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The King’s Man
The King’s Man by Elizabeth Kingston is $2.99! This is the first book in the Welsh Blades series and features an enemies to lovers romance, plus a nursed back to health element. Readers recommend the audio version narrated by Nicholas Boulton and many liked the anti-hero-ness of the hero. However, some mention there are historical inaccuracies.
Ranulf Ombrier’s fame throughout 13th century England for his skill at swordplay is rivaled only by his notoriety as King Edward I’s favorite killer. Ranulf’s actions have gained him lands, title, and a lasting reputation as a hired butcher. But after years of doing his king’s bidding, he begins to fear for his mortal soul and follows his conscience away from Edward, all the way to the wilds of Wales.
Gwenllian of Ruardean, Welsh daughter of a powerful Marcher lord, has every reason to leave Ranulf for dead when one of her men nearly kills him. As a girl she was married by proxy to a man Ranulf murdered, only to become a widow before she ever met her groom. In the years since, she has shunned the life of a lady, instead studying warfare and combat at her mother’s behest. But she has also studied healing and this, with her sense of duty to knightly virtues, leads her to tend to Ranulf’s wounds.
Saving her enemy’s life comes with consequences, and Gwenllian and Ranulf are soon caught up in dangerous intrigue. Forced together by political machinations, they discover a kinship of spirit and a surprising, intense desire. But even hard-won love cannot thrive when loyalties are divided and the winds of rebellion sweep the land.
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To Woo a Wicked Widow
To Woo a Wicked Widow by Jenna Jaxon is 99c! This is the first book in The Widows’ Club and some of the subsequent books are also 99c. This has a heroine who is trying to avoid getting married again. Readers seemed divided on the heroine. Some enjoyed her independence, while others couldn’t really connect with her.
The war years are behind them.Â
The future is before them.
And one by one, the widows of Lyttlefield Park are getting restless…
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Lady Charlotte Cavendish is still the spirited girl who tried to elope in the name of love. That dream was thwarted by her father who trapped her into a loveless, passionless marriage. But now widowed, Charlotte is free to reenter the giddy world of the ton—and pursue her desires. For hardly your typical widow, she remains innocent to the pleasures of the flesh. Yet her life is finally her own, and she intends to keep it that way.Nash, the twelfth Earl of Wrotham, is beguiled by Charlotte at first sight—and the feeling is mutual. When he receives her intriguing invitation to a house party, the marriage-minded lord plans to further their acquaintance. But even he cannot sway her aversion to matrimony, and only with great restraint does he resist her most tempting offer. For unbeknownst to Charlotte, the misadventures of the past are revisiting them both, and bedding her could cost him everything—or give him everything he ever wanted.
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The Pact
The Pact by Karina Halle is 99c at Amazon! This is a contemporary romance with a marriage pact between friends! If that’s your catnip, it’s your lucky day with book sales. While readers loved Halle’s writing, they warn that the couple spends more time apart than they preferred.
It all started with a pinky swear…
Linden McGregor is tall, rugged, and gunslinger handsome; a helicopter pilot with a Scottish brogue and charm to spare. He’s also one of Stephanie Robson’s best friends and has fit into that box for as long as she’s known him.
Beautiful, funny and an ambitious businesswoman (with one hell of an ass), Stephanie Robson is one of Linden McGregor’s best friends and has fit into that box for as long as he’s known her.
But some relationships can’t be boxed, can’t be classified, can’t be tamed.
Back in their mid-twenties and tired of the competitive hit-or-miss dating scene of San Francisco, Steph and Linden made a pact to marry each other if neither one of them were in a serious relationship by the time they hit thirty.
It sounded like fun and games at the time but as the years to thirty tick past and lovers come and go out of their lives, the pact becomes larger than life.
Sex is inevitable. Friendships are tested. Hearts are on the line.
The pact is about to change everything.
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Rise
Rise by Karina Bliss is 99c! This is the first book in the Rock Solid series and I feel like I’ve seen this recommended in the comments before. I’m not much of a fan of rockstar romances, but the setup of this one has me reconsidering. Surprisingly, some found the book boring, but it has a lot of 4 and 5 star ratings. Let me know your thoughts on this one!
Acclaimed literary biographer Elizabeth Winston writes about long-dead heroes. So bad-boy rock icon Zander Freedman couldn’t possibly tempt her to write his memoir. Except the man is a mass of fascinating contradictions–manipulative, honest, gifted, charismatic and morally ambiguous.
In short, everything she seeks in a biography subject. When in her life will she get another chance to work with a living legend? But saying yes to one temptation soon leads to another. Suddenly she’s having heated fantasies about her subject, fantasies this blue-eyed devil is only too willing to stoke. She thought self-control was in her DNA; after all, she grew up a minister’s daughter.
She thought wrong.
