Uh-oh. I’m in trouble. My new neighbor is the gorgeous guy I shared my first kiss with ten years ago—right before I broke his heart without explanation and fled town. If your boss ever asks you to run a bookstore in a charming small town for the holidays, you have the option of saying heck no. I wish I’d realized this earlier before agreeing enthusiastically, but it’s too late for me now. I’ve already arrived in Old Pine Cove, the one place on earth I swore I’d never return to after what happened with Alex. 📚
Thank goodness it’s only for the holidays, just a temporary assignment managing the bookstore before returning to my real life where I don’t have to face my past. Don’t get me wrong—managing a bookstore has been a lifelong dream of mine and I do love Christmas with all its decorations and traditions. The problem is Alex Denverton opening the door with that smoldering look of his that still makes my knees weak after a decade. I never expected to see him again after breaking his heart in the cruelest way possible, let alone live next door to the guy in close quarters where avoidance is impossible, yet here I am in this giant Christmas pickle. 🎄
Now all I want for Christmas is a second chance with him, to explain what really happened ten years ago and why I left so abruptly. Surely that isn’t too much to ask for, is it? Yeah, with my luck and Alex’s justified anger at how I treated him, I’m not getting my hopes up. Sophie-Leigh Robbins launches Old Pine Cove series with romantic comedy about second chances, bookstore management, and whether first love can survive a decade of unresolved heartbreak when forced proximity during the holidays makes avoiding the past impossible. ❄️
What makes this essential: A romantic comedy launching Old Pine Cove where managing a charming bookstore for the holidays sends her back to the one town she swore never to return—discovering gorgeous neighbor Alex Denverton is the guy whose heart she broke ten years ago with their first kiss, landing her in a giant Christmas pickle where all she wants is a second chance she’s not getting her hopes up for.
James, 12-year-old heir to the throne of Scotland, is in mortal danger from the moment his father King Robert III begins dying. His father, King Robert III, is dying slowly, and Robert’s half-brother, the Duke of Albany, is plotting to seize power through whatever means necessary including murdering inconvenient royal heirs. The duke has already murdered James’ older brother in a calculated assassination that removed the primary obstacle to Albany’s ambitions, and James will be next unless he can escape Scotland before Albany’s reach finds him. 👑
James escapes Scotland and the murderous duke through desperate flight, but his freedom is short-lived. Captured and imprisoned by the English who see value in holding Scotland’s legitimate heir hostage, he grows to be a man of contradictions during his years in the Tower of London: a poet yet a knight, a dreamer yet fiercely driven by the need to reclaim what was stolen. Hardened by his years in captivity and haunted by his brother’s brutal murder that he survived only through geographical luck, James is determined to regain his freedom and end the Duke of Albany’s misrule of Scotland. 🏴
But the only way to escape and reclaim his throne may be to betray Scotland and everything he believes in by making concessions to the English that will compromise Scottish independence. J. R. Tomlin launches The Stewart Chronicle with epic historical fiction examining the impossible choices facing a prince who must decide if regaining power is worth the moral compromises required, and whether the throne is worth having if you betrayed your principles to claim it. For fans of Bernard Cornwell’s *The Winter King* and thrilling political intrigue. ⚔️
What makes this essential: Historical Scottish fiction launching The Stewart Chronicle where 12-year-old heir James faces mortal danger from the Duke of Albany who murdered his older brother, escaping Scotland only to be captured and imprisoned by the English—growing into a poet-knight haunted by his brother’s murder, determined to end Albany’s misrule but potentially forced to betray Scotland itself to reclaim his throne.
One day can change a person’s life forever. Alissa anticipated a normal shift at Mass General Hospital—checking vitals, administering medications, dealing with the usual ER chaos of a busy Boston hospital on a weekday. Until the zombie outbreak spread through Boston like wildfire, turning what should have been routine medical emergencies into a nightmare of infection and reanimation. When patients and staff in the ER begin to die from a mysterious illness, reanimate as mindless corpses, and attack the living with terrifying aggression, Alissa must fight her way to safety to avoid becoming one of the ravenous hordes. 🧟
To survive, Alissa must develop instincts and skills she did not realize she had—combat abilities, strategic thinking, ruthless decision-making—and overcome fears no human were meant to face when the patients she was trained to help become the monsters trying to kill her. Escaping the hospital will be tough enough with the infected filling corridors and blocking exits, but can Alissa survive the nightmare gripping Boston and make it out of the city to safety when the entire urban landscape has become a war zone? 🏥
Scott M. Baker delivers dystopian science fiction examining what happens when a nurse’s medical training becomes both advantage and liability during zombie apocalypse—she understands infection vectors and triage but is hardwired to help rather than kill, creating moral conflicts when former patients become threats. The Mass General Hospital setting provides claustrophobic terror as familiar medical spaces become death traps, while the Boston outbreak creates urban apocalypse scenario requiring navigation of city geography transformed into hostile territory. 🌃
What makes this essential: Dystopian science fiction where Nurse Alissa expects a normal Mass General Hospital shift until zombie outbreak spreads through Boston like wildfire—forcing her to fight through dying, reanimating patients and staff attacking the living, developing unexpected survival instincts and combat skills to escape the hospital and survive the nightmare gripping the entire city.
