We have a great book list for you today, inspired by a reader request: this reader lamented that there weren’t enough books out there featuring happy couples who met after age 30, and asked for our help in adding to her To Be Read list. We firmly agree the world needs book featuring love between characters who aren’t teens and twenty-somethings, and wanted to share a nice, long book list—so we decided to ask the readers, and share her request on our What Should I Read Next Instagram account as a WSIRNReaderRecs request, like we’ve been doing for several years now. The book recommendations flooded in!
We’ve gone through and curated this reader-generated book list. I haven’t read every book on here, so I’ve done my best to verify the ages of the people or characters involved and make sure they get their happy ending. No one breaks up or dies in the end! (You can count on the HEA or HFN—that’s happy ever after or happy for now—in romance, but not so much in other genres.) In the case of the memoirs listed below, that means the relationships chronicled have not ended—at least as far as I know.
This list is broken down into three categories: general fiction, romance, and nonfiction. Couples who met in their 30s and 40s are the most common but there are a few who met in their 50s, 60s, and even 70s!
Do you have a favorite book featuring a happy couple who met past age 30? I hope you’ll tell us all about it in the comments.
Some links (including all Amazon links) are affiliate links. More details here.
30 books featuring couples who met after age 30
General Fiction:
- Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand by Helen Simonson
- Evvie Drake Starts Over by Linda Holmes
- Crescent by Diana Abu-Jaber
- The Late Bloomers’ Club by Louise Miller
- The City Baker’s Guide to Country Living by Louise Miller
- One Day in December by Josie Silver
- Mitford series by Jan Karon
- Becoming Mrs. Lewis by Patti Callahan
- Miss Carter and the Ifrit by Susan Alice Kerby
- The Way Men Act by Elinor Lipman
- Big Stone Gap by Adriana Trigiani
- Unmarriageable by Soniah Kamal
Romance:
Heat rating is noted if the recommender included it. As a reminder, if you prefer sex scenes to be minimal or only hinted at, look for “closed door” romance. If you’re okay with your romance being more explicit, look for “open door.” If you don’t want there to be anything more than kissing, then look for romance described as “chaste.” (I, along with many writers and readers, prefer not to use the term “clean,” because it implies books with sex are then dirty— although plenty of authors writing along these lines still use the term.)
- Teach Me by Olivia Dade (open door)
- Brew by Tracy Ewens
- Midlife Crisis by Audra North (open door)
- Happily Ever Ninja (Knitting in the City #5) by Penny Reid (technically a married couple romance, open door)
- Royal Holiday by Jasmine Guillory (semi-open door)
- Wanderlust by Daisy Prescott (open door)
- Flirting With Disaster (Girls Night Out #2) by Victoria Dahl (open door)
- Practice Perfect series by Ruby Lang (open door)
- Only Beloved (Survivor’s Club #7) by Mary Balogh
- Second Wind by Ceillie Simkiss
Nonfiction:
- Hourglass: Time, Memory, Marriage by Dani Shapiro
- My Life in France by Julia Child
- The Greatest Love Story Ever Told: An Oral History by Megan Mullally and Nick Offerman
- A Thousand Days in Venice: An Unexpected Romance by Marlena de Blasi
- Seven Letters from Paris by Samantha Verant
- Paris Letters by Janice MacLeod
- Under the Tuscan Sun by Frances Mayes
- Truck: A Love Story by Michael Perry
What books here have you read and loved? What would you add to the list?
P.S. 20 books featuring seasoned female protagonists, and 11 book pairs that match your childhood favorites with what you should read now.
103 comments
Enchanted April comes to mind.
Great thought! I loved Enchanted April!!!
Oh! I loved it, too. I originally didn’t think I would, but the characterization was excellent. I was just thinking of re-reading it!
I love this list! As a 30-something who hasn’t found love yet, it’s super encouraging to see great love stories that didn’t kick in until the protagonists were a little older. And it’s nice to know I’m not alone!
Also, while not entirely a love story – The Wonder Worker by Susan Howatch. Alice was 32 when her story started.
My husband and I love that book! And not only did she find love, she got Nicholas!!
And be encouraged, I met my husband when I was 31 and got married when I was 34.
Me too!
I was a late bloomer, especially for the 1970’s. I married at age 34 to a man 10 years younger than myself. We will celebrate our 43rd anniversary this year! Many people predicted we wouldn’t last.
I love the list but I also wish there were more books for us older folks. We have a ton of life experiences and I would love to find characters over 70 that I can identify with.
You might enjoy “Our Souls at Night” by Kent Haruf.
Yes, excellent!
The Elizabeth Berg series that starts with Arthur Truluv are excellent
agree on your last recommendation; good recommendations for people over 70 who love to read
I lived a very happy single life until last year when I met my partner and I’m 33 now. Sometimes life takes you by surprise.
