The Perfect Crimes of Marian Hayes
RECOMMENDED: The Perfect Crimes of Marian Hayes by Cat Sebastian is $1.99! Carrie gave it a B+:
This book succeeds in that it gives an irresistible couple in sweet, goofy Rob and grumpy Marian. I adored this couple for their ability to think outside the box, their easy and complete acceptance of each other, and their banter.
Cat Sebastian returns to Georgian London with a stunning tale of a reluctant criminal and the thief who cannot help but love her.
Marian Hayes, the Duchess of Clare, just shot her husband. Of course, the evil, murderous man deserved what was coming to him, but now she must flee to the countryside. Unfortunately, the only person she can ask for help is the charismatic criminal who is blackmailing her—and who she may have left tied up a few hours before…
A highwayman, con artist, and all-around cheerful villain, Rob Brooks is no stranger to the wrong side of the law or the right side of anybody’s bed. He never meant to fall for the woman whose secrets he promised to keep for the low price of five hundred pounds, but how could he resist someone who led him on a merry chase all over London, left him tied up in a seedy inn, and then arrived covered in her husband’s blood and in desperate need of his help?
As they flee across the country—stopping to pick pockets, drink to excess, and rescue invalid cats—they discover more true joy and peace than either has felt in ages. But when the truth of Rob’s past catches up to him, they must decide if they are willing to reshape their lives in order to forge a future together.
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Dream Girl Drama
Dream Girl Drama by Tessa Bailey is $1.99! This is book three in the Big Shots series, which are sports romances. I believe Elyse has enjoyed these!
A steamy chance encounter between a professional hockey player and the manic pixie dream girl he just can’t seem to forget takes a turn when the pair realize that their parents are engaged—in an all-new rom-com by #1 New York Times bestselling author Tessa Bailey.
When professional hockey player Sig Gauthier’s car breaks down and his phone dies, he treks into a posh private country club to call a tow truck, where he encounters the alluring Chloe Clifford, the manic pixie dream girl who captivates him immediately with her sense of adventure and penchant for stealing champagne.
Sparks fly during a moonlight kiss and the enamored pair can’t wait to see each other again, but when Sig finally arrives to meet his dad’s new girlfriend over dinner, Chloe is confusingly also there. Turns out the girlfriend is Chloe’s mother. Oh, and they’re engaged.
Sig’s dream girl is his future stepsister.
Though the pair is now wary of being involved romantically, Chloe, a sheltered harp prodigy, yearns to escape her controlling mother. Sig promises to teach her the ins and outs of independence in Boston—but not inside his bedroom. They both know there can never be more than friendship between a famous hockey player and his high-society, soon-to-be stepsister. But keeping their relationship platonic grows harder amid the developing family drama, especially knowing they were meant for so much more…
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Once Smitten, Twice Shy
Once Smitten, Twice Shy by Chloe Liese is $1.99! This is book three in The Wilmot Sisters series. The description mentions it’s a retelling of Twelfth Night.
Star-crossed lovers learn that practicing romance leads to the perfect happy ending in this steamy reimagining of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night.
Since heartbreak entered the scene, Juliet Wilmot, once a hopeless romantic, has sworn off love. But when she’s presented with the chance to revisit romance—purely for practice—with the gorgeous, off-limits guy she keeps serendipitously running into, it feels like a sign from the universe.
Quiet, shy Will Orsino knows happily-ever-after isn’t on his horizon. Problem is, for the sake of the family business, marriage is. Resigned to the inevitable, but with no confidence he can woo a wife, he can hardly say no when fate hands him the alluring, unattainable woman he keeps crossing paths with, offering to help him learn the ropes of romance.
Neither of them looking for love, Jules and Will agree they’re the perfect pair to practice romance. Except that practicing to perfection leads to an irresistible attraction. Their once smitten hearts, though still twice shy, might have happily-ever-after written in the stars for them, after all.
