Andie Carson didn’t exactly plan to inherit a Georgia coffee shop, a sobriety requirement, and a county fair jam competition as the price of her grandmother’s lottery winnings. She figured she’d knock out the three conditions, sell the shop, collect the money, and be back in Boston before anyone noticed she’d been gone. Simple enough. ☕

What she didn’t plan for was Officer Gunnar Wills, who took a hiatus from women after his nightmare of a breakup with his ex-fiancée and absolutely does not need the complication of a beautiful city girl blowing through his small town with zero intention of staying. Gunnar’s hesitant heart has other ideas, which is deeply inconvenient for everyone. 💙

The problem is that Gunnar has a stake in this beyond just his feelings — if Andie sells the coffee shop, Main Street loses its anchor to the big-box corporations that have been circling, and the quaint community he’s spent years trying to protect changes forever. Getting close enough to convince her to stay means risking exactly the heart he’s been carefully guarding. 🏡

Andie, meanwhile, is discovering that small-town life is considerably stickier than anticipated — and not just because of the jam. The more Gunnar makes Georgia feel like somewhere worth belonging, the harder it becomes to remember why Boston was the plan in the first place. 🍓

What makes this delightful: Cindy Dorminy’s romantic comedy follows Boston-bound Andie Carson inheriting her grandmother’s Georgia coffee shop with three conditions attached—sober up, run the shop for a month, and win the county fair jam competition—only to find Officer Gunnar Wills determined to change her mind about leaving, knowing that if the shop closes, his beloved Main Street goes with it, and that winning her over means gambling what’s left of his carefully guarded heart.

London has a new nightmare. Someone is attacking victims, blinding them, and releasing them back onto the streets — not killing them outright, but leaving them permanently, deliberately destroyed. It’s a particular kind of cruelty that tells Detective Erica Swift this isn’t random. Someone is making a point. 👁️

Erica and her team throw everything at the case, but the psychopath strikes again before they can close in. What began as a single horrifying incident is now a pattern, and patterns have momentum. The pressure on Erica is enormous — the kind that steals sleep, strains her young family, and demands she give everything she has even when there’s nothing left to give. 🔍

Then a chance encounter drags something from Erica’s past directly into the present. A horrific event she thought buried resurfaces with terrible timing, and the picture that emerges is darker than anyone anticipated: the killer isn’t just targeting victims at random. There’s a list. And Erica’s name may be on it. 🕵️

What makes this series opener so effective is the way M K Farrar builds dread methodically — the horror isn’t just in what the killer does but in how personal it becomes, collapsing the distance between hunter and hunted until Erica is no longer just solving the case but fighting for her own survival. 😨

What makes this gripping: M K Farrar’s detective thriller follows DI Erica Swift investigating a London psychopath blinding victims and releasing them onto the streets—but when a chance encounter drags a horrific event from Erica’s own past into the present, she discovers the killer has a specific agenda in mind, revenge is the motive, and the detective hunting the Eye Thief may herself be the next name on his list.

Former Blackhawk pilot Luke Angel didn’t ask for adventure — he traded it in for a seaplane business on the Florida coast, a well-trained dog, and a loyal crew to share margaritas with. After the career he had, easy was exactly what he wanted. Easy, of course, doesn’t last. ✈️

When a plane belonging to a friend vanishes from Luke’s airport, local detectives hit a wall immediately. The clues are scattered from the Keys to the far side of the Gulf of Mexico, and Luke has connections that no one else in this investigation can match. He’s the logical person to untangle it — which means wading back into waters he deliberately left behind. 🌊

The case rips open old family tensions and brings the woman he once loved back into the picture at exactly the wrong moment. Then his eleven-year-old niece gets pulled into the danger, and the calculation changes entirely. This is no longer about doing someone a favor. It’s about protecting the people he loves from people who would happily sink him to the bottom of the bay. 🐊

Nate Van Coops writes Florida atmosphere and aviation authenticity with the ease of someone who knows exactly what it feels like to push a seaplane to its limits — and the thriller mechanics are sharp enough to keep the pages turning long past when you planned to stop. 🎣

What makes this thrilling: Nate Van Coops’s aviation thriller follows ex-Blackhawk pilot Luke Angel whose peaceful Florida seaplane life ends when a friend’s plane vanishes and clues stretch from the Keys to the Gulf—the investigation rips open old family wounds, pulls in the woman he once loved, and drags his eleven-year-old niece into danger, forcing Luke back into the deadly world he thought he’d left for good.

