gggg
Author: Sarah MacLean
Title: These Summer Storms
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Date Published: 07/08/2025
Format: physical book
My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Alice isn't like the other Storm siblings. While the rest stayed to battle for their parents' approval, attention, and untold billions, she left, building her own life beyond the family’s name and influence. Nothing could induce her to come back, except the shocking death of her larger-than-life father. Now back on the family’s private island off the Rhode Island coast, she plans to keep her head down, pay the last of her respects, and leave the minute the funeral is over.
Unfortunately, her father had other plans. The eccentric, manipulative patriarch left his widow and their grown children a final challenge--an inheritance game designed to humiliate, devastate, and unravel the Storm family in ways both petty and life-altering. The rules of the game are clear: stay on the island for one week, complete the tasks, receive the inheritance.
One week on Storm Island is an impossible task for Alice. Every corner of the sprawling old house is bursting dysfunctional chaos: Her older sister’s secret love affair. Her brother’s incessant mansplaining. Her sister-in-law’s unapologetic greed. Her younger sister’s obsession with "vibes". Her mother’s penchant for stirring up competition between her children. And all under the stern, watchful gaze of Jack Dean, her father’s enigmatic, unfairly good-looking, second-in-command. It will be a miracle if Alice manages to escape the week unscathed.
A story about the transformative power of grief, love, and family, this luscious novel is at once deliciously clever and surprisingly tender, exploring past secrets, present truths, and futures forged in the wake of wild summer storms.
Author: Sara Cate
Title: The Anti-Hero
Publisher: independently published
Date Published: 07/14/2023
Format: physical book
My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐💫
I’ve been good long enough. As the eldest son of Austin’s most prominent preacher, I’ve lived my life on the virtuous side. No scandals. Flawless image. Clean reputation. That’s the way it must be if I’m going to take his place someday. But everything changes when I find out my father is a VIP member of a local kink club. A liar. A cheater. A hypocrite. Now, I’m done being righteous. And when the club owner’s jaded girlfriend comes to me with a proposal, I can’t resist. Sage is nothing like the women I’ve dated before. Pink hair, tattoos, piercings. I know it’ll burn my father’s reputation to the ground when she and I are seen together. But our fake dating scheme isn’t enough. We need videos— dirty videos. The more we film these scenes, the more I like it. She wants me to degrade her, hurt her, violate her. And God help me, I want it too. But it’s hardly fake anymore, and before long I don’t recognize the Goode man I used to be.
Author: Tiffany Reisz
Title: Her Naughty Holiday
Publisher: Harlequin Blaze
Date Published: 10/18/2016
Format: ebook
My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
A feast she wasn't expecting!
Clover Greene would sooner crawl into her oven than host family for Thanksgiving dinner. Yet another annual ritual of too much food, served with a side of criticism over "Clover's Bad Life Choices." This year, she needs to distract them all—with a handsome fake boyfriend. And she has the perfect guy in mind.
Contractor Erick Fields is the poster boy for sexy single dads, and Clover has been secretly crushing on him for ages. She certainly wasn't expecting Erick to agree to her insane charade…or to add lots of hot, wicked sex to the deal. If they can pull it off, the worst Thanksgiving ever might give them something to be really thankful for!
Author: Brynne Weaver
Title: Tourist Season
Publisher: Zando Slowburn
Date Published: 09/23/2025
Format: physical book
My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Welcome to Cape Carnage! Visit Once, Stay Forever.
Cape Carnage is a seaside town of colorful houses, quirky shops, and an unusually high body count. But with tourists comes trouble, and Harper Starling won’t let anyone ruin her picture-perfect home. A skilled gardener with killer instincts, Harper protects her sanctuary at any cost—especially for her aging mentor with a fading memory.
Troublesome tourists don’t check out of Carnage. They compost beneath Harper’s award-winning flowerbeds. But Nolan Rhodes isn’t your average tourist. Devilishly handsome, disarmingly charming, and skilled with a blade, Nolan is relentless in the pursuit of revenge. On every anniversary of the hit-and-run accident that fractured his life, Nolan slays another target. And he’s saved the best for last: the undeniably beautiful Harper Starling.
The problem? Harper isn’t the monster he expected. And she won’t go down without a fight. When an amateur true crime investigator comes to Cape Carnage on the trail of a long-lost serial killer, Harper and Nolan strike an uneasy truce. If Nolan helps Harper protect her town, she’ll keep quiet about his hunting habits . . . for now. But their alliance soon spirals into obsession, one that threatens to shatter every secret in Carnage—including their fragile love.
