The Favorites Books in Order

The Favorites is a looser, newer connected series, but it has a clear personality. These are contemporary romances about people who think they know what their life is supposed to look like, then get shoved into a trip, a house, or a fake relationship that blows the plan apart. The books share a web of friends and family, so characters echo across volumes even when the settings change.

Book one, My Favorite Bad Decision, starts at full altitude. A woman who wants absolutely nothing to do with Miller West ends up climbing Kilimanjaro with him anyway, which is a great setup because there is nowhere to go, nowhere to hide, and no way to keep old resentment tidy. The book leans hard into forced proximity and rivalry, but it also uses the mountain well. Exhaustion strips both characters down fast.

O'Roark clearly enjoys taking away her characters' exits.

My Favorite Lost Cause changes the temperature completely. Maren heads to South Carolina to help her stepbrother Charlie deal with the decaying estate he has inherited, and the series suddenly picks up a gothic thread. There are whispers of an old love story, a house with too much memory in it, and the feeling that the past is nudging the present in unpleasantly intimate directions. It is still a romance, but it has more shadow around the edges.

Then My Favorite Fake Romance swings back toward contemporary sparkle. Easton Walsh, freshly dumped and dreading a wedding, teams up with Elijah Cabot, the man who hurt her once already, for a fake relationship and a road trip. The setup is lighter on paper than the haunted-estate book before it, but the emotional stakes are still serious. Old heartbreak, family pressure, and career trouble keep the story from ever feeling flimsy.

What ties these books together is not one town or one job. It is the way O'Roark writes attraction under pressure. Her couples are usually boxed in by history, by family, or by some truly bad decision that cannot be undone early. The tone shifts from travel romance to gothic-tinged family drama to fake dating, but the through-line stays steady: sharp banter, strong chemistry, and people being forced to admit that the safest version of their life may also be the saddest. If you like interconnected standalones that do not all feel cut from the same template, this series has a lot of range.