17 Books That Feel Like You’re Reading Someone Else’s Drama

After a devastating tragedy, Mare is forced to return to the hometown she never planned to step foot in again—not even for her best friend’s older brother, whom she’s been in love with as long as she can remember. After Cade shattered her heart, she channeled the pain into writing a bestselling novel and building a life outside of Sutton Mountain. But now she’s back, and she barely recognizes the angry, broken man Cade has become. The more the two spend time together, though, the more Cade pushes Mare to rewrite their story with the happily ever after they’ve always deserved.

On the day of surfer and supermodel Nina Riva’s annual end-of-summer party in 1983, everyone wants to be around her and her famous siblings. As the offspring of the legendary singer, Mick Riva, they have quite a reputation in Malibu. Each of the Riva siblings has a different reason for dreading the party—Nina just split with her pro tennis player husband, Hud has a confession for his brother, Jay is obsessed with finding his perfect woman by midnight, and Kit invited a mysterious guest without consulting anyone. By morning, the Riva mansion will be in flames—but for this one unforgettable night, the alcohol will flow, the music will play, and the loves and secrets that shaped this family’s generations will all come bubbling to the surface.

Rue is content with the life she’s built as a biotech engineer at Kline. She has the financial stability she yearned for as a kid, a job she enjoys at a promising startup, and a close circle of friends she can depend on. But when Eli and his business partners launch a hostile takeover of Kline—an acquisition he must secure for his own reasons—Rue’s world is thrown into uncertainty. While they should be mortal enemies, Rue and Eli can’t deny the chemistry sizzling between them, and when they can’t ignore it any longer, they begin a secret affair. They’ll call it quits when one of their companies comes out on top of the power struggle—but business may not be the only thing they’re invested in when the deal is done.

OK, so we may not all cover murder mysteries in our gossip sessions, but books with a mystery at the center are totally unputdownable. Twenty-five year-old Molly is the ideal hotel maid—her obsessive love of cleaning and proper etiquette made her an ideal fit for the job. However, the orderly life she loves is upended when she enters the suite of the wealthy Charles Black, only to find Mr. Black dead on his bed. Suddenly, Molly is a prime suspect in a murder case—so she’ll have to find out who really killed Mr. Black before it’s too late. The Maid reveals that all mysteries can be solved through connection to the human heart.

When CeCe returns to her hometown for a fresh start after getting out of a toxic relationship, the last thing she expects is for Nash—retired Dallas Stars player, hometown hero, bachelor extraordinaire, and best friend to her older brothers—to look at her like he never has before. CeCe needs a job, and Nash is in a position to give her one. But a job isn’t the only thing Nash wants from his friend’s little sister. “Just one night” turns into something that feels like much more, but can Nash overcome his past trauma and aversion to commitment to have the life he never thought he’d want?

If office dramas are more your vibe, I Hope This Finds You Well is a must-read. Jolene is an admin for Supershops, Inc., and to say that she is not a fan of her job would be an understatement. To maintain her sanity, she writes her grievances about her coworkers in the postscript of her emails and then changes the text to white so they can’t read her rants. When one of her secret messages is exposed, Jolene has to complete mandatory sensitivity training, where an IT mix-up conveniently grants her access to the entire department’s private emails. As she snoops on her coworkers’ business, Jolene realizes that her carefully constructed boundaries around work are eventually going to have to crumble—and she just may have a shot at love beyond her computer screen.

Willa is Cade’s new live-in nanny and 13 years his junior, so he’s grumpy as all get-out that he’s attracted to the free-spirited woman who instantly clicked with his kid. After a failed marriage, Cade thinks he doesn’t have anything to offer Willa—as if she would ever want him anyway. And even though Willa knows he’s grouchy as hell, she sees how sweet Cade is with his son and how surprisingly thoughtful he is toward her. After a heated night in the hot tub, their relationship shifts from an employee-boss dynamic to one with far more complicated feelings. While her contract is only for two months, Willa and Cade secretly feel it would be too easy to fall into forever. But can they tell one another how they really feel before it’s too late?

Lincoln is an NFL superstar who detests the press—especially Brinkley, a reporter who has pushed him on hard-hitting questions one too many times. So when he feels she’s crossed a line, he has her escorted out of a press conference—which leads to her getting fired, unbeknownst to Lincoln. When the two unexpectedly run into each other at a small town coffee shop, Lincoln accuses Brinkley of stalking him, only to find out the private town he’s chosen to lay low in for the summer is her hometown, and she’s there to figure out her next move since he so generously got her canned. Lincoln tries to make amends, but Brinkley isn’t interested unless he’s willing to share the secret he’s fought to protect since he started playing competitively.

