Kenya Davenport is the ideal contestant for “Cosplay or No Way,” a reality competition show that follows cosplayers as they construct elaborate ensembles based on their favorite fictional characters. She’s smart and funny, with pop culture savvy, a passion for anime and quips for every situation. Her nerdy interests may not overlap much with those of her engineer parents, but she’s fine with that. So is her BFF, Cameron Lassiter. Cam’s her ride or die, her partner in crime. He’s not into cosplay like Kenya, but he still agrees to pose as her boyfriend r in the final round of the show, where the contestants enlist their real-life partners in the construction of their final costumes. It’s both more and less awkward than it should be, because Cam’s secretly been in love with Kenya for years.

Author Seressia Glass displays a talent for natural dialogue and effortless humor, which shine in the interactions between Cam and Kenya. Cam is particularly lovable: He seamlessly integrates into his role of fake boyfriend and proves time and time again, even outside of the demands of the show, that he’s there for Kenya. His steady, unerring support bolsters her inner strength, and he always lets her know that she’s remarkable, with or without a costume or mask.

Glass touches on a handful of real-world issues without slowing the forward momentum of the central love story. Yes, Kenya is fat. Yes, Kenya and Cam are an interracial couple. Yes, her parents whittle down her confidence. But Kenya dances to the beat of her own drummer and knows that she’s all the better for it. She doesn’t expect or want Cam to protect her when the show’s judges make snide comments about her weight and physical appearance; she’s more than capable of either doing that herself or choosing to ignore these types of slights. Glass constantly strikes the right balance in these moments, acknowledging the problems Kenya would face on reality TV or in her relationship with her parents while maintaining The Love Con’s exuberant, hopeful tone.

Kenya and Cam’s partnership proves that while plenty of things in life are a con, their love isn’t one of them. The Love Con is a unique glimpse into the world of cosplay that will lighten your heart and make you smile uncontrollably. 

It’s a premise fit for a holiday blockbuster: Oliver Russell is a business magnate with buckets of money, movie star charisma and every luxury a man could want—except someone to share it with. Victoria Scott is a struggling but spirited fashion designer who shows Oliver a fresh perspective, but needs his encouragement to view herself in a new light. She needs a place to demonstrate her talent, and he has a department store empire and a favor to ask: Will she fake an engagement to please his interfering mother in exchange for the showcase of her dreams? Oh, and did I mention that it’s Christmastime? And that the story unfolds in Chelsea, a particularly charming section of London? And that Victoria has a Greek chorus of quirky friends and protegees who support and encourage her along the way?

Author Georgia Toffolo mixes all of these ingredients into Meet Me in London, an airy, lace-edged creation that is just as charming as you could hope . . . and might seem, at first glance, to be just a wee bit predictable. But underneath its frills lie additional layers that explore more than you might expect. 

Oliver’s wealth and privilege don’t shield him from problems; in fact, they seem to have caused some. His family’s legacy of focusing on business at the expense of spending time with their children has left him and his parents with plenty of genuine affection for each other but no real vocabulary to connect. And they needto connect, now more than ever, because Oliver’s father is going through a health crisis that’s showing them that there might not be many chances left. It’s moving but also terribly sad that it takes cooking up a fake fiancée to finally give Oliver and his parents something to talk about. 

Meanwhile, Victoria has all the emotional intelligence and insight that Oliver and his family lack, but she gained those skills through pain and suffering. A serious accident changed her life and the lives of her closest friends forever and left Victoria unable to have children. The emotional weight of that loss has ground her down, especially when it led to a humiliating rejection by a previous boyfriend. 

These elements darken the story, but it’s to Meet Me in London’s benefit. The premise is cotton-candy fluff, but with the addition of real stakes, real pain and real issues to overcome, the plot gains substance and significance. Victoria and Oliver deserve their happy ending not because they’re gorgeous and engaging—though they both definitely are—or because their romance is sweet and satisfying. No, they deserve their happily ever after because they’ve worked toward it, growing and changing beyond the pain in their pasts to build a future together that’s full of true love and Christmas cheer.

All the Feels, the second book in Olivia Dade’s smart and sexy Spoiler Alert series, follows a dreamy actor with a bad reputation and his down-to-earth soulmate.

Alex Woodroe stars as the mythical Cupid on “Gods of the Gates,” a prestige fantasy TV show similar to “Game of Thrones.” Following a rocky penultimate season and some embarrassing publicity, the producers have imposed a tight rein on the production of the final episodes. So when Alex gets into a headline-making bar brawl, a tense situation goes from bad to worse—and totally viral. 

