Elizabeth Mazer

Romance

With friends like these

Feature by Elizabeth Mazer

Complex and delightful friend groups ground two new romances in warts-and-all reality.

Trying to find love can mean putting your best foot forward: being the hottest, smartest, coolest version of yourself whenever the object of your affection is around. But as guarded as we are with romantic prospects, we open ourselves wholeheartedly to the friends who love us exactly as we are. By showcasing strong friend groups, two romances offer a glimpse into their characters’ truest, facade-down, flaws-exposed selves.

In Kris Ripper’s The Hate Project, Oscar Nelson and his friends have been fixtures in each other’s lives since college, providing encouragement, nagging, advice, excessive emojis and unconditional love. These are all things that Oscar needs badly, given the powerful and pervasive anxiety that threatens to crush him when he loses his miserable customer service job and must put himself out there to find another gig. 

A temporary reprieve comes when Jack hires Oscar to clean out his grandmother’s house. Jack’s late grandfather was a hoarder, so this is no easy task. It’s potentially awkward as well, as Jack and Oscar have never really gotten along. And since Jack and Oscar slept together that one time, well . . .

This story, if you’ll pardon the pun, has a lot of unpacking to do. Ripper digs deep into Oscar’s issues, depicting them with such uncompromising starkness that readers may have trouble envisioning how he will come out on the other side and step into healthy choices and happy endings. Ripper also devotes time to Jack’s issues, since he’s got his own burdens to carry. 

By the end, Ripper methodically reveals that nearly every character has had to work hard to get where they are—even the sunniest character, Jack’s hilariously irrepressible grandmother, Evelyn. While The Hate Project depicts a lot of struggle, including a fair and realistic amount of backsliding, it also showcases lovely moments of hope, steadfastly suggesting that troubles can be overcome with loyal friends.

The friendship group in Just Last Night faces a challenge that’s far more abrupt—painfully so. Three 30-somethings who’ve been tightly wound into each other’s lives since they were teenagers are forced to grapple with a shocking and sudden death among their ranks. 

Eve, Ed and Justin are wrecked at the loss of their fourth, Suzie. But their bond is further undermined when Eve discovers that, 10 years ago, Suzie had a one-night stand with Ed. Ed, who is now engaged. Ed, whom Eve has been hopelessly, silently in love with for years. This revelation shakes Eve down to her foundations, causing her to reevaluate the relationships that define her and those she'd written off, including her relationship with Suzie’s gorgeous, estranged brother, Finlay. He and Eve grow closer as she sorts through the impact of the past on her present and the ways the people around her have influenced the person she chose to become.

With complex subjects and complicated characters, Mhairi McFarlane's unflinchingly honest romances often go where other authors fear to tread. The turmoil and heartache in Just Last Night feel visceral and real, as do the scars from the past. A scene that describes a character's experience of childhood abuse carries a lot of weight and is particularly difficult to read. 

But McFarlane’s romances are always worth the journey. With incredible warmth, humor and humanity, they stir such deep empathy and engagement that you won’t just watch the characters’ cathartic experiences; you’ll feel them. Likewise, you won't just admire this group friendship; you'll feel like you're a part of it, and that you’re all the better for it.

Complex and delightful friend groups ground two new romances in warts-and-all reality.

Romance

Battles of the heart

Feature by Elizabeth Mazer

There’s a special allure to a soldier in historical high society, almost as if he’s a magic trick. This singular creature has the strength and ferocity of a warrior simmering beneath the veneer of a gentleman. He knows how to behave, but he might choose, at any moment, to rebel. It’s no wonder that he makes for an exciting, unconventional hero in the restrictive worlds of Georgian and Regency Britain—and no surprise that he finds love with the most interesting and unconventional of heroines.

In A Scot to the Heart by Caroline Linden, our soldier hero is Andrew St. James, a Scotsman who joined His Majesty’s army to support his mother and sisters after his father made a mess of the family finances. To everyone’s surprise, Andrew learns that he is next in line to become the Duke of Carlyle. Which means, as the dowager duchess informs him, he needs to straighten up, learn estate management, do absolutely nothing to bring shame to the family—and find a suitable wife immediately. 

But suitability is the last thing on Drew’s mind when he returns home to Edinburgh and meets Ilsa Ramsay, the notorious “wild widow” who plays golf, keeps a pet pony that she treats like a child and paints her drawing room to look like an open field. After a loving but stiflingly overprotected childhood and a frustrating marriage to a neglectful husband, Ilsa relishes her freedom and couldn’t bear to tuck her selfhood away into the role of a duchess. And yet, the thought of letting Drew becomes unbearable.

Ilsa is a vivacious, engaging heroine. Those familiar with the Georgian period know how easily a woman like Ilsa could end up committed to an asylum against her will, or shunned and disgraced, simply because she wants to color outside of society’s restrictive lines. Her driving desire to throw open life’s windows and let the world in shows the kind of spirit that should be admired instead of stifled, but it’s exactly this spirit that makes her think she could never be the wife that Drew needs. 

