-
Wild Child
Wild Child by Molly O’Keefe is $2.99 right now. This is a contemporary romance, and the first book in the Boys of Bishop series. It has a 3.6-star average, but I really liked this review from Michelle:
Ignore the cover. The cover is miles away from what this book actually is, which is fucking BRILLIANT. Not that it isn’t sexy. It is. O’Keefe writes some seriously hot sex scenes. But the thing about this book is that she just claws her way right through the usual shallow, barely realized romance tropes to the stripped down core of her characters, and then she digs some more. She reaches in and digs around and pulls out great bloody handfuls of REAL.
Monica Appleby is a woman with a reputation. Once she was America’s teenage “Wild Child,” with her own reality TV show. Now she’s a successful author coming home to Bishop, Arkansas, to pen the juicy follow-up to her tell-all autobiography. Problem is, the hottest man in town wants her gone. Mayor Jackson Davies is trying to convince a cookie giant to move its headquarters to his crumbling community, and Monica’s presence is just too . . . unwholesome for business. But the desire in his eyes sends a very different message: Stay, at least for a while.
Jackson needs this cookie deal to go through. His town is dying and this may be its last shot. Monica is a distraction proving too sweet, too inviting—and completely beyond his control. With every kiss he can taste her loneliness, her regrets, and her longing. Soon their uncontrollable attraction is causing all kinds of drama. But when two lost hearts take a surprise detour onto the bumpy road of unexpected love, it can only lead someplace wonderful.
Add to Goodreads To-Read List →
This book is on sale at:
As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.
We also may use affiliate links in our posts, as well. Thanks! -
Dirty Thoughts
Dirty Thoughts by Megan Erikson is 99c right now! This is book 1 in the Mechanics of Love series – get it? The hero is a mechanic who raised his brothers after their mother left, and the heroine is his high school girlfriend who moves home after a few years in New York. Catnip alert: this is a second chance love story, with class boundaries in a small town, and a very hot, very grumpy hero. The second book in the series, Dirty Talk ( A | K | G | AB ), is available for preorder for $1.99! It comes out September 15th.
Some things are sexier the second time around.
Cal Payton has gruff and grumbly down to an art…all the better for keeping people away. And it usually works. Until Jenna MacMillan-his biggest mistake—walks into Payton and Sons mechanic shop all grown up, looking like sunshine, and inspiring more than a few dirty thoughts.
Jenna was sure she was long over the boy she’d once loved with reckless abandon, but one look at the steel-eyed Cal Payton has her falling apart all over again. Ten years may have passed, but the pull is stronger than ever… and this Cal is all man.
Cal may have no intention of letting Jenna in, but she’s always been his light, and it’s getting harder to stay all alone in the dark. When a surprise from the past changes everything, Cal and Jenna must decide if their connection should be left alone or if it’s exactly what they need for the future of their dreams.
Add to Goodreads To-Read List →
This book is on sale at:
As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.
We also may use affiliate links in our posts, as well. Thanks! -
Owning Violet
Owning Violet by Monica Murphy is $2.99! This is the first book in the Fowler Sisters erotic romance series. It was also featured inDecember’s edition of Hide Your Wallet. I actually bought the book, though it’s in TBR purgatory right now. The heroine is an heiress to a cosmetics company (along with her two sisters) and the hero is a co-worker. So if workplace romances are your catnip, look out. Some readers felt the heroine was a bit of a push over, while others thought this was a great start to a new erotica series. It has a 3.7-star rating on Goodreads.
I’ve moved through life doing what’s expected of me. I’m the middle daughter, the dutiful daughter. The one who braved a vicious attack and survived. The one who devoted herself to her family’s business empire. The one who met an ambitious man and fell in love. We were going to run Fleur Cosmetics together, Zachary and I.
Until he got a promotion and left me in the dust. Maybe it’s for the best, between his disloyalty and his wandering eye. But another man was waiting for me. Wanting me. He too has an overwhelming thirst for success, just like Zachary—perhaps even more so. He’s also ruthless. And mysterious. I know nothing about Ryder McKay beyond that he makes me feel things I’ve never felt before.
