Where To Read Free Romance Adults Books Online Legally?

Question

Anyone else hate endless library waitlists for new steamy romance releases? I need somewhere to binge spicy books that's not a sketchy pirate site.

Samuel · Answer

For legal free adult romance, look for online repositories like Scribd and Wattpad, which offer large collections of member-submitted work in dedicated ‘adult’ sections. Much fiction is also available for free through your local library, issued digitally through their apps using your library card number. For example, ‘Forbidden Desires: A collection of sinful hot stories’ was issued to me through my local library service. It’s a compendium of very short, high-heat stories of contemporary, realistic fiction, the plot of each scenario revolving around the secret office affair or the public, and therefore very risk-laden, encounter. Easy peasy, straight-forward free romance stories.

Hudson · Answer

For free adult romance books, you can look to Smashwords and sign up for a free book by an author who has chosen to give it to them. There are also plenty of original free romance stories at fanfiction sites like Archive of Our Own (AO3), many of which are tagged as ‘free to read’. Occasionally, a publisher such as Harlequin will put free chapters or even a whole book online – just check the site clearly states that it is free and legal to read there and not to support piracy by downloading from elsewhere.

CJ Agunos Raymundo · Answer

And then there is the question of what we mean by “legally” free. A book may be free on Amazon.com but not on Amazon.co.uk, for example. While using a Virtual Private Network (VPN) to pretend to be in a different country where a free book is available is not piracy per se, it is against the terms of service of many e-book retailers. It is not really in the spirit of the free book being promoted by an author either.

Instead, readers can build their free library using the many legal alternatives. They can use global library cards like the Brooklyn Public Library’s out-of-state option for a fee to access the digital library of a different region. This allows readers to build their free library above board, rather than rely on gerry mandering geolocks to seek out freebies for them.

Pursuing free books should be above board and not slippery. All of these perfectly legal options exist for building a free library: paid library cards for different states that give access to their e-book collections (like the Brooklyn Public Library’s out-of-state option), retailer promotions, authors giving away their books. There are plenty of ways to build a free library without resorting to circumventing geolocks in search of something for nothing.

Sabrina Hewson · Answer

Another way to get audiobooks for cheap is to use Hoopla audiobooks if you have a library card. Most titles on Hoopla don’t have wait lists and you can get a bunch of “borrows” per month. So, most of the bigger titles in romance are available on Hoopla to stream or download. It’s surprisingly good for major published titles.

Scribd is also a great resource for free ebooks. They offer a free trial, and then it’s a subscription after that, but it’s a lot like Netflix in that you pay for the month and can read as many books as you want. In fact, it can often feel like you’re reading for free if you’re a fast reader. Some authors will even offer up their backlist titles for free during holidays or their book birthday.

Many authors will list their backlist titles for free on their website during holidays or their book birthday for example. You can also follow your favorite authors on social media as well as BookBub. BookBub is a service that emails out daily deals and free ebooks in your preferred genre. I get a huge list of free and discounted romance ebooks every day from BookBub and they have curated all of these deals from the major retailers, so you don’t have to go to Amazon to look for deals.

Lester York · Answer

A different perspective: while the term ‘free’ might suggest there is no cost involved, in some cases there are. I have come across some ‘totally free ebook sites’ that are packed full of ads. I wouldn’t mind but from what I have read they are hosting works that have been published without the necessary licenses, thus are considered to be published as piracy. However, there are ways to access legal free e-books – just be aware that it will likely require you to give up something such as time, attention or data.

On the other hand, if you're willing to spend a little money to read books, there are great options out there, such as Kindle Unlimited. It costs a flat fee per month to read as many romance books as you like from their huge library of titles. As long as you read more than two books a month, it's cheaper than buying individual books.

While waiting for a book to become available from your library to be downloaded to your e-reader can take some time, don’t forget there are many other sources of completely free e-books as well as ‘free’ if you want to wait a bit to pay. To find your next completely free e-book, download and open two or three library e-book apps. Follow big-name and indie authors on Twitter and Instagram, because they love to post about a flash sale of their ebook where it can be purchased for free even if only for a short time. Goodreads has many groups of people who only read and discuss free romance e-books and they post many, many free e-books there too. The hunt for your next completely free e-book can become almost a hobby in itself.