Drew, to his credit, doesn’t take too long to let her know he disagrees. Even when scandal makes her a more inappropriate choice by the minute, he stays by her side to prove that he loves her for who she is, not for who others wish her to be. The way the scandal itself plays out is a bit of a sore spot—the true villain is never really held accountable—but one can forgive A Scot to the Heart for failing to satisfy readers’ vengeful sides when the romance wraps up so very sweetly.

Sweetly satisfying could also apply to the romance in Mary Balogh’s Someone to Cherish, the eighth installment of her Westcott series. It’s been a year of lonely widowhood for Lydia Tavernor after the tragic death of her handsome, charming and wildly charismatic vicar husband. Lydia harbors harmless fantasies, idly imagining what it would be like to take a lover. But things don’t stay idle when she accidentally lets slip a reference to those fantasies to the man who is their perennial star: Major Harry Westcott. No fantasy can compare to the flesh-and-blood passion of the man himself when he enters her life—and her bed—just as no fury can compare to the community’s outrage that Lydia would betray her “saintly” husband’s memory.

Here again is a story that easily could have been tragic, with another heroine who was lovingly smothered by her family and then overshadowed and ignored as a wife before embracing her widowed independence. But where Ilsa settles for private eccentricities, Lydia shows her strength and truly remarkable courage by stepping forward into society, directly challenging everyone’s view of her. When Lydia attends a public gathering dressed in pink, not black or gray or lavender as everyone would expect, it feels as shockingly brave as Gal Gadot’s Wonder Woman striding undaunted across No Man’s Land. 

One of the loveliest things about this romance is how, as Lydia comes into her own, the reader gets to watch Harry’s view of her shift accordingly. In the beginning, he really does dismiss her, as everyone has before. She’s not an instantly captivating beauty who dazzles every room she enters. Instead, she has a quieter loveliness that grows as Harry gains a better understanding of her and as she comes to a better understanding of herself. It’s that loveliness, inside and out, that surprises Harry, moves him, wins his heart in spite of himself and rallies his entire, hilarious family to support and encourage their match. (The Westcott family, by the way, is out in full force in this book. At this point in the series, it would require several pages to explain how everyone is linked, a fact that Balogh playfully lampshades when Harry teasingly threatens Lydia with a written test.) Harry works to win Lydia’s heart, but most of all, he fights to earn her trust—to prove that he loves her as she is and does not seek to change or control her. That’s what makes him worthy of her love in return.

In the end, these soldiers aren’t heroes because of their prowess on the battlefield, but because of how they fight for freedom for themselves and the women they love.

Upstanding soldiers get swept away by unconventional, openhearted women in two historical romances.

Romance

Ill-advised and irresistible

Feature by Elizabeth Mazer

A Regency romance without a scandal is, of course, hardly any kind of romance at all. What’s the fun of having all those rules if no one breaks them? But while we’ve all relished our share of rakish heroes with scandalous pasts and sinister reputations, there’s something bold and delightful about this trio of romances featuring convention-defying women. These heroines seem, at least on paper, to be the very last sort that any Regency hero would marry.

Charlotte Hurst, the heroine of Not the Kind of Earl You Marry by Kate Pembrooke, is most definitely an unexpected match for William Atherton, Earl of Norwood—especially given that their engagement is announced in the newspaper before the two of them have even met. It’s part of a plot to embarrass William and damage his political ambitions, but Charlotte and William choose to combat it by keeping the ruse going and playing the happy couple. Or at least, that’s William’s hope. Because he initially accuses Charlotte of being the source of the story, she takes some convincing. That’s his first hint that she's not like the other women he’s known. Far from fawning over the rich, handsome and titled gentleman, she’s quick to tell William off, informing him that he’s not the last man she’d ever marry, because that doesn’t go far enough. She’d never marry him, even if there were literally no options left.

Pembrooke uses the pair's first meeting to set the stage for the relationship they’ll build, in which Charlotte continues to startle and engage William by defying his expectations and puncturing his ego in the process. Charlotte’s pragmatic, no-nonsense attitude is refreshing not just to William but also to readers, who will appreciate her honesty, her kindness and the warmth and sincerity of her growing love for the one man she was quite certain she’d never marry.

In contrast to Charlotte, Kathleen Calvert knows exactly how she consistently ends up the subject of gossip in Vanessa Kelly’s The Highlander’s Irish Bride. She keeps finding herself in absurdly inappropriate situations through (mostly) no fault of her own. When the latest scandal gets her banished from London and sent to visit a cousin who has married into a Scottish clan, she immediately clashes with Grant Kendrick, the most staid and serious member of the somewhat riotous family. He’s Scottish while she’s Irish. He’s quiet while she’s talkative. He’s proper and buttoned up while she’s . . . not. Kathleen’s immediate reaction is that they could never suit, which any romance reader knows means that they’ll eventually discover they’re perfect for each other. Which they are, of course. Kathleen’s exuberance brings much-needed color into Grant’s rather drab life, while his steadiness eases her restless energy and helps her find a place to belong at last.

