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Ghosting
Ghosting by Tash Skilton is $3.99 at Amazon! This is a Kindle Daily Deal, but isn’t being price-matched just yet. I enjoyed this book and would describe it as Cyrano de Bergerac meets online dating. I also had writing duo Tash Skilton on my contemporary romance panel for Bookstore Romance Day.
For readers looking for the wit and heart of Mhairi McFarlane with the romance of You’ve Got Mail plus a savvy digital take on modern love a la Alisha Rai, Ghosting: A Love Story will check all the boxes.
“A sweet, genuinely funny, banter-filled delight of a rom-com.” —Kerry Winfrey, author of Waiting for Tom Hanks
Online Dating Ghostwriting Rules to Live by:
• Do not present a “perfect” image. No one will trust it. Nor should they.
• Think of your quirks—such as cosplaying B-movies from the 1980s—as a “Future Honesty.” Save these as a reward only for those who prove worthy.
• Never remind the client you’re their voice. Once you’ve attracted a good match, let the client take over ASAP.
Dumped by his fiancée, not only is Miles couch-surfing across New York City, but downsizing has forced him to set up shop at a café. Also, he no longer believes in love. Not a good look in his line of work…ghostwriting for potential suitors on a failing dating site.
Zoey’s eccentric L.A. boss sent her packing to New York to “grow.” But beneath her chill Cali demeanor, Zoey’s terrified to venture beyond the café across the street…
The only thing Miles and Zoey think they share is their daily battle for Café Crudite’s last day-old biscotti. They don’t know they’re both creating “authentic” client profiles for rival online dating services. Nope, they have absolutely nothing in common. . . . until they meet anonymously online, texting on the clock.
Soon, with their clients headed for dating disaster, both Miles and Zoey’s jobs are at stake. And once they find out their lines have crossed, will their love connection be the real thing—or vanish into the ether?
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The Duchess War
RECOMMENDED: The Duchess War by Courtney Milan is 99c! This is the first book in The Brothers Sinister series and Carrie gave this one an A+:
The Duchess War is lovely – smart, touching, funny, sexy, and dizzyingly romantic. Read it right away – yes, now. Everything on your to-do list can wait, believe me.
Miss Minerva Lane is a quiet, bespectacled wallflower, and she wants to keep it that way. After all, the last time she was the center of attention, it ended badly–so badly that she changed her name to escape her scandalous past. Wallflowers may not be the prettiest of blooms, but at least they don’t get trampled. So when a handsome duke comes to town, the last thing she wants is his attention.
But that is precisely what she gets.
Because Robert Blaisdell, the Duke of Clermont, is not fooled. When Minnie figures out what he’s up to, he realizes there is more to her than her spectacles and her quiet ways. And he’s determined to lay her every secret bare before she can discover his. But this time, one shy miss may prove to be more than his match…
The books in the Brothers Sinister series:
½. The Governess Affair (prequel novella)
1. The Duchess War
1½. A Kiss for Midwinter (a companion novella to The Duchess War)
2. The Heiress Effect
3. The Countess Conspiracy
4. The Suffragette Scandal
4½. Talk Sweetly to MeAdd to Goodreads To-Read List →
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The Last Train to Key West
The Last Train to Key West by Chanel Cleeton is $1.99 at Amazon and Barnes & Noble! Not sure if this is a leftover Kindle Daily Deal from the weekend. Cleeton’s historical fiction series have been a huge hit. Though the previous books she’s written are somewhat connected, I don’t think there’s any particular order or really an established series.
In 1935 three women are forever changed when one of the most powerful hurricanes in history barrels toward the Florida Keys in New York Times bestselling author Chanel Cleeton’s captivating new novel.
Everyone journeys to Key West searching for something. For the tourists traveling on Henry Flagler’s legendary Overseas Railroad, Labor Day weekend is an opportunity to forget the economic depression gripping the nation. But one person’s paradise can be another’s prison, and Key West-native Helen Berner yearns to escape.
