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RomanceHistorical Romance

The Wrong Lady Meets Lord Right

In The Wrong Lady Meets Lord Right, Suzanne Allain’s playful Regency romance, delightful chaos ensues when an heiress and her impoverished cousin switch places.
In The Wrong Lady Meets Lord Right, Suzanne Allain’s playful Regency romance, delightful chaos ensues when an heiress and her impoverished cousin switch places.
RomanceParanormal Romance

Feast While You Can

A terrifying monster is both a real entity and a manifestation of taboo desires in Mikaella Clements and Onjuli Datta’s Feast While You Can.
A terrifying monster is both a real entity and a manifestation of taboo desires in Mikaella Clements and Onjuli Datta’s Feast While You Can.
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RomanceContemporary Romance

Hana Khan Carries On

Review by Amanda Diehl

In Uzma Jalaluddin’s sophomore novel, Hana Khan Carries On, a Muslim woman tries to keep her family’s halal business afloat while finding comfort in creating her own anonymous podcast.

Hana Khan has plenty to worry about: her mother’s casual halal restaurant is in dire financial straits, and the Khan household has been turned upside down by the arrival of her aunt and cousin. Her only outlet is Ana’s Brown Girl Rambles, a podcast that Hana launched anonymously and views as a diary of sorts. As it slowly gains a following, Hana starts an adorable online back and forth with a dedicated listener. What she doesn’t know is that very same listener is Aydin Shah, who runs the competing halal eatery that is jeopardizing the Khan family business.

Jalaluddin’s debut novel, Ayesha at Last, was a Pride & Prejudice-inspired journey to romance and self-fulfillment. With Hana Khan, Jalaluddin turns to rom-com classic You’ve Got Mail for inspiration. The bones of the Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks film are there, trading bookstores for halal food, but Jalaluddin launches this story into the 21st century. The most obvious update is Hana’s interest in podcasting and auditory forms of storytelling, but there’s also the setting of Toronto’s Golden Crescent neighborhood, which is home to a thriving Muslim community. Jalaluddin demonstrates how this close-knit world provides both support system and motivation for Hana and her family throughout the novel. But she also acknowledges the depressing truth that it makes them targets, especially when Hana experiences an anti-Muslim hate crime that goes viral.

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: How Uzma Jalaluddin uses romance tropes to expand the boundaries of the genre.

It’s a tall order to find someone worthy of such a brilliant and earnest heroine, but Aydin is an excellent love interest. He’s genuine and charming, a perfect foil for his father’s more hostile business tactics, but the novel is more focused on Hana’s journey than his own. There is a satisfying happily ever after at the end, but Jalaluddin explores more than just romantic love in Hana Khan. It’s a story of self-love, familial love, togetherness and compassion between neighbors, and all the different ways we express love with who we allow into our lives.

This modern romantic comedy is full of warmth, and complemented wonderfully by Hana’s courageous self-determination and the scene-stealing secondary members of the Khan family. If Hana Khan Carries On is a sign of things to come, whatever Jalaluddin writes next will be inventive, extraordinary and well worth a read.

In Uzma Jalaluddin’s sophomore novel, Hana Khan Carries On, a Muslim woman tries to keep her family’s halal business afloat while finding comfort in creating her own anonymous podcast.

RomanceContemporary Romance

Sandcastle Beach

Review by Carole V. Bell

In Jenny Holiday’s Sandcastle Beach, Maya Mehta and Benjamin Lawson have a longstanding rivalry whose foundation is as sturdy as a castle made of sand. He rigs the Mermaid Queen election in her favor every year, which she supposedly hates (but secretly enjoys). She boycotts his brick oven pizza while still regularly frequenting his bar, where Ben reserves her favorite wine for her exclusively and surreptitiously slips her freebies all night long.

Watching these two find the pettiest of ways to hate on each other while sneakily admiring each other is great entertainment for their friends and the matchmaking elders who populate the small town of Moonflower Bay. It makes for a mildly frothy read, but the tensions underlying the hate side of their unacknowledged love/hate relationship might feel a bit lukewarm for connoisseurs of the enemies-to-lovers trope who prefer more heated relationships such as those depicted in Sally Thorne’s The Hating Game, Jasmine Guillory’s The Wedding Party or Kennedy Ryan’s Hook Shot. As Maya’s brother Rohan tells her about his most recent failed relationship: “’For a massage to work, you need some pressure, you know? Some friction.’” He shrugged. “’I started to think maybe that’s true in life, too?’”