There’s a lovely poignancy to the scenes where the couple bonds over the things they do share: love of family, devotion to siblings, deep-seated sadness over the loss of parents. Grant and Kathleen are surrounded by quite a bit of drama and chaos as their romance progresses (people are held at gunpoint multiple times, and there’s a love triangle that gets delightfully convoluted) but Kelly uses their growing love as an anchor, grounding all the excitement in something real and warm and lovely.

Hanna Zaydan, Diana Quincy’s heroine in The Viscount Made Me Do It, is the most scandalous of this trio, but she is also the most heroic. She’s a bone setter, a historical occupation that was a bit like a chiropractor, but without a formal education and without a fraction of respect from the established medical community. As such, Hanna is viewed as a charlatan at best and a prostitute at worst, and even her own Arab English family finds her choice of profession inappropriate. The only person who believed in her was her father, who trained her in the craft and whose practice she has taken over following his death. Thomas Ellis, Viscount Griffin, comes into her life as he searches for his parents’ killer, and Hanna earns his admiration and respect when she cures him of a long-standing injury that the medical establishment has been unable to treat. His admiration grows into a fascination that soon tips over into love. It would not only be shocking for a viscount to wed a working-class woman in a disreputable profession, but Hanna’s big, close-knit family would never view Thomas as an acceptable match, since he's not an Arab.

In a subgenre as WASPy as Regency romance, The Viscount Made Me Do It is a marvelous breath of fresh air, reminding readers that there were other cultures, other religions and other perspectives present in this era besides the ones most commonly focused on. Hanna is a fascinating creation for all the ways in which she defies convention—and her love story is all the more dazzling for the richness and vibrancy her perspective brings.

A Regency romance without a scandal is, of course, hardly any kind of romance at all. What’s the fun of having all those rules if no one breaks them?

RomanceContemporary Romance

Toil and (triple) trouble

Feature by Elizabeth Mazer

These witchy rom-coms are whimsical and hilarious—with just a touch of wickedness.

Witch Please

In Witch Please by Ann Aguirre, Danica Waterhouse knows the rules: Mundanes are off-limits. She interacts with them as needed to keep her electronic repair business running, but they can never know the truth about her power, and they can never be considered romantically. The family curse says falling for a mundane will drain a Waterhouse witch’s magic away. Magic binds Danica to her work, her family, her coven—everything that matters. So when she meets the most incredible man, and feels the most incredible draw to him, she makes an incredible effort to keep her distance . . . and fails. Because Titus Winnaker is amazing: handsome, funny, goofy and smitten with Danica from the start. And he bakes. And he’s a volunteer firefighter. And he’s absolutely forbidden.

Smart, strong, determined and compassionate, Danica knows how to fix everything except her own heart, and her turmoil is palpable on the page. Endearing, clueless Titus is a beautiful cinnamon roll, too sweet for this world. The most magical moments they share don’t involve any witchcraft at all but instead feature two people simply being good to each other, in every imaginable way. Aguirre has concocted an exciting, engaging whirl of a story.

The Ex Hex

Vivienne Jones—spurred on by her broken heart, her loyal, vengeful cousin and way too much vodka—curses her no-good, horrible ex to have bad hair, bad sex and bad luck forever and ever, amen. However, when Rhys Penhallow returns to the small town of Graves Glen, Georgia, nine years later, his hair is still perfect and his sex appeal is still intact. So Vivi concludes, with a little sadness and a little relief, that her momentary whim of a curse didn’t take. But then a series of mishaps proves that bad luck has infected the town, potentially leading to disaster if the situation isn’t solved by Samhain, which is fast approaching.

While The Ex Hex is pure rom-com with its fun tone and witty characters, author Erin Sterling takes things deeper with potent, beautifully portrayed symbolism, especially when it comes to tarot cards and the intriguing, melancholy mystery tangled up with the curse. It’s a romance magically enhanced to be more vivid, more daring and more potentially deadly, and it’s all the more satisfying for it.

★ Payback’s a Witch

In Lana Harper’s Payback’s a Witch, there’s not just one witch scorned. There are three. Emmy Harlow left town as a brokenhearted teen after being used and discarded by Gareth Blackmoore, scion of the richest, most influential family in Thistle Grove. The four witch families that founded the town still run things, but the lion’s share of power and influence goes to whichever family wins the “Gauntlet,” a semicentennial event that the Blackmoores have won pretty much every time. The Thorns and the Avramovs have always lagged behind, and the Harlows have never stood a chance—which is why Emmy got the whole “It’s not you, it’s how utterly insignificant your family is” brush-off from Gareth years ago. But now she’s back, and she learns that Gareth has since toyed with Emmy’s longtime bestie, Linden Thorn, and also with Emmy’s secret high school crush, the stunning, untouchable Talia Avramov. And thus an alliance is formed as the three women come together with the goal of toppling the ascendency of the Blackmoores and putting Gareth firmly in his place.

