A Proper Scandal
A Proper Scandal by Rebecca Paula is 99c! This is the second book i n the Ravensdales series. It features a ballerina and a pickpocket, which sounds like all sorts of catnip. However, the book as minimal reviews on Goodreads, so I’m unsure of the good vs. bad.
She has a reputation to ruin…
A wild spirit trapped by Victorian propriety, Minnie Ravensdale runs away from finishing school to pursue her dream of becoming a ballerina. She teams up with charming Irish pickpocket, Alex Marwick, who pretends to be her husband when they rent a room together in an East End brothel. But her new independence is threatened when Alex asks for her help in finding a mysterious society lady. Minnie knows who he seeks, but to offer up the answer would mean sacrificing her freedom and returning to her family a ruined woman.
And he has everything to gain…
Alex must find the mysterious woman who rescued him from a hellish asylum as a young boy. Without her, he is a ghost amongst the living—no identity except for the one he’s made for himself as pickpocket and card cheat. When he spots Minnie lost in the East End, he decides her social connections are the solution to discovering his true identity. But when she flees without supplying answers, Alex chases. They cause a proper scandal from the streets of London to Belle Époque Paris, as the pauper falls madly in love for the ruined lady.
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Utterly Charming by Kristine Grayson is $1.99 at Amazon and $2.99 elsewhere. It’s the first book in the Fates series and has a contemporary romance meets magical fairy tale vibe. Readers loved the worldbuilding and original idea, but found the heroine to be too prickly for their liking.
He could be her own personal Prince Charming if only dreams did come true. . .
Mysterious, handsome wizard Aethelstan Blackstone hires beautiful, hardworking attorney Nora Barr to get a restraining order to protect Sleeping Beauty from her evil stepmother. But if Sleeping Beauty is supposed to be his soul mate, then how come he’s becoming bewitched by Nora?
And when Nora finds herself baby-sitting a clueless maiden from the Middle Ages, avoiding a very wicked witch, and falling hard for a man whose magic she doesn’t believe in , she begins to think that love itself is only a fairy tale. . .
Welcome to the fractious fairy tale world of Kristine Grayson, where the bumpy road to happily ever after is paved with surprises. . .
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Calling It by Jen Doyle is 99c! This is a contemporary sports romance with a “no strings attached” scenario. Many loved the characterization of the hero and heroine and found the romance to be really sweet. It has a 3.9-star rating on Goodreads and is on sale in honor of baseball’s Opening Day. Have you read this one?
Baseball player Nathan Hawkins needs to get away from Chicago. After a near career-ending car accident and with paparazzi surrounding his penthouse, Nate can only think of one place to go: home. But when he finds his old apartment occupied by a half-naked woman wielding a baseball bat, he’s not sure what to think…except that maybe his luck has finally changed for the better.
Librarian Dorie Donelli never thought she’d get to meet her fantasy man in person–much less while she’s wearing her bathrobe. To her surprise, her nearly naked run-in with Nate leads to more unclothed encounters. But Dorie is sure their fling is only temporary. As long as she remembers he’ll be gone once his life gets back on track, she won’t get hurt. In the meantime, she throws herself into enjoying their three weeks together before he has to report for spring training and go back to his old life.
For Nate, being with Dorie is the only time in months that he finds himself smiling. Laughing. And he has no intention of letting that go. He might even be falling in love…if only Dorie will let him say the words. What they have isn’t just a dream, but the start of a dream come true.
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The Princes of Avce Boxed Set by Victoria Pinder is 99c! This set collects books one through three of the series, which features prince heroes. If you’re looking for more royal romances to read, this might be a good option: three royal romances for less than a dollar. However it looks like the romances are on the shorter side, at around 150 pages a piece.
An enthralling box set of royal romance: Sworn to marry, three handsome princes find love with the women they least expect — from a fake fiancée to a summer fling!
Forbidden Crown
Prince Antonio Aussa is almost out of time. If he doesn’t find a wife within the next two weeks, he’ll be forced to forsake his destiny and disappoint his parents.
Kristin Wells is desperate for money. If she doesn’t find a well-paying job soon, her dream of finishing grad school will die.
When Kristin walks into Antonio’s Miami office, he sees a way out of his royal dilemma, but first he needs to convince her to go along with his plan. Their whirlwind pretend romance turns into something more. But soon their seemingly perfect union stirs up more trouble than they could have ever imagined, jeopardizing their agreement.
With everything on the line for them, can the couple from opposite worlds find a way to make their arrangement work, or will their deeper connection cause them to lose everything in the end…including each other?
Forbidden Prince
Marcus Aussa is bound by duty to find a bride. The task should be easy enough for the handsome prince, but finding the woman he wants to spend the rest of his life with is vastly different from what he’s accustomed to. When his oldest brother welcomes his new bride and her friend to Avce, Marcus thinks he may have found the perfect woman.
When Renee Brown agrees to escort her best friend on a trip to Avce, she knows it will be the experience of a lifetime. Her theory proves true when she meets Marcus, the crown prince’s handsome younger brother. What begins as innocent flirty turns into a whirlwind summer fling. But their short time together draws them closer than expected – so close that known assassin’s target both. As the danger increases, Marcus’ protective nature takes hold. Now, neither can imagine their lives without the other.
When their time together comes to an end, will they welcome the distance or will they do whatever it takes to be together forever?
