Never Met a Duke Like You is a tale of opposites attracting in a dazzling Regency romance that's been compared to Clueless meeting Bridgerton. We meet Lady Vesper Lyndhurst, a beautiful and clever duke's daughter who revels in luxury and has a special talent for matchmaking. Although she's taken a vow against love for herself, she excels at arranging it for others.
Enter the Duke of Greydon, who, burdened by an insolvent estate, reluctantly returns to England to save his family's dwindling fortunes. He's been away for years, content to be free from his mother's grasp and the trivialities of high society. But upon his return, he finds that little has changed, including his feelings for the infuriatingly attractive heiress who lives next door.
An unforeseen incident lands the pair, who have evolved from friends to adversaries, trapped in an attic. In the close quarters, their undeniable chemistry sparks into a fiery connection that they find increasingly difficult to deny. Despite being complete opposites with seemingly incompatible lives, destiny, the ever-persistent matchmaker, seems to have a different plan in store for them.
He knows how to score, on and off the ice.
Allie Hayes is in crisis mode. With graduation looming, she still doesn’t have the first clue about what she’s going to do after college. To make matters worse, she’s nursing a broken heart thanks to the end of her longtime relationship. Wild rebound sex is definitely not the solution to her problems, but gorgeous hockey star Dean Di Laurentis is impossible to resist. Just once, though, because even if her future is uncertain, it sure as heck won’t include the king of one-night stands.
It’ll take more than flashy moves to win her over.
Dean always gets what he wants. Girls, grades, girls, recognition, girls…he’s a ladies' man, all right, and he’s yet to meet a woman who’s immune to his charms. Until Allie. For one night, the feisty blonde rocked his entire world—and now she wants to be friends? Nope. It’s not over until he says it’s over. Dean is in full-on pursuit, but when life-rocking changes strike, he starts to wonder if maybe it’s time to stop focusing on scoring…and shoot for love.
So many ways to torpedo your career and your love life…So little time. A woman accidentally reveals all her secrets in this witty and charming novel from the author of Eight Perfect Hours.
Two years ago, thirty-year-old receptionist Millie Chandler had her heart spectacularly broken in public. Ever since, she has been a closed book, vowing to keep everything to herself—her feelings, her truths, even her dreams—in an effort to protect herself from getting hurt again.
But Millie does write emails—sarcastic replies to her rude boss, hard truths to her friends, and of course, that one-thousand-word love declaration to her ex who is now engaged to someone else. The emails live safely in her drafts, but after a server outage at work, Millie wakes up to discover that all her emails have been sent. Every. Single. One. As every truth, lie, and secret she’s worked so hard to keep only to herself are catapulted out into the open, Millie must fix the chaos her words have caused, and face everything she’s ever swept under the carpet.
Hunt on Dark Waters is the first fantasy romance novel in the Crimson Sails series from Katee Robert, the New York Times bestselling author of the TikTok smash-hit Neon Gods.
Evelyn is a witch with a perfect storm of impulses: terrible taste in bed partners, sticky fingers, and a lust for danger. After she steals from her vampire ex and falls through a portal to another realm, she's fished out of the waters by a band of seafarers and their telekinetic captain.
She's immediately given a choice—join their ship's crew or die. Bowen, the captain, has no memory of his life before he became one of the Cŵn Annwn. He and his band of pirates patrol the magical sea in between realms, ensuring the safety of the portals to other worlds. Despite his guarded nature, he can't help but be attracted to the brassy pickpocket.
As the tension between Bowen and Evelyn heats up, so does the danger on the high seas. Evelyn, who has no intention of keeping her vows to the Cŵn Annwn, may force both herself and Bowen to pay the ultimate price if she betrays the crew.
There is a place in modern-day America with no electricity, no plumbing, and no modern conveniences. In this place, there is no room for dreams, no space for self-expression, and no tolerance for ambition.
In this place, there is a boy with the body of a god and the heart of a warrior. He is strong and faithful and serves his family honorably. But he dares to dream of more.
In this place, there is a girl with the face of an angel and a heart full of courage. To her family, she is the vision of obedient perfection. But she dares to want that which she has been told can never be hers.