Harper’s adult debut is gorgeous in every way. It’s hilariously funny, deeply moving, powerfully uplifting and so glue-you-to-the-page engrossing that this reviewer literally did not put it down for the final hundred pages. The love story between Talia and Emmy develops beautifully, but the true romance is with the town and the community. The bonds of both family and friendship shine from start to finish, and Harper balances the different clans and captures how, together, they make Thistle Grove the magical place that it is.

These witchy rom-coms are whimsical and hilarious—with just a touch of wickedness.

RomanceHistorical Romance

Cheers to the Duke

Review by Elizabeth Mazer

Fans of Sally MacKenzie’s Widow’s Brew series have been waiting for this moment. Jo, the widowed Lady Havenridge, has appeared in the series' previous two books as a woman who seemed to have it all figured out. The founder and leader of the Benevolent Home for the Maintenance and Support of Spinsters, Widows, and Abandoned Women and their Unfortunate Children, she has established not only a sanctuary for women and girls with nowhere else to go, but also a thriving business as the women operate their own brewery. She has work, purpose, a home and a community, but now it’s finally time for her to find love. And perhaps it’s a testament to how rare and special her situation is that love and matrimony—the longed-for prize of every young miss in Regency society—holds little appeal for her. She doesn’t actually say that she needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle, but the implication is there.

However, in Cheers to the Duke, the right man is quite forcefully ushered in. Edward, the Duke of Grainger, is a solicitor from an obscure branch of the family tree who unexpectedly inherited the title (think Matthew Crawley from "Downton Abbey"). The search for a bride, someone to step into the shoes of his dearly loved first wife as Edward’s partner and mother to his young, sensitive son, has not gone well. Thrust into society’s so-called graces, he is fawned over by empty-headed debutantes with hungry eyes on his title even as they turn up their noses at his common origins. But then he’s brought together with Jo at the christening of Viscount Hurley, their mutual godchild. And by “brought together,” I mean “all but locked into a closet together by their friends who’ve decided they’re perfect for each other.” Edward is quick to agree that Jo is just what he needs—in his home, his heart and his bed. (His son, Thomas, is instantly on board as well, and in one of the sweeter moments in the story, actually proposes that Jo become his mother even before Jo and Edward officially meet.) Jo, on the other hand, is harder to convince.

In a genre as well-trod as Regency romance, there's much pleasure to be found in stories that subvert expectations, and this story (this series!) definitely accomplishes that. Rather than a society-defying rake who is tamed by love, MacKenzie features capable heroines who defy social norms and require heavy persuasion before they’ll give in to the virtues of wedded life and love. There’s no villain in the story, no rigidly disapproving family member interfering with the course of true love, no moustache-twirling scoundrel attempting to compromise or disgrace the heroine. The only roughness in the course of true love comes from the fact that Jo genuinely needs convincing that marriage is something she’d ever want, even with the perfect man. Her independence is both admirable and refreshing. The response of the other characters to that independence is . . . a bit less endearing. Like Bridget Jones, I’m not often a fan of “smug marrieds” who are convinced that no one can be both happy and single, and the other guests at the christening celebration lean a little far into that mindset. There could have been a bit less well-intentioned matchmaking, and a bit more genuine respect for Jo’s choices (there were a few too many conversations where she got steamrolled).

Still, the energy of the story is infectious, evoking the feeling of a family reunion where everyone’s truly glad to see one another. For those hoping for a happy conclusion to these characters and their adventures in brewing, the final Widow's Brew novel delivers love, laughter and libations.

Fans of Sally MacKenzie’s The Widow’s Brew series have been waiting for Jo, Lady Havenridge, to get her happily ever after, and Cheers to the Duke does not disappoint.

RomanceHistorical Romance

The Princess Stakes

Review by Elizabeth Mazer

The Princess Stakes contains several great love stories, and the book opens as one of them ends. We only get glimpses of a romance for the ages between a regal Indian maharaja and the English noblewoman who left everything behind to have a life by his side. We know they lived happily for a little while, but the happiness didn’t last. By the time we encounter the Maharaja of Joor, his beloved wife is dead, his authority has been drained away by the British and his precious daughter, Princess Sarani, has been forced into an engagement with the odious Lord Talbot. When the maharaja is betrayed and assassinated, Sarani must flee for her life.

And here’s where the book's grandest—and stormiest—love story starts, as Sarani’s desperate search for passage to her English family’s protection lands her on Rhystan Huntley’s ship. Rhystan, the Duke of Embry, despises Sarani for her duty-driven rejection of their love years earlier. Will sparks fly as the pair reunites? They will. Will the journey to England be fraught with tension, bickering and unrelenting desire? It will. And will Sarani's arrival in England create a tremendous splash when Rhystan—in a temporary deal that is intended to benefit them both—makes it known that they are engaged? Oh, it most definitely will.

