Coming Soon – The Romances We’re Most Looking Forward to Reading in October 2020
2020 may have turned out to be the Year from Hell, but the weeks and months seem to be passing as fast as ever and here we are at October, for those of us in the Northern Hemisphere, the time when the nights really start drawing in and the weather takes a definitely cooler term. Traditionally, it’s the time we all start thinking about curling up somewhere warm with a good book, whether it’s one that will give us the warm fuzzies, or one that will keep us biting our nails or on the edge of our seats – and as usual, the AAR team have been combing through the lists of upcoming releases to see which books WE think are the most likely to keep us enthralled over the coming weeks. Drop by in the comments to let us know what YOU’RE most looking forward to reading in October!
Spoiler Alert by Olivia Dade (6 Oct)
Olivia Dade is a new-to-me author, but the summary for this one caught my eye – Caz
A fanfic writer who becomes the subject of Internet hate because she dares to post her plus-size cosplay gets asked out by the actor who plays the hero IRL… and who is also, unbeknownst to her, a fanfic author himself. I have loved Olivia Dade in the past and expect great things here. – Caroline
There’s never been an unfun Olivia Dade book! – Lisa
I’ve been a fan of Olivia Dade since her Lovestruck Librarians series so I’ll pretty much read anything she puts out! – Maria Rose
Buy it at: Amazon/Indiebound
Mistletoe and Mr. Right by Sarah Morgenthaler (6 Oct)
Rich Lana is in town hunting her town’s cryptid (Santa Moose!) and her old crush, Rick, gets in the way – and becomes a big help – and much more! This sounds so cute. – Lisa
This is a new to me author and the story plot looks sweet and funny and I think we can all use some of that right now. – Maria Rose
Buy it at: Amazon/Indiebound
Murder on Cold Street by Sherry Thomas (6 Oct)
I’ve read this one and it’s another terrific instalment in the series… plus it delighted my shippy little heart ;)! – Caz
I love Sherry Thomas so very much, and am incredibly excited for her latest Lady Sherlock volume! – Lisa
Buy it at: Amazon/Indiebound
The Vicar and the Rake by Annabelle Greene (12 Oct)
I’m always in the market for a good second-chance romance; this one promises a bit of adventure mixed in with the love story as a duke seeks to evade assassination by hiding out in the country and is reunited with his former love. – Caz
A second chance historical romance between a vicar sworn to celibacy and his on-the-run, currently-feverish-and-in-need-of-nursing former love who happens to be a DUKE? It’s so nice to have an original premise pop up and this certainly seems like one. – Charlotte
I’m highly intrigued by the plot description! – Lisa
Buy it at: Amazon
The Secret One by Ruth Cardello (13 Oct)
Cardello has a DIK here for the first book in the Corisi Billionaires series (The Broken One), so I’m ready to give this series a try. – Caroline
I love Cardello’s Corisi Billionaires so very much. A one-click buy for me. – Lisa
Buy it at: Amazon/Indiebound
A Princess for Christmas by Jenny Holiday (13 Oct)
A Christmas romance about a princess and a single-dad NYC cabbie. The author has a strong track record, and I always enjoy cross-class romances where the heroine is the rich one. – Caroline
I adore Jenny Holiday’s romances so very much; a cinderfella romance where the guy goes from rags to romantic riches? Sounds like fun! – Lisa
Jenny Holiday is an auto-read author for me, and I’m ready to get into the holiday spirit!- Maria Rose
Buy it at: Amazon/Indiebound
Daughters of Jublilation by Kara Lee Corthron (13 Oct)
Described as a book for readers who loved Dread Nation (check), this YA historical fantasy set in the Jim Crow south (check) stars a young black woman coming into her magic ability (check) while juggling family obligations and a burgeoning relationship with her crush (so many checks!!!!) – Caroline
I’ve read this one for the site and it’s incredibly good, with an unforgettable heroine – Lisa
Buy it at: Amazon/Indiebound
Sweet on You by Carla de Guzman (19 Oct)
