Romance Novels with Curvy Main Characters

People of all sizes deserve to see themselves on the page in pleasure-positive situations. Love and lust are available for all of us, so why not celebrate it through fantasy, as well? Here are a few titles featuring curvy lead characters. Have others? Please let us know!

Less a straight romance, this is a coming-to-terms novel about bodies, sexuality, and friendship. Natalie decides to take a vow of celibacy until she figures out why she's so drawn to fleeting sexual encounters. But don't let the premise deceive you — this isn't a sex-negative title. With the help of her best-friend, Anastaze, she finds herself coming to terms with her bisexuality and her diet addiction.

Excerpt from Vow of Celibacy by Erin Judge:

My whole body buzzed with an electrifying full-tilt attraction more intense than I’d felt in a while. I’d expected to find this all around me at college, but the very first person to push those buttons for me was, unfortunately, my professor, or at least my post-baccalaureate associate lecturer. But he was basically a peer, I reassured myself. I stared at the ceiling, wide awake, rationalizing and fretting and twitching with desire. I just want some good sex, I told myself. What’s the big deal if he’s sort of my teacher? 

I remember saying that to myself: I just want some good sex. But when I think about it now, the sex I’d had with Julian felt pretty good for what it was. He turned me on; he turned me off. No real complaints, except that he didn’t quite hold my interest beyond that. I was eighteen years old. Had I already sublimated my desire for genuine connection into a specious quest for “good sex”?

Devi Malik is the head chef in her family’s Indian restaurant in Alisha Rai’s Pleasure Series. She’s able to heat things up in the kitchen, but her love life runs cold until she meets twin brothers who offer to change that. Read this series for some quirky, kinky fun.

Excerpt from book number one, Glutton for Pleasure:

A menage, huh? She had told Rana the truth—more than a few menage stories were stored on her hard drive. Though her real-life sexual experience may have been limited to a couple of discreet affairs, she found the idea of two men intriguing. To say the least.
    
She imagined herself sandwiched between the two identical men, multiple hot hands running over her nude flesh. Would their bodies look the exact same? Would she be able to feel a difference in their hands?

Or their cocks?

Such a Pretty Face by Gabrielle Goldsby features Mia Sanchez, a plus-size lesbian Mexican-American woman with marital issues. While her wife is traveling for business, Sanchez works to remember what it means to love herself first.

Get hooked from the beginning:

'The moment she went down on me, I should have known that she was telling me good-bye. Spontaneity is not Brenda’s strong suit, but for the last few weeks she’s been acting like she can’t keep her hands off me.

'Why am I complaining? I’m complaining because I was wearing baby blue sweats, a Mickey Mouse T-shirt, and Marvin the Martian slippers. I’m complaining because I was bent over a box with my big ass in the air when she slammed into the house. I’m complaining because she dropped her bag on the floor, and without so much as a, ‘hey, hon, I’m home,’ rolled me over and set about making it impossible for me to think, let alone worry where all of her energy came from. Then, to top it all off, two minutes into the sex, the phone rang and she left me on the floor to answer it.

'She comes back twenty minutes later and tells me she’s just accepted an assignment in the Fiji Islands to photograph fourteen swimsuit models for a new sports magazine. Oh, and she knew about the possibility of this assignment for at least a week before she decided to accept it.'

Philadelphia Coven Chronicles is a paranormal romance series featuring Conor, a hunter of non-human abominations and the half-fae Brenna. Check out the first in the series, Hunting for Spring.

Excerpt from Hunting for Spring:

He took two steps back, quite aware of the presence on the other side of the room. “You know, stealing someone’s kill is bad form,” he complained, cutting through the quiet tension.

“Looked to me like you could use the help.” The female voice came from behind him.

Conor turned around, his hand inching for his Glock.
She sat on the countertop, one leg hanging over the edge. Long strands of dark, messy hair hung past her face, brushing her cheeks as she lifted her chin. The woman had the sort of striking features that made men gape, and Conor fell victim. Her blue eyes intensified with a curious light as she scanned him, and in the shadowy room, her pale skin took on a silver hue. Even though her dark eyebrows knitted together, lending her features a sort of stark fierceness, her pursed mauve lips softened her face.