There’s drama aplenty to be found in this romance, from disguised princesses to swashbuckling sailors to a highly publicized betting spree over which debutante will snag the handsome, eminently eligible Duke of Embry. Tempers run high, passions run hot and a mixture of greed, jealousy, prejudice and lust leads to more than one violent altercation from which Sarani and Rhystan must escape. The ton's small-mindedness and caustic disdain might make you wish that our hero and heroine would resort to violence themselves a little more often. (Trust me, some of those society folks have it coming.) But Sarani and Rhystan’s devotion to each other and to those dearest to them shines bright and fierce in contrast to the cowardly pettiness of those who try to undermine them. That love unites them against their foes and gives them the courage to push past their own fears and insecurities and embrace their happiness together.

Author Amalie Howard doesn’t shy away from showing the struggles a biracial character like Sarani would face, both in England and in India. Caught between two worlds, she’s viewed as not belonging enough to either to win true acceptance, but she finally finds the home she’s been searching for in Rhystan’s arms. Ultimately The Princess Stakes celebrates the power of love to win out again and again over hate: love for the person you trust to have your back; love for the family you are proud to claim; and love for yourself, exactly as you are.

This dramatic romance between an Indian princess and an English lord is a celebration of love’s victory over hate.

RomanceHistorical Romance

An Earl, the Girl, and a Toddler

Review by Elizabeth Mazer

The story starts with a tragedy. A ship sailing from Jamaica sinks just before it reaches England’s shore, leaving only two survivors. The first is a badly injured woman. The other is a baby girl, who is quickly deposited into the arms of Daniel Thackery, Earl of Ashbrook. He had come to the port to meet Phoebe Dunn, his bride-to-be. A baby wasn’t in his plans—but as the baby is a blackamoor (the Regency-era term for people with dark skin) like him, the sailors assume the child must be his. If he doesn’t claim the girl, who he can only assume was Phoebe’s daughter, she’ll be sent to an orphanage, or worse. Daniel is not one to leave an innocent without protection, so he adopts the baby and names her Hope.

Meanwhile, the other survivor, identified as Jemima St. Maur, can’t remember anything about her life before the shipwreck. Her only certainty, which comes from a place deeper than memory, is that her baby was taken from her. She’s filled with fear and despair, which only worsen when she’s committed to Bedlam—but, of course, she’s not in Bedlam for long. When Vanessa Riley’s An Earl, the Girl, and a Toddler picks back up two years later, Jemima has become the toast of society. She has her pick of suitors, even if the only one who catches her eye is the barrister who secured her release and restored her to the ton—none other than Daniel himself.

It sounds like a setup straight out of a Hollywood movie, as Daniel rescues Hope, then Jemima, with the tantalizing possibility that the three of them are meant to be a family. While there’s a lot of humor and playfulness (Jemima’s letters to Daniel are highly entertaining), Riley doesn’t pull her emotional punches. An Earl opens on a powerful note, with Daniel waiting in line at the dock, seeing each person ahead of him grapple with the sight of the name of a loved one on the casualty list. When the narrative shifts to Jemima, alone and afraid in the hospital, the stakes only grow more intense.

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Vanessa Riley explores the many layers of a Black aristocrat's experience in the Regency.

As the romance between Jemima and Daniel progresses, the heaviest weight comes from their vulnerabilities. Though Daniel is wealthy, educated, clever, kind and truly gentlemanly, he lives with the constant knowledge that as a Black man, any toe out of line could result in all his status and privilege being stripped away. Riley dispels the myth of the all-white Regency—people of color rose to the titled elite in this and in many other historical periods—while also refusing to diminish or gloss over an iota of the bigotry and judgment a blackamoor earl would face.

Jemima’s horrible experiences in Bedlam hang over her, shadowing not just how others perceive her but how she perceives herself and the security of her position. She was committed by an associate of her family, less because of her amnesia and more because it was convenient for her to be out of the way. With a clear and all-too-personal understanding of how easy it is for a woman to be committed to an asylum, she carries a fearful certainty that what happened before could happen again.

It’s no wonder that trust is a major theme of this romance. It’s not an easy thing for Daniel or Jemima to offer, not with so many people lined up to judge them. Their hesitance to trust each other can get a bit frustrating at times, but Riley makes it clear that they have good reason for their reservations. Love wins out over fear in the sweet ending—and the truth of what happened the day the ship sank, even when it’s not quite what anyone expected, sets them both free.

The story starts with a tragedy. A ship sailing from Jamaica sinks just before it reaches England’s shore, leaving only two survivors.

RomanceContemporary Romance

Love at First

Review by Elizabeth Mazer

There’s no place like home. Which might be the problem with Dr. Will Sterling. While reading Kate Clayborn’s Love at First, you get the sense that he’s never actually had anything that fits that title. As a child, he had a house that he lived in with parents who were obsessed with each other and largely indifferent to him. As an adult, he has an apartment that he barely sees in between long hospital shifts. There’s no one he’d consider family. There’s barely anyone he’d consider a friend. He works overtime in the hospital’s emergency room until his co-workers basically kick him out, not realizing that he doesn’t actually have anywhere better to go. And then, suddenly, he has a new . . . well, let’s call it a residence. An inherited apartment from his recently deceased estranged uncle that he’s very, very eager to get rid of but can’t, thanks to the terms of the uncle’s will. And with the apartment comes an added, unspoken inheritance in the form of the colorful neighbors that fill out the small, six-unit apartment building.

