Happy New Year! And we’re kicking off this month with some pretty awesome historical romances. That’s right; We’ve got new Eloisa James and Beverly Jenkins. Plus starts to new series from Lorelei James, Jay Crownover, and Roni Loren! Aside from books, Sarah would also like you to know that she’s been reading “any and all websites about arranging furniture in new spaces, and organizing cabinets. All of those. I’ve probably read them twice.”
What are you looking forward to this month?
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Built
Author: Jay Crownover
Released: January 5, 2016 by William Morrow Paperbacks
Genre: Contemporary Romance, New Adult, Romance
Series: Saints of Denver #1From the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of the Marked Men books comes an electrifying new spin-off series,Saints of Denver, featuring all the characters fans have been dying to read about.
Sometimes a real hero lets you save yourself . . .
Sayer Cole and Zeb Fuller couldn’t be more different. She’s country club and fine-dining, he’s cell-block and sawdust. Sayer spends her days in litigation while Zeb spends his working with his hands. But none of that has stopped Zeb from wanting the stunning blonde since the moment he laid eyes on her—even if the reserved lawyer seems determinedly oblivious to his interest.
Sayer is certain the rough, hard, hot-as-hell Zeb could never want someone as closed off and restrained as she is, which is a shame because something tells her he might be the guy to finally melt her icy exterior. When he shows up at Sayer’s door needing her professional help, she’s both disappointed and relieved that she won’t get the chance to find out just how good he could be.
But as they team up to right a wrong and save a family, the steam created when fire and ice collide cannot be ignored.
Amanda says: I believe I’ve mentioned before how much I love Crownover’s heroes and I’m very excited for this new series. The first book has class differences and a bearded, tattooed hero.
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Off the Clock
Author: Roni Loren
Released: January 5, 2016 by Berkley
Genre: Contemporary Romance, Erotica/Erotic Romance, Romance
Series: Pleasure Principle #1Overtime has never felt so good…
Marin Rush loves studying sex. Doing it? That’s another story. In the research lab, Marin’s lack of practical knowledge didn’t matter, but now that she’s landed a job at The Grove, a high-end, experimental sex therapy institute, she can’t ignore the fact that the person most in need of sexual healing may be her.
Dr. Donovan West, her new hotshot colleague, couldn’t agree more. Donovan knows that Marin’s clients are going to eat her alive unless she gets some hands-on experience. And if she fails at the job, he can say goodbye to a promotion, so he assigns her a list of R-rated tasks to prepare her for the wild clientele of The Grove’s X-wing.
But some of those tasks are built for two, and when he finds Marin searching for a candidate to help her check off her list, Donovan decides there’s only one man for the job—him. As long as they keep their erotic, off-the-clock activities strictly confidential and without strings, no one will get fired—or worse, get attached…
Amanda says: Listen, any book that combines characters who are into science and some sex, I’m fully on board.
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Seduction in Session
Author: Shayla Black
Released: January 5, 2016 by Berkley
Genre: Erotica/Erotic Romance, Romantic Suspense, Romance
Series: The Perfect Gentlemen #2The second Perfect Gentlemen novel from the New York Timesbestselling authors of the Masters of Ménage series.
Privileged, wealthy, and wild: they are the Perfect Gentlemen of Creighton Academy. But the threat of a scandal has one of them employing his most deceptive—and seductive—talents…
Recruited into the CIA at a young age, Connor Sparks knows how dirty the world can be. Only when he’s with his friends can he find some peace. So when an anonymous journalist threatens one of the Perfect Gentlemen, Connor vows to take down the person behind the computer, by whatever means necessary—even if it means posing as his target’s bodyguard.
Publishing a tabloid revealing Washington’s most subversive scandals has earned Lara Anderson the ire of the political scene—and a slew of death threats. To keep herself from ending up a headline, Lara hires a bodyguard, a man as handsome as he is lethal.
When the bullets start to fly, Lara is surprised to find herself in Connor’s arms. But as they begin to unravel a mystery that just might bring down the White House, Lara is devastated when she discovers Connor’s true identity—and finds herself at the mercy of forces who will stop at nothing to advance their deadly agenda.