She left for a weekend in Las Vegas and came back with a husband. Not just any husband — Gideon James, wealthy CEO of a Vegas casino and hotel, devastating in a suit, and Bourbon Canyon, Montana’s very own prodigal son, now returning to claim the land her brothers are in the middle of purchasing from his father. 💍

The math isn’t complicated. With her at his side, Gideon can stop the sale. She’s a small-town schoolteacher one step from cat lady status, and she knows exactly why a man like him chased her into that all-night chapel. She’s not clueless — she’s negotiating. If he wants her help selling this marriage, he’s going to have to give her something in return. A baby. Then they go their separate ways. Clean and simple. 🤠

Except nothing about sharing a roof with Gideon James turns out to be clean or simple. The longer they’re together, the harder it becomes to remember the relationship is supposed to be temporary. The end date on the contract starts feeling less like a finish line and more like a deadline she doesn’t want to reach. 🌄

Walker Rose writes Western romance with the kind of sharp wit and slow-burn tension that makes the inevitable feel genuinely earned rather than rushed — and the Bourbon Canyon setting gives the whole thing a rugged authenticity that sticks. 🥃

What makes this irresistible: Walker Rose’s Western romance follows a small-town Montana schoolteacher who returns from a Las Vegas weekend married to Gideon James—wealthy casino CEO and local prodigal son returning to claim land her brothers are buying—negotiating a deal where she’ll help him stop the sale in exchange for a baby before they go their separate ways, only to discover that fake marriages have a way of becoming much harder to walk away from than the contract intended.

Fitzwilliam Darcy arrives at Netherfield Park with a full complement of problems: a heartbroken cousin, a shattered sister, an overwhelmed best friend, and an overbearing social climber absolutely convinced she is his perfect match. What he does not arrive with is any intention of enjoying himself. Pride and Prejudice fans, prepare to have that plan thoroughly dismantled. 🎭

Elizabeth Bennet, whose sympathies have always extended generously to the disadvantaged and mistreated, takes one look at Fitzwilliam Darcy’s unfortunate situation and offers him her friendship and her humor. She has no designs on the man — she simply cannot help herself when someone clearly needs rescuing from their own circumstances. This is, naturally, where things get complicated. 💚

Jennifer Joy’s variation on Austen’s beloved story adds a troublesome Maltese puppy, some ill-advised mule cavorting, and a rival whose interference backfires with spectacular consistency — giving Darcy every possible opportunity to discover that becoming the gentleman Elizabeth believes him to be is both more challenging and more worthwhile than anything he’d previously attempted. 🐾

The result is a Pride and Prejudice variation that captures Austen’s wit while adding enough warmth and comic chaos to feel genuinely fresh — the kind of variation that reminds you why this story has been retold a thousand times and never gets old. 📖

What makes this charming: Jennifer Joy’s Pride and Prejudice variation follows a thoroughly burdened Darcy arriving at Netherfield with a heartbroken cousin, shattered sister, and relentless social climber in tow—only to find Elizabeth Bennet extending him friendship and humor out of pure sympathy, while a troublesome Maltese puppy and a rival whose tactics backfire at every turn conspire to show Darcy exactly the kind of gentleman he needs to become to win her heart.

In the shadow of the Great War, jobs for women are scarce and judgment is plentiful. When Miss Etta Lynne applies for a teaching position at a small-town high school to support her struggling family, she knows it won’t be easy. What she doesn’t know is how much trouble easy would have been by comparison. 📚

The teacher before her vanished without a trace. No explanation, no goodbye, no forwarding address — just an empty classroom and a town that doesn’t seem particularly eager to discuss what happened. Etta is stepping into a role that someone else stepped out of under circumstances nobody wants to explain, in a community where a woman working among men is already considered suspect enough. 🔍

Carolyn Finch sets her historical mystery in a world where discrimination is the weather — constant, expected, something you dress for — and Etta’s determination to persevere despite it gives the story a quiet backbone of steel. The mystery of the missing teacher deepens the further Etta digs, and the sinister secrets she uncovers suggest that whoever or whatever drove her predecessor away hasn’t finished with this school yet. 🕯️

For readers who love historical fiction with genuine period texture and a cozy mystery undercurrent, this series opener offers the rare combination of atmosphere, social commentary, and suspense wrapped in a deceptively gentle package. 🌿

What makes this absorbing: Carolyn Finch’s historical mystery follows Miss Etta Lynne taking a small-town teaching job in the shadow of the Great War to support her family, only to discover her predecessor vanished without explanation into circumstances the town refuses to discuss—navigating discrimination and sinister secrets while trying to uncover what happened to the teacher before her, and whether whatever drove that woman away is still lurking in the halls.