Eleanora Clarke—better known as Nora—might be the youngest resident (by far) in the crotchety, close-knit community, but she’s also its fiercest and most determined protector. Her own isolated childhood led her to treasure the place and the memories it holds of her beloved grandmother. When Will shows up with his smile and his charm and his decision to—horror of horrors!—renovate his inheritance and turn it into a short-term rental, she springs into action to combat him. The conflict is immediate, but if you’re expecting typical rom-com over-the-top exploits, then you’d be wrong. Sure, Nora pulls a couple of fast ones to try to get around Will, but then something far sweeter than hijinks ensues.

There’s a lovely, expansive hopefulness to Clayborn’s romance. Pretty much none of its characters have the life they’d imagined for themselves or the one they would have chosen. Everyone, not just the main couple, has experienced their share of grief, from the 80-year-old Lothario on the third floor (he’s very into dating apps) to Will’s direct supervisor at the hospital, a man who might be the most awkwardly endearing boss you hope to never have since Michael Scott from “The Office." But as all of them come together in a variety of ways—involving poetry, lost kittens, towel rods and really good marinara sauce—a sense of beautiful optimism shines through Clayborn’s prose. Love at First will not only make you believe that you can recover from the pain in your past but that you can, if and when you choose, break away from your past entirely and build a new future, surrounded by love and support. Rather than narrowly focus on its main couple, Love at First overflows with a sense of connection and community. While watching Will and Nora fall deeply, endearingly in love, you’ll also fall in love with the world they live in, the community they build and the future they have to look forward to together.

There’s no place like home. Which might be the problem with Dr. Will Sterling. While reading Kate Clayborn’s Love at First, you get the sense that he’s never actually had anything that fits that title.

RomanceContemporary Romance

The Ex Talk

Review by Elizabeth Mazer

If I told you that The Ex Talk by Rachel Lynn Solomon was an “enemies-to-lovers workplace romance,” you’d probably think you’d know what to expect, right? Especially if I said that this was a fake relationship story as well? It’s a familiar, much-loved plot. (Many people’s favorite is The Proposal, but I’m partial to Someone Like You, weird cow subplot and all, because Hugh Jackman—well, because Hugh Jackman. What other reason do you need?) But what if I said this story isn’t about faking being together, but faking breaking up?

Shay Goldstein is devoted to the public radio station where she works as a producer, but her dream is to host a show of her own. Still, she’s mostly joking when she suggests, at a come-up-with-new-programming-because-we’re-a-sinking-ship meeting, that the station create a relationship program hosted by ex-lovers. She’s stunned when the program director loves the idea and wants Shay to host it along with the station’s new hotshot reporter, Dominic Yun. But Shay and Dominic disagree on everything. They can’t hold a civil conversation. And, oh yeah, they aren’t exes. But no one needs to know that, the director suggests. They just have to fudge the truth a little (a lot—to everyone) and focus on telling a story, whether or not it’s true. Or they can lose their jobs due to cutbacks. Shay’s current show is on the chopping block, so it’s lie-way or the highway. The easier path seems to be to take a chance and snag her dream job, even if it means pretending to have fallen in and out of love with a man she doesn’t know but is quite sure she dislikes.

Of course, as they tangle in the sound booth, chemistry emerges—along with a burgeoning, unexpected friendship. There’s more to Dominic than Shay expected, and there’s a lot more to her feelings for him than disdain. She’s started to fall for the man now nationally known as her ex.

Full confession: I massively overidentified with the heroine. I don’t work in radio, but my nine NPR podcast subscriptions reveal my addiction. After a decade working in my dream industry, cutbacks sent my career trajectory, like Shay’s, on an unexpected left turn. (Rachel Lynn Solomon, are you my stalker?) So I might have related more than usual as Shay worked and struggled and stumbled on her path to success, professionally and romantically. Shay’s a great heroine, witty and wry and vividly real, and Dominic is just as complex and lovingly drawn. I enjoy the escapist fun of a sexy, confident, flawless hero falling for a me-substitute as much as the next girl, but it’s so much easier to believe in love that feels earned and grows between characters who aren’t props or fantasies but compellingly flawed people.

While its central romance certainly functions as the story’s framework, The Ex Talk also leaves room to explore other kinds of love, including love for family (it was Shay’s late father who inspired her love of radio), love for friends, love for your work—and the kind of love for yourself that means you know when it’s time to leave a toxic, misogynistic work situation. (Thought this story was all sweetness and fluff? Think again.) So I don’t believe it was overidentification that made me fall for Shay, Dominic and the idea of the two of them together. I believe they and their creator did that by being funny, sharp, charming and insightful. This wonderful romance speaks volumes about chasing your dreams, finding your courage and putting everything on the line (or on the air) for love.

While its central romance certainly functions as the story's framework, The Ex Talk also leaves room to explore other kinds of love.

