My deepest secret is his darkest temptation. And we’re both about to get consumed. 🖤
Seven years ago, I ran from my fate with nothing but the clothes on my back—from my enemies who wanted me dead, from my crimes that could never be forgiven, and from the mate I loved more than life itself but couldn’t drag into my nightmare. Leaving Rowan Forge was the only way to save him from what I’d become, to save everyone from the destruction I’d cause. Now the High Council of Vampires has dragged me back against my will to face the king I rejected and abandoned, his brother who despises me with justified fury, and my best friend who no longer trusts me with anything, not even the truth. 👑
With ancient enemies closing in on all sides and a blood feud threatening to ignite a deadly war that will consume both vampire clans, I’m forced into a political marriage with Rowan. Both of us are compelled to play the council’s dangerous game where one wrong move means death, pretending we’re in love when he can barely look at me without anger and grief warring in his eyes. The chemistry is still there—devastating, undeniable, dangerous. But chemistry isn’t enough when trust is shattered beyond repair. 💔
In a moment of weakness and desperation when everything is spiraling out of control, I make a reckless deal with a savage Elder vampire who terrifies even other vampires. Trading one nightmare for another seemed like the smart play. It wasn’t. Now I’m caught between the males I abandoned seven years ago who still haven’t forgiven me, and the vicious vampire who only wants to use me for his own dark purposes—Nikolai, my most treacherous enemy and somehow the one vampire dangerous enough to claim my heart despite every rational thought screaming to run. ⚡
As my deepest secret threatens to surface—the real reason I ran, the truth about what I did, the power I’ve been hiding that could destroy everything—I’m walking a razor’s edge between salvation and destruction. The Elders want to control me and use my abilities for their political games. The Council wants to weaponize me against their enemies. My former allies want me dead for my betrayal. And these four ruthless, fiercely possessive vampires? They want me in ways that terrify me because wanting them back means risking everything I’ve spent seven years protecting. 🔥
The complete series follows a woman caught between four dangerous vampires—her rejected king mate, his vengeful brother, her former best friend, and the savage elder who should be her enemy—as political intrigue, blood feuds, and forbidden romance collide in a world where one secret could end everything. 🌙
What makes this addictive: L.A. McGinnis delivers the complete Shadowsend Vampire Clan series featuring rejected mates, enemies to lovers, reverse harem dynamics, and a heroine whose secret is deadlier than anyone imagines—perfect for readers who love their vampire romance dark, possessive, and emotionally devastating.
Who would have known a filthy Christmas wish would have resulted in a dark-haired, raunchy Santa coming down my chimney and giving me exactly what I wished for? Certainly not me when I made that drunken wish on Christmas Eve. 🎅
He gave me everything I wanted that night, right down to the sparkly pearl necklace that definitely wasn’t the jewelry kind and the wild, crazy ride on his North Pole that has nothing to do with geography, but this sexy Santa has a dark secret that makes everything more complicated. For years he’s been watching me while I sleep in ways that should probably terrify me but instead make me feel desired in ways I’ve never experienced. And he knows exactly how much I can take, what I want before I know I want it, what boundaries I have and which ones I’m willing to cross for him. 🔥
I always thought Santa was about spreading joy at Christmas, cookies and milk and wholesome family values. But I couldn’t have been more wrong about this particular Santa. This filthy Santa prefers to spread something else entirely, and as long as he’s willing to give exactly what I’ve been craving, I’m more than happy to take everything he offers without question or hesitation. 💋
He pushes me to my limits in the best possible ways, fulfilling my wildest Christmas fantasies I didn’t even know I had until he showed up, but just how long can I do this before I break my own heart? Do I wish him back every Christmas and spend each year longing for a man I can’t truly have outside of one magical night, building my entire year around twenty-four hours of passion? Or is it time to finally let him go and watch him fly away on his big red sleigh once and for all, accepting that some fantasies are better left as fantasies? 🎄
Because here’s the thing about dark, mysterious men who only appear once a year: they’re perfect for exactly one night. But what happens when one night isn’t enough anymore? What happens when you start wanting him for more than just the fantasy? What happens when you realize Santa’s dark secret isn’t about surveillance or the North Pole—it’s that he wants to keep me just as much as I want to keep him? ⚡
And maybe the real question is: can I handle the truth about who he really is and why he’s been watching me all these years? Because once I know his secret, there’s no going back to innocent Christmas wishes and mall Santas. This Christmas might change everything. 🌟
What makes this scorching: Sheridan Anne delivers dark holiday romance that’s definitely not for the nice list, featuring a mysterious Santa with stalker tendencies, a heroine who’s into it, and Christmas magic that’s more naughty than nice—perfect for readers who like their holiday romance spicy, obsessive, and completely inappropriate.
