Duty. Desire. And the devouring dark. As the Heir to one of the most powerful Houses in Lunaria, failure isn’t just embarrassing—it’s potentially catastrophic for her people. Her duty has always been crystal clear: strengthen alliances, navigate the treacherous politics of the realm, and keep the monsters stalking their world firmly on the other side of the blood wards. When her arranged marriage ends in spectacular disaster, she returns to her family home determined to prove her worth and maybe rekindle some old flames that never quite burned out 👑
But her House is no sanctuary anymore. The blood wards that have protected her people for generations are crumbling, their magic weakening in ways that terrify even the most experienced warlocks. Monsters are breaking through with increasing frequency, and each attack grows bolder than the last. To save everyone she loves, she’ll need help from an unlikely alliance: her silver-tongued childhood crush who knows exactly which words will make her melt, her infuriatingly gorgeous rival who challenges her at every turn, the taciturn librarian whose quiet strength draws her in, and the brooding ranger whose dark secrets might match her own 🗡️
Navigating the deadly politics of Lunaria’s noble Houses has always been second nature to her—a game she learned to play before she could walk. But as duties blend seamlessly into desires, as strategic alliances become passionate entanglements, she fears her judgment is compromised in ways that could doom them all. Her heart keeps pulling her in directions her head knows are dangerous, and in a world where one wrong move can mean death, she can’t afford distraction 🔥
The monsters breaking through the blood wards aren’t acting randomly—there’s intelligence behind their attacks, coordination that speaks of treachery from within. Someone is helping them, someone close enough to know the wards’ weaknesses and bold enough to risk the destruction of everything they claim to hold dear. If she can’t master her conflicting emotions and unmask the traitor before the blood wards fail completely, her House and all of Lunaria will fall to the devouring darkness 🌙
What drew me in: Alex Frost launches the Lunaria Realms series with a romantasy that delivers political intrigue, monster-fighting action, and a delicious reverse harem dynamic where every potential love interest brings genuine complexity to the stakes.
Annie Price is as wild as the Texas land she lives on, all untamed spirit and fierce independence. In 1902, trying to squeeze herself into the confines of what society expects from a proper lady feels like trying to rope the wind—possible in theory, utterly futile in practice. Instead, Annie spends her days on Good Prudence Ranch healing the local animals with her gifted touch, riding too fast across the prairie, and living too large for the small minds who think they know what’s best for her 🐴
Patrick McAllister lost his dearly loved wife three years ago, but she left him with the most precious gift imaginable—their five-year-old son. The boy has been nicknamed “Kick” for a very good reason: he’s got a fiery soul, good aim with whatever he can throw, and absolutely no interest in behaving like the angel everyone expects a motherless child to be. It’s been difficult for Patrick to be both mother and father to Kick, trying to provide the tenderness and discipline the boy needs in equal measure. Patrick has been content—or at least resigned—to his single status and the challenges it brings 💔
But the rest of the McAllister family have decidedly different opinions about Patrick’s domestic arrangements. His father and siblings have begun to demand, with increasing insistence, that he find a new wife to raise his unruly tot and restore some semblance of order to their family name. The pressure is mounting, and Patrick knows he can’t hold out against the family consensus forever. Marriage may be the last thing he wants, but the McAllisters are nothing if not persistent 🤠
When Patrick’s beloved dog Rooster suffers a potentially fatal wound, Patrick faces an impossible choice. He can swallow his pride and overcome the long-standing feud between the Price and McAllister families to seek Annie’s help—she’s the only one with the skill to save Rooster—or he can let tradition and stubbornness cost his dog’s life. The decision brings these two stubborn souls together in ways neither expected, igniting sparks that have nothing to do with their families’ bitter rivalry and everything to do with the undeniable attraction crackling between them 🌵
Why this touches the heart: Katherine St. Clair delivers a Western romance that captures the wild spirit of early 1900s Texas while exploring how love can bloom even in the hardest soil, especially when watered by necessity and tended by two people brave enough to defy expectation.
She could have the perfect revenge—at the cost of her life. A warlock ripped out her lover’s heart right in front of her, the ultimate punishment for her audacity. She had dared to leave him, dared to heal from his abuse, dared to believe she deserved better than his controlling obsession. Now, every year on her birthday, he sends her a grotesque reminder that she’ll never be free—a bloody heart delivered like the world’s most macabre gift 💔
But this warlock has made a fatal mistake: he’s forgotten exactly who he’s dealing with. She’s a ruthless feline shifter who’s been hunting down her enemies long before he ever crossed her path. Predators recognize other predators, and she’s had years to perfect her skills, years to plan, years to let her rage simmer into something cold and calculated. Sooner or later, it’ll be his heart she’s holding in her hand, and the poetic justice of that image sustains her through the darkest nights 🐾
Her ace in the hole is the dark, forbidden magic pumping through her veins—power that most shifters would never dare to touch, let alone embrace. This isn’t the clean, sanctioned magic of the established orders. This is something older, something dangerous, something that whispers promises of absolute power if she’s just willing to pay the price. If she fully embraces it, she could end the warlock permanently, erasing him from existence in ways that would make even other practitioners of dark arts flinch 🔮
But wielding that kind of power would paint a massive target on her back throughout all the realms. Every supernatural authority, every magical council, every self-appointed guardian of cosmic order would come hunting for her. Revenge is tantalizingly within reach, close enough that she can almost taste it—but only if she’s willing to sacrifice everything, including her own life. The question isn’t whether she can kill him; it’s whether the cost of vengeance is worth becoming the very monster everyone will hunt 🌙
What makes this a must-read: Maddox Grey launches the Lost Legacies series with an urban fantasy that explores the true cost of revenge, blending feline shifter mythology with forbidden magic in a tale where justice and destruction walk hand in hand.
