Secret Agent

By Michelle Larkin

Rivals
Federal Agents
Coming Out
International Setting

Rogue agent Zoey Blackwood is having the time of her life traveling the world and evading the CIA’s capture. Her wisecracking humor keeps things light, but her mission is no joke: save millions of innocent lives that the US considers expendable in the wake of a deadly virus. Giving away the vaccine’s top-secret formula when the government plans to sell it lands her squarely on the CIA’s most-wanted list.

CIA Agent Peyton North’s mission is simple: apprehend Zoey and return her to headquarters. Peyton gives chase, ready to do whatever it takes to catch her. But every time she thinks she has Zoey cornered, the smart-ass agent pulls off another clever escape.

Sparks ignite between them during their cat-and-mouse trek around the globe. A bond is forged and loyalties are tested as their sizzling attraction approaches a point of no return.

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Something Between Us

By Krystina Rivers

Animals 
Enemies to Lovers Romance
Reunion Romance
Big City
Military
Children / Families

In the waning days of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, Quinn Prescott and Kirby Davis met during military training. Despite different backgrounds, services, and plans, they fell hard and fast. However, it wasn’t long before distance and the pressures of serving in silence drove them apart.

Ten years later, Kirby literally runs into Quinn at Chicago Pride. Although she lives in a city of three million, she continues to see Quinn everywhere, and she can’t seem to ignore the pounding in her chest that isn’t always frustration no matter how much she tells herself it is.

Quinn knows she made the biggest mistake of her life when she chose her career over Kirby. She’s desperate to make amends, and perhaps even turn their chance meetings into a second chance for romance.

Kirby’s definitely not giving Quinn a second chance. But how long can she ignore the truth that there's something between them?

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Sugar Girl

By Emma L McGeown

Financial gap/Class disparity

After countless heartbreaks, Ciara Reilly has sworn off falling in love and turned her youth, beauty, and unlucky streak of dead-end relationships into a way to make money. After joining the Sugar Girl app, she has climbed the ranks to become one of the few Platinum Girls in Dublin and now has her choice of wealthy clients. It is a way of life for Ciara and means she can keep her family out of debt. The financial perks coupled with the casual dating arrangements suit her, primarily because she learned the hard way that falling in love and sugaring do not mix. 

That’s until she meets the stunning and wildly fascinating entrepreneur Charlie Keller. Their connection is instant but complicated. Charlie is everything Ciara has ever wanted, but falling for her means giving up everything she already has. Forced to choose between coming clean about her lucrative career or losing Charlie forever, will Ciara go sugar-free? Or will the secrets Charlie is keeping from her result in another heartbreak?

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The Business of Pleasure

By Ronica Black

Workplace Romance
Actors/Artists

Valerie Raffield’s dreams are about to come true. Her magazine, MisRule, is ready to launch. Only trouble is, she’s struggling to find an editorial designer who understands her vision.

When Lennox Falcone gets a nibble at her long stagnant résumé, she’s thrilled and excited to work remotely for Valerie. Things fall through when the MisRule team decides to go with another prospect, and Lennox is let down to say the least. But Valerie knows how talented Lennox is and keeps her on as a graphic artist. As they work closely together, their fascination with each other intensifies, and the MisRule team starts questioning the ethics of their relationship.

By the time the launch comes around, Valerie’s desire is undeniable. But their first face-to-face meeting doesn’t go as planned, and as secrets are revealed and passions burn bright, Valerie’s heart and her business could be in jeopardy.

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The Hummingbird Sanctuary

By Erin Zak

Friends & Community
Animals 
Asexual/Aromantic
Vacation
Enemies to Lovers Romance
Coming Out
Multicultural 
Workplace Romance
Friends to Lovers Romance
People of Color
Bisexual

Enjoy your vacation at the Hummingbird Sanctuary, Colorado’s hottest resort destination. Come for the mountains, stay for the charm, and enjoy the drama as Olive, Eleanor, and Harriet figure out their lives, their loves, and the meaning of true friendship.

Owning and operating the Hummingbird Sanctuary was supposed to be the best time of Olive Zyntarski’s life. She was going to tackle the future with eyes wide open and forget about her guilty conscience. All that changes when a chance meeting with a mysterious new guest has Olive’s long-buried secrets bubbling to the surface.

As marketing director, Eleanor Fitzwallace knows how to present everything in its best light, everything except her nonexistent love life. When her high school heartbreak unexpectedly saunters into the Sanctuary’s restaurant, Eleanor’s determined to ignore her. She wants real love, and people don’t change, do they?

