With This Kiss
All eyes in London’s most infamous gaming hell are fixed on the flame-haired beauty working the tables with the skill of a seasoned professional. Julia Prentisse commands attention wherever she goes, but tonight she’s not here for the admiring glances or the thrill of the game. She’s here for him—the man they now call “The Beast,” a rake-turned-recluse whose reputation precedes him and whose past is shrouded in mystery and tragedy 🎰
Julia has no interest in the other gamblers or the scandalous atmosphere of the club. Her focus is singular, her purpose clear. She manages to lure the Beast away from the crowded gaming hell to a deserted warehouse, where she makes him an offer so scandalous it would ruin her if anyone discovered it. Her proposal is simple but shocking: if he agrees to marry her and protect her from her dangerous uncle, she’ll help him capture the arsonist who destroyed his life and left him hideously scarred—physically and emotionally 🔥
It’s a devil’s bargain, a marriage of convenience built on mutual need rather than affection. Julia needs protection from a predatory relative who threatens her safety and freedom. The Beast needs justice—or perhaps revenge—against the person who reduced his world to ashes and turned him into a recluse shunned by society. Neither of them is looking for love, and both believe they can enter this arrangement with their hearts intact 💍
But proximity has a way of changing things. As Julia and the Beast work together to unmask the arsonist, they begin to see past each other’s carefully constructed defenses. Julia discovers that the man beneath the fearsome reputation is far more complex and worthy than society gives him credit for. And the Beast begins to realize that this beautiful, courageous woman might be offering him something far more valuable than revenge—if he’s brave enough to reach for it 🌹
What makes this special: Victoria Lynne crafts a classic Beauty and the Beast tale set against the glittering, dangerous world of Regency London’s gambling dens. The chemistry crackles, the stakes feel real, and the emotional journey from suspicion to trust to love is beautifully rendered. Perfect for fans of marriage-of-convenience tropes with genuine depth and Gothic atmosphere 👑
Demonic Indemnity
Tim Lovecraft has just achieved what should be impossible: he’s become the first human in 3,200 years to land a job in the Special Investigations Unit of Crimson Seal Insurance. His days of processing mundane claims for werewolf maulings and poltergeist home invasions are officially over. SIU handles the really scary stuff—supernatural identity theft (better known as demonic possession), exsanguinations both total and partial, zombification, and injuries or deaths caused by cursed artifacts of every imaginable variety. It’s the big leagues of supernatural insurance, and Tim’s just been called up 👹
Unfortunately, Tim’s personal life is about as chaotic as his new job. His boss is a literal demon with absolutely no respect for the company’s scent-free workplace policy—sulfur fumes are apparently a non-negotiable part of the demonic lifestyle. His brother is a lazy, unemployed vampire who refuses to move his coffin out of Tim’s already cramped apartment. His coworkers are a motley assortment of werewolves and ghouls who make normal office politics look positively civilized 🧛
Then there’s his mother, who won’t stop trying to set him up with psychics from her chain of spiritualist day spas. Because nothing says “perfect match” like a blind date with someone who can see your past lives and predict your embarrassing future. Tim just wants to keep his head down, solve his cases, and prove he deserves his spot in SIU. Is that really too much to ask? 🔮
Apparently, yes. Tim’s first big case immediately spirals out of control when he finds himself caught between a powerful cult attempting to resurrect an ancient entity and a demon mob boss who’s decided Tim needs to die. His odds of survival are dropping faster than his confidence, and he’s pretty sure his statistically expected mortality rate just spiked dramatically. Welcome to supernatural insurance—where the claims are terrifying and your life expectancy is negotiable ⚰️
Why this deserves your attention: Craig McLay delivers a hilariously original urban fantasy that treats the supernatural world with bureaucratic mundanity—insurance adjusting meets demons and vampires with pitch-perfect comedic timing. Think “Office Space” meets “Supernatural” with genuinely clever worldbuilding. Ideal for readers who love their fantasy funny, their protagonists relatable, and their supernatural creatures dealing with paperwork 😈
Fire on the Mountain (Climate Collapse Series Book 1)