Same for me, Amberly! As a 39-year-old single who has never been in love, I loved this post from Anne.
Happily Ever Ninja is such a great story of an already married couple and what marriage often looks like after a while. Other than the ninja/spy aspect, it is so relate-able! Penny Reid is a gift and I’d recommend the whole “knitting in the city” series.
totally agree!! I love this series.. 🙂
Kent Haruf’s Our Souls at Night for sure. Maybe Amy Reichert’s The Coincidence of Coconut Cake. I couldn’t find the characters’ ages for sure, but they are established in their careers and *might* be in their 30s?
I love Our Souls at Night but there’s a reason it’s not on this list! I keep thinking about the Coconut Cake book because I’m about to visit Milwaukee for the first time. 🙂
I totally missed that you were coming to Milwaukee! I just bought my ticket and I’m so excited to meet you in real life! I’ve been a reader since 2014. Hopefully we won’t still have snow like we did last April!
Where did you get your tickets? I keep looking but Anne’s event is not listed on the Boswell Books website. I am beyond excited that Anne is coming to Milwaukee!!!
All event info, including links to those Milwaukee tickets, is right here: https://modernmrsdarcy.com/events/
Is this the book the basis for the movie featuring Paul Newman and Jane Fonda? Not really a happy ending, is it?
Yes yes to Our Souls At Night!!!
I loved Our Souls At Night,
is definitely one I would add
to the list.
The Hourglass by Tracy Rees– features a romance between a couple in their 70s. I listened to the audio version and enjoyed it. A bit of a slow start, but quite satisfying if you stick with it.
Having met my husband at age 30, I love this list!
London, I totally agree, was surprised not to see it on the list! Such a great read!
The Overdue Life of Amy Byler, by Kelly Harms
84, Charing Cross Road, by Helen Hanff
Gaudy Night, by Dorothy Sayers
Goodbye, Mr. Chips, by James Hilton–does this count?–don’t remember the woman’s age…
Bushra, great list! 84 Charing Cross Road is wonderful!
I love 84 Charing Cross Road, but there’s not really a romance in there. The London bookseller was married, I believe, and he and Helen developed a beautiful friendship but not romance.
Yes, of course about 84 Charing Cross Road–I remember that it was about love, but platonic and literary, not romantic.
Just finished Busman’s Honeymoon, by Dorothy Sayers, last night and it was more satisfying than Gaudy Night from the romance aspect, although Gaudy Night was a stronger book, IMO. Still, it pleased me to no end to find that Lord Peter Wimsey gets the strong, independent partner he wanted after all.
The Dorothy L Sayers is a brilliant recommendation. All her Peter Wimsey books develop the relationship between Harriet and Peter.
Our Souls at Night by Kent Haruf
Meet Me at the Museum by Anne Youngson
Number 1 Ladies Detective Agency Alex McCall Smith [Precious & Mr J.L.B.]
44 Scotland Street Alex McCall Smith (Angus & Domenica)
Waltzing at the Piggly Wiggly by Robert Dalby [series]
Cherry Cola Book Club series by Ashton Less
Yes, to 44 Scotland Street series and Number 1 Ladies Detective Agency! Love both of those couples.
Absolutely! Precious and Mr J.L.B. are a wonderful love story! I was 41 when I met and married my husband, he was 47 and divorced. While we sometimes lament that we never knew each other in our young, strong and slim years, still, we think the maturity and experience in life more than makes up for it. He’s a keeper.
Yes, to Meet Me at the Museum! I love that book! Also Winter Solstice by Rosamunde Pilcher. The later Mrs. Pollifax books, starting with Mrs. Pollifax on Safari. A Mother and Two Daughters by Gail Godwin.
I LOVE this idea and will be adding several of these books to my TBR. I did not meet my husband until I was 30, weeks away from turning 31. When I saw him smile for the first time, I swear a light from heaven lit up the room and I was like “THERE HE IS!” A friend who knew him (I did not know him) saw me staring and she whispered “He is a good guy”. She later gave him my phone number and we went on our first date four days before I turned 31. I had a daughter who was six at the time and I was raising her alone. He was divorced and his daughter was two. We got married when I was almost 33, and we had a baby girl when I was nearly 35. We have now been married for over six years and our girls are 14, 10, and almost 4. LOVE AFTER 30 DOES HAPPEN! Our youngest is a special needs child and he is so patient, loving, supportive, hard working, and dedicated. I can not imagine raising these girls without him, and I look forward to our someday of getting to travel together.
Wonderful story!
The Lost Husband by Katherine Center comes to mind! I loved this story!
Winter Solstice, How Not To Die Alone, and The Rosie Project come to mind when I think of books with grown up relationships.