Handsome, generous and generally single Ben just isn’t particularly hateable or even rakish. He enjoys sparring with Maya but scarcely remembers how their rivalry started. He just knows that she’s been inexplicably spikey with him since she was 19. Maya’s motivations are clearer—he carelessly did her wrong years ago—but her perception of Ben is similarly cloudy and as a result, the friction on her side is fuzzy too, at least at first.

Fortunately, their initial rivalry is a prelude to a more complex, satisfying and steamy enemies-with-benefits arrangement in which hostilities are intermittently suspended for Premier League football and wine. Their slow burn gets exponentially hotter as the two become more sure of themselves, and their quick-witted banter and mutually obsessed attentiveness impressively echoes Beatrice and Benedick’s dynamic in Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing, a production of which Maya directs and stars in during the novel. When the town council announces a lucrative grant program for local entrepreneurs, placing Maya and Ben in direct competition with each other, it magnifies the stakes of their rivalry tenfold. The $100,000 prize would be life-changing for either Maya or Ben, who are both at professional crossroads. When these aspects of the story take off, their chemistry really begins to sparkle. The result is effervescent, joyous and rewarding fun.

In Jenny Holiday’s Sandcastle Beach, Maya Mehta and Benjamin Lawson have a longstanding rivalry whose foundation is as sturdy as a castle made of sand.

RomanceContemporary Romance

Accidentally Engaged

Review by Amanda Diehl

Farah Heron’s Accidentally Engaged is mouthwatering romantic comedy that layers on tropes like a buttery, flaky dough.

Reena Manji is a dedicated baker who’s ready to kick her passion for bread and baking into high gear. When she hears of a couple’s cooking contest with the grand prize being a scholarship to a culinary institute, Reena desperately wants to enter. There’s just one glaring problem: She doesn’t have a partner, or even a boyfriend. But the solution might lie in the shape of hunky Nadim Remtulla. Her British neighbor works for her father, and Reena’s parents already tried to set the pair up. But now Reena needs his help and he’s all too happy to help make her dream a reality.

This book is for anyone who’s discovered the joy of bread-making, especially bakers who hover over their sourdough starters, waiting for them to grow and bloom and get ready to be turned into warm, delicious loaves. Food—cooking it, sharing it, eating it—is an extension of love and care in Accidentally Engaged. Much of this wonderful slow-burn romance plays out in the kitchen, and readers will be deliciously tortured by how long it takes Reena and Nadim to realize how well they complement each other. Heron also deepens both characters by exploring their different experiences and backgrounds. While both Reena and Nadia are Muslim and of Indian descent, Reena’s experiences as a Canadian Indian and Nadim’s as a British Indian are different. Heron weaves those divergences into their developing relationship in both subtle moments and more overt discussions, perfectly depicting how a couple organically learns more about one another.

As Reena takes charge of making her dreams happen and Nadim plays the role of supportive and enthusiastic cheerleader amidst complicated family dynamics, Heron hits every romantic beat with a confidence of an author who knows exactly what she’s doing. There are meddling family members, close-quarters cooking, a fake relationship and the dreamy boy next door with his beefy muscles and swoony accent. This book is undoubtedly what Heron would pull out during the Showstopper Challenge on a literary version of “The Great British Bake Off.”

Farah Heron’s Accidentally Engaged is mouth-watering romantic comedy that layers on tropes like a buttery, flaky dough.

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

Act Your Age, Eve Brown

Review by Carole V. Bell

Talia Hibbert has quickly become the go-to writer for those who like their romances to be heartwarming, thought-provoking and fun in equal measure. Building on the success of the first two novels in her Brown Sisters trilogy, Hibbert’s formula is burnished to perfection in Act Your Age, Eve Brown, a delightful comedic confection.

Hibbert unites many beloved romance tropes in one tremendously fun package, flawlessly and creatively executing all of them. Eve and Jacob are the embodiment of the grumpy/sunshine trope—she’s a delightful, chaotic ray of light, while innkeeper Jacob is an order-obsessed grouch. They are opposites very reluctantly attracted, and their meet-cute (which is more of a meet-disaster) leads them into forced proximity and helps their attraction grow.