Elyse says: I enjoyed the first book!
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What You Need
Author: Lorelei James
Released: January 5, 2016 by Signet
Genre: Contemporary Romance, Romance
Series: Need You #1New York Times bestseller Lorelei James introduces a new family for readers to fall in love with in the Need You series. The Lund name is synonymous with wealth and power in Minneapolis-St. Paul. But the four Lund siblings will each discover true love takes a course of its own…
As the CFO of Lund Industries, Brady Lund is the poster child for responsibility. But eighty hour work weeks leave him little time for a life outside his corner office. His brothers stage an intervention and drag him to a seedy night club…where he sees her, the buttoned up blonde from the secretarial pool who’s starred in his fantasies for months.
Lennox Greene is a woman with a rebellious past—which she carefully conceals beneath her conservative clothes. She knows flirting with her sexy, but aloof boss during working hours is a bad idea. So when Brady shows up at her favorite dive bar, sans his usual snappy suit, and catches her cutting loose, she throws caution aside and dares him to do the same.
After sparks fly, Brady finds keeping his hands off Lennox during office hours is harder than expected. While she makes him feel alive for the first time in years, a part of him wonders if she’s just using him to get ahead. And Lennox must figure out if Brady wants her for the accomplished woman she is—or the bad girl she was.
Elyse says: I’m a fan of office romance when it’s done well, so I’m eager to try this one.
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Big Rock
Author: Lauren Blakely
Released: January 6, 2016 by EverAfter Platinum
Genre: Contemporary Romance, Humor, RomanceIt’s not just the motion of the ocean, ladies. It’s definitely the SIZE of the boat too.
And I’ve got both firing on all cylinders. In fact, I have ALL the right assets. Looks, brains, my own money, and a big cock.
You might think I’m an asshole. I sound like one, don’t I? I’m hot as sin, rich as heaven, smart as hell and hung like a horse.
Guess what? You haven’t heard my story before. Sure, I might be a playboy, like the NY gossip rags call me. But I’m the playboy who’s actually a great guy. Which makes me one of a kind.
The only trouble is, my dad needs me to cool it for a bit. With conservative investors in town wanting to buy his flagship Fifth Avenue jewelry store, he needs me not only to zip it up, but to look the part of the committed guy. Fine. I can do this for Dad. After all, I’ve got him to thank for the family jewels. So I ask my best friend and business partner to be my fiancée for the next week. Charlotte’s up for it. She has her own reasons for saying yes to wearing this big rock.
And pretty soon all this playing pretend in public leads to no pretending whatsoever in the bedroom, because she just can’t fake the kind of toe-curling, window-shattering orgasmic cries she makes as I take her to new heights between the sheets.
But I can’t seem to fake that I might be feeling something real for her.
What the fuck have I gotten myself into with this…big rock?
BIG ROCK is a standalone, dirty romance novel written from the guy’s POV by NYT Bestselling author Lauren Blakely…
Amanda says: Totally judging a book by its cover here.
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Crazed
Author: Edie Harris
Released: January 11, 2016 by Carina Press
Genre: Romantic Suspense, Romance
Series: Blood Money #3Casey Faraday was a soldier before he was a spy, but family always came first, no matter what.
When a member of the Faraday clan is snatched off the streets and dragged halfway across the world, it’s Casey who follows the kidnappers’ trail to South America. Thrust into the heart of the cartel he barely escaped during an undercover assignment four years earlier, he’s unprepared for the shock awaiting him on Colombian soil.
Ilda Almeida—the only woman to ever tempt Casey into madness, the beautiful wife he’d mourned for years—is very much alive. And keeping a secret that will forever change life as he knows it.
Casey can’t control his hands—or his heart—around Ilda, but neither can he abandon his rescue mission. When cartel violence turns the jungle into a bloodbath, he can only protect one family: his.
Amanda says: I’ve probably talked about this book no less than 3 times so far at SBTB. SO EXCITED FOR CASEY’S STORY! I’ve also reviewed the first two books in the series: Blamed and Ripped.