After hitting rock bottom, Harriet Marshall made a promise to herself: no more one-night stands that make her feel bad about herself. She’s determined to turn her life around, and that means focusing on keeping the Sanctuary’s restaurant and bar hip, trendy, and booked solid. So, of course, she meets the most gorgeous woman ever, and everything changes.

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The Witch Queen's Mate

By Jennifer Karter

Veterinarians
Other Worlds
Enemies to Lovers Romance
Magic
Multicultural 

There couldn’t have been a worse time for Barra to be chosen by her gods as the next queen of the Neamairtese. She and a group of her people are being marched to the distant Empire of Victricus to be slaves.

Headstrong and independent, Barra never saw herself as a leader, and her chances of saving her people dwindle when her heart’s mate turns out to be a Svekard, the ancient sworn enemy of the Neamairtese. Without her mate, Barra cannot complete her connection to divine magic and free her people.

Silvi, a Svekard veterinarian, was simply trying to survive the march south when she was kissed by the Neamairtese witch, Barra. Now, Silvi has inhuman speed and strength to protect the witch, even at the cost of hurting her own people, an incredible dishonor.

Can Barra and Silvi’s love overcome their ingrained hatred and prejudice to bring their people together and save them all not just from slavery, but destruction?

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With a Twist

By Georgia Beers

Enemies to Lovers Romance
Friends & Community
A Swizzle Stick Romance | Book 3
Animals 

Amelia Martini’s favorite things are traveling, animals, and peanut butter. When she left her job to explore the world with her wife, she didn’t expect Tammy’s plans to include leaving her. Now, Amelia is starting over again and facing middle age alone. It’s a struggle, but she doesn’t want to be bitter forever.

Thirty-something Kirby Dupree loves life. Not always easy when you’ve lost as much as she has and carry as much sadness as she does. But she made a promise to always look for beauty, so she does her best…even when she has to squint to see it.

When Kirby’s job as an interior painter brings her into Amelia’s life, they don’t exactly hit it off. Amelia finds Kirby irritatingly cheerful, and Kirby thinks Amelia’s far too serious. Forced to work together, they start to see beyond their first impressions and prove opposites really do attract. But are they brave enough to go after the love they really want?

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Business of the Heart

By Claire Forsythe

Abby Archer should be content. Her coffee shop, Haze, is thriving, and she has a great group of friends. There’s just one thing missing: love. Despite past betrayals, Abby hasn’t given up on finding the one, waiting with increasing impatience to experience the sparks she’s always dreamed of.

Lexi Finn lives for her career. At least her job won’t break her heart. Unlike Abby, she’s most definitely not searching for the one or anyone for that matter. Avoiding relationships isn’t all that difficult when she’s become so skilled at keeping people at a distance.

So imagine Lexi’s shock when, walking into Haze, she feels instant attraction and an unshakeable connection with Abby. Abby has a picture of her perfect woman in her mind, and it certainly isn’t the intolerable Lexi Finn. When a hopeless romantic meets a tough-as-nails cynic, they’ll need to overcome the wounds of the past to discover that their hearts are the most important business of all.

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Dying for You

By Jenny Frame

A Wild for You Novel | Book 3
Enemies to Lovers Romance
Vampires
Magic
Good girls/Bad girls

Victorija Dred, Principe of the Dred clan, is one of the most feared vampires to walk the earth, but since her unwanted blood bond with Daisy, she’s slowly losing herself to blood sickness. Her clan is dismayed by her reluctance to order Daisy brought to her. The old Victorija would have used her for her blood without a second thought. However no one knows of the age-old vow holding her back.

Daisy MacDougall is struggling to cope with the vampire bite that is urging her to seek out Victorija. Secrets and history bind them in unfathomable ways, and when she discovers her family’s past and a very different Victorija, she vows to find the truth even if she must force their meeting.

Victorija and Daisy travel a dark and seductive path even as Victorija fights every instinct to take Daisy’s blood, and love seems all but impossible. As if that wasn’t bad enough, neither expects the real threat to Daisy’s life to be hiding inside the Dred clan.

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Exclusive

By Melissa Brayden

Enemies to Lovers Romance
California
Age Gap
Workplace Romance

Her new job as an on-air reporter in sunny San Diego is a big break for Skyler Ruiz. No more covering small-town softball games or vegetable growing competitions. She’ll be working at the same station as her TV mega-crush and longtime idol, anchorwoman Caroline McNamara, and that doesn’t hurt either. 

