Ranking Emily Henry’s Romance Novels
Emily Henry has always been one of our favourite authors here at MBC. Even though we strictly cover Fantasy and Sci-Fi, a little romance has to slide in somewhere.
Maude Garrett has read every single Emily Henry novel and she has her ranking. Thankfully, because of Maude, I started reading her novels too. The list below is my ranking of the Henry romance novels because I devoured all of them.
Henry knows how to connect readers to her characters and use the best tropes to make you fall in love with them. Whether you end up loving or disliking one of her novels, it’s all about the journey to read them.
Here is how I would rank the five Emily Henry romance novels.
1. Funny Story
Daphne always loved the way her fiancé Peter told their story. How they met (on a blustery day), fell in love (over an errant hat), and moved back to his lakeside hometown to begin their life together. He really was good at telling it…right up until the moment he realized he was actually in love with his childhood best friend Petra.
Which is how Daphne begins her new story: Stranded in beautiful Waning Bay, Michigan, without friends or family but with a dream job as a children’s librarian (that barely pays the bills), and proposing to be roommates with the only person who could possibly understand her predicament: Petra’s ex, Miles Nowak.
Scruffy and chaotic—with a penchant for taking solace in the sounds of heart break love ballads—Miles is exactly the opposite of practical, buttoned up Daphne, whose coworkers know so little about her they have a running bet that she’s either FBI or in witness protection. The roommates mainly avoid one another, until one day, while drowning their sorrows, they form a tenuous friendship and a plan. If said plan also involves posting deliberately misleading photos of their summer adventures together, well, who could blame them?
But it’s all just for show, of course, because there’s no way Daphne would actually start her new chapter by falling in love with her ex-fiancé’s new fiancée’s ex…right?
Funny Story by Emily Henry is number one because of the concept. Two people are bonding over a shared traumatic experience and the “fake dating” trope is always swoon-worthy. Personally, this is Henry’s most well-structured novel, and it is light-hearted enough to discuss childhood trauma and how it shapes you as a person. Miles and Daphne complement each other quite well and offer something the other lacks. They grow with each other and understand how to love the other person. This relationship has the sweetest and most natural development in any of her novels.
2. Beach Read
Augustus Everett is an acclaimed author of literary fiction. January Andrews writes bestselling romance. When she pens a happily ever after, he kills off his entire cast.
They’re polar opposites.
In fact, the only thing they have in common is that for the next three months, they’re living in neighboring beach houses, broke, and bogged down with writer’s block.
Until, one hazy evening, one thing leads to another and they strike a deal designed to force them out of their creative ruts: Augustus will spend the summer writing something happy, and January will pen the next Great American Novel. She’ll take him on field trips worthy of any rom-com montage, and he’ll take her to interview surviving members of a backwoods death cult (obviously). Everyone will finish a book and no-one will fall in love. Really.
After experiencing a great loss myself, Beach Read was the first Emily Henry novel I read and I’ve always felt deeply connected to it. Beach Read is more than just a romance novel. Henry neatly tied grief and love together. The power that comes with expressing yourself through writing can turn into something beautiful. Augustus and January have a deep connection even though they keep apart from each other. It’s an emotional read and a book that will explore any form of grief through love.
3. Book Lovers
Nora Stephens’ life is books—she’s read them all—and she is not that type of heroine. Not the plucky one, not the laidback dream girl, and especially not the sweetheart. In fact, the only people Nora is a heroine for are her clients, for whom she lands enormous deals as a cutthroat literary agent, and her beloved little sister Libby.
Which is why she agrees to go to Sunshine Falls, North Carolina for the month of August when Libby begs her for a sisters’ trip away—with visions of a small-town transformation for Nora, who she’s convinced needs to become the heroine in her own story. But instead of picnics in meadows, or run-ins with a handsome country doctor or bulging-forearmed bartender, Nora keeps bumping into Charlie Lastra, a bookish brooding editor from back in the city. It would be a meet-cute if not for the fact that they’ve met many times and it’s never been cute.
If Nora knows she’s not an ideal heroine, Charlie knows he’s nobody’s hero, but as they are thrown together again and again—in a series of coincidences no editor worth their salt would allow—what they discover might just unravel the carefully crafted stories they’ve written about themselves.
This was Maude Garrett’s first Emily Henry novel, and she fell in love with Nora. She connects with Nora on such a personal level. Sorry that this is in the third spot, Maude! If you’re a hardcore reader, this will be at the top of your Emily Henry list. Apart from the adorable small-town setting Henry puts Nora and Charlie in, the structure flows as if Nora is writing her own story. The themes and tropes all play into her life, and it’s so entertaining to read. The important thing to take away from Book Lovers is that you keep taking chances no matter how out of pocket they may be.
4. Happy Place
Harriet and Wyn have been the perfect couple since they met in college—they go together like salt and pepper, honey and tea, lobster and rolls. Except, now—for reasons they’re still not discussing—they don’t.
They broke up six months ago. And still haven’t told their best friends.
Which is how they find themselves sharing the largest bedroom at the Maine cottage that has been their friend group’s yearly getaway for the last decade. Their annual respite from the world, where for one vibrant, blue week they leave behind their daily lives; have copious amounts of cheese, wine, and seafood; and soak up the salty coastal air with the people who understand them most.
Only this year, Harriet and Wyn are lying through their teeth while trying not to notice how desperately they still want each other. Because the cottage is for sale and this is the last week they’ll all have together in this place. They can’t stand to break their friends’ hearts, and so they’ll play their parts. Harriet will be the driven surgical resident who never starts a fight, and Wyn will be the laid-back charmer who never lets the cracks show. It’s a flawless plan (if you look at it from a great distance and through a pair of sunscreen-smeared sunglasses). After years of being in love, how hard can it be to fake it for one week… in front of those who know you best?
When Happy Place came out, the vibrant pink cover was what jumped out at people. It’s a fun, summer beach read and will be another great romance from Emily Henry. However, this has been one of the most divisive books online. It comes down to the different structures used for this story. Harriet and Wyn go back and forth from past to present as Henry forms this story while on a long weekend getaway with their core group of friends. It’s hard to keep track of the entire friend group and Harriet and Wyn’s romance gets lost among the drama with the rest of the group.
5. People We Meet On Vacation
Poppy and Alex. Alex and Poppy. They have nothing in common. She’s a wild child; he wears khakis. She has insatiable wanderlust; he prefers to stay home with a book. And somehow, ever since a fateful car share home from college many years ago, they are the very best of friends. For most of the year they live far apart—she’s in New York City, and he’s in their small hometown—but every summer, for a decade, they have taken one glorious week of vacation together.
Until two years ago, when they ruined everything. They haven’t spoken since.
Poppy has everything she should want, but she’s stuck in a rut. When someone asks when she was last truly happy, she knows, without a doubt, it was on that ill-fated, final trip with Alex. And so, she decides to convince her best friend to take one more vacation together—lay everything on the table, make it all right. Miraculously, he agrees.
Now she has a week to fix everything. If only she can get around the one big truth that has always stood quietly in the middle of their seemingly perfect relationship. What could possibly go wrong?
Sadly, People We Meet On Vacation falls at the bottom. The chemistry between Alex and Poppy wasn’t strong enough because it begins with them in a rut. The “friends-to-lovers” trope needs to have a strong basis of a friendship for the romance aspect to become believable later on and this didn’t have that.
Have you read any of the books listed above? If you have, let us know which one is your favourite! How would you rank the Emily Henry romance novels?
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