September 2025 Queer Romances
Sep. 5th, 2025 09:00 am![[syndicated profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/feed.png){kind=small}
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This month is positively spoiling us with queer romance of various genres, and this is just the tip of the iceberg. Debuts, established names, and notable category-jumpers are all on the syllabus this September, so gets your wallets and library cards ready because queer romance school is definitely in session!
See You at the Finish Line
Author: Zac Hammett
Released: September 2, 2025 by Slowburn
Genre: Contemporary Romance, LGBTQIA, Romance
Their only path to victory is each other . . .
George and Lucas can’t stand each other – which makes it awkward being on the same Cambridge University rowing team. The uber-charming, womanising George got parachuted into Cambridge from America for his sporting prowess, despite his subpar grades, whereas Lucas worked for everything he’s got – which sadly doesn’t include a boyfriend. When George is told that this year he’ll have to sit his exams fair and square, Lucas agrees to help him study – in exchange for help in wooing his crush, Amir.
Together, they embark on a journey to seduce, cheat, and beat their way to the top. They face rivals within their own squad, cutthroat competitors at Oxford, and their own annoyance with each other. But as they get closer, they find that they actually make a great duo. Will Lucas and George help their rowing team beat their arch rivals in a centuries-old feud? Will George manage to pass his fiendishly hard exams? Will Lucas finally work up the courage to ask Amir out? And what will Lucas and George do when they realise that what they really want is each other – even if that means changing their lives forever.
For fans of Red, White and Royal Blue, See You at the Finish Line is a brand-new LGBTQ+ enemies to lovers romance with a love story that will warm your heart.
I am automatically down for any queer sports romance, but college rowing with enemies-to-lovers and the glorious “falling for the person helping me to get the person I thought I wanted” trope?? I am definitely picking up this debut, and feeling optimistic there’ll be at least one solid coxswain joke.
It Had to Be Him
Author: Adib Khorram
Released: September 9, 2025 by Forever
Genre: Contemporary Romance, LGBTQIA, Romance
Heartstopper meets Eat Pray Love in this swoony, spicy, second-chance romance from USA Today bestselling author Adib Khorram about two former classmates unexpectedly reuniting in Italy.
Ramin Yazdani’s marriage proposal has just gone bottoms up: his ex dumped him in public for being boring. Bent on proving him wrong, Ramin books a spontaneous solo trip to Italy. When he runs into his high school crush while in a gelateria, however, his resolve to reinvent himself is put to the test.
Noah Bartlett’s in a rut. Since his divorce, he’s become a bit of a homebody. So when his ex-wife insists he join her and their son on an Italian holiday, Noah reluctantly agrees. But his reticence turns to excitement when he sees his former classmate, who’s aged just like a fine wine. As a teenager, Ramin fascinated him—and since Noah now knows that fascination was code for crush—all those feelings are quick to come rushing back.
Soon Ramin and Noah are tumbling headfirst into a relationship. Only Ramin fears Noah’s feelings won’t last without Ramin’s adventurous new persona—and Noah’s not sure he can be the supportive partner Ramin deserves. With the days counting down to the end of their trip, can their love last without the magic of Italy?
I have a simple rule when it comes to Adib Khorram’s books: I read them. Picture books, young adult, adult romance… I’ve got AK books all over my shelves. This newest is a companion to one of my favorite m/m romances of last year, I’ll Have What He’s Having, and if Khorram’s name isn’t enough to get you to pick it up, the fact that it’s set in Italy and full of gelato should do it. Plus, both Ramin and Noah are total sweethearts you’ll adore traveling with.
Lady Like
Author: Mackenzi Lee
Released: September 9, 2025 by The Dial Press
Genre: Historical: European, LGBTQIA, Romance
Two women, one refined and one ribald, set their sights on marrying the same duke, but instead of becoming natural enemies, they find themselves falling in love—though not with him.
Harriet Lockhart never planned to marry. The educated daughter of a high-class prostitute, Harry has spent her life defying playing male roles in bawdy Shakespearean productions on London’s seediest stages, pursuing the many women who adore her, and wearing whatever she pleases, so long as it’s well tailored—all while being subsidized by her late mother’s trust. When she is contacted out of the blue by her hitherto anonymous father, she finds herself at risk of losing the trust that he actually funds unless she acquiesces to his request that she lead a more respectable life, starting with finding a husband.
Emily Sergeant, on the other hand, has only ever wanted to marry. She is the modest, tea-sipping, soft-spoken Regency bride. And were it not for one mistake in her youth that rendered her a social pariah, she would be appropriately betrothed. Instead, she’s due to wed the only willing man in her small the abominable Robert Tweed. Desperate for an alternative, Emily flees to London for the summer to snag a less lecherous fiancé before she’s shackled to a scoundrel.
Worlds collide, dramatically and hilariously, when both women decide on the very same duke as their best possible chance at a tolerable husband and the security that he brings. A tongue-in-cheek romp through London’s summer season, from balls to brothels, horseraces to duels, Harry and Emily compete for the duke’s favor, only to find their true hearts’ desires may be more compatible than they ever could have predicted.
Mackenzi Lee has definitely shown her historical chops with her bestselling Montague Siblings series in YA, which kicks off with an international romp of an adventure and suggests this will be an extremely promising adult debut. Even if I weren’t already familiar with the author’s skill, it’d have me at the tagline: “In need of a husband. In want of a wife.” (Note: for another exciting Sapphic historical romance out this month, check out Ladies in Hating by Alexandra Vasti.)
Girl Next Door
Author: Rachel Meredith
Released: September 9, 2025 by Harper Perennial
Genre: Contemporary Romance, LGBTQIA, Romance
“Girl Next Door is everything I love. Complex characters, a prickly love interest, secrets, yearning, questionable decisions, and that glorious HEA. A tender, funny, sexy novel.” — Ashley Herring Blake, author of Delilah Green Doesn’t Care
In this charming debut rom-com, a young freelancer returns to her suburban hometown to uncover why her childhood next door neighbor’s bestselling book appears to be an epic love story about the two of them.
When MC Calloway’s best friend Joe, an editor at the notorious gossip website Jawbreaker, calls her in for an emergency meeting, MC is unprepared for how frantic he is. But when he shows her a copy of Girl Next Door, the steamy, bestselling rom-com taking the literary world by storm, written under a pen name, points to one of the women on the front cover, and says, “that’s you,” its MC who begins to panic.
Joe is convinced that the author is Nora Pike, MC’s prickly, childhood next-door neighbor, and their former high school classmate – and MC knows he’s right, since the book describes actual events that happened their senior year, down to the tiniest details. But in the book, the characters based on MC and Nora are desperately in love, rather than the awkward acquaintances MC remembers being in real life.
