First Time Friday: July


This has been a good month for new-to-me authors and reads, and saw me branching out a little into different genres as well. Beyond just romance, I touched on classics, fantasy, and romantasy too!



Author: Rebecca Yarros

Title: Fourth Wing

Publisher: Red Tower Books

Date Published: 05/02/2023

Format: physical book

My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐๐Ÿ’ซ

Twenty-year-old Violet Sorrengail was supposed to enter the Scribe Quadrant, living a quiet life among books and history. Now, the commanding general―also known as her tough-as-talons mother―has ordered Violet to join the hundreds of candidates striving to become the elite of Navarre: dragon riders.

But when you’re smaller than everyone else and your body is brittle, death is only a heartbeat away...because dragons don’t bond to “fragile” humans. They incinerate them.

With fewer dragons willing to bond than cadets, most would kill Violet to better their own chances of success. The rest would kill her just for being her mother’s daughter―like Xaden Riorson, the most powerful and ruthless wingleader in the Riders Quadrant.

She’ll need every edge her wits can give her just to see the next sunrise.

Yet, with every day that passes, the war outside grows more deadly, the kingdom's protective wards are failing, and the death toll continues to rise. Even worse, Violet begins to suspect leadership is hiding a terrible secret.

Friends, enemies, lovers. Everyone at Basgiath War College has an agenda―because once you enter, there are only two ways out: graduate or die.



Author: Sara Cate

Title: The Home-Wrecker

Publisher: indie published

Date Published: 03/25/2024

Format: physical book

My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐


I’ve been faithful long enough.

I never claimed to be a good man, but I’ve always done what was expected of me.

Find a nice girl. Get married. Have children.

That was my duty as a good Christian man.

And everything was going as planned when I met Briar.

Beautiful. Charismatic. Sexy.

But marriage is hard, and after seven years, I feel like I’m failing.

Then, a figure from my past enters the picture.

Dean Sheridan is cocky and charming. When this twenty-five-year-old needs a place to stay, I should turn him away—especially after I notice the spark between him and my wife. But I don’t.

When I pressure him about his relationship with Briar, he does the last thing I expect.

He dares me.

He thinks he can take what’s mine.

And if it’s a challenge he wants, it’s a challenge he’ll get.

What started as a game becomes so much more.

Between them. Between us.

This isn’t how normal couples behave.

The games we’re playing are dangerous.

And the roles we’re playing are far more.

But God help me, I can’t seem to stop.

What we’re doing is wrong, but it feels so right, and before long, I don’t recognize the good husband I used to be.



Author: Kresley Cole

Title: Munro

Publisher: Valkyrie Press

Date Published: 01/25/2022

Format: ebook

My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐๐Ÿ’ซ


TORMENTED IN UNIMAGINABLE WAYS

Coming off torture at the hands of his warlock captors, Munro MacRieve never expected to find his mate, or to lose her just as abruptly. Driven to desperation, the ruthless warrior uses his enemies’ own powers to reunite with her—in the distant past.

STOLEN FROM HER TIME

When a crazed werewolf crashes her wedding, Kereny “Ren” Codrina does what any cunning huntress would do: she captures him. Yet she finds herself softening toward the wounded beast—until he turns the tables and forces her into an incomprehensible future.

CAN A HUMAN AND AN IMMORTAL UNITE IN ORDER TO SURVIVE?

As danger mounts, Munro will do anything to make her undying, even sell his soul to an evil sorceress. But first he must convince his fiery mate that she belongs with him. If seduction means her survival, Munro will use every weapon in his arsenal to possess her—forever.



Author: Nora Roberts

Title: Carnal Innocence

Publisher: Bantam

Date Published: 12/01/1991

Format: physical book

My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐


In the small town of Innocence, Mississippi, days are long, nights are fragrant, and secrets are hard to keep. But when a brutal killer starts claiming the lives of the town's most attractive women, lifelong neighbors are forced to wonder if the culprit is a stranger lurking in the bayou...or someone right next door.

