| If you loved… | Try next | Why it works |
|---|---|---|
| Beach Read | The Hating Game | Enemy co-workers, razor-sharp banter, slow-burn tension |
| People We Meet on Vacation | One Day in December | Friends who should be more, told in non-linear time |
| Happy Place | The Flatshare | Ex-lovers forced into proximity, emotional reckoning |
| Book Lovers | The Love Hypothesis | Bookish heroine, forced proximity, enemies-adjacent warmth |
| Funny Story | One Day (Nicholls) | Missed connections, years-spanning love, devastating ending |
The Closest Matches — Same Energy, Same Ache
The Hating Game — Sally Thorne (2016)
Lucy and Joshua share a desk and a burning mutual contempt — until they don't. Thorne invented the template Emily Henry perfected. The dialogue crackles, the tension is unbearable, and the payoff is deeply satisfying. If you read Beach Read and wanted more verbal sparring, this is your book.
Check price on Amazon →One Day in December — Josie Silver (2018)
Laurie sees a man through a bus window, loses him, and then discovers he's her best friend's new boyfriend. What follows is a decade of almost-love, missed timing, and the particular torture of wanting someone you can't have. The emotional architecture mirrors People We Meet on Vacation almost exactly.
Check price on Amazon →The Flatshare — Beth O'Leary (2019)
Two strangers share a flat on opposite shifts and fall in love through Post-it notes before they ever meet. O'Leary has Henry's gift for making you root desperately for a couple while also giving them real obstacles. The Switch and The Road Trip are equally good follow-ups.
Check price on Amazon →People We Meet on Vacation — Emily Henry (2021)
If you haven't read Henry's own back catalogue, this is the one. Alex and Poppy are best friends who take a summer trip every year — until one trip ruins everything. The dual timeline structure is executed perfectly, and the emotional gut-punch at the end is unmatched. Also try Happy Place (2023) and Funny Story (2024).
Check price on Amazon →More Authors Like Emily Henry
The Love Hypothesis — Ali Hazelwood (2021)
A PhD student fakes a relationship with the most intimidating professor in the department to keep her friend off her back — then feelings complicate everything. Hazelwood's voice is warmer and less literary than Henry's, but the emotional beats are identical. Love on the Brain and Not in Love are strong follow-ups.
Check price on Amazon →In a Holidaze — Christina Lauren (2020)
Christina Lauren (a writing duo) consistently deliver the same blend of warm humour and genuine emotional stakes that Henry fans crave. The Unhoneymooners, Twice in a Blue Moon, and Josh and Hazel's Guide to Not Dating are all strong. They're faster reads, but they scratch the same itch.
Check price on Amazon →The Kiss Quotient — Helen Hoang (2018)
An econometrician with autism hires an escort to help her practice dating — and falls in love with him. Hoang writes interiority the way Henry does: the reader lives inside the protagonist's anxiety, longing, and eventual breakthrough. One of the most emotionally honest rom-coms of the decade.
Check price on Amazon →Act Your Age, Eve Brown — Talia Hibbert (2021)
Talia Hibbert's Brown Sisters trilogy is the British equivalent of Emily Henry — smart, funny, emotionally devastating. Start with Get a Life, Chloe Brown if you prefer order, or jump straight to Act Your Age, Eve Brown for the most Henry-adjacent dynamic: sunshine heroine meets grumpy hero, forced proximity, slow melt.
Check price on Amazon →Emily Henry has publicly cited Normal People by Sally Rooney, The Hating Game by Sally Thorne, and One Day by David Nicholls as influences. If you want to read what she reads, start there.
Literary Step-Ups — More Emotional Weight
Normal People — Sally Rooney (2018)
Connell and Marianne circle each other through school and university, never quite syncing. Rooney strips the prose to bare minimum — no quotation marks, minimal dialogue tags — and the effect is suffocating intimacy. Henry has called it an influence. If you found Happy Place emotionally mature, you're ready for this.
Check price on Amazon →One Day — David Nicholls (2009)
Emma and Dexter meet on 15 July 1988, and every chapter returns to that same date across twenty years. The structure is the story: what changes, what doesn't, what's lost. If People We Meet on Vacation made you cry, this will break you. The most beloved British romance novel of its generation.
Check price on Amazon →Conversations with Friends — Sally Rooney (2017)
Frances and Bobbi befriend a married couple, and Frances enters an affair with the husband. Rooney is concerned with the same questions Henry is — power, desire, what we owe each other — but with far less warmth. A good bridge read if you want to move toward literary fiction without abandoning emotional intensity.
Check price on Amazon →If You Want Dark Themes (Like Henry's Heavier Moments)
The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo — Taylor Jenkins Reid (2017)
A fictional Hollywood legend recounts her seven marriages to an unknown journalist. Reid shares Henry's skill at making you love flawed people doing bad things to each other. The emotional scope is much bigger, the ending genuinely shocking. One of the most recommended books of the 2020s.
Check price on Amazon →Daisy Jones and The Six — Taylor Jenkins Reid (2019)
Told as a retrospective oral history of a 1970s rock band, this is about creative partnership and the line between artistic and romantic love. If you loved Funny Story's exploration of two people who shouldn't fit together but do, this is your next read.
Check price on Amazon →Me Before You — Jojo Moyes (2012)
Louisa Clark becomes a carer for Will Traynor, a quadriplegic man who has decided to end his life. The romance is real, the ethical questions are real, the heartbreak is real. Henry's novels tend toward hopeful endings, but if you want the devastating version of the same emotional intensity, this is it.
Check price on Amazon →Frequently Asked Questions
What should I read if I've finished all of Emily Henry's books?
Work through Talia Hibbert's Brown Sisters trilogy, then Beth O'Leary's back catalogue (The Flatshare, The Switch, The Road Trip). After that, upgrade to Taylor Jenkins Reid for more ambition, or Sally Rooney for more literary rigour.
Which Emily Henry book should I start with?
People We Meet on Vacation is the most beloved entry point and her most structurally confident novel. Beach Read is the fastest read and the best for getting a feel for her voice. Happy Place and Funny Story are her most emotionally mature.
Is Sally Thorne similar to Emily Henry?
Very similar in structure — both write enemies/rivals-to-lovers with sharp banter and slow-burn tension. Henry's prose is more polished and her emotional scope wider, but if you love one you'll love the other. The Hating Game is Thorne's only full-length rom-com; her follow-up 99 Percent Mine is more divisive.
Does Emily Henry write series or standalone novels?
All five of Henry's novels are standalone — no series commitment needed. Characters occasionally appear across books (Nora and Charlie from Book Lovers appear briefly elsewhere), but each novel works entirely on its own.