The girl tugged on the cord of her hoodie, and her eyes narrowed. “What’s a normal kid like you doing hunting a beastie like that?” Her boots hit the ground with a thud, and she brushed her knees off, making the buckles of her cargo pants jangle.

Conor arched his brow, wiping his jacket sleeves on the wall in a sad attempt at getting rid of the wight crud. “Sweetheart, whoever trained you in magic should’ve given you the rundown on everyone you might encounter—including hunters.”

He caught the recognition flashing in her eyes, as well as the careful way she stalked around him like a panther surveying an encroaching predator. “Well, feel free to p*ss off, then.” Her words were curt but not shocking. Hunters and casters shared a history of bad blood due to the chaos so many irresponsible witches caused. However, one bit of curiosity lingered within him—why had she been tracking the wight? Unless she’d created this monster.

 Meet Martha Aguas, a Filipino accountant who wears a size 24 dress, has never had a boyfriend, but does have a wonderful best-friend Max. He’s such a great friend that he agrees to play her fake boyfriend at a family wedding. Can pretending to be a couple become the real thing?

Excerpt from Carla de Guzman's If the Dress Fits:

My relationship with food was long, simple, and absolutely delicious. My relationship with my weight was a little more complicated. I carried it around, and I was good at making it look effortless. It wasn’t something I loved or hated, it was just a fact that I accepted. I know I’m supposed to ‘love my size,’ and I did. But forgive me for not being totally happy with it 24/7.

I felt like I was still waiting for my life to begin, but my weight had nothing to do with that.

In Rebekah Weatherspoon’s So Sweet, curvy Kayla Davis meets an Internet Billionaire, Michael Bradbury, off a sugar baby/sugar daddy website and finds the arrangement sweeter than she ever could’ve expected. Goodreads reviews have called this novel (turned into a series), sex and sex work positive. Also check out Weatherspoon’s Vampire Sorority series for more sexy plus-size reading.

Excerpt from So Sweet:

(excerpt taken from Bawdybookworms.com

This silence between us was working. We both knew we didn’t need to say a word. I just wanted him to kiss me. When he did I realized the kisses we’d shared so far were tame. Child’s play. Those kisses were his way of testing the waters and showing me how badly he wanted me close by. This kiss? It made me want him inside of me, like now. Faster than now. My pussy was done waiting. That was clear by how wet I was and the almost painful way my muscles were clenching and releasing. My body needed something to hold on to. When he pulled away for just a second, my breath was short and quick.
[…]
He kissed me again and, this time, his hands went to the button on my jeans. I went for the buttons on his shirt, but he shook his head slightly.
‘I got that.’
‘I want to touch you.’
‘You will, but if I don’t go down on you soon–‘
‘What’ll happen?’ I asked, even though I didn’t stop him from pulling down my zipper.
‘I’ll wait longer until you let me go down on your.’
‘I’m not going to do that to either of us.’

Sugar Jamison’s A Perfect Fit series features plus-size clothing store owner Ellis Garrett who believes that “fashion shouldn't require a size-two body, and happiness should allow for the occasional cupcake.”

Excerpt from Dangerous Curves Ahead:

Normally, Michael Edwards made it a point not to get involved in other people's business, but there was something about the funny girl who sat across from him that had made him open his mouth. It wasn't because she was beautiful, which she was with her dark hair and pouty lips. 

And it wasn't because her lush body was created for male fantasies, which it was. He wasn't sure why he'd told the skinny Mrs. Toomey to stuff it, but he was sure as soon as Ellis turned around that he knew her from somewhere.

'Why are you staring at me like that?' She frowned at him, looking almost self-conscious.

He was staring at her. The words You're sexy as hell almost rolled off his tongue. But he held back. It wasn't her looks that made him unable to pry his eyes from her face but something else. Something almost comfortable that made him want to slide closer and spend all day near her. He shook his head. What the hell was wrong with him? He never reacted this way with any woman.

Curvy Woman silhouette from www.vecteezy.com