First Time Friday: October

 

hhh

Author: Kristina Forest

Title: The Love Lyric

Publisher: Berkley

Date Published: 02/04/2025

Format: physical book

My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Iris Greene used to be a woman with a plan. But all of that changed after she met the love of her life at twenty-four, got pregnant and married…and then became a widow and a single mother all within the span of a year and a half. Now, after years of hustling, Iris is the director of partnerships at a beauty company and raising spunky six-year-old Calla by herself. Despite her busy life, she still can’t help but feel lonely. She just needs to catch her breath—and one night, at her sister’s wedding, when she steps outside to do just that, she sees a certain singer who takes her breath away. . . .

By all accounts, pop R&B singer Angel Harrison has it made. He’s a successful musician and has just scored a brand ambassador deal with an emerging beauty company. But he’s still not fulfilled; he’s not producing songs he’s passionate about, and there’s a gaping hole in his love life. When he visits the Save Face Beauty office to kickstart his campaign, he’s delighted to see Iris, his stylist’s sister—the beautiful woman he’s secretly had a crush on for years.

Despite their obvious attraction to each other, they must stay professional throughout the campaign tour—which doesn’t quite pan out. But when it becomes clear their lives aren’t in sync, can they fall back in step to the same rhythm and beat?

Author: Maggie Rawdon

Title: Bull Rush

Publisher: indie published

Date Published: 09/22/2024

Format: ebook

My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Still married.
Those words change everything.

Now my should-be ex-husband, Ramsey Stockton, the former pro football star turned felon and hero who left this town—and me—behind years ago, is at my door offering me a deal with the devil.

If I let him stay and play his wife again for ninety days, he’ll give me a quiet divorce and his family ranch—the one my inn is on.

When I scoff at the idea, he offers a million-dollar bonus to help my business float through this rough patch, but only if I’m his.

Then he’ll walk away, and I can walk down the aisle with my fiancé. Or I can say no and watch everything I’ve worked so hard for fall apart.

There’s only one answer I can afford to give him. But he knows everything about me—every hurt, every secret, and every single weakness I have, including him.

And while Ramsey might want me, his brothers want him back in the family business.

If there's one universal truth in this town, it's that Stockton men stop at nothing to get what they want.

Author: Kimberly Lemming

Title: My Boyfriends Are All Monsters

Publisher: Amazon Original Series

Date Published: 09/23/2025

Format: ebook

My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐💫

Tossing a coin in a mysterious well seems like a harmless way to cope with being ditched on a mountain—until every impossibly hot man in town starts competing for one woman’s attention in this steamy short story by USA Today bestselling author Kimberly Lemming.

Lucy Sawyer’s wish for true love lands her in an enchanted town where the men are supernatural, the chemistry is off the charts, and everyone wants to date her. But they say that things that seem too good to be true usually are, and soon Lucy may need to decide if she’s willing to pay the cost of her happily ever after.

Author: Laurie Gilmore

Title: The Pumpkin Spice Cafe

Publisher: Harper Collins

Date Published: 08/30/2023

Format: physical book

My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

The perfect autumnal romance read, Gilmore's heartwarming tale finds upbeat city girl Jeannie relocate to a small town to run her aunt's beloved cafe and cause one irascible local's heart to flutter.

When Jeanie's aunt gifts her the beloved Pumpkin Spice Cafe in the small town of Dream Harbor, Jeanie jumps at the chance for a fresh start away from her very dull desk job.

Logan is a local farmer who avoids Dream Harbor's gossip at all costs. But Jeanie's arrival disrupts Logan's routine and he wants nothing to do with the irritatingly upbeat new girl, except that he finds himself inexplicably drawn to her.

Will Jeanie's happy-go-lucky attitude win over the grumpy-but-gorgeous Logan, or has this city girl found the one person in town who won't fall for her charm, or her pumpkin spice lattes...

The Pumpkin Spice Cafe is a cozy romantic mystery for fans of Gilmore Girls, with a grumpy x sunshine dynamic, a small-town setting and a HEA guaranteed!

Author: Grady Hendrix

Title: Witchcraft for Wayward Girls

Publisher: Berkley

Date Published: 01/14/2025

Format: physical book

My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐💫

There’s power in a book… 

They call them wayward girls. Loose girls. Girls who grew up too fast. And they’re sent to Wellwood House in St. Augustine, Florida, where unwed mothers are hidden by their families to have their babies in secret, to give them up for adoption, and most important of all, to forget any of it ever happened.

Fifteen-year-old Fern arrives at the home in the sweltering summer of 1970, pregnant, terrified and alone. Under the watchful eye of the stern Miss Wellwood, she meets a dozen other girls in the same predicament. There’s Rose, a hippie who insists she’s going to find a way to keep her baby and escape to a commune. And Zinnia, a budding musician who plans to marry her baby’s father. And Holly, a wisp of a girl, barely fourteen, mute and pregnant by no-one-knows-who. 

Author:

Title: 

Publisher: 

Date Published: 

Format: 

My Rating: 

GOODREADS SYNOPSIS