Xavier · Answer

As a huge romance novel fan I love discovering free books and The Free bibliophile post some great free legal options on romance books. BookBub and Freebooksy list lots of free e-books by lesser known authors. Sometimes Scribd runs free trials for their entire library of books which includes adult romance titles and right now the University of Texas at Arlington is offering free access to their digital archives of classic and up to date romance titles so I thought I’d share. Be sure to check the licensing terms and conditions to make sure you are using them within the free option terms and conditions and are not breaking any law.

ÛñRèáLītY · Answer

I usually read sub-genres in deep. For example, I might search for mountain man romances or hockey romances (free ebook) on Google. Many romance blogs put together round-up type of posts like 10 Free Hockey Romance Books to Read Today. Often the people who put together these posts read the books and recommend them.

These lists are goldmines of the blogger having read most of the books (even if they didn’t read them all) and therefore having a sense of what is good for their readers. In my search for free romance e-books I have found many, many great books and even discovered a few sub-genres that I really love.

These sites are funded by ads and affiliate links, so even though you click through to download a free book, for a few cents the blogger got to provide you with a useful service and another thing to read. It feels a lot more human than a generic algorithm-generated list of free books.

Owen · Answer

I spent many hours on the internet looking for legal access to romance novels. There are many resources, like Project Gutenberg with classics like “Pride and Prejudice” and “Jane Eyre” for free because they are in the public domain. Websites like ManyBooks and Open Library also have a large selection of romance novels, some of them for free and others that you can borrow for free.

Independent authors, often posting on Wattpad or Inkitt, can be wonderful sources of material for adult readers interested in romance. While some works may not yet be posted for free, many do offer their fiction for readers to peruse for free while later able to support their authors or buy later works. Some even give away their fiction on their own websites, by email, or through newsletters. Be sure to check the copyright status of such works, and to go through approved channels of the site where they were found to avoid obtaining them by pirate means.

Hazel · Answer

Many people don't realize that they can get access to a huge digital library through their local library. Apps such as Libby and Hoopla allow you to borrow e-books and audiobooks for free with your library card. Google Books has a large collection of free classic romance novels, most of which are in the public domain. If you are looking for something a little more steamy, many free adult romance e-books are available for free through Amazon Kindle Store, often written by new authors trying to get readers to buy her other books.

Mian Mian · Answer

The stereotype that free indie books are poorly edited is one that is slowly starting to fade. Many free indie books are actually well written and a big step up from where the author started. In fact, some of the most popular current romance series started life as a free or cheap first book written by an author who was self published. The quality of indie written books has increased dramatically in recent years as the market has become more competitive.

Yes, most of the free Kindle books are awful, but not all of them. If you write in a genre then read reviews of other free books by indie authors in that same genre. Also, read the start of samples of books by authors in that same genre who are not indie. There are some very good indie authors writing romance and many of them started by publishing their first book for free (as I did).

If you look for indie fiction in free Kindle Books then look to the BookTubers and blog reviewing in your favorite romance sub-genre. They usually point out the good free and indie fiction and you can then download the first book for free, as recommended by that reviewer. It increases your hit rate.

LaTishia · Answer

Read free samples: There are many free ebooks available in samples through major ebook stores, usually several chapters at the beginning of the book. While it is not the whole story, you can usually read for an afternoon or so, until you become hooked on the book and decide to buy it, or decide on other books by the same author.

You won’t get the whole story but you can get a lot of reading done for free, enough for an afternoon of good reading. It helps you make a more informed decision on whether or not to spend money on a book or place a hold on it at the library. And as long as there are books at the beginning of a series that authors are giving away for free, you can read the beginning of several series for free as well.

I consider this a strategic (as opposed to completist) approach to reading for free. Additionally, many older romance novels are now out of print and have been re-released by their authors as free ebooks to promote their current work. Check out an author’s blog for some of these free reads.

Maxell Marte Morrobel · Answer

Within the romance novels field I currently specialize in translated novels originally published in other languages (Korean webnovels, Japanese light novels, Chinese danmei novels). Getting hold of a free legal copy of such a novel is not as easy as it is with English language novels.

Most webnovels are serialized, and even completed ones are rarely translated and made available for free, especially when they are official translations. (Exceptions are made when there is an anime adaptation for example.) Once more, your best bet for accessing free translated romance would be your local library, as some systems have started adding titles from platforms such as OverDrive’s Global Chinese collection, or even partner with comic and app services that offer translated webnovels.

Demand for translated novels is up in recent years, but as of now there is still not as much access as there is to English-language romance novels. Free samples of novels from official aggregator sites for translated novels are typically how you can look at free samples of a specific sub-genre before you buy it.

Where To Read Free Romance Adults Books Online Legally?

12 Answers

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