She needed an escape, and the English coast gave her a portal instead. After a devastating divorce, Valerie Crane escapes to the picturesque English coast hoping to soothe her damaged heart with long walks, coastal air, and distance from her failed marriage. On the hill behind her inn, the elegant ruins of Yealm Castle draw her repeatedly—something about the crumbling stones calls to her. But instead of peace, Valerie is swept up in an astonishing mystery when she’s transported to the year 1605, where the castle is impossibly restored, beautiful, and fully occupied. ⏰
Alone and afraid in a world four centuries removed from everything she knows, Valerie only starts to grasp what’s happened when she meets Alec Whitfield, master of the castle—handsome but taciturn, suspicious of this strange woman with her odd speech and inexplicable appearance. Alec doesn’t believe Valerie’s story about being from the future, because who would? Just as her last hope fades, his charming, roguish brother Finlay persuades Alec to let her stay. As Valerie grows closer to both brothers, passion flares into a love triangle that could consume them all. 💕
The danger and violence around them escalates when Finlay becomes entangled in a treasonous plot—this is 1605, the year of the Gunpowder Plot, and anyone associated with Catholic conspirators faces execution. With lives on the line and history hurtling toward a violent climax, Valerie faces an impossible choice: if she can find a way back to her own time, should she take the chance to run and save herself? Or will she risk everything—including being stranded in the past forever—for a chance to save the man she loves from historical forces she can’t control? 🔥
Irina Shapiro delivers time-travel romance that uses the Gunpowder Plot as more than backdrop—Valerie’s arrival in 1605 England puts her in the middle of genuine historical danger where getting involved could mean death. The love triangle between Valerie, the serious Alec, and the charming Finlay complicates her already impossible situation. This is historical mystery where knowing the future doesn’t give you power to change it, and where falling in love across centuries means choosing between safety in your own time and risking everything for someone history may have already condemned. ⚔️
What makes this essential: A time-travel historical mystery where divorced Valerie Crane is transported from modern England to 1605 Yealm Castle, falling into a love triangle with brothers Alec and Finlay while Finlay’s involvement in the Gunpowder Plot forces her to choose between escaping home or risking everything to save him.
Welcome to Brimstone Bay—where the coffee’s strong, the gossip never sleeps, and the ghosts refuse to mind their own business. When the traveling Shadow Festival rolls into this seaside town and a girl turns up dead, the calm shatters overnight. Whispers turn to panic, secrets surface like driftwood after a storm, and a murder in the mist leaves everyone pointing fingers at everyone else. For River Halloway, a young journalist at the Brimstone Press, this isn’t just another headline to chase—it’s the kind of story that could change everything about her career and her understanding of her supposedly normal town. If she can survive it. 📰
Between her eccentric housemates who seem to know more about the supernatural than they’re letting on, a mischievous stray cat that shows up at suspiciously convenient moments, and a town full of neighbors who can’t keep a secret to save their lives but also can’t stop lying about important things, River has her hands spectacularly full. The Shadow Festival brought more than carnival rides and funnel cakes—it brought something ancient and dangerous that the locals recognize but won’t name. Beneath Brimstone Bay’s cozy charm of coffee shops and waterfront views, something is stirring that’s about to make front-page news whether the town wants the attention or not. 🌊
N.M. Howell delivers witch cozy mystery that slowly reveals Brimstone Bay isn’t quite the normal seaside town it pretends to be. River’s investigation into the festival murder uncovers layers of supernatural secrets the community has been hiding—from residents with magical abilities to ghosts with unfinished business to ancient forces that predate the town itself. This is cozy mystery where the “cozy” part is a facade covering genuine danger, and where River’s journalistic instincts for uncovering truth might expose things that were hidden for good reason. The Brimstone Bay series launches with murder, magic, and the realization that some small towns keep secrets for a reason. ✨
What makes this essential: A witch cozy mystery launching the Brimstone Bay series where journalist River Halloway investigates a festival murder that exposes her seaside town’s supernatural secrets—featuring eccentric housemates, mysterious cats, meddling ghosts, and ancient forces hiding beneath small-town charm.
