BookMatcherBest Emily Henry Books
Emily Henry
Author spotlight

Best Emily Henry Books

Emily Henry is an American author. She studied creative writing at Hope College and the New York Center for Art & Media Studies, and now spends most of her time in Cincinnati, Ohio, and that part just beneath it.

FictionRomanceRomantic ComedyAmerican literatureFiction, romance, contemporarynyt:combined-print-and-e-book-fiction=2020-06-07

Emily Henry's books, ranked

Ranked by publication recency, reader signal, and editorial weight.

  1. Happy Place The must-read romance from the Sunday Times bestselling author - fake dating with a twist! by Emily Henry
    1of the list

    Happy Place The must-read romance from the Sunday Times bestselling author - fake dating with a twist!

    by Emily Henry

    Brimming with characters you can't help but fall for and off-the-charts chemistry, this is TikTok sensation Emily Henry doing what she does best! ----- Two exes. One pact. Could this holiday change everything? Harriet and Wyn are the perfect couple - they go together like bread and butter, gin and tonic, Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds. Every year, they take a holiday from their lives to drink far too much wine with their favourite people in the world. Except this year, they are lying through their teeth, because Harriet and Wyn broke up six months ago. And they still haven't told anyone. But the cottage is for sale, so this is the last time they'll all be here together. They can't bear to break their best friends' hearts so they'll fake it for one more week. But how can you pretend to be in love - and get away with it - in front of the people who know you best? ----- 'Hilarious and wise . . . Another knockout’ Taylor Jenkins Reid 'One of my favourite authors' Colleen Hoover ‘A must-read book of the year’ Lauren Asher 'Another Emily Henry masterpiece' Hannah Grace, ICEBREAKER 'Tender and sexy, bittersweet with Henry's trademark warmth' Bolu Babalola, HONEY & SPICE Happy Place, Number 1 Sunday Times bestseller, May 2023

    FictionRomanceRomantic Comedy
    Buy on Amazon
  2. Beach Read by Emily Henry
    2of the list

    Beach Read

    by Emily Henry

    A romance writer who no longer believes in love and a literary writer stuck in a rut engage in a summer-long challenge that may just upend everything they believe about happily ever afters. 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.

    American literatureFiction, romance, contemporarynyt:combined-print-and-e-book-fiction=2020-06-07
    Buy on Amazon
  3. People We Meet on Vacation by Emily Henry
    3of the list

    People We Meet on Vacation

    by Emily Henry

    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.

    nyt:combined-print-and-e-book-fiction=2021-05-30New York Times bestsellerFiction, romance, contemporary
    Buy on Amazon
  4. Beach Read by Emily Henry
    4of the list

    Beach Read

    by Emily Henry

    FROM THE #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF FUNNY STORY! A romance writer who no longer believes in love and a literary writer stuck in a rut engage in a summer-long challenge that may just upend everything they believe about happily ever afters. As featured in The New York Times Book Review ∙ Entertainment Weekly ∙ Oprah Magazine ∙ Betches ∙ Shondaland ∙ Good Morning America ∙ The New York Post ∙ Good Housekeeping ∙ CNN ∙ and more! 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.

    FictionRomanceRomantic Comedy
    Buy on Amazon
  5. People We Meet on Vacation by Emily Henry
    5of the list

    People We Meet on Vacation

    by Emily Henry

    From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Funny Story comes a sparkling novel that will leave you with the warm, hazy afterglow usually reserved for the best vacations. Two best friends. Ten summer trips. One last chance to fall in love. 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?

    FictionRomanceRomantic Comedy
    Buy on Amazon
  6. Beach Read by Emily Henry
    6of the list

    Beach Read

    by Emily Henry

    FROM THE #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF FUNNY STORY! A romance writer who no longer believes in love and a literary writer stuck in a rut engage in a summer-long challenge that may just upend everything they believe about happily ever afters. As featured in The New York Times Book Review ∙ Entertainment Weekly ∙ Oprah Magazine ∙ Betches ∙ Shondaland ∙ Good Morning America ∙ The New York Post ∙ Good Housekeeping ∙ CNN ∙ and more! 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.

