Ooh, theres a tough one. There's a reason she's managed to collect a pile of Hugo's and Nebula's. My personal favorites range among Barrayar, Memory, Komarr, and A Civil Campaign. A Civil Campaign in particular has romance in play. It's subtitled and "a comedy of biology and manners" and is dedicated to Georgette Heyer. It is not a good place to start reading the series. Outside the Vorkosigan series I love Curse of Chalion and Paladin of Souls. Looking at that list of titles the only one that doesn't have romantic aspect to it is Memory.
If your looking for a place to dip into Bujold Cordelia's Honor would be a classic place to start. It contains the first book in the Vorkosigan series as well as the the next book in the internal chronology Barrayar Note the use of internal chronology they weren't published back to back. Barrayar is actually a much better book (not to dis Shards of Honor, but she'd matured as writer). Borders of Infinity is also a reasonable place to start, it contains three novellas. Mountains of Mourning (which is one of the Hugo and Nebula winning titles, and can be found for free in Baen's free library), Labyrinth, and the title story Borders of Infinity.
If your more in the mood for Fantasy than SF the Sharing Knife or Chalion books are all good. You can definitely get romance, action, and imaginative settings whichever series you start with. Exact balance will vary from book to book.
posted 1 year ago. ( reply )