Ali Rosen’s picks: romance novels that feel like a vacation

In a New York Times piece, Ali Rosen recommends swoony romance novels that can transport readers from winter doldrums to resorts, beaches, vineyards and the streets of Paris. Rosen argues that romance is often billed as a summer read but that winter is an ideal time to be carried away by a book.

She says a great novel can conjure walks through vineyards, cobbled streets and foreign festivals, and that her own novels begin with travel adventures she keeps returning to; her Italian-set next novel, The Slow Burn, about a chef who moves to a small town in Italy after her life in New York implodes, publishes on Jan.

27. Her suggested titles include Left of Forever by Tarah DeWitt, about a divorced couple taking a last-chance road trip up the Pacific Coast Highway; A Caribbean Heiress in Paris by Adriana Herrera, set in 1889 Paris and featuring Luz Alana and a Scottish earl named James Evanston Sinclair; In a Not So Perfect World by Neely Tubati Alexander, set at a Turks and Caicos resort where a video game designer named Sloane is drawn into a fake‑dating plot; Zoe Brennan, First Crush by Laura Piper Lee, a sapphic rom‑com in Georgia’s Blue Ridge Mountains; Last Call at the Local by Sarah Grunder Ruiz, set in Ireland and notable for its depictions of A.D.H.D.

and O.C.D.; and Sonali Dev’s There’s Something About Mira, which travels from New York City to Darjeeling. Other picks Rosen highlights include Island Affair by Priscilla Oliveras, Songs of Summer by Jane L.

Key Topics

Culture, Ali Rosen, Paris, Italy, Darjeeling