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Give Me Butterflies
Give Me Butterflies by Jillian Meadows $1.99! This is a contemporary romance and the first book in a series. I also really like this cover!
A swoony, steamy, STEM romance in which two curators at a science museum—a handsome but grumpy astronomer and an anxious but sunshine-y entomologist—realize they are the perfect match. Equal parts nerdy banter and fiery tension, it’s perfect for fans of Ali Hazelwood and Tessa Bailey.
Millie was never one to take the expected path. She’s an entomologist who loves her job as a natural science curator, inspiring museum visitors every day. It’s her dream to take a larger role in the planning of her department, so when a director position opens up, she is determined not to let anything distract her from her goals. Especially her grumpy coworker with his permanent scowl, electric blue eyes, and nerdy astronomy ties.
. . . Not that she’s spent much time noticing any of those things.
Finn doesn’t mean to glare at everyone, but he’s juggling his role at the museum, navigating the grief of losing his sister, attempting to make his nieces smile, and trying not to ruin dinner for the fifth night in a row. He can’t afford to let anything slip, and certainly doesn’t need anything more on his plate. Millie literally stumbling into him with her bright smile and sunny optimism, is the last thing he needs.
They want nothing to do with each other. But with Finn on the interview committee, avoidance is impossible. And Millie soon realizes it’s one thing when a job is on the line. It’s quite another when it’s her heart.
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A Morbid Taste for Bones
RECOMMENDED: A Morbid Taste for Bones by Ellis Peters is $3.99 at Amazon! This is book one in The Chronicles of Brother Cadfael series, which I remember Sarah enjoying. Here’s what she said:
This book and the next few books of the series got me through the scariest parts of early Quarantimes.
On an expedition to acquire a saint’s remains, Brother Cadfael instead finds intrigue and murder
It is 1137, and the ambitious head of Shrewsbury Abbey wishes to acquire the remains of Saint Winifred for the glory of his Benedictine order. Brother Cadfael is part of the expedition sent to the saint’s final resting place in Wales, where he finds the villagers divided over the Benedictines’ quest.
When the leading opponent to moving the grave is shot dead with a mysterious arrow, some believe Winifred herself delivered the blow. Brother Cadfael knows that an earthly hand did the killing. But he doesn’t know that his plan to root out a murderer may dig up a case of love and justice, where the waves of sin may be scandal—or his own ruin.
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Fuzz
Fuzz by Mary Roach is $2.99! I love Roach’s niche non-fiction titles where she focuses on one, sometimes quirky, topic. Roach’s Gulp is also part of today’s KDDs. Do you have a favorite Roach book?
What’s to be done about a jaywalking moose? A bear caught breaking and entering? A murderous tree? Three hundred years ago, animals that broke the law would be assigned legal representation and put on trial. The answers are best found not in jurisprudence but in science: the curious science of human-wildlife conflict, a discipline at the crossroads of human behavior and wildlife biology.
Roach tags along with animal-attack forensics investigators, human-elephant conflict specialists, bear managers, and “danger tree” faller blasters. Intrepid as ever, she travels from leopard-terrorized hamlets in the Indian Himalaya to St. Peter’s Square in the early hours before the pope arrives for Easter Mass, when vandal gulls swoop in to destroy the elaborate floral display. She taste-tests rat bait, learns how to install a vulture effigy, and gets mugged by a macaque.
Combining little-known forensic science and conservation genetics with a motley cast of laser scarecrows, langur impersonators, and trespassing squirrels, Roach reveals as much about humanity as about nature’s lawbreakers. When it comes to “problem” wildlife, she finds, humans are more often the problem—and the solution. Fascinating, witty, and humane, Fuzz offers hope for compassionate coexistence in our ever-expanding human habitat.
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Wildflowers
Wildflowers by Kylie Scott is 99c at Amazon! It’s available elsewhere, but not at the sale price. I feel like I need to read more of Scott’s romances. I’ve only read one or two, and they’re usually recommended. Might pick this one up for myself.