Joe begs MC to go home undercover and get the scoop on Nora. That’s the last thing MC wants to do, especially for an assignment that seems morally dubious at best, but she reluctantly agrees, knowing Joe is desperate to break a big story. Crashing in her childhood home with her older brother Conrad (now married to MC’s secret high school crush, Gabby), MC begins untangling truth from fiction, trying to get close to Nora, who is just as hot and prickly as ever – and now suspicious of MC to boot. But the more involved she gets with Nora, the more it becomes clear they’re both hiding secrets . . . and MC realizes she might be in over her head.
Perfect for readers of Delilah Green Doesn’t Care and Book Lovers, Girl Next Door is a delicious debut brimming with romance, humor, and heart.
I’ve read “childhood friends to lovers,” and I’ve read “second chance romance,” but I’d never read a play on both quite like this. Meredith’s debut is witty, fun, sexy, and compulsively readable (I personally read it in one shot), and so chaotic and wonderfully honest, it automatically landed her on my instabuy list.
Night at the Vampire Castle
Author: Hari Conner
Released: September 23, 2025 by Andrews McMeel Publishing
Genre: LGBTQIA, Paranormal, Romance
It is a dark and stormy night…
When your car breaks down on a cold evening, you must take refuge in the ominous castle that looms above on the hillside, where a handsome, mysterious stranger invites you in. At dinner, you encounter three vampires and decide which to spend the evening with… Choose to charm one of the creatures of the night, have a fling with a few, or escape their clutches in Night at the Vampire Castle.
Stranded in rural Transylvania on a stormy night, you stumble upon an ominous castle, where the mysterious inhabitants seem keen to have you… for dinner.
In Hari Conner’s newest chose-your-own-path book, the reader chooses between gothic romance, partying with werewolves, or seducing an ancient vampire into revealing their secrets. Get swept away from the 9-5 by a whirlwind romance or steamy encounters – if you can avoid meeting your end…
With three main vampire romance paths, this story has fun, lighthearted elements as well as gothic themes, with choices to explore characters’ pasts in real European and queer history. Spend a Night at the Vampire Castle, if you dare.
I haven’t gotten my hands on this one yet, but there is not one thing about the description that is not absolutely killer. A Choose Your Own Romance?? Set in rural Transylvania?? Get to bang a vampire?? The author first flew on my radar last year with a queer YA graphic novel mashup of various Austen titles called I Shall Never Fall in Love, so it’s clear there are some seriously innovative chops at play, and this is definitely one of my most anticipated reads in a while.
Let’s Talk About Netflix’s The Thursday Murder Club!
Sep. 6th, 2025 08:00 amsmartbitches_feed
So…didja watch it?
What did you think? Tell me everything!
Amanda: I’m putting my thoughts in a spoiler, just in case you may have started it and not finished it. Or if you haven’t read the book yet, as most of my issues came from the differences between the movie and the book.
My biggest gripe was what they did with poor Bogdan’s storyline. I liked it much better when Bogdan was biding his time before seeking revenge for his murdered friend.
I watched the movie with a friend who’s a big fan of the series. She also thought the Bogdan storyline wasn’t great, given that he shows up in subsequent books. She did make a good point. Perhaps Netflix wasn’t sure how well this would do for a sequel and with the actors being older, who knows what they could commit to.
Coopers Chase was not how I pictured it in my head. It was more sprawling in my imagination, though I’d still want to live at either version.
This version of Bobby Tanner wasn’t to my liking either. I much preferred the notion that he was in hiding and really wanted nothing to do with crime life.
The whole nun/priest romance storyline was cut, which made me a little sad. There’s a moment in the book where Bogdan changes the headstone and I remember tearing up at that kind gesture.
Okay, I’ve done a lot of complaining!
I think if you’re going into this movie without prior knowledge of the book’s events, you’ll have a more enjoyable experience than I did. You won’t be caught up in what they changed or took out.
The movie did a good job of capturing the tenderness of the book, especially the relationships between the Murder Club members. The strongest part of both the book and movie, for me, were the characters anyway. The casting was pretty perfect.
If I had to assign a grade, perhaps a B- or a C+. The book was better, as it typical.
Sarah: I copy everything Amanda said. I loved how beautiful it was, and how much money was invested in sets, location, costumes, and everything that makes a movie or show feel lived in and real.
I also loved playing, “Oh, hey, it’s Famous Actor Person!” Like, every other scene. At point point Adam looked up and said, “Wait, David TENNANT is in this, too?” Literally the casting for this must have been a delight.
But wow, the compromises for length were a massive bummer.
- Justice for Bogdan. The reworking of his plot line was straight up terrible.
- Most folks were concerned that Pierce Brosnan was a bit too posh to be Ron, but he had the most energy out of everyone. He lifted every scene he was in.
- Ben Kingsley was deeply underused. (Let him explain the algorithm of how long the journey would take!)
- I thought Helen Mirren played Elizabeth with one particular dour flavor and never deviated (though the scene where her husband tells her she looks like the queen was A HOOT).
- I wish it had been a series, though I understand how extra more expensive that would have been.
I hope that there’s a sequel. I hope that it’s better than this one. It was pretty to look at but not something I’m going to watch again. I’m with Amanda: C+ for me.
What did you think of the movie? Tell us in the comments!
Just Create - Skeletonized Leaf Edition
Sep. 5th, 2025 09:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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justcreateAre there any cool events or challenges happening that you want to hype?
What do you just want to talk about?
What have you been watching or reading?
Chores and other not-fun things count!
Remember to encourage other commenters and we have a discord where we can do work-alongs and chat, linked in the sticky
D'OH!
Sep. 5th, 2025 04:20 pmcakewrecks_feedIt took me forever to realize this wedding cake was supposed to have a Simpsons theme:
Mmmmm. Paaaaaper.
And yes, you read that right: this was a WEDDING CAKE.
I especially like the way the sides transition seamlessly from edible paper to airbrushed fondant:
SEAMLESS.
Oh, and Bart's chalkboard reads, "I will not lick the wedding cake."
I guess there wasn't room for "...not if you paid me a million dollars."
Thanks to Meredith who thinks we should RELEASE THE HOUNDS!!
******
And from my other blog, Epbot:
YA, Fantasy, & More
Sep. 5th, 2025 03:30 pmsmartbitches_feedThe Palace of Illusions
The Palace of Illusions by Rowenna Miller is $2.99! This came out over the summer and I mentioned it on Hide Your Wallet because of the interesting setting. I’m not sure if there’s any romance.