In 1940, as the Nazis swept through France and scores of famous artists and intellectuals fled the country, Henri Matisse made the opposite choice. Gravely ill, his 42-year marriage ended, and beset by artistic doubt after decades at the forefront of modern art, he took refuge in Nice with his companion Lydia Delectorskaya—and stayed. His defiant presence became a quiet act of inspiration for a nation under occupation. 🎨

While Matisse painted, the war closed in around his family from every direction. His son Jean engaged in Allied sabotage efforts. His estranged wife Amélie worked for the Communist underground in Nazi-occupied Paris. His beloved daughter Marguerite was arrested and tortured by the Gestapo, sentenced to Ravensbrück concentration camp—and miraculously escaped when Allied bombs halted her transport train. His younger son Pierre helped Jewish artists flee to New York. 🕊️

Amidst this extraordinary family drama, Matisse responded to the darkest days of occupation by inventing an entirely new artistic technique—the paper cut-out method that would produce some of his most iconic works, including The Fall of Icarus and his groundbreaking book Jazz. His wartime creations were acts of resistance themselves: subtly patriotic, daringly innovative, created in defiance of everything the occupation represented. ✂️

Christopher Gorham’s account reveals the full complexity of what it meant to remain in France during those years—the moral ambiguity, the extraordinary courage required of ordinary people, and how one of history’s greatest artists found his most revolutionary voice precisely when everything around him was falling apart. 🖼️

What makes this fascinating: Christopher Gorham’s WWII biography reveals Henri Matisse remaining in Nazi-occupied Nice while his family risked everything around him—son Jean sabotaging for the Allies, daughter Marguerite tortured by the Gestapo and escaping Ravensbrück, wife Amélie working the Communist underground—while Matisse himself invented the revolutionary paper cut-out technique producing his most iconic works as quiet acts of artistic resistance.

Louisiana, 1974. The last sultry summer before high school begins, and fourteen-year-old Margaret Thibodeaux’s world is already fragile enough without her daddy deciding to replace her mother. It’s been six years since her mama died mysteriously, and Margaret has been quietly holding onto her presence in every way she knows how—including the bedside visits she believes her mother still makes. 🌿

When her daddy asks hometown doctor Muriel to marry him, Margaret’s grief hardens into something uglier. Everyone around her is charmed by Muriel—her best friends Honey and Robert think she’s practically an angel—but Margaret sees only the erasure of everything her mama was and everything she left behind. She sets herself firmly against this intruder with the stubborn conviction only a grieving teenager can sustain. 💔

Then she visits her mama’s grave for the first time and finds a poem left there in handwriting that isn’t her daddy’s. The mystery of her mother’s death—always unsettled, never fully explained—suddenly becomes something she can’t leave alone. Who else was visiting that grave? What aren’t the adults telling her? 🌸

Her unlikely friendship with local recluse Jezebel, who shares spiritual gifts similar to Margaret’s own, begins unraveling assumptions she didn’t know she was holding. The truth about her mama, when it finally comes, arrives from across the veil in ways she never anticipated—forcing Margaret to confront her own grief, her judgment of others, and the shocking revelation that changes everything she thought she knew about her family. 👻

What makes this moving: Jo Taylor’s novel follows fourteen-year-old Margaret Thibodeaux in 1974 Louisiana resisting her daddy’s engagement to kind doctor Muriel six years after her mama’s mysterious death—but when she finds an unknown poem at her mama’s grave, friendship with spiritual recluse Jezebel helps her unravel assumptions and pursue a shocking revelation about her mother’s past that arrives from beyond the grave.