When the going gets tough, pampered 20-something Londoner Eve Brown gets going—right out of town. Eve is a gorgeous hot mess. She’s tried and failed and tried again on a number of different career and life paths. Through it all, she’s enjoyed the backing of her wealthy and accomplished family. This time, however, when her nascent wedding planning business goes bust, Eve loses the financial backing and patience of her frustrated parents. She flees to the countryside where she runs into Jacob Wayne, the proprietor of a bed-and-breakfast, and applies for a temporary chef position. Eve is eminently qualified, but has great difficulty proving it because (of course) she fails to produce anything like a resumé. Turned off by her apparent lack of professionalism, Jacob rejects her application. But when she accidentally hits him with her car and breaks his arm, a horrified Eve insists on working at the B&B to help while he recovers. Though there’s a fair amount of hostility and distrust between them as chaos meets order, hate soon gives way to friendship and then to love in the sweetest, most natural progression.

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Talia Hibbert explains why she thinks Jacob and Eve are so perfect for each other.

Though their romance is delightful, Jacob and Eve also face significant personal challenges and Hibbert handles these serious topics with finesse. They are both on the autism spectrum, and Hibbert sensitively portrays their perspectives while also exploring how their autism intersects with other facets of their lives.

Confident and vulnerable in equal measure, Eve values herself for the fabulous and vibrant woman she is, but she’s also cognizant of how aspects of her identity—including her race, color, size and shape—are devalued in society, especially in the performing arts. As Eve discloses to Jacob, her talent for acting was supposed to be her saving grace. Unlike her academically high-achieving older sisters, Eve struggled in school but knew she “was meant to be a star.” And yet, even in the theatrical world, being different got in the way. Her memory issues were a problem, taking direction was challenging and maybe most frustrating of all, she did not have “the look.” Eve decided a long time ago that “she was beautiful, and her body was lovely, and she would accept no other judgment on the subject.” But she also admits that she used to care. Because she was, in one view, “too fat and too dark and not entirely symmetrical,” the powers that be at her performing arts school relegated Eve to playing “the evil background character or the comedic relief.” And that hits her hard, as Hibbert demonstrates in a gorgeously written and intimate scene:

She pressed her lips together and flicked a glance at Jacob because, well, this part was so excruciatingly awkward to speak about . . . there were the people who acted like it shouldn’t hurt, being rejected by the status quo like that. As if, because it came from a twisted place of inequality, it shouldn’t have any hold on her. Which was a nice idea in principle, but Eve found it mostly came from those who’d never been personally crushed by the weight of all that disapproval.

Jacob wasn’t reacting like one of those people, though. He was simply sitting quietly, watching in silence, letting her speak. Because he was like that, when it mattered. He was like that.

What’s especially lovely is that this conversation leads to discovery and revelation for both characters, even though Eve is the primary focus.

Throughout Eve and Jacob’s story, Hibbert exhibits masterful control of plot and character. Act Your Age, Eve Brown is a wonderful blend of tropes and reality. It’s the kind of book that inspires myriad feelings: It will make you laugh, cry, sigh and swoon. But more than anything else, the experience of reading Act Your Age, Eve Brown is pure pleasure.

Building on the success of the first two novels in her Brown Sisters trilogy, Hibbert’s formula is burnished to perfection in Act Your Age, Eve Brown, a delightful comedic confection.

RomanceFiction

Endearing novels explore Christian faith amid romantic and familial love

Feature by Edith Kanyagia

Three heroines weather tremendously difficult circumstances, uncovering and navigating unsettling details about their families’ histories with admirable grace.

★ A Dance in Donegal

In Jennifer Deibel’s debut novel, A Dance in Donegal, Moira Doherty travels from Boston to Donegal, Ireland, fulfilling her late mother’s dream that her daughter would return to their breathtaking homeland. Moira endures the strenuous journey and arrives in the village of Ballymann, where the villagers’ reception is mixed. Donegal is a charming place, but despite Moira’s excitement, some of the villagers’ disconcerting remarks send her in search of the truth about her mother. In the process, a romance blossoms between Moira and a handsome, honorable thatcher who defends her against the villagers’ prejudice and hostility.

Deibel’s descriptions of Ireland’s landscape, enticing cuisine, sonorous language and vibrant culture converge to form a spectacular background for the story. A gentle thread of suspense builds throughout, beginning with a strange dream Moira has at the story’s opening, which hints at her task in Donegal and her mother’s looming secret. There’s also a love triangle that keeps Moira on her toes.

