A sale as large as the one Harlequin’s got going on this week can be very overwhelming. Not only is it 10,000 books marked down, but there’s authors who are on many, many auto-buy lists. I could write posts for days pointing folks to all the backlist for Jill Shalvis, Sarah Mayberry, Jennifer Lohmann, and on and on.
I want to highlight a few of the titles I love to recommend when people ask me about Harlequins, but I also want to know: which books that are on sale do you recommend? What have you bought? Please tell us in the comments!
Shopping note: if you’d like to use the links below, they are affiliate-enabled, so SBTB receives a percentage commission from purchases made. If you use them, buckets o’ thanks to you. If you don’t want to use them, no worries at all!
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Sex, Straight Up
Sex, Straight Up by Kathleen O’Reilly is one of the category romances I have recommended most frequently, especially when I need to change someone’s mind about the genre. I reviewed this book and gave it an A-, writing:
There are two things you need to know about this book: you like tortured, healing heroes who are genuinely good guys? Go find this book. O’Reilly’s mastery of the incredibly sexy, almost-three-dimensional man continues in this book.
Second, I was unfortunately predisposed to dislike it. I knew that Daniel is a widower whose wife died in the World Trade Center.
O’Reilly is a very, very talented writer, and I loved this book a LOT. And, with this big sale right now, it’s $1.99.
Meeting a handsome loner on a deserted beach in the Hamptons was like being hit by lightning. One steamy weekend in bed with Daniel O’Sullivan and Catherine Montefiore was marvelously woozy from a delicious cocktail of sun, sand and superhot sex.
Abruptly, though, Catherine’s forty-eight hours of fun are at an end when her family’s exclusive auction house is hit by a very public scandal. She’s ready to step in and save the day, but she’s hoping Daniel, her hot Irish hunk, will lend a hand. After all, he’s got the necessary skills and, straight up or not, Catherine wants another long drink of Daniel before another forty-eight hours are up and her legacy is lost forever!
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Boomerang Bride
Boomerang Bride by Fiona Lowe is also $1.99. This book won a RITA for Best Contemporary in 2012, it kicked all kinds of butt in the DABWAHA that year, and it’s got a heaping ton of positive reviews, too. Our RITA Reader Challenge reviewer, Turophile, gave it an A- and wrote: “this book contained all the rights elements for a contemporary romance: humor, an independent heroine who doesn’t roll over for a hot man, and a sexy romance that builds throughout the book.”
Matilda Geoffrey had risked it all for love.
She’d left Australia to be with Barry—the man who had swept her off her virtual feet. Now, wearing a wedding dress, she’s alone on Main Street in small-town Wisconsin, and things aren’t working out exactly as planned….
In town for his annual family visit, Marc Olsen had never seen a bride quite like Matilda—staring into a storefront window, holding a tottering wedding cake and looking desperately in need of a groom. He doesn’t have many warm feelings for his hometown, but meeting Matilda just as she discovers she’s been scammed by her online “fiancé” stirs something in him.
Matilda is not the kind of woman Marc imagined himself with, and Marc is anything but the romantic hero that Matilda has always dreamed of. But as unlikely circumstances throw them together, can they let go of their misconceptions and risk their hearts for love?
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Back to the Good Fortune Diner
Back to the Good Fortune Diner by Vicki Essex is $1.99, too. I selected this book as a Sizzling Book Club selection and still think about it. The heroine, Tiffany Cheung, finds herself laid off and evicted, and has to move home to a small town in upstate New York, where her family is not really pleased to have her back. There are so many layers to this story, and like I said, I still think about this book.
Everville, New York—it’s the town where Tiffany Cheung grew up, and the last place she wants to be. But after losing her job in Manhattan, that’s exactly where she finds herself. Worse, she’s working at her family’s Chinese diner and feeling like the outsider she once was. The only bright side is that Chris Jamieson, the boy she used to tutor, is still around. Her high school crush is hotter than ever, and he needs her help…again.
Tutoring Chris’s son is the perfect temporary job. Except, Chris finally seems interested in her—and is hinting about a less temporary arrangement. Talk about bad timing! Because Tiffany’s not staying and nothing will stop her from getting back to her real life. But maybe what’s real is about to change….