The Palace of Illusions brings readers to a Paris breathless with excitement at the dawn of the twentieth century, where for a select few there is a second, secret Paris where the magic of the City of Light is very real in this enchanting and atmospheric fantasy from the author of The Fairy Bargains of Prospect Hill.
In the run up to the 1900s World’s Fair Paris is abuzz with creative energy and innovation. Audiences are spellbound by the Lumiere brothers’ moving pictures and Loie Fuller’s serpentine dance fusing art and technology. But for Clara Ironwood, a talented and pragmatic clockworker, nothing compares to the magic of her godfather’s mechanical creations, and she’d rather spend her days working on the Palace of Illusions, an intricate hall of mirrors that is one of the centerpieces of the world’s fair.
When her godfather sends Clara a hideous nutcracker for Christmas, she is puzzled until she finds a hidden compartment that unlocks a mirror-world Paris where the Seine is musical, fountains spout lemonade, and mechanical ballerinas move with human grace. The magic of her godfather’s toys was real.
As Clara explores this other Paris and begins to imbue her own creations with its magic, she soon discovers a darker side to innovation. Suspicious men begin to approach her outside of work, and she could swear a shadow is following her. There’s no ignoring the danger she’s in, but Clara doesn’t know who to trust. The magic of the two Parises are colliding and Clara must find the strength within herself to save them both.
How to Plot a Payback
How to Plot a Payback by Melissa Ferguson is $2.99! This is a grumpy/sunshine contemporary. Some of Ferguson’s books have been reviewed favorably on the site and I feel like she has a lot of writer-centric characters.
He crossed an ocean, and it still wasn’t enough to escape his lifelong nemesis. Now he has to work with her.
Successful screenwriter Finn Masters just landed his dream job writing for Neighbors, one of Hollywood’s highest-rated, longest-running sitcoms. The only downside? It will put him back in proximity of the show’s universally adored, optimistic, altruistic star, Lavender Rhodes, who has been inadvertently ruining his life since they were school chums in England. But she doesn’t even know she destroyed his acting career and wrecked his relationship with the love of his life.
He’s not about to let this woman yank yet another dream out from under his feet. In fact, he realizes he’s been given the ideal opportunity to plot his payback: spinning her character in shocking new directions.
What could go wrong? Only everything. As Finn’s not-so-brilliant plot backfires one scene after the next, catching him in the blasts, he’s forced to think about this impossible, infuriating… and maybe even lovable woman in an entirely new light.
Notes from a Regicide
Notes from a Regicide by Isaac Fellman is $2.99! I mentioned this one on Get Rec’d. The marketing copy described this as a “trans family saga” and I remember being very intrigued.
Notes from a Regicide is a heartbreaking story of trans self-discovery with a rich relatability and a science-fictional twist from award-winning author Isaac Fellman.
When your parents die, you find out who they really were.
Griffon Keming’s second parents saved him from his abusive family. They taught him how to be trans, paid for his transition, and tried to love him as best they could. But Griffon’s new parents had troubles of their own – both were deeply scarred by the lives they lived before Griffon, the struggles they faced to become themselves, and the failed revolution that drove them from their homeland. When they died, they left an unfillable hole in his heart.
Griffon’s best clue to his parents’ lives is in his father’s journal, written from a jail cell while he awaited execution. Stained with blood, grief, and tears, these pages struggle to contain the love story of two artists on fire. With the journal in hand, Griffon hopes to pin down his relationship to these wonderful and strange people for whom time always seemed to be running out.
In Notes from a Regicide, a trans family saga set in a far-off, familiar future, Isaac Fellman goes beyond the concept of found family to examine how deeply we can be healed and hurt by those we choose to love.
Highly Suspicious and Unfairly Cute
Highly Suspicious and Unfairly Cute by Talia Hibbert is $1.99! This is Hibbert’s young adult debut and it was mentioned on a previous Hide Your Wallet. Shana just recommend this one on audio.
From the New York Times bestselling author of the Brown Sisters trilogy, comes a laugh-out-loud story about a quirky content creator and a clean-cut athlete testing their abilities to survive the great outdoors—and each other.
Bradley Graeme is pretty much perfect. He’s a star football player, manages his OCD well (enough), and comes out on top in all his classes . . . except the ones he shares with his ex-best friend, Celine.
Celine Bangura is conspiracy-theory-obsessed. Social media followers eat up her takes on everything from UFOs to holiday overconsumption—yet, she’s still not cool enough for the popular kids’ table. Which is why Brad abandoned her for the in-crowd years ago. (At least, that’s how Celine sees it.)
These days, there’s nothing between them other than petty insults and academic rivalry. So when Celine signs up for a survival course in the woods, she’s surprised to find Brad right beside her.
Forced to work as a team for the chance to win a grand prize, these two teens must trudge through not just mud and dirt but their messy past. And as this adventure brings them closer together, they begin to remember the good bits of their history. But has too much time passed . . . or just enough to spark a whole new kind of relationship?
683. RT Rewind: August 1996 Reviews
Sep. 5th, 2025 06:00 amsmartbitches_feed
We’re going back to August 1996 – that’s a bit of distance – to take a peek at the new releases and the book reviews in Romantic Times magazine.
We’re back in the era of time travel, a scifi imprint named Avonova, and probable worms.
NSFW worms.
As usual, we learn astonishing amounts of unexpected information from this magazine. For example: we’re both obsessed with the 1996 movie Twister and we have many thoughts on tornadoes.
Content warnings: the following episode contains discussions of large worms, racist language in 29 year old reviews, and spiders. Timestamp are in the intro.
Listen to the podcast →Read the transcript →
Here are the books we discuss in this podcast:
We also mentioned:
- The Galactic Gourmet has its own Wiki page.
- NSFW! Google Search “the fat inkeeper”
- NSFW! Urechis unicinctus – the worm
- The Monterrey Bay Aquarium: “The fat innkeeper worm: your shelter-in-place inspiration”
- The Mummers Parade Wiki page
If you like the podcast, you can subscribe to our feed, or find us at iTunes. You can also find us on Stitcher, and Spotify, too. We also have a cool page for the podcast on iTunes.
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What did you think of today's episode? Got ideas? Suggestions? You can talk to us on the blog entries for the podcast or talk to us on Facebook if that's where you hang out online. You can email us at sbjpodcast@gmail.com or you can call and leave us a message at our Google voice number: 201-371-3272. Please don't forget to give us a name and where you're calling from so we can work your message into an upcoming podcast.
Thanks for listening!
