Great Sources for Clean Romance and Fantasy Fiction
For readers of clean fiction, finding new material you feel safe letting your kids read (or that you would enjoy yourself) can be frustrating and time-consuming. While a certain amount of information can be gleaned from book descriptions, genres, or reviews, nearly every reader who prefers clean fiction has had the unpleasant surprise of a bit more steam inside the pages than they were expecting.
I’ve been there, my friend. So today, I’m rounding up a list of resources to help you (and me!) find more clean, no-spice romance and fantasy reads for your TBR list.
(While some of the resources below may address books for kids, this list is focusing on resources to help you find clean books for teens and adults.)
Onward!
Book Review Sites & Book Bloggers
There are plenty of sites dedicated to promoting clean fiction, whether they call themselves book bloggers, book reviewers, or book magazines. They often work for free, get commissions from people using their affiliate links to go to the book purchase page on a website like Amazon, or, sometimes, they are paid to write reviews by the authors. Here are a few you might find useful.
(Many of these also have active social media presences, if you prefer those platforms. Find their links on their sites.)
Lorehaven Library
Lorehaven is a Christian speculative fiction review site dedicated to promoting “fantastical stories for God’s glory.” Besides the free reviews they write, they have a website, newsletter, blog, and podcast (Fantastical Truth). Recently, they relaunched the Lorehaven Library, an ever-growing compendium of speculative fiction titles written by Christian authors. The titles may not be overtly Christian in content, but they are clean and adhere to a Christian worldview.
Readers can leave reviews for books as comments (though, since this is a newer resource, there aren’t many of those yet). But since Lorehaven also regularly reviews books, you can sometimes find quite in-depth reviews for titles there (like the one they wrote for my book, The Undine’s Tear).
Note: They are currently looking for reviewers. If this kind of thing interests you, contact them through their website.
Explore the Lorehaven Library.
Clean Fiction Magazine
Operated by Amy Lynn McConahy, this comprehensive site features a range of genres and has a lot going on. Definitely worth checking out!
Explore the Clean Fiction Magazine site.
Rated Reads
This site covers a wide variety of clean, wholesome, family-friendly books. If you’re looking for clean but not necessarily Christian reads, this would be a great resource.
Book Bloggers
There are hundreds (or thousands?) of people reading and reviewing books online… and some of them are even doing it for a living. (Who knew that “book blogger” would become a career?) Building from a passion for books and reading, many book bloggers have created extensive resources and reviews about books they have personally read.
Using your favourite search engine is a great way to find these folks. Here are a few sites dedicated to reviewing clean fiction to get you started. (You can often find these same people on Instagram. I’ll talk more about the Bookstagram community below.)
Library of Clean Reads - Run by author, reviewer, and blogger Laura Fabiani. Has an extensive catalogue.
Books for Christian Girls - Run by Lindsey, who started the blog (and her BookTube channel) as a teen, and has kept it up.
More Than a Review - Run by Donna, this site has a fantastic search engine to find reviews of books that flag content clean fiction readers may want to know about.
Compass Book Ratings - An extensive site reviewing clean fiction in a wide variety of genres, with ratings to allow you to make your own content choices, run by Cindy M.
Good Clean Reads - Home of Kenna Rose’s book reviews.
Fruitful Reader - Kassidy Griffin reviews clean and Christian books across a wide variety of genres. (And her site is gorgeous!)
Clean Fiction Book Reviews - Run by Leigh deLozier, it includes reviews of clean fiction for middle grade, young adult, and adult readers across a wide variety of genres, including fantasy and romance.
Animata Coote - This Jamaican author also has a fantastic section of clean and Christian book reviews.
BookTubers
Readers love talking about books, and what better place to share the love than YouTube? There are a ton of BookTubers sharing great reviews on the app. Here’s a couple to get you started.
Oceana GottaReadEmAll - Romance, Christian, and Contemporary fiction reviews.
OldeAmericanSpirit - “Your clean fiction book buddy.” Clean romance, Christian fiction, classics, and middle grade book reviews and recommendations.
BookLoverAmanda - Amanda reads and reviews clean, Christian fiction and nonfiction across a wide variety of genres.
Reader Social Sites
Social reading sites like Goodreads, Fable, and more have ways to suss out clean books, even if that’s not all the site contains. Between genre tags, reader-made lists, book clubs, reader groups, and more, you can easily find roundups of great clean reads, as well as what other readers thought of them.
Do searches for clean romance, clean fantasy, etc. You could even do this from a search engine like Google for a more comprehensive internet-wide overview. Here are few quick links to get you started.
Goodreads
Fable
I’m just learning about the Fable app, but this is a social reader app where you can find a whole lot of online book clubs. I think your best bet is to go to their “Join a Club” page and search for clean books, clean romance, or clean fantasy, and start exploring from there. There’s a lot to choose from!
Note that while their website exists, you’ll need to sign up on the app. Learn more about Fable.
Amazon Book Clubs
Amazon launched their book clubs feature several years ago. Like Fable, there is a lot to choose from for clean fiction clubs. Search for clean reads, clean fantasy, and clean romance and explore for a club that looks like a good fit, then request to join!
Learn more about Amazon Book Clubs, or start exploring Amazon Book Clubs.
Social Media
I’ve mentioned YouTube already, but other sites have thriving communities dedicated to clean and no-spice reads. Here are some ways to find them.
The Bookstagram community is a thriving ecosystem or readers, reviewers, and authors. Search for and follow the hashtags #cleanbooks, #cleanreads, #cleanromance, and #cleanfantasy to get you started on the spice-free corner of Bookstagram.
Here are a few creators to get you started:
Tasha @the_clean_read_book_club
Jennifer Whalen @sweet.cleanreads
Eileen @eileens_bookish_corner
And, of course, there are tons of authors writing clean books on the platform that regularly recommend books like theirs. That’s why those hashtags are your friends.
Did you know hashtags work on Facebook, too? Use those same hashtags from Instagram to search the platform for content you want to see. There are also plenty of groups dedicated just to clean books. Search the Groups section for “clean reads” to start exploring!
Not really social media, I know. But a fantastic resource to find clean books to read.
Bookstore Categories
Clean and Wholesome fiction is growing in popularity by the day. Because of that, many book retailers have created categories dedicated to this sub-genre (usually included beneath Romance). You can start exploring through the links below.
Amazon
Amazon.ca Clean and Wholesome Bestsellers List
Amazon.com Clean and Wholesome Bestsellers List
Or just go down the genre link tree in their Books and Kindle sections to find everything in the category.
Please also check your local bookseller or favourite store for their Clean & Wholesome books category. (Support local when you can, right?)
If you’re looking for some clean romance and fantasy books to read today, please check out my clean and sweet contemporary small town Peace Country Romance series or my young adult epic historical mermaid fantasy Rise of the Grigori series. As a believer in full transparency, I've included detailed ratings for the book’s contents on all book pages.
I hope this post gave you some great ideas for new places to find books you’ll love. Were there any new-to-you creators or resources on this list that you can’t wait to check out? Let me know in the comments!
Happy reading!