Her thermostat was set to frosty, until her Christmas cowboy cranks up the heat. 🤠
Ashley Hughes would absolutely love to cancel Christmas this year if that were socially acceptable. Instead of making holiday plans and buying gifts and feeling festive, she’s back in her small Texas hometown planning her twin sister’s wedding—to her ex-boyfriend. Yes, that ex. The one she dated seriously. The one everyone thought she’d marry. Nothing like small town speculation and pitying looks to make her life cheery and bright during the most wonderful time of the year. 💔
No one believes that she’s actually over the groom, no matter how many times she insists she’s fine, truly fine, completely moved on. Until a certain cowboy secret crush steps in to be her plus one at every wedding event, making it look like she’s definitely not pining for her ex because she’s busy being wined and dined by someone infinitely better. Ashley’s tried desperately to friend zone Jennings since high school because she’s always known that kissing the casual charmer would lead to a love she’d never forget, never recover from, never be able to walk away from unscathed. Some risks you take. This one she’s avoided for a decade. 🔥
Jennings Hill would be the first to admit that his feelings for his ex-best friend Ashley are more likely to land him on the naughty list than the nice one. When he sees Ashley again at the first wedding event looking absolutely miserable while everyone whispers about her, he only wants to help her save face and stop the gossip. But then a rumor links them romantically—someone spots them leaving together, jumping to conclusions—and suddenly that’s when their lives get genuinely complicated in ways neither anticipated. ⚡
The more time they spend together as fake dates that feel increasingly real, the more Jennings worries she’s not actually over her ex, that he’s just a convenient shield against town gossip, that when the wedding is over she’ll go back to her life and forget him again. But Ashley starts wishing Jennings was her present wrapped under the Christmas tree, the gift she actually wants instead of the one she’s supposed to pretend to be happy about. 🎄
As wedding events pile up and their fake relationship develops real feelings neither can deny, Ashley must decide: is she using Jennings to prove she’s over her ex, or is he the reason she got over her ex in the first place? And can Jennings convince her that the casual charmer everyone thinks he is has been in love with her since high school, just waiting for his chance? 🌟
Here’s what you’re getting: Kadie Scott delivers small-town Christmas romance featuring a woman attending her ex’s wedding, the cowboy who becomes her fake date, and discovering that sometimes the best relationships start as elaborate pretend ones—perfect for readers who love holiday settings, second-chance crushes, and Texas charm.
NEW RELEASES
The true story of the first female captain of a merchant ship and her treacherous navigation of Antarctica’s deadly waters, from the New York Times bestselling author of The Widow Clicquot. ⚓
Summer, 1856. Nineteen-year-old Mary Ann Patten and her husband, Joshua, were young and ambitious with dreams bigger than New England could contain. Both from seafaring families, they had already completed their first clipper-ship voyage around the world with Joshua as captain—an accomplishment that would make most sailors retire happy. If they could win the race to San Francisco that year against rival clippers, their dream of building a farm and a family might finally be within reach. It would mean freedom from the sea, financial security, and the life they’d been working toward. 🌊
And the price of that freedom was one last dangerous transit—into the most treacherous waters in the world, where even experienced captains feared to sail. As their ship, Neptune’s Car, left New York Harbor and sailed down the jagged coast of South America, Joshua fell deathly ill and was confined to his bunk, delirious with fever. The treacherous first mate, confined to the brig for insubordination and actively agitating for mutiny among an increasingly nervous crew, was becoming more dangerous by the hour. 🚢
With no obvious option for a new captain and heartbroken about her husband’s condition, Mary Ann stepped into the breach and convinced the crew to support her as she took command—just as they slammed into a gale that would last 18 brutal days and test every skill she possessed. Determined to save the ship, the crew, and their future together, she faces down the deadly waters of Drake’s Passage, the graveyard of ships, where Antarctic storms can sink a vessel in minutes. ❄️
Set against the backdrop of the California Gold Rush and taking us to the brink of Antarctica, The Sea Captain’s Wife finally gives Mary Ann Patten—the first woman to command a merchant vessel as captain—her due. Mazzeo draws on new archival research from nineteenth-century women’s maritime journals and on her own expedition to the Southern Ocean and Antarctica in search of Mary Ann’s route. ⛵
What makes this essential: Tilar J. Mazzeo delivers thrilling maritime history about a nineteen-year-old woman who captained a ship through the world’s deadliest waters when everyone said it was impossible—essential reading for anyone who loves stories of extraordinary courage against impossible odds.