Forbidden Royal
Political consultant Amy Fields only experienced jealousy once in her life, and that’s the way she’d like to keep it. Watching her older sister carry-on with the boy she absolutely adored in high school enough to make her never want to feel second-best again.
Now, successful in her own right. She’s making strides in her career and meeting interesting people, but one client takes a keen interest in her life – and he’s determined to ensure she never finds a happy ending with the boy she loved.
Prince Lucio Aussa can have any woman he wants, but he’s grown tired of superficial relationships. When his brother convinces him that he can find the perfect bride online, Lucio reluctantly agrees. The search dredges up old feelings about Amy’s older sister, and prompts him to want to rekindle their broken relationship. But when the internet search points to Amy as his perfect mate, that changes everything. Now, he must reconcile the feelings he had for her sister with the realization that Amy is far more interesting than she ever was. To make matters worse, as his feelings for her grow, an enemy emerges threatening to ruin any hope of love for either of them.
Can the overcome their preconceived notions about each other and find common ground together or will yet another obstacle stand in their way?
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Baseball? For a Chicago team? On opening day? Someone’s been busy baiting the one click hook.
Avce? How are we supposed to pronounce that? Is that where Avicii is from?
I’m super squicked by heros/heroines who’ve previously been involved with siblings. I have siblings and…no.
Now, he must reconcile the feelings he had for her sister with the realization that Amy is far more interesting than she ever was.
My inner copyeditor has things to say about precision in the use of pronouns and antecedents.
I feel sorry for the sister.
@cbackson: re: “Avce” – you beat me to it. If I have to spend precious reading time pondering the pronounciation and etymology of a four-letter word that promises to pop up on every other page, I think I’m going to end up having to replace a lot of drywall. Not worth it.
I’m going out on a limb with “Avce” and going with a Church-Latin-esque pronunciation: “Ouch”. Or possibly “Ouchie”.
PROVE ME WRONG.
Weirdly, I’m OK with Regency romances where the hero is engaged to the heroine’s sister (who is ALL WRONG for him) and switches affections to the heroine. I really love ‘Then Came You’ by Lisa Kleypas, for example.
In contemporary fiction, though? No, no, no. I can’t work out why that is.
@Tam I’m totally with you. Part of the fun of Regencies is that the very act of choosing one’s spouse can be written as a romantic defiance, since the marriages were expected to be passionless business arrangements. I could fully get on board with a hero being engaged with a perfectly nice but clearly wrong girl, going along with it because It’s What You Do, and then meeting her sister and having his feelings that not only awaken his heart but cause him to go against societal tradition for her.
Since that pressure is virtually absent in contemporaries (except in specific ethnic/religious pockets), it’s not nearly as romantic and it just makes me wonder why the hero couldn’t get his head out of his butt earlier.
@Tam: Yeah, it’s the sex thing. The person wasn’t as likely to have been sexually intimate with one person in a Regency novel before switching to the sibling. (I’m leaving the sex of the respective partners ambiguous since any mix is valid.) In a contemporary, it’s almost a given that sex would be involved. So the ick factor is amped up.
@ Bu Yes, my first thought was that the only plausible explanation is that it’s a “u” written as a “v.” How delightfully medieval! Or something? It’s too bad, but that one word makes the book an automatic no for me.
My sister got too close a look at my dating habits through my late teens and early twenties, and since there have been whole categories of men she avoids because they are the sort of people I would date. So I’m going to have to sign on for this one.
I tried reading Utterly Charming and it wasn’t for me. More of the writing style and male character than the heroine, although I did give up after about 2 chapters so maybe it improves. Life’s too short for me to keep reading things I don’t like!
The Doctor’s Discretion by EE Ottoman is .99 – m/m trans IR historical set in 1830s NY. Haven’t read it but have enjoyed others by this author.
Ellen Kushner’s _Swordspoint_ is on sale for 1.99 at major e-book outlets: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple iBooks, Google, & Kobo.
Squee!
I don’t mind the dating your ex’s sibling / sibling’s ex trope if the protags are adults and the sibling relationship was when they were in high school / college.
True story – in my mid-twenties, I almost dated one of my brother’s high school ex-girlfriends (but it was a little too weird, even for twenty-something me). Instead, she and I talked about our feelings and the possibility of dating until said feelings died of boredom.
Given that my brother and I have overlapping tastes in women, plus his track record of dating “straight” girls who came out later, it’s kind of amazing that I was only interested in one of his exs.
Today, 3/30, the kindle daily deal includes a whole lot of Arthur C Clark. Not my thing, but I thought if someone were after them it’s a pretty great deal.
Sarina Bowen’s The Year We Fell Down (The Ivy Years Book 1) is currently free to Kindle readers. This new adult romance is a favorite of mine. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00J50YNE0?tag=viglink20248-20
I actually deliberately seek out the sibling’s ex books, because it’s so messily forbidden. The “forbidden” sibling’s bff/bff’s sibling tropes put me off because it all seems either artificial and/or problematically patriarchic (your sister is not your property, sorry), depending, but with a sibling’s or bff’s ex, the forbidden angst is so real. I like it for the same reason I like romances involving stepsiblings.
That said, mythical European royalty puts me off more than sibling’s exes draw me in, so it’s a nope for me anyway.
For Avce, I was more put off by the font. Why do they ever put any word in cursive on a cover if it isnt clear what the word is? I’ll give “Duke” a pass. For “Avce” I had to to search the text next to it because it was bugging me to try to guess what the letters were supposed to be.
I confess Kristine Grayson’s books are catnip for me!