Tourist Season is a darkly funny, slow burn enemies-to-lovers romance where destruction and desire are balanced on the edge of a blade—and where love is the most dangerous battleground of all.
Author: Ali Hazelwood
Title: Cruel Winter with You
Publisher: Amazon Original Stories
Date Published: 11/12/2024
Format: ebook
My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐💫
For two former childhood friends, a blustery winter storm stirs some frosty—and scorching—memories in a delightful short story by #1 New York Times bestselling author Ali Hazelwood.
All newly minted pediatrician Jamie Malek wants is to borrow a roasting pan for Christmas dinner. Unfortunately, that requires her to interact with Marc—her best friend’s troublemaking brother, who’s now a tech billionaire. He’s the one who got away. She’s the one who broke his heart. Outside, a howling blizzard. Inside, a crackling fire. Suddenly, being snowbound with the man she never expected to see again might not be such a bad way to spend a winter’s night.
Ali Hazelwood’s Cruel Winter with You is part of Under the Mistletoe, a stirring collection of December romances that thrill and tingle all the way. They can be read or listened to in one swoony sitting.
Author: Jillian Meadows
Title: Wreck My Plans
Publisher: Avon
Date Published: 11/29/2023
Format: physical book
My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
A sweet and spicy holiday romance between a spirited artist who returns to her small town for Christmas, and her older brother’s best friend, a serious architect who pushes all her buttons—but whom she can’t seem to stay away from.
Lena’s plans are simple. Surprise her family for Christmas, don’t tell them she lost her job, and most importantly, spend the week relaxing with the people she cares about.
But when she arrives in Juniper, she discovers she’s not the only unexpected guest this year. Her older brother’s best friend, Gavin, is back after disappearing three years ago without a word. He has the kind of charm Lena has always been drawn to, but she knows he’s also the kind of temptation she needs to stay far away from.
Gavin has built his architecture career out of planning strategies for dealing with the unexpected—but he didn’t have a strategy for the possibility of seeing Lena again. Though he’s been dreaming of her since the day he left, he can’t risk giving in to his feelings when they could upend the only family and home he has ever known.
New try to be friends again. Just friends.
But as the pieces fall into place about why Gavin left, staying friends is the last thing on his mind…and on Lena’s. All the plans they’ve made might end up completely wrecked. And for once, maybe they want it that way.
Author: Kresley Cole
Title: Shadow's Claim
Publisher: Pocket Books
Date Published: 11/27/2012
Format: physical book
My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
HE WON'T BE DENIED...
Trehan Daciano, known as the Prince of Shadows, has spent his life serving his people—striking in the night, quietly executing any threat to their realm. The coldly disciplined swordsman has never desired anything for himself - until he beholds Bettina, the sheltered ward of two of the Lore’s most fearsome villains.
SHE’S BOUND TO ANOTHER...
Desperate to earn her guardians’ approval after a life-shattering mistake, young Bettina has no choice but to marry whichever suitor prevails—even though she’s lost her heart to another. Yet one lethal competitor, a mysterious cloaked swordsman, invades her dreams, tempting her with forbidden pleasure.
A BATTLE FOR HER BODY AND SOUL
Even if Trehan can survive the punishing contests to claim her as his wife, the true battle for Bettina’s heart is yet to come. And unleashing a millennium’s worth of savage need will either frighten his Bride away - or stoke Bettina’s own desires to a fever pitch....
Author: Hannah Bonam-Young
Title: Set the Record Straight
Publisher: independently published
Date Published: 12/20/2022
Format: physical book
My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
A fake dating, childhood friends to lovers, bisexual-awakening, holiday romance.
The day Clara started her new (dream) job as an assistant to her photography idol, she was met with an assumption that caught her off guard and stunned her silent. suddenly, she has to bring a girlfriend to the gallery's opening in a few weeks- all because she choked up and failed to correct her boss that she is, in fact, straight.
Evan was recently dumped by her fellow teacher fiancée for a mutual co-worker and is still trying to figure out where it all went wrong. So when she gets the news the happy new couple will be hosting the staff's holiday party- she feels utterly horrified by her single status and looks for a quick solution.
Together, these two old friends make a plan to get through the gallery opening and holiday party by pretending to date one another. Easy... right?
That is until Clara starts developing real feelings for Evan, shocking herself. All the while Evan realizes that perhaps pretending to date your straight best friend, who you've had a crush on for half your life- isn't the best idea.
Content Warnings: Homophobia, familial estrangement, mentions of religious oppression, ADHD, Autism, and anxiety.
Comments
Post a Comment