The Most Read Books on Goodreads This Week

This is book two of the Under The Mistletoe Collection, starring a single mom and a “gentle giant farmer who can’t find jeans that fit” who get into a “friends-with-holiday-benefits” arrangement. Tessa Bailey is best known for her Bellinger Sisters series, starting with It Happened One Summer. This one was read by more than 14,000 Goodreads users last week and has a 2.8 average rating—one of the lowest ratings in the 50 most read books on Goodreads, second only to another story in the Under The Mistletoe Collection.

Despite the title, The Boyfriend is the only non-romance title in the top five this week (if we’re counting romantasy as romance). Even with the surge of holiday romance reading, that hasn’t stopped people from picking up the newest from the queen of thrillers, though it has lost some ground from last week. It had almost 17,000 readers on Goodreads , with a 4.0 average rating.

This romantasy series about a dragon-riding academy is one of the most popular in the genre. There are often two Empyrean books in the top five, but the holiday romances pushed book two into sixth place. Fourth Wing was read by 16,000 users last week and it has a 4.6 average rating with two million total ratings.

Unlike the other two Christmas romances in the top five, this is a full-length novel, from the author of the Cane Brothers romance series, among others. When Storee moves in next door to grinchy Cole, the two immediately butt heads. Soon, they’re competing against each other in the Christmas Kringle contest, which leads to fake dating, which could lead to something real. It was read by 21,000 Goodreads users, with a 3.8 average rating.

Holding onto the top spot for two weeks in a row is a Christmas romance short story. Ali Hazelwood is best known for her STEM romances, like The Love Hypothesis. This new 73-page holiday romance story came out November 12th. In it, Jamie gets snowed in with her brother’s best friend, Marc—who also happens to have grown up to be a tech billionaire. This one had almost 22,000 readers this week, with a 3.7 average rating.

In Alabama, against the backdrop of a changing South and the Vietnam War, one woman bears the weight of the world on her shoulders. Katia’s twin brother has gone missing after being sent to war, her father has died, and so she alone has taken on the responsibility of looking after her other brothers and her mother…as well as the kids at the Pike County Group Home for Negro Boys. Maybe that’s why she sinks into a relationship with an older man, which has her questioning herself. But she questions herself even more once Seth comes back into her life, and with him fond memories of high school and simpler times. Now she’ll have to choose: her current, burdensome life, or some other iteration.

If you like it when a romance is set on Hard Mode, this YA romantasy full of Mexican history features a vampire huntress and a vampire *insert eyebrow wiggle*. The huntress, Carolina Fuentes, has always wanted to protect her pueblo by hunting the monsters that threaten it, but her father wants her to marry and move away. It’s when she’s set out to proove her aptitude lies more with slaying baddies rather than making a home that she meets a vampire that has her questioning everything…

Lala Villalobos was the oldest son, destined to carry on the family business and be a traditional family man. But then he’s attacked, turned into a monster, and made to leave his city. He’s since heard of a place up north where the first vampire was made. If he can make it there, he may be able to reverse the curse. Of course, before he gets there, he runs into a young woman who slays in more ways than one.