Don’t miss this heart pounding apocalyptic romance from New York Times bestselling author Kylie Scott!
There’s only one person Dean Wallace wants to save from the end of the world: the sunshine girl from across the street. She’s always smiling. Who knows, maybe she can teach him a thing or two about how to live? But saving her against her will is harder than he expected.
Astrid Hardy doesn’t know what to think when she wakes up in her hot neighbor’s basement. He says he wants to protect her from the deadly virus threatening to collapse society. But that sounds like paranoid conspiracy theory nonsense, and losing her sh*t seems like the correct response.
As they watch the downfall of the world play out online, hear approaching gunshots, and smell smoke from nearby burning buildings, it all starts to seem horribly realistic. With almost everyone they know dead, and law and order gone…how will they navigate this new world together?
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Suddenly You
Suddenly You by Lisa Kleypas is $1.99! I believe this is a standalone historical romance. Sarah reviewed this one in 2005 and gave it a C-:
But did I remember the plot? Not at all. Which is odd; usually I can remember a Kleypas plot. She’s one of my solid-B writers, an author whose books are usually replete with good dialogue and interesting plots or curious arrangements of characters (especially as pertains to social (in)equality).
She was unmarried, untouched and almost thirty, but novelist Amanda Briars wasn’t about to greet her next birthday without making love to a man. When he appeared at her door, she believed he was her gift to herself, hired for one night of passion. Unforgettably handsome, irresistibly virile, he tempted her in ways she never thought possible…but something stopped him from completely fulfilling her dream.
Jack Delvin’s determination to possess Amanda became greater when she discovered his true identity. But gently-bred Amanda craved respectability more than she admitted, while Jack, the cast-off son of a nobleman and London’s most notorious businessman, refused to live by society’s rules. Yet when fate conspired for them to marry, their worlds collided with a passionate force neither had expected…but both soon craved.
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Viscount in Love
Viscount in Love by Eloisa James is $1.99! This is book one in the Accidental Brides series, which I haven’t heard much about. This came out summer 2024.
Two eccentric orphans bring together a grumpy viscount and the free-spirited heroine who steals his heart in the first novel in Eloisa James’s new Accidental Brides series, in which haughty aristocrats find themselves married to the wrong women.
He wants a nanny, not a bride…
Suddenly guardian to twins, Viscount Dominic Kelbourne is luckily betrothed to a suitable lady—until she elopes. With no time to woo, Dominic decides to marry his fiancée’s unconventional sister. Torie isn’t perfect, but their kisses are so passionate that society thinks he’s actually chosen her.
She wants to marry for love…
Torie has never been able to make sense of words on a page, so she has turned her talents to art. She longs for a man who values her as she is… but marries for the sake of the twins. She doubts Dominic is capable of love, let alone respect, but as their heated debates turn into something more, Torie begins to imagine a life as a wife, not a nanny.
But when the arrogant viscount finds that his viscountess has stolen his heart, he’ll have to give all he has to win her love.
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A Nobleman’s Guide to Seducing a Scoundrel
RECOMMENDED: A Nobleman’s Guide to Seducing a Scoundrel by KJ Charles is $1.99! Lara gave this one an A-:
For me, the best part of this book was the conversations between Luke and Rufus, both in the bedroom and outside of it. There was such a profound connection between the two, that it was easy for me to be swept away by it.
Major Rufus d’Aumesty has unexpectedly become the Earl of Oxney, master of a remote Norman manor on the edge of the infamous Romney Marsh. There he’s beset on all sides, his position contested both by his greedy uncle and by Luke Doomsday, son of a notorious smuggling clan.
The earl and the smuggler should be natural enemies, but cocksure, enragingly competent Luke is a trained secretary and expert schemer—exactly the sort of man Rufus needs by his side. Before long, Luke becomes an unexpected ally…and the lover Rufus had never hoped to find.
