Lily Kate Books in Order

If you want hockey rom-com first: Delivery Girl → Boss Girl → Birthday Girl
If you want small-town family chaos: Taco Bout Love → Flower Girl → Jingle Bell Rock → You Are My Sunshine
If you like enemies-to-lovers with food on the line: Hangry
If you want friends-to-lovers or second chances: Awkward. → Dad Bod

Lily Kate writes contemporary romance that leans hard into banter, chemistry, and everyday chaos. Her books are full of people who say the wrong thing at exactly the wrong moment, then have to work out what those feelings really mean.

Heat, heart, and humor are her lane.

She has described herself as someone with a boring day job who writes at night, and that after-hours energy fits the work. The stories feel quick on their feet, busy with jokes, longing, and the kind of romantic mess that starts with one bad decision and gets better from there.

Her debut novel, Delivery Girl, arrived in 2017 and set the tone early. A pizza delivery driver, a pro hockey player, and a wildly awkward first meeting turned into the sort of setup Lily Kate clearly enjoys: high-concept on the surface, surprisingly soft at the center. From there she kept building a catalog of romantic comedies that mix spice with a warm, approachable voice.

She also seems to love putting competent adults into very inconvenient situations.

Books like Boss Girl and Birthday Girl stay in the hockey world, but they focus less on game action and more on reputation, chemistry, and people trying to keep their professional lives from colliding with their personal ones. Hangry turns an elevator, a hamburger, and an old crush into a second-chance romance. Awkward. takes the best-friends-to-lovers setup and gives it a brilliant surgeon who can handle an operating room far better than a date.

Later titles such as Taco Bout Love, Flower Girl, Jingle Bell Rock, and You Are My Sunshine shift into small-town territory. In Fantasie, Maine, Lily Kate gets to play with food trucks, weddings, fake engagements, grumpy sheriffs, florists, snowstorms, and big families who never mind their own business. The setting changes, but the appeal stays the same: sharp dialogue, strong attraction, and characters who are funnier than they mean to be.

Across her books, a few favorites keep returning. Second chances. Brother's best friend trouble. Fake dating. Opposites who argue first and think later. Her heroines are usually protecting something, a restaurant, a career, a hometown role, a dream, and her heroes often look confident long before they know how to be honest. That balance of swagger and vulnerability is a big part of the charm.

She keeps her public bio fairly simple. Family matters to her, she has a soft spot for Christmas movies before Thanksgiving, and she has joked about eating whipped cream straight from the can. She does not give away much more than that, and the novels do most of the talking. That feels about right for her work: playful, a little shameless, and happiest when comfort and chaos show up in the same scene.