Nate Reynolds is everything Jenny Jones shouldn’t want and exactly what she does. He’s her best friend’s older brother, a cocky smooth-talking cop with a well-earned reputation as a panty-dropping playboy. His charm and good looks reduce her to a fumbling, mumbling teenage version of herself, which has always guaranteed nothing would ever happen between them. Jenny is the forever kind of girl with hearts in her eyes, while Nate has built his entire identity around loving them and leaving them. Then comes the night of Jenny’s best friend’s wedding, and suddenly all those good intentions about staying away from each other evaporate in a haze of chemistry and extremely poor decision-making. 💕LK Farlow understands the delicious forbidden nature of the best friend’s brother trope and mines it for maximum tension. Jenny represents everything Nate has avoided—commitment, emotional vulnerability, the kind of relationship that requires actual follow-through. She’s off-limits not just because of the sibling connection but because getting involved with her means he can’t do his usual disappearing act. For Jenny, Nate is the ultimate risk: giving her heart to someone who’s never kept anyone’s heart before, betting that she’ll be different when his track record suggests otherwise. The wedding night becomes the catalyst that forces them both to confront what they actually want versus what they’ve convinced themselves they should want. 🔥
Farlow writes dual perspectives that capture both sides of the internal struggle. Nate questioning everything he thought he wanted. Jenny trying to protect herself while also admitting she wants him despite the danger. The tension isn’t just sexual (though there’s plenty of that)—it’s emotional. Can a playboy actually change? Can someone who’s always been seen as the innocent best friend be taken seriously by a man like Nate? The “best intentions” of the title becomes deliciously ironic as both characters discover that what they intended to avoid is exactly what they need. The push-pull of their relationship, complicated by family dynamics and personal history, creates the kind of romantic tension that keeps pages turning. 💫
What makes this a must-read romance: Farlow delivers a best friend’s brother romance with real emotional stakes and characters who have to grow to deserve each other. The transformation of a confirmed bachelor into someone capable of commitment only works if it feels earned, and Nate’s journey from player to partner is both believable and swoon-worthy. For readers who love forbidden romance, reformed bad boys, and heroines who refuse to settle for less than they deserve, this hits every satisfying note. The chemistry sizzles, the banter sparkles, and the payoff when these two finally stop fighting what they feel is absolutely worth the wait. 💋
Tommy Cuda has boomeranged back to his parents’ house and a dead-end job after too many years in college, staring down his next decade with zero enthusiasm. Then his smartphone convinces him the time is ripe for change, his grandfather provides the financial means, and Tommy does what blues artists and beatniks have done before him—he hits the road. Within hours he meets a hitchhiking damsel in distress named Mona, whose presence persuades him that Chicago’s bright lights and dark clubs might be exactly his kind of town. On a summer Saturday night they check into a fancy hotel overlooking Lake Michigan. On Sunday, Mona disappears—but not before leaving Tommy with a brand new cash flow problem he never imagined and didn’t remotely ask for. 🎵Joe Klingler has created an accidental detective who stumbles into mystery the way most people stumble into bad decisions after last call. Tommy isn’t a hardened PI or a genius amateur sleuth—he’s just a directionless college graduate who picked up the wrong hitchhiker and now can’t shake the feeling that something is very wrong. The search for Mona becomes Tommy’s crash course in Chicago, guided by a criminologist who helps him navigate the investigation, a DJ who definitely doesn’t help, and a librarian who schools him on the city, women, and the art of the makeover. Klingler populates Tommy’s journey with exactly the kind of eccentric characters a confused young man would encounter while trying to solve a mystery he has no business solving. 🔎
The plot careens from one bizarre incident to another—getting assaulted by a pink monkey (yes, really), witnessing a drive-by shooting that drowns a Ferrari, mixing truth and lies like a blue martini. Klingler writes with a noir sensibility filtered through a modern, slightly absurdist lens. Tommy is desperate to help Mona, if he can find her, but first he has to navigate a Chicago underworld that makes no sense to someone whose previous biggest challenge was choosing a major. The mystery itself is classic hard-boiled—a missing woman, shadowy motivations, danger lurking in unexpected places—but Tommy’s fish-out-of-water perspective keeps it fresh and unpredictable. 🌃