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Willow Knightley has just been through it with her ex-mooch of a boyfriend who proved to be the latest in a long string of men (starting at birth with her father) who didn’t treat her right, took advantage of her kindness, and left her questioning her judgment. She decides her only recourse is to give up on men forever, swearing off relationships entirely because clearly she can’t be trusted to pick decent human beings. The problem is, her friend/acquaintance/one-time bodyguard Gabriel Stark, a member of the Nightingale Investigations & Security team, has targeted her as His One with capital letters and possessive intensity. 💕
Gabe’s been through it at the hands of women too, so he knows exactly what he wants after learning painful lessons about what he doesn’t. And he wants Willow with a certainty that won’t be shaken by her very reasonable objections. Willow states her case against them being an us, listing all the logical reasons this is a terrible idea, but she doesn’t count on the fact that not only does Gabe love a challenge, he lives for them. Up against an onslaught from a man who rinses his own whiskers out of the sink (the ultimate green flag), Willow might not stand a chance against his patient pursuit. 🔥
But then, while the Angels are trying to figure out what’s got one of their informants very jittery about something dangerous brewing, Willow gets a hint that there are demons in Gabe’s history that explain his intensity, and she has to know what shaped him. Kristen Ashley delivers romantic comedy with Avenging Angels security team backdrop, where the bets are on whether Willow’s sworn-off-men resolve can withstand Gabe’s determination to prove he’s different from every man who failed her before. ✨
What makes this essential: A Kristen Ashley romantic comedy where Willow Knightley swears off men forever after her ex-mooch boyfriend, but Nightingale Investigations bodyguard Gabriel Stark targets her as His One—loving challenges and rinsing whiskers from sinks while pursuing her as the Angels investigate a jittery informant and Willow discovers demons in Gabe’s history that demand answers.
Darla is desperate to escape her overbearing parents on their Hawaiian vacation where every activity is scheduled and every conversation is criticism. Who could have expected a whale to swim up beside her during a boating excursion and become her closest confidant? There is something about the whale’s soulful gray eyes and powerful demeanor that she finds intriguing, a connection that transcends species as she pours out her frustrations to this massive, attentive creature. But alas, she must return to shore with the rest of the humans, leaving her unusual aquatic friend behind. 🐋
Later that evening, however, when a seven-foot-tall man with an odd dialect and intense presence approaches Darla on the beach, there is something strangely familiar about him—those same soulful gray eyes that watched her so intently from the ocean. Moby never intended to utilize his power to shift from a whale to a human, a ability he’s kept hidden for reasons tied to an ancient curse. Until he met Darla, that is—the little human with the melodic voice and a body that grips him with sensual urges he’s never experienced in his long life as a whale. 💕
Urges he has now come to land to fulfill, and fulfill them he will with the single-minded determination of someone who’s waited centuries for this connection. But when Moby is harpooned by love, he must confess his true identity to Darla and even worse, that his time on land is limited unless they can together break a decade-old curse and keep him human forever. Jessa Kane delivers whale shifter romance that’s exactly as wild as it sounds, proving that fated mates work across species and that true love requires communication even when one of you spent most of your life unable to speak. 🌊
What makes this essential: A whale shifter romance where Darla escapes overbearing parents on Hawaiian vacation by confiding in a whale with soulful gray eyes, who later approaches her on the beach as seven-foot-tall Moby—a shifter who never intended to become human until meeting her, now confessing his identity and limited land time unless they break the decade-old curse together.
Sometimes, enough is enough. Debbie Mullen is losing it after years of being the voice of reason, the bigger person, the woman who dispenses advice to wives across New England through her column Dear Debbie. For years, she has compiled all of her best advice into columns where the wives come for sympathy and neighborly guidance about husbands who ignore, belittle, or even abuse them. Debbie has heard from countless women suffering in silence, and she’s done her best to guide them in the right direction with measured, practical wisdom. Or at least, she did until her own life started falling apart. 📰
These days, Debbie’s life seems to be spiraling out of control in ways that make her own advice sound hollow and ridiculous. She just lost her job at the newspaper, something strange is happening with her teenage daughters who won’t talk to her anymore, and her husband is keeping secrets according to the tracking app she secretly installed on his phone. Now Debbie’s done being the bigger person who swallows her anger and disappointment for the sake of keeping peace. She’s done being reasonable and practical while everyone around her behaves terribly without consequences. 📱
It’s time to take her own advice—all those letters where she told women to stand up for themselves, to demand better, to stop accepting mistreatment. And now it’s time for payback against all the people in her life who deserve it the most, starting with her secretive husband and expanding to everyone who’s taken advantage of Dear Debbie’s patience. Freida McFadden delivers domestic thriller about what happens when the advice columnist snaps and starts practicing what she’s preached, proving that sometimes the person dispensing wisdom about handling terrible people is one bad day away from becoming the terrible person herself. 💥
What makes this essential: A Freida McFadden domestic thriller where advice columnist Debbie Mullen—who’s guided countless New England wives through abuse and neglect in her Dear Debbie column—loses her job, discovers teenage daughters acting strange and her husband keeping secrets via tracking app, deciding she’s done being reasonable and it’s time for payback against everyone who deserves it most.