But Luke came to Stone Manor with an ulterior motive, one he’s desperate to keep hidden even from the lord he can’t resist. As the lies accumulate and family secrets threaten to destroy everything they hold dear, master and man find themselves forced to decide whose side they’re really on…and what they’re willing to do for love.
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Big Witch Energy
Big Witch Energy by Molly Harper is $1.99! This is book two in the Starfall Point series. It’s a small town paranormal romance with second chances.
From the wacky, fantastical brain of bestselling paranormal romance author Molly Harper comes a wickedly charming second chance at love between a sassy restaurant server-turned witch and the newest resident of Starfall Point, her high school sweetheart (now a sexy single dad). If only true love’s kiss could break this curse…
Caroline Wilton is dying to get off Starfall Point, but if she leaves, there’s a good chance she’ll literally die. For centuries, any Wilton who ventured off the island immediately perished in some freak accident. While Caroline has begrudgingly obeyed her family’s curse, she’s never forgiven all that it has cost her. After all, her high school sweetheart left for college and never came back. Until now.
Although Dr. Ben Hoult returned to take over the med clinic, in his heart, he came back for Caroline. Practical, sensible Ben was too stubborn to believe in her curse. But when his own two teenagers meddle their way into coven business, Ben’s eyes are opened to the world of magic. He quickly learns that Caroline and her friends have the power to see ghosts—like the angry woman in eighteen-century garb occupying her family’s tavern with a menacing glare—and boy, do they need managing.
As the witches dig through old spell books for insight, they discover the angry tavern ghost as one of the island’s most sinister legends—information that could be the key to breaking the Wilton curse and giving Caroline the life she’s always wanted with the man she’s always loved.
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32 Days in May
Return to the Jersey Shore with a new romance by Summertime Punchline author Betty Corrello in which a young woman recently diagnosed with lupus attempts a no-strings fling with a former television star, perfect for readers of Elissa Sussman or Tia Williams.
Nadia Fabiola wants to lose herself in Evergreen—the Jersey Shore town where she grew up vacationing with her family—and never look back at her glamorous, gainfully employed former self. After a shocking lupus diagnosis turned her life upside down, she’s desperate for a sense of control over her body, her life, and her mental health. Nadia plans on keeping her life small and boring, while continuing to ignore her sister’s relentless questioning.
Nadia’s sister isn’t the only person worried about her. When her rheumatologist not-so-subtly sets her up with his infamous former-actor cousin, Marco Antoniou, Nadia is skeptical. But Marco is gorgeous—despite carrying his own baggage from a very public burnout. After a messy (but fun) first date, they decide that a May-long fling could be just what the doctor no commitment, no strings, just one month of escape.
Their undeniable chemistry starts to feel a lot like something more and while Marco pulls Nadia deeper into his life, she is dead set on keeping her diagnosis from him. But there are only so many days in May, and only so much pretending she can do. As the stress of their whirlwind romance takes its toll on Nadia’s health, she’s forced to decide if a chance at love is worth the risk of trusting someone new.
Travel from the Jersey Shore to Rome and back in this delightfully funny, beautifully honest exploration of love, intimacy, and vulnerability while living with a chronic illness.
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How to Train Your Earl
How to Train Your Earl by Amelia Grey is $2.99! This is book three in the First Comes Love series and I believe this is closed door.
A roughish earl must fight using his honor and not his sword to win his lady’s hand in How To Train Your Earl, the third book in the First Comes Love trilogy from bestseller Amelia Grey.
Brina Feld has settled into a life devoted to helping others since the sinking of the Salty Dove left her widowed. She has no need for a man in her contented life. But when the notorious and handsome Lord Blacknight returns and awakens her desires, her peace and serenity vanish. If she agrees to an alliance with him, she knows she will have to battle her heart to keep from being snared under his spell.
