Teen Books with an Element of Romance

Try these books if you're looking for:
  • Teen books
  • Romance
  • Books published in the past 10 years
Penelope
By Marilyn Kaye
YA F KAYE
Twenty-five-year-old Penelope's life would be near-perfect had she not been cursed with the face of a pig, and so while her mother struggles to find a blue-blooded bachelor to break the curse and a tabloid reporter plots to expose her secret, Penelope gets fed up and leaves home, in disguise, to find her own happiness.

Confessions of a First Daughter
By Cassidy Calloway
YA F CALLOWAY
High school senior Morgan Abbott pretends to be her mother, the President of the United States, as a decoy, while she also tries to lead the life of a normal teenager. However, it’s difficult having a normal life when she’s always surrounded by Secret Service agents—one of whom happens to be rather distractingly handsome.

Something like Fate
By Susane Colasanti
YA F COLASANTI
Lani and Erin are best friends who fall for the same guy. Erin starts dating Jason but when she leaves for summer camp, Lani discovers that she and Jason might have more in common than Erin and Jason, and soon she’s trying to find a way to get the guy and keep her best friend.

My Invisible Boyfriend
By Susie Day
YA F DAY
In a British alternative high school, fifteen-year-old Heidi stands out in many ways, but when she invents a boyfriend--complete with online profile--her friends turn to him for advice and she must decide how far she is willing to go to find acceptance.

Things I Know about Love
By Kate Le Vann
YA F LE VANN
Seventeen-year-old Livia Stowe travels from England to Princeton, New Jersey, to visit her brother who is studying there and to celebrate her recovery from a year-long struggle with leukemia, and while she is there she writes a blog about her experiences, which include falling in love.

The Nature of Jade
By Deb Caletti
YA F CALETTI
Seattle high school senior Jade's life is defined by her anxiety disorder and dysfunctional family, until she spies a mysterious boy with a baby who seems to share her fascination with the elephants at a nearby zoo.

Hope Was Here
By Joan Bauer
YA F BAUER
When sixteen-year-old Hope and the aunt who has raised her move from Brooklyn to Mulhoney, Wisconsin, to work as waitress and cook in the Welcome Stairways diner, they become involved with the diner owner's political campaign to oust the town's corrupt mayor.

Enchanted Ivy
By Sarah Beth Durst
YA F DURST
To achieve her dream of attending Princeton University, sixteen-year-old Lily Carter accepts the challenge of seeking the Ivy Key to a magical realm, where she finds herself caught in a power struggle between two worlds, with her family at its center.

Teen Chick-Lit

Try these books if you're looking for:
  • Chick-lit
  • Teen books
  • Clean reads
Enthusiasm
By Polly Shulman
YA F SHULMAN
Julie and Ashleigh, high school sophomores and Jane Austen fans, seem to fall for the same Mr. Darcy-like boy and struggle to hide their true feelings from one another while rehearsing for a school musical.

The Sweetheart of Prosper County
By Jill Alexander
YA F ALEXANDE
In a small East Texas town largely ruled by prejudices and bullies, fourteen-year-old Austin sets out to win a ride in the next parade and, in the process, grows in her understanding of friendship and helps her widowed mother through her mourning.

I Was Jane Austen’s Best Friend
By Cora Harrison
YA F HARRISON
In a series of journal entries, Jenny Cooper describes her stay with cousin Jane Austen in the 1790s, and her entrance into Jane's world of beautiful dresses, dances, secrets, gossip, and romance.
Fat Cat
By Robin Brande
YA F BRANDE
Overweight teenage Catherine embarks on a high school science project in which she must emulate the ways of hominids, the earliest ancestors of human beings, by eating an all-natural diet and foregoing technology.

Nonfiction Books about Food

Try these books if you're looking for:
  • Nonfiction
  • Books about food
Candyfreak: A Journey through the Chocolate Underbelly of America
By Steve Almond
338.4766 ALM
Almond presents a humorous portrait of regional candy makers and his own obsession with all things sweet.


Talking with My Mouth Full
By Bonny Wolf
641 WOL
A food commentator for NPR journeys into the heartland of America to discuss the foods we eat for every occasion, with essays on great regional specialties and more than seventy recipes.

Home Cooking
By Laurie Colwin
641.5 COL
Colwin shares her experiences in the kitchen with recipes and essays such as “Alone in the Kitchen with an Eggplant” and “Repulsive Dinners: A Memoir.”


Eat, Memory: Great Writers at the Table
641.5 EAT
A New York Times Magazine food editor collects the 26 best stories and recipes from some of the playwrights, novelists, and journalists featured in her column.



Heat: An Amateur’s Adventures as Kitchen Slave, Line Cook, Pasta-Maker, and Apprentice to a Dante-Quoting Butcher in Tuscany
By Bill Buford
641.5945 BUF
The author offers an account of his entry into the world of a professional cook-in-training, documenting his experiences in the kitchen of Mario Batali's restaurant Babbo and his apprenticeships with Batali's former teachers.


Hidden Kitchens
By Nikki Silva & Davia Nelson
641.5973 SIL
A volume based on the popular NPR radio series explores how communities come together through food, combining popular stories from the show with new interviews, photographs, and recipes from a wide array of atypical kitchens.

