Adult Fiction

The Deal

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by Elle Kennedy
First sentence: “He doesn’t know I’m alive.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Content: There is some on-page sex, lots of swearing including f-bombs, and mention of rape and emotional and physical abuse. It’s in the Romance section of the bookstore.

After two years at Briar University, Hannah Wells has a crush: on a football player of all things. She hasn’t talked to him, but he’s amazing to look at, so of course she’s infatuated. He’s even in her Ethics class. Then again, so is Garrett Graham, star hockey player of Briar’s winning team. And he’s discovered that Hannah is brilliant at Ethics (she got an A when everyone else failed) and he needs her help getting his grades up. She needs someone to help her get the football player’s attention. It’s a match. And it works fine until they realize they’ve caught Feelings for one another.

I picked this up because my co-worker (who is Very Knowledgeable in all things Romance) told me I needed to read it before I read next month’s Romance Book Club Book (Love Song, by the same author). She said I need the backstory (we’ll see if I agree when I get around to reading that one!). And even though it’s so very 2015-coded, I enjoyed this. Hannah was raped when she was 15, so she’s dealing with issues surrounding trust and vulnerability, and Garrett, bless him, was super mature (for a 21-year-old). Especially since he’s dealing with his own trauma surrounding the emotional and physical abuse from his father. Either way, these two “broken” people are able to find something in each other that is healing, and I can’t fault that.

There were some humorous parts, and I think Kennedy got the whole college experience – especially at an elite private school – down. Am I going to read the others in the series (all surrounding Garrett’s best friends)? Probably not. But I did have fun with this one.

Platform Decay

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by Martha Wells
First sentence: “Space was okay to look at but not super fun when you were out in it.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Release date May 5, 2026
Review copy provided by the publisher
Others in the series: All Systems Red, Artificial Condition, Rogue Protocol, Exit Strategy, Network Effect, Fugitive Telemetry, System Collapse
Content: There is violence, swearing (including many f-bombs) and intense moments. It will be in the Science Fiction/Fantasy section of the bookstore.

One of Dr. Mensah’s marriage partners, their daughter, and her partner’s mother have been captured by some corporation executives, and Murderbot is commissioned to get them out of the torus surrounding a dead planet. It’s a quick in-and-out, with Three’s help, and it’s confident that everything will go wrong. Which it does. Starting with the request (demand?) from B-E corporation executive Leonide (whom I don’t really remember, but no matter) that Murderbot extract her family. Which, of course, sigh, it does. Tasked with keeping so many humans safe while traveling through hostile territory avoiding corporation security is exhausting. Especially when there’s media to watch.

It’s been a while since we’ve spent time with Murderbot… and I’ve missed its voice. It created an Emotion check program, which was constantly, well, checking – which was quite amusing. And it has all the elements of a good Murderbot story: humans in peril, sometimes doing stupid stuff, interesting wolrds – the travels through the sections of the torus were interesting – and Murderbot snark. What more can I ask for out of a Murderbot story?

Nothing. It was perfect.

The Rally

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by Carla Voss
First sentence: “It’s not the betrayal that stuns me.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Release date: September 29, 2026
Review copy provided by the publisher. The cover image is not final.
Content: There is some on-screen sex, lots of drug use, and swearing, including multiple f-bombs. It will be in the Romance section of the bookstore.

Charlotte (call her Charlie please, unless you’re an old rich man, and then you can get away with calling her Char-Har) was a co-founder of a start-up dating app. She was the face of the app, she was a lot of the brains behind the app, so when her partner – and college friend – decides to work with a venture capitalist firm and force Charlotte out, she felt betrayed. Luckily, her best friend Lina is off for a two-week adventure, driving classic cars (nothing newer than 1992, thank you very much) across Europe with a group of wealthy people. It’s the perfect break while Charlie tries to figure out her next steps. It doesn’t hurt that the son of the man who organized the Rally is incredibly hot. And attracted to her.

I won’t go into the reasons why I read this one, but let’s just say that I walked away thinking this is a white Crazy Rich Asians. The thing is, Kevin Kwan does the outsider looking in on the decadant world of the ultra-wealthy SO much better. I’m not sure if it’s because I actually care about the not-quite-as-wealthy reader stand-in when I’m reading Kwan’s books (and I have read quite a few), or if he makes his wealthy characters more sympathetic. Either way, I found myself just not caring about Charlie, Lina, the betrayal, the app, the cars, the scenery, or the food. I did finish it, on the hope that maybe it would get better, and it just didn’t. I was disappointed, because I like European scenery, classic cars, and a good romance. The problem was that this didn’t give me any of it.

Which is too bad. It had potential.

