Luke, book three in Con Riley’s Learning to Love series, is a beautiful and powerful second-chance, friends-to-lovers story full of the exactly the sort of emotional soul-searching and insight I’ve come to expect and enjoy from this author. As in the other books in the series, the glorious Cornish settings are vividly described and the…
I’m a sucker for hero-in-pursuit stories and I’ve been a fan of Samanthe Beck since she wrote for the Entangled Brazen line (which were some of the first steamier romances I read back in the mid 2010s). I read and enjoyed the first in the Captivity Alaska series so I’d been waiting for another book…
In this lovely, Sweden-set short story, Jolie Flynn returns to the island of Öland for her aunt’s funeral and to take care of her estate. In the airport, she encounters her first love, Mattias, now a father of five, who remembers her aunt and comes to Öland to stay next door to Jolie. Their second-chance…
How to Wed a Courtesan is a touching story about grown-ups searching for a second chance at love. It left me with a lump in my throat, and tears of both sorrow and joy in my eyes. It’s a rare book, one not to be missed. Charlotte – Lottie – Rossington was once a shy…
The Girl with Stars in Her Eyes is a contemporary romance about a young Black woman making her way through the music industry, and her reconnection with her childhood sweetheart. Antonia – Toni – Bennette has no interest in super-stardom, or, really, any level of fame. She grew up with a mother obsessed with the…
Priscilla Oliveras’ charming Keys to Love series continues with the story of Luis’ sister, Anamaría. While this book is a little less heart-pounding than the previous volume (thanks to an occasionally annoying hero), there’s still enough romance and cozy family drama to earn a recommendation from me. Anamaría Novaro is anchored down in Key West,…
I saw Any Rogue Will Do on a “Best of 2020” list and picked it up right away. I’m so glad I did! This début novel by Bethany Bennett has everything regency fans love – wit, drama, loveable characters, steam, and romance all in an entertaining story. Lady Charlotte Wentworth’s first London Season seven years…
I loved everything about Mimi Matthew’s Gentleman Jim – the set-up, the principal characters, the pacing and tension, the swoony, second chance romance (le sigh) – and I was prepared to give it a DIK. But then I read the epilogue. Oh dear. Ms. Matthews makes casual reference to the happy ever after of a…
Reading Restored was like a balm to the soul. It’s a beautiful – and beautifully written – story of love, forgiveness and second chances that I practically inhaled and which left me with a warm glow and a book hangover of the best kind. It’s book five in the author’s Enlightenment series, but it’s not…
Mimi Matthews’ Gentleman Jim reminds one of a mid-Regency The Count of Monte Cristo, featuring as it does a poor sailor’s son who assumes a fresh identity and seeks romance with the woman he’s always loved after being unjustly accused of a crime. It’s a fairly engrossing ripper of a tale, and Matthews, as always,…