As an outsider, Moira struggles to be accepted by the tightknit, superstitious Irish community, but she wins hearts through her powerful faith and her love for everyone she encounters. While unraveling her family’s secret and becoming immersed in Irish culture, Moira discovers her roots and finds happiness.

Her Every Move

As in A Dance in Donegal, the devastating details of a family’s history form the foundation of Kelly Irvin’s latest suspense novel, Her Every Move. When a climate change debate at a San Antonio library becomes the target of a tragic bombing, the event’s coordinator, Jackie Santoro, is identified as a key suspect.

Detective Avery Wick believes Jackie’s motive was to avenge her father, who died by suicide before the commencement of his criminal trial, and whose death left his family with a deep-seated resentment toward the city’s officials who leveraged the allegations against him. While detectives look into Jackie’s past, the real attacker threatens to continue his trail of destruction if his group’s demands are not met.

As these tense events unfold, Irvin dives deeper into Jackie’s and Avery’s complex personal lives, and as the pair gets to know each other, the professional boundaries between them become blurry. Though it includes a slow-burning romance and gripping details of chaotic explosions, the novel is, at its core, a heartwarming exploration of faith and friendship.

’Til I Want No More

The past also plays a critical role in Robin W. Pearson’s encouraging, family-centric love story ’Til I Want No More. Theodore is kind and loving, the kind of man that columnist Maxine should settle down with. Even her mother approves of him. But Maxine fights to maintain control of her feelings amid her premarital counseling sessions with Theodore—and the return of her teenage love, JD, whose presence threatens to destroy her future with Theodore and expose secrets that she has concealed for a long time.

Emotional scenes reveal key events from Maxine’s childhood and turbulent teenage years, when she felt unwanted. These early experiences contributed to her decision to settle down with Theodore before she’d properly dealt with her past, but grown-up Maxine sometimes still feels unworthy. The novel also includes Maxine’s articles about her family life, upcoming wedding plans and relationship with Theodore, adding another layer of context to Maxine’s life as the drama unfolds.

With help from her community, Maxine learns that by confronting her tangled past, she can face her future and discover her true self. Uplifting faith-based messages are included throughout, and the story’s easy pace allows time to take in each lesson.

Three heroines weather tremendously difficult circumstances, uncovering and navigating unsettling details about their families’ histories with admirable grace.
RomanceHistorical Romance

Highland Treasure

Review by Carole V. Bell

Lady Elysande de Valance finds love in the arms of a Highlander in Lynsay Sands’ suspenseful 14th-century romance, Highland Treasure.

Elysande is the intelligent and beloved daughter of a wealthy family loyal to King Edward III. Though she’s lived in England all her life, Elysande’s Scottish-born mother, Lady Mairghread de Valance, Baroness of Kynardersley, has long maintained close ties with friends and families in the land of her birth. So when unexpected political intrigue lands the family in grave danger, Elysande places her hope in the most trustworthy men she knows.

Rory Buchanan is a renowned healer and the seventh son of the illustrious Buchanan clan. Although he’s generally loathe to spend any time in England, he makes an exception to cure ailing British aristocrats. The extravagant pay funds the work he does back home and helps him build the independent fortune he will need to secure his own way in the world as a younger son. When trouble strikes Elysande’s family, he has just finished treating an English baron and is well positioned to assist. Along with his brother Alick and several of their men from home, he commits to getting Lady Elysande and the critical cargo she carries to her Scottish kin.

But the mission is not as simple as it sounds. Intrigue swirls around them. Betrayal stalks them. It’s not always clear who’s a friend and who’s a foe, and Lady Elysande has been beaten so badly that when she and Rory first meet, she’s being carried in the back of a cart and wearing a full veil to obscure the damage done to her face. While the brutality of what she’s been through is disturbing, it’s also crucial to the story Sands is telling. Much like the infamous Red Wedding or Bran being thrown from the tower in “Game of Thrones,” what happens at Kynardersley (the de Valence’s family seat) animates everything that comes after. Elysande’s condition complicates an already physically grueling journey, and for a long time, no one, including Rory, can see what she really looks like.

