My Top Romance Authors

We all have our favorite romance authors the ones that make your heart beat a little faster and have you on the edge of your seat wanting the couple to get together, then there are those that send women into hot flashes with your glasses steaming up from the intimate scenes, then there are the ones many call bodice rippers where the cover picture is enough to send women into a cold shower!  You know the ones I'm talking about don't you?

This post is about the first type of romance that have you cheering when the couple gets together, those are the ones I love contemporary romance or chic lit.  So here is my list of authors I love!

1. Jill Shalvis: (off her website) New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Jill Shalvis lives in a small town in the Sierras full of quirky characters. Any resemblance to the quirky characters in her books is, um, mostly coincidental. Look for Jill’s sexy contemporary and award-winning books wherever romances are sold.

2. Kristan Higgins: (off her website)  I live in my hometown, a small, pretty place in Connecticut where there’s a beautiful library and a wicked good ice cream stand. I’m the mom of two lovely children who have very long eyelashes and excellent vocabularies, the wife of a heroic and brave firefighter and the willing love-slave to a naughty mutt named Willow. Our cat, Huck, occasionally deigns to sit on my lap, especially when I'm typing.

   I love to write books about relationships, since the search for love and security is one of the driving forces of life. My characters are regular people, folks like us, and I hope to give them a big, memorable love story rich with family, pets, food and laughter. When I’m not writing, I like to be with my kids, goof around with my husband, read, watch baseball, ride my bike and bake.

3. Robyn Carr: (off her website) Robyn has always written about strong women, no matter the period in which they live. For the first fifteen years of her career she wrote romance, the early books of which were all historical, but later included contemporaries.  After writing twenty Virgin River stories, Robyn is now taking her readers into another fictional community, a picturesque coastal town on the Oregon coast she calls Thunder Point. Like her Virgin River novels, the Thunder Point books will make readers laugh, sigh, and fall in love: with a small town filled with people they’ll never forget.

Robyn and her husband enjoy traveling, often taking research trips together. Their son and daughter are grown. Robyn says that, in addition to reading her novels and making snide remarks about how she’s used family scenarios to her advantage, they have made her a happy grandmother.

4.  Susan Mallery: (off her website) New York Times bestselling author Susan Mallery has won the hearts of millions of readers around the world with books described as “immensely entertaining, intensely emotional” (RT Book Reviews), “hilarious” (Fort Worth Star-Telegram), and “heartwarming” (Publishers Weekly). One major retailer recently described her as “the queen of romantic fiction.” While she deeply appreciates the accolades of critics and booksellers, Mallery is even more honored by the enthusiasm of her readers and the word-of-mouth that catapults her toward the top of the bestsellers lists time and again.

Mallery lives in not-so-sunny Seattle with her husband and a toy poodle who makes her laugh every day and who’s not even a little bit impressed by her growing fame. 

5. Melissa Foster: (off her website) Melissa Foster is a New York Times & USA Today bestselling and award-winning author. She writes contemporary romance, new adult, contemporary women’s fiction, suspense, and historical fiction with emotionally compelling characters that stay with you long after you turn the last page. Her books have been recommended by USA Today’s book blog, Hagerstown Magazine, The Patriot, and several other print venues. She is the founder of the  World Literary Café and Fostering Success. When she’s not writing, Melissa helps authors navigate the publishing industry through her author training programs on  Fostering Success. Melissa has been published in Calgary’s Child Magazine, the Huffington Post, and Women Business Owners magazine. 

Melissa hosts an annual Aspiring Authors contest for children and has painted and donated several murals to The Hospital for Sick Children in Washington, DC. Melissa lives in Maryland with her family.

These authors write great contemporary romance series everything from Fool's Gold Series by: Susan Mallery, Lucky Harbor Series by: Jill Shalvis, Blue Heron Series by: Kristan Higgins to Virgin River Series & Thunder Point Series by: Robyn Carr to Love in Bloom Series by: Melissa Foster!

If you haven't checked out these books you really are missing out on great characters that stay with you even after the story has been told, and as with great series just because you finish one book doesn't mean those characters don't return that is my favorite part that the characters return long after their story has been told!

Who are your favorite contemporary romance authors?  What series do they write?  Feel free to share in the comment area below!  We love to interact with our followers!