Enter Lauren Clegg, an even-tempered but burned-out emergency room psychotherapist. While decompressing between jobs in Europe, she receives a message that Ron, her estranged cousin and childhood bully who also happens to be a producer on “Gods of the Gates,” needs her help to get control of his star. Lauren signs on as Alex’s “minder.” She’s essentially his sober companion, but for issues with impulse control and volatile behavior instead of alcohol or drugs. 

It’s a uniquely awkward meet cute that immediately results in intense close proximity. But Alex’s first reaction to Lauren isn’t love struck. For one thing, he thinks that his “new nanny looked like a bird.” More importantly, Alex objects to the entire idea that he needs minding.

Yet even though he teasingly dubs her “Nanny Clegg,” Lauren doesn’t treat him like a child, and the two begin to warm to each other. Soon the main question is whether close work friends, who not only met under inopportune circumstances but also have some inner healing to do, can become lovers. 

All the Feels is a tender, slow burn romance that focuses first on Alex and Lauren’s friendship and then on the love that grows between them while they both take their own, separate journeys towards greater emotional well-being. Between her work as a therapist and the judgment she’s endured since childhood concerning her appearance, Lauren’s shell is hard to penetrate. Dade spends a lot of time depicting how Lauren attracts negative attention but is never surprised by it. After all, Lauren has been bullied before, even within her own family.

But the spotlight of celebrity makes the hostile scrutiny stronger. Alex is a wealthy celebrity, while Lauren is a respected but decidedly middle-class professional who is more comfortable in T-shirts than designer clothing. Due to his troubled family history, Alex has a strong sense of justice and ferocious protective instincts. And while that’s certainly noble, All the Feels doesn’t put his behavior on a pedestal. Alex might not be as out of control as Ron says he is, but being so reactive is something he needs to learn to manage, especially since he is a public figure.

It can be difficult to balance realism and romance in love stories about two people of unequal status and power. All the Feels delves deeply into the imbalances between its central couple, from looks to finances to fame. It succeeds because Dade ensures that there’s far more to Alex and Lauren than their value on the modern-day marriage market. Alex and Lauren’s progression toward romance is rooted in their friendship, which blossoms into a mutual care and compassion that is stunning to behold. Their romance is one to cry over and cheer for.

Writing a novel means walking in your characters’ shoes: feeling their pain, celebrating their joys, sharing their fears and anxieties. In Therese Beharrie’s And They Lived Happily Ever After, romance novelist Gaia Anders takes this maxim to a whole new level. Every night, the pages she’s written during the day come to life in her dreams. Gaia is her heroine—speaking each line of dialogue, experiencing every encounter, even feeling every kiss. On a practical level, she uses this ability as a writing tool. There’s nothing like living out a scene’s worth of dialogue to hear if it sounds stilted or unnatural. On an emotional level, it allows her to deal with her very real loneliness and isolation in a version of the world that she can control, one where she knows exactly what everyone will say and do and no one can hurt her with an unscripted word or deed. It’s a world that lets her live both wildly and safely at once. Until everything changes.

Jacob Scott is Gaia’s best friend’s little brother. So maybe it’s not surprising that they reconnect for the first time in years at a party in Jacob’s brother’s apartment. It is a little surprising that they run into each other because they’re both hiding in the same bedroom though. Jacob doesn’t want his brother to scold him for being a workaholic. Gaia doesn’t want her friend to scold her for giving in to her pervasive social anxiety and avoiding the party. But Jacob doesn’t make her anxious. In fact, they quickly get very close to being physically intimate. An interruption derails their encounter, but it can’t wipe the desire from Gaia’s mind, so when she goes home and starts a new story, it has a very familiar-looking hero. The only problem is that when Jacob shows up in her dream that night, he doesn’t stick to the script. Gaia is still living out her writing in her dreams, but she’s not the only real person there anymore. The daytime world has intruded in the form of a man she can’t resist, and now can’t avoid.

Therese Beharrie digs deeper into the multilayered magic of her latest romance.

There’s something wondrous about stories that take the ordinary world and add in something unexplained, something marvelous or frightening or bizarre (or, best yet, all at once). Gaia’s dreams feel truly magical, but Beharrie also shows how real life moves on alongside them. Gaia’s ability is incredible, but it doesn’t solve all her problems. It makes some things easier, some things harder and a lot of things more complicated. Because no matter how well things go in her dreams, where she has all the control, in the morning she has to wake up and face real life—where interacting with strangers scares her, she has hardly anyone she’d consider a friend and she grapples every day with a former foster child’s sense that there’s nowhere she belongs and no one she can count on. It’s little wonder that she prefers her dreams.

And yet, at the end of the day, life is real and vivid and shockingly intense. The magic of the story comes from Gaia learning to choose that real, scary, vivid life over the safety of her imagination. In Beharrie’s wonderful romance, real love is even better than magic.