This book may read more like someone’s diary entry than a reality TV show, but the drama is just as juicy. A wealthy, semifamous artist (who remains nameless throughout the novel) decides to leave her husband and child behind in California for two weeks while she drives across the country solo, seeking inspiration. Only she doesn’t drive across the country—instead, she stops at a motel miles away from her home, redesigns a motel room, and has an emotional affair with a young man who works at a nearby Hertz. What follows is an account of a woman’s abrupt encounter with perimenopause, a reconfiguration of her ideas about monogamy, and some truly erratic behavior that you just can’t tear your eyes away from.

Ford is a mogul in the music world and the World’s Hottest Billionaire according to Forbes, but he couldn’t care less about status or fame—all he wants is to open his dream recording studio in gorgeous, quaint Rose Hill. His plans are coming along swimmingly when a sullen 12-year-old girl shows up, claiming he’s her dad. Suddenly finding himself navigating parenting while keeping his business ventures afloat, Ford is hit with another curveball: his best friend’s sister, Rosie, setting herself up in Rose Hill after fleeing city life. She’s messy and chaotic, but when she begs Ford for a job, he can’t resist. While he tries to keep her at arm’s length, every interaction chips away at Ford’s resolve until he crosses a line and can’t resist Rosie any longer.

When Stella learns the Christmas tree farm she adored as a kid could shutter due to financial hardship, she’s determined to find a way to save it. And when she learns about an Instagram contest with a $100,000 cash prize, the answer is clear: She has to enter and win. There’s one little detail that might make pulling it off difficult, though. On her application, Stella may have lied about owning Lovelight Farms with her boyfriend…who does not exist. So when her best friend Luka stops by the farm to say a quick hello, the last thing he expects is for Stella to rope him into playing her fake boyfriend—but it may be the best unexpected holiday gift he’s ever received.

June Hayward and Athena Liu were supposed to be twin flames, but instead, Athena is a literary darling, while June is literally nobody. When June witnesses Athena’s death in a freak accident, she impulsively steals the manuscript of Athena’s final masterpiece, an experimental novel about the unsung contributions of Chinese laborers during World War I. She sends the book to her publisher as her own, allows them to rebrand her as Juniper Song, and finally gets her spot on the New York Times bestseller list. But as evidence threatens to uncover her secret, June has to find out how far she’s willing to go to keep what she thinks she deserves.

Lola has officially had it with her politician father, whom she’s had to save time and time again under the guise of duty and the weight of his guilt trips. Determined to finally start living for herself, she opens a bakery on the Ocean View boardwalk. She soon meets Ben, her grumpy tattoo artist neighbor who left his hometown and family business to pursue his passion. Lola is his opposite in every way, and as much as she infuriates him with her early morning wake-up calls and disregard for her own safety, he can’t help but want to protect her—especially when her past shows up at her front door. They may have started as reluctant friends, but Lola and Ben may be exactly what the other needs.

King crab fisherman Fox, the town flirt, can’t get Hannah out of his head. When she swept into sleepy seaside Westport with her sister Piper, Fox couldn’t believe the way Hannah resisted his charm and genuinely wanted to be friends… no benefits included. And when work suddenly brings her back to Westport, Fox finds himself offering Hannah a place to stay: his spare bedroom. Hannah’s been nursing a crush on a co-worker who will be in town too, and Fox, practicing his newfound friend skills, offers to help Hannah in her mission to snag his attention. But the more time Fox and Hannah spend together, the less he wants her to want anyone who isn’t him—and the more he wants to convince her he’s done with his rakish days if she’ll just give him a chance.

Who said that the books on this list have to be fictional? After all, Dolly Alderton’s Everything I Know About Love is basically the coming-of-age novel that… isn’t a novel. In this memoir, Dolly vividly recounts falling in love, finding a job, getting drunk, getting dumped, realizing that Ivan from the corner shop might just be the only reliable man in her life, and that absolutely no one can ever compare to her best girlfriends. This book is a combination of prose, recipes, lists, and personal stories that piece together the vibrant life of a young woman just figuring it out. Reading this book feels exactly like hopping on FaceTime with your best friend to update each other on your lives.

With college just one summer away, Arianna is dreaming of all the possibilities for her future—and hoping that her twin brother’s best friend, Chase, will finally see her as more than the little sister. But before they can even get to campus, Chase rejects Ari. The last thing she expects while nursing her broken heart is to meet Noah, who’s interested in her from the moment they meet but willing to be the friend she needs. As they all head to the same university, Noah and Ari begin spending more time together. The friendship between Noah and Ari blossoms into the sweetest love, but when tragedy suddenly strikes and changes everything, Noah has to fight for Ari’s love.

If you’re less of a reality TV person and prefer to stay up-to-date on the latest influencer drama, Idol is the book for you. To her young fans, influencer Samantha Miller is everything they want her to be. She tells them how to live their lives, honor their “truth,” and be truly happy. She’s just hit 3 million followers—determined to be as transparent as she can be with her fans, she pens a viral essay about her sexual awakening as a teenager with her female best friend, Lisa. However, when Lisa comes out saying that she remembers the night completely differently, it’s Sam’s word against Lisa’s.