Love & Romance

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.”
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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
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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.

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?'”
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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.

A Prince Among Pirates

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by Katie Abdou
First sentence: “Canon fire before breakfast is obscene – and waking up to it an atrocity.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Release date: June 16, 2026
Review copy provided by the publisher.
Content: There is some violence, and lots of drinking (well, they are pirates). There are inferences to sex, but none actual. It will be in the Young Adult section of the bookstore.

Kit – otherwise known as Christopher-Henry – has spent his whole life living under his father’s thumb and in his shadow. The last thing he wants to do is marry the woman his father has picked out, even if she’s of a higher station than he is, and would increase his status in the English upper crust of the 1700s. So, he does the only thing he can think of: he runs away to the port and picks the first ship he sees to board. He charms (of sorts) his way on and convinces the crew that he can be of use. Two problems, though: 1 – the ship is captained by the charming and desirable Reggie Swan, and Kit finds himself smitten. And 2 – it’s a pirate ship. Kit finds a home and friends on the ship there, and will do anything to help and protect his shipmates, especially when his past catches up with him.

I picked this one up because the markup notes mentioned Our Flag Means Death, and oh, this scratched that itch. It’s not deep, it’s not historically accurate (it’s accurate-ish), it’s mostly just a lot of fun, which is exactly what I wanted out of it. I liked Kit’s growth arc, and the characters of all the pirates on the ship. I’m also here for any book that has me sailing around the Caribbean, experiencing the open air and the sea. It’s a delight of a book, and one that will make a perfect summer romance read.

Audiobook: The Wedding Date

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by Jasmine Guillory
Read by Janina Edwards
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Or listen at Libro.fm
Content: There is some swearing, including a few f-bombs, and fade-to-black sex. It’s in the Romance section of the bookstore.

Drew doesn’t want to go to his ex-girlfriend’s wedding by himself, so when he meets Alexa (in the elevator), and there’s instant chemistry, he convinces her to go to the wedding with him. Where he accidentally calls her his “girlfriend”. But, they realize there’s something there and start a long-distance (well, LA to San Francisco) relationship of sorts. As their relationship goes on, though, they wonder if it could be something more.If only they weren’t so far away. If only one of them could say how they feel.

This was a fun romance. Nothing too deep – Alexa has a side project trying to get an arts program for troubled kids set up in Berkley – but it was fun. I didn’t like Drew – he was (especially in his internal narration) very reluctant to commit, and was so very often misunderstanding Alexa’s motivations. It was a trope, yes, but his end of it really annoyed me. The best thing, I think, was that these characters’ lives felt real. They ate. They went to the store. They had normal-sounding conversations. It was nice.

I enjoyed it enough that I think I’ll give another one of Guillory’s a try.

Spark of the Everflame

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by Penn Cole
First sentence: “Whether it was a blessing or a curse is, even now, the subject of considerable debate.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Content: There are a couple of on-page sex scenes and a lot of violence. It’s in the Romance section of the bookstore.

Diem’s mother has disappeared, which puts Diem – a mortal in the world of the half-god Descended – in a quandary. Should she take over her mother’s duties serving the Descended in the castle city to save the deal that gives her younger brother an education? Should she go looking for her mother? Should she join the rebellion trying to oust/kill the Descended and take over the realms? Do we even care?

Actually, it’s that last question that kept coming up. Why should I care about Diem’s struggles? Why should I care that mortals are living in poverty while the Descended live in luxury? Is this about race? Class? Why should I care that there’s a rebellion? Why should I care that Prince Luther – one of the Descended – is attracted to Diem? Why should I care about Deim and Henri’s relationship? Why am I still reading this book?

So, I bailed. I got further than I expected – about 2/3 of the way through – and then I just skipped around until I figured out what was going on. This one was not for me.

Annie Knows Everything

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by Rachel Wood
First sentence: “Statistically, the most common days of the week to be fired are Monday or Friday.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Review copy provided by the publisher.
Release date: April 7, 2026
Content: There is swearing, including a few f-bombs and some on-page sex. It will be in the Romance section of the bookstore.

Annie’s life is unraveling: her sister, Shannon, is engaged a second time to a man that Annie hates. And Annie was just laid off from her job. She can’t deal with the idea of being unemployed, so she coerces her best friend in HR to get her a job in Data Strategy – a department that Annie isn’t remotely qualified to be in. But, her new boss, Connor, is cute. So it’s all good. She manages not to implode her sister’s engagement party, and she manages to get on the good side of Connor and the boys in DatStrat. So life is back to being good. Until she falls in love with her boss (uh-oh), gets into (another) huge fight with her sister, and spills some confidential company information, which gets her fired. Will she figure her life out?

This was… cute. When I started, I was hopeful it would be more. Fun, whimsical, charming, sweep-me-as-the-reader-off-my-feet. But in the end, it was just cute. Which isn’t bad. I liked it enough to finish it.

Which isn’t a bad thing. It’s just not what I hoped.