One stolen moment, a kiss, a touch . . . and I’m hooked. Ryder’s like a powerful drug, and I’m an addict who doesn’t want to be cured. He tells me his intentions aren’t pure, and I believe him. For once, I don’t care. I’m willing to risk everything just to be with him. Including my heart. My soul.
My everything.
Add to Goodreads To-Read List →
This book is on sale at:
As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.
We also may use affiliate links in our posts, as well. Thanks! -
Meant for You
Meant for You by Samantha Chase is a $1.99 Kindle Daily Deal! This is a contemporary romance with the whole brother’s best friend trope. This is the fifth book in the Montgomery Brothers series, which features a meddlesome, matchmaking uncle. Some readers had difficulty believing in the couple’s chemistry, while many enjoyed the heroine – a woman trying to gain independence from her five older brothers.
She dares to dream…
Summer Montgomery wants to be taken seriously almost as much as she wants her brother’s best friend, Ethan. But with a long resume of seemingly random career choices and a protective brother on watch, those things are nothing more than pipe dreams…Does he dare to try?
Ethan Reed would like nothing more than to live by his own rules. Not wanting to disappoint his best friend Zach, or any of the Montgomerys, Ethan’s had to push his long-denied feelings for Summer aside. But it only takes one night away from watchful eyes to make impossible dreams come true…Add to Goodreads To-Read List →
This book is on sale at:
As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.
We also may use affiliate links in our posts, as well. Thanks!
Don't want to miss an ebook sale? Sign up for our newsletter, and you'll get the week's available deals each Friday.
I am a huge fan of O’keefe’s Boys of Bishop series. I love the couples she creates. Plus her sex scenes are very hot!
I bought Dirty Thoughts last time it was on sale and subsequently posted a rant about it in the comments, so I might as well do it again. This book prompted me to create a new bookshelf on Goodreads called “insulting to childfree people.” A major character has legitimate and huge reasons for not wanting children, and it’s treated as a sign of immaturity that they have to grow out of in order to become a fully realized human. Additionally, a character who lacks a maternal instinct is portrayed as an irredeemably terrible person.
The book also suffered from flat supporting characters and a thin, unconvincing conflict, so there wasn’t much to redeem it in my eyes.
@Dread Pirate Rachel I bought Dirty Thoughts based on good reviews when it first came out but haven’t read it yet. I’m wishing I had heard it was insulting about childfree people because now I have no desire to read it. I get plenty of those kind of insults in real life.
The Girl on the Train is $1.99 at Amazon at least. It’s not a romance but it’s a book that has had a ton of buzz and is being made into a movie.
Your link for the first book is broken. When I click on it it goes to amaozn.com instead of amazon.com
@Kasey: Fixed! Thank you!
I liked Wild Child. The conflicts were realistic and the chemistry with the couple was good. I also enjoyed some of the secondary characters.
@DPR: I hope you added “Baby Proof” by Emily Giffin to that list. That book pissed me off sooooo much. Conversely, have you compiled a list of romance/chick lit books that portray childfree characters in a positive light?
@Heather S: I haven’t read Baby Proof, and now I definitely won’t. I do have an analogous list for positive childfree portrayals, but so far I’ve only been able to add Jennifer Crusie’s Bet Me. I’d love it if I could find more books to add, though. Do you have any recommendations?
Thank you for the warning on Dirty Thoughts. Sounded like something I’d like, but as with others here, I’m sick enough of childfree insults in real-life. Don’t need it in my reading, too.
“Owning Violet” was mentioned somewhere not too long ago so I bought it and…it was dreadful. Plot, writing, characters. I know this author is successful (this was my first book by her) so I checked her bio to see if maybe she was British or something, to explain the stiff dialogue, but nope, it says she’s from California. I don’t know. I don’t really like to hate on books, but this one was a big fail for me in all ways.