    English & College SuccessEnglishFiction
    Buy on Amazon
  7. Great Big Beautiful Life by Emily Henry
    7of the list

    Great Big Beautiful Life

    by Emily Henry

    "Two writers compete for the chance to tell the larger-than-life story of a woman with more than a couple of plot twists up her sleeve in this dazzling and sweeping new novel from Emily Henry. Alice Scott is an eternal optimist still dreaming of her big writing break. Hayden Anderson is a Pulitzer-prize winning human thundercloud. And they're both on balmy Little Crescent Island for the same reason: To write the biography of a woman no one has seen in years--or at least to meet with the octogenarian who claims to be the Margaret Ives. Tragic heiress, former tabloid princess, and daughter of one of the most storied (and scandalous) families of the 20th Century. When Margaret invites them both for a one-month trial period, after which she'll choose the person who'll tell her story, there are three things keeping Alice's head in the game. One: Alice genuinely likes people, which means people usually like Alice--and she has a whole month to win the legendary woman over. Two: She's ready for this job and the chance to impress her perennially unimpressed family with a Serious Publication. Three: Hayden Anderson, who should have no reason to be concerned about losing this book, is glowering at her in a shaken-to-the core way that suggests he sees her as competition. But the problem is, Margaret is only giving each of them pieces of her story. Pieces they can't swap to put together because of an ironclad NDA and an inconvenient yearning pulsing between them every time they're in the same room. And it's becoming abundantly clear that their story--just like the tale Margaret's spinning-could be a mystery, tragedy, or love ballad . . . depending on who's telling it"--

    FICTIONRomanceContemporary
    Buy on Amazon
  8. Book Lovers by Emily Henry
    8of the list

    Book Lovers

    by Emily Henry

    Nora Stephens's 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.

    FictionRomanceContemporary
    Buy on Amazon
  9. Great Big Beautiful Life: Reese's Book Club by Emily Henry
    9of the list

    Great Big Beautiful Life: Reese's Book Club

    by Emily Henry

    A REESE’S BOOK CLUB PICK ∙ AN INSTANT #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER ∙ Two writers compete for the chance to tell the larger-than-life story of a woman with more than a couple of plot twists up her sleeve in this dazzling and sweeping novel from Emily Henry. As featured in The New York Times ∙ Rolling Stone ∙ People ∙ Good Morning America ∙ NPR ∙ Vogue ∙ The Los Angeles Times ∙ The Cut ∙ USA Today ∙ Cosmopolitan ∙ Harper's Bazaar ∙ Marie Claire ∙ Glamour ∙ ELLE ∙ E! Online ∙ The New York Post ∙ Bustle ∙ Reader's Digest ∙ BBC ∙ PopSugar ∙ SheReads ∙ Paste ∙ and more! Alice Scott is an eternal optimist still dreaming of her big writing break. Hayden Anderson is a Pulitzer-prize winning human thundercloud. And they’re both on balmy Little Crescent Island for the same reason: to write the biography of a woman no one has seen in years—or at least to meet with the octogenarian who claims to be the Margaret Ives. Tragic heiress, former tabloid princess, and daughter of one of the most storied (and scandalous) families of the twentieth century. When Margaret invites them both for a one-month trial period, after which she’ll choose the person who’ll tell her story, there are three things keeping Alice’s head in the game. One: Alice genuinely likes people, which means people usually like Alice—and she has a whole month to win the legendary woman over. Two: She’s ready for this job and the chance to impress her perennially unimpressed family with a Serious Publication. Three: Hayden Anderson, who should have no reason to be concerned about losing this book, is glowering at her in a shaken-to-the core way that suggests he sees her as competition. But the problem is, Margaret is only giving each of them pieces of her story. Pieces they can’t swap to put together because of an ironclad NDA and an inconvenient yearning pulsing between them every time they’re in the same room. And it’s becoming abundantly clear that their story—just like the tale Margaret’s spinning—could be a mystery, tragedy, or love ballad . . . depending on who’s telling it.

    Literature & FictionGenre FictionRomance
    Buy on Amazon
  10. Book Lovers by Emily Henry
    10of the list

    Book Lovers

    by Emily Henry

    An insightful, delightful, instant #1 New York Times bestseller from the author of Funny Story. “One of my favorite authors.”—Colleen Hoover One summer. Two rivals. A plot twist they didn't see coming... 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.

    FictionRomanceRomantic Comedy
    Buy on Amazon
  11. Happy Place by Emily Henry
    11of the list

    Happy Place

    by Emily Henry

    #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER ∙ A couple who broke up months ago pretend to still be together for their annual weeklong vacation with their best friends in this glittering and wise novel from #1 New York Times bestselling author Emily Henry. “The beach-read master hooks us again."—People 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 five months ago. And still haven’t told their best friends. Which is how they find themselves sharing a 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, blissful 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?

