When it comes to romance novels, Emily Henry, or “EmHen,” as the book community likes to call her, has the Midas touch. It’s been nothing but No. 1 bestsellers for the author since she cracked the genre wide open with 2020’s Beach Read.
Having switched her focus from the young adult novels she was previously penning, Henry has sold over 10 million books worldwide, with five of her titles getting the book-to-screen adaptation treatment. But where on Earth does one go to start reading?
That all depends on how you’re looking to approach Henry's collection. Much like Taylor Swift, the millennial author has an affinity for planting Easter eggs in her prose. For that reason, you may choose to read her romance novels in order, starting with Beach Read (2020) and People We Meet on Vacation (2021), and continuing with Book Lovers (2022), Happy Place (2023), and Funny Story (2024). In April 2025, she released Great Big Beautiful Life, so that should come last if you're concerned with reading the books as they were published.
If you want to go for the deep cuts, you could start with her young adult series, beginning with Henry’s first-ever book, The Love That Split the World. (There’s also A Million Junes, When the Sky Fell on Splendor, and Hello Girls.)
However, we suggest you tackle her library by skipping straight to the hits, or Emily Henry's very best books thus far. But don't worry: We've done the legwork to find out exactly how Henry's books rank, from her early works to her first star-crossed romance to her latest labor of love. Below, find the best Emily Henry books, ranked.
One of Henry’s lesser-known works, this young adult science fiction novel is also unlike anything most EmHen fans are likely to have read from the author. Exploring the fallout of a steel mill explosion in a small Ohio town through the eyes of the teens who live there, the book touches on the supernatural, with fans noting similarities to Netflix’s Stranger Things. Some found that this one fell short, however, noting that the characters—and the plot, for that matter—seemed a bit disjointed and overly ambitious.
For her fourth young adult novel, Hello Girls, Henry teamed with author Brittany Cavallaro, a.k.a. the best-selling brain behind the Charlotte Holmes mystery series. (Think: lady Sherlock Homes.) The result? A wild ride of a read described as a teenage remake of Thelma and Louise. (It also showcases our favorite cover art of the bunch, but that’s neither here nor there.) Centered on two young women, Winona Olsen and Lucille Pryce, who decide to rage against the patriarchy (and their humdrum lives) by hitting the open road in a stolen convertible, this one’s got a slower start, but once it gets moving, boy, does it ever.
A modern-day Romeo and Juliet, A Million Junes unpacks years of generational drama between two households, the O’Donnells and the Angerts. For Jack “June” O’Donnell, who has been spared the finer (or actually, any) details about her family's rift, it’s getting harder and harder to keep her distance from the enemy—particularly when he's so dang witty. Henry also throws in some ghosts, magic, and a bit of existential crisis.
Love it or hate it, there’s something to be said for an author’s first book. For Henry, that was The Love That Split the World. A young adult story involving time travel, ghosts, folklore, and, of course, young love, Henry’s debut is hard to pigeonhole. It follows a young woman named Natalie who’s dealing with everything from strange visions and unaccounted-for chunks of time to normal teenage jitters that only a crush can induce. It’s the perfect introduction to the author, who appears to have hooked readers immediately with her “beautiful,” “wonderfully written,” and diverse prose.
Of Henry’s romance novels, Happy Place is among her most polarizing. One person who’s riding hard for it, though? Jennifer Lopez. The rom-com queen’s production company, Nuyorican, has announced that it will tackle the on-screen version of this tale about two exes who agree to keep their broken-up relationship status under wraps from their dearest friends. (And spoiler alert? There’s some unfinished business between them.)
Great Big Beautiful Life is Henry’s sixth and most recent release. “This book poured out of me[...]after the longest writing break I’d taken in a full decade,” she told her newsletter subscribers. “This book is different than anything I’ve written before, but also feels like a really natural extension of what I’ve been doing the last few years.” Translation: There’s an opposites-attract romance and a cast of quirky side-characters, but the stakes are a bit higher than previous Henry joints.