What makes this an addictive read: Klingler has reinvented the hard-boiled detective story for the smartphone generation, creating a protagonist who’s equal parts clueless and determined. Tommy Cuda is the detective for people who don’t usually read detective fiction—relatable, flawed, and learning on the job. The Chicago setting comes alive through Tommy’s bewildered eyes, and the supporting cast provides both humor and genuine help as he transforms from aimless college grad to someone with an actual mission. For readers who want mystery with personality, this delivers vintage noir elements wrapped in contemporary sensibilities, proving that you don’t need to be Philip Marlowe to care about finding a missing woman—you just need to be stubborn enough not to quit. 🎭
All Daphne Sullivan wants is the truth about the mother she never knew and the visions she was told were dangerous—visions that suggest her mother was murdered rather than simply gone. After her father’s death, Daphne moves to her mother’s old cottage in beautiful Rosemary Mountain, determined to find the answers he never gave her. What she discovers is a town full of secrets, a family gift of second sight that’s been hidden from her, and the unsettling realization that someone here is looking for revenge. Nicole Gardner weaves supernatural elements into a compelling mystery about inherited abilities, buried truths, and the deadly consequences of keeping secrets. 🔮In Rosemary Mountain, Daphne finds exactly what she’s been missing: community, connection, and a sense of belonging she’s never experienced. Fiona, a feisty herbalist who knew her mother, introduces Daphne to the reality of second sight and helps her understand that her visions aren’t dangerous—they’re her birthright. Emerson, the gorgeous guy who sees her for who she really is, makes her feel like she might finally be home. But Gardner knows that every gift comes with a price, and in a town built on secrets, trust is a luxury Daphne can’t afford. When strange things start happening at the cottage, she’s forced to question everything—the town’s welcoming facade, her growing feelings for Emerson, even her own perceptions. 🌿
The central mystery revolves around what really happened to Daphne’s mother and whether Daphne is destined to share her fate. Gardner uses the second sight element brilliantly, making it both a tool for investigation and a source of uncertainty. Can Daphne trust her visions? Are they showing her the past, warning her about the future, or being manipulated by someone who understands her gift? The paranormal aspect elevates what could be a standard “return to small town, uncover family secrets” plot into something more layered and suspenseful. The revenge seeker hiding in plain sight adds urgency—Daphne isn’t just solving a cold case, she’s racing against someone who’s waited years for their opportunity. 🏡
What makes this a captivating series launch: Gardner balances cozy mystery elements (small town, found family, romance) with genuine supernatural suspense and real stakes. Daphne is an appealing protagonist—vulnerable but determined, gifted but untrained, seeking truth while navigating danger. For readers who love Practical Magic vibes mixed with amateur sleuth investigations, this delivers both warmth and chills. The Rosemary Mountain setting promises more mysteries to come, and the combination of inherited abilities, town secrets, and romance suggests this series has plenty of stories to tell. Gardner has created a world where the supernatural feels natural and the mysteries feel personal. ✨
Rogue Warrior: Red Cell
A brilliant virtuoso of violence, **Richard Marcinko rose through Navy ranks to create and command one of this country’s most elite and classified counterterrorist units, SEAL TEAM SIX.** Now this thirty-year veteran recounts the secret missions and Special Warfare madness of his worldwide military career—and the riveting truth about the top-secret Navy SEALs that reads like fiction but is brutal, unvarnished reality. 🇺🇸
Marcinko was almost inhumanly tough, and proved it on hair-raising missions across Vietnam and a war-torn world: blowing up supply junks, charging through minefields, jumping at 19,000 feet with a chute that wouldn’t open, fighting hand-to-hand in a hellhole jungle. For the Pentagon, he organized the Navy’s first counterterrorist unit: **the legendary SEAL TEAM SIX,** which went on classified missions from Central America to the Middle East, the North Sea, Africa and beyond. These weren’t training exercises—these were real operations where one mistake meant death. ⚔️
Then Marcinko was tapped to create Red Cell, **a dirty-dozen team of the military’s most accomplished and decorated counterterrorists.** Their unbelievable job was to test the defenses of the Navy’s most secure facilities and installations by actually attacking them. The result was predictable: all hell broke loose. Marcinko’s team exposed weaknesses that would make any American’s blood run cold, proving that even the most protected military sites were vulnerable. Between revealing classified operations, exposing security failures, and pulling no punches about military bureaucracy, Marcinko tells the uncensored story of America’s elite warriors. 💥
What makes this explosive: Richard Marcinko creating and commanding elite SEAL TEAM SIX, thirty-year veteran recounting secret missions and Special Warfare madness, proving inhuman toughness on hair-raising missions from Vietnam to worldwide theaters, organizing Navy’s first counterterrorist unit, creating Red Cell dirty-dozen team to test secure facilities, and exposing defense weaknesses that made all hell break loose.