Podcast Sponsor
Support for this episode comes from The Spite Date by Pippa Grant – a hilarious romcom featuring a golden retriever celebrity who needs to get out of his own way, a woman trying to live her best life even if she’s not sure exactly how to do that, and a series of plans gone very, very wrong.
Here’s the Cover Copy:
I might be the only person not obsessed with Simon Luckwood, Hollywood’s hottest leading man and the newest part-time resident of my little hometown.
I don’t trust the way he’s always smiling. No one smiles that much.
And I’m clearly missing something, because I don’t get why the character Simon played on his weird hit TV show is so popular.
But revenge is a dish best served cold, just like the dishes on the menu at the restaurant my ex stole from me. So, when Simon feels guilty enough about his twin teenage boys accidentally getting me arrested that he wants to take me out on an apology date?
I see a perfect opportunity to get mine.
One night, one date, one very loud public scene at my ex’s grand opening, and then I can wash my hands of men forever.
That’s exactly how it has to go. Because my life can’t handle one more plot twist…
Reviews from readers are very positive!
MaddMoxie says, “This book was a total win for me – the kind you inhale in one night and then stumble through the next day running purely on caffeine and zero regrets. I cackled so hard i woke my husband at least a dozen times, but I’d do it again in a heartbeat.”
And GetLitwithAshleyZ says, “This book was AMAZING!!! It’s the kind of book you binge and then have a book hangover the next day. Totally worth it!”
Your good book hangover comes in different format options, too: The ebook will be in Kindle Unlimited, while the paperback has sprayed edges, illustrated endpapers and custom chapter headings. Plus, the audiobook features duet narration by Will Watt and Callie Dalton.
The Spite Date by Pippa Grant is out now, and you can find your copy where you like to buy books. Visit PippaGrant.com for more information.
Remember to subscribe to our podcast feed, find us on iTunes or on Stitcher.
Books by KJ Charles, Jo Walton, & More
Sep. 4th, 2025 03:30 pmsmartbitches_feedA Legend in the Baking
A Legend in the Baking by Jamie Wesley is $2.99! This is book two in the Sugar Blitz series and came out last November. Maybe grab a sweet treat if you’re reading this one.
After accidentally going viral on social media, a cupcake-baking football player gets assistance from a social media maven—and his best friend’s little sister—to help promote his new bakery.
August Hodges was supposed to be the silent partner in Sugar Blitz Cupcakes. Emphasis on silent. That is until his impromptu feminist rant about how women bakers are the backbone of the industry and baking cupcakes isn’t a threat to masculinity goes viral, making him the hottest bachelor in town. With a new location in the works, August and his partners decide to capitalize on this perfect opportunity to help cement their place in the community. But the hiring of his best friend’s younger sister, the woman who has haunted some of his best dreams for years, was as much of a shock as his new-found fame.
Social media manager Sloane Dell fell hard for her brother’s best friend the moment she met him more than a decade ago, but that teenage infatuation cost her dearly. Still, she accepts her brother’s request to revamp the bakery’s social media presence to take advantage of August’s newfound popularity, knowing it’s the big break her fledgling career needs. She’ll just ignore the fact that August is still August, i.e. sexier and sweeter than any man has a right to be. And that he drives her crazy with his resistance to all her ideas.
They vow to leave the past in the past. But when an explosive make-out session makes it clear their attraction burns hotter than ever, Sloane and August are forced to reconsider what it means to take a risk and chase your dreams.
As they’re both about to find out, all’s fair in love and cupcakes.
The Just City
The Just City by Jo Walton is $2.99! It doesn’t appear the deal is price-matched outside of Amazon right now. This is book one in the Thessaly series and Walton’s books come highly recommend.
“Here in the Just City you will become your best selves. You will learn and grow and strive to be excellent.”
Created as an experiment by the time-traveling goddess Pallas Athene, the Just City is a planned community, populated by over ten thousand children and a few hundred adult teachers from all eras of history, along with some handy robots from the far human future—all set down together on a Mediterranean island in the distant past.
The student Simmea, born an Egyptian farmer’s daughter sometime between 500 and 1000 A.D, is a brilliant child, eager for knowledge, ready to strive to be her best self. The teacher Maia was once Ethel, a young Victorian lady of much learning and few prospects, who prayed to Pallas Athene in an ungaurded moment during a trip to Rome—and, in an instant, found herself in the Just City with grey-eyed Athene standing unmistakably before her.
Meanwhile, Apollo—stunned by the realization that there are things mortals understand better than he does—has arranged to live a human life, and has come to the City as one of the children. He knows his true identity, and conceals it from his peers. For this lifetime, he is prone to all the troubles of being human.
Then, a few years in, Sokrates arrives—the same Sokrates recorded by Plato himself—to ask all the troublesome questions you would expect. What happens next is a tale only the brilliant Jo Walton could tell.
The Duke at Hazard
The Duke at Hazard by KJ Charles is 99c! This is the second book in the The Gentlemen of Uncertain Fortune series. It came out over the summer. Shana was excited for this one because of the road trip element.
Don’t miss the second thrilling Regency romance in the Gentlemen of Uncertain Fortune series by KJ Charles…
The Duke of Severn is one of the greatest men in Britain.
He’s also short, quiet, and unimpressive. And now he’s been robbed, after indulging in one rash night with a strange man who stole the heirloom Severn ring from his finger. The Duke has to get it back, and he can’t let anyone know how he lost it. So when his cousin bets that he couldn’t survive without his privilege and title, the Duke grasps the opportunity to hunt down his ring-incognito.
Life as an ordinary person is terrifying…until the anonymous Duke meets Daizell Charnage, a disgraced gentleman, and hires him to help. Racing across the country in search of the thief, the Duke and Daizell fall into scrapes, into trouble-and in love.
Daizell has been excluded from polite society, his name tainted by his father’s crimes and his own misbehaviour. Now he dares to dream of a life somewhere out of sight with the quiet gentleman who’s stolen his heart. He doesn’t know that his lover is a hugely rich public figure with half a dozen titles. And when he finds out, it will risk everything they have…
Six Crimson Cranes
Six Crimson Cranes by Elizabeth Lim is $1.99! This is book one of a completed YA fantasy duology. Lim always has gorgeous covers.
A princess in exile, a shapeshifting dragon, six enchanted cranes, and an unspeakable curse… Drawing from ‘The Wild Swans’ and East Asian folklore, this breathtakingly original fantasy from the author of Spin the Dawn is perfect for fans of Leigh Bardugo or Tomi Adeyemi.
