The Most Memorable Heroines in Romance Books

The Kiss Quotient was one of the first romance novels I read. Stella’s character ignited my love for the genre, and I empathized with her struggles for reasons I didn’t understand until later as a then-undiagnosed autistic person. While Stella often fixates on her perceived weaknesses, her brilliance and willingness to confront her insecurities drives everything she does.

Really, any of the heroines of Talia Hibbert’s Brown Sisters series belong on this list. The hardest part was choosing one, but I just keep coming back to Eve Brown’s vibrant, chaotic good energy. As she gains self-compassion and a greater understanding of who she is while working at Jacob’s B&B, I fell in love with her character, too, and admired her authenticity.

Soledad embodies a quiet resilience that I can’t help but admire. Her love for her children gives her strength through her husband’s betrayal and the heartbreak that follows. It’s difficult to find hope in the midst of devastation, but she keeps hoping even when despair would be easier. All of this makes the happiness she finds with Judah deeply moving.

Logan is so loveably human. It’s rare that I connect with a character from page one, but I did with her. She feels her emotions deeply, so much that she tries to close herself off from the ones that hurt the most—like her unresolved feelings with her best friend-turned-rival colleague Rosemary Hale. As she learns to be vulnerable over their cross-country road trip to honor her mentor teacher’s rich life, I cheered (and teared up) for her.

Jasmine is just as charming as the leading lady she plays. Having your love life exposed (not to mention misrepresented) in the tabloids is humiliating, and she handles it with such confidence and grace. Most of all, she stands out for her artistic talent as she channels her off-screen chemistry with Ashton into a captivating performance.

I’ve never resonated with the existential turmoil of being in your late twenties as hard as I did with Grace Porter. Completing a PhD should be a moment of celebration, but she’s been dealt too much to really let it sink in. She’s worried about disappointing her father, but she can’t ignore the pull within her to let go of all these expectations that she knows are hurting her. It takes a drastic choice—a marriage to a woman she’s just met during a chaotic Las Vegas celebration—for her to finally ask herself what she wants from life and move toward it.