Becoming Calder is the story of good versus evil, fear versus bravery, and the truth that the light of love has always found its way into even the darkest of places, from the beginning of time to the end of the world.
In the community of Acadia lives a boy named Calder with the body of a god and the heart of a warrior. He serves his family with faith and honor, but he dares to dream of more, especially when an angel-faced girl his age is brought to their community. To Acadia, Eden is obedient perfection, prophesized to lead them to eternal peace, but to Calder, even at first glance, she is so much more.
Calder and Eden were never meant to be friends. Certainly never meant to fall in love. After all, Eden is betrothed to Acadia's leader, secluded until the day of her destiny. But as she and Calder steal fleeting moments and forbidden kisses, their hearts grow dangerously tangled, and it's too late to heed the warnings.
In Acadia, they can never be together. But Acadia is all they know. If they want any chance at a future, they must risk everything to choose between the life they were taught to live and the dream their hearts want to follow.
Iris Kelly Doesn't Date is a witty and heartfelt new romantic comedy by Ashley Herring Blake. Iris Kelly, a romance author, is surrounded by love in every corner of her life, yet she prefers to stick to her commitment-free lifestyle, despite the pressure to settle down. But as she faces a looming deadline for her second book, Iris finds herself completely out of inspiration.
One night, Iris's visit to a Portland bar leads her to Stefania, a sexy stranger with whom she shares a night of passion, only for it to turn into a disaster. The plot thickens when Iris auditions for a local play and encounters Stefania again, who is actually named Stevie. In a twist of fate, Stevie convinces Iris to pose as her girlfriend, sparking an arrangement that could provide the perfect fodder for Iris's book.
As they act out their fake relationship, Iris and Stevie find themselves in a blur of emotions, questioning the authenticity of their connection and who will dare to make the first real move.
Julia: A Novel is an imaginative, feminist, and brilliantly relevant-to-today retelling of Orwell's 1984, from the point of view of Winston Smith's lover, Julia, by critically acclaimed novelist Sandra Newman. Julia Worthing is a mechanic, working in the Fiction Department at the Ministry of Truth. It's 1984, and Britain (now called Airstrip One) has long been absorbed into the larger trans-Atlantic nation of Oceania.
Oceania has been at war for as long as anyone can remember, and is ruled by an ultra-totalitarian Party, whose leader is a quasi-mythical figure called Big Brother. In short, everything about this world is as it is in Orwell's 1984. All her life, Julia has known only Oceania, and, until she meets Winston Smith, she has never imagined anything else.
Seventy-five years after Orwell finished writing his iconic novel, Sandra Newman has tackled the world of Big Brother in a truly convincing way, offering a dramatically different, feminist narrative that is true to and stands alongside the original. For the millions of readers who have been brought up with Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, here, finally, is a provocative, vital and utterly satisfying companion novel.
Monica is a dazzling, spectacular tapestry of interconnected narratives that together tell a life story. Clowes calls upon a lifetime of inspiration to create the most complex and personal graphic novel of his distinguished career. Rich with visual detail, an impeccable ear for language and dialogue, and thrilling twists, Monica is a multilayered masterpiece in comics form that alludes to many of the genres that have defined the medium — war, romance, horror, crime, the supernatural, and more — but in a mysterious, uncategorizable, and quintessentially Clowesian way that rewards multiple readings.
Five years in the making, Monica marks the apex of creativity from one of the defining voices of the graphic novel boom over the past quarter-century.
In The Long Game, a disgraced soccer exec, Adalyn Reyes, faces the challenge of her career when a viral video disrupts her meticulously crafted routine. Sent to redeem herself by turning around a struggling local soccer team in North Carolina, Adalyn's plans are further complicated by the team's unconventional practices and their fear of her.
Enter Cameron Caldani, a retired soccer star with a mysterious presence and a rocky first encounter with Adalyn. Despite the odds, Adalyn is determined to help this ragtag children's team succeed, with or without Cam's assistance. Her journey is a testament to resilience and the power of second chances in this heartwarming small-town love story reminiscent of Ted Lasso and It Happened One Summer.
