Happy Tuesday!
It’s a short and sweet release week for us, with a clear standout of which book we’re most anticipating. There are two contemporaries (one with a dash of mystery), a shifter romance, and a fantasy friends to lovers.
What are you excited for this week? Let us know in the comments!
Fan Service
Author: Rosie Danan
Released: March 11, 2025 by Berkley
Genre: Paranormal, RomanceThe truth is stranger than fan fiction in the next sexy paranormal rom-com from the beloved author of The Roommate.
The only place small-town outcast Alex Lawson fits in is the online fan forum she built for The Arcane Files, a long-running werewolf detective show. Her dedication to archiving fictional supernatural lore made her Internet-famous, even if she harbors a secret disdain for the show’s star, Devin Ashwood. (Never meet your heroes—sometimes they turn out to be The Worst.)
Ever since his show went off the air, Devin and his career have spiraled, but waking up naked in the woods outside his LA home with no memory of the night before is a new low. It must have been a coincidence that the once-in-a-century Wolf Blood Moon crested last night. The claws, fangs, and howling are a little more difficult to explain away. Desperate for answers, Devin finds Alex—the closest thing to an expert that exists. If only he could convince her to stop hating his guts long enough to help….
Once he makes her an offer she can’t refuse, these reluctant allies lower their guards trying to wrangle his inner beast. Unfortunately, getting up close and personal quickly comes back to bite them.
Elyse: An actor who played a werewolf becomes a werewolf.
Lara: This book is so much fun. Review incoming!
Dahlia: I live and die by Rosie Danan romances. Absolutely a tippy top fave for me. I love the way she writes chemistry, banter, and heat, though Paranormal isn’t generally my genre, she can make me love anything.
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Author: Jamie Pacton
Released: March 11, 2025 by Del Rey
Genre: Fantasy/Fairy Tale Romance, LGBTQIA, Romance, Science Fiction/Fantasy
Series: Homegrown Magic #1A delightful queer romantic fantasy full of friends-to-lovers chemistry, found family, rival family drama, and cozy garden magic from two acclaimed YA authors making their adult debut
Yael Clauneck is the only scion of an obscenely wealthy banking family with its fingers in every pie in the realm. They’re on the precipice of a predetermined life when they flee their own graduation party, galloping away in search of . . . well, they’re not sure, but maybe the chance to feel like life can still be a grand adventure.
Margot Greenwillow—talented plant witch, tea lover, and greenhouse owner—has never felt further from adventure in her life. She’s been desperately trying to keep what remains of her family’s magic remedies business afloat. So when Yael, her childhood friend and former crush, rides back into her life, she’s shocked. But perhaps this could be a good thing. After all, Margot could use an assistant in the greenhouses.
Yael has no experience or, honestly, practical skills, but they’re delighted to accept the job. They can lay low for a while, flirting with Margot and figuring out what to do next. Meanwhile, Margot has plans of her own—but plans are notoriously unreliable, and unlikely to survive a swiftly blooming mutual attraction, not to mention the machinations of parents determined to get their heir back . . . no matter the cost.
A cozy friends to lovers fantasy romance with a touch of class differences.
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As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.
We also may use affiliate links in our posts, as well. Thanks!Pole Position
Author: Rebecca Caffery
Released: May 30, 2024 by One More Chapter
Genre: Contemporary Romance, LGBTQIA, RomanceKian Walker has always been the golden boy of motorsport. The four-time Championship winner has racing in his DNA – his father was a legend on the track, just don’t let him catch you comparing the two. As reckless and unreliable at home as he was behind the wheel, there’s nothing Kian wants less than to be just like his dad.
Enter Harper James. This year’s rookie called up to compete with the big boys – and Kian’s new teammate. Cocky, hot-headed and with a reputation for breaking as many hearts as he does new track records, Harper’s the opposite of Kian in every way. But when the season starts, there’s no getting away from him.
This might be one of the most dangerous sports in the world, so why then does Kian’s heart feel safer flying around the track at 220mph than when he’s anywhere near his teammate?
Sarah: I know extremely little about F1, but this looks very fun.
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We also may use affiliate links in our posts, as well. Thanks!The Usual Family Mayhem
Author: HelenKay Dimon
Released: March 11, 2025 by Avon
Genre: Contemporary Romance, Mystery/Thriller, RomanceRevenge is a dish best served cold—especially when it comes in the form of one of Grandma’s “special” pies. Get the best of family hijinks, girl power, and hilariously justifiable crime in the latest novel from award-winning author HelenKay Dimon.
Kasey Nottingham needs a splashy idea at her company where they find and develop the next big thing for investors—her job depends on it. Impulsively, she pitches Mags’ Desserts, a beloved small-town business run by her grandma Mags and live-in “best friend” Celia, two women who overcame deadbeat husbands and financial ruin to build a word-of-mouth clientele. Kasey expects her boss to say no. Instead, he sends her home to North Carolina to land the deal…and now she has a problem.