The Beginning After
Her husband died with his secrets intact. The question is whether she can continue living with hers. Peighton Claiborne’s perfect world is built on a foundation of perfectly crafted lies—the kind that look flawless from the outside but crumble at the slightest pressure. When the sudden, mysterious death of her husband destroys everything she worked so hard to create, Peighton finds herself struggling to cope with more than just grief. The carefully constructed life she maintained is collapsing around her, revealing cracks she’d spent years plastering over 🏚️
As the police begin digging into the circumstances surrounding his death, asking questions she can’t answer and noticing inconsistencies she can’t explain, they uncover secrets her husband had spent years desperately trying to keep buried. Financial irregularities. Hidden accounts. Connections to people Peighton never knew existed. Each revelation peels back another layer of the man she thought she knew, until she’s forced to wonder if she ever really knew him at all 🔍
The people Peighton believed she could count on—the friends who promised to always be there, the family members she needs more than ever—begin to turn on her with shocking speed. Suspicion spreads like poison through her social circle, and suddenly she’s isolated, grieving alone while trying to defend herself against accusations she doesn’t fully understand. Left to pick up the remaining pieces of her shattered life, Peighton discovers that sympathy has an expiration date and loyalty is far more conditional than she’d believed 💔
When Clay Nealson, a police officer assigned to her husband’s case, takes what seems like a special interest in her welfare, Peighton thinks they may finally be able to uncover the truth she so desperately seeks. Together, they search for answers in the wreckage of her husband’s secret life. In a moment of vulnerability and need, she finds herself falling for this man she barely knows, drawn to his apparent kindness and understanding. But when Peighton discovers Clay may have his own hidden motivations for investigating her husband’s death—that his interest might be professional manipulation rather than genuine concern—she’s forced to realize a devastating truth: the only person she can truly trust is herself. As the world she once knew spirals into chaos around her, Peighton must uncover the truth about her husband, his secrets, and his death before it’s too late. And in her desperate effort to protect those she loves, she must finally reveal a few dangerous secrets of her own—ones that threaten to destroy everything she worked for 🌪️
What makes this irresistible: Kiersten Modglin crafts a psychological thriller that keeps readers guessing until the final page, exploring how secrets compound upon secrets until the truth becomes almost impossible to excavate—and whether some truths are better left buried.
She was warned about Tristan Cole repeatedly, the cautions coming from every direction. “Stay away from him,” people said with genuine concern in their voices. “He’s cruel,” they insisted, as if cruelty was his defining characteristic. “He’s cold,” they added, describing a man who’d apparently frozen his heart solid. “He’s damaged,” they concluded, as if that explained everything—and justified writing him off completely 🌪️
It’s easy to judge a man solely because of his past, to look at the worst moments of someone’s life and decide that’s all they’ll ever be. People love to look at Tristan and see only a monster, someone defined entirely by trauma and poor choices, someone beyond redemption or understanding. The town’s collective judgment has already been rendered, and Tristan wears their verdict like chains 💔
But she couldn’t do that. She couldn’t dismiss him with the same casual cruelty everyone else had shown, couldn’t reduce a complex human being to a collection of worst moments and darkest rumors. She had to accept the wreckage that lived inside of him—not because she was naive or self-destructive, but because that same wreckage lived inside of her too. They recognized each other in ways that went beyond words, beyond explanation 🌊
They were both empty in the aftermath of losses that hollowed them out from the inside. They were both desperately looking for something else, something more than just surviving each day. Some reason to believe that broken people could still build something beautiful from the shattered pieces of their lives. They both wanted to put together the fragments of their yesterdays, to make some kind of sense from the chaos and pain that had defined them for too long ✨
Why this grips from page one: Brittainy Cherry launches The Elements Series with an emotionally devastating romance that explores how two broken people can help each other remember how to breathe—raw, honest, and achingly beautiful for readers who love their love stories with real depth and genuine healing.
Fake marriage. Billionaire boss. One impossible deal. They agreed to exactly one thing from the start: no falling in love under any circumstances. The arrangement had clear boundaries, defined terms, a specific endpoint. Too bad her heart didn’t get the memo and completely ignored every rule they’d carefully established 💍
The first time she met Arpad Beauchamp, she spilled her chai latte all over his ridiculously expensive suit—probably worth more than her entire month’s rent. Not exactly the professional first impression she’d hoped to make. The second time their paths crossed, through a series of mishaps that felt orchestrated by a mischievous universe, she accidentally ended up on his private yacht. Because apparently her life had become a romantic comedy without her consent ⚓
And the third time? Now they’re fake married, standing at an altar speaking vows neither of them means while his family watches with approval and her heart races with something that feels dangerously real. It started as a simple business deal, transactional and straightforward. He needs a wife to impress his traditional family and secure some crucial business arrangement. She needs someone to help her start the next chapter of her life, to provide the financial stability and fresh start she’s been desperately seeking. A temporary arrangement, nothing more than mutually beneficial theater 💕
Until a literal storm hits during what should have been a routine appearance, trapping them together in ways neither anticipated. Until the carefully drawn lines blur beyond recognition. Until his hands exploring her skin, his mouth claiming hers, his everything consuming her makes her forget this is all an elaborate pretense. The heat between them stops feeling like performance and starts feeling like the most real thing in her life. This was never supposed to feel genuine—it was a contract with an expiration date. So why does the thought of walking away at the agreed-upon time feel completely impossible? Why does the fake marriage feel more real than anything she’s ever experienced? 🔥
What makes this a must-read: L. Steele delivers another scorching installment in the Big Bad Billionaires series, proving that the best fake marriages are the ones where both parties stop pretending and start falling—hard, fast, and completely against the rules.
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