In this beautiful and moving novel about family, love, and growing up, Ann Patchett once again proves herself one of America's finest writers. "Patchett leads us to a truth that feels like life rather than literature." --The Guardian
It's spring and Lara's three grown daughters have returned to the family orchard in Northern Michigan. While picking cherries, they beg their mother to tell them the one story they've always longed to hear – of the film star with whom she shared a stage, and a romance, years before.
Tom Lake is a meditation on youthful love, married love, and the lives parents have led before their children were born. Both hopeful and elegiac, it explores what it means to be happy even when the world is falling apart.
Vanessa Mazur knows she's doing the right thing. She shouldn't feel bad for quitting. Being an assistant/housekeeper/fairy godmother to the top defensive end in the National Football Organization was always supposed to be temporary. She has plans and none of them include washing extra-large underwear longer than necessary.
But when Aiden Graves shows up at her door wanting her to come back, she's beyond shocked. For two years, the man known as The Wall of Winnipeg couldn't find it in him to tell her good morning or congratulate her on her birthday. Now? He's asking for the unthinkable.
What do you say to the man who is used to getting everything he wants?
Slingshot is a love story – about a man, a woman, another man, another woman, some gender-bending...and a machine, the largest ever built. Slingshot is a mystery – about a missing aviatrix, a conspiracy, a true-believer. It is an adventure – about following a dream, the ocean-deep, outer space.
Slingshot is about constructing the first space launch-loop stretching 2,600 km between Baker and Jarvis Islands in the Equatorial Pacific. It’s about high finance, intrigue, unlimited ambition, heroism, fanaticism, betrayal...and about opening space to the common person.
The setting is the day-after-tomorrow. Technology has advanced, the web is more pervasive than ever, but human ambition and greed remain unchanged. In Slingshot, Alex Regent, Margo Jackson, and Klaus Blumenfeld reach for the stars as they blend their skills to create the world’s first space launch-loop, backed by major software money. Environmental fanatic Lars Watson with his team of young eco-terrorists are funded by opposing financial interests, who will go to any length to halt the project.
Reporter Lori Kutcher indiscriminately applies her own personal skills to ensure it is she who reports the unfolding events to a watching world. With a cast of 69, Slingshot takes you from Seattle’s world financial district, to the ocean bottom at 5,000 feet off Baker Island, to the edge of space 80 km above. You play with dolphins and battle sharks. You fly and sail and dive, you work and play and love across the vast panorama of an Equatorial Pacific being put to leash to serve humanity’s surge into outer space.
While its accurate science and precise engineering will appeal to hard science-fiction buffs, Slingshot’s major focus is the grand journey, the opening of outer space to the common person by men and women who loom larger than life as they work, play, and love.
A woman on the run. A crew of Viking mercenaries. A forbidden romance. And the secret which threatens them all.
Silla Nordvig is running for her life.
The queen of Íseldur has sent warriors to bring Silla to Sunnavík, where death awaits her. When her father is killed, his last words set Silla on a perilous quest: travel the treacherous Road of Bones–a thousand-mile stretch haunted by warbands, creatures of darkness, and a mysterious murderer–and go to Kopa, where a shield-house awaits her.
After barely surviving the first stretch of road, a desperate Silla sneaks into a supply wagon belonging to the notorious Bloodaxe Crew. To make it to Kopa, she must win over Axe Eyes, the brooding leader of the Crew, while avoiding the Wolf, his distractingly handsome right-hand man. But the queen’s ruthless assassin has other plans and hunts Silla obsessively.
Will Silla make it safely to Kopa? Or will she fall prey to the perils of the Road of Bones?
Featuring an immersive world blending fairy tale with Vikings, The Road of Bones leads you on an adrenaline-fueled chase with fun banter and a slow-building enemies to lovers romance.
The Rachel Incident, brilliantly funny novel about friends, lovers, Ireland in chaos, and a young woman desperately trying to manage all three.
Rachel is a student working at a bookstore when she meets James, and it’s love at first sight. Effervescent and insistently heterosexual, James soon invites Rachel to be his roommate and the two begin a friendship that changes the course of both their lives forever. Together, they run riot through the streets of Cork city, trying to maintain a bohemian existence while the threat of the financial crash looms before them.
