These Summer Storms
The Summer Storms by Sarah MacLean is $1.99! Fingers crossed this deal lasts. I think this was her contemporary debut. Did any of you pick it up? What did you think?
New York Times bestselling author Sarah MacLean’s first foray into contemporary fiction, with a sharp, sexy novel about a wealthy New England family’s long-overdue reckoning with hidden desires, destructive secrets…and one week that threatens to tear them apart
Alice isn’t like the other Storm siblings. While the rest stayed to battle for their parents’ approval, attention, and untold billions, she left, building her own life beyond the family’s name and influence. Nothing could induce her to come back, except the shocking death of her larger-than-life father. Now back on the family’s private island off the Rhode Island coast, she plans to keep her head down, pay the last of her respects, and leave the minute the funeral is over.
Unfortunately, her father had other plans. The eccentric, manipulative patriarch left his widow and their grown children a final challenge–an inheritance game designed to humiliate, devastate, and unravel the Storm family in ways both petty and life-altering. The rules of the game are clear: stay on the island for one week, complete the tasks, receive the inheritance.
One week on Storm Island is an impossible task for Alice. Every corner of the sprawling old house is bursting dysfunctional chaos: Her older sister’s secret love affair. Her brother’s incessant mansplaining. Her sister-in-law’s unapologetic greed. Her younger sister’s obsession with “vibes”. Her mother’s penchant for stirring up competition between her children. And all under the stern, watchful gaze of Jack Dean, her father’s enigmatic, unfairly good-looking, second-in-command. It will be a miracle if Alice manages to escape the week unscathed.
A story about the transformative power of grief, love, and family, this luscious novel is at once deliciously clever and surprisingly tender, exploring past secrets, present truths, and futures forged in the wake of wild summer storms.
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When the Marquess Was Mine by Caroline Linden is $1.99! This is part of the Wagers of Sin historical romance series and features a hero with amnesia. If the cover looks familiar, we featured it on Cover Snark because of the hero’s missing belly button.
In the game of love…
Georgiana Lucas despises the arrogant and cruel Marquess of Westmorland even before learning that he’s won the deed to her friend Kitty’s home in a card game. Still, Georgiana assures Kitty the marquess wouldn’t possibly come all the way to Derbyshire to throw them out—until he shows up, bloody and unconscious. Fearing that Kitty would rather see him die, Georgiana blurts out that he’s her fiancé. She’ll nurse the hateful man back to health and make him vow to leave and never return. The man who wakes up, though, is nothing like the heartless rogue Georgiana thought she knew…
You have to risk it all
He wakes up with no memory of being assaulted—or of who he is. The bewitching beauty tending him so devotedly calls him Rob and claims she’s his fiancée even as she avoids his touch. Though he can’t remember how he won her hand, he’s now determined to win her heart. But as his memory returns and the truth is revealed, Rob must decide if the game is up—or if he’ll take a chance on a love that defies all odds.
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Hitwoman by Elsie Marks is 99c! This a mix of romance and suspense – a romantic suspense if you will. This is a recent release, but opinions seem to be mixed on review sites. Have you read it?
An action-packed, hilarious enemies-to-lovers thriller for fans of Butcher & Blackbird, The Fall Guy and Hitman. She always gets her man … but has Maisie Baxter met her match?
Maisie Baxter has a particular set of skills honed over a very successful career.
She’s determined not to let her job at a boutique, ethical assassin agency get in the way of her social life, but it’s tough when your hours are extremely unpredictable and you can’t share any details of your day.
So she can’t tell her friends about the guy that keeps showing up on her missions. Will. He’s cute – really cute – and he’s desperate to speak to her.
Maisie is sure Will works for the competition but it soon becomes clear that a much greater danger stalks them both. And they’re going to have to put aside their professional rivalry and their budding sexual tension if they have any hope of uncovering a conspiracy that goes all the way to the top.
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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!How the Hitman Stole Christmas
How the Hitman Stole Christmas by Katie Reus is FREE! This is a holiday novella with a hitman hero and an explosives expert heroine. And they’re neighbors!
‘Tis the season for a grumpy-sunshine romance with a side of murder and mayhem!
She hates Christmas and everything that goes with it…
Explosives expert Elliana hates Christmas—and the only good thing about this holiday season is that her gorgeous neighbor seems allergic to shirts and clothes in general. She knows because she’s been watching him for months with her drone. She’s never stalked anyone before, but he not only doesn’t seem to mind, he puts on nightly strip shows just for her. When she finally works up the courage to talk to him, she stumbles right into a murder—that he’s committed.
But this holiday is one she’ll never forget…
According to him, the whole murder thing is no big deal—the dead guy needed killing. And while her hot neighbor wants her, protecting her is his main priority. So when she’s targeted, this cinnamon roll hitman kidnaps her for her own good. With a deadly threat hunting them and a hot hitman who keeps handcuffing her to him “for her own protection”, Elliana is starting to reconsider her grinchy stance on the holidays. And when everything finally comes to a head, the results are bound to be…explosive.
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These Summer Storms read less contemporary romance and much more like women’s fiction for me. I didn’t like the characters or the story or the romance, but I’m not much into women’s fiction these days, and might’ve skipped it if I’d known. It has a HEA so it fits the romance rules, but it was not my cuppa.
@squee_me I didn’t expect to enjoy These Summer Storms but OMG it’s now in my top ten favorite romance novels. I do agree it read a bit closer to women’s fiction than romance but is definitely romance. Have a great weekend!
Storms is excellent. As a listener of MacLean’s podcast I expected it to really not be a romance per her description but it many ways it worked for me as one. I also thought the writing was better than in her more recent historicals.
Am I the only reader who didn’t think the HEA was very happy in the MacLean book? I found it pretty annoying. And the book went on forever for an author who definitely should have access to an editor. But then I haven’t much cared for her recent romance series either.
Count me as one of the people who loved THESE SUMMER STORMS. I was skeptical, but my tastes tend to skew toward romance with a touch of women’s fiction so this will end up being one of my favourites of the year.
I have no horse in this Storms race because I’m not intrigued by the description but I’m loving the back and forth of these comments. It would be frustrating if I was on the fence lol but I’m not!
If I recall correctly, Sarah Maclean has said on her podcast (fatedmates.net) that “These Summer Storms” is NOT a romance and that it wasn’t until she was well into writing the book that she realized she wasn’t writing a romance.
(It isn’t quite her first contemporary fiction. Her novella “A Duke Worth Falling For” is also contemporary.)
@Mabry I agree, it probably was more of a HFN.
Follow-up to my earlier comment. I think the book was well written though had some pacing issues in the middle. A book can be well written and still not be enjoyable. Ultimately for me, whether you call this one a romance or women’s fiction, I read for joy right now, and it just didn’t hit for me. Also an uber-wealthy family with a Bezos/Gates/Jobs-type patriarch and all the other messy and privileged family members is a tough read for me in 2025, even if the main character rejected the family lifestyle and money. I’ve read and loved several of her historicals. Perfectly content to acknowledge it’s a me thing and not a book thing. Then again, that’s true with any book!
Storms is one of my favorite books of the year. It is not a Romance although there are definitely romantic elements. In the recent GoodReads Readers Choice Awards they classified it as Fiction.
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