I love Molly O’Keefe’s books and WILD CHILD is excellent. If you haven’t read it yet, what are you waiting for?
A shout-out to the childfree readers. We did not have children by choice. It’s now my mission to write a great contemporary childfree heroine.
@Dread Pirate Rachel I immediately thought of Anyone but You also by Jennifer Crusie for being positive about a childfree life. When I first started getting into reading romances, every book seemed to end with epilogue where the heroine was pregnant or now had kids and this is the first book I remember loving that didn’t have that.
@CelineB: I totally forgot about Anyone but You! When I first got into romance, I went on a massive Crusie binge and that one was one of my favorites. I need to reread it (assuming I didn’t lend it to somebody in an ill-advised fit of generosity).
@Julie Brannagh: You are speaking my language! Excuse me while I go buy your entire backlist.
Over to the side, Andy Weir’s The Martian is $1.99 (yeah, where was that price when I bought the book, Amazon?), Erik Larson’s Dead Wake is $1.99, as well as The Boys in the Boat and Unbroken.
For a good child-free book, check out HIS AT NIGHT by Sherry Thomas. (spoilers follow — if the first sentence wasn’t one). There are two big couples in the book, and not only are there no children/pregnancy announcements by the end of the book, but also there are no discussions of kids or plans to have kids. Wow — a romance where newlyweds can be happy with each other! Who knew?
And it may be tangentially related, but a lot of erotica (especially the Black Lace books) ends with no kids. This is especially true in books where the heroine has multiple partners through the book, so parenthood could be an issue. (For example, in WHITE ROSE ENSNARED by Juliet Hastings, if the heroine was pregnant at the end, there could be a conversation along the lines of “I’m pregnant, so you’ll be a daddy! Unless the villain is the father, since he forced me to have sex. Or one of his minions during the week they all had their way with me. Or while I was working as a prostitute and most clients did me up; so did a male employee — but no, he only did me up the ass. Or when King Edward screwed me when he visited the brothel. Or when the villain returned and had his wicked way with me again. But if none of them are the father, then it’s definitely you!”)
ANY BOOK by Molly O’Keefe is a grabby hand MUST HAVE NOW!!! She’s been an autobuy since I picked up Wild Child after it was first recommended on this site. I am gobsmacked that it only has a 3.8 on Goodreads when some much dreckage comes in over four. She is an amazing writer. Do yourself a favor and buy this book.
And now I’m off to buy The Martian, which I borrowed from the library, but must own. Thanks @L!
Just finished The Martian today- great book. Can’t wait for the movie
I LOVE Crusie for her child-free (or at least not child-obsessed) plots, and thanks for the warning about Dirty Thoughts! Another one that was not huge on the kids was “Just a Little Fling” by Julie Kistler.
Side note: I now wonder if that is not the reason why I am more drawn to YA romances these days – no talk of kids and “settling down.” Or at least the few that do have those plots are easily spotted and avoided… And paranormal romance also, like Jeaniene Frost and Patricia Briggs. Cat and Mercy are too busy kicking ass to have children 🙂
I recently finished Dirty Thoughts and didn’t see it as insulting to people who don’t have children. I thought the author made it clear the hero always wanted children, he was just insecure about being emotionally prepared to have children. I don’t have children, but I know people who do and several of them dealt with similar insecurities. I didn’t think the author made the hero out to be immature for having these insecurities.
*Mild spoilers follow
As for the maternal instinct thing, the mother ABANDONED her children. Of course her adult children, who grew up without her, don’t view her favorably. I don’t view her favorably. Once you have kids, you have a responsibility to be there, raise them, and financially support them. Maternal instinct be damned. The father didn’t have a paternal instinct, but the author made it clear she and the other characters respected him for doing the best he could by his children even though he was never a great parent.
Dirty Thoughts was an enjoyable read. The beginning is a lot stronger than the middle and end, and the hero’s waffling grew tiresome and the heroine is a little too perfect, but the relationship and chemistry between the h/h was good. It made me want to pick up another book by the author.