This time around, rival journalists—Alice, a staff writer at a fictional equivalent of Slate or The Cut, and Hayden, a Pulitzer Prize-winner—are competing to write the biography of Margaret Ives, a reclusive heiress who ruled the tabloids during her Old Hollywood heyday before she disappeared to an island off Georgia’s southeastern coast. Now, Ives is ready to explain why she vanished to the writer with the best book pitch—but she’s keeping more secrets than either Alice or Hayden can uncover by interviewing her alone. Naturally, these two can’t help but get closer as their research intersects and deadlines approach. Margaret’s memories weave in and out of Alice’s narration as she researches her dream book, in Henry’s first attempt at a dual-timeline story.
However, Great Big Beautiful Life really shines when the focus turns away from Margaret’s larger-than-life personal history. (Warring generations, big-money media, and a deadly cult are all involved, to varying success.) Alice’s assignment isn’t particularly relatable, but the questions it raises for her about ambition, love, and their intersection are universal. Seeing Alice find those answers for herself ultimately makes this novel worthwhile. –Halie LeSavage
The premise of this one may sound a little out there at first: Daphne, whose boyfriend just left her for a woman named Petra, seeks solace in the arms of the man who used to date Petra. (Is your head spinning?) But stranger things have happened! Funny Story is full of the charming, complex characters and chemistry that all EmHen fans love. However, it veers closer to a typical romance novel more than her other books do, relying on the fake dating trope and featuring more traditional romance scenes. Still, it lives up to its name: The dialogue and quirky characters will have you LOL-ing as they fall for each other, and you fall for their love story.
People We Meet on Vacation falls right smack dab in the middle of the EmHen pack. Drawing upon Henry’s familiar themes of polar opposites who shouldn’t work on paper, but somehow do in real life, it follows two besties, Poppy and Alex, whose extraverted and introverted worlds collide each year on their annual shared holiday. Naturally, their platonic love evolves into something more over time, making things a bit messy, and now, they’ve got to figure out just what they mean to each other. Essentially, it’s When Harry Met Sally... with little plastic drink umbrellas—a parallel Henry has all but made herself.
At some point, you’ve gotta learn to become the main character of your own life—which is the lesson of Book Lovers, about a book-loving literary agent named Nora who's looking to shake up her routine with a sister trip to North Carolina. Nora and her sister's vision for a charming, small-town meet-cute for her is thwarted by several less-than-pleasant run-ins with Charlie Lastra, an editor from Nora's old life back home. She and Charlie don’t seem to gel, yet fate keeps placing him in Nora’s path, making for a novel gushing. It should be noted that while many readers tend to be satisfied with the protagonists’s chemistry and banter, they find themselves even more enchanted by yet another relationship in the book: the one between Nora and her little sister.
The adult romance novel that first put Henry on the map is also her most beloved. Four years after it was released, fans still cite this tale of blooming love between two neighboring authors as an all-time fave. Recognizing how they approach their craft completely differently, January Andrews and Augustus “Gus” Everett decide to take a crack at writing with the others’s proverbial pen. Their resulting antics had author Colleen Hoover reading this book “backwards and then…bottom to top and then…all the even words and then…all the odd words and then… underwater,” as she wrote on Goodreads. Added Hoover: “Five stars! Emily Henry wrote this good.”
When does Emily Henry's next book come out?
Emily Henry has yet to announce her next book. The prolific author has been publishing one adult romance novel every spring like clockwork since 2020, with her last release, Great Big Beautiful Life, dropping in April 2025. Considering her recent output, it's safe to say that she may be taking more time on the next one, and it will likely be a longer hiatus before the next one hits shelves. (Great Big Beautiful Life was officially announced seven months before its release, so, at this point, the earliest a new book could be released would be late 2026 or 2027, more likely.)
According to TODAY, Henry also signed a four-book deal that began in 2022, and depending on whether her 2022 release, Book Lovers, was included, she may have fulfilled her contract, leaving her freer to explore other projects. Like, say, writing screenplays?
The author has her hands tied writing the script for Funny Story (more on that below) and expressed to TODAY that she hopes to write the movie version of Great Big Beautiful Life, as well. (An adaptation for her most recent book has yet to be announced.)
