding and intoxicating love stories with an intense ending.

4. The Lost Wife by Alyson Richman

Lenka and Josef fell in love, married, and promised each other a better future until all of it was shattered by the imminent Nazi invasion. Separated by war, and the thought that each other were killed, the two lovers reconnect after many lost years. Both Josef and Lenka survived and thrived new lives in New York which led to an inescapable glance of recognition and the realization that providence has given Lenka and Josef one more chance. The power of first love, the resilience of the human spirit, and our capacity to remember, The Lost Wife pulls your heartstrings and tells an incredible story that I will never forget.

5. The Wedding by Nicholas Sparks

Not many people know this, but The Wedding is a sequel to The Notebook. It is a love story about one of the three children between Noah and Allie. Wilson-Lewis, the son-in-law of Noah and Allie, has been married to Jane for thirty years and they have fallen out of love. Desperate to win back her heart, he must find a way to make her fall in love with him again. Compared to the shining example of Noah and Allie’s fifty-year love affair, Wilson finds himself unable to express him emotions and looks to Noah for advice and guidance. This humbling and sweet story brings hope and faith to all hopeless romantics as Wilson puts himself out there to romance his wife once more.

These are merely a few books that I have come to adore over the past summers. The authors continue to publish phenomenal romance novels that I aspire to read. I hope you are as captivated by these stories as I was!