Love & Romance

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.

Heated Rivalry

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by Rachel Reid
First sentence: “Shane Holland was as close to losing it as he ever allowed himself to get.”
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Content: Oh. So much sex. So. Much. Every chapter, on page, lots and lots of sex. All the spice. It’s in the Romance section of the bookstore.

Shane Hollander is one of the best hockey players in the NHL. The only player who even comes close is Ilya Rozanov, who has been Shane’s nemesis since their rookie year. He has also, for better or worse, been Shane’s obsession. And his secret lover. What happens when their secret threatens to get out? Will it ruin their careers? Can they move their relationship into something more? (Do we care?)

Okay, yes, I picked this up because of the TV show and everyone is talking about it and I got curious. I am not proud of this decision. It is, objectively, by many measures (one being the couple of times they repeated entire paragraphs on the same page…) not a good book. This writing will not win awards. The chapters (for more than half of the book!) went hockey, sex, shame. We’re playing hockey against each other; we’re so angry and aroused. We have sex. But it’s bad to have sex with another man, we feel ashamed. For more than 100 pages. And yet, I kept reading.

Why? No idea. Except that I was still curious, and it wasn’t bad enough (or maybe it was the right kind of bad?) for me to put down. And the character development did happen somewhat in the second half of the book. Shane got a clue about his sexuality. Ilya stopped being Tough Russian Guy all the time. It’s never going to make my best-of list, and I do feel less intelligent for having read it, but I have to admit: my curiosity about the gay hockey thing is satiated.

Audiobook: On a Night Like This

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by Lindsey Kelk
Read by Carrie Hope Fletcher
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Or listen at Libro.fm
Content: There isn’t any on-page sex, and there’s only kissing. There is talk of an affair, and swearing, including multiple f-bombs. It’s in the Romance section of the bookstore.

Fran has been down on her luck the past few years, after moving back with her fiance to his hometown. However, on a whim, she decides to call her old temp agent, who just happens to have a job for her as an assistant to a celebrity. For a short five days. Except those five days changes the direction of Fran’s life.

It’s a sweet little Cinderella story – circumstances line up that Fran can actually attend the Crystal Ball – an exclusive party for the wealthiest of the wealthy – where she meets Evan, and is swept away. Is she going to have the guts to change the trajectory of her life, or will she go back to the same-old-same-old.

I thoroughly enjoyed this one. It was silly, it was sweet, and Fran’s journey to an empowered woman was one to cheer. And Fletcher did a fabulous job with all the accents!

Recommneded, especially on audio.

Audiobook: Christmas Fling

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by Lindsey Kelk
Read by Heather Long
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Or listen at Libro.fm
Content: There is swearing, including multiple f-bombs, and some fade to black sex. It’s in the Romance section of the bookstore.

Laura is in her medical residency to be a neurosurgeon and she has one rule: no relationships. But when she accidentally sees her new landlord, Callum, naked (she didn’t know he was home, let alone getting out of the shower) and then is ambushed by his parents who assume she’s his (nonexistent) girlfriend, she’s pulled into a fake dating scheme: go to Scotland, pretend to be Callum’s girlfriend for Christmas, don’t catch feelings, and get a free month’s rent. Of course, things don’t go smoothly – there is an ex-fiance, and an angry sister to deal with after all – but maybe it was all for the best in the end.

On the one hand, this was so chock-full of secondhand embarrassment, it was hard to listen to. Laura kept getting into some terrible embarrassing situations, and it was just super awkward. And Callum’s family was just the Worst! I wanted to throttle his sister and his dad for being stubborn and not listening, and completely understood why Callum acted the way he did. The third-act breakup was a bit sudden, but resolved quickly (which was nice) and I appreciated the way the ending was a compromise between Laura and Callum and not one sacrificing their dreams for the other.

In short, I enjoyed this enough to hunt down another Kelk book and put it immediately on hold at the library. A fun Christmas romp.

This Book Made Me Think of You

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by Libby Page
First sentence: “The right book in the hands of the right person at exactly the right moment can change their life forever.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Release date: February 3, 2026
Review copy provided by the publisher.
Content: There is swearing, including a few f-bombs, and talk of death and dying. It will be in the Romance section (though it could go in general fiction) of the bookstore.

Tilly Nightingale has been going through the motions of life in the six months since her husband passed. Then, out of the blue, she gets a call from a local bookshop: her dead husband left her a present. One book per month for the next year. Thus begins a year of grief and healing, of learning to live again, and of figuring out how to hold space for grief and joy at the same time. And the catalyst? Books, of course. All the books you need to learn and grow and heal and experience life.

Of course, there is a charming bookseller – Alfie – and a best friend and a sister who are part of Tilly’s life. There are misunderstandings and fights, and joyful and silly moments. It’s a sweeping book, covering Tilly’s life over the year.