Shiori’anma, the only princess of Kiata, has a secret. Forbidden magic runs through her veins. Normally she conceals it well, but on the morning of her betrothal ceremony, Shiori loses control. At first, her mistake seems like a stroke of luck, forestalling the wedding she never wanted. But it also catches the attention of Raikama, her stepmother.
A sorceress in her own right, Raikama banishes the young princess, turning her brothers into cranes. She warns Shiori that she must speak of it to no one: for with every word that escapes her lips, one of her brothers will die.
Penniless, voiceless, and alone, Shiori searches for her brothers, and uncovers a dark conspiracy to seize the throne. Only Shiori can set the kingdom to rights, but to do so she must place her trust in a paper bird, a mercurial dragon, and the very boy she fought so hard not to marry. And she must embrace the magic she’s been taught all her life to forswear–no matter what the cost.
Vehicular Cakeslaughter
Sep. 4th, 2025 01:00 pmcakewrecks_feedEvery now and then - and I'm not saying this happens often - professional bakers have a little trouble making cakes that look like...well, anything.
Perhaps hardest of all is the vehicle cake. There's just something about all those shapes and circles and squares that drives even the most hardened Shop-a-Lot Davinci to edible clip art with the watermarks still on:
Now, if only we had a picture of chocolate drizzle and sprinkles...
So let's say you want KITT from Knight Rider on your cake:
Binka binka binka binka dinka binka dinka binka...
[That was me singing the theme song. Obviously.]
Rather than attempt the entire car, your baker might try to home in on KITT's most distinguishing feature:
The ketchup-and-mustard smear under his seat.
Or how about this tractor?
At first glance, you might think this could be broken down into a simple drawing of two boxes on two wheels.
BUT YOU WOULD BE WRONG.
It's an extremely complicated design, and rendering it in icing is so unbelievably difficult that the finished product would be far beyond the bounds of mere mortal comprehension.
Yeah. Like that.
And finally, let's say your child wants a school bus cake:
(Oh, you know this is going to be good.)
You might end up with this:
It's not small. It's "fun sized!"
Wait. Can a bus be flaccid?
Thanks to Andie K., Brooke & Mike K., Lea B., & Pete H. for keeping us on track today.
*****
P.S. Did you know you can buy the entire series of Knight Rider on Blu-Ray for only $34? That's less than the DVD set!
Knight Rider, The Complete Series
I haven't see this show since I was about 10, so I'm curious if it holds up. If not, then I hope it's hilariously bad; anything in the middle is just boring. :p
*****
And from my other blog, Epbot:
The Wrong Obsession by E.L. Sparrow
Sep. 4th, 2025 08:00 amsmartbitches_feed
The Al Gore Rhythm got me.
Recently, I’ve been receiving algorithmic ads for serial romances, where you pay to unlock chapters. Typically, Instagram or Facebook will show you the first few chapters to hook you and then send you to one of the gazillion romance novel apps out there.
The excerpt grabbed me, but I was not about to pay per chapter for a serial that, while thankfully completed, was over 150 chapters. Lucky for me, the author decided to release the entire thing as a duology. Book one just came out and book two is out in September. Great timing, if you ask me. As of right now, it’s only available on Kobo.
Originally titled Craving the Wrong Brother, this is an erotic contemporary romance with BDSM elements. It hits all the ridiculous, soapy high notes of a 2010s release: a wealthy hero who uses BDSM to treat PTSD instead of going to therapy (but really everyone in this damn book needs therapy) playrooms with an obvious red aesthetic, underground prizefighting, family members and friends scheming to keep the couple apart, SO MANY SECRETS. I literally cannot list all the secrets or we’ll be here for ages.
Okay, stop yelling at me. I’ll get to the summary.
Finn and Sloane have been BFFs for a decade. Sloane has been hopelessly in love with him, but he can’t get over his high school girlfriend Delilah and is addicted to their on again, off again toxic relationship. During one of their off again stints, Delilah gets engaged and Finn comes up with the grand idea to ruin her wedding and convince her to be with him again. To complicate matters, Finn’s older brother Knox (uh oh, he’s hot and mysterious) is the best man.
Sloane agrees because she’s a teensy bit of a doormat and Finn is manipulative with her feelings. He quite literally will throw himself at her feet and cry about how she’s the only one who understands him.
Knox and Finn have a Very Bad relationship, which is only made worse by Sloane’s attraction to Knox. Finn goes absolutely bananas when Sloane’s attention isn’t fully on him. Sloane is frequently put in the middle between the brothers, but also has family trauma around a similar situation with her divorced parents that has continued well into adulthood.
One of the craziest moments in the book is when Finn has Delilah break his arm with a hammer so he can go to the hospital and guilt Sloane into reestablishing a connection with her after she starts dating his brother.
Like I said, therapy for everyone.
However, the serialized nature of the original hinders this book when packaged as a full-length romance. With serials, stories come out in chunks and typically end on a little cliffhanger to bring you back for the next update. That’s exactly how the book felt. Every few chapters formed a little vignette with a “to be continued” sort of ending. They were set up typically like: dramatic scene between brothers, hot sex, big reveal. Rinse and repeat. After a while, you forget what the hell the characters are even working toward. They’re just endlessly circling the drain and the book, as a whole, really lacks cohesion. It’s like when a sitcom doesn’t know when to end and they just keep putting out season after season with no real direction.
The Wrong Obsession is a potato chip book. You keep going back for more and before you know it, the bag is empty, your tummy hurts, and you’re full but not satisfied. You bet your ass you’ll be buying another bag next time you go grocery shopping though.
It’s bonkers and I sped through, but I hesitate to say it’s something I’d recommend to just any romance reader. This is a romance for a specific kind of person. If you’re nostalgic for the heyday of erotic romances and have a soft spot for Fifty Shades of Grey (no judgement!), you might consider picking this up. It really made me remember the fondness I had for those kinds of books and authors like Shayla Black and Cherise Sinclair. In my brain, I dub these “toxic cornball” books. They’re melodramatic, you aren’t sure if you even like any of the characters, but goddammit you’re invested and you can usually put your brain on autopilot for the duration.
The Rec League: Cozy Historical Mysteries
Sep. 4th, 2025 06:00 amsmartbitches_feed
This Rec League is from Rebecca from our podcast Patreon Discord:
So I’m really enjoying the Below Stairs mysteries and wondered if anyone has any recs for other historical cosy mystery series. What I like about them is they generally resolve well and have that cosy mystery feel, but they also acknowledge some of the social justice issues of the time. I don’t really like high society stuff, so I like that they’re about working class.