de Guzman is a member of the online #RomanceClass community of romance writers from the Philippines, and I haven’t had a dud out of this crew yet. I’m thrilled for her that she’s gotten picked up by Harlequin. This story about two bakery/cafe owners competing for customers at Christmas looks like a delight. – Caroline
A cozy enemies-to-lovers contemp? I’m all ears! – Lisa
Buy it at: Amazon/Indiebound
Snapped by Alexa Martin (20 Oct)
I’ve really enjoyed Martin’s series of romances about the women and wives connected to a football team. The latest sounds like a gem too! – Lisa
Ms. Martin writes books which capture all the magic, heartache, joy and frustration that one imagines falling in love with a professional football player would involve . It’s amazing how she takes this fantasy and turns it into something real and romantic. – Maggie
Alexa Martin has a great writing style and her rom-com sport romances have become favourites of mine, guaranteed to make me laugh and root for the couple’s HEA. – Maria Rose
Buy it at: Amazon/Indiebound
If the Boot Fits by Rebekah Weatherspoon (27 Oct)
The PA of a snobby star takes her Oscar tickets when she’s felled by the flu and falls in love (and bed) with a Hollywood megastar when they meet at an afterparty, but when she accidentally takes his Oscar when she flees the scene the following morning, he sets out in persuit of her. Sounds like a wonderful romp! – Lisa
I really like the synopsis of this story, set on a ranch and with a Cinderella fairy tale twist. I’ve read and enjoyed this author in the past so I’m hoping for good things! – Maria Rose
Buy it at: Amazon/Indiebound
In the Deep by Loreth Anne White (27 Oct)
I’m a big fan of Loreth Anne White’s and a new release from her is always going to make its way into my TBR pile. – Caz
I adore Loreth Anne White’s special blend of heart-stopping suspense and relatable, swoonworthy romance, so a new release from her is always something to celebrate. Her novels often make my top reads of any given year so saying I’m excited for this one would be a huge understatement. – Shannon
Buy it at: Amazon/Indiebound
We’re also looking forward to…
Caz:
They Told Me I Was Everything by Gregory Ashe (13 Oct)
ANOTHER new series from Gregory Ashe (honestly, does the man ever sleep?!) This is the first book in a series of four, and was actually released in serial format earlier this year, but I’ll be pleased to revisit it in a single volume. College student Auggie and English teacher Theo are thrown together when they end up being targeted by some very nasty people following the murder of another student. Set in and around Wahredua’s Wroxall College (which will be familiar to fans of the Hazard and Somerset series) this story is set a few years before Pretty Pretty Boys, and even includes a cameo appearance by Baby!Somers :)
Buy it at: Amazon
Stray Fears by Gregory Ashe (24 Oct)
Okay, so I think my brain imploded when I saw this at Amazon – another new release from Mr. Ashe this month? It sounds like a pretty dark, gritty story and something a little different to the other books of his I’ve read. But he hasn’t let me down yet, so I’m in.
Buy it at: Amazon
Feel the Fire by Annabeth Albert (26 Oct)
Book three in the Hotshots series, this is a second-chance romance between two guys who were high-school sweethearts until life got in the way. Full disclosure, I’ve read it and really liked it – it’s got a really ‘adult’ feel about it as the leads fall in love all over again, and work out if they can fit into each other’s lives..
Buy it at: Amazon/Indiebound
Bell, Book and Scandal by Josh Lanyon (31 Oct)
Rescheduled from earlier this year, book three in the Bedknobs and Broomsticks trilogy will, I hope, answer all those questions left unanswered in the previous instalments and bring Cosmo and John their well-deserved HEA.
Buy it at: Amazon
Charlotte:
In a Holidaze by Christina Lauren (6 Oct)
I haven’t read any specific-time-of-year romances before, but because it’s CLo, I’ll give it a shot. – Charlotte
Buy it at: Amazon/Indiebound
Lisa:
Happily Letter After by Vi Keeland and Penelope Ward
Advice Columnist plays matchmaker for a girl who writes in to match her single daddy. Très Sleepless in Seattle!