And while I adore bookish books about books and book people, this one felt, well, surface. I wanted something deeper. I wanted more emotion. I wanted to want to cry when Tilly finally spread her husband’s ashes. I wanted to rejoice when she and Alfie got together. I wanted to feel, and I just never did. Maybe it was because I was exhausted, reading this on the plane, but I’m thinking that Page just told more than showed the emotions of the characters. So, I never really connected. I liked this book on an intellectual level, but emotionally, it just wasn’t there.

Which is too bad, because it’s a charming idea for a book.

Agnes Aubert’s Mystical Cat Shelter

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by Heather Fawcett
First sentence: “I paused on the threshold of the shop to stamp the frost from my boots.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Release date: February 17. 2026
Review copy provided by the publisher
Content: There are some dangerous situations, including murders. It will be in the Science Fiction/Fantasy section of the bookstore.

Agnes is a widow who has had one dream: to run a cat shelter for the feral cats of Montreal, Quebec. She and her husband operated the struggling shelter until his death, and she’s been attempting to keep it going. But after a magical disaster (two magicians were dueling in the street and her shop was in the crossfire), she’s been forced to find a new home for her store (and cats). It proves difficult until she stumbles on a really cheap place for rent. It’s perfect, until she realizes that it’s a front for possibly the most notorious magician in Montreal, and his dealings in magical artifacts. Things get even more complicated when his nemesis finds him, breaks through the wards, and attacks Agnes (and the cats!). How is she supposed to deal with this? Even better: how is she supposed to deal with his clutter?

This has the same tone and whimsy as the Emily Wilde books, and I did like it, just not as much as I adored Emily Wilde. Maybe it was the cats (so many cats!), or maybe it was that Agnes was a widow mourning the loss of her husband. I do like the human and magical being pull, and Agnes was feisty enough to keep me entertained. I guess it just wasn’t everything I was hoping it would be.

Still worth reading, though.

Audiobook: All the Crooked Saints

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by Maggie Stiefvater
Read by Thom Rivera
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Or listen at Libro.fm
Content: There’s some swearing, including a couple of f-bombs. It is in the Young Adult Science Fiction section of the bookstore, but younger kids might be interested in it.

I’m not really going to sum up the plot, since I did that when I first read this book eight years ago. I did enjoy Rivera’s narration, though. And maybe I enjoyed this better as an audiobook. It felt like Rivera was sitting there telling me this tall tale about family and love and miracles. It’s the least Stiefvater-y book of all the ones I’ve read this year, but I still loved it. And yeah, while I see it’s problematic that Stiefvater is exploring a culture that isn’t hers, I still liked the way she wove religion and myth with Latinx culture and 1960s. It was a delightful audiobook to listen to.

Highly recommended on audio, especially.

Good Spirits

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by B. K. Borison
First sentence: “On the first day of December, the universe gave to me –“
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Content: There is some swearing, including f-bombs, and on-page sexytimes. It’s in the Romance section of the bookstore.

Harriet York is a decent person who absolutely adores Christmas. So, she’s incredibly surprised when Nolan, a Ghost of Christmas Past, shows up at her house, saying that she is due for a reckoning. However, things don’t go as usual: Harriet’s not a bad person, though she has some regrets, and Nolan is finding that being with Harriet is more important than doing his afterlife job. Though the deadline of Christmas Eve is quickly approaching, and they need to figure out why it’s Harriet being haunted.

Ok, the premise of this one is so silly: she falls in love with the Ghost of Christmas Past. I mean, c’mon. However, Borison does it well. She makes it work. She’s developed a whole Department of Hauntings and Spirits, that I definitely want to know more about, and made the magic part of this book actually work. Harriet was a delightful character – quirky but not that girl – to spend time with, and she made some tough decisions, standing up for herself to her (admittedly rotten) parents. While it was a bit slow to start, I found myself enjoying this one enormously.

So yeah, silly but worth it. And I’m hooked on Borison’s books now.

First-Time Caller

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by B. K .Borison
First sentence: “Love is a lie.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Content: There is swearing, including multiple f-bombs, and some on-page sex. It’s in the Romance section of the bookstore.

Aiden is the host of a local call-in Romance advice show in Baltimore, but he’s lost his way. He’s gotten snippy with the callers, lost his will to care about their problems, and – possibly worst of all – has lost his faith in love.

Lucie is a single mom who’s not unhappy with her life. She’s co-parenting with her child’s dad and his husband, she’s got a good job as a mechanic. Except her 12-year-old daughter thinks differently. So, when her daughter calls in to Aiden’s show asking for help with her mom’s love life, he’s intrigued. And, after getting annoyed/upset/frustrated, Lucie is also intrigued. And what if, in the middle of trying to find someone for Lucie, they discover that maybe they don’t want to find someone else?

I haven’t read Borison’s work before, but I loved the cover of this one (yes, I do judge a book by it’s cover sometimes), and so I picked it up when it was on sale at the store. And I wasn’t disappointed! It’s such a delightful romance, with everything I want: fun characters, snappy dialogue, and a romance worth having (plus some spicy scenes!). It’s a good thing I liked this, because I have her other two books on my pile to read as well!