Susan: Hither Page by Cat Sebastian has a very tired spy poking around a small village trying to solve a murder with a former army doctor, and it’s full of people trying their best
Fewer cozy vibes, but Murder on the Last Frontier by Cathy Pegau has a suffragette journalist in a frontier town in Alaska trying to solve the murder of a sex worker.
…I’m coming to realise that I read a lot of historical mysteries, and a lot of cozy mysteries, but not a lot in the intersection, hang on.
Sarah: I LOVED the Hither, Page books.
The Crown Colony series by Ovidia Yu, starting with The Frangipani Tree Mystery. They’re set in the late 30s in Singapore, when it’s still a British colony.
Murder at Mallowan Hall by Colleen Cambridge ( A | BN | K ) is about Agatha Christie and her housekeeper, Phyllida Bright.
Miss Aldridge Regrets by Louise Hare might work – it’s more noir and takes place on the Queen Mary in the 30s.
What mysteries would you recommend? Let us know in the comments!
Review: Stargate Universe
Sep. 3rd, 2025 09:10 pmjducoeurAfter far too many years, I finally got around to watching the third of the Stargate series.
Summary: I really wanted to like this show, but... not so much. It's not bad, but it completely fails to be fun.
Quick summary of the background:
The franchise started with the movie Stargate, which postulated the idea that, thousands of years ago, an evil alien, posing as the god Ra, kidnapped a lot of humans to another planet via a teleporting stargate; in the modern day, an archaeologist and a military man free them.
You can ignore the movie -- the relevant bits get recapped in the first series.
Then came the series Stargate: SG-1. This reveals that there wasn't one stargate -- instead, they are scattered all over the galaxy, put there by a long-ago Ancient alien race. Ra was merely one of the evil Gou'auld parasites, who have transported and enslaved humans on many planets.
SG-1 is completely delightful: not the hardest SF ever, but a good, smart story about a small Earth team first learning about the galaxy around them, and eventually taking the fight to the Gou'auld. It somehow manages to make it plausible that, over the span of eight years, Earth goes from discovering the existence of aliens to leading a galactic alliance. It's tense at times, but always imaginative and optimistic.
Then came Stargate: Atlantis. An Earth team discover Atlantis -- it just happens to be on a planet halfway across the galaxy, threatened by nasty vampire things. It's not as brilliant as SG-1, but it's good middle of the road science fiction.
That brings us to Stargate: Universe. A human scientific base winds up dialing through a stargate halfway across the universe -- not merely the usual tens of thousands of light years, but billions of light years away. They wind up aboard an ancient starship named Destiny, trying to survive and figure out a way to get home.
Yes, comparisons to Star Trek: Voyager are kind of apt, but there are differences, both good and bad.
On the one hand, they can actually talk to home relatively frequently (via a mechanism established in the previous series), so they're not quite so isolated. This is a mixed blessing, since it means that they have to deal with the military and politicians back home, but it introduces some interesting nuances.
But ultimately, the problem with SG:U is that it is utterly, unrelentingly, grim.
This is a tale about a fairly small community (90ish people at the beginning, but not everyone makes it) trying to survive in an unforgiving environment. The Destiny is a large, fast, powerful ship, but they are constantly fighting to find enough food, water, air and power to keep going, in a galaxy that has no other humans in it and lots of aliens who don't like humans very much. (Including, in season two, a "race" of drones that are basically Saberhagen's Berserkers, out to kill all life other than the long-dead species that created them.)
Worse, there's a persistent stylistic choice of presenting hope and then snatching it away. We have a tragedy that is somewhat leavened by what seems to perhaps be a mystical miracle -- which two subsequent episodes undercut and show it had to all be imaginary. Two of our main characters have their true loves essentially killed off three times (super-science stuff). Our heroes discover an enormous trove of knowledge, only to have it destroyed before they manage to extract the one bit of data that they really need.
It goes on like that. The characters absolutely learn and grow, some of them quite well, and gradually begin to cohere as a forced-together family, but by the end of season two basically everybody is deeply traumatized, walking wounded both physically and emotionally. The only people who get a more or less happy ending are an alternate-timeline version of the crew.
The series was prematurely cancelled after two seasons, leaving things on a bit of a cliffhanger, and I want to be able to regret that. The stories were often interesting, and some of the writing and acting quite good.
But ultimately, I can't regret the cancellation, because the show is just plain exhausting. Moments of joy are rare; most episodes, the best the crew can celebrate is surviving long enough to keep going, even while they know that the ship, fast as it is, can never actually get them back home.
So -- not a recommendation, I'm afraid: even for Stargate completists like me, it just doesn't pay off enough to be worth the time. I'd like to believe that would have changed if they'd gotten a full seven-season run, and been able to tell the full story, which looked like it was trying to tell the origin of the universe itself. But the moral is that you can't tell a story that will only be good eventually -- it has to provide at least some enjoyment from early on...
Available Exclusively at the Geiger Counter!
Sep. 3rd, 2025 07:24 pmcakewrecks_feedWhen it comes to powerfully good cake, the choice is (nu)clear:
And here's some fuel for thought: this wasn't a special order. It was just out in the display case, on the off chance someone was having a nuclear power plant themed occasion worth celebrating.
HOW WELL THEY KNOW ME.
Thanks to Clare M. for the rad wreckporting.
*****
P.S. And if you like that, then I have just the punny shirt for you:
"Overreacting" Chemistry Shirt
:D
*****
And from my other blog, Epbot:
Links: Kickstarters, Sailor Moon, & More
Sep. 3rd, 2025 06:00 pmsmartbitches_feed
Welcome back to Links!
Apologies if there are any errors. There is a cat in my lap who does not approve of me reaching over her head to type. No matter how many pet breaks or forehead kisses I give her.
A friend and I watched The Thursday Murder Club Netflix adaptation this weekend. I thought it was okay if you hadn’t read the book. Otherwise, I’m a little eh on some of the changes they made.
Your thoughts? (Be wary of spoilers in the comments!)
To use spoiler tags, it’s [spoiler*]text here[/spoiler*], but remove the asterisks.
If you haven’t watched it yet, there’s still time before our discussion thread goes up this Saturday.
…
Do you love puzzles and Mariana Zapata romances? There’s a Kickstarter with only a few days left for special edition hardcovers and puzzles of memorable scenes.
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Sarah sent me this link because it’s very much in my house of wheels. It’s an article in Vogue about how Sailor Moon influenced 90s fashion. Hell yeah.
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Another Kickstarter! This is a board game for Austenites. I’m thinking about backing it. I’ve backed a previous project from this game designer (Botany) and loved it. I believe I also have another game of theirs, but have yet to test it out.