“It’s so fun adapting your own book because you already know it so deeply and intimately. It’s like you’re just thinking about your favorite parts,” she told The L.A. Times. “It did give me a little bit of a bug. I want to keep doing this.”
Henry also hinted that her future novels may be a little different than her last six hits. “I will write some more straightforward romantic comedies in the coming years, but...I'm excited to see what else is out there that would be fun to work on,” she told TODAY. “At some point, I would love to revisit writing thrillers, but I am always going to love a love story.”
Which Emily Henry books are becoming movies?
If you've read all of Henry's books and are eager for more, fear not: Five out of Henry’s six adult novels are being adapted into movies.
The first film based on one of the author's books, People We Meet on Vacation, premiered to acclaim on Netflix in January 2026. Directed by Brett Haley and with a screenplay co-written by Yulin Kuang, Amos Vernon, and Nunzio Randazzo, Henry has long been vocal about delivering a project that book fans will love, and that stands on its own as a solid romantic comedy. "Just it happening was not the goal. It happening and being good was the goal," she told The Los Angeles Times. "And luckily, I think [People We Meet on Vacation] is very good."
In the film, Emily Bader (My Lady Jane) and Tom Blyth (The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes) brought Poppy and Alex to life, with Sarah Catherine Hook, Lucien Laviscount, Jameela Jamil, Lukas Gage, and more in supporting roles. Ahead of the movie's release, Netflix shared footage of the director offering the leads their roles, and Henry giving her sign of approval. "I just truly could not feel any more confident that my readers…are going to completely, completely fall in love with Poppy and Alex, with you guys playing them," she told them over Zoom.
Also in the works are Book Lovers, which will be penned by former Girls writer Sarah Heyward; Funny Story, which Henry herself will write the screenplay for; Beach Read, which is to be written and directed by People We Meet on Vacation co-writer Yulin Kuang; and Happy Place, which was originally going to be developed as a TV show but is now going to be a movie produced by Jennifer Lopez’s Nuyorican Productions. Like People We Meet on Vacation, Netflix will produce and release Funny Story and Happy Place.
There's a lot of anticipation surrounding Beach Read in particular. Henry has full faith that writer/director Kuang will do it justice, though. "It’s so different than I would have thought to approach it," the author told Variety of the script. “It feels like a big swing, which I am all about, because I think the worst thing that a movie can be is boring and mediocre. If we’re doing this, let’s really go for it."
No cast has been announced yet for any of the forthcoming films, but Henry and Kuang had fans in a tizzy in May 2024 when they reposted a selfie of The Bear’s Ayo Edebiri and Paul Mescal to their social accounts. "I can’t confirm or deny anything with casting for any movie. I will say that those are two of my favorite 'Irish' actors," Henry told Variety at the time.
She added: "I actually saw them being discussed [online] for several different roles—and I definitely have a favorite."
As for Book Lovers, fans are already clamoring for Superman’s David Corenswet to take on the novel’s leading man, Charlie, opposite Dianna Agron, Simone Ashley, or Suki Waterhouse. While everything is still speculation, Henry isn’t mad at the suggestion. “Get him on board, and I’m in 💯,” she wrote in a comment per PEOPLE.
When it comes to Happy Place, Henry has teased who she envisions as the female lead. "For Harriet in Happy Place, I think Eve Hewson would be wonderful," she said to PEOPLE about the Bad Sisters and The Perfect Couple star. "She actually does look more or less how Harriet is in my head."
There may still be time to cast your votes, however. As Henry explained, “I always find it really fun to ask readers to do fan casting, and I do take those names that come up a lot into conversations with these teams.”
Why You Should Trust Us
From #Booktok favorites to acclaimed best-selling authors, we regularly rank just about any book you can imagine. Beach reads? We’ve done our homework. Smutty STEM novels? We've got them covered, too. We’re methodical in our methods: combing through real-life reviews, seeing what fans are saying on Reddit, TikTok, and GoodReads, and, of course, actually reading the books. We simply love to read and keep up with what's trending in the book world—so you can focus on more important things, like devouring every single precious word.