    FictionRomanceRomantic Comedy
    Buy on Amazon
  12. Great Big Beautiful Life: Reese's Book Club by Emily Henry
    12of the list

    Great Big Beautiful Life: Reese's Book Club

    by Emily Henry

    A REESE’S BOOK CLUB PICK ∙ AN INSTANT #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER ∙ Two writers compete for the chance to tell the larger-than-life story of a woman with more than a couple of plot twists up her sleeve in this dazzling and sweeping novel from Emily Henry. As featured in The New York Times ∙ Rolling Stone ∙ People ∙ Good Morning America ∙ NPR ∙ Vogue ∙ The Los Angeles Times ∙ The Cut ∙ USA Today ∙ Cosmopolitan ∙ Harper's Bazaar ∙ Marie Claire ∙ Glamour ∙ ELLE ∙ E! Online ∙ The New York Post ∙ Bustle ∙ Reader's Digest ∙ BBC ∙ PopSugar ∙ SheReads ∙ Paste ∙ and more! Alice Scott is an eternal optimist still dreaming of her big writing break. Hayden Anderson is a Pulitzer-prize winning human thundercloud. And they’re both on balmy Little Crescent Island for the same reason: to write the biography of a woman no one has seen in years—or at least to meet with the octogenarian who claims to be the Margaret Ives. Tragic heiress, former tabloid princess, and daughter of one of the most storied (and scandalous) families of the twentieth century. When Margaret invites them both for a one-month trial period, after which she’ll choose the person who’ll tell her story, there are three things keeping Alice’s head in the game. One: Alice genuinely likes people, which means people usually like Alice—and she has a whole month to win the legendary woman over. Two: She’s ready for this job and the chance to impress her perennially unimpressed family with a Serious Publication. Three: Hayden Anderson, who should have no reason to be concerned about losing this book, is glowering at her in a shaken-to-the core way that suggests he sees her as competition. But the problem is, Margaret is only giving each of them pieces of her story. Pieces they can’t swap to put together because of an ironclad NDA and an inconvenient yearning pulsing between them every time they’re in the same room. And it’s becoming abundantly clear that their story—just like the tale Margaret’s spinning—could be a mystery, tragedy, or love ballad . . . depending on who’s telling it.

    Literature & FictionDramas & PlaysComedy
    Buy on Amazon
  13. A Million Junes by Emily Henry
    13of the list

    A Million Junes

    by Emily Henry

    "A beautiful, lyrical, and achingly brilliant story about love, grief, and family. Henry's writing will leave you breathless." —BuzzFeed Romeo and Juliet meets One Hundred Years of Solitude in Emily Henry's brilliant follow-up to The Love That Split the World, about the daughter and son of two long-feuding families who fall in love while trying to uncover the truth about the strange magic and harrowing curse that has plagued their bloodlines for generations.

    Teen & Young AdultScience Fiction & FantasyFantasy
    Buy on Amazon
  14. The Love That Split the World by Emily Henry
    14of the list

    The Love That Split the World

    by Emily Henry

    "A truly profound debut."--Buzzfeed "A time-bending suspense that's contemplative and fresh, evocative and gripping."--USA Today "Henry's story captivates, both as a romance and as an imaginative rethinking of time and space."--Publishers Weekly "This time-traveling, magical, and beautifully written love story definitely deserves a spot on your bookshelf."--Bustle Emily Henry's stunning debut novel is Friday Night Lights meets The Time Traveler's Wife and perfectly captures those bittersweet months after high school, when we dream not only of the future, but of all the roads and paths we've left untaken. Natalie's last summer in her small Kentucky hometown is off to a magical start . . . until she starts seeing the "wrong things." They're just momentary glimpses at first--her front door is red instead of its usual green, there's a preschool where the garden store should be. But then her whole town disappears for hours, fading away into rolling hills and grazing buffalo, and Nat knows something isn't right. Then there are the visits from the kind but mysterious apparition she calls "Grandmother," who tells her, "You have three months to save him." The next night, under the stadium lights of the high school football field, she meets a beautiful boy named Beau, and it's as if time just stops and nothing exists. Nothing, except Natalie and Beau.

    Juvenile FictionFamilyAdoption
    Buy on Amazon

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Frequently asked questions

What is the best Emily Henry book to start with?

Many readers recommend starting with "Happy Place The must-read romance from the Sunday Times bestselling author - fake dating with a twist!" (2023). It's widely considered one of Emily Henry's most accessible works.

How many books has Emily Henry written?

Our database currently includes 14 books by Emily Henry. The full list is above.

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