Unfortunately, people don’t always live up to expectations. 

Skyler’s hopes of impressing Caroline are dashed when she discovers Caroline has little time for newbie reporters and is downright unwelcoming. But when Caroline drops her guard, Skyler is left with her head happily spinning, her heart wide open, and oh-so ready to explore a romance she never saw coming.
  
So, of course, the network pits them against each other. 

It’s only when Skyler is ready to sacrifice everything she’s ever dreamed of for Caroline does she begin to suspect love is nothing but fake news.

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Her Duchess to Desire

By Jane Walsh

International Setting

Anne, the Duchess of Hawthorne, is tired of her reputation as the Ice Queen of London society. She resolves to leave behind her cold-hearted marriage to the duke—and to find a woman to keep her warm at night. Perhaps the dashing designer she hires to transform her Mayfair estate can also help her to transform her life.

Letitia Barrow has big dreams of running her own interior design business. The opportunity to reinvent the Hawthorne estate is the job that will finally establish her as a leading designer among the ton. The duchess might make her weak in the knees, but giving in to temptation could risk everything she’s working so hard to build.

The designer and the duchess embark on an affair, with renovations to the house in full swing—and the renovations in their hearts well underway. Then, unexpectedly, the duke returns home and their feelings are tested. Can London’s hottest new designer melt the Ice Queen forever?

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Murder on Monte Vista

By David S. Pederson

Friends & Community
Private Investigator
A Private Detective Mason Adler Mystery | Book 1
Veterans
Actors/Artists
Food
Big City

It’s 1946, and on a hot spring night in Phoenix, Arizona, things are only beginning to heat up at the Monte Vista Road home of flamboyant decorator Walter Waverly Wingate.

Private detective Mason T. Adler isn’t thrilled to be turning fifty, and the party Walter throws him makes him even more uncomfortable. Walter has arranged a special birthday present for Mason: a private hour with the handsome, young Henry Bowtrickle in Walter’s upstairs bedroom. But the night turns deadly when his birthday gift turns up murdered. The room was locked, no way in or out, and only Henry and Mason were inside.

Mason Adler is on the case, but he is also a suspect, along with the other assorted party guests who were all downstairs at the time of the stabbing. Or were they?

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Take Her Down

By Lauren Emily Whalen

Friends & Community
People of Color
Rivals
Virgins/First Love
Financial gap/Class disparity
Non-Binary Gender
Young Adult
Coming Out
Political Thriller
Friends to Lovers Romance
Good girls/Bad girls
Children / Families

In this queer YA retelling of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, stakes at Augustus Magnet School are cutthroat, scheming is creative, and loyalty is ever-changing.

Overnight, Bronwyn St. James goes from junior class queen to daughter of an imprisoned felon, and she lands in the care of her aunt and younger cousin Cass, a competitive cheerleader who Bronwyn barely knows. Life gets worse when her ex-best friend, the always-cool Jude Cuthbert, ostracizes Bronwyn from the queer social elite for dating a boy, Porter Kendrick.

Bronwyn and Jude are both running for student body president, and that means war. But after Bronwyn, Porter, and Cass share a video of Jude in a compromising position, Jude suddenly goes missing. No one has seen her for weeks and it might be all Bronwyn’s fault. Will Jude ever be found? Or will Bronwyn finally have to reckon with what she’s won—and what she’s lost?

Content Advisory: Depictions of sexual assault.

"The Shakespearean backdrop for this ultramodern tale of American politics and cutting-edge sexual and gender identities takes a while to pick up, but once it gets going, the cliffhangers and unstoppable pace make it hard to put down. An intense ride of bisexuality and back-stabbing."—Kirkus Reviews, 01/15/2022

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The Game

By Jan Gayle

Sports
Enemies to Lovers Romance
Rivals
Celebrity

Ryan Gibbs was the best thing to hit the LPGA from New Mexico since Nancy Lopez, but that was two years ago when her rookie year tour made the history books. Since she left the world of professional golf to be with her sick mother, she hasn’t played outside of her home course in Los Alamos, where she now works as a coach.

Katherine Reese has the drive to be the best, but since her second season, when she landed herself in the top ten in nearly every tournament, she’s barely been able to make the cut. Unable to let go of her ghosts, Katherine is in danger of tanking her career before it even begins.

Ryan and Katherine are natural competitors thrown together by their swing coach, Maggie Hart. Both have so much to prove and so little time for the inconveniences of falling in love. But if they can figure out how to work together, they just might be a force for women’s sports and a beautiful match for each other.