Feeding a Yen
By Calvin Trillin
641.5973 TRI
Trillin anthologizes his food essays that appeared in the New Yorker, savoring local specialties from Kansas City to Cuzco.

It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time
By Moira Hodgson
BIO Hodgson
A food writer and restaurant critic describes her lifelong love affair with food in a memoir of her culinary adventures around the world.


Tender at the Bone
By Ruth Reichl
BIO Reichl
New York Times restaurant critic Ruth Reichl shares lessons learned at the hands (and kitchen counters) of family members and friends throughout her life.

Multicultural Books about Food

Try these books if you're looking for:
  • Nonfiction
  • Multicultural books
  • Books about food
The Language of Baklava
By Diana Abu-Jaber
641.5956 ABU
Abu-Jaber tells the charming stories of her upbringing in upstate New York—with occasional interludes in Jordan—wrapped around recipes for beloved Arabic dishes.

Hallelujah! The Welcome Table
By Maya Angelou
641.5973 ANG
Angelou presents a collection of tear- and laughter-provoking vignettes from her life with 73 savory recipes.

Daughter of Heaven: A Memoir with Earthly Recipes
By Leslie Li
BIO Li
A memoir of an American woman whose grandmother used traditional Chinese cuisine to help her embrace her Chinese heritage and overcome her alienation from American culture, with authentic family recipes included.

Food Journeys

Try these books if you're looking for:
  • Books about food
  • Books about traveling
Two for the Road: Our Love Affair with American Food
By Jane & Michael Stern
394.1209 STE
The husband and wife team from Gourmet magazine travels the country looking for “road food.”

French Lessons: Adventures with Knife, Fork, and Corkscrew
By Peter Mayle
641.013 MAY
Mayle sets out to experience gastronomic pleasures at food festivals and celebrations throughout France.

American Pie: Slices of Life (and Pie) from America’s Back Roads
By Pascale LeDraoulec
641.8652 LED
As the author crisscrosses the country in a Volvo named Betty Blue with IBRK4PIE plates, what seems at first like a carefree road trip in search of the perfect slice of pie becomes much more than just a whimsical travelogue with great recipes.

Food Fiction

Try these books if you're looking for:
  • Fiction
  • Books about food
The Quilter’s Kitchen
By Jennifer Chiaverini
F CHIAVERI
Having joined Elm Creek's quilting circle, Anna remembers her experiences in her community's kitchens and becomes the writer of the group's cookbook, in a tale complemented by one hundred recipes.

Like Water for Chocolate
By Laura Esquivel
F ESQUIVEL
Tita, the youngest of three daughters, is expected to serve her mother for the rest of her life, but in order to show her love to Pedro, who is engaged to her sister, Tita cooks for him.


Five Quarters of the Orange
By Joanne Harris
F HARRIS
A widow in her sixties returns to the French town she left as a child and finds the clues to long-kept secrets in her mother’s recipe scrapbook.


Cooking for Harry
By Kay-Marie James
F JAMES
When her husband embraces a new diet, Francie becomes intimidated by his healthier outlook, attractive new friends, and the subsequent changes that occur within their family life.

Pomegranate Soup
By Marsha Mehran
F MEHRAN
Three Iranian sisters flee the turmoil of the Islamic Revolution to seek refuge in Ireland, where they open the exotic Babylon Cafe.

Eat Cake
By Jeanne Ray
F RAY
Ruth draws on her talent for baking when her family begins to disintegrate around her--her husband loses his job, her mother moves in.

Entertaining Disasters
By Nancy Spiller
F SPILLER
A freelance writer for the LA glossy Food Writer undergoes a panic-stricken week before she must host the exclusive dinner party that she has actually invented in her columns.

World of Pies
By Karen Stolz
F STOLZ
In the 1960s, young Roxanne copes with a pie-baking contest that becomes a lesson in racial politics.

The Book of Salt
By Monique Truong
F TRUONG
Considering whether he will accompany his employers, Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas, to America, a personal cook remembers his youth in French-colonized Vietnam.

Food Mysteries

Try these books if you're looking for:
  • Cozy reads
  • Mysteries
  • Books about food
Dark Tort
By Diane Mott Davidson
MYSTERY DAVIDSON
When caterer Goldy Schulz stumbles upon a dead paralegal while on her latest catering job at a local law firm, she does her own snooping to find the killer.


Mozzarella Most Murderous
By Nancy Fairbanks
MYSTERY FAIRBANKS
When her newfound friend Paolina is found dead in the hotel pool, food writer Carolyn sets out to find the truth and put a clever killer behind bars.


Peach Cobbler Murder
By Joanne Fluke
MYSTERY FLUKE
Bakery owner and occasional sleuth Hannah finds herself the prime suspect when Shawna Lee, a co-owner of a rival bakery in Lake Eden, turns up dead.


Custard’s Last Stand
By Tamar Myers
MYSTERY MYERS
When Colonel Custard turns up dead, innkeeper and amateur sleuth Magdalena Yoder searches for a killer.


The Butter Did It
By Phyllis Richman
MYSTERY RICHMAN
Restaurant critic Chas Wheatley enlists the aid of detective/gourmand Homer Jones to investigate the death of Washington's finest French chef.