Cognitive behavioral therapy is one of the most clinically proven techniques for finding relief from depression and anxiety—and psychologist Dr. Seth Gillihan has spent fifteen years using it with real patients. This workbook distills that experience into a practical seven-week plan designed to be accessible to anyone, regardless of background or prior experience with therapy. 🧠

Each week builds deliberately on the previous one, moving through straightforward exercises that teach you to identify and understand your thought patterns, replace habits that aren’t serving you with more productive ones, set meaningful goals, face fears gradually rather than all at once, and manage the daily tasks that anxiety and depression make feel impossible. The progression is intentional—nothing gets skipped, nothing gets rushed. 📋

The approach works for both chronic and sporadic symptoms. Whether difficult feelings show up every day or arrive unpredictably, the techniques translate to real daily life rather than staying theoretical. Relatable examples throughout make the material accessible rather than clinical, so readers can see their own experiences reflected in what they’re learning. 💡

Dr. Gillihan’s fifteen years of clinical practice inform every page—this isn’t generic self-help repackaged as therapy, but structured CBT guidance from someone who has watched these specific techniques help real people change their relationship with their own minds. The result is a workbook that meets readers wherever they are and gives them concrete tools to move forward. 🌱

What makes this effective: Seth Gillihan PhD’s CBT workbook distills fifteen years of clinical practice into a structured seven-week plan for managing depression and anxiety—each week building on the previous through real-life exercises teaching readers to identify negative thought patterns, replace unproductive habits, set goals, and face fears gradually, with relatable examples making proven cognitive behavioral therapy techniques accessible to anyone regardless of background.

Two complete Maisie Dobbs mysteries in one bundle, set between the World Wars in a London still scarred by the Great War’s long shadow. Private investigator Maisie Dobbs is one of crime fiction’s most enduring creations—educated beyond her class, shaped by wartime trauma, and possessed of an uncanny intuitive intelligence that makes her unlike any other detective in the genre. 🔍

In Elegy for Eddie, Maisie takes on her most personal case yet—a twisting investigation into the brutal killing of a beloved street peddler that carries her from the working-class neighborhoods of her own childhood into London’s highest circles of power. The deeper she digs, the more dangerous the territory becomes, and the more the case forces her to confront who she is and where she came from. 🕵️

The second novel, Leaving Everything Most Loved, continues Maisie’s journey through interwar London with the same blend of intimate period detail, psychological depth, and intricate plotting that has made Jacqueline Winspear one of the most acclaimed names in historical mystery fiction. ⚖️

Both books work beautifully as an entry point for new readers while rewarding longtime fans with the deepening complexity of a character who grows richer with every investigation. Beautifully painted scenes and intimate historical detail make the London of this era feel immediate and completely alive. 🏙️

What makes this compelling: Jacqueline Winspear’s two-mystery bundle follows private investigator Maisie Dobbs through interwar London—in Elegy for Eddie she investigates a street peddler’s brutal killing that leads from her working-class roots into London’s most powerful circles, while Leaving Everything Most Loved continues her journey with the psychological depth, intricate plotting, and intimate period detail that have made Winspear one of historical mystery fiction’s most acclaimed writers.

Harper Calhoun has built her career keeping other people’s secrets. As personal confidant to Hollywood’s elite, she helps them make impossible decisions, navigate the pressures of fame, and manage everything they can’t let the public see. She’s very good at it. She’s even dating one of the biggest superstars in the business. 🎬

The problem is that Harper has secrets of her own, and the spotlight she’s spent years pointing at everyone else is starting to swing in her direction. The risk that the truth about who she really is will be exposed has gone from theoretical to very, very real, and she doesn’t have a playbook for this. She’s always been on the other side of this particular crisis. 🤫

So she does the only thing that makes sense: she packs up and disappears to a beach cottage in Florida that she’s recently inherited from a grateful client. A random stretch of coastline feels like the perfect place to escape the media microscope, figure out who she is without the carefully maintained persona, and decide how to move forward before everything unravels. 🌊

What she didn’t intend was to become a professional secret keeper—it just happened, one confidence at a time, until she was in too deep to walk away cleanly. Now the past she’s been protecting so carefully for so long is threatening to surface whether she’s ready or not. Hideaway Bay might be her last chance to get ahead of the story before someone else tells it for her. 🏖️

What makes this intriguing: Maggie Miller’s beachy women’s fiction follows Harper Calhoun, personal confidant to Hollywood’s elite who’s built her career keeping celebrities’ secrets, fleeing to an inherited Florida beach cottage when the spotlight turns on her own carefully hidden past—discovering that becoming a professional secret keeper wasn’t entirely a choice, and that Hideaway Bay might be her only chance to control her story before it controls her.