RomanceErotic RomanceContemporary Romance

The Pearl

Review by Elizabeth Mazer

It’s said revenge is a dish best served cold, but what if it could be served hot? Really hot? Steamy, sweaty, decadent and deliciously hot? Because “hot” is exactly what flawless young aristocrat Lord Arthur Godwick is . . . and revenge against his family is precisely what Regan Ferry, a glamorous young widow with an icy edge, is after. Her revenge involves Arthur, stripped of his privilege and pretention, in her bed and at her mercy for 10 unforgettable nights. If he refuses, the priceless painting his reckless brother traded away will be lost forever. If he agrees—when he agrees—he’ll get the painting back, but what will he lose in its place?

Author Tiffany Reisz has a lot of fun playing with, inverting and interrogating positions of power in her latest erotic romance, The Pearl. Arthur—nicknamed King Arthur—seems to be a man who has everything: youth, beauty, wealth, influence, a flawless reputation, a bright future and a storied heritage, descended from generations of men who kept the reins of power firmly in hand. The hotel that Regan inherited from her late husband, the Pearl, was a favorite haunt of Arthur’s great-grandfather Malcolm back in the day when it was a brothel, and any woman there was Malcolm’s for the asking. Regan descends from one of the Pearl’s whores and has her own bitter experience of a man buying her, via a wedding ring, and relishing his authority over her. Little wonder that she revels in turning the tables on Arthur: having him kneel before her and service her in the hotel that her late husband owned, in the very rooms where Arthur’s ancestor once held sway.

In a subtler exploration of power, the rooms are decorated with a series of paintings (real, beautiful paintings—look them up!) by female artists with their own dark stories—not dissimilar to Regan’s—of cruel and careless men who tried to break their spirits. Paintings of fear, imprisonment, objectification, entrapment or desperation in which the artist, bloody but unbowed, gets the last word. And mingled among them—watching over them—is the one Arthur is bargaining for, the irreplaceable painting his family can’t be without. It’s a portrait of Lord Malcolm himself that might, it seems, have mysterious powers and an agenda all its own.

Reisz never fails to deliver a sizzlingly hot read, and there’s plenty of erotic pleasure to be found here as Regan and Arthur explore their desires and give rein to their passions. But The Pearl is also a deeper, darker meditation on love and trust, and what it means to give yourself willingly, freely to another, to let yourself be vulnerable enough to love and forgive in exchange for love and acceptance in return.

It’s said revenge is a dish best served cold, but what if it could be served hot? Really hot?

RomanceHistorical Romance

The Truth About Dukes

Review by Elizabeth Mazer

There are quite a lot of truths to learn about Robert, Duke of Rothhaven, the hero of Grace Burrowes’ latest Regency romance. It’s true that he’s handsome. It’s very true that he’s rich. It’s very, very true that he’s clever. But the most surprising truth about him—the secret concealed from society—is that all Robert’s advantages are countered by the strain of severe physical and emotional disorders. The physical ailments are the result of inherited epilepsy triggered by severe childhood head injuries. The emotional problems . . . well, those result from the barbaric “care” he received in the institution that was paid lavishly to keep the so-called family embarrassment hidden away. After his brother found and rescued him from the wretched facility, his fears and phobias kept him isolated from the world for several years. By the time The Truth About Dukes opens, Robert has summoned the courage to step forward from the shadows for his brother’s sake. The truth even he would have struggled to believe about himself is that love is waiting for him out in the light.

Constance Wentworth knows quite a bit about dukes, and not just because the Duke of Walden is her overprotective brother. She’s well-acquainted with Robert as well, from a time when she was fleeing her own uncomfortable truths and wound up working as a maid at the facility where he was kept. A bond formed between them then that endures when they meet again in society, and it’s immediately clear just how good they are for each other. She defends him, he steadies her; she accepts him, he challenges her. She teaches him to trust himself, he teaches her that it’s all right to trust others. Love (kind of literally) blossoms easily. Happily ever after? That’s another story—and what a terrific story it is!

Sensitive readers should be aware that The Truth About Dukes doesn’t hesitate to poke into dark corners. The horror of mental health care in the Regency period is unflinchingly portrayed, although descriptions of the more brutal “treatments” are mercifully brief, and Constance's childhood was violent. But the trials Robert and Constance have faced only highlight their strength and resilience as a family. Their love for each other is fierce and lovely, and their fight to defend it is inspiring. It’s a wonderful ray of hope to read a story like this where tremendous obstacles are overcome through faith, family and a true and deep devotion.

There are quite a lot of truths to learn about Robert, Duke of Rothhaven, the hero of Grace Burrowes’ latest Regency romance. It’s true that he’s handsome. It’s very true that he’s rich. It’s very, very true that he’s clever. But the most surprising truth…

RomanceHistorical Romance

Someone to Romance

Review by Elizabeth Mazer

Moments after laying eyes on Lady Jessica Archer, Gabriel Thorne decides that she is the woman he will marry. But this isn’t love at first sight. It’s not even like at first sight. Freshly returned to England to make a long overdue claim on his title and estate, he’s staying incognito, getting the lay of the land, when Jessica sweeps into the nondescript inn and asserts a superior claim to the private sitting room he’s reserved. He’s unimpressed with her arrogance. She’s unimpressed with his rudeness. Love is definitely not in the air, but matrimony . . . is?