World-famous concert violinist Caroline Waverly knows nothing of the murders when she arrives in Innocence. Burned out from a childhood lost to endless rehearsals and an all-too-public breakup with the conductor who was her lover, Caroline is looking for a little peace and some time to think. She hopes that a stay at her late grandmother's house the one with a covered porch just made for soft summer nights will provide the tranquillity she needs. But Innocence has something else to offer Caroline: a man named Tucker Longstreet.

Blessed with the Longstreet good looks, lazy charm, and family fortune, Tucker is a tall, cool drink of water and he knows it. He likes to keep his romances short and shallow. But one look at Caroline, and Tucker realizes that she is unlike any other woman he's met. Tightly coiled and coolly reserved, Caroline is determined to fight him off. She might be able to do a better job if she hadn't felt an unexpected thrill at his ardent advances...and if she hadn't been so scared after finding a third murder victim in the murky waters behind her home.

For Caroline Waverly,a beautiful summer interlude could turn into much more or could stir a killer's crazed dreams. Because there's just one small problem with her new romance: Tucker is the leading suspect in the killings.



Author: D.H. Lawrence

Title: Lady Chatterley's Lover

Publisher: privately published

Date Published: 07/02/1928

Format: physical book

My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐


Lawrence's frank portrayal of an extramarital affair and the explicit sexual explorations of its central characters caused this controversial book, now considered a masterpiece, to be banned as pornography until 1960.



Author: Kresley Cole

Title: The Witch Queen of Halloween

Publisher: Valkyrie Press

Date Published: 03/26/2024

Format: ebook

My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐


Take a spooky Halloween tour of the mysterious Lore in this stand-alone installment of the Immortals After Dark series by #1 New York Times best-seller Kresley Cole.

A demon soldier of fortune . . .
Rรถk Kours dives into a dangerous mission, only to cross swords with the one woman who bewitched him.

A cursed Wiccan mercenary . . .
Poppy Dyer has never let her uncontrollable magic interfere with her work, but she can barely withstand one demon's charms.

Trapped in a terrifying lair.
If the two rivals can defeat Halloween's worst nightmares to escape a haunted castle, can they overcome their pasts to claim a spellbinding future together?



Author: Heather Fawcett

Title: Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries

Publisher: Del Ray

Date Published: 01/10/2023

Format: physical book

My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐


Cambridge professor Emily Wilde is good at many things: She is the foremost expert on the study of faeries. She is a genius scholar and a meticulous researcher who is writing the world's first encyclopaedia of faerie lore. But Emily Wilde is not good at people. She could never make small talk at a party--or even get invited to one. And she prefers the company of her books, her dog, Shadow, and the Fair Folk to other people.

So when she arrives in the hardscrabble village of Hrafnsvik, Emily has no intention of befriending the gruff townsfolk. Nor does she care to spend time with another new arrival: her dashing and insufferably handsome academic rival Wendell Bambleby, who manages to charm the townsfolk, get in the middle of Emily's research, and utterly confound and frustrate her.

But as Emily gets closer and closer to uncovering the secrets of the Hidden Ones--the most elusive of all faeries--lurking in the shadowy forest outside the town, she also finds herself on the trail of another mystery: Who is Wendell Bambleby, and what does he really want? To find the answer, she'll have to unlock the greatest mystery of all--her own heart.



Author: Kennedy Ryan

Title: Can't Get Enough

Publisher: Forever

Date Published: 05/13/2025

Format: physical book

My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐


Hendrix Barry lives a fabulous life. She has phenomenal friends, a loving family, and a thriving business that places her in the entertainment industry's rarefied air. Your vision board? She’s probably living it.

She’s a woman with goals, dreams, ambitions—always striving upward. And in the midst of everything, she's facing her toughest challenge caring for an aging parent. Who has time for romance? From her experience, there's a low ROI on relationships. Anyway, she hasn't met the man who can keep up with her. Until...him.

Tech mogul Maverick Bell is a dilemma wrapped in an exquisitely tailored suit and knee-melting charm. From their first charged glance at the summer's hottest party, Hendrix feels like she’s met her match. Only he can’t be. Mav may be the first to make her feel this seen and desired, but he’s the last one she can have. Forbidden fruit is the juiciest, and this man is off limits if she plans to stay the course she’s set for herself.

But when Maverick gives chase—pursuing her, spoiling her, understanding her—is it time to let herself have something more?

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