Breath-taking and Beautiful: 15 of the Best Colleen Hoover Books
If you have never read a Collen Hoover book then you will want to at the end of this list.
She is the #1 New York Times Bestseller of New Adult books that has something for everyone. Through her eleven novels and 5 novellas, she has made audiences around the world laugh, cry and rage as they are taken on a journey with her characters.
Colleen Hoover has the unique ability to create real characters that readers can connect with. Her storylines don’t shy away from the controversial and she tackles difficult issues with sensitivity and love.
With heart-stopping romance, her books are a romantics’ dream. But she is a multi-faceted writer who has created mysteries, psychological thrillers, and stories with a paranormal slant.
In this list of the best Colleen Hoover books, we have included a range of novels and novellas to suit even the fussiest reader. You might be skeptical, but I promise, there is a book on this list for you. You just need to be open-minded, open-hearted, and ready for an emotional rollercoaster.
1. Slammed
In her debut novel, Slammed, Collen Hoover beautifully explores the complexities of love and how far we will go to have it.
When Layken is left to emotionally support her family after the sudden death of her father, she begins to crack under the pressure. Until she meets Will, her handsome neighbor. He captures her heart with his poetry and allows her the freedom to be young and in love.
Then they discover that circumstances make it impossible for them to be together and Layken is rocked with tragic news. Through it all, they must decide whether their love is worth fighting for.
Will they risk it all to be together?
This young adult novel captures the heart-stopping moments of first love that will leave you breathless.
2. Hopeless
Filled with plot twists you could never dream of, Hopeless is one book you will remember forever.
Hoover skillfully leads us through the adventure of young love and newly awakened passion, only to bring us to tears with the harsh realities of life.
Sky is a unique, home-schooled teen who decides to attend school for her final year. There she meets Dean Holder, a boy who tears through her defenses and ignites a fire in her. With a bad reputation and the ability to make her feel a desire she never has before, Sky resists Dean for as long as she can.
But their connection is undeniable and when a shocking revelation threatens to destroy the very idea of who she is, Sky will need him more than she ever realized.
3. Losing Hope
After making it through the emotional rollercoaster of Hopeless, you will probably be wanting more of the characters you have come to love.
Losing Hope gives us the story from the other side, exploring Holder’s life and how it has always been intertwined with Sky’s. With less shock factor than Hopeless, the story will still tug at your heartstrings and leave you emotional and more in love with Sky and Holder than ever.
Through Holder’s guilt at being unable to save the little girl who needed him, to his grief over the death of his twin sister, this story will make you believe in fate and the ability for love to conquer all.
4. Finding Cinderella
This short novella will allow you to follow the story of Daniel and Six, the best friends of Holder and Sky in Hopeless.
Colleen Hoover manages to fill 105 pages with love, passion, angst, heartache, and connection. When Daniel meets a girl by chance in the dark, they both decide to profess their love and allow the fairytale romance to last an hour. When the hour is up, the girl disappears like Cinderella, and Daniel is left wondering if they had a real connection or if it was just the magic of make-believe.
A year later he meets Six, the quirky, beautiful girl who evokes feelings in him he hadn’t felt since that day in the dark.
But like the story of Cinderella, the path to true love is fraught with heartache and obstacles that threaten to keep them apart.
5. Maybe Someday
Although a stand-alone book, it is the first in a series of three stories.
Twenty-two-year-old Sydney loves her life. With a boyfriend she adores, a best friend and roommate, a steady job, and college classes, she is living the life. Until she discovers that her boyfriend has been cheating on her for months and she is suddenly left with no boyfriend, best friend, or place to stay.
Cue the sexy neighbor who plays his guitar on his balcony and secretly watches Sydney. Ridge takes Sydney in and the two of them begin working on songs together. Soon their feelings go beyond those of roommates despite Ridge having a girlfriend.
Sydney and Ridge have to decide if their love is worth hurting other people for, and if it is, can they live with themselves?
6. Ugly Love
If you are already a Collen Hoover fan then Ugly Love will thrill you!
A slight departure from her normal romance novels, this book bears it all. It is an honest look at life and relationships and all the messy, ugly bits in between.
When Tate meets pilot, Miles, she knows that they are attracted to each other but definitely nothing more than that. When they both give in to the desire they feel, Miles warns Tate that he isn’t offering anything but sex.
But despite their resolve, they both begin to fall in love, and life gets ugly. Miles is harboring a tragic secret that consumes him and his ability to love. A secret that will test his courage to accept love, accept Tate, and that could destroy them both.
7. Confess
Colleen Hoover does it again in Confess. She has the unique ability to make you laugh, cry and believe in love.
We meet Auburn at 15, saying goodbye to her first love, Adam who is dying of cancer. Cut to 5 years later and she has lost everything that was important to her and is trying to rebuild her life.
It is here that she meets Owen Gentry at his art gallery, Confess, and the intersection of past and present becomes clear. Owen and Auburn begin a passionate love affair but his secret confession threatens everything she has worked so hard to regain.
Faced with a heart-wrenching decision, Auburn has to choose between her ties to the past or the opportunity of a future.