The Cuban Revolution of 1933 left Mirta Perez’s family in a precarious position. After an arranged wedding in Havana, Mirta arrives in the Keys on her honeymoon. While she can’t deny the growing attraction to the stranger she’s married, her new husband’s illicit business interests may threaten not only her relationship, but her life.
Elizabeth Preston’s trip from New York to Key West is a chance to save her once-wealthy family from their troubles as a result of the Wall Street crash. Her quest takes her to the camps occupied by veterans of the Great War and pairs her with an unlikely ally on a treacherous hunt of his own.
Over the course of the holiday weekend, the women’s paths cross unexpectedly, and the danger swirling around them is matched only by the terrifying force of the deadly storm threatening the Keys.
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Welcome to Temptation
Welcome to Temptation by Jennifer Crusie is $2.99! Crusie is an auto-buy author for a lot of us and I can see how her books would be great comfort reads right now. Do you have a favorite Crusie or have fond feelings about this one?
Sophie Dempsey wants to help her sister film a video and then get out of Temptation, Ohio. Mayor Phin Tucker wants to play pool with the police chief and keep things peaceful. But when Sophie and Phin meet, they both get more than they want. Gossip, blackmail, adultery, murder, vehicular abuse of a corpse, and slightly perverse but excellent sex: all hell breaks loose in Temptation as Sophie and Phin fall deeper and deeper in trouble… and in love.
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Welcome to Temptation is delightful. If you like banter and playful sex and large casts and wacky shenanigans, you can’t go wrong with most of Crusie’s novels, but this one is my fave.
If you like the Cyrano de Bergerac trope, Selena Bell’s CAN’T HOLD BACK uses it effectively: a woman with severe dyslexia asks her sister for help writing letters and emails to a deployed soldier. The soldier gradually falls for the letter writer, unaware she’s not the woman he’s dating.
I have a dissenting opinion about Welcome to Temptation. Despite the laugh-out-loud moments, WtT was a book with an edge, several edges, actually, much like Fast Women in that way. I felt like Crusie had a lot of very pointed things to say, and wrapped up her agenda in raucous humor and raunchy language. For the first half of the book I disliked every character except Dilly and Wes. I never liked or trusted Phin.
Just FYI,I liked Fast Women better than WtT.
“Crusie is an auto-buy author for a lot of us and I can see how her books would be great comfort reads right now. ”
Yes, she is for me and I sure do wish she would publish something new… sigh…
One of my favorite works by Courtney Milan is her novella, The Governess Affair, which is FREE to Kindle readers; it’s a prequel to the featured book above. Link here ~ https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B007WIOP68?ref_=dbs_m_mng_wam_calw_4&storeType=ebooks
Another dissenting opinion on Welcome to Temptation: I actually started it on Saturday, but ended up putting it down about a quarter of the way through because something about was just not working for me. Like Carrie G, I didn’t like or trust Phin, but it was more than that; it was something about the tone. Instead I tried reading Faking It, about Sophie’s brother, and ended up enjoying it immensely.
WtT was also not my favorite Crusie. Like @Star I much preferred Faking It. I was only just getting into contemporaries when I started reading Crusie, and I think Faking It was the first book I read where the first sexual encounter was NOT mind blowing or transcendent or whatever. Tilda’s internal monologue felt so super familiar in a way I hadn’t come across before.
Another vote for Faking It over WtT. Phin just grates on me.
Bet Me is my favorite, but Fast Women is up there.
It looks like Cleeton’ Next year in Havana is also on sale for $1.99. I picked up both this and Last Train To Key West, along with her book When we left Cuba. This third book was not on sale, but I felt that was balanced out by the sale prices of the others.
@Lisa A
I really enjoyed Faking it and just about every other book Crusie has written. I recently went through a reread of all the books of hers I own,including Fast Women and Bet Me.