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The Bride
The Bride by Maya Banks was originally titled The Tycoon’s Rebel Bride, and I have recommended this book a bunch of times. Jane from DearAuthor, I think, was the first to tell me about it – the heroine is the one who pursues the hero, and she’s determined, despite her sheltered upbringing and lack of experience with matters, shall we say, such as these. As with the others, it’s $1.99 for a limited time.
The story of a woman who always gets what she wants by #1 NEW YORK TIMES and USA TODAY BESTSELLING AUTHOR MAYA BANKS
Tycoon Theron Anetakis had only one problem—and she just walked through his door. With his business takeover complete, he’d intended to arrange a marriage for himself to further secure his future. However…
Little Isabella Caplan had blossomed into a voluptuous vixen with plans of her own, and they didn’t include letting the executor of her father’s estate arrange a marriage for her to another man! She had pined for Theron long enough. Now it was time to seduce her hot-blooded hotel tycoon and bring him to one bended knee.
THE BRIDE was originally published as The Tycoon’s Rebel Bride
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Hot Under Pressure
Hot Under Pressure by Kathleen O’Reilly is $1.99. I know I’ve already mentioned O’Reilly, but this book is terrific, too. I gave it an A-, saying:
Ashley lives with her mom, her sister, and her niece in Chicago after a painful divorce. David lives by himself and travels all over the US for his job, working 90% of his waking hours, following an equally painful divorce. When they end up sitting next to one another on a crowded flight that’s delayed for hours before finally being cancelled, they notice each other, and realize that parts of themselves they thought might have been extinct are working just fine.
Usually I dislike the whole “Instant bonerating attraction, oh wait, our sex is meaningful, my wang is a divining rod, you are the ONE” storyline a LOT. Like, heaping, steamy piles of a lot.
But O’Reilly works it and works it hard and well and I couldn’t put the book down.
Boutique owner Ashley Taylor hates flying. Especially when there’s a sugar-fueled little hellion on board. But then David McLean (sexy!) sits next to her, and suddenly Ashley finds herself hoping the delay will last forever–and that David won’t notice her comfy pink bunny slippers (sadly, the opposite of sexy).
David does notice Ashley, and when the flight is delayed overnight, they can’t get to the airport hotel fast enough. Off with the slippers and in with the zing! Fortunately, America is filled with cities–L.A., New York, Miami–and nothing says “smoking-hot passion” like an intercontinental affair!
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I highly recommend Jeannie Lin’s Tang Dynasty books, which look like they are all part of the sale (the Lotus Palace books are excellent also, but not on sale). My favorites are The Dragon and the Pearl and My Fair Concubine, but I would recommend all of them.
In the sale:
A Dash of Temptation by Jo Leigh. (I love the next in the series as well, The Sweetest Taboo by Alison Kent, but that one is not on the $1.99 sale 🙁 )
In the Line of Fire by Cindy Dees (an old Silhouette Intimate Moments)
For medievals, check out Carol Townend. (My favorite of hers, Sapphire in the Snow, is not part of the sale but I’m grabbing everything that is…)
For non-duke-y historicals (as in, historicals about ordinary folks), go for Carla Kelly. Get them all. <3 <3 <3!
For sweet westerns, there's Cheryl St. John. (Wendy the Super Librarian brought her to my attention.) Adore!
For historical Chinese awesomeness, Jeannie Lin. Because Jeannie Lin.
For awesome contemporaries, there's Sarah Mayberry, Sarah Morgan, Marion Lennox, Kelly Hunter… (start with Sarah Mayberry's Anything For Youand The Best Laid Plans, Sarah Morgan’s Doukakis’s Apprentice, A Night of Scandal or
The Twelve Nights of Christmas, Marion Lennox’s Banksia Bay quartet (doggies!), Kelly Hunter’s Wife for a Week…)*
Other contemporaries I’ve liked have been Michelle Reid, Anne Mather, Susan Napier, Brenda Jackson, Liz Fielding, Leslie Kelly,
*I’m not guaranteeing that the books I mentioned are on sale.
I managed to complete my Carla Kelly collection (for now, anyway). Her Harlequins are all great historicals, be they set in the American West or Regency England. I especially like “Her Hesitant Heart” and “Home for Christmas”.
Also, if you like UF, Lauren Dane’s Goddess With a Blade should not be missed. Kickass heroine, and the series just gets better and better. <3!
OK, I love living in Canada but there are some downsides vis a vis SBTB. Firstly, clicking on iBook icon does not take me directly to book, so you guys miss out on money! So sorry, where do I send the cheque? Next, Sex Straight Up is not on sale at Kobo anymore.
