Love has no bounds, no rules, and no limits. It is one of the best uncontrollable feeling in the world, which make our life colorful. Forbidden romance or love is one kind of taboo or unnatural matter in our society.
As human beings, we create rules to equilibrium and improve the world. Forbidden love is one rule-breaking action in our daily lives, like age-gap relationships, teacher-student love, etc.
15 Forbidden Romance Books
The romance genre is not complete without forbidden love. Some readers hate this trope, but many of us like it. A recent study shows that forbidden love increases daily, and people like to break that taboo. For the reader’s demand, I will review 15 forbidden romance books. Let’s go!
1. Nashville Neighborhood (Series)
The Doctor is the first of this series, and it is forbidden romance because it is an ex-boyfriend’s dad romance, a common romance trope ever. So this book very much has similar vibes to Birthday Girl by Penelope Douglas. It’s about a girl who breaks up with her boyfriend at the start. Also, she realizes that she has a big attraction for his dad, a surgeon, and they start up a romance. It is so steamy, so hot.
Then the second book in the series, The Pool Boy. This one is also an age gap. But the heroine is older, and the hero is younger. So the heroine recently got divorced because she caught her husband cheating on her. So she’s ready to live up to her single hot girl life. Her pool boy so happens to be her best friend’s son, who is very attractive.
One day she is out tanning topless at the pool, and he catches her, and it turns into a very steamy, fun, good time. It also has a musician element because the heroine is a music producer, and the guy has a lot of musical talent. So she convinces him to audition for this spot on a national tour.
Author: Nikki Sloane
Average Customer Review: (4.2 out of 5, on Amazon)
Category: Romantic Erotica
Available: Audiobook | Paperback | Kindle
2. Forbidden Fling (Secret Fantasy)
The next book is Forbidden Fling by Kat Taylor Katy Robert. This is Katy’s new pen name, very short, even more taboo romances. This book is another boyfriend’s dad romance, except there’s cheating. Instead of the other boyfriends, dad romances where the relationship with the son ends before she gets into a relationship with the father.
Katy is staying at a beach house with her boyfriend and her boyfriend’s dad for the weekend, and during that time, she and the dad use every opportunity they have alone to get wild and crazy.
Author: Kat Taylor
Average Customer Review: (4.3 out of 5, on Amazon)
Category: Erotic Literature & Fiction
Available: Paperback | Kindle
3. Twisted Love: A Brother’s Best Friend Romance
Twisted Love is the first book in this series. It is a forbidden love story because it is the brother’s best friend trope. So the main character, her brother, goes abroad for a year and asks his best friend Alex to stay in his house next door to his little sister and protect her. It also has the grumpy and sunshine trope because the guy is super stoic and cool, and the girl is like a ray of sunshine.
The second book in the series is Twisted Games. It also has a forbidden aspect because it follows a princess and her bodyguard. So obviously, because of that, they’re not supposed to be together.
Author: Ana Huang
Average Customer Review: (4.3 out of 5, on Amazon)
Category: Multicultural Romances
Available: Paperback | Kindle
4. One Hot Italian Summer
Our main character is a writer, and she used to write mysteries with her co-writer, who was her best friend. Her co-writer passes away, so our main character feels like she can’t write anything without her and has lost her identity. She has a book due. So her agent tells her that she can go to Italy and stay in her villa to get some inspiration since she is not writing a romance. So, it turns out she’s not alone in that villa. There is someone else staying there, and they have a romance, and it is a forbidden relationship.
She’s not allowed to have it, so she feels guilty. He is a single dad, and it’s good. If you want a travel romance where it’s so atmospheric and gorgeous in Italian, Check this out.
Author: Karina Halle
Average Customer Review: (4.4 out of 5, on Amazon)
Category: Contemporary Romance
Available: Audiobook | Paperback | Kindle | Audio CD
5. Duke of Midnight (Maiden Lane)
Our main character’s (Artemis) brother is in jail, and she believes he was unjustly arrested. He has been deemed insane, so he is in horrible conditions, and she wants him out. So the Duke of St Giles is this vigilante that goes around town, and she figures out who it is. He ends up helping people, but she knows it’s the Duke. She blackmails him and says, You need to help get my brother out of jail, or I’m going to tell everybody who you are.