Heir of Illusion

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by Madeline Taylor
First sentence: “I cradle my lover’s head in my hands, longing to shatter it against the hardwood floor.”
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Content: To take from the content advisory at the beginning of the book, there is: violence, strong language, sexual content (on page), PTSD, mentions of self-harm, mentions of grooming, sucidial ideation, suffocation, drowning, emotional and physical abuse, murder, attempted sexual assualt, unwanted touching, abuse of power, and depictions of grief. It’s in the Romance section of the bookstore.

Ivy (actually Iverson, which is a stupid name) has spent the last 15 years as the special “pet” of the King of Illusion. She wears a collar that binds her to the king’s will – and if she defies him, he uses the collar to choke her. After 15 years, Ivy is fed up and wants to escape. All she has to do is find the sword that is paired with the collar and cut it off. Which she absolutely can do, except the God of Death, Thorne, has shown up demanding the sword and is in her way. A fractious meeting turns into a tenuous partnership, which turns into a budding romance. Will it hold, though, when the dust settles?

On the one hand, I liked this enough to finish it, which is more than I can say for the last two Romantasies that I read for book group. The world-building was intriguing enough to keep me interested, and I liked that Ivy was pushing and pulling against the “norm” of her world. That said, Taylor isn’t a great writer, and this book could have easily been 100 pages shorter. She repeats herself often, and uses the same descriptive words over and over again. Yes, we know Thorne is often angry and looms. Yes, we know Ivy can turn invisible. Yes, we know the king is a bad man. Do you need to tell us every single chapter?

I don’t know if I’m curious enough to read the sequel, but I didn’t outright hate this one.

Once and Again

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by Rebecca Serle
First sentence:”I landed, he texts me, and I feel the ground underneath my feet once again.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Review copy provided by the publisher.
Content: There is swearing and some on-page but vague sex. It’s in the Romance section of the bookstore.

Lauren is at a crossroads. Her husband, Leo is a filmmaker and has a job opportunity in New York. So Lauren moves back into her childhood home, on the beach, with surfing and her ex-boyfriend Stone. It’s a glorious summer. But, the women in Lauren’s family have this gift to turn back time, to re-do one event. Her mother used it to save her father’s life when Lauren was 15. And when Lauren makes an earth-shattering mistake, it’s up to her to decide what to do with her chance.

Firt off: this is NOT a romance. There is nothing about it that is romance-y at all. It’s a love story, sure, in the sense that Nicholas Sparks books are a love story. It’s a family drama. It is not, on any level, a romance. And with that said, although I have lliked Serle’s books in the past, I didn’t enjoy this one. Well, that’s not true. I liked it enough to finish it, but I was dissatisfied with the ending, and I felt unfulfilled by the book as a whole. Perhaps it was because I went in expecting a romance and didn’t get that, or maybe it was just not what I was in the mood for. Either way, this was a miss for me.

Audiobook: Pole Position

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by Rebecca J Caffrey
Read by Joshua Chase & James Joseph
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Or listen on Libro.fm
Content: There’s a lot of swearing, including many f-bombs. There’s talk of sex and on-page sex scenes. It’s in the Romance section of the bookstore.

Are we here for gay sports books? Yes. Yes, we are.

Kian Walker is the reigning F1 World Champion, and he has so much going for him. He’s methodical, prepared, focused, and the best in the world. Harper James is the exact opposite. A talented driver, but a party boy – he’s determined to never let anyone close enough to find out what demons he’s chasing. So when he ends up in the second driver position with Kian, sparks fly. And it doesn’t help that they feel this…. attraction. It’s not going to be an easy season for either of them.

I picked this up – I’ve had it kicking around for a while – because F1 started up again! So why not celebrate with a little gay F1 romance? It’s not deep, though they deal with abandonment issues and the trauma from bad parents, as well as the death of a parent. I did like the F1 references- sure, the teams were made up, but I think Caffrey captured the intensity of the sport and the way the drivers make decisions on and off the track. It’s probably not entirely accurate, but for a mid-level fan like me, it fit the bill. And I did like Kian and Harper’s relationship. I liked the push and pull and the way they eventually came to trust one another. And the narrators kept me engaged when the plot wasn’t as good as I wanted it to be.

So, was it great? No. But it was a lot of fun, which was excatly what I was looking for.

Audio book: French Windows

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by Antoine Laurain
Read by Alex Wyndam
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Or listen on Libro.fm
Content: There is mention of infidelity and murder, and there’s some mild swearing. It’s in the Fiction section of the bookstore.