Zane, the Earl of Blacknight, was never supposed to inherit the earldom, so he didn’t much care to lead a respectable life before then. Fistfights, card games, and drinking are the order of the day. Now he’s determined to change his rakish ways and he knows the proper lady who can help him. There’s just one problem: He’s already bet he’ll win her hand before the Season is over. With her resolve to out-scheme him, how can he show her that his love is true?
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Of Monsters and Mainframes
Of Monsters and Mainframes by Barbara Truelove is $2.99! I mentioned this one in Hide Your Wallet because I love an ensemble cast and I liked the cover. Were any of you also interested in this one?
Spaceships aren’t programmed to seek revenge—but for Dracula, Demeter will make an exception.
Demeter just wants to do her job: shuttling humans between Earth and Alpha Centauri. Unfortunately, her passengers keep dying—and not from equipment failures, as her AI medical system, Steward, would have her believe. These are paranormal murders, and they began when one nasty, ancient vampire decided to board Demeter and kill all her humans.
To keep from getting decommissioned, Demeter must join forces with her own team: A werewolf. An engineer built from the dead. A pharaoh with otherworldly powers. A vampire with a grudge. A fleet of cheerful spider drones. Together, this motley crew will face down the ultimate evil—Dracula.
The queer love child of pulp horror and classic sci-fi, Of Monsters and Mainframes is a dazzling, heartfelt odyssey that probes what it means to be one of society’s monsters—and explores the many types of friendship that make us human.
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A Certain Age
A Certain Age by Beatriz Williams is $1.99! This is a historical fiction novel set in New York’s Jazz Age. Readers loved the sense of place Williams created. It’s also a retelling of an opera, which is pretty cool! However, others found the story a bit underwhelming compared to the jacket copy.
The bestselling author of A Hundred Summers brings the Roaring Twenties brilliantly to life in this enchanting and compulsively readable tale of intrigue, romance, and scandal in New York Society, brimming with lush atmosphere, striking characters, and irresistible charm.
As the freedom of the Jazz Age transforms New York City, the iridescent Mrs. Theresa Marshall of Fifth Avenue and Southampton, Long Island, has done the unthinkable: she’s fallen in love with her young paramour, Captain Octavian Rofrano, a handsome aviator and hero of the Great War. An intense and deeply honorable man, Octavian is devoted to the beautiful socialite of a certain age and wants to marry her. While times are changing and she does adore the Boy, divorce for a woman of Theresa’s wealth and social standing is out of the question, and there is no need; she has an understanding with Sylvo, her generous and well-respected philanderer husband.
But their relationship subtly shifts when her bachelor brother, Ox, decides to tie the knot with the sweet younger daughter of a newly wealthy inventor. Engaging a longstanding family tradition, Theresa enlists the Boy to act as her brother’s cavalier, presenting the family’s diamond rose ring to Ox’s intended, Miss Sophie Fortescue—and to check into the background of the little-known Fortescue family. When Octavian meets Sophie, he falls under the spell of the pretty ingénue, even as he uncovers a shocking family secret. As the love triangle of Theresa, Octavian, and Sophie progresses, it transforms into a saga of divided loyalties, dangerous revelations, and surprising twists that will lead to a shocking transgression . . . and eventually force Theresa to make a bittersweet choice.
Full of the glamour, wit and delicious twists that are the hallmarks of Beatriz Williams’ fiction and alternating between Sophie’s spirited voice and Theresa’s vibrant timbre, A Certain Age is a beguiling reinterpretation of Richard Strauss’s comic opera Der Rosenkavalier, set against the sweeping decadence of Gatsby’s New York.
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Recipes for an Unexpected Afterlife
Recipes for an Unexpected Afterlife by Deston J. Munden is $2.99! I mentioned this on a previous Get Rec’d and thought it’d fit well if you’re currently reading lots of cozy fantasy with retiree plots.
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English (US) · 