Loved Winter Solstice! Good rec. my husband and I were 41 and 44 when we met. We’ll be celebrating our 20th anniversary this year.😌
“Julie and Romeo” by Jeanne Ray is great, as are “Elizabeth the First Wife” and “Helen of Pasadena” by Lian Dolan. Isn’t “Eat, Pray, Love” a memoir with love after age 30?
Eat, Pray, Love doesn’t fit as Gilbert is now divorced from the man she met in that book.
I find it so interesting she spent a year eating, praying and loving. Married the man she wrote about. Then wrote a book about marriage. Divorced. And then ended up committing to a a female who passed away from cancer. Now she is involved with a male friend of her female partner.
The Isabel Dalhousie series. So surprising, so gentle and so lovely! The books get better and better as the series goes on, but The Right Attitude to Rain is where it really picks up.
Love this list! Just a suggestion, is there anyway that you could format the list so that it could be printed off and saved rather than embedded in an email?
I love when you do lists but as I order books from my public library if I don’t save the email they are deleted.
Thanks for hearing me out!
Under the Tuscan Sun (the movie) certainly fits on this list. But I don’t think the book does. (Although I read it over a decade ago!) Book and movie are very different!!
I can’t think of any books to add at the moment, but I love this list! I met my husband when I was 30 and he 35; he proposed to me on the anniversary of our first date, and we were married four months later! He was 100% worth the wait, and I feel I grew and matured a great deal in my single years. There is definitely love after 30, and it’s a wonderful thing.
Oh wait, what about the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society?
I thought of that, too, right off, but then I wasn’t sure Juliet was actually 30 yet, but I think she was!
I think she was. I finished it not too long ago and seem to remember her mentioning being over 30.
I’d add Miss Buncle’s Book by D.E. Stevenson and Miss Buncle Married for general fiction (humorous fiction?- written 1934). They are so witty. Excellent Women by Barbara Pym is another (1952) one that is more about the humor than the plot- how could a single woman possibly be happy? I loved it for the comic characters and wry observations.
Oh yes, Miss Buncle’s Book is hilarious. Good recommendation.
D.E. Stevenson has a few others with wonderful, older, couples. The English Air and Vittoria Cottage come to mind. And all her books get me to my happy place in about 3 sentences:-)
Julie and Romeo by Jeanne Ray.
IN fact all of Jeanne Ray’s books feature not-young women, and some of them feature normal, healthy marriages of not-young women.
Love this list! I’ve been handing out copies of Heller’s “Celine” to my friends. The protagonist is 69, and her relationship with her second husband, whom she met later in life, is so real and wonderful. I love Heller’s way of making nature and setting so vivid and central to his books. This one takes place most in Yellowstone — and they camp in my favorite spot — Jackson Lake in Grand Teton. (I’ll be checking out other books on this thread!)
Yes, I love Celine! I wouldn’t have considered it a romance but I adore Celine and her husband’s relationship!
I was scanning the comments to make sure “Celine” was mentioned! Just finished it a week or so ago and LOVED their relationship.
Wanted to be sure Celine was here as well. It may not be a ‘new’ love, but there’s something to be said for a settled, mature, enduring love and portray how a successful, loving marriage might look.
Celine is a book that has stayed on my mind too. I still hope she finds her daughter…
Is it Louise Miller not Louise Baker? I love this list!
Virgil Wander by Leif Enger
Meet Me at the Museum leaves you hanging, as far as I remember, but I loved it!
The Rosie Project
Romance is my least favorite genre but I adored Evie Drake Starts Over. And, Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand looks promising.
I loved Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand. Also The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series. And Sprig Muslin by Georgette Beyer. The heroine is actually 25 (and near-sighted) but in the era in which the book is set she is “on-the-shelf”.
If we’re going there, I’ll add Persuasion, where Anne is 27, but in that day – definitely into spinsterhood.
And The Blue Castle; Valancy is 29 and turns 30 in the story.
Hey, I think that reasoning works!
The Spies of Shilling Lane is a general fiction title with a middle-aged romance that came to mind immediately. It’s by the author of The Chilbury Ladies’ Choir, and I found it delightful!
Julie James is a favorite romance author of mine and many of her characters are over 30 and well-established in their careers.
Kristan Higgins’s newest releases are women’s fiction and they all have at least one romance with characters over 30.
I want to say the Outlander series, but I guess Jamie and Claire were both in their 20s when they met, even if much of the series is about them in their 40s and beyond.
Julia Spencer-Fleming writes a mystery series and the main will they-won’t they couple both are over 30.
I have the impression the main characters in Deborah Crombie’s mystery series are over 30, but I only remember for certain that one is.
I think many of Susanna Kearsley’s books have couples over 30, especially in the modern-day timelines.
I haven’t fact-checked this one either, but Deanna Raybourn’s Veroinca Speedwell series has a romance and my impression was those characters are over 30.
