Pexels

9 Frothy, Flirty Rom-Com Novels Set in Dreamy Destinations

Escapist reads that bring the heat? Your wish is our command

If you didn’t manage to book a cottage this summer, set off swanning around the Aegean on a mega-yacht or even snag a mosquito-free lakeside campsite, lick your wounds no more.

Why? Well, while those intrepid vacation-bookers are off seeing the sights, perfecting their diving form or listening to loons call across the water, those of us who haven’t managed to get away yet have all the time in the world to make a truly great escape. The Italian isle of Elba! The sandy beaches of Belize! Singapore’s swankiest locales! A small fishing town in the Pacific Northwest, complete with hunky boat captain!

All these delights await you in the pages of these, the best, most fun travel rom-com novels out this summer. The best part of these package holidays? They’re all-inclusive when it comes to romance (some steamy, some sweet) and heart-pounding hotties.

Bon voyage! (And if you’re actually planning to read one of these while on some fabulous destination vacation? Good for you and never speak to us again, please.)

The destination: Westport, Pacific Northwest

The rom-com: It Happened One Summer by Tessa Bailey

Oh, you like your beach reads served with a spice level somewhere just under Carolina Reaper pepper? You need the romp that’s got SteamyBookTok rather hot-and-bothered ATM. Inspired by Schitt’s Creek—the spoiled socialite heroine, Piper, is a dead ringer for Alexis Rose—this is the story of what happens when Piper and her sister get cut off by their step-dad and are exiled to a tiny fishing village where their birth father left them a run-down bar in his will. One of the first people they meet? Brendan, a brooding sea captain with troubles of his own—and a magnetism Piper barely tries to resist.

 

The destination: Singapore (with stops in Luxembourg and Kuala Lumpur)

The rom-com: Last Tang Standing by Lauren Ho

Andrea Tang has dedicated her life to making partner in her corporate law firm. Sure, the work is boring and she survives on vending-machine snacks while burning the midnight oil, but it’s what she really wants, okay? (Never mind that she’s had to make up a fake fiancé to get her marriage-as-status-obsessed family off her back.) The only thing standing in her way is her colleague Suresh, who irritatingly happens to be really great company *and* quite good-looking, if you like that sort of thing. Andrea, however, does not—does she?!

 

The destination: Elba, Italy

The rom-com: Lizzie and Dante by Mary Bly

If cerebral-and-sad-but-sexy-in-parts is your romance kink, this heartbreakingly beautiful book is for you. Our setting is the Italian island of Elba, and our complicated cast is Lizzie, a Shakespeare scholar with a terminal disease, Dante, the restaurateur she unwillingly falls for, and Grey, Lizzie’s best friend who has a rather complicated kind of love for her. You don’t have to be able to recite Romeo & Juliet by heart to know this one’s a tragedy, however gorgeous the destination.

 

The destination: Milford, Georgia

The rom-com: Sweet Tea by Piper Huguley

Althea Dailey got out of her tiny Southern hometown as quickly as she could, making a beeline for a high-powered-lawyer-in-N.Y.C. life. When a case takes her back to the area, however, she reluctantly pays a duty visit to her grandmother—and finds her in the company of an annoyingly handsome filmmaker claiming to be making a documentary about Southern cuisine, specifically the food that her grandmother cooks in the cafeteria of the town’s historically Black college. Althea stays around to keep an eye on him—and, well, the rest is heartwarming history.

 

The destination: Scotland

The rom-com: The Road Trip by Beth O’Leary

Imagine the last person on Earth you’d want to be stuck with in the backseat of a tiny car. For Addie, that’s her ex, Dylan, who’d wooed her over one steamy summer in the South of France. Two years later, they’re acrimoniously broken up, and yet, by a cruel trick of the universe, travelling in the same overstuffed car to a mutual friend’s wedding, complete with the random dude on the group chat who needed a lift. This one’s got hijinks, emotional heft and sizzling chemistry, a combination that dedicated Beth O’Leary fans know well.

 

The destination: Palm Springs

The rom-com: The People We Meet on Vacation by Emily Henry

 

If you loved last summer’s Beach Read (and how could you not?), you’ll be delighted to know Emily Henry’s follow-up is no second-album flop. In fact, it’s a really fun, really thoughtful look at what happens when you’ve been in love with your best friend for years—and every trip you take together is pure bliss and pure torture. Shoutout to the broken A.C. in their desert Air BnB that finally brings a decade’s worth of simmering tension between Poppy and Alex to a boil.

 

The destination: Australia

The rom-com: The Lucky Escape by Laura Jane Williams

Getting left at the altar? Not ideal, if you ask Annie, unceremoniously dumped by her “perfect” fiancé. Making lemons out of lemonade, she goes on the luxury honeymoon to Australia they’d planned anyway, taking along the old school chum she just re-connected with. That he happens to be a cute, funny guy is irrelevant, because Annie is heartbroken and even the charms of Perth’s wine country, Sydney’s beaches and Patrick’s pure adorableness can’t stir her. Can they?

 

The destination: Belize

The rom-com: The Layover by Lacie Waldon

Come for the insider flight crew information, stay for the electric romance: This debut, written by an actual flight attendant, is the story of Ava’s last-ever trip before she retires her wings for good. Even the appearance of her work arch nemesis (the cad-until-proven-innocent Jack) can’t take the joy out of her last hurrah. Until she realizes two things: that she might not be ready to leave the skies and that there might be more to Jack than meets the eye….

 

The destination: London

The rom-com (that’s actually a memoir): London’s Number One Dog-Walking Agency by Kate Macdougall

This is absolutely not a frothy romcom but we just had to include it here because if you’re hankering for a mosey around the English capital, this one’s for you. It’s a funny, sharply observed account of one woman’s experience of exercising London’s poshest pooches, back when the profession was in its infancy. Must love dogs, obvs.

 

This article contains affiliate links, which means The Kit may earn a small commission if a reader clicks through and makes a purchase. All our journalism is independent and is in no way influenced by advertising. By clicking on an affiliate link, you accept that third-party cookies will be set. More information

 

    More Books