Buy it at: Amazon/Indiebound
Crazy Stupid Bromance by Lyssa Kay Adams (27 Oct)
Adams’ Bromance Book Club series continues, with a computer security expert falling for a cat cafe owner and trying to figure out how to woo her. Bromance Book Club to the rescue!
Buy it at: Amazon/Indiebound
My Last Duchess by Eloisa James (27 Oct)
A regency “Yours Mine and Ours” sees a widowed heroine with one daughter marry a duke with eight kids. Sounds charming!
Buy it at: Amazon/Indiebound
The Virgin who Ruined Lord Grey by Anna Bennett (28 Oct)
The heroine’s out committing some cloak-and-dagger derring do to save their friend from jail – and is part of a finishing school which is actually a cover for something much cooler. The hero’s a Bow Street Runner. Let the games begin.
Buy it at: Amazon/Indiebound
Maggie:
Invisible Girl by Lisa Jewell (13 Oct)
This author writes amazing, suspenseful, surprising mysteries. I strongly recommend her books to anyone who loves thrillers.- Maggie
Buy it at: Amazon/Indiebound
Maria Rose:
Simmer Down by Sarah Smith (13 Oct)
I like the idea of food truck rivals so I’m looking forward to this enemies to lovers type story, and also hoping for some delicious food descriptions!
Buy it at: Amazon/Indiebound
Shannon:
This Secret Thing by Marybeth Mayhew Whalen (1 Oct)
Marybeth Mayhew Whalen brings the American South to vivid life, never skimping on its complexities. Her stories are multi-faceted and filled with relatable characters, making her one of my favorite authors of general fiction. Needless to say, I was super excited to learn she had something new coming out, and I’ll be grabbing this one as soon as it becomes available.
Buy it at: Amazon/Indiebound
The Midnight Bargain by C.L. Polk (13 Oct)
I’m always on the lookout for well-written fantasy romances, and C.L. Polk has never let me down. This one is not part of her Kingston Cycle series, and while I’m sad not to be reunited with the characters from those books, I’m eager to get to know the new world she’s created.
Buy it at: Amazon/Indiebound
Reviving the Hawthorn Sisters by Emily Carpenter (20 Oct)
Gothic horror novels aren’t always what I’m in the mood for, but Emily Carpenter has managed to hook me in again and again. Her latest offering, Reviving the Hawthorn Sisters, looks like the perfect spooky fall read.
Ruby Dixon will publishing a new book in October “When She Dances” associated with her Corsairs line. Her IPB and Icehome books have been the fun book binge that has gotten me through the end of summer during this big bummer of a year.
Her books are quirky and funny and imaginative and as her series have progressed she has presented an impressively diverse group of heroines. For people who enjoy her humor and writing style her books are HIGHLY addictive and all available on Kindle Unlimited.
Oooh! Jo Goodman has a new book showing up at Amazon. It’s a contemporary (unusual for her), self-published, and at the moment only appears in Kindle format. Ramsey Rules. (Dabney please make sure my link to the book gives AAR its credit for the referral?)
So, looking at Gregory Ashe’s Amazon link, looks like yet another book is coming out tomorrow, The Same Breath. This is the first in a two book series. This really is the first time that an author releases books faster than I can read.
And he’s sent out a prequel short story to his mailing list today…………. I’m never going to have time to read that before The Same Breath downloads at midnight!
The Vicar and the Rake sounds intriguing but I think I’ll wait for some reviews.
I still haven’t read the first book in Sherry Thomas’ Lady Sherlock series. Maybe I’ll have another try as I’m more used to romance-over-a series now.
I read They Told Me I Was Everything when it was serialised and really enjoyed it but I’ll wait and see just how dark and gritty Stray Fears is before buying it.
I’ve also read Eloisa James’ My Last Duchess as that was released in installments to people who preordered the earlier books in her ongoing series. The H and h are the current Duke and Duchess in the series and he’s way more interesting than his sons!