Mags and Celia aren’t interested, which isn’t a surprise, but something else is going on in their kitchen. Locked cabinets. Cryptic conversations. Unexpected notations on business records. The ladies have secrets and whatever they’re hiding is big. As reports of mysterious deaths of abusive men in the area surface—all in households that recently received a delivery from Mags’ Desserts—Kasey worries Gram and Celia have gone into the poison pie business.
As investors start circling, Kasey enlists Jackson Quaid, Celia’s nephew and Kasey’s long-time crush, as her reluctant investigation assistant. Jackson is practical. Kasey has a wild imagination. Together, they dodge Kasey’s boss and gather intel. And kiss. Lots of kissing, though probably not the best idea to start an unexpected romance. Doing it while keeping two feisty ladies from going to jail for knocking off bad husbands—even if those husbands deserve it—might be impossible…but Kasey never shied away from a challenge.
Sarah: Older ladies baking and allegedly murdering plus romance thread too!
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Looking forward to two books this week. Love and Other Paradoxes, a time-travel romance by Catriona Silvey. Blurb: One of the greatest love stories in history gets derailed when a struggling poet at Cambridge runs into a time-traveler who agrees to help him find his muse—a thoughtful and uplifting romantic comedy for fans of About Time and The Midnight Library.
And Chaos, book 3 in Constance Fay’s Uncharted Hearts sci-fi romance series. Blurb: Lore Olympus meets Winter’s Orbit in this pulse-pounding romance between a space mercenary and a super soldier whose mind-control breaks when she touches him.
Why is POLE POSITION listed? It’s showing a release date of last May. Did the release date get postponed?
I only have one book on my tbr this week: Charlotte Stein’s MY BIG FAT FAKE MARRIAGE (March 11), which looks to be another of her more recent books (like WHEN GRUMPY MET SUNSHINE) where her angsty & interior-monologue-driven romances are tempered by tropey storylines and illustrated covers doing a lot of heavy lifting. MY BIG FAT FAKE MARRIAGE arrives with a big fat (unfortunately not fake) price tag of $11.99 for the ebook. Much like last week’s THE SHOTS YOU TAKE, paying approximately $13 for an ebook is too high for my book budget: I’ll be waiting for a sale or library hold.
Two not-romances on my list this week. The third book in Katherine Addison’s Witness for the Dead trilogy, THE TOMB OF DRAGONS (with maybe a HFN for Thara and Pel-Thenhior). I need to re-read The Grief of Stones because I remember almost nothing of the plot.
Second, the next installment in Seanan McGuire’s InCryptid series, INSTALLMENT IMMORTALITY. This one again has Mary, the family’s ghost babysitter, as the main character, so no romance there, but hopefully her side-kicks Artie and Elsie will get the healing and love they need.
All of these sound fantastic!
@DiscoDollyDeb: Pole Position is getting a paperback release, so it was showing up on a lot of new release lists when we were compiling our selections.
NASCAR isn’t my jam, but I love the title “Pole Position”
Another New Release this week that I purchased immediately is TJ Alexander’s A Gentleman’s Gentleman, a historical featuring a trans hero and his valet.
@Carol S, that’s not NASCAR, that’s Formula 1, and woe betide you if you say that they’re the same to anyone in car racing! hahaha
Nice crop of new releases!
But also I sometimes become unreasonably annoyed by copy… “family hijinks, girl power, and hilariously justifiable crime” … girl power …. Girl power?? Hilariously justifiable??? My assumption is that older women serving a slice of murder pie to perpetrators of intimate partner violence might object to the characterization of their work…
A little light self promo!
Midnight’s Queen, the third book in my futuristic romance series releases tomorrow. It’s available on Kobo (including Kobo Plus!), Apple Books, B&N, and Google Play – as well as Amazon. https://books2read.com/midnightsqueen/
In a future where corporations battle for supremacy, a lonely widow will do whatever it takes to save her family’s company. Even when she falls for the man sent to destroy it.
A year ago, Portia Tremaine’s life turned upside down, leaving her with nothing but the company that bears her family’s name. As she struggles to unravel her father’s web of lies, Portia faces a new challenge–a rival company has taken aim at the Tremaine Corporation–threatening everything she has left, including her heart.
When Aleksander Lind was sent to Seattle to destroy the Tremaine Corporation, becoming enthralled by its CEO, Portia, was not on his to-do list. Complex, smart, and beautiful, she’s nothing he expected and everything he always dreamed of.
Thrown together in a game of corporate cat and mouse, Portia tests his loyalties and Aleks tempts her heart. Can she save her company even as she’s falling for the man sent to destroy it?
The book Story of My Life by Lucy Score came out today, I’m 20 chapters in and loving it! Thank goodness for Spring break-I warned my husband I’d be out of commission today due to binge reading.
The one release out today that I read and enjoyed is Maryann Jordan’s LANDON, the third in her Lighthouse Security Investigations Montana romantic suspense series–it’s a good balance of the romance and some wild suspense moments.
+1 for CHAOS book 3!
And Seanan McGuire’s INSTALLMENT IMMORTALITY, book 14 in the Incryptid series just came out! Not a romance– though there are romance elements in the series, there are none in this book. BUT I love the world and the characters in this world.