Books Like Yours Truly by Abby Jimenez — 10 Emotional MF Hospital Workplace Enemies Reads (2026)

Yours Truly is the book that made half of BookTok cry over a kidney donation. Briana is a surgeon going through a divorce, up for a promotion, and thoroughly unimpressed by the new guy competing for it. Jacob is the new guy — brilliant, socially anxious, and hopeless at first impressions. Then the letters start. What Abby Jimenez does better than almost anyone is stack a grumpy workplace rivalry on top of real, heavy stuff (illness, divorce, anxiety) and still make the book feel like a warm bath. When it ends, you want that exact mix again: enemies who slowly aren’t, a hospital or office that forces them together, humor that coexists with grief, and a romance that earns its ending.
That mix is findable. Below are ten books that scratch it — five traditionally published picks that sit on the same shelf as Jimenez, and five indie titles from our own catalog that take the workplace tension and emotional weight and crank the heat well past what trad publishing allows. The indie five are all free to read with Kindle Unlimited.
What Actually Makes a Good Yours Truly Readalike
Plenty of lists will hand you any hospital romance and call it a day. The books that genuinely hit the same nerve share three things. First, the rivalry has stakes — a promotion, a reputation, a career — so the shift from enemies to allies costs something. Second, at least one lead is carrying real grief or anxiety under the professional armor, and falling in love means letting someone see it. Third, the tone can hold both: Jimenez books make you laugh on one page and wreck you on the next, and a good readalike doesn’t pick just one lane. Every book below clears at least two of the three.
5 Trad-Pub Books Like Yours Truly
1. Yours Truly — Abby Jimenez
Start here if you somehow haven’t. Two surgeons, one promotion, a string of anonymous letters, and a kidney donation subplot that should feel like too much and instead feels like the whole point. Jacob might be the most lovable anxious hero in contemporary romance — the man communicates by letter because talking is a minefield, and it works. Read it, then come back for the rest of the list.
2. Just for the Summer — Abby Jimenez
The obvious next stop. Justin and Emma both have a weird curse: every person they date finds their soulmate in the next relationship. So they date each other to break it, which is exactly the kind of premise that sounds like a rom-com and then quietly becomes a book about family damage and choosing your own life. Emma’s a traveling nurse, so you keep the medical-world flavor, and the group-chat banter is peak Jimenez. If Yours Truly was your first of hers, this one confirms she’s an auto-buy. Get Just for the Summer on Amazon →
3. Part of Your World — Abby Jimenez
This is where the Yours Truly universe starts — Briana first shows up here as a side character. Alexis is an ER doctor from a hospital dynasty; Daniel is a small-town carpenter and B&B owner ten years younger than her. It’s the age-gap, class-gap, city-country version of the Jimenez formula, and the small town of Wakan is the coziest setting she’s written. Read it before or after Yours Truly — either order works, but reading both makes each one richer. Get Part of Your World on Amazon →
4. The Love Hypothesis — Ali Hazelwood
Swap the hospital for a Stanford biology lab and you get the same core engine: a fake relationship between a junior woman and a senior man with a fearsome professional reputation, where the fake part erodes exactly as fast as you want it to. Adam Carlsen is grumpier than Jacob and Olive is more chaotic than Briana, but the workplace-stakes-plus-slow-thaw dynamic is the same species. Also features one of the most infamous single scenes in modern romance, if you know you know. Get The Love Hypothesis on Amazon →
5. It Happened One Summer — Tessa Bailey
Less workplace, more emotional-armor. Piper is a Hollywood party girl exiled to a tiny Washington fishing town; Brendan is the widowed sea captain who thinks she’s ridiculous. Bailey writes grumps falling first better than anyone, and Brendan’s gruff devotion lands in the same place Jacob’s letters do — a man who decided, quietly and completely, and then waited. Higher heat than Jimenez, same big feelings. Get It Happened One Summer on Amazon →

5 Indie KU Picks That Turn Up the Heat
Jimenez keeps her love scenes warm but brief; the emotional payoff carries the book. If you want the same workplace tension and emotional weight with the bedroom door wide open, that’s what our catalog is for. Five picks below across four pen names — sapphic, MM, and MF — all free with Kindle Unlimited, all with a free first chapter on this site.

6. She Wore the White Coat — Aurora North (FF Medical)
The most direct swap on this list: keep the hospital, keep the professional tension, make it sapphic and make it scorching. Aurora North is our FF specialist, and this one runs on the exact fuel Yours Truly does — two women whose jobs keep throwing them together and whose composure doesn’t survive it. If Briana had been paired against a woman in that promotion fight, you’d be reading this book. Browse Aurora North’s catalog →

7. Fake Wife, Real Heat — Aurora North (FF Fake Marriage)
Came for the fake-relationship thread? This is the full-strength version. A marriage of convenience between two women who have very good reasons to keep it professional and absolutely fail to. The fun of fake dating has always been watching the pretense rot from the inside, and this one lets the rot go places Jimenez never would on the page. Browse Aurora North’s catalog →

8. Straight Until Him — Jace Wilder (MM Bi-Awakening)
The divorce-recovery thread of Yours Truly, from the other side. Jake is a freshly divorced dad with a garbage bag of clothes and no plan; the younger coworker who offers him a spare room has more patience than Jake has defenses. What starts as a landing pad becomes the thing his whole marriage was built to avoid. Jace Wilder writes MM with real emotional spine under the heat — and there is a lot of heat. Browse Jace Wilder’s catalog →

9. Office Daddy, Overtime Brat — Isla Wilde (MF Workplace)
If the part of Yours Truly you loved was two professionals pretending the tension between their desks is strictly business, Isla Wilde has you. An MF office romance with a serious age gap, a power dynamic that’s the whole point, and no interest whatsoever in fading to black. This is the pick for readers who finish a Jimenez and immediately go looking for something filthier to chase it with. Browse Isla Wilde’s catalog →

10. Burn for Me — Cassie Hart (MF Firefighter, Emotional)
The grief thread. A widowed firefighter raising his daughter alone, a writer who moves in next door, and a small town watching two people circle something neither will name first. This is the closest our catalog comes to the Jimenez register — humor and hurt in the same chapter, a slow build, a payoff that lands emotionally as much as physically. Bring tissues and then don’t read chapter nineteen in public. Meet Cassie Hart and our other authors →

FAQ
What should I read after Yours Truly?
Inside Jimenez’s catalog: Part of Your World (same hospital universe, and where Briana first appears) or Just for the Summer (the newest in the connected world). Outside it: The Love Hypothesis for the fake-relationship workplace energy, It Happened One Summer for the grump-falls-first energy. On Kindle Unlimited: She Wore the White Coat for the hospital setting, Burn for Me for the emotional register.
Is Yours Truly on Kindle Unlimited?
No — Jimenez publishes through Forever/Hachette, and her books are sold at standard trad-pub pricing rather than included in KU. The five indie picks above are all in Kindle Unlimited, which is the cheapest way to binge this trope stack.
Do I need to read Part of Your World first?
No. Yours Truly stands alone completely. But Part of Your World introduces the hospital and its people, so reading it first makes Briana’s world feel lived-in — and you’ll want to read it eventually anyway.
How spicy is Yours Truly?
Mild to moderate — roughly a 2 out of 5. The love scenes exist but the book’s power is emotional. If you want the same feelings with the heat turned all the way up, that’s exactly the gap the five KU picks above are built to fill.
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