Artemis is a companion for her cousin. She lost all her money, so she could only survive and have money by having a job. In this case, it’s to be a companion for her cousin. So she goes everywhere with her cousin, and the guy’s courting her cousin. So obviously, he is off-limits, but they start liking each other.
Author: Elizabeth Hoyt
Average Customer Review: (4.6 out of 5, on Amazon)
Category: Regency Romance
Available: Audiobook | Paperback | Hardcover | Kindle | Mass Market Paperback
6. Her Night with the Duke (Clandestine Affairs)
Leela travels a lot, and she writes about her travels, and she’s coming back home, and she is a widow. So she lost her husband, and she has two stepchildren around her age because she’s a lot younger than the man she married. Her stepdaughter is her best friend. They get along well. They are only a couple of years apart. Her stepson hates her, so she is back in town, and before she reaches her home estate, she spends the night seeing a duke. They have a night together, and it is unforgettable.
Then she arrives at the estate and realizes the guy she spent a night with is the betrothed of her stepdaughter. So it’s forbidden romance story. He is way off-limits. He’s supposed to be married to her stepdaughter, a best friend. So her stepdaughter is trying to get used to the idea of this duke. She’s trying to warm up to the idea of liking him, even though he’s a stranger. They have insane chemistry and cannot ignore each other. So they try to ignore it because they know it’s wrong.
Author: Diana Quincy
Average Customer Review: (4.2 out of 5, on Amazon)
Category: Multicultural Romance
Available: Audiobook | Mass Market Paperback | Kindle | Audio CD
7. Truth or Dare
This one is a group of friends who always play truth or dare in college, and they are back together ten years later at one of their friend’s weddings. So they all play truth or dare again. Our main character has the spark with one guy in the friend group she never saw as anything more before. But they’re older. They’ve changed, and they’re more attractive to each other. Their romance is forbidden because they’ve already agreed as a friend group. There are no hookups.
So people in the group have dated, but hookups are off-limits. They want to hook up at this wedding and know they can’t because it’s against the friend group rules and the girl getting married once Kingston. The love interest is to be set up with her sister because she got divorced.
So she has this whole grand plan that her sister will fall in love this weekend of her wedding, and she wants all her friends to help that happen. A lot is going on where they can’t be together, but they cannot deny their chemistry. It is like a location wedding, so it’s a beach paradise, vacation, wedding, romance.
Author: Danielle Allen
Average Customer Review: (4.7 out of 5, on Amazon)
Category: Black & African American Erotica
Available: Paperback | Kindle
8. Guarding Temptation
This book is about a girl attracted to her brother’s best friend and close friends. At the beginning of the book, they have an entanglement. They start hooking up, then halfway through, he stops and regrets it. Moreover, it hurts her feelings. So she ghosts him for a couple of months until she gets put into a situation where she is in danger. He is the only person that she trusts, so she goes and stays in his apartment with him until the danger dies down.
Author: Talia Hibbert
Average Customer Review: (4.1 out of 5, on Amazon)
Category: Black & African American Romance
Available: Paperback | Kindle
9. Irresistible (Cloverleigh Farms)
This one is forbidden for multiple reasons. So it is an age-gap romance. It is also a boss or employer-employee romance. This is about a girl who becomes the nanny to the children of a guy who works at her parent’s company. He’s business partners with her dad, but he is also her employer since she’s helping take care of his kids.
Author: Melanie Harlow
Average Customer Review: (4.5 out of 5, on Amazon)
Category: Romantic Comedy
Available: Audiobook | Paperback | Kindle
10. Dark Notes
This one’s a dark romance. There are trigger warnings for abuse, and our main character (Ivory Westbrook) is very poor. So her dad left her money to go to this performing arts school to be a pianist, and there’s only one position that they’re all fighting for.
That’s typically performing arts storylines in books, and Ivory ends up having a romance with her piano teacher. It is a dark, forbidden romance, and It is more on the side of BDSM romance.
