McAlister takes readers on a reality show romp in her soapy third Marry Me, Juliet romance (after Can I Steal You for a Second?). Best friends Murray O’Connell and Lily Ong, both producers on a Bachelor-esque dating show, have orchestrated some of reality TV’s most memorable moments and brought together its best loved couples. But after Lily’s husband, Jeff, dies, she becomes hell-bent on blowing up her life, destroying both her reputation and her career by going on the show herself and playing the part of villain. As Lily schemes to shake things up among the contestants, Murray faces his own complicated feelings for Lily and how they play into the reality show story arc unfolding in front of them. McAlister makes room for some truly fraught emotional moments, particularly as Lily struggles with her longtime attraction to Murray, which predates her marriage and complicates her grieving process. The plot strikes a fine balance between showing how the sausage is made on reality TV and sensitively addressing love and loss. The central friends-to-lovers romance is complicated and sometimes tortured but always believable. This is an easy pick for the beach bag. (June)

Reviewed on 05/24/2024 | Details & Permalink

Frame sparkles in her third Fox Family romance (after The Fox and the Rebound). Rebel Records music talent scout Mindy Fox has it all. But when her country superstar boyfriend Blake Bonham decides to go back to his estranged wife, the industry drops Mindy like a hot potato. Blacklisted from the biz, Mindy decides to start her own label and signs up-and-coming singer-songwriter Luke Fletcher, who gave up his career as a physician to make a go of his music. To save money, they head to the campground run by Mindy’s family to record. There, Mindy is forced to deal with a festering wound involving her younger sister, Taylor. Despite Luke’s anxiety about his career change and Mindy’s familial friction, the pair are immediately attracted to each other—but Frame makes readers wait for the romantic pay off, skillfully ratcheting up the sexual tension until it boils over. Frame sensitively handles a number of issues in the characters’ backstories, including suicide and alcohol abuse, and leavens the darker moments with sweetness and laughter. This solid contemporary will have wide appeal. (Self-published)

Reviewed on 05/24/2024 | Details & Permalink

Debut author Sweeney sparkles in this emotionally nuanced contemporary. After leaving Lockett Prairie, Tex., for college halfway across the state, Hazel Elliot swears she’s done with her hometown—and her divorced parents’ drama—entirely. But then her always distant, father announces he’s getting married again. To make her angsty road trip home even more uncomfortable, Ash Campbell, the guy who’d been her sort-of nemesis in high school, needs a ride back to Lockett Prairie as well. After the antagonistic pair get stranded in a snowstorm, they form a tentative alliance— which quickly turns to love. When they arrive back in Lockett Prairie, Hazel feels like an outsider among her father’s fiancée and her young children, who receive all the attention that Hazel never did growing up. Determined to make the best of it, she puts on a brave face. But when family tensions boil over, Hazel runs fast and far. Will Ash be able to catch her? Sweeney skillfully portrays the psyche of a heroine who grew up feeling that no one wanted her and a hero trying to bear all his family’s burdens in the face of his father’s multiple sclerosis. Add in a fun road trip and some deliciously dirty love scenes, and Sweeney’s stirring romance impresses. (July)

Reviewed on 05/24/2024 | Details & Permalink

The sparkling second Victorian romance in bestseller Guhrke’s Scandal at the Savoy series (after Bookshop Cinderella) follows a glamorous young widow turned savvy businesswoman. After Lady Delia Stratham’s third husband died, she was severely depressed. Then an acquaintance offered her a job helping to manage the Savoy, an upscale London hotel. Though some members of society were shocked, the position has given Delia’s life new purpose. So she’s not exactly welcoming when the hotel’s board sends Simon Hayden, Lord Calderon, to improve efficiency and secretly conduct an investigation into the potential misappropriation of funds. Delia finds Calderon attractive but cold while he assumes she may be involved in the embezzlement. Inevitably, their antagonism turns into a passion that surprises them both, but Calderon fears Delia will reject him once she learns his real purpose for auditing the hotel, especially if she loses the job she loves. Guhrke makes the historical setting more than mere set dressing, basing the Savoy’s business troubles on a real incident. With appealing protagonists and some convincingly steamy scenes, this will appeal to fans of Julia Quinn and Amanda Quick. Agent: Kevan Lyon, Marsal Lyon Literary. (June)

Reviewed on 05/17/2024 | Details & Permalink

Pierce’s top-notch debut puts a dishy spin on the second-chance romance and forced proximity tropes. Wedding dress designer Andie Dresser is on the precipice of a career breakthrough when a client cancels an important order. She’d been banking on using that money to fund her debut show at Atlanta Fashion Week, and now she must scramble for cash. Then she learns that First Look at Forever, a reality show in which “perfect strangers marry, then they have eight weeks together to decide: stay together or walk away,” is filming locally and offers contestants $100,000 for their trouble if they choose to divorce at the end of the season. She signs up—only to find globe-trotting architect Kit Watson, the man who broke her heart in college, waiting for her at the altar. Kit is just as gobsmacked to see Andie. Will their televised marriage reignite their old spark? Pierce gets readers invested in her characters from the first page, and the romantic drama reads like an addictive season of reality TV—with a bonus peak behind the scenes. This will be catnip for romance fans. (July)

