Books To Read if You Love Emily in Paris

When Iris’s mother passes away, she moves to the one place her mother always loved — New York City. But Iris isn’t just looking for a fresh start, she’s hiding from her old life, which leads her to lie to a stranger — one she meets again months later. Iris realizes the stranger is Gio — the nephew of the man who gave Iris’s mother his family’s secret gelato recipe. When Gio’s uncle falls into a coma leaving the family without the recipe, it puts their gelato shop at risk of closing. Without giving away what she knows, Iris offers her chef skills to help Gio recreate the recipe. But can Iris hold on to all of her lies once she falls for Gio? New York City and Paris might be different, but the love for food — and love — is all the same.

When author Eloisa James received her — luckily curable — breast cancer diagnosis, she decided to take the rest of her life into her own hands. This meant finally pursuing a lifelong dream. James took a sabbatical from her job as a Shakespeare professor and moved with her husband and two children from New Jersey to Paris. In her memoir, she recounts the year she spent there and the epiphanies she had from experiencing Parisian living. From brief snippets based on her tweets to short essays, James paints a vivid picture of what her life in Paris looked like, including the lessons she learned, the mistakes she made, and the wisdom she brought back with her to the US.

In another story of neighbors who can’t stay away from each other, nonfiction editor Lily Greene has no idea her favorite fantasy author — N.R. Strickland — is her neighbor. When she begins corresponding over email with the mysterious author, Lily can’t help but live in the fantasy of being much more with him — until he stops replying to her emails. Months later as Lily nurses her broken heart, she’s determined to break into the dating world — and who better to help her than her new neighbor Nick or rather — unbeknownst to her — N.R. Strickland. But what will Nick do when he realizes who Lily is — and how can he help her find someone new when he’s wanted her all along?

Emily is no stranger to building up a social media platform, and neither is seasoned influencer Melanie Karlsen. But when Melanie realizes her brand is at risk of falling off, she accepts a paid vacation to give herself the refresh she needs to save it. But Melanie doesn’t end up staying anywhere remotely luxurious. Instead, she finds herself in a Nova Scotia fishing village, staying in a B&B with its surly owner — Evan Whaler. Desperate to get out, Melanie doesn’t expect to fill her days with a lie that steers her toward love. When there’s an opportunity to pretend to be Evan’s fiancée for a week in exchange for help with her brand, Melanie decides to take the leap to save it — but she doesn’t expect to have to reel in her feelings.

Before you knew Julia Child as an iconic chef with her own TV show, she was once just another American in Paris. Knowing nothing about France or cooking, Child began by taking lessons at the Cordon Bleu. As cooking quickly became her passion, teaching soon followed suit. After realizing that translating French recipes to American cooking wasn’t clear-cut, she began perfecting methods to make it possible. But as Child grappled with being taken seriously as a woman and received many rejections for her cookbook proposal, the difficulties in her journey make her story that much more important today.

January Andrews expects a quiet summer emptying her late father’s beach house and trying to write her next bestselling romance novel. What she doesn’t expect is for her next-door neighbor to be literary fiction writer Augustus Everett — her college nemesis. When Gus reveals that he’s stuck in a writing rut of his own, he and January make a deal — she writes a dark and brooding novel, and he writes a light and romantic one. As they help each other research their new genres with small excursions that include drive-in theaters and camping, they’ll find that they like these genres — and each other — much more than they realize. Like Emily and Gabriel, January and Gus can’t just be neighbors — they’re much more.

Ayesha and Emily have one very important thing in common — they’ve both fallen for someone they can’t have. In this Pride and Prejudice adaptation, Ayesha Shamsi dreams of being a poet full-time, but her never-ending bills force her to focus on her substitute teaching job — all while avoiding the prospect of an arranged marriage. But when a series of encounters with Khalid — a man Ayesha judges as too orthodox for her — sparks something within Ayesha, it’s too late. Now that he’s engaged to her cousin Hafsa, Ayesha knows she can’t have feelings for him — even if Khalid returns them. But the more Ayesha finds out about Khalid and his family, the harder it is to stay away.

Emily in Paris knows how to blur the lines between professional and personal lives — Britta Colby and Wes Lawson can’t help but do the same. When Britta — a lifestyle journalist — is tasked with reviewing a new body-positive fitness app — she knows that as a plus-sized woman, the program might fail to remain body-positive. But Wes Lawson — CEO and trainer at FitMi Fitness — has always been determined to keep up with these values, even when his co-owners have tried to financially sway him. When Wes is paired up with Britta as her online trainer, the two’s instant chemistry makes it difficult to keep things professional — but is a potential future between them worth risking either of their careers?

Emily and Rebecca Bloomwood know how to make lemonade out of lemons — especially when it comes to work disasters. Becky is a journalist for Successful Saving magazine, but what no one else knows is that she’s in a whole lot of credit card debt. Always adding to her closet adds up, and with a debt collector on her tail, Becky’s practically made a full-time job of dodging his calls and making up excuses for late payments. But as Becky’s articles become more successful — and are noticed by handsome editor-in-chief Luke Brandon — the stark difference between her advice and her actions might expose her for the fraud she finds herself becoming.

Whitney Curry is primed to have an epic semester abroad. She anticipates a grand adventure filled with vintage boutiques, her idol Josephine Baker’s old stomping grounds, and endless plays sure to inspire the ones she writes and — ahem — directs! But all is not as she imagined when she’s dropped off at her prestigious new Parisian lycée. A fish out of water, Whitney struggles to juggle schoolwork, homesickness, and mastering the French language. Cue French tutor Thierry Magnon, a grumpy yet très handsome soccer star, who’s determined to show Whitney the real Paris. Is this type-A theater nerd ready to see how lessons on the City of Lights can turn into lessons on love?

When her estranged mother dies, Stella is left with an unusual inheritance: a one-way plane ticket and a note reading “Go to Paris.”  Alone in a foreign city, Stella falls into old habits, living cautiously and frugally. Then she stumbles across a vintage store, where she tries on a fabulous Dior dress. The shopkeeper insists that this dress was meant for Stella and for the first time in her life Stella does something impulsive. She buys the dress — and embarks on an adventure. A feast for the senses, this novel is a testament to living deliciously, taking chances, and finding your true home.