Damsels in shining armor riding to the rescue! Deirdre, Helena, and Miriel—three kick-arse Scots wenches known as The Warrior Maids of Rivenloch—aren’t about to become any man’s chattel just because medieval society expects women to be decorative rather than dangerous. These women fight, strategize, and refuse to be married off like livestock to secure political alliances. They’ve trained with swords, mastered battle tactics, and proven themselves capable of defending their own lands without masculine supervision, thank you very much. But even the fiercest warrior women can meet heroes strong enough to tame their wild ways and worthy enough to win their wayward hearts—assuming those heroes survive the initial encounters. ⚔️
Glynnis Campbell delivers four holiday novellas set in historical Scotland, spanning centuries with yuletide cheer and heartwarming romance that doesn’t sacrifice the characters’ strength or agency for love. These aren’t stories about fierce women being “fixed” by the right man—they’re about equals finding partnership while maintaining the qualities that made them formidable in the first place. The Warrior Maids of Rivenloch fight alongside their love interests rather than surrendering their weapons for domestic bliss. The holiday settings add festive warmth without drowning the stories in sugar cookies and forced cheer. 🎄
This is Scottish highlander historical romance for readers who want their heroines capable of defending themselves and their heroes secure enough to appreciate a woman who can kick their ass. The novellas format provides complete satisfying stories without requiring series commitment, making this perfect for cozy winter reading when you want medieval sword fights mixed with your holiday romance. Campbell understands that “taming” doesn’t mean breaking—it means finding someone who matches your wild energy rather than trying to suppress it. 💕
What makes this essential: Four Scottish highlander holiday novellas featuring The Warrior Maids of Rivenloch—Deirdre, Helena, and Miriel—kick-arse women who refuse to become chattel until they meet heroes worthy of partnering with fighters, blending yuletide romance with sword-wielding damsels rescuing themselves.
Knot A Bed Of Roses
Scent matches, second chances, and soulmates in a sweetangst small town. At eighteen, I was crowned our small town’s June Bloom Queen and won an all-expenses paid trip to California—the kind of prize that transforms a farm girl into a pampered princess overnight. From milking cows to red carpets, it felt like a magical dream, the kind of Cinderella story small-town girls fantasize about. Especially when I smelled my alpha scent matches across the room at a Hollywood party and went into my first ever omega heat. In omegaverse romance, scent matching is destiny—your biology recognizing your perfect mates through pheromones that override rational thought. Three days of passion and promises followed, the kind of overwhelming connection that feels like forever condensed into a hotel room. 🌹
But three days of passion and promises meant nothing when my heat ended and they snuck out of my hotel room without a backward glance, leaving me with crushing heartbreak and eventually a positive pregnancy test. Fast forward a decade and I’m running our family’s flower farm as a single mom to Leo, my perfect oops baby from my California heat—the biological reminder of alphas who promised forever and delivered abandonment. Logan, my alpha neighbor, is Leo’s dad in every way that matters: bedtime stories, school pickups, teaching him to ride a bike, all the parenting the biological fathers never did. Now that Logan’s out of the Marines, we’re getting bonded in the fall—a proper mating ceremony that will make our unconventional family official. 💐
Until three Hollywood bigshots roll into town and everything I’ve built threatens to collapse. A world-famous actor whose face is on billboards worldwide. An investment tycoon whose net worth has more zeros than our town’s population. And the photographer who finds my flower farm so enchanting, he wants to use it in his big marketing campaign—which would be amazing exposure for the business if he weren’t part of the package deal that destroyed me a decade ago. But he doesn’t know that his alphas are my scent matches, and he definitely doesn’t know that one of them is Leo’s biological dad. The biology that drew us together ten years ago still works—my body recognizes them even as my brain screams warnings. 📸
Roxy Collins delivers omegaverse romance that tackles the messy reality of second-chance love when your first chance ended in abandonment and accidental pregnancy. This isn’t a simple “they came back and apologized” story—Logan has been Leo’s father for a decade, they’re planning a bonding ceremony, and the biological fathers showing up now feels less like fate and more like cruel timing. The “why choose” element becomes genuinely complicated when choosing means either betraying the man who stayed or denying the biological bond that still pulls. The sweetangst comes from competing loyalties: the alphas who left versus the alpha who raised their child, destiny versus choice, biology versus commitment. Small-town setting amplifies every complication because everyone’s watching this drama unfold. 🌸
What makes this essential: An omegaverse second-chance why-choose romance where a single mom’s alpha scent matches return after a decade, not knowing one fathered her son or that she’s about to bond with the neighbor who actually raised him—examining whether biology trumps the man who stayed.