When Rachel falls in love with her married professor, Dr. Fred Byrne, James helps her devise a reading at their local bookstore, with the goal that she might seduce him afterwards. But Fred has other desires. So begins a series of secrets and compromises that intertwine the fates of James, Rachel, Fred, and Fred’s glamorous, well-connected, bourgeois wife. Aching with unrequited love, shot through with delicious, sparkling humor, The Rachel Incident is a triumph.
Loot is a spellbinding historical novel set in the eighteenth century, weaving together a hero's quest, a love story, and the coming of age of a young artist with an exuberant heist adventure. This narrative traces the bloody legacy of colonialism across two continents and fifty years, making for an irresistibly inventive storytelling experience from the imaginative mind of Tania James, who is at the height of her powers.
At the tender age of seventeen, Abbas's talents as a woodcarver catch the eye of Tipu Sultan, leading him to the palace to construct a grand tiger automaton for Tipu's sons, a commemoration of their return from British captivity. The journey of Abbas—and the wooden tiger he contributes to—reflects the tumultuous shifts of nations and empires devastated by conflict across India and Europe.
In the company of the renowned French clockmaker Lucien du Leze, Abbas refines his craft, picks up French, and encounters Jehanne, a French expatriate's daughter. Once Du Leze is allowed to journey back to Rouen, he takes Abbas under his wing as an apprentice. However, Abbas's European endeavor is met with the harsh reality that Tipu's palace has been pillaged by British troops, and the tiger automaton has vanished. To establish his worth, Abbas is compelled to reclaim the tiger from an English estate where it stands amongst a trove of looted treasures.
The many lives of theoretical physicist Elsie Hannaway have finally caught up with her. By day, she's an adjunct professor, toiling away at grading labs and teaching thermodynamics in the hopes of landing tenure. By other day, Elsie makes up for her non-existent paycheck by offering her services as a fake girlfriend, tapping into her expertly honed people-pleasing skills to embody whichever version of herself the client needs.
Honestly, it's a pretty sweet gig—until her carefully constructed Elsie-verse comes crashing down. Because Jack Smith, the annoyingly attractive and arrogant older brother of her favorite client, turns out to be the cold-hearted experimental physicist who ruined her mentor's career and undermined the reputation of theorists everywhere. And he's the same Jack Smith who rules over the physics department at MIT, standing right between Elsie and her dream job.
Elsie is prepared for an all-out war of scholarly sabotage but… those long, penetrating looks? Not having to be anything other than her true self when she's with him? Will falling into an experimentalist's orbit finally tempt her to put her most guarded theories on love into practice?
A sparkling second-chance romance inspired by Jane Austen's Persuasion...
Nada Syed is stuck. On the cusp of thirty, she's still living at home with her brothers and parents in the Golden Crescent neighbourhood of Toronto, resolutely ignoring her mother's unsubtle pleas to get married already. While Nada has a good job as an engineer, it's a far cry from realizing her start-up dreams for her tech baby, Ask Apa, the app that launched with a whimper instead of a bang because of a double-crossing business partner. Nothing in her life has turned out the way it was supposed to, and Nada feels like a failure. Something needs to change, but the past is holding on too tightly to let her move forward.
Nada's best friend Haleema is determined to pry her from her shell...and what better place than at the giant annual Muslim conference held downtown, where Nada can finally meet Haleema's fiancé, Zayn. And did Haleema mention Zayn's brother Baz will be there?
What Haleema doesn't know is that Nada and Baz have a past—some of it good, some of it bad and all of it secret. At the conference, that past all comes hurtling at Nada, bringing new complications and a moment of reckoning. Can Nada truly say goodbye to once was or should she hold tight to her dreams and find their new beginnings?
Kairos, by Jenny Erpenbeck, is a novel of great emotional depth and historical resonance. Set against the backdrop of the collapsing German Democratic Republic (GDR), this intricate love story weaves together the lives of two individuals caught in the midst of transformative times.