Former Army Ranger Zander Hollis is three years into a seven-year murder sentence, and parole is finally within reach. But someone powerful is desperately working behind the scenes to make sure he stays locked up—someone who has more to lose than Zander knows. While building firebreaks to protect the prison from encroaching wildfires, Zander’s carefully controlled world is about to collide with someone even more damaged and dangerous than himself 🔥
Enter Willa: a fourteen-year-old orphan who lost everything to the same deadly wildfires that are now threatening the prison. She’s feisty, fiercely independent, and takes nonsense from absolutely no one. Fear isn’t part of her vocabulary—except when it comes to one thing she’ll never admit: connection. Trusting people got her hurt before, and she’s not about to make that mistake again. She’s built walls higher than the prison’s, and she plans to keep them that way 💪
When a flash burn suddenly isolates Zander and Willa together in the wilderness, they’re forced into an impossible alliance. A convicted murderer and a traumatized teenager, both running from their pasts, both convinced they’re better off alone. To survive the inferno closing in around them and the evil forces that put them in this situation, they’ll have to rely on each other. But trust is a luxury neither of them can afford 🌲
The wilderness is unforgiving, the fires are relentless, and someone wants them both dead. Zander’s Ranger training might keep them alive, but Willa’s stubborn refusal to follow orders could get them both killed. They’ll need to navigate not just the burning forest, but also the minefield of their own broken histories and defensive instincts. Because before they can survive nature and their enemies, they’ll have to survive each other 🏔️
What makes this a must-read: Saul Tanpepper crafts a pulse-pounding survival thriller with genuine emotional depth, exploring trauma, redemption, and the reluctant bonds formed in crisis. The wildfire setting feels viscerally real and urgent, while the unlikely partnership between Zander and Willa provides unexpected heart. Perfect for readers who want their thrillers smart, intense, and emotionally resonant—think wilderness survival meets damaged-people-healing story 🔥
Not Just The Help (Blurred Lines Romance Book 1)
She was hired for my daughter. Now I can’t function without her. I don’t do soft. I don’t do messy. And I sure as hell don’t fall for the help. But **Monique walks into my house like she owns the walls**—smiling like sunshine, cleaning up the wreckage Evelyn left behind. She’s not a nanny. She’s a goddamn disruption. Too warm. Too gentle. Too good with my daughter. And now she’s in my head. In my kitchen. In my bed—if I ever let myself take what I want. Janae Jones and Tyla Walker deliver forbidden romance with power dynamics, fake relationships, and a single dad who’s absolutely gone for the woman who works for him. 🔥I tell her she works for me. She tells me I’m not in charge of her heart. **We’re lying to the press. Faking a relationship to win custody.** Pretending I’m not obsessed with the way she says “Daddy” like she means more than just my title. The setup combines multiple romance tropes: boss/employee forbidden attraction, fake relationship for custody battle, single dad falling for the nanny, and the delicious tension of a man who “doesn’t do soft” meeting a woman who’s all warmth and sunshine. The custody battle adds genuine stakes beyond just romantic tension—he needs her help to keep his daughter, which means their fake relationship has real consequences. 💕
Jones and Walker write the kind of romance where the hero’s internal resistance (“I don’t fall for the help”) crumbles against the reality of Monique’s presence transforming his home and his heart. The “Daddy” reference adds playful heat while also emphasizing his role as a father—she’s good with his daughter, which makes her even more irresistible and more dangerous to his carefully controlled life. The Blurred Lines Romance series title is perfect for stories about relationships that cross professional boundaries and challenge carefully constructed walls. 💋
What makes this a steamy series launch: Jones and Walker deliver forbidden romance with boss/employee dynamics, fake relationship becoming real, and a single dad whose control issues meet their match. For readers who love multicultural romance, power dynamics that shift, and heroes who claim they don’t do messy relationships falling hard for women who disrupt everything, this launches the Blurred Lines series with heat and heart. He hired her for his daughter. She’s claiming his heart instead. 🌟
