Now, the most powerful male Vampire the world had ever known is back. Michael has awakened from a long sleep to find that everything has changed in ways he couldn’t have imagined—and not for the better. 🧛
The problem? The world went through an Apocalypse while he slumbered, and what little honor and justice that previously existed in society is gone, swept away in the chaos and violence of civilization’s collapse. The rules have changed, morality has become fluid, and the strong prey on the weak without consequence. Further, his love has left to the stars somewhere, fighting for those on Earth from orbit, leading battles Michael can’t even see, protecting a planet he barely recognizes. Bethany Anne is out there, and he made her a promise—a promise that drives everything he does now.
Now, Michael has to figure out where he is in this new, broken world, where he needs to go to be useful, help those who need help in a landscape where dangers lurk around every corner, and figure out how to follow in his love’s path when the distance between them is measured in miles of empty space. Because if there is one thing that Honor Demands, it is that he make good on his promise to Bethany Anne, no matter how long it takes or how many enemies stand in his way. ⚔️
Those feeding themselves on the backs of others, exploiting the desperate and the weak, building petty empires on suffering and fear, have very little time to realize an important fact before their reckoning arrives. This Dark Messiah has little compunction about killing when justice demands it, and he’s had centuries to perfect the art of righteous violence.
Michael’s journey through this Second Dark Age will take him across a devastated Earth, through warlord territories and survivor settlements, past those trying to rebuild and those trying to rule through terror. He’ll face threats both human and otherwise, encounter allies in unexpected places, and leave a trail of justice (and bodies) in his wake. The world may have fallen into darkness, but Michael intends to be the light—even if that light is sometimes a cleansing fire. 🔥
What makes this series essential: Anderle and Clarke deliver a complete vampire sci-fi saga that blends post-apocalyptic survival with space opera elements and a protagonist whose code of honor makes him both hero and antihero. Michael’s quest to keep his promise drives a sprawling story of justice, redemption, and kicking ass across a broken world.
When a copyeditor trades his red pen for a rolling pizza kitchen, he embarks on a tantalizing adventure, crafting his artisan pies in a charming Pennsylvania town where life was supposed to be simple, predictable, and most importantly, murder-free. After years of correcting other people’s grammar and living vicariously through manuscripts, he’s ready to create something tangible, delicious, and entirely his own. 🍕
But his hopes for a peaceful existence take an abrupt detour when a shocking discovery at the local cheese shop leaves his dear friend, a passionate local cheesemonger who taught him everything about selecting the perfect mozzarella, as the prime suspect in a murder investigation. The evidence looks damning—opportunity, motive, and a history of conflict with the victim—but our hero knows his friend couldn’t have done it. The man who waxes poetic about aged gouda and takes pride in supporting local dairy farmers isn’t capable of murder.
With his trusty five-pound Yorkshire Terrier companion, Romeo, by his side—providing moral support, occasionally stealing pizza toppings, and charming potential witnesses with his impossibly cute face—he’s determined to clear his friend’s name and must slice through the layers of deception to expose the true culprit. But investigating in a small town where everyone has secrets and grudges dating back generations proves more complicated than he expected. 🐕
The stakes are high, and time is running out as the evidence against his friend mounts and the real killer remains free, possibly planning their next move. Will they crack the case before the cunning killer strikes again? Or will they find themselves on the chopping block in this gripping tale of crime and cuisine, where the pizza might be hot but the murders are stone cold?
As he navigates the investigation while keeping his pizza truck business afloat, perfecting his signature pies, and dodging both suspicious townspeople and dangerous killers, he discovers that solving murder is a lot like making the perfect pizza—it’s all about the right combination of ingredients, timing, and a little bit of luck. 🔍
Why this series satisfies: Murphy creates a delightfully original cozy with a copyeditor-turned-pizza-chef protagonist whose attention to detail serves him well in both professions. The food truck setting adds mobility and culinary appeal, while Romeo the Yorkie provides comic relief and cuteness factor.