Nineteen-year-old Katharina encounters a married writer in his fifties, Hans, by chance in East Berlin at the end of the 1980s. The narrative follows their passionate, yet challenging, long-running affair through the decline and eventual dissolution of the GDR in 1989, and into the era that follows.
With her distinctive style and broad narrative sweep, Erpenbeck charts the journey of these two lovers. Katharina matures and grapples with a romance that is far from ideal, paralleling the disintegration of an entire world along with its ideology.
Erpenbeck is celebrated for her ability to capture the nuances of human relationships amidst the dramatic shifts of history, and Kairos is no exception. It is a powerful exploration of love, identity, and the indelible impact of political change on personal lives.
The ultimate summer nostalgia read, about an engaged woman who comes face to face with her first love who she hasn't seen in fourteen years, but who she spent every summer with from age five to seventeen when he broke her heart, calling into question everything she thought she knew about their love story, and herself.
Beach Rules: Do take long walks on the sand. Do put an umbrella in every cocktail. Do NOT run into your first love.
Sam’s life is on track. She has the perfect doctor fiancé, Jack (his strict routines are a good thing, really), a great job in Manhattan (unless they fire her), and is about to tour a wedding venue near her family’s Long Island beach house. Everything should go to plan, yet the minute she arrives, Sam senses something is off. Wyatt is here. Her Wyatt. But there’s no reason for a thirty-year-old engaged woman to feel panicked around the guy who broke her heart when she was seventeen. Right?
Unfortunately Yours, a novel by #1 New York Times bestselling author Tessa Bailey, is a hilarious rom-com set in the picturesque Napa Valley.
Natalie, after losing her job and fiancé, returns home to recover and plan her next move. With a trust fund that requires her to be married for access, she finds herself proposing a marriage of convenience to August, a man whose presence stirs both irritation and attraction within her.
August is determined to honor his late best friend's legacy but is struggling as no bank will approve the loan he needs. When Natalie offers a solution in the form of a quickie marriage, he's tempted by the prospect despite their mutual antagonism.
What was supposed to be a simple arrangement becomes complicated by their unfortunate, unbearable, and undeniable attraction to each other.
Sparks fly when a romance novelist and a documentary filmmaker join forces to craft the perfect Hollywood love story and take both of their careers to the next level—but only if they can keep the chemistry between them from taking the whole thing off script.
Felicity “Fizzy” Chen is lost. Sure, she’s got an incredible career as a beloved romance novelist with a slew of bestsellers under her belt, but when she’s asked to give a commencement address, it hits her: she hasn’t been practicing what she’s preached. Fizzy hasn’t ever really been in love. Lust? Definitely. But that swoon-worthy, can’t-stop-thinking-about-him, all-encompassing feeling? Nope. Nothing. What happens when the optimism she’s spent her career encouraging in readers starts to feel like a lie?
Connor Prince, documentary filmmaker and single father, loves his work in large part because it allows him to live near his daughter. But when his profit-minded boss orders him to create a reality TV show, putting his job on the line, Connor is out of his element. Desperate to find his romantic lead, a chance run-in with an exasperated Fizzy offers Connor the perfect solution. What if he could show the queen of romance herself falling head-over-heels for all the world to see? Fizzy gives him a hard pass—unless he agrees to her list of demands. When he says yes, and production on The True Love Experiment begins, Connor wonders if that perfect match will ever be in the cue cards for him, too.
Enter the brutal and elite world of a war college for dragon riders from New York Times bestselling author Rebecca Yarros.
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.
Harriet and Wyn have been the perfect couple since they met in college—they go together like salt and pepper, honey and tea, lobster and rolls. Except, now—for reasons they're still not discussing—they don't. They broke up six months ago. And still haven't told their best friends.
Which is how they find themselves sharing the largest bedroom at the Maine cottage that has been their friend group's yearly getaway for the last decade. Their annual respite from the world, where for one vibrant, blue week they leave behind their daily lives; have copious amounts of cheese, wine, and seafood; and soak up the salty coastal air with the people who understand them most.