I love the Julia Spencer-Fleming series. I’ve only read the first three and getting ready to read the fourth.
I was so surprised Rosalind Pilcher’s Winter Solstice wasn’t on here! Such a cozy, beautiful book.
I agree. I loved Winter Solstice. It’s a beautiful book.
Two Steps Forward: A Novel – Graeme Simsion and Anne Buist. An older couple meet on the Camino de Santiago. Good travelogue about the Camino pilgrimage too.
Susan Haught writes lovely, emotional women’s fiction stories featuring older characters. Her tagline: “Love is ageless.”
I don’t have any suggestions to add but two of my favorite series, the Mitford books by Jan Karon and the Big Stone Gap series by Adriana Trigiani, are on the list and they are wonderful!!
Love the Mitford series AND Trigiani’s Big Stone Gap series. Read them sooo many years ago and they still are on my mind and in my heart!
I loved Big Stone Gap so much I went and out Mitford in my TBR.
What about Rose and Simon in “In Your Shoes “? She’s the older, plainer sister, but it’s great to see how things evolve in her story.
I just finished How to Bake a Perfect Life, by Barbara O’Neal (open door) last night and liked it a lot.
Such a great story! I love her books!
Are most of these relationships hetero? Would be great to make a similar list for books featuring older protagonists in relationships that aren’t hetero.
Mary Kay Andrews! Most of her books feature women far past their 30’s and often into their fifties!
And they do find love and worthwhile relationships!
Mary Balogh’s Someone to Remember. Every once in a while she has older protagonists. Umm, Open door historical romance.
And of course another vote for Jeanne Ray’s books. I love Julie and Romeo!
4 novels by Jeanne Ray:
Julie and Romeo;Julie and Romeo Get Lucky (sequel); Step-Ball-Change; and Eat Cake
I keep meaning to read Jeanne Ray! Thanks for mentioning her here.
Waters on a Starry Night by Elisabeth Olgivie is a wonderfully realistic and
yet lovely story of a marriage that had its ups and downs. One of my favorite
books about marriage.
Very diverse list. So great to see Michael Perry’s, Truck: A Love
Story. I like everything he writes. Maybe biased, I live in Chippewa County, Wisconsin
The Blue Castle by L.M.Montgomery. The book starts on Valancy’s 29th birthday, but she is definitely an old maid in her times. And the “happy-for-sure” comes after her 30th.
A Bachelor Establishment, by Jodi Taylor writing as Isabella Barclay (what does that even mean?). A Regency romance between a widow who fears that love and life are passing her by, and a nobleman returning home after years of scandal-imposed exile.
Kisses From Sadinia was wonderful!
Wild man by Kristen Ashley. She is “open door” romance and quite a few of her books are folks in their 30’s. If you like Penny Reid you’ll like KA and probably more as the books in general have more character development and realism to the storyline
Virgil Wander, for sure!
Olive, Again, and The Garden of Small Beginnings.
I was thinking of Olive, Again also. She was definitely over 30.
Hi Anne!
Author here! A friend of mine sent me a link to your beautiful site and I wanted to personally thank you for including SEVEN LETTERS FROM PARIS on your list. My story “happened” to me in 2009. I was on the cusp of turning 40. It’s now 2020 and (holy moly) I’m 50! What! How did that happen? Jean-Luc, my poetic, French rocket scientist, and I will be celebrating our 10th wedding anniversary on May 7th. Here’s to all the HEAs! Anyway, your post made my day! Merci! Merci Mille Fois!
Gros bisous from France,
Sam
Samantha, it was my pleasure!
Nine Perfect Strangers – Liane Moriarty
One late in life romance is Olive, Again by Elizabeth Strout. I wouldn’t call it a “romance novel,” but she does find another partner in her 70s. I really enjoyed the book.
Thursdays in the Park by Hilary Boyd should definitely be here. It features a grandmother! It shows love can come in old age, but also the family stresses his can cause. A really good read.
Shelter Me by Juliette Fay should be on this list.
China Bayles – she is over 30 and I started reading the mystery series from a recommendation here on the plant books!
I met my hubby when I was 35. & he was 37. Neither of us had been married. We met on his birthday, got engaged 2 weeks later, got married 4 months later, had our first baby 10 months later & just celebrated our 20th anniversary!!! I love that you did this book list!❤️❤️
The “Chicken Soup for the Soul” series just published a book on this very topic–“Age is Just a Number.” See https://www.chickensoup.com/book/232033/age-is-just-a-number. I’m a little biased–my wife has a story in the book about how we met. At least *I* think it’s heartwarming–see if you think so as well.
The Bookshop of Second Chances by Jackie Fraser is super sweet and lovely. The main character is divorcing her husband after 20 years and starts over in a small Scottish town. She gets a job at a local bookstore that is owned by a handsome, curmudgeonly fellow.