This Valentine’s Day, skip the cheesy cards and wilting flowers, forgo the stale chocolates and expensive candlelight dinners. Instead, this year, we challenge you to get right to the point and go straight to the boudoir. It’s time to spice things up this Valentine’s Day and to help you get started, we’ve curated a list of sexy non-fiction and steamy romance books to get you and your partner in a loving mood.
101 Kinky Things Even You Can Do
This guide is a great place to start for beginners looking for a range of ways to introduce kink into their intimate relationships this Valentine’s Day (or any day of the year). Starting off simple with sexting and expanding from there into stripping, orgasm control, group sex, and more, this book is accompanied by simple illustrations and easy-to-follow instructions to get you started.
Date Night In: A Journal for Couples Spark Conversation & Connection
This journal for couples promises to be an intimate and romantic way to spend Valentine’s Day with your partner. With more than 70 fun, thought-provoking questions and activities, this journal will help you record great memories with your partner, discover new things about each other, and come up with hopes and dreams for the future.
Oh Joy Sex Toy Vol. 1
The first of four playful graphic novel guides, Oh Joy Sex Toy collects comics about sex, sex toy reviews, sexuality, sex education, safer sex practices, interviews with sex industry workers, and much more. This humorous and fun book is sex education at its best and a great book to turn up the heat this Valentine’s Day.
Come As You Are: The Surprising New Science That Will Transform Your Sex Life
This bestselling book has transformed so many sex lives with its science-backed, thoughtful approach to women’s sexuality. A perfect Valentine’s Day gift for your lover (or yourself), this book will bring you up to speed on the latest research on female genitalia, giving you all the tools and knowledge you need to master the art of the female orgasm.
Two Knotty Boys Showing You The Ropes: A Step-by-Step, Illustrated Guide for Tying Sensual and Decorative Rope Bondage
This book on rope bondage has been around since 2006, but it has established itself as the definitive beginner’s guide to rope bondage. With detailed, step-by-step instructions, including pictures, you’ll have your partner (or yourself) tied up in no time this Valentine’s Day night.
Sexy Fiction to Read on Valentine’s Day
Now that we’ve covered the non-fiction basics on sex, intimacy, and romance, it’s time to rev things up even more with some steamy romance novels! If your idea of romance books only includes bodice rippers you’d find at the supermarket, we’re here to let you know that romance books have come a long way since your grandmother’s day. Spanning all types of romantic relationships, these spicy stories are guaranteed to heat things up under the covers this Valentine’s Day.
The Romance Recipe: An LGBTQ+ RomCom
Sensual and steamy, things are really heating up in this kitchen! The Romance Recipe is a charming, emotional, sapphic romance between a fiery restaurant owner and her enigmatic head chef. Loved by The New York Times, USA Today, and an Amazon Best Book of the Month, The Romance Recipe is the perfect amuse-bouche to your Valentine’s dinner.
Chef’s Kiss
We have one romantic culinary-themed romance for the ladies, now it’s time for the fellas! Watch things start to really heat up in the kitchen in this sweet, queer, new adult graphic novel. When recent college graduate Ben begins developing a crush on Liam, a super dreamy chef at the restaurant where he works, he starts ditching his old college friends and his old writing job plans. With a blossoming romance, Ben’s career path starts to become much less clear.
A Lady for a Duke
Anyone looking for a Regency-era historical romance that also happens to center a trans character, look no further! A Lady for a Duke earned five starred reviews from literary publications as well as a glowing feature on NPR. The story follows Viola, who after being presumed dead, is finally able to live as herself and finds her heart belonging to that of her childhood companion, the lonely and grief-stricken Duke. Emotional and romantic, this one is not to be missed!
Seven Days in June
A Reese Witherspoon book club pick and one of NPR’s Best Books of the Year, Seven Days in June is a sexy and sensual tale of literary love. When reclusive novelist Shane and bestselling erotica writer Eva meet unexpectedly at a literary event, sparks fly, raising not only their buried traumas, but the eyebrows of the Black literati. What no one knows is that fifteen years earlier, teenage Eva and Shane spent one crazy, torrid week madly in love.
Neon Gods (Dark Olympus Book 1)
We’ve shared contemporary and historical romance novels on this list, now it’s time for some sci-fi and fantasy! We love a good Hades and Persephone retelling and boy does this one add some modern spice to the Greek myth.
Ice Planet Barbarians
This is one of those books that became an Internet sensation thanks to TikTok and for a good reason, it’s really, really fun. Despite an opening scene that you’ll want to Google the trigger warnings for, Ice Planet Barbarians is the story of a woman marooned on an ice planet only to find comfort in the arms of a huge, hulking alien. The first in a long series, this bestseller was originally self-published but thanks to TikTok, now comes in a fancy new paperback!