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Enjoy this dreamy mashup of Kesha and ABBA.
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Don’t forget to share what cool or interesting things you’ve seen, read, or listened to this week! And if you have anything you think we’d like to post on a future Wednesday Links, send it my way!
KDDs, YA Romance, & More
Sep. 3rd, 2025 03:30 pmsmartbitches_feedThe Priory of the Orange Tree
The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon is $2.99 and a Kindle Daily Deal! This is over 800 pages, so a digital copy might be beneficial, though many readers felt a couple hundred pages could have been chopped. I’ve seen reviews call this one an “epic feminist fantasy” novel.
From the internationally bestselling author of The Bone Season, a trailblazing, epic high fantasy about a world on the brink of war with dragons–and the women who must lead the fight to save it.
A world divided.
A queendom without an heir.
An ancient enemy awakens.
The House of Berethnet has ruled Inys for a thousand years. Still unwed, Queen Sabran the Ninth must conceive a daughter to protect her realm from destruction–but assassins are getting closer to her door.
Ead Duryan is an outsider at court. Though she has risen to the position of lady-in-waiting, she is loyal to a hidden society of mages. Ead keeps a watchful eye on Sabran, secretly protecting her with forbidden magic.
Across the dark sea, Tané has trained all her life to be a dragonrider, but is forced to make a choice that could see her life unravel.
Meanwhile, the divided East and West refuse to parley, and forces of chaos are rising from their sleep.
Accidentally Amy
Accidentally Amy by Lynn Painter is $1.99! This had a trade release in January of this year. Painter’s books have been spoken highly of on the site, but this appears to be the lowest rated release. Did you read it?
A stolen latte results in a meet-cute for the ages in this brand-new edition, with bonus content, of New York Times bestselling author Lynn Painter’s rom-com Accidentally Amy.
Isabella Shay is usually a very honest person. But when she’s running late for her first day at her dream job and the barista yells for “Amy” three times with no answer, she does the unthinkable.
Izzy takes that PSL.
It’s the exact drink she ordered and paid for, only way further ahead in the queue—and she’ll take whatever bad karma is coming for her; she’s desperate and very late. But when she turns around and runs directly into the most attractive man she’s ever seen, spilling the drink all over his made-for-GQ shirt and tie, she ends up having the ultimate meet-cute. Karma who? Sparks fly and things feel beyond promising, until he says to “See you tomorrow, Amy.”
Izzy reasons she can just straighten things out the next day, no biggie. Only when she gets to her new office and meets the VP of her department, it is none other than Blake Phillips—the hottie from Starbucks. And the man might’ve been charming to “Amy,” but he is an arrogant grump to Izzy, an arrogant grump who does not find her explanation funny at all. But day by day, an attraction simmers between them and they’ll have to find a way to work together without ripping each other’s heads—or clothes—off.
Dungeons and Drama
Dungeons and Drama by Kristy Boyce is $1.99! This is a YA romance with fake dating between two cute gaming nerds. I also think this cover is really joyful and adorable.
When it comes to romance, sometimes it doesn’t hurt to play games. A fun YA romcom full of fake dating hijinks!
Musical lover Riley has big aspirations to become a director on Broadway. Crucial to this plan is to bring back her high school’s spring musical, but when Riley takes her mom’s car without permission, she’s grounded and stuck with the worst punishment: spending her after-school hours working at her dad’s game shop.
Riley can’t waste her time working when she has a musical to save, so she convinces Nathan—a nerdy teen employee—to cover her shifts and, in exchange, she’ll flirt with him to make his gamer-girl crush jealous.
But Riley didn’t realize that meant joining Nathan’s Dungeons & Dragons game…or that role playing would be so fun. Soon, Riley starts to think that flirting with Nathan doesn’t require as much acting as she would’ve thought…
Just a Heartbeat Away
Just a Heartbeat Away by Cara Bastone is $1.99 and a Kindle Daily Deal! Aarya mentioned this one in a previous Whatcha Reading and mentioned it’s an age gap romance with a slow burn. Bastone’s books have been highly recommended in the comments.
Some people change your life
Others change your heart
Newly widowed dad Sebastian Dorner was unraveling at the edges—until his son’s teacher, Via DeRosa, threw him a lifeline. Now, two years later, they reconnect at Matty’s new school, and an inconvenient but unmistakable jolt of attraction crackles between them. But why does the first person to spark with Sebastian in years have to be a millennial? Is twentysomething Via really too young for him or does fortysomething Sebastian just feel too damn old?
A former foster kid, Via’s finally forged the stable life she’s always dreamed of—new job, steady income, no drama. The last thing she needs are rumors about her and a single dad at school. But why does she keep being drawn into his capable, worn-flannel orbit? And why does being around Sebastian, Matty and even their dog, Crabby, seem to spark so much want?
They’re trying to ignore the tension threatening their friendship. But sometimes what’ll heal you is just a touch—and a heartbeat—away…
Lessons in Magic and Disaster by Charlie Jane Anders
Sep. 3rd, 2025 06:00 amsmartbitches_feed
A-
Lessons in Magic and Disaster
by Charlie Jane Anders
August 19, 2025 · Tor
Contemporary RomanceErotica/Erotic RomanceRomance
Lessons in Disaster is such a beautiful, finely crafted book that I feel kind of humbled to have been able to read it. It’s not a perfect book – it ends abruptly, it can be didactic, and I developed a love/hate relationship with the tendencies of all these intellectual characters to use words like ‘heuristic’ in the middle of emotional arguments. But overall, this was lovely.
The book tells the stories of two women and their relationships with their partners and with each other.
- Jamie is struggling to teach and finish her dissertation. She is married to Ro. Also, Jamie is a witch, something neither Ro nor Serena knows.
- Serena, Jamie’s mother, was married to Mae. They had Jamie together through IVF and had a loving relationship until Mae died of cancer.
- Jamie is struggling to decode the queer elements of a novel called Emily, written by Sarah Fielding or perhaps Sarah’s close friend Jane Collier in 1749.
The story begins with Jamie deciding to tell Serena, who is nearly paralyzed by grief, that Jamie does magic. Jamie hopes that by teaching Serena how to do magic, they will grow closer and Serena will heal. But as we all know, mother/daughter relationships are complicated, and Jamie has no idea what Serena wants to use magic for or how Serena wants to use it. As Jamie and Serena work out their relationships with each other and with magic, we learn more about Jamie and Ro’s relationship and get flashbacks that take us through Serena’s marriage to Mae. Meanwhile we also follow Jamie’s journey of discovery as she searches for the true author of Emily.