Gabriel will need a wife by his side to manage the family drama he came to England to resolve. The right sort of wife—imperious, irreproachable, from the right family with the right upbringing, manners and connections. And Jessica, commencing her sixth (or possibly seventh—she’s lost count) season in London, is more than ready to settle down. While she’s always been praised as a “diamond of the first water,” encircled by a constant throng of smitten admirers (think of that barbeque scene from Gone with the Wind when all the men beg to be allowed to fetch Scarlett O’Hara’s dessert), she’s done with drifting through life. She has a plan to pick a groom that is every bit as practical as Gabriel’s plan to pick a bride.

Then they meet in the proper society setting, Gabriel makes his intentions clear—and everything goes off the rails. Jessica realizes, suddenly and deeply, exactly what she does and doesn’t want. And a strictly proper courtship, complete with stifling social calls, stiff dances and a constant evaluation of the assets that she brings into the match, is definitely on the “no” list. It doesn’t matter that she is highly valued on the marriage mart when her value has nothing to do with who she truly is inside. She demands that Gabriel find a way to romance her as a person. She doesn’t ask for love; if anything, she shies away from using that word. But she does demand to be respected for who she is rather than for her bank balance or her pedigree.

Up until that point, I was enjoying Balogh’s Someone to Romance as a stately, engaging dramedy of manners with lots of high-society escapism and the juicy fun of Gabriel’s family secrets. But when Jessica throws down that gauntlet, I started to really love this book. I admired Jessica’s strength and resolve, her determination to chart out her future on her own terms. And I was incredibly moved by Gabriel’s response to it—the tiny, deeply personal gestures with which he shows his growing esteem and trust. The happy marriage they build together is worlds away from the practical, businesslike matches they both anticipated at the start of the story, and yet it resolves in the sweetest of all imaginable happy endings.

This is a love story that earns the name on every level, not just for the love the hero and heroine find but also for the love you’ll feel for everyone involved by the time you reach the final page.

Moments after laying eyes on Lady Jessica Archer, Gabriel Thorne decides that she is the woman he will marry. But this isn’t love at first sight. It’s not even like at first sight.
RomanceContemporary Romance

You Had Me at Hola

Review by Elizabeth Mazer

High drama isn’t just soap opera star Jasmine Lin Rodriguez’s day job, it’s also her life in Alexis Daria’s You Had Me at Hola. After getting her broken heart splashed over all the tabloid covers, she’s restrategized and plans to lead a man-free, drama-free, scandal-free life while tackling the juicy title character role in a high-profile telenovela adaptation. As down as she’s been, surely there’s nowhere to go but up—or so she thinks, until her first bold step forward into her new leading lady life ends on . . . well, not exactly a sour note but certainly a coffee-splattered one. For Jasmine, this first meeting with her co-star, the gorgeous and aloof Ashton Suárez, is not exactly ideal. But for the reader at the start of this smart and engaging madcap romance, it’s certainly a lot of fun!

Considering the usual telenovela twists, the story is actually surprisingly down-to-earth. (There is an evil twin, but alas, it’s just a plot thread on the show.) A few situations are dialed up for laughs, such as the infamous coffee incident during the meet-cute, but for the most part, Jasmine and Ashton face realistic challenges as they deal with their careers, their personal relationships and their blossoming feelings for each other. Jasmine, who is adored but rarely understood by her loving, intrusive family, has the habit of falling too hard and too fast for anyone who makes her feel wanted. Ashton, grappling with a long-held secret, has the opposite problem as he hesitates to let anyone close. Both struggle to balance the success they crave versus the lack of privacy that comes as its price. And while they do have a steamy affair, it includes its share of roadblocks as they work to figure out at each stage how intimate and exposed, in every way, they’re willing to be. Their love story is dramatic but it’s also sweet and complex, as layered and grounded as the characters themselves.

Daria fills the story with palpable warmth and affection, not just for her hero and heroine but for the dual worlds they inhabit: the film industry and the Latin American community. If you enjoy behind the scenes peeks, the story includes plenty of fun details about the nuts and bolts of a working set. (A key character is the set’s intimacy coordinator—a newer role on film sets but one that is, thankfully, becoming increasingly common.) And if you appreciate a media landscape that embraces diversity, you’ll love the chance to explore how Jasmine and Ashton carry their heritage with them, determinedly carving out opportunities not just for themselves but for all the gifted, undervalued Latinx performers searching for a place.

High drama isn’t just soap opera star Jasmine Lin Rodriguez’s day job, it’s also her life in Alexis Daria’s You Had Me at Hola. After getting her broken heart splashed over all the tabloid covers, she’s restrategized and plans to lead a man-free, drama-free, scandal-free…

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