Lily Morton is releasing a short story collection called Short Stack on 2nd October. I thought that it was just the stories that are on her website but it looks like there are four new ones. The stories feature the characters from the Mixed Messages and Finding Home series. Crossing fingers that the new stories are as ‘worth it’ as the new story was in Gregory Ashes’ last Hazard and Somerset short story colllection!
I’ve been doing all LM’s books in audio – mostly because I wasn’t aware of her when they first came out, and by the time I was, I was really behind… so when the books started to appear in audio, it was a godsend! So I might be waiting to pick up that collection until the Finding Home books are out in audio (as I haven’t had a chance to read them yet.) The summary for Stray Fears does make it sound a bit different – I’ll keep you posted!
All of LM’s Finding Home series is out in audio now – Gideon was the last one. It’s the Close Proximity series that isn’t yet in audio. I thought the last two of them were terrific (Charlie Sunshine and After Felix), but the first one (Best Man) was weaker.
I’m in the minority on not really enjoying A Study in Scarlet Women. It was fine, but didn’t interest me enough to continue the series. I thought there were some significant plot holes and I didn’t end up invested in the main characters. I liked the policeman best. With the huge popularity of the series, I keep thinking I should try again. I admit to wondering what about the book has resonated with so many. It might boil down to taste. I desperately want to join in my family’s avid love of sushi, but I’ve never been able to enjoy it myself! LOL!
I’ve tried to get into it a couple of times but not been gripped straight away so moved onto something else.
I’ve become much quicker to give up on books over the last few months.
I was kind of surprised that Eloisa James chose “My Last Duchess” for the title of her novel as all I can think of is the title of the Robert Browning poem where its strongly implied that the Duke is talking about how he killed his “last Duchess” for being too “flirty”.
The serialised version was actually called Wilde Denial. I’m not sure why the title was changed but I’m not familiar with the Browning poem so wouldn’t make the connection.
I thought the same thing about the title because the Browning poem is very dark. A hundred years ago, in my college Victorian lit class, we were reading “My Last Duchess” and the professor asked, “What does the line ‘I gave the order and soon all smiling stopped’ mean?” A fellow student responded, “The Duke told the Duchess to stop smiling and she did.”
If anyone is interested, here’s the poem. It’s one of Browning’s Dramatic Monologues and the narrator (the Duke) is a complete psychopath who had his wife murdered because she smiled at everyone in exactly the same way she smiled at him:
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43768/my-last-duchess
Um, I think it was a different order. I think it was more like an order to the executioner.
Eloisa James surely knew the poem- I think she’s an educator with a degree from Harvard and one from Yale isn’t she? I was wondering if the book had a mystery or murder element to it as I thought the title had to be a wink to the poem.
EJ is a Shakespeare professor at Fordham University so she would surely know the poem.
From memory, the story is a straightforward wooing/courtship – no mystery or murder.
In addition to next week’s RETURN BILLIONAIRE TO SENDER by Annika Martin and CROWNE RULES by CD Reiss (both scheduled for September 29), here are the books I’m looking forward to in October:
It wouldn’t be the start of the month without a couple of new HPs from my favorite authors: Caitlin Crews releases CHRISTMAS IN THE KING’S BED and Clare Connelly drops THEIR IMPOSSIBLE DESERT MATCH. Both obviously royal/sheikh romances.
Molly O’Keefe’s CHRISTMAS AT THE RIVERVIEW INN is a revisit to an earlier series, this time focusing on a younger character who works in the Inn’s kitchen.
I, too, am looking forward to Ruth Cardello’s THE SECRET ONE. I think this is a series that is best read in order because there’s a “big shocking secret” about the Corisi family and how they might be connected to the family of an arch-rival that has been running through the earlier books.
Despite how prolific she is, I only recently read my first Lauren Blakely (ONE NIGHT ONLY), but I enjoyed it so much, I’m eager to read the next book in the series, ONE EXQUISITE TOUCH, which appears to be a business-rivals-to-lovers romance featuring two MCs who own competing Vegas hotels.