Thank you for this! And for the mention of Jeannie Lin’s books on the list. I loved The Lotus Palace but haven’t read her others. I don’t tend to read category romance, but I’m all over those single titles and didn’t know where to start.
Just realized these are all series books and not ST. I bought a Jeannie Lin. Thanks for the rec @SaraLC!
I own all of Carla Kelley’s books in print, but grabbed this opportunity to get e-versions of some of the best of them so I can read them anywhere I am now!
Regency marriage of convenience, anyone? I stayed up past my bedtime last night to finish The Penniless Bride by Nicola Cornick. If you’re a stickler for historical plausibility, don’t go there, but if you like the trope, the characters here are fabulous. Jemima is the educated “above her station” daughter of a chimney sweep. She’s smart, tough, practical, loyal and damaged (child abuse in her background and shown abuse by her father). She follows her heart in spite of herself. Rob is home from the Peninsula, a new Earl who lost his parents and most of the people on his family’s land to a sudden outbreak of disease. It’s been a year and the place has seriously suffered for want of care. There’s a lot of humor, excellent dialogue and a long slow dance of seduction.
Since someone mentioned that she rarely read category and that was followed by someone who remarked on no ST available, I wanted to mention that Superromance is pretty much ST in length and subject matter. And, yes, I know I write for Superromance, but I won’t suggest my books. I will note that Sarah Mayberry, Karina Bliss, Molly O’Keefe and Brenda Novak were all Superromance writers before they went on to pursue other venues and their backlists are $1.99. There are tons of good stories in the line (as the 4 recent Rita nods indicate) so if you’re looking for ST, category Superromance is a close second.
Just saying…:)
Suzanne Brockmann’s “Tall Dark and Deadly” Navy SEAL series is part of the deal. I know I finally rounded out my Kindle collection today. I definitely already have them in paperback! 🙂
Totally recommend Liz Flaherty’s Back to McGuffey’s! Great book! Great writer! http://www.amazon.com/Back-McGuffeys-Liz-Flaherty-ebook/dp/B00JZFL4LA/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1447279555&sr=1-1&keywords=back+to+mcguffeys
@Christy I seem to remember seeing that the Harlequin sale was Kobo US only?
Lynda Aicher’s Bonds of Need is in the sale, and is very good.
Since it is Veterans Day, let me recommend Candice Irvine and Suzanne Brockmann as excellent military romance.
Carla Kelly is a gem for Regency romance.
For contemporary romance anything by Jo Leigh, Eileen Wilks, Kathleen O’Reilly.
There are sooo many more, too many for this post…☹️
I binged on Nicole Helm superromances after hearing about All I Want on the podcast. I really liked that and Too Friendly to Date.
Well I just have to add the recommendation by everyone CARLA KELLY! She is excellent.
For anyone who liked Ember, the Cinderella retelling by Bettie Sharpe (I read it last summer and it was amazing!) another of her books Cat’s Tale, another fairytale retelling is part of the sale as a Carina ebook – I grabbed it!
I added to my already extensive Sarah Morgan collection. I love most of her stuff, but my absolute favorite is Lost to the Desert Warrior. (You have to be ok with a sheikh which I fully acknowledge is a problematic trope, but the heroine in this book is so awesome. I also love her latest Presents, Playing by the Greek’s Rules, but that’s not on sale.) I also adore Addison Fox’s House of Steele miniseries, if you like adventure romance. I bought a ton of Intrigue and Romantic Suspense titles because those are my favs, what a great sale!
OK went to my Ebook Library and these were my 5 Star Favourites from the Harlequin Blaze Series:
Great you recommended 2 of my favourite Blaze Books by Kathleen O’Reilly and I would also recommend her Beyond Breathless.
Also highly recommend any of the Leslie Kelly Blaze books particularly the Santori Family series (but I don’t know that they are included in the sale.)
Dawn Atkins, particularly Simply Sex and At Her Beck and Call.
Any of the Marie Donovan Blaze stories are steamy, especially Her Body of Work and 2 related stories; Bare Necessities and Sex by the Numbers.
Jill Shalvis – Just Try Me.