This also allows the connection between Elysande and Rory to grow in a unique way. They’re attracted to each other through conversation and collaboration. They forge a mutually respectful alliance and, eventually, a strong emotional connection without the barrier or benefit of her looks. Elysande may start out as a damsel in distress, but she inspires admiration rather than pity from those around her. That said, some readers may be uncomfortable with how Elysande is fairly explicitly framed as “not like other girls,” and with the fact that her trauma is repeatedly referenced and discussed. Overall, though, Highland Treasure is a page-turning, propulsive and, at times, bloody historical romance.

Lady Elysande de Valance finds love in the arms of a Highlander in Lynsay Sands’ suspenseful 14th-century romance, Highland Treasure.

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.

RomanceHistorical Romance

The Heiress Gets a Duke

Review by Amanda Diehl

Sparks fly between an American woman and a charming British aristocrat when they’re thrown together by their parents’ plan for an advantageous marriage in Harper St. George’s The Heiress Gets a Duke.

August Crenshaw has seen the way marriages of convenience have run roughshod over her close friends, hurting them mentally, emotionally and even physically. She finds passion in numbers, risk assessment and her family’s iron works company. A husband would undoubtedly detail her career ambitions. She vows to never offer herself up as her family’s sacrifice, but worries that her parents’ restraint from using their daughters as pawns is coming to an end.

Evan Sterling, Duke of Rothschild, becomes the manager of the Rothschild estate after a series of devastating tragedies. His staid older brother dies suddenly, followed by his father, and the family’s financial situation is revealed to be truly dire. Evan and his mother realize that the quickest way to gain a fortune, especially as Evan’s twin sisters are set to debut the following year, is to marry. An American heiress will bring new money and steady income. Meanwhile, marrying a duke lends a sense of social capital to those who feel like longstanding institutions have been closed to them.

At first, it isn’t August on the chopping block, but her sweet younger sister, Violet, despite Violet having her own aspirations of becoming a writer and the interest of a man back in America. To protect her sister, August volunteers to take her place, much to the surprise and uncertainty of the meddling parents.

Wry, tenacious August isn’t exactly a friendly woman, but she is a memorable and well-crafted heroine. Prickly at best, she’s practical and often blunt with her words as she tries to get her family’s business taken more seriously. By contrast, Evan’s caring relationship with his mother is a cornerstone of his character (and provides some of the book’s best scenes). It’s lovely to see a mutually respectful and close relationship between a historical romance hero and his mother. And as a bonus, Evan moonlights as a prizefighter who fights shirtless and in tight breeches.

The Heiress Gets a Duke stands out from the crowded field of historical romance by combining old and new. St. George clearly has an appreciation for the genre, as the novel is reminiscent of historical classics that longtime romance readers have grown up with, but there are also meta moments of brilliance, as when August remarks on the amount of dukes available in England or the corniness of mysterious nicknames that just seem silly when said aloud.

Fun, tender and definitely sexy, The Heiress Gets a Duke is already at the top of my list for the best books of the year. Don’t sleep on this refreshing and feminist romance.

Sparks fly between an American woman and a charming British aristocrat when they’re thrown together by their parents’ plan for an advantageous marriage in Harper St. George’s The Heiress Gets a Duke.

RomanceContemporary Romance

Someday My Duke Will Come

Review by Carole V. Bell

In Christina Britton’s solidly crafted Regency romance, Someday My Duke Will Come, a fake engagement and close quarters spur friends to become the lovers they were meant to be. Quincy and Clara are two of a kind. Both are aristocratic underdogs: despite being the children of dukes, they grew up on the periphery of the noble circles to which they belong. And both harbor dark secrets and not quite fully healed childhood wounds that they think make them less than ideal partners. Plus, for different reasons, they’re both desperate to avoid the matchmaking machinations of nosy relatives.

Quincy is the brand new Duke of Reigate. As a boy, he revered and loved his father and was loved and adored in turn. But his mother always seemed to despise him, and he never understood why he felt so at odds with almost everyone in his family. At 14, with his father gone, he ran off to prevent his mother from consigning him to the Royal Navy. Having grown up as fourth in line to the dukedom, Quincy never thought he’d inherit. When he returns home for the first time in 14 years, he learns to never say never. Due to a series of unfortunate events, he’s the new Duke of Reigate and there’s no money left in the estate.