8. November Nine
Make sure you have tissues handy for this one, as November Nine will leave you emotional and puffy-eyed. Is true love real?
Can it survive separation over years?
Colleen Hoover explores the enduring quality of love through Ben and Fallon, two youngsters who fall in love at the wrong time. Meeting on November 9th, the anniversary of an accident that almost took Fallon’s life, the two spend the day together before separating for a year. T
hey meet every year on the same date, but life, tragedy, and dark secrets keep them apart and threaten the love they have fostered.
9. It Ends With us
This story takes a look at abusive relationships and the complex emotions that make someone stay. Lily has worked hard to get where she wants to in life and when she meets Ryle Kincaid, it seems like she has it all.
He is a gorgeous, successful surgeon but isn’t interested in a relationship. When they eventually give in to their attraction, Lily overlooks his often arrogant and domineering nature. When things take a dangerous turn, Lily finds herself thinking about her own mother and Atlas, Corrigan, the boy she helped as a teenager.
When Atlas walks back into her life, Lily has to make some heart-wrenching decisions about her life, her happiness, and her safety.
10. Without Merit
Colleen Hoover beautifully weaves a tale of a dysfunctional family and a young girl’s mental health struggles in Without Merit.
We all have quirky family members, but the Voss family takes crazy family dynamics to a new level. With twin sisters who have a love/hate relationship, a mom with severe social anxiety living in the basement, and a dad and stepmom all living in an old church, this family will make you grateful you are not a part of it.
Add in two other people who bring their own complex personalities and you have a book that looks critically at the silent struggle of those that battle with their mental health.
When Merit Voss takes drastic measures to get her family’s attention, the repercussions will echo for years.
11. Verity
If you are looking for something darker that will have you turning pages and questioning everything you thought you knew about the plot, then Verity is a must-read.
This haunting thriller has an intense, graphic romance element but the plot twists and suspense will have you immersed in the complex relationships of Verity, Jeremy, and Lowen.
Lowen is an unsuccessful writer who is offered a dream opportunity-finishing a series authored by the famous Verity Crawford. She moves into the family’s home and discovers that Verity has been left incapacitated after a car crash. Drawn to Verity’s husband Jeremy, Lowen finds herself in a web of deceit and mystery, made more complex by the discovery of a secret manuscript.
Hoover has created a masterpiece in Verity that will keep you thinking long after you have turned the last page.
12. All Your Perfects
Wow. This book is a dose of reality that is often missing in romance novels.
Colleen Hoover has explored the intricacies of marriage and how much work goes into keeping a relationship going. Quinn and Graham know they love each other, but will that be enough to get them through the storm that is life?
This story is a stunning and honest portrayal of two people choosing to spend their lives together. Through their struggles, Hoover delves into the grit and sacrifice that marriage requires, and we are left with an emotional and human story with universal appeal.
13. Layla
Another departure from the traditional romance novel, Layla is something different but no less exciting to read.
With a paranormal element, this psychological thriller will have you questioning the enduring quality of love and whether it can transcend worlds.
Leeds and Layla have something special, but when an obsessive ex-girlfriend attacks Layla, their lives are thrown into turmoil. Trying to rekindle what they had, Leeds takes Layla to the bed and breakfast where they first met.
It is here that strange things begin to happen and Leeds realizes there is more to the situation than he ever could have imagined.
14. Regretting You
The complex relationships between mothers and daughters are explored in Regretting You. Colleen Hoover has a knack for getting to the heart of how people connect.
Morgan is a devoted wife and mother but is unable to connect with her teenage daughter Clara. When they are faced with devastating news, their relationship is pushed to a breaking point.
With each shocking revelation, the women are forced to evaluate their decisions, but also decide how far they are willing to go to salvage their fractured bond.
15. Heart Bones
Colleen Hoover does it again in Heart Bones, proving that a book can break your heart. The story of Beyah is incredible and challenges the accepted faults of American society.
Growing up with an absent father and an addict mother, Beyah is forced to be more mature and worldly than a teenager should be. When she is forced to move to Texas to stay with her father, she feels like the future she has been building for herself is slipping away.
But instead of finding another of life’s disappointments, she finds something she has never had – family. Of course, there is a boy, Samson, who shows her love and acceptance. But the story is really about a girl who had nothing and yet clawed her way to a life she wanted.
Beyah is a character of integrity and grit, willing to work harder than anyone else to create a better future for herself.
The plot twists in this book will leave you breathless but also hopeful that real change is a possibility.
Colleen Hoover is so much more than a romance author
She creates magic worlds with her words. Worlds filled with real people who love and hurt and live.
Her love stories are beautiful but fraught with the very real problems that life throws at us. Infertility, infidelity, and indecision are handled with care and compassion while stripping us and her characters bare.
Through her powerful plots, we are taken on a journey of love, loss, and redemption as we root for the main characters to overcome the problems they face. Her characters are heartfelt and complex and she doesn’t shy away from controversial topics.
Rather she sheds a light on the dark spaces with a sensitivity that makes her one of the best contemporary authors of our time.