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A Duchess in Name
Author: Amanda Weaver
Released: January 18, 2016 by Carina Press
Genre: Historical: European, Romance
Series: The Grantham Girls #1Victoria Carson never expected love. An American heiress and graduate of Lady Grantham’s finishing school, she’s been groomed since birth to marry an English title—the grander the better. So when the man chosen for her, the forbidding Earl of Dunnley, seems to hate her on sight, she understands that it can’t matter. Love can have no place in this arrangement.
Andrew Hargrave has little use for his title and even less for his cold, disinterested parents. Determined to make his own way, he’s devoted to his life in Italy working as an archaeologist. Until the collapse of his family’s fortune drags him back to England to a marriage he never wanted and a woman he doesn’t care to know.
Wild attraction is an unwanted complication for them both, though it forms the most fragile of bonds. Their marriage of convenience isn’t so intolerable after all—but it may not be enough when the deception that bound them is finally revealed.
Amanda says: A marriage of convenience with an American heroine and an archaeologist hero? Well all right then!
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To Have and to Master
Author: Sparrow Beckett
Released: January 19, 2016 by InterMix
Genre: Erotica/Erotic Romance, Romance
Series: Masters Unleashed #3Tired of his mother bugging him to marry a nice girl from the old country, Konstantin agrees to meet her friend’s daughter when she’s shipped over from rural Russia.
Naturally obedient and submissive, Varushka is everything Konstantin wants in a woman. The fact that she’s so naive and easily scandalized arouses him but makes him feel guilty. Training the girl to be his slave quickly becomes a compulsion.
Varushka is confused by a lot of things in America, especially by her future husband and his sexual depravity. Sinister and captivating, Konstantin introduces her to many fascinating perversions, and his care and attention wins her complete devotion. However, when her father finds out about Konstantin’s past, he whisks her back home. Will Varushka’s Master give chase to reclaim her, or will he allow her father to marry her off to a more respectable man?
Amanda says: This is the third book in the series and wraps up the trio of doms introduced in the first book, so I’m curious what else is on the horizon for the Sparrow Beckett team (it’s two authors). And it has an arranged marriage!
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The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend
Author: Katarina Bivald
Released: January 19, 2016 by Sourcebooks Landmark
Genre: Women's FictionThis is a book about books. All sorts of books, from Little Women and Harry Potter to Jodi Picoult and Jane Austen, from to Stieg Larsson to Joyce Carol Oates to Proust. It’s about the joy and pleasure of books, about learning from and escaping into them, and possibly even hiding behind them. It’s about whether or not books are better than real life.
It’s also a book about a Swedish girl called Sara, her elderly American penfriend Amy and what happens when you land a very different kind of bookshop in the middle of a town so broken it’s almost beyond repair.
Or is it?
Sarah says: Swedish pen pal goes to Iowa, starts bookshop. I keep hearing about this book in very disparate places.
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All the Birds in the Sky
Author: Charlie Jane Anders
Released: January 26, 2016 by Tor
Genre: Science Fiction/FantasyChildhood friends Patricia Delfine and Laurence Armstead didn’t expect to see each other again, after parting ways under mysterious circumstances during high school. After all, the development of magical powers and the invention of a two-second time machine could hardly fail to alarm one’s peers and families.
But now they’re both adults, living in the hipster mecca San Francisco, and the planet is falling apart around them. Laurence is an engineering genius who’s working with a group that aims to avert catastrophic breakdown through technological intervention into the changing global climate. Patricia is a graduate of Eltisley Maze, the hidden academy for the world’s magically gifted, and works with a small band of other magicians to secretly repair the world’s every-growing ailments. Little do they realize that something bigger than either of them, something begun years ago in their youth, is determined to bring them together–to either save the world, or plunge it into a new dark ages.
A deeply magical, darkly funny examination of life, love, and the apocalypse.
Amanda says: This description just makes the book sound all sorts of fun! Magic and science married together, ex-lovers reuniting to try and prevent the apolocalypse. Yes please!