Tawny Weber – Risque Business
Stephanie Tyler Seal Series particularly Coming Undone and Risking It All
Kimberly Raye’s Vampire Series particularly Drop Dead Gorgeous (Hilarious!!) and her Tall, Tanned and Texan
Also really loved the Wendy Etherington Palmer Island Series, Book 1 is After Dark
Jo Leigh – Ms. Match
Sarah Mayberry Can’t Get Enough and her Daytime Divas Series especially Take On Me and All Over You
Love many of the Kate Hoffman the Mighty Quinns series, particularly Riley/Danny/Kellan
After seeing the list it reminds me of how many talented authors write for the Blaze Line – steamy sex with lovely but realistic romance and some of these novels are witty and hilariously funny with a crazy cast of characters. These books are so good I re-read them every couple of years. Enjoy!
Suzanne Brockmann ‘ s Tall, Dark, and Deadly series. Prince Joe, Forever Blue, and especially Harvard’s Education are personal favorites!
“Almost-three-dimensional man”?… Is that supposed to be damning with faint praise? I would hope writing a character who’s almost three-dimensional is not the desired endstate, yeesh.
What category is ST?
Just guessing, but I think ST probably means single-title (as opposed to category).
One author I haven’t seen mentioned yet, though I know she has a lot of fans (she hasn’t had a book out for a few years, but hopefully she hasn’t been forgotten already) is India Grey. She’s one of my favorite HP authors, and her backlist appears to be included in the sale. Two of my favorites by her are stuck with insanely stupid titles, MISTRESS: HIRED FOR THE BILLIONAIRE’S PLEASURE (the hero is a former fighter pilot slowly going blind, the heroine is a concert pianist, the title doesn’t match the story at all) and POWERFUL ITALIAN, PENNILESS HOUSEKEEPER (the hero is a film director, the story is so romantic and lovely).
Jennie Lucas’s THE CHRISTMAS LOVE CHILD is also quite good (the heroine is an American in London who crosses paths with a rich Russian, and then, well, in this case the title is fairly accurate).
One old favorite (from way back in 2000) that’s on sale is Fiona Brand’s BLADE’S LADY. Her writing style has changed over the years, but her earliest books for Silhouette Intimate Moments were really phenomenal. BLADE’S LADY and HEART OF MIDNIGHT (sadly, not available as an ebook) are my favorites. BL is so romantic and emotional. Also on sale is CULLEN’S BRIDE, a very good book that I know has a lot of fans (I believe it was included in one of those SB/DA Bundles years ago, as chosen by readers).
I love Kat Cantrell (Harlequin Desire). My fave of hers thus far is “The Things She Says” – romance-reading waitress heroine with abusive knuckle-dragger of a father, a movie star hero, and a road trip.
fyi: after reading some of the above recs and looking on Amazon, Leslie Kelly’s 2-book series Temptation in the City is just .99 right now – one is .99 and the other free.
Not sure that they are Harlequin titles, but that’s a sale I like!
aannnnnd one more thing: what does it say about my brain that I click on the Kathleen O’Reilly link above, just to be told by Amazon that I bought it – YESTERDAY. sigh.
I was coming by to say CARLA KELLY, but it looks like lots of people beat me to it.
Does anyone have any historical – English Regency or Victorian – suggestions?
The Playboy Sheikh’s Virgin Stable Girl and Pregnesia were mentioned in the other thread, but another member of the Harlequin Title Hall of Fame, Cathy Gillen Thacker’s THE VIRGIN BRIDE SAID, “WOW!” is also on sale. Haven’t read it, but with that title, I suspect some won’t be able to resist it.
http://www.amazon.com/Virgin-Bride-Said-Lockharts-Texas-ebook/dp/B0042JSQHY/
@AuAu
India Grey is also one of my favourite HP authors. Mistress: Hired for the Billionaire’s Pleasure ranks as one of my all-time favourite romances. She’s writing single titles as Iona Grey now. Letters to the Lost is her first book.
@Carol
On your advice, I picked up The Penniless Bride and was utterly charmed by it! Thanks for recommending. It was a great way to spend a dreary weekend, especially after the gut-wrench of the last book I finished (I’ll Meet You There by Heather Demetrios – wonderful YA but hit me in the feels pretty bad).
@AnAu Thanks for the India Grey rec. I’ve just binged on everything she’s ever written as somehow I’d missed trying her books.
Scarfed up all the Molly O’Keefes. Proof that (like roses) a good writer is a good writer is a good writer.
Also MD-free Sarah Morgans, a couple of Carla Kellys< & the Nicole Helms I didn't have. But those O'Keefes? The mother lode.