Second Chance in New Port Stephen is a big, warm-hearted holiday romance that does a great job with serious issues while keeping the romance bright, sensual, and filled with love and life. Comic Eli Ward is a native of New Port Stephen, Florida, but he’s starting to feel like his hometown – littered with MAGA signs in the front yards – doesn’t love him back. Recently sober, this is the first time he’s been back home since completing his transition while working the comedy circuit and living in California. He was recently fired off of the writing team of a series due to a scandal, but thankful ..read more

I came across this little gem thanks to the recommendation of a GR friend. Trick Up Your Sleeve is the first book in the Swan Reunion Tour series, and is a charming second-chance romance between two former members of a famous rock band who were lovers in the heady days of success and whose break-up ultimately led to everyone going their separate ways. Patrick Reed is doing fine. Fifteen years after he left Swan, he’s comfortable in his relative obscurity and makes a good living as a songwriter and/or song-tweaker/producer for other artists. He’s also a single dad to three tween daughters, age ..read more

When I read Charlotte’s DIK review of Ava Wilder’s début romance novel, How to Fake it in Hollywood last year, I was intrigued enough to want to read it, which I did – in audio – a few months later. I enjoyed it a great deal, so when the author’s next book – set in the world of television – came up for review, I grabbed it straightaway. I’ve always been a sucker for TV shows where the UST between the leads leaps through the screen, so the premise of Will They or Won’t They – a second chance romance between a couple who are the stars of a popular TV show – was right up my alley. Lilah Hunter a ..read more

This is a sweet summer read. I was drawn to the book by its colorful cover and a happy reading memory of Ali Brady’s last book, The Beach Trap. In The Comeback Summer we see two sisters, Hannah and Libby, conquer their fears and find love while working to save the public relations firm they inherited from their grandmother. The sisters’ company, The Freedman Group, has been losing clients and is in desperate need of new ones when Lou, a self-help author and motivational speaker, says she will consider using their company to promote her business if they agree to complete her 12-week Crush Your ..read more

This is a wonderful book. It deftly explores friendship, family, and love. Emily Henry deserves all the love for this heartfelt story–I had an extremely hard time putting it down. Harriet, Sabrina and Cleo have been friends since they were college roommates their freshmen year. They have been coming to Sabrina’s family cottage in Maine for getaways for the last ten years and Sabrina has invited them back one last time before the place is sold. (Sabrina is a Manhattan heiress whose father’s sixth wife wants the cottage sold.) There’s another reason Sabrina has invited them all–she and her part ..read more

I loved Patel’s debut The Trouble With Hating You and picked up First Love, Take Two expecting the same wonderful reading experience. Unfortunately, 33% of the way in, I gave up. I just couldn’t stand another moment. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Here is the book’s summary: On the verge of realizing her dream of being a doctor, Preeti Patel should be ecstatic. But between the stress of her residency, trying to find a job, and managing her traditional, no-boundaries family, Preeti’s anxiety is through the roof. Relationships and love aren’t even an option. Fortunately, Preeti’s finally fou ..read more

Marguerite Kaye consistently produces well-written, well-researched historical romances featuring characters and situations that are often quite different to those found in most other books in the genre. She’s as likely to write about non-aristocratic characters as otherwise, and although His Runaway Marchioness Returns does feature a titled hero, his situation in life – coming into a title at thirty-four as a self-made man – and his progressive views align him far more closely with the ranks of the new entrepreneurs and industrialists than with the aristocracy. Oliver Turner married Lilian G ..read more

It’s pretty much impossible for me to not love Scarlett Peckham. Her original plots and strong characters are my catnip, my raison d’être as a romance reader. Thus, The Portrait of a Duchess pleased me to no end. There are a few hinky spots here, but it’s still a great read. Cornelia Ludgate is an artist whose work reaches levels of infamy after she paints her friends, the self-named The Society of Sirens – Seraphina Arden (radical libertine writer and heroine of The Rakess), Lady Elinor Bell (thinker and society matron) and Thaïs Magdalene (courtesan) in the nude. Her entire exhibit is a cha ..read more

It seems like I’ve been waiting forever for a book like Tia Williams’ Seven Days In June. Incredibly well-written, with three dimensional, fantastic characters set in a love story that left me breathless at times, this book will stick with me for a very long while. Eva Mercy, formerly Genevieve Mercier, has a lot on her plate. The single mother of a firecracker of a daughter, she’s gained modest fame and success as a writer, penning the uber-popular vampire/witch erotica series, Cursed, all while struggling with the debilitating migraines she’s suffered her entire life. She copes with her dis ..read more

On Saoirse Island, a rain soaked isle in the Pacific Northwest, a murmuration of starlings portends death and the leaves on the trees may burst into color all at once. Here, magic is as real as greed and first love can bind two souls together forever. Emery Blackwood and August Salt were born on the island thirty-two years ago. August fled Saoirse fourteen years ago after being accused of murdering Lily Morgan, Emery’s best friend. Now, August is back and the mystery of what happened that long ago night and the secrets the town has hidden have returned as well. Adrienne Young’s Spells for Fo ..read more