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Forbidden
Author: Beverly Jenkins
Released: January 26, 2016 by Avon
Genre: Historical: American, RomanceUSA Today bestselling author Beverly Jenkins returns with the first book in a breathtaking new series set in the Old West
Rhine Fontaine is building the successful life he’s always dreamed of—one that depends upon him passing for White. But for the first time in years, he wishes he could step out from behind the façade. The reason: Eddy Carmichael, the young woman he rescued in the desert. Outspoken, defiant, and beautiful, Eddy tempts Rhine in ways that could cost him everything . . . and the price seems worth paying.
Eddy owes her life to Rhine, but she won’t risk her heart for him. As soon as she’s saved enough money from her cooking, she’ll leave this Nevada town and move to California. No matter how handsome he is, no matter how fiery the heat between them, Rhine will never be hers. Giving in for just one night might quench this longing. Or it might ignite an affair as reckless and irresistible as it is forbidden . . .
Sarah says: The letters on the cover say “Beverly Jenkins.” So I’m in.
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My American Duchess
Author: Eloisa James
Released: January 26, 2016 by Avon
Genre: Historical: European, RomanceThe arrogant Duke of Trent intends to marry a well-bred Englishwoman. The last woman he would ever consider marrying is the adventuresome Merry Pelford— an American heiress who has infamously jilted two fiancés.
But after one provocative encounter with the captivating Merry, Trent desires her more than any woman he has ever met. He is determined to have her as his wife, no matter what it takes. And Trent is a man who always gets what he wants.
The problem is, Merry is already betrothed, and the former runaway bride has vowed to make it all the way to the altar. As honor clashes with irresistible passion, Trent realizes the stakes are higher than anyone could have imagined. In his battle to save Merry and win her heart, one thing becomes clear:
All is fair in love and war.
Elyse says: Eloisa James is one of my favorite authors, so this is a no brainer.
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A Duchess in Name wins the ‘beautiful dress on a bookcover’ award!
I prefer the dress she’s wearing on the “Forbidden” cover, but then pink is my color.
I’m just dying to read Rose Lerner’s new release “Listen To The Moon”. It comes out on Jan 5th.
I’ve read Off the Clock– really great read! But I LURVE Roni Loren. I also read Broken Wheel. Whimsical, okay read. Not bad but I didn’t cherish it like I thought I would.
@DL White: I finished Off the Clock over my vacation and I really enjoyed it. It was my first Loren book and I think I’m going to pick up some more.
I think I caught a whiff of secret baby trope. Edie Harris, I believe it’s time we met.
Oh dear, took one look at the Lauren Blakely cover and did a double take. Just saying “Rock” was not the word I saw! I blame that cover photo and I think that was exactly the Intention of the cover artists.
Roni Loren is one of my favorite authors, and I’ve never been disappointed yet by any of her books. She’s the only author who does triad relationships so well that I don’t question their validity. I’m running to the book store after work on Tuesday to pick up “Off the Clock” – can’t wait!
Some of the other books listed here look really good, like “Built”, “What You Need”, and “My American Duchess”.
I finished The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend just before New Year’s and it’s a great book about reading with friends. It’s got humor, romance and a town about as quirky as Stars Hollow was-I’ll be reviewing it for my blog next week but can’t resist highly recommending this enough!
Oh Karin thanks for the heads up on the Lerner. I love her and this coming one looks great. I feel like servant/servant romances are always side characters in historicals and these servants look to be legit and not Secret Earls or Ladies on the Run.
I was browsing my library for new releases saw the Bivald book and put it on hold. Looking forward to it immensely!
Interesting that there are two American heiress books on the list. Both look interesting. That said, I pre-ordered Rose Lerner’s Listen to the Moon on AllRomance. It’s rebate eligible and I enjoy her stories about non-titled heroes and heroines, so win-win. Beverly Jenkins’ books should come with a warning on the cover, “Do not start reading at bedtime or if you have somewhere to go.” Forbidden looks like another evening well spent for me. I’ve been watching for this one.
I can’t believe it’s finally the month Forbidden comes out!
@DonnaMarie: Would you like me to confirm or deny the existence of a secret baby? Hehehehe.
Aggh! Just finished Dukes Prefer Blondes and what can I possibly read after that? It was perfect!!