Julie Kriss is one of Romancelandia’s most underrated writers, imho, so I’m looking forward to her MY FAKE CHRISTMAS FIANCÉ. Obviously a fake relationship trope, but Kriss has a way of individualizing each trope she tackles.
At the end of the month, the prolific Clare Connelly wraps up her Montebellos series with BEAUTIFULLY BROKEN, which appears to be a Beauty & the Beast retelling featuring the reclusive brother from a large Greek-Italian family. I expect plenty of angsty heartache in this one.
I feel like we get Christmas releases earlier and earlier ever year! I’m looking out for the Crews and O’Keefe.
But I did love MY CHRISTMAS NUMBER ONE—which I never would have looked at twice without the rave review I read here.
The Vicar and the Rake has been on my TBR list since I found out about it a couple of months ago. An in-the-closet M/M HR with a fugitive-forced proximity-hurt/comfort plotline? Sign me up! Although I am wondering how a Regency era duke is going to get away with a same sex HEA in an era when he would have been expected to produce an heir… Guess I’ll find out!
Or how the vicar avoids being defrocked in huge disgrace. This sounds interesting and I look forward to the review to see how this set-up is played out.
“Or how the vicar avoids being defrocked in huge disgrace.” That too.
I don’t know if you’ve read Cat Sebastian’s It Takes Two to Tumble, or some of her other m/m historicals, but she manages to create plausible HEAs within the confines and expectations of the genre.
One solution I could see to this “problem” would be an HR that explores lavender marriages/mixed-orientation marriages. But that might not go over too well with the average romance reader because it looks like infidelity. The Care and Feeding of Waspish Widows, an f/f HR, pleasantly surprised me by taking that route. One of the two heroines is married to a man who is away at sea with his male lover. Quite a welcome change from the old standby of a widow being a virgin because her gay husband conveniently died before the story!
I honestly wouldn’t mind seeing more mutually agreed upon “arrangements” of this nature as long as all the characters involved consented (i.e. they are “cheating” by design rather than sneaking around behind each other’s backs). And considering how many marriages of convenience existed in real life, this solution would feel a lot more believable than some of the handwaving I’ve seen in other queer HRs.
Without getting into too many spoilers, Two Rogues Make a Right (m/m) almost takes this approach, but then sort of chickens out for a more expected HEA. Don’t get me wrong. I loved the book and think the HEA was believable enough for the time period, but I also think it had some missed potential in that regard.
I would also recommend Megan Mulry’s Regency Reimagined series, particularly BOUND WITH HONOR, where both the hero and heroine have same-gender love interests.
Sally Malcolm’s Last Kiss (set post WW1) addresses the issue in a way that makes a lot of sense.
Ah, so there are HR books that take the route I hypothesized. Thanks for the example!
I admit to being more curious about the duke on the run from an assassin… as to the getting away wiht the same-sex HEA, you’ve read Cat Sebastian (and presumably KJ Charles?) so you’ll have seen that there are ways to achieve it – people just had to be more… creative.
Oh, there are definitely ways of getting… creative. That’s actually one of the aspects I enjoy about queer HR. There’s just something fun about seeing how the characters are going to make it work. But someone as high-ranking as a duke? That’s where things are going to get tricky, I think. The assassin aspect is a new angle I’d like to experience as a reader too. Let’s hope the author pulls everything off with aplomb!
I’m afraid you presume incorrectly about KJ Charles. I haven’t read one of hers yet. (Now, you can scold me.)
Sounds interesting! I recently read a M/F version of this where the Vicar was a male virgin and the “rake” equivalent was a female prostitute/Madam. And the author didn’t pull any punches, she wasn’t a fake courtesan.
A Duke however takes it to another level- but I am sure there were Dukes in long term M/M relationships. Sometimes the higher up the ladder you go there are more chances to break or circumvent the rules due to wealth and power.