Only this year, Harriet and Wyn are lying through their teeth while trying not to notice how desperately they still want each other. Because the cottage is for sale and this is the last week they'll all have together in this place. They can't stand to break their friends' hearts, and so they'll play their parts. Harriet will be the driven surgical resident who never starts a fight, and Wyn will be the laid-back charmer who never lets the cracks show. It's a flawless plan (if you look at it from a great distance and through a pair of sunscreen-smeared sunglasses). After years of being in love, how hard can it be to fake it for one week… in front of those who know you best?
Promises Stronger Than Darkness marks the final installment of the international bestselling author Charlie Jane Anders's absolutely heart-stopping YA series, Unstoppable. They're the galaxy's most wanted—and our only hope.
When Elza became a space princess, she thought she'd be spending her time at the palace, wearing gorgeous couture and soaking up everything there is to know—but instead, she's on the run, with everyone hunting for her and her friends.
Rachael followed her best friend Tina on the adventure of a lifetime—but now Tina's gone, and Rachael's the only one keeping her friends together, as they go on a desperate quest to save everyone from an ancient curse.
Rachael, Elza, and their friends have found one clue, one shining mysterious chance to stop the end of the world. And that takes them back to the second-to-last place they'd want to be: enlisting the aid of Captain Thaoh Argentian, the woman who stole Tina's body (and who now seems to be relishing a second chance at teenage chaos and drama, instead of living up to her legacy as an intrepid heroic commander).
With only a ragtag band of misfits, crewmates, earthlings, friends, lovers (and one annoying frenemy), the Unstoppable Crew are up against the universe—and they soon find that in order to survive, they may have to cross a line they vowed never to cross.
Shadow and Bone meets Lore in Rebecca Ross's Divine Rivals, an epic enemies-to-lovers fantasy novel filled with hope and heartbreak, and the unparalleled power of love.
After centuries of sleep, the gods are warring again. But eighteen-year-old Iris Winnow just wants to hold her family together. Her mother is suffering from addiction and her brother is missing from the front lines. Her best bet is to win the columnist promotion at the Oath Gazette.
To combat her worries, Iris writes letters to her brother and slips them beneath her wardrobe door, where they vanish—into the hands of Roman Kitt, her cold and handsome rival at the paper. When he anonymously writes Iris back, the two of them forge a connection that will follow Iris all the way to the front lines of battle: for her brother, the fate of mankind, and love.
The Great Reclamation is a sweeping novel set against the backdrop of a changing Singapore, exploring the life of a boy named Ah Boon with unique gifts that impact the fate of his community and country.
Ah Boon is born in a fishing village during the last years of British rule in twentieth-century coastal Singapore. He is more interested in playing with his neighbor, Siok Mei, than in fishing. His discovery of the ability to locate bountiful, movable islands that no one else can see brings a sense of duty and potential—especially to impress Siok Mei, whom he loves.
Their teenage years are overshadowed by historical turmoil as the Japanese army invades, resistance grows, and their fishing village's future is at stake. With their nation on the brink of transformation, Ah Boon and Siok Mei face tough choices about their identities and what they must sacrifice.
At its core, The Great Reclamation is an aching love story and a powerful coming-of-age tale. It delves into the legacy of British colonialism, the World War II Japanese occupation, and the drive for modernity, highlighting the pain of progress, the cost of love, and the struggle to define home amidst the literal shifting of land.
In Post-World War II London, Jean Paget, a secretary in a leather goods factory, is informed by solicitor Noel Strachan that she has inherited a considerable sum of money from an uncle she never knew. But the solicitor is now her trustee, and she only has the use of the income until she inherits absolutely, at the age of thirty-five, several years in the future. In the firm's interest, but increasingly with personal interest, Strachan acts as her guide and advisor. Jean decides that her priority is to build a well in a Malayan village.
The second part of the story flashes back to Jean's experiences during the war, when she was working in Malaya at the time the Japanese invaded and was taken prisoner together with a group of women and children.
As she speaks Malay fluently, Jean takes a leading role in the group of prisoners. The Japanese refuse all responsibility for the group and march them from one village to another.