When Liam’s Christmas plans are upended by family drama and last-minute cancellations, he decides to take his mom’s advice and plan a friends’ getaway at the family cabin in the mountains. It’s supposed to be a fun, low-pressure holiday with people he cares about, filled with hot chocolate, board games, and absolutely no romantic complications. 🎄
Liam’s loved his alpha best friend, Alex, ever since he presented as an omega years ago and understood what that pull, that magnetic attraction, actually meant. But he’d rather keep the other man in his life as a friend than scare him off as a lover and lose him completely. That doesn’t keep him from wanting to spend every possible second with him, breathing in his scent, watching the way he moves, imagining scenarios that will never happen. So he invites the alpha to help plan the getaway at the cabin, telling himself he can handle the torture of proximity.
Alex has loved his best friend Liam for years, but kept his attraction to the beautiful omega to himself, terrified of ruining their friendship and watching Liam walk away. He’s seen too many friendships destroyed by unwanted romantic advances, and he values what they have too much to risk it. ❤️
Alex would like nothing more than to claim and breed his best friend, to give in to every instinct screaming at him when they’re together, but doesn’t want to risk losing the omega if the interest isn’t mutual. So he hides his feelings behind casual friendship and tries not to stare too long. But that doesn’t stop him from jumping at the opportunity to spend several days with the other man at the secluded mountain cabin, even knowing it will be sweet torture.
Arriving several days ahead of the rest of the group to prepare the cabin and stock supplies, Liam and Alex set about readying the space for the holiday getaway, working side by side in the intimate setting, their hands accidentally brushing, their eyes meeting and holding a beat too long. But a surprise heat in the middle of a snowstorm—triggered by the stress, the proximity, and the omega’s body finally deciding to make its desires known—means they are forced to confront their emotions and their biology. 🔥
Do they dare admit their mutual attraction and risk everything they’ve built? Or do they attempt to fight their instincts, endure the heat without giving in, and pretend nothing’s changed when the snow finally melts?
What makes this irresistible: Daize delivers all the best omegaverse tropes—best friends to lovers, mutual pining, forced proximity, and heat-driven urgency—while keeping the emotional journey authentic. The mountain cabin setting adds cozy holiday appeal to the spicy romance.
Ever After
If you’re given another chance at love, shouldn’t you take it? 💕
Enya’s life has become small. Her husband’s death has left her bereft, hollowed out by grief that hasn’t lessened even after three years of going through the motions. Though she’s only in her early fifties—still young by any reasonable measure—she’s happiest looking after her son, Aiden, his childhood sweetheart, Holly, and her beloved cat, Pickle. She’s created a safe, predictable routine that requires nothing of her heart, and that’s exactly how she wants it.
So the spark she feels for the stranger who bumps into her car in the airport car park is a complete shock—an unwelcome jolt to the carefully numbed existence she’s built. It’s just a minor fender bender, barely a scratch, but when their eyes meet through the windshield, something shifts. But Enya can’t stop thinking about him, replaying the moment, wondering about the life she glimpsed in his eyes. 🚗
Then, when Aiden makes a life-changing decision that nobody saw coming—one that will alter the trajectory of everyone’s future—Enya suddenly finds her close-knit community thrown into chaos. Her best friend, Jenny, isn’t speaking to her, blaming Enya for not stopping Aiden somehow. Aiden’s future hangs in the balance as he faces consequences he didn’t anticipate. Holly is devastated, their long-planned future together crumbling before her eyes. And the stranger from the car park is suddenly in her life, appearing at moments when she least expects it but perhaps most needs it.
Torn between family obligations, the possibility of new love, and loyalty to the memory of her late husband, Enya faces a dilemma that’s tearing her apart: stay safely where she is, in the small, manageable life where grief is familiar and nothing can hurt her again, or take a leap into the unknown where joy might be possible but so is heartbreak. 💔
Because maybe her happily-ever-after could have one more chapter yet—if she’s brave enough to turn the page. But choosing happiness feels like a betrayal of the life she had, and Enya isn’t sure she deserves a second chance when so many people need her to stay exactly where she is.
Why this touches the heart: Prowse writes with uncommon sensitivity about middle-aged grief, second chances, and the courage it takes to risk your heart again after loss. Enya’s journey from numbness to possibility feels authentic and earned, never rushing past the pain but not wallowing in it either.