WtT is a book that people seem to love or not,and for me it was due to all the unlikable characters. I didn’t like Davy in WtT, but I liked him in Faking it, and that book is peopled by other likable characters.
I was really hoping someone would comment on Ghosting. It looks interesting, but I’m not quite sure.
The entire Brothers Sinister series was on sale a while back—I think the best of the bunch is The Heiress Effect followed by The Countess Conspiracy. I will say, I think it was a mistake to read them all one after another because the sibling relationships are just SO awful in pretty much all instances. I know Milan comes from a big family and I just had…questions after reading these.
Welcome to Temptation was a favorite of mine in high school—would have to re-read to see how it holds up. (Random details I remember: lots of Dove Bars, the (fake?) porno called Coming Clean, and I think Phin throws a lamp at a wall during sex?) I definitely enjoyed Faking It and have reread that more recently.
@FashionablyEvil
“the sibling relationships are just SO awful in pretty much all instances”
YES! I’m so glad I’m not the only one who feels this way. I recently finished The Countess conspiracy, and Sebastian’s brother almost ruined the book for me. This happens in her books, although I do love the stories. The Heiress Effect is my favorite of this series as well, although the The Governess Affair novella is marvelous.
This may be an unpopular opinion, but my favorite Crusie by far is Agnes and the Hitman, though I did enjoy WtT.
Thanks for all of the comments on Welcome to Temptation. I really enjoyed Faking It but this one never sounded as appealing. Will skip for now!
“Getting Rid of Bradley” is my favorite Jennifer Crusie book of all time. It’s a comfort read.
My dissenting opinion is about Faking It. I was so intrigued by Davy, who I found rather mysterious and intriguing in Welcome to Temptation but a bit more ordinary and not quite so compelling in his own book. OTOH, I loved WtT. Among other things, it has a great example of how Crusie is a master of intelligent romance when she tells us what Sophie thinks of Phin when she first meets him: “He looked like every glossy frat boy in every nerd movie ever made, like every popular town boy who’d ever looked right through her in high school, like every rotten rich kid who’d ever belonged where she hadn’t.” Even if I don’t get details about Phin’s eye color or how his shoulders fill out his shirt, I have a clear picture of what he looks like (and also learn a bit about Sophie and her experiences growing up).
@Scene Stealer I did a reread of Cruise’s entire backlist earlier this year and had forgotten how much I enjoyed GRoB. All of those original issue Harlequin Temptations of hers from the early/mid 90s I collected from used bookstores and secondhand shops over the years just make me happy. Of that grouping though Anyone But You might be my favorite…
I liked Welcome to Temptation well enough, and really loved Faking It. I understand the criticisms of Phin, the WtT romantic lead, and I didn’t really like the female lead Sophie that well either. But the picture that is painted of a small Ohio town is really great, and almost all the minor characters are memorable and amusing. Plus, it gives the intro to Davy, Sophie’s brother who is the romantic lead in Faking It.
Faking It is probably tied with Agnes and the Hitman as my favorite Crusie. I think some of her earlier category romances are underrated, though. Getting Rid of Bradley and Charlie All Night are a lot of fun. I also remember Anyone But You and The Cinderella Deal being pretty good.
Welcome to Temptation is not my favorite, but it’s been years since I read it. The thing I really remember is my reaction to the insane shenanigans surrounding a dead body about midway through. I laughed so hard at that part, and it made the book worth reading for me (I know this is vague, but it has been years and also spoilers).
Coming a bit late to the conversation but I love Jennifer Crusie. Welcome to temptation was my first back in the day And I love it to bits. One of the things that really struck me when I first read was the fact that things were not perfect in the first love scene. I had never seen that in a romance before and I really liked that.
A good assortment; I really liked Last Train to Key West, though it’s not quite perfect.
There’s a Crusie bundle – four books for $5.99 – that I’d snap up if I didn’t already have two of them as ebooks and all her books in hard copy. WtT was my first Crusie and I still love it. Sad to see the tepid response here.