7 Of The Best Books Like The Light We Lost By Jill Santopolo

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“A woman filled with light makes everything she touches brighter.”

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If you’re looking for books like The Light We Lost by Jill Santopolo, you’re likely craving another emotional romance novel that stays with you long after the final page. This story resonates with readers because of its bittersweet love story, exploring timing, life choices, and the heartbreak of missed chances. If you loved its powerful blend of love, loss, and second-chance romance, you’re not alone in wanting more books filled with the same emotional impact. Today at What We Reading, we’re curating our favourite contemporary romance novels full of deep relationships, complex feelings, and unforgettable what-if moments. Whether it’s epic love stories, heartbreaking endings, or romances shaped by fate, these books capture that same blend of emotional depth and lingering sense of “what if?” Perfect for fans of Jill Santopolo, these picks will help you unearth your next unforgettable emotional read. 

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The Light We Lost Summary

Lucy and Gabe meet as seniors at Columbia University on a day that changes both of their lives forever. Together, they decide they want their lives to mean something, to matter. When they meet again a year later, it seems fated – perhaps they’ll find life’s meaning in one another. But then Gabe becomes a photojournalist assigned to the Middle East, and Lucy pursues a career in New York. 

What follows is a thirteen-year journey of dreams, desires, jealousies, betrayals, and ultimately, of love. Was it fate that brought them together? Is it choice that has kept them away? Their journey takes Lucy and Gabe continents apart, but never out of each other’s hearts. 

One Day – David Nicholls

Kicking off our list of books like The Light We Lost is David Nicholls’ beloved romance read, One Day. Emma Morley and Dexter Mayhew meet on the 15th July 1988, the night of their graduation. Though they only spend one day together, a deep connection forms between them. Instead of becoming a couple, they wind up going their separate ways; however, the novel revisits their lives on the same date – July 15th – every year for the next two decades. 

Emma is idealistic and ambitious, struggling to find her place in the world, whereas Dexter is charming and privileged, pursuing a flashy career in television. As their lives take different paths – careers, relationships, and personal struggles – they remain constants in each other’s lives, sometimes as best friends, sometimes as something more. Through witty banter, heartache, and moments of joy, One Day explores fate, missed opportunities, and the power of enduring love. 

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Me Before You – Jojo Moyes

Louisa Clark is an ordinary girl living an exceedingly ordinary life. She takes a badly needed job working for ex-Master of the Universe Will Traynor, who is wheelchair bound after an accident. Will has always lived a huge life – big deals, extreme sports, worldwide travel – and now he’s pretty sure he cannot live the way he is. 

Will is acerbic, moody, bossy – but Lou refuses to treat him with kid gloves, and soon his happiness means more to her than she expected. When she learns that Will has shocking plans of his own, she sets out to show him that life is still worth living. Similar to The Light We Lost, Me Before You brings to life two people who couldn’t have less in common in a life-changing romance story about love and loss. 

The Time Traveler’s Wife – Audrey Niffenegger

The Time Traveler’s Wife is the extraordinary love story of Clare and Henry, who met when Clare was six and Henry was thirty-six and were married when Clare was twenty-two and Henry was thirty. 

Impossible but true, because Henry suffers from a rare condition where his genetic clock periodically resets and he finds himself pulled suddenly into his past or future. In the face of this force they can neither prevent nor control, Henry and Clare struggle to lead normal lives is both intensely moving and entirely unforgettable. 

Maybe In Another Life – Taylor Jenkins Reid

At the age of twenty-nine, Hannah Martin still has no idea what she wants to do with her life. On the heels of leaving yet another city, Hannah moves back to her hometown of Los Angeles and takes up residence in her best friend Gabby’s guestroom. She goes out to a bar one night and meets her high school boyfriend, Ethan. Just after midnight, Gabby asks if she’s ready to go. A moment later, Ethan offers to give her a ride if she wants to stay. 

In concurrent storylines, Hannah lives out the effects of each decision stemming from who she decides to leave with. Quickly, these parallel universes develop into radically different stories with large-scale consequences for Hannah. As the two alternate realities run their course, Maybe in Another Life raises questions about fate and truth in a similar manner to All the Light We Lost. 

November 9 – Colleen Hoover

Fallon meets Ben, an aspiring novelist, the day before her scheduled cross-country move. Their untimely attraction leads them to spend Fallon’s last day in L.A. together, and her eventual life becomes the creative inspiration Ben has always sought for his novel. 

Over time and amidst the various relationships and tribulations of their own separate lives, they continue to meet on the same date every year. Until one day, Fallon becomes unsure if Ben has been telling her the complete truth or fabricating a perfect reality for the sake of the ultimate plot twist. Can Ben’s relationship with Fallon – and simultaneously his novel – be considered a love story if it ends in heartbreak? 

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You Me Everything – Catherine Isaac

Jess and her ten-year-old son William set off to spend the summer at Chateau de Roussingol, deep in the rich, sunlit hills of the Dordogne. There, Jess’ ex-boyfriend and William’s father, Adam, runs a beautiful hotel in a restored castle. Jess is bowled over by the beauty, but is in France for a more serious reason: to make Adam fall in love with his own son. 

By turns heart-wrenching and hopeful, similar to The Light We Lost, You Me Everything is a novel about one woman’s fierce determination to grab hold of the family she has and to never let go, and a romantic story as heady as a crisp Sancerre on a summer’s day. 

The Paper Palace – Miranda Cowley Heller

It is a perfect July morning, and Elle, a fifty-year-old happily married mother of three, awakens at “The Paper Palace” – the family summer place which she has visited every summer. Only this morning is different: last night, Elle and her oldest friend Jonas crept out the back door into the darkness and slept together, whilst their spouses chatted away inside. Now, over the next twenty-four hours, Elle will need to choose between the life she has made with her husband, Peter, and the life she always imagined having with Jonas. 

As Miranda Cowley Heller colours in the experiences that have led Elle to this day, we arrive at her ultimate decision with all its complexity. Tender yet devastating like The Light We Lost, The Paper Palace considers the tension between desire and dignity, the legacies of abuse, and the crimes and misdemeanours of families. 

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