A tea leaf reader in nineteenth-century England falls in love—and in danger—with a reclusive alchemist in an enthralling historical fantasy by the author of Salt & Broom and Grimm Curiosities. ☕
Cornwall, 1854. The people of Roche have always whispered about the recluse in the black granite tower that looms above the moorland like a dark warning. But one young woman is driven to discover the truth behind the old tales, even if everyone thinks she’s mad for trying. Her life overshadowed by family tragedy that still haunts her years later, Mina Penrose escapes her lonely days by working at The Magpie, a cozy tearoom on the village’s edge where she reads fortunes in the leaves. 🍃
Lately she’s been seeing shapes in the sodden tea leaves that hint at the future—visions that are becoming increasingly specific and increasingly accurate. After one such omen shows her blood on the moors, Mina stumbles upon a murdered man on the heath exactly where the leaves predicted. Villagers immediately suspect Harker Tregarrick, a living, breathing mystery who never ventures beyond the bounds of his centuries-old estate and whose family has been associated with dark rumors for generations. 🏰
Until the day after the murder, when the handsome and compelling recluse visits The Magpie for the first time in living memory, leading to a meeting that will change both their fates. Captivated by a man around whom danger and rumors of death swirl like the morning mist on the moors, Mina has never felt more alive. He’s brilliant, damaged, and working on alchemical experiments that could change everything—or destroy them both. ⚗️
Can she uncover Harker’s heartbreaking history—the tragedy that made him a recluse, the secrets he’s been hiding in that tower, the truth about his connection to the murder—before tragedy strikes again? Because someone in Roche wants Harker blamed for crimes he didn’t commit. And they’ll kill anyone who gets too close to the truth, including a tea reader who’s starting to see more than just the future in those leaves. She’s seeing the past. And the past in Roche is deadly. 💀
Why this enchants: Sharon Lynn Fisher delivers atmospheric historical fantasy romance combining tea leaf reading, alchemy, murder mystery, and a reclusive hero with secrets worth dying for—perfect for fans of gothic romance with a touch of magic and genuine danger.
A hired killer finds herself caught between her conscience and her contract over the holidays in this riveting short thriller from New York Times bestselling author Lisa Unger. 🎄
A hit woman’s work doesn’t stop for the holidays, no matter how much she might wish for a normal Christmas like everyone else seems to have. As the advent calendar winds down and December 24th approaches, Paige slips into a palatial house on a job that should be routine, ignoring a blizzard of increasingly desperate texts from her ex-husband. No surprise there—Julian always gets maudlin and nostalgic this time of year, texting about Christmases past and the family they used to be. She’s got more pressing concerns. 🔫
The real shock comes when the target is not alone as intelligence promised. His young daughter is there too, asleep in the next room, completely unaware that a killer is standing in her house. Paige has rules—lines she won’t cross, principles that separate her from being a complete monster. And killing in front of children is at the top of that list. 💔
Risking the wrath of her organization—people who don’t take kindly to contractors who fail to complete assignments—Paige retreats. There are some lines that, for personal reasons buried deep in her past, she just won’t cross no matter what it costs her professionally. But when she returns on Christmas Eve to finish the job, having given the target enough time to send his daughter away, the girl is still there. She’s still in the house, still at risk. Along with someone even more startling. 😱
As the ghosts of her past gather in that house on Christmas Eve—memories of other Christmases, other choices, other lives she might have lived if things had gone differently—Paige must confront old traumas she’s been running from for years and outwit her increasingly impatient superiors to make it to Christmas morning alive. Because it turns out, some contracts have clauses you don’t read until it’s too late. ⚡
What makes this gripping: Lisa Unger delivers a taut holiday thriller about a hit woman forced to choose between her survival and her soul on Christmas Eve—perfect for readers who like their holiday stories dark, psychological, and impossible to put down.