What to read after “Something Fabulous” by Alexis Hall: a list matched by tropes, mood and atmosphere. Under each book you will see what it has in common.
Viola Astley is so painfully shy that her first London season feels like a trial. She dreams of a quiet vicar, but a compromising moment with the reclusive Duke of Wynter leaves her engaged to a man she barely knows. As Viola finds her voice, she discovers the duke is not the cold stranger society believes.
Lady Penelope Campion would rather stay home with her rescued animals than face London society. When her new neighbour, the ruthless businessman Gabriel Duke, demands she clear out the animals so he can sell his house, Penny strikes a bargain: she will rehome them if he can find each one a loving home. As he struggles to place a two-legged dog, a foul-mouthed parrot and a menagerie of other strays, the cold businessman and the shy spinster are thrown together, and both must reckon with old wounds.
Governess Honoria Anstruther-Wetherby finds a dying man and spends the night in a cottage with the stranger who helps her. He is Sylvester Cynster, Duke of St. Ives, known as Devil, and the compromising situation forces an engagement. Honoria resists marriage while Devil courts her and hunts the killer.
Lady Calpurnia Hartwell has spent her life being proper and unremarkable. She draws up a list of scandalous things she longs to try and asks Gabriel St. John, the notorious Marquess of Ralston, to help her. As he escorts her through each escapade, an old acquaintance deepens into love.
Daisy Bowman must find a husband this season or her father will send her to America. The suitor he has chosen is Matthew Swift, a cool businessman she has disliked for years, and as the two are thrown together in London, their old quarrel turns into something else.
When Sophy Stanton-Lacy comes to stay with her cousins in London, she finds the household tangled in debts, broken engagements and bad tempers. Cheerful and managing, she sets out to arrange everyone's happiness, clashing with her proud cousin Charles along the way.
Actor Alexander Woodroe lands in trouble after a bar fight, so the showrunners hire former ER therapist Lauren Clegg to keep him in line. She is guarded and sensible, he is impulsive and warm. As she learns the reasons behind his recklessness, a road trip up the coast and a single shared bed pull them closer.
Bridget Jones is thirty-something, single and determined to improve her life, recording every diet, cigarette and romantic disaster in her diary. Between her flirtatious boss and a stiff family friend, she tries to work out what she actually wants.
Elizabeth Bennet has little patience for the proud Mr Darcy, whose fortune and manners make him an easy target for her wit. Their sparring slowly gives way to a truer understanding as family scandal and society threaten to keep them apart.
Lady Felicity Faircloth was once the toast of London; now gossips have left her a spinster wallflower. A chance encounter with Devil, a powerful Covent Garden criminal, leads to a bargain: he will help her catch a duke if she helps him settle an old score. Neither expects the attraction that follows.
Emma Woodhouse is clever, rich and certain she knows what is best for everyone in her small village. She amuses herself by arranging other people's marriages, but her matchmaking creates misunderstandings and forces her to look more honestly at her own heart.
Hannah, a small but capable bodyguard, is sent to protect movie star Jack Stapleton at his family ranch after a stalker threat. To keep the assignment secret she poses as his girlfriend, sharing his home and his family's grief while trying to stay professional.
Minerva Highwood, a bluestocking, needs to reach Scotland to present her geological discovery. The rake Lord Payne agrees to escort her, and they pose as eloping lovers to travel unnoticed. Four hundred miles of mishaps in a cramped carriage, and each night there is only one bed, turn their bickering into something neither expected.
At ten, Miranda Cheever was told she had no great beauty to look forward to. At twenty, she is still quietly in love with Nigel Bevelstoke, the viscount who once comforted her and who now believes he is done with love. Her diary records a patient hope that he might finally see her as a woman.
Exes Addie and Dylan are forced to share a car to a friend's wedding in Scotland when their journey goes wrong. Crammed together with strangers and old wounds, they retrace how they met, why they broke up, and whether anything is left to salvage.
Alexander Moncrieffe, Duke of Falconbridge, finds his fiancée with another man and plans a cold revenge: seduce and abandon his rival's sister, Genevieve Eversea. At a country house party, the intelligent and overlooked Genevieve proves far more than he bargained for, and his scheme gives way to genuine feeling.
Anthony Bridgerton has decided to marry, but only a woman he cannot fall in love with, and Kate Sheffield's sister looks ideal. Kate is set on protecting her sister from the charming rake, and the more the two argue, the harder it becomes to ignore what they feel.
Reginald Davenport, a notorious gambler and heavy drinker, has spent years waiting to inherit an earldom, only to see the title go to another man. He is offered Strickland, the Dorset estate where he grew up, and there finds Alys Weston running the property as its steward - a woman who has let the absentee owner assume she is a man in order to keep the post. As Reggie confronts his addiction, their working partnership deepens into friendship and then love.
Prudence Merridew flees her abusive grandfather and brings her four sisters to London, hoping a good match will free them all. A chance meeting with Gideon, Lord Carradice, a charming rake, leads to a pretend engagement. Gideon falls for her at once, but Prudence is secretly promised to another man.
Rachel Chu, an economics professor in New York, travels to Singapore for the summer wedding of her boyfriend's best friend. There she learns that Nick's family is one of the wealthiest in Asia, and that his mother has already judged her unsuitable. A comic look at money, family and the marriage market.
Tiffy needs somewhere cheap to live, and Leon, a night-shift nurse, needs money, so they share one bed in shifts and never meet. Through the notes they leave around the flat they slowly get to know each other, and a practical arrangement turns into something else.
Jules Ambrose is focused on passing the bar exam, while doctor Josh Chen is her best friend's brother and her oldest rival. A single night together turns into an enemies-with-benefits arrangement, and when a ski trip with friends leaves them sharing one bed, their hostility and their attraction become impossible to separate.
After food poisoning strikes at her twin sister's wedding, unlucky Olive takes her sister's place on a free Hawaiian honeymoon, but her sworn enemy Ethan has to come too. Stranded together and posing as newlyweds to keep the perks, the two bicker their way toward something neither expected.
Shy Evie Jenner needs a husband to escape her greedy relatives and secure her inheritance. She proposes a marriage of convenience to Sebastian, Lord St. Vincent, a penniless rake with a scandalous reputation. They flee to Gretna Green, and the practical arrangement slowly turns into something neither of them expected.
Start with “Say Yes to the Duke”, “The Wallflower Wager”, “Devil's Bride”: they are the closest to “Something Fabulous” 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 “Something Fabulous” these are Only One Bed, Forced Proximity, 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 “Say Yes to the Duke”, “The Wallflower Wager”, “Nine Rules to Break When Romancing a Rake”. Switch the “Modern” filter to keep only books from 2000 onward.