Author: Pam Godwin
Average Customer Review: (4.5 out of 5, on Amazon)
Category: Romance Literary Fiction
Available: Audiobook | Paperback | Hardcover | Kindle
11. The Forbidden Man
Our main character is a physical therapist for a soccer team. She is married to the coach of the soccer team she works for. But he cheats on her, so she wants to start over. She moves to Madrid to be their trainer. The hotshot young soccer player takes a liking to her. He is twenty-four years old.
So there’s an age gap, and it’s forbidden. The main reason it’s forbidden is that they work together, which is extremely off-limits. He ends up getting injured, and they spend more time together.
Author: Karina Halle
Average Customer Review: (4.6 out of 5, on Amazon)
Category: Sports Romance
Available: Audiobook | Paperback | Kindle | Audio CD
12. Love, in English
It covers two characters that are in the Forbidden Man. Mateo Casalles ends up not enjoying his marriage. And he goes on a tour where you’re supposed to interact with someone to teach you English. In addition, the love interest is this younger girl, and she is there converse in English. They don’t even have to know any Spanish. So she doesn’t know Spanish. It’s forbidden romance because he is still married, and Vera Miles is quite younger.
Author: Karina Halle
Average Customer Review: (4.5 out of 5, on Amazon)
Category: Sports Romance
Available: Audiobook | Paperback | Kindle | Audio CD
13. White Hot Kiss (The Dark Elements)
Our main character is Layla, half-demon, but she’s been told all her life demons are bad and gargoyles defend the Earth from demons. So she’s grown up with a gargoyle family, and she’s always had a crush on her gargoyle foster brother. But they were never seen each other as siblings. She grew up with Zayne, and she’s very intrigued by him. Zayne is telling her things about her past that she’s never known.
Also, she starts liking him. But he’s always been the enemy. They go searching for something together in DC, and it’s a lot of fun.
Author: Jennifer L. Armentrout
Average Customer Review: (4.6 out of 5, on Amazon)
Category: Paranormal, Occult & Supernatural, Emotions & Feelings
Available: Audiobook | Paperback | Kindle | MP3 CD
14. From Blood and Ash (Blood and Ash)
Our main character (Poppy) is a maiden. She is completely off-limits. She has to wear a veil whenever she goes around the palace. In this society, it’s fantasy. So once you reach a certain age, you ascend. No one knows what that means. Moreover, there are also vampires in this world, and they are different species of vampires. So they know that evil will sometimes come in attacks from the beginning. So she gets a new guard, and it is her romance with her bodyguard, which is off-limits.
There’s no way Poppy should be having a romance with her guard, who is the young hotshot guard who’s gone up in the ranks quickly. He’s very skilled, and his name is Hawk. They have a forbidden romance, and you will be eager to know what happens next.
Author: Jennifer L. Armentrout
Average Customer Review: (4.7 out of 5, on Amazon)
Category: Paranormal Vampire Romance
Available: Audiobook | Paperback | Hardcover | Kindle | Audio CD
15. Born, Darkly (Darkly, Madly Duet)
This is a dark romance that is very much similar to the Joker Harley Quinn vibes. It is about a criminal psychologist and one of our patients who is a serial killer on death row, and they start having these psychology sessions. Through that, they have a very intimate sexual connection with each other. That is forbidden for many reasons because he is a convicted serial killer and her patient.
Author: Trisha Wolfe
Average Customer Review: (4.4 out of 5, on Amazon)
Category: Romantic Suspense
Available: Paperback | Kindle
Bonus – Priest (Priest Series)
This is a priest romance. The main character, Father Bell, is a priest, and as a priest, he has taken a vow of celibacy. Then, one day, he meets Poppy. Poppy comes into the confession booth, and things escalate from there. It is probably the most forbidden out of this whole list, the relationship between them, but in the places that they choose to have sex.
Author: Sierra Simone
Average Customer Review: (4.3 out of 5, on Amazon)
Category: Contemporary Women’s Fiction
Available: Audiobook | Paperback | Kindle
Read More Similar Books: 15 Age Gap Romance Books
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