Diana’s Boys revealed the powerful bond between the teenaged princes, and how it strengthened even more in the wake of their mother’s tragic death. Now, twenty years later, Queen Elizabeth II is in her mid-nineties, Prince Charles is in his seventies, and all eyes are turned increasingly toward William and Harry again. **Christopher Andersen picks up where he left off,** covering everything that has happened to the brothers as they have grown up, gotten married to two remarkable women, and had children—all while facing continual waves of controversy. 👑
Andersen examines how **the Queen’s behind-the-scenes maneuvering to mold her grandsons in the Windsor image after Diana’s death** played out, and her expectations of William as the future king. He questions whether the brothers’ famously close relationship can survive Harry’s departure from the Royal Family—the first time this has happened since their great-great-uncle King Edward abdicated the throne to marry a divorcée. He delves into the impact sisters-in-law Kate and Meghan have had on each other as well as on their princes, and how marriage and fatherhood have changed the brothers and, in some ways, also driven a wedge between them. 💔
Andersen also looks with an honest eye at how the princes and their wives have been continuously buffeted by scandal—**including headline-making allegations of bullying, racism, betrayal, and emotional abuse that has pushed more than one royal to the brink of self-destruction.** Between examining the Windsor molding process, analyzing Harry’s unprecedented royal departure, exploring how Kate and Meghan transformed their princes, and investigating allegations that shocked the world, Andersen reveals the private lives behind the palace walls. The question remains: can the brothers’ bond survive the forces tearing them apart? 🏰
What makes this revealing: Christopher Andersen following William and Harry twenty years after Diana’s death, Queen’s behind-the-scenes maneuvering to mold grandsons in Windsor image, Harry’s unprecedented departure from Royal Family, sisters-in-law Kate and Meghan’s impact driving wedge between brothers, and headline-making allegations of bullying and racism pushing royals to brink of self-destruction.
Remembering a serial killer’s face… **could be deadly.** While interviewing the Coastline Strangler’s only surviving victim, forensic artist Scarlet Wells is attacked and left with amnesia. Now she’s his next mark and has no choice but to work with constable Jace Allen to unlock the criminal’s true identity trapped in her mind. The irony is brutal: the one person who can identify the killer can’t remember his face, and the killer knows it. ⚖️
The Coastline Strangler has been terrorizing the community for months, leaving a trail of victims with no witnesses—until now. Scarlet was so close to creating a sketch that could end his reign of terror. Then he struck, erasing the one thing that could bring him to justice: her memory. **Will they be able to recover the hidden memory and hunt down the killer before he strikes again?** Every hour that passes puts Scarlet in more danger, because the killer knows she’s the only one who’s seen his face and lived. 🎨
Between undergoing hypnosis to unlock buried memories, dodging the killer who’s stalking her every move, working with Constable Jace Allen who’s determined to keep her safe, and racing against time before amnesia becomes permanent, Scarlet must piece together fragments of that fatal interview. Her artistic skills could save lives—if she can remember how to use them. In a battle between a forensic artist without memories and a serial killer without mercy, faith might be the only weapon that works. 🙏
What makes this intense: Forensic artist interviewing Coastline Strangler’s only surviving victim attacked and left with amnesia, now his next mark, criminal’s true identity trapped in her mind, working with constable to unlock hidden memory, and racing to hunt down killer before he strikes again while she’s his target.
… See the rest of today ‘s Book Picks here on page 3Page 3