Rock star Zander Freedman has been an outlier–many would say an outcast–for most of his life. But there’s no disaster he can’t overcome, from the breakup of his band to the inevitable damage to his reputation. His Resurrection Tour is shaping up to be his greatest triumph–if his golden voice holds out. Contracting a respected biographer is simply about creating more buzz. Elizabeth’s integrity is the key to consolidating his legacy as one of rock’s greats. All the damn woman has to do is write down what he tells her. Not force him to think. Or encourage the good guy struggling to get out. And certainly not make him fall in love for the first time in his life. Turns out he is scared of something: being known.
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I’m not a huge fan of rock-star romances, but I thought Bliss did a good job with RISE. I especially liked how honest the hero was about his cosmetic regime (coloring his hair, using eye-liner to make his eyes “pop,” etc.). I will say that prior to the h&h getting together romantically, the hero does hook-up with some other women (everything closed door) including his hairdresser and her friend, if that is or is not a problem for you. I know some readers prefer the MCs to have been “going through a dry spell” or months out from their most recent sexual encounter before they get together.
Also a KDD today: The Barbara Pym Collection, Volume One (I’m hoping Volume Two will be on sale tomorrow), for $3.99, featuring three of Pym’s delightful and humane mid-century British novels: A GLASS OF BLESSINGS, SOME TAME GAZELLE, and JANE AND PRUDENCE. Not necessarily romances (although there are some romantic pursuits), but a clear-eyed yet gently-humorous look at post-WWII life for a certain type of middle-class Englishwoman. Highly recommended.
I swear the BN sales are just not lasting lately. I checked today at 12:15 est and To Woo a Wicked Widow is already back up to $4. Sadness.
I was conflicted by Rise. Church is important to the heroine. It’s not a main plot line or delved into deeply but it does come up repeatedly in various ways. I may be over sensitive to those elements, but for various reasons, such references are not my cup of tea. Just a FYI if you share similar sensitivities…or maybe that makes it more interesting to you. To each their own!
I really liked THE KING’S MAN and also the connected book DESIRE LINES!
Phoenix Extravagant by Yoon Ha Lee is 99c at amazon. Haven’t read this one yet but I’ve liked others by them.
I’m not a fan of rock star romances, so my lukewarm response to RISE shouldn’t be taken as an objective assessment. However, I loved the next book in the series, FALL, about the impact of sudden rock stardom on a new band member’s marriage.
I need to maintain an “I’m not a fan of…” list for romance: cowboys, rock stars, film/TV actors, vampires, royalty, sheikhs, Scots, SEALs, baseball players (jerks), American football players (anxiety about CTE), motorcycle clubs, sex dungeons/red rooms/Christian Grey, reverse harem/polyamory, etc.
Correction: PLAY is the Karina Bliss novel with the marriage-in-peril plot.
@Deborah: hockey players, lumberjacks, and single dads all good?
I’m one of those who found Rise boring. I really loved the premise (I am a big classic old-school rock fan) and liked the preview well enough to buy the book. I think it kept me interested about a third way through after which point I can’t even remember what I did – if I went straight to the end or dropped it altogether.
I loved Rise for it’s grittiness and the way the characters interacted. I also loved the way that the douche-meister hero got both his comeuppance and his HEA. Zander Freedman is a talented, self-absorbed buttmunch, but the author manages to make his character growth pretty convincing. And he does grow.
However, I think I would have been less inclined to tolerate said douchismo if I hadn’t encountered Zander in the Bliss’s What the Librarian Did and at least one of the books in her Special Forces series. Her novels are fairly old, but have been repackaged and sometimes retitled. Actually I own all of Bliss’s books and she’s an author who stands up very well to rereading thanks to the quality of her writing. Also I love the New Zealand setting and the New Zealand sensibility–if that’s a thing. Now I’m gonna go see if she has anything new (to me) on the horizon.
@DDD – Just say no to lumberjacks. And lumbersexuals. Trim that beard and leave the trees alone, boys. (See? This is why I need to maintain a list. There’s just too much to remember.)
Rise is one of my favorite rock romances but I wonder if it has aged for some. It follows the same formula of every day girl meets Rockstar but adds grit. The hero and heroine are both older and its an indie romance that follows the SuperRomance formula where the hero first appeared. I re read this book and the rest of the series at least once a year
The King’s Man was a very intense read. I don’t know enough about medieval history to say if it was accurate or not, but I really enjoyed it. As Pear said above, Desire Lines is a connected book, it’s the 3rd of the Welsh Blade series, the 2nd book is Fair, Bright and Terrible.
Re: the historicity of Kingston’s books, I listen to the Medieval Podcast (hosted by medievalists with episode titles like “A Quest for Medieval Romance Novelists”), and I know they’ve recommended Desire Lines before. Heck, I swear there was an episode where Kingston was a guest, but I can’t find it right now. Anyway, I went into Goodreads to see if I could find anyone talking about historical inaccuracy, but instead found KJ Charles writing a positive review of it. So that was nice 🙂