She kicked him out. On Christmas. Now he’s on his knees. Lauren Barrett is done being belittled, done being the “tacky” wife whose enthusiastic holiday decorating embarrasses her husband in front of his colleagues and friends. She’s done hiding her homemade crafts in closets because Tom treats her glitter addiction and love of Christmas lights like a character flaw rather than creative expression. For years, Lauren has dimmed her sparkle to accommodate a husband who wanted her toned down, refined, less enthusiastic about the things that bring her joy. But something breaks on Christmas—maybe the final straw of criticism, maybe accumulated years of feeling inadequate—and Lauren does what she should have done long ago: she kicks him out. On Christmas Day. The ultimate rejection wrapped in holiday irony. 🎄
Too late, Tom finally understands what he’s been doing to the woman he married. His wife doesn’t need to be toned down—she needs permission to burn even brighter, to be celebrated rather than criticized, to fill their home with as much glitter and Christmas excess as makes her happy. The devastating realization hits him after she’s already changed the locks: he’s been trying to dim her light when he should have been standing in its glow. Now he’s scrambling, desperate to do whatever it takes to win her back, but “whatever it takes” means fundamentally changing who he’s been as a husband. This isn’t about buying flowers and apologizing—this is about Tom rebuilding himself stitch by messy stitch, confronting why he was so threatened by his wife’s joy in the first place. 💔
She doesn’t need him anymore. That’s the brutal truth Lauren discovered the moment she stopped seeking his approval and started living authentically. The crafts she hid? They sell at local markets. The decorating style he mocked? Other people find it charming. The enthusiasm he found embarrassing? It’s actually one of her most attractive qualities when she’s not apologizing for it. Lauren has built a life that doesn’t require Tom’s presence or permission. But does she still want him? That’s the question driving Elise Camden’s grovel romance—because needing and wanting are different things, and Lauren has to decide whether Tom’s transformation is genuine or just performance designed to get back what he lost. 🎁
A devastating betrayal that isn’t infidelity but something equally corrosive: years of making your spouse feel insufficient. A wife demanding her worth and refusing to settle for less than celebration. A husband rebuilding himself through genuine self-examination rather than grand gestures designed to shortcut accountability. And a love story that proves sometimes the real Christmas magic starts the moment everything falls apart—when the illusion of a functional marriage shatters and forces both people to decide whether they want to build something authentic from the ruins. This is seasonal romance about the difference between a partner who tolerates you and one who champions you, about reclaiming joy that you sacrificed for someone else’s comfort. ✨
What makes this essential: A Christmas grovel romance where a wife kicks out her husband for years of belittling her crafts and holiday enthusiasm, forcing him to rebuild himself while she discovers she doesn’t need him anymore—examining whether transformation is enough when the damage ran deep.
I’m forced to marry my dead best friend’s fiancé. Most people call me a freak—damaged goods, addict, the outcast daughter of the Marchetti crime family who never quite fit the mold of what a mafia princess should be. I’m the black sheep with a dark soul who makes family gatherings uncomfortable and brings shame rather than pride to the family name. My reputation precedes me in ways that ensure I’m always on the outside looking in, tolerated but never embraced. But then one night, standing on the literal edge of something final, I fall into a darker soul than my own and discover there are depths I haven’t even begun to explore. 🥀
Bane Antonov, the cold, villainously beautiful crown prince of the Antonov Bratva—a man covered in scars and ink that tell stories he’ll never speak aloud, a man who was supposed to marry my now dead and buried best friend. The engagement was political, strategic, the kind of alliance that strengthens criminal empires. Her death should have ended it, but somehow I’m now wearing her ring and sleeping in what should have been her bed. The night we crashed together, before the forced marriage, we talked each other off the literal edge—two broken people recognizing mutual destruction and choosing survival, at least temporarily. I should’ve jumped. Because somehow, Bane knows my every dark secret, every scar hidden beneath clothes and bravado, every inky black desire I’ve never admitted to anyone including myself. 💍
He’s a villain and a monster—the kind of man who rules through fear and violence, whose reputation makes hardened criminals nervous, whose capacity for cruelty is legendary even in a world built on brutality. The thing is, I might be too. There are things I don’t remember, gaps in my memory that suggest my reputation isn’t just about addiction and acting out but something darker I’ve blocked. Like why Bane hates me with such specific intensity, why his contempt feels personal rather than general. Like why I crave his venomous touch and poisonous lips anyway, why his hatred draws me in rather than repelling me. Now he has me locked in his cage with his ring on my finger—literally imprisoned in his world, bound by marriage contracts and criminal obligations neither of us wanted. 🗝️
We’re in a war, ’til death do us part—but the war isn’t against outside enemies, it’s against each other, a vicious dance of mutual destruction where affection and violence blur into something unrecognizable as either love or hate. The question isn’t whether we’ll survive this marriage but which one of us will fall first, and it’s a long way down from the heights of pride and the depths of hatred. Jagger Cole delivers dark mafia romance that embraces the toxic dynamics without pretending they’re healthy, where forced proximity doesn’t magically fix broken people but instead forces them to confront exactly how damaged they both are. This is enemies-to-something romance where “something” might be love or might be mutual annihilation—and honestly, with Bane and the narrator, the distinction hardly matters. 🔥
What makes this essential: A dark mafia romance where the outcast Marchetti daughter is forced to marry her dead best friend’s Bratva fiancé Bane Antonov, who knows her darkest secrets and hates her for forgotten reasons—launching a vicious dance of venomous attraction where they’re at war until someone falls first.