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Whereabouts Unknown

By Meredith Doench

Disability
Women in Uniform
Police / Cops
Police Procedural 
Psychological Thriller
Theodora Madsen has everything she’s ever hoped for: a distinguished career as a homicide detective with the Dayton Police Department, a woman she loves, and a baby on the way.

While Theo and Bree nest and plan for their family’s future, two sixteen-year-old Ohio girls vanish—one from Dayton and the other from Brecksville—each leaving behind a bloody handprint. Then a routine interview goes disastrously wrong, and Theo’s injured and facing a lengthy recovery.

With her professional future uncertain and the cases growing cold, Theo scrambles to piece together the links between the girls. But the clock is ticking and time is running out.

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Boy at the Window

By Lauren Melissa Ellzey

Young Adult
Children / Families
Coming Out
People of Color
California
Multicultural 

It all began with trying to fly. After jumping off the roof of his house in the middle of the night, Daniel Kim wakes up far from Neverland, his reprieve from the real world. Thrust into a mental health hospital and then into a brand-new high school, he struggles to hold on to reality while haunted by both his very-present past and his never-present parents. But when he joins Cranbrook Preparatory’s cross-country team, he starts to feel like he’s walking on his own two feet once again. He meets Jiwon Yoon—another cross-country runner, who may be the first person to join Daniel in his Neverland daydreams. Or maybe Jiwon is the one who will finally break Daniel free.

Content warning: Emotional trauma, attempted suicide, mental illness.

 

"In his daydreams, Daniel, who is White and Korean, is the confident leader of the Lost Boys who spends his days seeking treasure and battling Captain Hook. There are no strict, distant parents in Neverland, no homophobic classmates, no pressure for him to be someone he isn’t. In real life, Daniel is a junior at Cranbrook Prep in Southern California, having transferred to the school for a fresh start following a suicide attempt over the summer… The portrayals of mental illness and trauma recovery are handled honestly and sensitively. There is no magical solution…An ultimately uplifting story that does not shy away from the discomfort of reality."Kirkus Reviews, 01/01/2022

"Ellzey’s novel is a sensitive story from a gifted writer...While the book has some triggering content, such as suicide attempts and mental illness, the author never equates Daniel’s mental struggles to his sexuality. It is a very keen move to draw that line very cleanly. Daniel is a fresh take on LGTBQIA+ youth representation who many readers will gravitate to; he is relatable without being stereotypical and his story is one young adults will want to read. VERDICT This debut novel belongs on the shelves of all libraries that serve high school readers."–School Library Journal, 05/01/2022

 

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Deadly Secrets

By VK Powell

Bodyguard/Protection Romances
Close Quarters
Police / Cops
Military

Special Ops Agent Rafe Silva has always been a dedicated soldier, content in the military and jetting from one mission to the next. Her life is structured and clear of emotional entanglements until an old friend requests she provide protection for an industry whistle blower.

Jana Elliott had found her ideal career and a second home within the corporate environment of Alumicor until a coworker dies and Jana suspects the company is covering up a deadly secret. When she starts investigating, her boss quickly shuts her down. Jana is determined to uncover the truth even if it means risking her life. Her friend’s suggestion of a bodyguard seems like overkill, but then Rafe Silva shows up and their irresistible attraction changes everything.

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Enchanted Autumn

By Ursula Klein

Magic
Holidays |
Friends to Lovers Romance

When Dr. Elizabeth Cowrie shows up in Salem, Massachusetts to study the witch trials, Hazel and her best friend, Roxy, are both instantly attracted to the workaholic professor. Roxy snags a date with Elizabeth first, but when their chemistry fizzles out, Hazel sees an opportunity to pursue Elizabeth herself—until she realizes Elizabeth is avowedly anti-magic.

That’s definitely a problem since Hazel is a bona fide witch: rides a broom, has a black cat, brews love potions, lives in a haunted house, and has a vampire ex-girlfriend. Roxy is the only person who knows the truth, and Hazel has gotten used to hiding who she is, but she can’t live a lie with the person she loves most. Can Hazel give up magic to make it work with Elizabeth? Or will she give up on the love of her life instead?

 

Advance praise from Publishers Weekly: "Klein’s lovely debut paranormal romance showcases the value of friendship and authenticity in the face of scheming exes and magical mayhem...The novel’s greatest strength is the unshakable friendship between Hazel and Roxy, who find ways to support each other even while pining for the same woman. The healthy communication keeps the love triangle from dragging, and the grounded magic system delights. Klein should win plenty of fans with this."

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