Hallie Piper is turning over a new leaf. After belly-crawling out of a hotel room (hello, rock bottom), she decides it's time to become a full-on adult. She gets a new apartment, a new haircut, and a new wardrobe, but when she logs onto the dating app that she has determined will find her new love, she sees none other than Jack, the guy whose room she snuck out of.
After the joint agreement that they are absolutely not interested in each other, Jack and Hallie become partners in their respective searches for The One. They text each other about their dates, often scheduling them at the same restaurant so that if things don't go well, the two of them can get tacos afterward.
Spoiler: they get a lot of tacos together.
Discouraged by the lack of prospects, Jack and Hallie make a wager to see who can find true love first, but when they agree to be fake dates for a weekend wedding, all bets are off. As they pretend to be a couple, lines become blurred and they each struggle to remember why the other was a bad idea to begin with.
In an unnamed South American country, a world-renowned soprano sings at a birthday party in honor of a visiting Japanese industrial titan. Alas, in the opening sequence, a ragtag band of 18 terrorists enters the vice-presidential mansion through the air conditioning ducts. Their quarry is the president, who has unfortunately stayed home to watch a favorite soap opera. And thus, from the beginning, things go awry.
Among the hostages are Russian, Italian, and French diplomatic types. Swiss Red Cross negotiator Joachim Messner comes and goes, wrangling over terms and demands. Days stretch into weeks, the weeks into months. Joined by no common language except music, the 58 international hostages and their captors forge unexpected bonds. Time stands still, priorities rearrange themselves. Ultimately, of course, something has to give.
Hearing opera sung live for the first time, a young priest reflects: 'Never had he thought, never once, that such a woman existed, one who stood so close to God that God's own voice poured from her. How far she must have gone inside herself to call up that voice. It was as if the voice came from the center part of the earth and by the sheer effort and diligence of her will she had pulled it up through the dirt and rock and through the floorboards of the house, up into her feet, where it pulled through her, reaching, lifting, warmed by her, and then out of the white lily of her throat and straight to God in heaven.'
To win the job of her dreams, a relationship-prone journalist needs to learn how to stay single in this heartwarming and hilarious new romantic comedy from the beloved author of Lease on Love.
Lana Parker is an expert girlfriend. After a disastrous breakup with her high school boyfriend, she's bounced from long-term relationship to long-term relationship and even works as the dating and relationships columnist for one of Los Angeles's trendiest websites. But when Lana suddenly finds herself single, she's ready to take a break, both personally and professionally. That is, until her high school ex, Seth Carson, takes an assignment at Lana's site. Having spent years traveling the world as a freelance journalist, Seth's finally ready to put down roots.
Seth and Lana's chemistry is just as combative—and undeniable—as ever and quickly leads to a competition that could shape both of their careers. Pitted against each other by Lana's boss, they are each tasked with writing an article series that goes against their usual dating type: Lana needs to write about being single and staying single, while Seth must learn to settle down and become boyfriend material. Whoever's series is most popular wins a highly coveted dream job. But when the two square off, it's not only their careers on the line—it’s also their hearts.
Secretly Yours is a steamy romantic comedy that brings together a starchy professor and his bubbly neighbor, creating sparks at every encounter. Hallie Welch has been infatuated with Julian Vos since she was fourteen, following an almost-kiss in the vineyards of his family's winery. Years later, Julian, now a handsome enigma, returns to their hometown, and Hallie is tasked with revamping the gardens on the Vos estate, reigniting her teenage crush and the hope for that long-awaited kiss.
However, Julian is not the teenager she once knew. His formal demeanor contrasts sharply with Hallie's free spirit, leading to fiery clashes. After a night of wine and whimsy, Hallie frets over a reckless act—a secret admirer letter penned in a drunken blur. Julian, on sabbatical to write a novel, finds himself distracted by Hallie's vibrant energy and presence, which disrupts his structured life. As he uncovers the anonymous letter, Julian is drawn irresistibly into Hallie's colorful world, challenging his orderly existence and making him question everything he thought he knew about love and life.
Georgie, All Along is a wise and witty novel that resonates with timely questions about love, career, reconciling with the past, and finding your path while knowing your true worth.