Lady Clara’s family is far warmer, but she’s a spinster and feels pressured by her Aunt Olivia to finally make a match lest she be permanently left on the shelf (unbeknownst to Aunt Olivia, this is Clara’s preferred life plan). Clara was just 9 years old when her mother died, and she all but traded her childhood to make sure her siblings, a younger brother and sister, felt secure. From then on, she watched them play and stood on the sidelines, more caretaker than sister to them both. Later, at 16, she went through a short rebellious period that ended in tragedy, plunging her into despair and making her believe that her past disqualified her from marrying the type of man that would otherwise be her match.

When an upcoming family wedding throws Lady Clara and the new Duke together, they both find themselves in need of a fake partner, and renew a warm friendship formed in Britton’s first Isle of Synne novel, A Good Duke Is Hard to Find. Quincy is warding off his mother’s ill-tempered demands that he marry to refill the coffers. As determined and disapproving as Lady Catherine de Bourgh scheming over Fitzwilliam Darcy’s future in Pride and Prejudice, the Duchess of Reigate has an intended wife picked out for the prodigal son she barely acknowledges—and it is not Lady Clara, his own desires be damned. The rather two-dimensional duchess is pushy and vicious, and her purpose is solely to act as the villain that propels the action forward, but it mostly works. When she ambushes Quincy with the match she’s chosen for him, Clara steps in as his fake fiancée, a claim that also conveniently wards off her aunt’s more generous but annoying matchmaking entreaties. More importantly, it throws them in close proximity even though they’d both sort of like to avoid the attraction they feel but haven’t acknowledged.

In addition to the fake engagement, the events of Someday My Duke Will Come revolve around Quincy’s bankrupt dukedom that needs saving and family secrets that need unraveling. Over the course of their arrangement, Clara and Quincy learn that the things they survived make them perfect partners for each other. This is a solid if not wholly original Regency romance between two likable underdogs who both deserve a happy ending.

In Christina Britton’s solidly crafted Regency romance, Someday My Duke Will Come, a fake engagement and close quarters spur friends to become the lovers they were meant to be.

RomanceHistorical Romance

The Ballad of Hattie Taylor

Review by Amanda Diehl

Susan Andersen’s latest release, The Ballad of Hattie Taylor, is a love letter to sweeping rural dramas like The Thorn Birds or Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House books that straddles the line between historical romance and historical fiction.

Hattie Taylor has always felt like an outsider in Mattawa, Oregon. But a few people make her feel welcomed and loved, chief among them being Jacob Murdock. At the age of 11, Hattie was taken in by Jake’s mother, Augusta, despite her son’s reservations. As years pass, Hattie keeps her crush on Jake a secret, watching as he gets married and then must endure the untimely deaths of his wife and child. But now Hattie is an adult, and she hopes to make her intentions known to Jake.

Jake’s feelings for Hattie are complicated. Not only is he 11 years her senior, but he’s always seen her as a surrogate sister to be protected and watched over. They’ve always been close, but now that closeness seems to be turning into something more, spurred on by the loneliness and grief he feels.

This is a romance for the patient reader. Andersen covers a robust span of time as she explores the integral life experiences of her main characters. (Please also exercise some caution; someone close to the Murdock family rapes Hattie, and her process of healing is integral to the plot.) Mattawa is a small town, but its sprawling emotional landscape, full of complexities and characters, is as engrossing as the best afternoon soap opera. Andersen’s detailed approach to crafting a sense of place shines, particularly as she depicts the passing of each season.

Hattie and Jake’s romance is slow, thoughtful and meandering. Both are figuring out their lives and their identities. How does Jake handle the new role of widower? How will Hattie learn the differences between love and infatuation? Most notably, Hattie’s journey includes the very frustrating realization that she lives in a world ruled by men, most of whom have no care for her own thoughts and feelings. The line between empowerment and disillusionment is a fine one, and Andersen’s acknowledgement of that difficulty makes Hattie’s story all the more memorable.

The Ballad of Hattie Taylor oozes nostalgia even as it vacillates from a lively, page-turning coming of age story, a tender romance that emphasizes care and patience, and a harrowing tale of one woman’s experiences on the American frontier. Hattie’s happy ending with Jake is hard won, but her infectious optimism will have readers with her every step of the way.

Susan Andersen’s latest release, The Ballad of Hattie Taylor, is a love letter to sweeping rural dramas like The Thorn Birds or Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House books that straddles the line between historical romance and historical fiction.