Jamie and Serena are so well-drawn in their loveliness and messiness, together and as individuals. It’s fascinating to see how the family dynamics between Serena and Ro are paired with the dynamics between Jamie and Ro. I believed that they, Jamie and Ro especially, argue using heightened academic language only because these two people are steeped in academia (in Jamie’s case, since birth). I found it interesting the way this kind of language and habit of intellectual analysis could both serve to help them resolve differences and create/conceal/cover-up deeper feelings.
My husband and I went through a rough patch several years ago and although we are very different people than Jamie and Ro, this passage make me laugh and wince in pained recognition at the same time:
A few days after that, Serena was trying to bang out a Memorandum of Law for her class on how to write like a lawyer, and Mae asked if Serena had bought any milk. Without looking away from the screen, Serena said there was one way to find out. The next day, she and Mae had a completely pointless argument about whether Kathy Acker could be considered cyberpunk, or cyber-punk adjacent. (Neither of them was entirely sure how to define “cyberpunk” which made it worse).
I know that Tolstoy says that “every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” However, the evidence of this quote suggests otherwise as my husband and I had near-identical exchanges over and over again during our own rough-patch years, and we got through it in more or less the same way that Serena and Mae get through theirs.
There are so many threads and themes in this book that deserve their own essays of literary analysis – relationships between women, the changing ways that we describe and discuss queerness across generations, relationships between mothers and daughters, female and non-binary power, activism and resistance both from within and without the system, the erasure of women and of queerness in history, family trauma, sex work, and more. My only problem with this book is that, as evidenced by this paragraph, so much was crammed into it that any one theme or character could have encompassed an entire book.
As a child, Serena tells Jamie, “You will always be loved, you cannot mess up so badly that you will not be loved.” This sentence reverberates through the book, bringing a running thread of love, redemption, and forgiveness to the story. I found the book to be very moving on a lot of levels, and when it ended I wanted to go straight back to page one to read it all over again.
Hockey, Western Romance, & More
Sep. 2nd, 2025 03:30 pmsmartbitches_feedBack After This
Back After This by Linda Holmes is $1.99! If you still need to fill the “Works in Audio” bingo square, this would qualify. This is standalone and straddles the line between romance and women’s fiction.
From the New York Times bestselling author of Evvie Drake Starts Over and Flying Solo, a podcast producer agrees to host a new series about modern dating—but will the show jeopardize her chance at finding real love?
Cecily Foster loves to make podcasts. She fiercely protects her colleagues, dearly adores her friends, and never misses dinner with her sister. But after a disastrous relationship with a colleague who stole her heart and her ideas, she’s put romantic love on hold.
When the boss who’s disappointed her again and again finally offers her the chance to host her own show, she wants to be thrilled. But there’s a catch—actually, two catches. First, the show will be about Cecily’s dating life. And second, she has to follow the guidance of influencer and newly minted relationship coach Eliza Cassidy, whose relentlessly upbeat attitude seems ready-made for social media, not real life.
Cecily would rather do anything other than put her singledom on display (ugh) or take advice from the internet (UGH). But when her boss hints that doing the show is the only way to protect a friend’s job, she realizes she has no choice.
To make matters more complicated, once she’s committed to twenty blind dates of Eliza’s choosing, Cecily finds herself unable to stop thinking about Will, a photographer she helped to rescue a very big and very lovable lost dog. Even though there are sparks between the two, Will’s own path is uncertain, and Eliza’s skeptical comments about Cecily’s decision-making aren’t helping. On the one hand, Will seems great. But on the other hand . . . don’t they all?
As Cecily struggles to balance the life she truly desires and the one Eliza wants to create for her, she finds herself at a crossroads. Can Cecily sort through all the advice and find a way to do what she loves without losing herself in the process?
Out on a Limb
Out on a Limb by Hannah Bonam-Young is $1.99! This is a contemporary romance with a surprise pregnancy after a one night stand. Both of the main characters also have limb differences and I appreciate that being present in the cover art as well.
A hot one-night stand—and an unexpected pregnancy—lead a young woman to someone she can depend on
Winnifred “Win” McNulty has always been wildly independent and not one to be coddled for her limb difference. Win has spent most of her life trying to prove that she can do it all on her own. With some minor adjustments, she’s done just fine.
Hooking up at a costume party with the incredibly charming Bo changes everything. Win finds herself pregnant—and decides to keep the baby. While Bo is surprisingly elated to step up to the plate, Win is unsure of whether she can handle this new challenge.
Together, Win and Bo decide to get to know one another as friends and nothing more while they embark on this parenting journey together. But, as they both should know by now, life rarely goes according to plan.
Change of Hart
Change of Hart by Bailey Hannah is $1.99! This is book three in the Wells Ranch series and features a second chance romance. Have you read this series?
In this spicy romance from the author of Alive and Wells and Seeing Red, a jaded woman reluctantly returns to her hometown—and to the cowboy who broke her heart and drove her away.
She spent years trying to forget. He’ll do anything to make her remember.
Wells Canyon is the last place Blair Hart wants to be. Yet when her mother falls ill, she has no choice except to return to the hometown she’s avoided for over a decade. In a town so small, she knows there’s no way she can avoid the cowboy who tore her life to pieces all those years ago, but that doesn’t mean she’s prepared for the way Denver Wells can turn back time with a single smile.
Since Denver’s world came crashing down thirteen years ago, he’s somehow managed to keep his demons at bay…that is, until Blair Hart’s return knocks him from his saddle. But if he wants her back, he’ll have to prove he can be the man she needs—the same one she used to love.
Throwing herself into the role of caregiver, Blair doesn’t have the time to sift through their messy history even if she wanted to. And Denver’s going to need a lot more than his usual cowboy charm to convince Blair he’s worth a change of heart.
The New Guy
The New Guy by Sarina Bowen is 99c! This is book one in The Hockey Guys series, which is a series of standalone m/m romances.
My name is Hudson Newgate, but my teammates call me New Guy.
That was my nickname in Chicago, too. And Vancouver. That’s what happens when you keep getting traded. Brooklyn is my last chance, especially after my poor performance last season.
But I can make this work. The new guy knows to keep his head down and shoot the puck. The new guy puts the game first.
What he doesn’t do is hook up with the other new guy—a hot athletic trainer who lives in my building. Gavin needs this job with my team. He’s a single dad with responsibilities.
We can’t be a couple. My arrogant agent–who’s also my father–will lose his mind if I’m dating a dude. And my team needs me to score goals, not whip up a media circus.
Too bad Gavin and I are terrible at resisting each other…