Longtime personal assistant Georgie Mulcahy has made a career out of putting others before herself. When an unexpected upheaval sends her away from her hectic job in L.A. and back to her hometown, Georgie must confront an uncomfortable truth: her own wants and needs have always been a disconcertingly blank page.
But then Georgie comes across a forgotten artifact—a 'friendfic' diary she wrote as a teenager, filled with possibilities she once imagined. To an overwhelmed Georgie, the diary's simple, small-scale ideas are a lifeline—a guidebook for getting started on a new path.
Georgie's plans hit a snag when she comes face to face with an unexpected roommate—Levi Fanning, onetime town troublemaker and current town hermit. But this quiet, grouchy man is more than just his reputation, and he offers to help Georgie with her quest. As the two make their way through her wishlist, Georgie begins to realize that what she truly wants might not be in the pages of her diary after all, but right by her side—if only they can both find a way to let go of the pasts that hold them back.
In this bold debut novel, two men, both in complicated marriages, risk their livelihoods and their lives to write a revolutionary book in defense of gay love. London, 1894. John and Henry have a vision for a new way of life. But as the Oscar Wilde trial ignites public outcry, everything they long for could be under threat.
After a lifetime spent navigating his desires, John has finally found a man who returns his feelings. Meanwhile, Henry is convinced that his new unconventional marriage will bring freedom. United by a shared vision, they begin work on a revolutionary book arguing for the legalisation of homosexuality. Before it can be published, however, Oscar Wilde is arrested and their daring book threatens to throw them, and all around them, into danger. How high a price are they willing to pay for a new way of living?
'A very fine new writer' - Kate Atkinson
'I loved this book' - Zadie Smith
'Some of the best writing on desire I've read' - Douglas Stuart
'Extraordinary' - Jonathan Bailey
'Filled with nuance and tenderness . . . charting the lives of men and women who inspired not only political progress but an entire new way of living and loving' - Colm Tóibín
"Just because you’re the boss does not mean you can just treat me however you want!" With those words, Andy Peterson made an enemy out of William Maxwell, a billionaire who is the epitome of leading men in romance stories for many—ridiculously enough.
If it were up to her, she wouldn’t have to deal with him at all. Unfortunately, he is one of the most powerful men in the city, which means he can crush her like a bug if he wants to.
And just when things are about to take a turn for the worse, she gets help from the most unlikely source. Alexandra Maxwell, William’s older sister, was so impressed with her feistiness and seeming immunity to billionaire douche’s charms that she hired Andy as an assistant.
Although the job seems too good to pass up, the problem is she would have to work with that SOB. Will Mr. Mogul continue to make her life a living hell? Or will their explosive chemistry lead to something else entirely?
If you love reading funny romance novels with a twist, then this story of two hard-headed enemies with a meddling sister would surely rock your boat!
Bridesmaids meets Emily in Paris—in London—in this hilarious and heartfelt story of one handsome neighbor, one no-good ex, and the summer Amy Duffy makes the comeback of her life.
Her past is a mess. But her present is about to get delicious. Amy is more than one disastrous night of drunken revenge on her boss/ex-boyfriend’s Audi—the night that tanked her rising TV producer career and led to a hasty move to London for a fresh start. She is thirty years of awesomeness. At least, that’s what Amy tells herself every morning before trekking to her mediocre job making trailers at a failing British TV channel.
Two years later, she’s finally starting to believe it. Sparks are flying between her and Jake, her handsome new downstairs neighbor, and there’s a competition at work that just might get her career back on track while bringing her and Jake even closer. But then, in a twisted turn of fate, the ex-boyfriend who wrecked her life is hired as her new boss and past and present are about to epically, hilariously collide.
To judge and execute. That is Ruin's power and desire. But Ruin's memory is empty of how he came to be here on Earth and why.
After saving Isadore–a neuroscientist living in the swamps of Louisiana–from a sexual predator, she volunteers to help him.
Ruin soon discovers that judging and executing wicked humans while linked to such a difficult and beautiful woman who can't help but involve herself in every aspect of his business, is proving to be more difficult than judging the world.