@Dread Pirate Rachel and others looking for positive portrayals of child free people: It’s subtle, but Victoria Dahl’s Flirting with Disaster has a hero who early on tells the heroine he has no intention of having kids. Not in a big weird announcement way, but during the “get to know you” phase he just makes it clear. I thought it was refreshing, because it’s not a “thing” or a conflict in the book, just a part of who the hero (and the heroine, really) are and what they want. And really, off the top of my head I can’t think of any of Dahl’s books that end in pregnancy or even any mention of kids. They’re romances about 2 people, not about starting families.
Shelly Laurenston’s Pack Challenge is child free. At some point in the trilogy, that couple both have surgery to make sure it will NEVER happen. It’s something they both feel really strongly about.
SPOILERS WITHIN
@Nancy: “the hero always wanted children, he was just insecure about being emotionally prepared to have children.”
I disagree. Completely. His reasoning for not wanting children was that he had already raised his younger brothers, knew exactly what it entailed, and didn’t want to go through it a second time. That’s a damn good reason not to have kids. That’s the reason my sister doesn’t have kids. It’s not a lack of emotional preparedness or immaturity.
“As for the maternal instinct thing, the mother ABANDONED her children. . . Once you have kids, you have a responsibility to be there, raise them, and financially support them. Maternal instinct be damned.”
The hero’s internal monologue makes it very clear that he despises her for her lack of maternal instinct and that it is that very lack that makes her a bad person. Here is the direct quote: “It was amazing how this woman could have zero maternal instinct” (Kindle ed. loc. 3611).
It’s not amazing that some women don’t have a maternal instinct, and it doesn’t make us terrible people who shun all responsibility.
You might not find this insulting to childfree people, but as a person who has chosen not to have children and who has had frequent insults, interrogations, and assumptions leveled at me as a result, I can tell you that I found it insulting. People have called me a baby-killing monster (I’ve never even been pregnant so I’m not sure how they came up with that). I’ve been informed that I’ll change my mind, that I need to grow up, that there’s something WRONG with me because I have no desire to procreate. I don’t need to have those messages reinforced by books that I read for enjoyment.
To those of you who have been judged repeatedly for not having kids: cunning solution: GET OLD. I had a few decades of stupid comments and judgements about first, not wanting kids, and then not having kids…and then they faded away. I realised it was because I got old – not really really old, just middle aged.
I knew someone once who said she and her husband would always respond to stupid questions about kids by responding “we have a genetic problem” and that would shut people up real fast. The genetic problem was that they didn’t want kids, but they didn’t add that part. “For health reasons” might be a good one too.
Of course we shouldn’t have to give reasons for our life choices, but sometimes it’s good to shut people up fast, and keep them out of our business/make them go away. Of course that one only works if people aren’t rude enough to ask what the health reason is. If they do, the response is “it’s a long story” and if that doesn’t work, then “I prefer not to talk about it”. That’s as far as I’ve ever had to go, using that reason.
I never wanted children and like many others here faced a barrage of interrogations and insults as a result. At no time in my life have I wanted the responsibility of a child. When I look at children (esp. babies & toddlers) I don’t see “cute & adorable”, instead I see black holes of need. Just not interested. At one point, my best friend’s sister said to me “it would be different if the child was yours”. And when I said back to her “What if it’s not?” she had nothing to say. It’s not that I can’t “mother” someone/something (cats, anyone?) it’s that I have no desire to raise a human being. Many women do; however, I recognized very early on that I did not.
When my grandmother died, one of her friends was shocked that I was still single and childless in my late 30s. She actually called me a spinster (this was 10 years ago, but still). When told that I didn’t judge my self-worth and overall value to society according to old fashioned patriarchal values, she just gaped at me. It was (and is still) true, but not something she understood.
That said, as much as I love romance, the constant baby fever gets old. I love books where there’s a relationship because they love each other- not necessarily just to to legitimize their offspring.