When young Henry Thorne is kidnapped and held prisoner in a remote farmhouse surrounded by miles of forest, he finds himself **connecting with a strange force living in the woods**—using that bond to wreak havoc against his captors. Unknown to the boy, however, is that this ancient being has its own reasons for wanting the interlopers gone—there is something hidden beneath the house, tucked away in the dark, damp root cellar… waiting for its return. Philip Fracassi delivers horror where a kidnapped child’s supernatural ally might be more dangerous than his human captors. 😱The premise is brilliantly twisted: kidnapped child forms bond with forest entity, uses that connection to punish his kidnappers, but the entity isn’t helping Henry out of altruism—it wants the humans gone so it can reclaim something hidden in the house. Fracassi sets up a scenario where readers initially root for Henry’s supernatural revenge against his captors, then slowly realize that the ancient being using Henry has its own agenda that may be far worse than simple kidnapping. The isolated farmhouse surrounded by forest creates perfect conditions for supernatural horror—no help available, nowhere to run, and the woods themselves are alive with something ancient and hungry. 🌲
The root cellar detail is perfectly ominous—what’s been hidden there? What’s waiting to return? Fracassi understands that the best horror comes from multiple layers of threat: the immediate danger (kidnappers), the seemingly helpful force (forest entity), and the deeper revelation (what’s in the root cellar). Henry’s youth makes him vulnerable but also more open to connecting with forces that adults would reject. The question becomes whether Henry will realize his supernatural ally is using him before it’s too late, or whether his desperation to escape will blind him to the larger danger he’s unleashing. 🏚️
What makes this chilling horror: Fracassi delivers supernatural horror where a kidnapped child’s connection to an ancient forest entity creates escalating terror. For readers who love horror with supernatural elements, isolated settings, and the realization that your savior might be worse than your captor, this offers mounting dread and the terrible knowledge that something is waiting in the root cellar. Henry thought the entity was helping him. He’s wrong. 💀
A man stands bewildered on a deserted beach on the Hebridean Isle of Harris. **He cannot remember who he is.** The only clue to his identity is a folded map of a path named the Coffin Road. He does not know where this search will take him. A detective from Lewis sits aboard a boat, filled with doubt. DS George Gunn knows that a bludgeoned corpse has been discovered on a remote rock twenty miles offshore. He does not know if he has what it takes to uncover how and why. A teenage girl lies in her Edinburgh bedroom, desperate to discover the truth about her scientist father’s suicide. Two years on, Karen Fleming still cannot accept that he would wilfully abandon her. She does not yet know his secret. Peter May weaves three separate narratives in the Scottish Hebrides, each mysterious, each converging toward terrible truth. 🏴May structures the mystery around three compelling unknowns: the amnesiac man on the beach searching for identity, the detective doubting himself while investigating a brutal murder on a remote rock, and the teenage girl refusing to accept her father’s suicide. The Coffin Road itself becomes a symbolic and literal path connecting these storylines—its ominous name suggesting death and secrets, while the actual path may hold clues to all three mysteries. The Scottish Hebrides setting provides isolation, beauty, and the kind of tight-knit communities where secrets fester for years. ⛰️
May excels at multiple-POV narratives where seemingly unrelated stories slowly reveal their connections. The amnesiac’s search for identity, the detective’s murder investigation, and Karen’s quest for truth about her father’s death will inevitably intersect, but May builds suspense by making readers piece together how they’re connected. The scientist father’s “secret” that Karen doesn’t yet know suggests his suicide may not have been what it appeared, while the bludgeoned corpse on a remote rock and the man with amnesia on a beach both point to violence and mysteries buried in the Hebrides landscape. 🌊
What makes this essential Scottish crime fiction: May delivers atmospheric mystery with Hebrides setting, multiple converging storylines, and secrets buried in tight-knit island communities. For readers who love Scottish crime fiction, amnesia mysteries, and novels where past sins catch up with present, this offers both stunning landscape and dark revelations. Three people searching for truth. One terrible secret connecting them all. 🔍
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