Doctor Faber is a pretty run-of-the-mill psychologist. No remarkable clients, nothing remarkable to speak of. That is, until Nathalia Guitry comes into his office, saying that she has lost her artistic drive ever since she photographed a murder. Faber suggests an unorthodox treatment: why doesn’t she tell the stories of the people in the apartment building where the murder took place, and she can work out what’s bothering her. There’s a reclusive cartoonist, a social media influencer, and on and on as Nathalia spins her stories.

This is all about the power of fiction. Are Nathalia’s stories true? Maybe. Maybe there are some elements that are. But mostly, she’s getting at the heart of what makes people do the things they do. There’s also a twist that I kind of saw coming. Even so, it felt satisfying. Wyndam was a good narrator as well, though I kind of struggled to figure out when he was in “story mode” and when he was in “Doctor Faber narration” mode. That said, it was a short book, and an intriguing one at that.

The Book Witch

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by Meg Shaffer
First sentence: “All stories are love stories if you love stories.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Release date: April 7, 2026
Review copy provided by the publisher
Content: There’s some mild swearing, some mild violence, and off-page sex. It will be in the Fiction section of the bookstore.

Rainy March is a Book Witch – she pops into books to save them from the Burners, the people who want to stop the stories from existing. It’s a great job – who wouldn’t want to pop into the worlds that books have created and spend time there? But then Rainy’s grandfather goes missing, and she gets the help of a fictional detective to help find him. That’s the base plot, though it’s winds and weaves more than that. The point of the book is a love of books and reading and the way that books can help people. But it’s also about the joy of stories and reading.

Of course, I loved this one. A bookish book about books that gets meta? I’m totally in. I thought this was fun, the characters were charming and delightful (Duke!), and I’m a sucker for a book where the characters get to physically experience being in books. I did think Shaffer kind of struggled with the ending – it kind of faded away rather than sticking the landing, but that’s a small quibble in an otherwise delightful reading experience.

And Now, Back to You

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by B. K. Borison
First sentence: “‘Do you believe in fate?'”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Others in the series: First-Time Caller
Review copy provided by the publisher.
Content: There is mention of neglectful parents, several f-bombs, and on-page sex. It’s in the Romance section of the bookstore.

Jackson is a radio meteorologist, and would like it to stay that way. He likes reporting the weather; it’s simple, and it’s predictable. It’s what he wants out of life. Delilah, on the other hand, is anything but predictable. The meteorologist for the TV station, what she really wants is to be taken seriously. Except her boss keeps sending her on these silly assignments, which she tries to make the best of. Then, when a huge storm heads towards Baltimore, their bosses conspire together: Jackson and Delilah are going to head to the mountains to report on the storm. They are polar opposites, so it’s absolutely not going to work. Except, sometimes opposites attract, right?

Borison continues to delight me. I loved everything about Jackson and Delilah, from their semi-tragic backstories (bad moms all around), to Jackson’s need to keep everything in order and Delilah’s determination to keep a positive attitude. It’s grumpy-sunshine with one bed mixed in, and I thought it was delightful. There wasn’t really a third-act breakup, but they did have some challenges to get over. I loved it all.

Charming, fun, and an utterly delightful romance!

Audiobook: The Fundamentals of Being a Good Girl

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by Julie Murphy and Sierra Simone
Read by Connor Crais, Victoria Connolly & Teddy Hamilton
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Or listen at Libro.fm
Content: There was swearing, including multiple f-bombs, and lots of explicit on-page sex. It’s in the Romance section of the bookstore.

Maddie is coming off a long-term relationship that has left her broke and unsure of her direction in life. So when she lands a job as an adjunct lecturer at the university in Mount Astra, Kansas, she jumps at the chance. Unfortunately, adjuncting doesn’t quite pay enough so she picks up a side job as a nanny to supplement her income.

Bram has been divorced for five years and has been raising his three girls with his ex-wife. Things are going well enough until his ex-wife gets a grant to study a glacier in Alaska for two months. It’s impossible with his job as a science professor at the university to handle all the childcare duties, so he hires a nanny.

He just wasn’t supposed to be so attracted to her (or she to him).

This was a mix for me. On the one hand, the characters kept feeling like they were bad for wanting this relationship (she is 26 and he is 35, and they actually had a one-night stand before she went to work for him), like it was some sort of terrible kink. It’s not. And that bugged me. As did the use of the word brat. (As in “she’s so bratty” or “the brat”). It was also borderline too much sex, not enough plot, but it managed to save itself in the end. I did like Maddie’s journey to figure out what she wanted – it felt realistic after coming out of a long-term relationship where she changed herself for the guy. And I appreciated that she was comfortable in her body, and the body-positive aspects of the story. I did love the side characters (except for Joey Kemp,who was just annoying and took up too much space in the book), and wouldn’t mind spending more time with them. I didn’t hate the book, but I didn’t love it either.