Someone mentioned Victoria Dahl. She has a book, possibly a novella, where a divorced woman who has a child now in college talks about hating having been a mother. It wasn’t that she didn’t love her son, she did, it was that she’d hated everything else that went with it. Oh, and she was VERY happily divorced. It’s because of her positive depictions of women with personal and sexual agency that makes her a go-to author for me.
This should be a topic thread for the Bitchery- positive depictions of child free stories. Something we can’t ever get enough of and a big thanks to everyone for their suggestions. My TBR list may not be happy but I sure as hell am.
@kitkat9000: I agree! A post dedicated to this with book recs would be amazing! There have to be more books in Romancelandia that fit the bill!
Poking around, it looks like it has been 5 years and a few days since there was a HaBO asking for CF romances. Surely there have been more books released that fit that bill in 5 years!
Talking CF in a historical context, how about Heyer’s Venetia?
Yeah, I’ve had that said back at me – “it’s different if it’s your own child…” no it isn’t.
And you know what’s very damn annoying? Reading M/M romances and having the dreaded babies follow you over to what you thought was a baby-free zone. You know, there’s even a whole sub-genre where the men get pregnant. Oddly enough, I have never read one.
@DesLivres: I read a lot of m/m, too, but thankfully mpreg is only a thing in slash fanfic. If there are kids in m/m, it is usually from one of the guys having been hetero married before, and having divorced and/or the hero couldn’t pretend to be hetero anymore or wife died (as in Faith and Fidelity) or something. So many m/m romances end with the couple not necessarily married and not having or thinking about kids for obvious reasons. I did finish River Jaymes’ “The Backup Boyfriend” recently and was dismayed to find Dylan considering having kids if his boyfriend would be the biological parent at the end. Though the way his boyfriend was, these guys were already headed down to get their 2.5WPF club membership from page one.
Heather S, Mpreg has moved over from fanfic to M/M. I see reviews of them on MMgoodbookreviews and prism book alliance. Also, gobs and gobs of M/M series have a a gay couple getting a kid in every way possible, except through one of them actually having the baby. You are probably very sensibly avoiding those books. I get sucked into the series, and then it’s baby time! Joy! I thought it was a weird fantasy thing until I learned that in the US gay male adoptions are not that uncommon.
Oh, I was going to add, that I’ve never read fanfic – but that would be a LIE. I read Gay Bejewelled Bikers of Gor and I regret nothing.
@Des Livres: ok, this makes me cringe a little, but what is the Gay Bejeweled Bikers of Gor? I thought Gor was SF/F. Safe to assume that TGBBOG is a continuation of those male-based females-as-happy-sex-slaves fantasies? Save with a possibly all male cast? If it is, that might actually be worth reading.
@Des Livres. Meant to add this and forgot: that was my greatest fear- what if it WASN’T different when mine? Because it’s not like you can just change your mind and hand them back. Once they’re here, they’re here and that makes you responsible for the long haul. No thanks.
Years ago I joked that if I did change my mind could I exchange said child for a cat or two, or possibly even an already housebroken dog. Did not go over well at all. Not even with people who supposedly got my sense of humor.
Gay Bejewelled Bikers of Gor is fanfic, as is houseplants of Gor. Fanfic is when somebody goes off and writes their own spin/version/aspect of the original work. For instance right now Amy Lane is writing a fanfic romance between superman and batman (called superbat) on her blog. Fanfic is a major cultural phenomenon. I’d never heard of it until I began to follow Adam Lambert, and fans were sharing -erm – fantasies they’d written about him. Wkipedia tells me that some of the earliest fanfic were romances between Kirk and Spoc.
Gay Bejewelled Bikers of Gor and Houseplants of Gor are both rude send-ups of the Gor books. I unconditionally recommend both. I haven’t laughed so much since I read them. Houseplants of Gor is shorter. Just google them – that’s what I did, and I found them. (Part of a HaBo discussion a couple of months ago).
I think I always had a natural defence mechanism against all those judgemental people – I really do not, and never have, comprehended WANTING children. (What not to say to a friend: “good god, you actually LIKE it?” – not well received)