Reviewed on 05/17/2024 | Details & Permalink

Young’s exuberant debut novel (after The Little Library Cookbook) follows the bumbling erotic adventures of a newly out lesbian. After coming out at 30, nonprofit worker Bette fell into an all-consuming relationship with artist Mei. She believes they’re in it for the long haul and is blindsided when Mei suggests they take a three-month break for Bette to explore sex with other women. Bette hates this plan, but she’s fundamentally a people pleaser so she agrees to try it. Encouraged by her found family of friends, she signs up for a dating app and soon makes brunch plans with sexy and sensitive PhD candidate Ruth, hoping for a casual hookup. Ruth, however, is quick to point out that brunch doesn’t exactly send a no-strings-attached message. Noting that Bette is hopeless at this, she agrees to be a queer shoulder to lean on as Bette undergoes her “sex odyssey.” Hilarity, secondhand embarrassment, and some sensual love scenes follow—and along the way, Bette starts to question who the right woman for her really is. It’s good fun, especially for the first two thirds, which maintain an impressive buoyancy despite Bette’s occasionally oppressive neuroses. Unfortunately, the ending, while swooningly romantic, doesn’t offer the sense of closure that readers will hope for, leaving several subplots unresolved. Still, the path there is such a romp that readers will barely mind. (June)

Reviewed on 05/17/2024 | Details & Permalink

Stein’s delicious third Sex, Lies, & Forbidden Desires Regency romance (following Submitting to the Widow) pairs a saucy chef with one of high society’s most charming bachelors. Nathaniel Charpentier, the son of a lady’s maid, escaped the clutches of his violent, possessive master, Lord Banffshire, at age 16. Now, 10 years later, he’s the famed chef of London’s exclusive hedonist Club Ambrosios. The inspiration for his erotic cuisine comes from a set of pages he obtained from an erotica purveyor written by one “CB.” This is Lionel Carrington-Bowles, a well-to-do gentleman who’s been at wit’s end ever since he lost the journal in which he recorded his scandalous gay affairs. Lionel is desperate to get his journal pages back before they’re used against him, a quest that leads him straight to Nathaniel. The men are instantly struck by mutual desire. Haunted by their pasts and with everything to lose, the two must navigate society, their secrets, and their love. The sensual, often food-themed sex scenes are juicy and delectable in more ways than one. While Lionel makes a somewhat passive protagonist, the looming threat of exposure and the heinous Lord Banffshire’s return to London up the stakes, and a quirky supporting cast adds charm. Stein’s fans are sure to relish this steamy historical. (Self-published)

Reviewed on 05/17/2024 | Details & Permalink

Bestseller James (the Would-Be Wallflowers series) introduces her Accidental Brides series with this middling Regency romance. Victoria “Torie” Sutton, a dyslexic artist, suspects that her older sister Leonora and Leonora’s handsome fiancé, Viscount Kelbourne, are not truly in love, but she tries to dampen her own attraction to Kelbourne by focusing on his bad temper rather than his impressive physique. For her part, Torie is holding out for a love match, but finding an eligible suitor proves difficult when her inconsiderate father and sister have spread the fact that she’s illiterate throughout London society. After Kelbourne unexpectedly becomes the guardian of his late sister’s young twins, Leonora elopes with someone else, having not signed up to play mother. Kelbourne, whose affection has shifted from Leonora to Torie anyway, decides she’ll make a suitable replacement bride—if he and the meddlesome twins can convince her to say yes. Though plucky social outcast Torie is an admirable heroine, grumpy Kelbourne feels rather one-note and the obstacles keeping them apart are drawn out and repetitive. This is far from James’s best. Agent: Kim Witherspoon, InkWell Management. (July)

Reviewed on 05/17/2024 | Details & Permalink

An attorney faces the loss of the love of her life in Skye’s heart-wrenching latest (after The Hundred Loves of Juliet). Claire Walker is on track to make partner at her New York law firm when she meets Spanish artist Matías de León at a gallery opening. They fall hard for each other, but 11 months into their relationship, tragedy strikes when Claire bails on their trip to Spain and Matías goes without her, ending up in a coma following a speedboat accident. Though she’s in the middle of finalizing a merger that would cement her promotion, Claire leaves New York for Madrid to be at Matías’s bedside. At her hotel, however, she sees what she first believes is Matías’s ghost and worries she’s too late. But the comatose Matías is still alive; this is the astral projection of his soul. To reunite it with his body, she must remind him of his love for her—even though, in this form, he has no idea who she is. Skye has such a light touch with the supernatural elements that even skeptical readers will embrace the moving tale of Claire trying to woo back her soulmate. The flawed but memorable characters resonate and their love rings true. Readers won’t want to put this down. Agent: Thao Le, Sandra Dijkstra Literary. (July)

Reviewed on 05/17/2024 | Details & Permalink

A grieving woman finds love in this cozy small-town romance from Yardley (Role Playing). Cookbook ghostwriter Willa Lieu-Endicott is still picking up the pieces after her husband’s recent death when she inherits her great-aunt’s house in Marre Island, Wash. It seems like a good place for a fresh start, but adjusting to single life is challenging. When her handsome neighbor Hudson Clark comes over looking for his lost dog one stormy night, Willa is surprised to feel a spark. Handyman Hudson, a divorced father of adult twins, has long struggled with insecurities about his townie status, having never left the island. Willa hires him to restore her aunt’s house, and Hudson ends up also helping her develop recipes for her new assignment: writing a sex-themed cookbook for a hunky influencer. With each day spent together, it becomes increasingly impossible to deny their attraction, but to move forward with their reationship they must first let go of the past. Yardley’s characters are complex and dynamic, making it easy to root for Willa and Hudson to take the leap of faith toward love. Fans of slow-burn romances and the lovers from different worlds trope will find plenty to enjoy. Agent: Tricia Skinner, Fuse Literary. (July)

Reviewed on 05/17/2024 | Details & Permalink