Naomi arrives in the small town of Knockemout to help her estranged twin, who promptly robs her and leaves her stranded with the young niece she never knew she had. With no car, job, or home, she turns for help to Knox, the town's grumpy, bearded barber, who claims he wants nothing to do with anyone but keeps turning up as she starts over.
Rosie Belmont returns to her small town and comes face to face with Ford Grant, her older brother's best friend and the man she has known since childhood. Ford is now a single father and a reluctant billionaire, and the pull between them soon becomes impossible to dismiss.
Georgie, the party clown her family never takes seriously, has loved her brother's best friend Travis for years. When the injured former baseball star needs a respectable image and she wants to be seen as an adult, they fake a relationship, and the act starts feeling far too real.
After a Hollywood party scandal, Piper is cut off and sent to a rainy Washington fishing town to run her late father's bar. The town's grumpy sea captain wants her gone, but the summer pushes the socialite and the fisherman into an uneasy partnership that softens into more.
Hanna Bergstrom has buried herself in graduate school, so her older brother asks his best friend, Will Sumner, to help her get out and start dating. Will is a venture capitalist who avoids commitment, but their lessons in romance soon turn into something neither expected.
Darcy Barrett has loved Tom Valeska since childhood, but her twin brother Jamie claimed him first, and Tom has stayed loyal to that friendship. When the three reunite to renovate the family cottage, Darcy and Tom must decide whether the one rule they never broke is still worth keeping.
Jennifer Sylvester is tired of being Green Valley's Banana Cake Queen and of obeying her parents. Desperate for a way out, she tries to outmaneuver Cletus Winston, the town's scheming fixer, and draws him into her plan. Their deal slowly turns into something neither of them expected.
Rhett Eaton is the face of professional bull riding until a scandal forces him to accept a minder: his agent's daughter, Summer Hamilton. She has no patience for cowboys, and he resents being watched. Travelling the rodeo circuit together, their arguments soften, and a hotel booking mix-up leaves them with one bed.
Cold, driven Alex promised to watch over his best friend's sister while Josh is away. Ava is warm and open, everything he avoids, and the more time the neighbours spend together the harder their growing attraction is to deny, even as Alex's buried past threatens them both.
Literary agent Nora is the cold city professional that small-town romance novels leave behind, and editor Charlie is her sharp-tongued rival in the same business. When her sister drags her to a North Carolina town for the summer, Charlie turns out to be there too, and their sparring slowly becomes something neither expected.
Lucy Marshall moves back home to Nashville with her young son and falls for Cooper, her older brother's best friend, who has been warned to stay away from her. Cooper tries to keep his distance, but their shared circle and repeated proximity make their attraction impossible to ignore.
After losing her job and her apartment in one disastrous week, Olivia Marshall moves in with her older brother and his best friend, Colin Beck. Anonymous flirty texts with a stranger become a bright spot, but Olivia does not realize the stranger is Colin.
Glenna Dobbs is already the town pariah after taking the blame for her father's exposé of the local sheriff. When the backlash turns threatening, Cash Wall—the loud, cheerful man who bullied her in school—offers to be her fake boyfriend, and Glenna has to survive the arrangement with the town's most popular man and his stubborn, gentle heart.
Maybell inherits her great-aunt's crumbling house in the Smoky Mountains, only to learn the grouchy groundskeeper Wesley is a co-inheritor with very different plans. Forced to renovate together, the dreamer and the shy, scowling loner slowly find in each other the safety they have always wanted.
Minerva overhears her ex-boyfriend bet the charming Cal that he can get her into bed within a month, so she accepts his dinner invitation to turn the tables. The sceptical actuary and the commitment-shy businessman keep colliding through meddling friends and sheer bad luck, resisting an attraction neither of them wants.
Recently widowed Mel Monroe answers an ad for a nurse in Virgin River, a remote California mountain town of six hundred people. The cabin is a wreck and the local doctor wants nothing to do with her, but a baby left on a porch and former marine Jack Sheridan give her a reason to stay.
Tate Collins moves in with her older brother in San Francisco and meets Miles Archer, his best friend and a reserved airline pilot. Their attraction becomes a no-strings arrangement with strict rules, but Tate wants more while Miles is held back by grief he refuses to discuss.
Romance writer January and literary novelist Gus become summer neighbours in a lakeside town, both blocked and both skeptical of each other's genre. They make a bet to write in the other's style and slowly trade barbs for late-night talks, discovering the grief and hope behind their different worldviews.
After a bad breakup and a lost job, Maddie Moore inherits a third of a rundown inn in Lucky Harbor, Washington. She and her two half-sisters plan to repair it, and the town's contractor, Jax Cullen, keeps finding reasons to help. Maddie wants a fresh start, not another man, but Lucky Harbor has other ideas.
Summer Heyward-Di Laurentis transfers to Briar University and moves in with her older brother's hockey friends, including Colin Fitzgerald, the quiet player she has crushed on since they met a year earlier. Fitz knows she is off limits, but living together makes his resolve harder to keep.
After a traumatic loss, Bree Prescott rents a cabin in Pelion, Maine, hoping to disappear. There she meets Archer Hale, a young man who cannot speak and lives apart from the town. As they grow close, the town's old secrets and Archer's isolation threaten the life they begin to build.
Toronto city girl Calla flies to remote Alaska to see the father she has not seen since her mother took her away as a toddler. There she clashes with Jonah, the proud bush pilot who flies for her father's charter company and thinks she does not belong. Weeks in the unforgiving landscape slowly wear down both their defences.
Chloe, who lives with chronic pain and a careful routine, draws up a list of things she wants to do to get a life. To tick off the first item she asks Red, the tattooed handyman who looks after her building, for help, and their cautious friendship deepens into more.
Olive, a third-year biology PhD student, kisses the first man she sees to convince her friend that her dating life is fine, and it turns out to be the famously severe Professor Adam Carlsen. To keep the story convincing, the two agree to fake a relationship, and their staged arrangement slowly becomes real.
Start with “Things We Never Got Over”, “Wild Love”, “Fix Her Up”: they are the closest to “Done and Dusted” in tropes and mood. Under each book in the list you will see what exactly it has in common.
How are similar books chosen?
We compare tropes (for “Done and Dusted” these are Small Town Romance, Brother's Best Friend, Grumpy Sunshine), genre, plot, era and tone. It is not “readers also bought”; it is similarity in the content itself.
Are there recent books in this list?
Yes. Among the newer ones are “Things We Never Got Over”, “Wild Love”, “Fix Her Up”. Switch the “Modern” filter to keep only books from 2000 onward.