On a quiet evening like any other, as families sit down to dinner and commuters head home from work, virtually anything that uses fuel goes up in flames—cars explode on highways, planes drop from the sky like burning meteors, heating systems ignite inside homes. The catastrophe is instantaneous, global, and utterly inexplicable, killing billions in the first twenty-four hours alone. Remnants of governments reel as they try to deal with the destruction of their countries and decimation of their military infrastructure as their cities burn to the ground. 🔥
On a quiet beach in South Florida, Alice Burton and her two children have started the family vacation early—enjoying the sand and surf, building sandcastles, soaking up the sun. All that’s left is for James to fly in from a conference in Colorado, and their week of relaxation can truly begin. When the small beach town they’re staying in is consumed by fire as every vehicle and generator simultaneously combusts, they’re forced to seek help on foot—facing dangers both natural and manmade at every turn as society collapses around them. ✈️
Meanwhile, at the Denver International Airport, James Burton hides beneath an overpass as cars and planes erupt in flame around him, the massive terminals collapsing in walls of fire and twisted metal. His survival is not guaranteed, as a treacherous journey through the heart of Denver and beyond awaits him if he has any hope of reuniting with his family. Every mile will be a battle, every day a question of whether he’ll live to see the next sunrise.
Back home, on their small farm outside East Lansing, Michigan, Alice’s parents are house-sitting, enjoying the peace and quiet of their daughter’s rural property. They’re about to experience the most intense test of their survival and homesteading skills that they could ever imagine as they realize that their off-grid lifestyle and years of preparedness might be the only thing standing between them and starvation. 🏡
The family is separated by thousands of miles, the infrastructure of civilization has been destroyed in an instant, and no one knows if rescue is ever coming. Each must survive in their own way, making impossible choices and facing unthinkable dangers, holding onto the hope that somehow, against all odds, they’ll find their way back to each other.
What makes this series unmissable: Kraus delivers a complete apocalyptic saga that focuses on one family’s desperate attempts to reunite across a destroyed America. The multiple POVs create tremendous tension as readers follow each family member’s parallel struggle, and the techno-thriller elements provide a chillingly plausible disaster scenario.
How big a lie would you tell to protect the ones you love? 🤫
From the million copy bestselling author of In a Single Moment comes a heart-twisting story of family, identity and the cost of truth that will keep you turning pages late into the night.
Bronte Ashton thought she knew everything about her mother Loretta—her love of gardening, her terrible singing voice, her unshakeable devotion to her children, her beloved home in Yorkshire where she’d lived for decades. Until a stranger appears at her funeral claiming to be Loretta’s long-lost sister, speaking with an Italian accent and insisting she has proof. But Loretta was an only child. Everyone knew that. It was family fact, established and unquestioned.
Grief turns to confusion, then a desire to find out the truth that becomes almost obsessive. Because while her siblings dismiss the woman as an impostor, someone trying to claim inheritance or cause trouble, Bronte can’t ignore the nagging feeling that maybe they didn’t know their mother at all. The woman knows details—small, specific things that shouldn’t be possible if she’s lying. 🔍
As Bronte journeys from Loretta’s beloved home in Yorkshire to the heat-soaked hillsides of Sicily, retracing a life her mother never spoke about, she uncovers more questions than answers with every discovery. Why did Loretta leave her old life behind so completely that she erased all evidence of it? What happened in Italy that was so terrible she never returned, never even mentioned it to her children? And what secret was worth erasing her entire past to protect?
But as Bronte edges closer to the truth, piecing together a history from old photographs, faded documents, and reluctant relatives who remember more than they’re willing to say, she realizes that some family secrets, once revealed, have the power to shatter not just the past, but everything she holds dear in the present. Learning who her mother really was might destroy the family Loretta worked so hard to protect. 💔
Why this resonates deeply: Clark expertly weaves a dual-timeline narrative that explores how the secrets we keep to protect our loved ones can become the very things that haunt them. The journey from Yorkshire to Sicily mirrors Bronte’s emotional journey from certainty to devastating understanding, and the reveals are both shocking and heartbreaking.
… See the rest of today ‘s Book Picks here on page 3Page 3