RomanceRomantic SuspenseParanormal Romance

All the Colors of Night

Review by Dolly R. Sickles

Jayne Ann Krentz is back with the second installment of her Fogg Lake trilogy, All the Colors of the Night. This smart, witty, fast-paced and thoroughly enjoyable romantic suspense novel has all of Krentz’s signature touches: gender equality, cooperative teamwork and an unexpected twist.

The small town of Fogg Lake, Washington, is secretly home to a cadre of interesting people who have paranormal abilities. North Chastain is a paranormal investigator who’s at risk of going “psi-blind,” which means that he would not only lose his job but also have to forge a new path in the normal world. But that won’t stop him from recovering a mysterious artifact that he believes sent his father, who was also on the relic’s trail, into a coma. To find the artifact, he partners up with Sierra Raines, who works as a middleman for buyers and sellers in the paranormal antiquities trade.

Sierra is no timid, naive woman. She understands the risks that come with going after a particularly sought-after object like the one North seeks, but she's brave and sticks with him when the danger begins to escalate. Sierra saves the day—several times—and North is mature enough to be grateful and intelligent enough to recognize her skills. Sierra’s strength does not diminish North’s; rather, it enhances it. Their partnership is refreshingly and unquestionably one of equals.

If you haven’t read the first book in the series, The Vanishing, don’t let that put you off. This easy-to-follow romantic suspense novel has a breathtaking pace, well-developed characters and great chemistry between its main couple.

Jayne Ann Krentz is back with the second installment of her Fogg Lake trilogy, All the Colors of the Night.

RomanceHistorical Romance

Ten Things I Hate About the Duke

Review by Amanda Diehl

Loretta Chase continues to prove her reputation as a queen of Regency romances with the second title in her Difficult Dukes series, Ten Things I Hate About the Duke. When a troublemaking duke and a plain-speaken heroine cross paths, again and again, sporting banter isn’t the only thing that starts to take shape between them.

The exploits of Lucius Beckingham, Duke of Ashmont, are known far and wide: There hasn’t been a spot of trouble he’s left alone or failed to wiggle out of, relatively unscathed. Surprisingly, he does have standards; besmirching a woman’s name is one thing he tries incredibly hard not to do. He’s a bit of a bull in a china shop, but a very charming bull at that.

Cassandra Pomfret has a notoriously sharp tongue and her frustrated father is running out of ways to temper her, well, temper. By tying Cassandra’s fate with her beloved sister’s marriage prospects, he hopes she’ll learn to think before she speaks. Her younger sister, Hyacinth, shan’t marry until she does. When one of Lucius’ scrapes threatens to ruin Cassandra’s reputation, he takes it upon himself to court and marry her, an action which she would never encourage if not for her concern for her sister’s prospects.

If you’re sensing similarities to The Taming of the Shrew and 10 Things I Hate About You, you’re not wrong! This is a rom-com lovers’ delight, complete with period clothing and sneaky flirting around the rules of propriety. Chase effortlessly weaves those allusions in without making the romance feel derivative.

Years earlier, Lucius was Cassandra’s childhood crush. She was hopelessly in love with him, but now all she feels is irritation, exasperation and . . . attraction. They show their growing love for one another differently and it’s utterly adorable; smitten doesn’t even begin to cover it. Bickering and banter is the ultimate foreplay between Cassandra and Lucius, and Chase builds tantalizing frustration in both the characters and readers. You will scream, “Just kiss already!” multiple times. Chase is a tease of the highest order, but always delivers satisfyingly.

There are tropes aplenty with something to delight even the most discerning of readers. Lucius is a bit of a himbo (a slang term for a handsome but not very bright man), a hapless golden retriever in a human body, who is earnest and open toward those he cares about. There’s a fake engagement of sorts, with Cassandra and Lucius forced into repeated proximity. And, as I mentioned before, it’s a retelling that taps into a story held near and dear to romance readers’ hearts.

Though this is the second book in a series, it stands fine on its own. If you’re new to Chase’s work, I encourage you to jump in with both feet. Ten Things I Hate About the Duke is magical, romantic and simply wonderful.

Loretta Chase continues to prove her reputation as a queen of Regency romances with the second title in her Difficult Dukes series, Ten Things I Hate About the Duke.

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