His voice is smoke-infused whiskey wrapped in sin, and from the moment she hears it, everything changes. She’s broke as hell, barely keeping her head above water with two jobs that leave her exhausted and struggling. He’s rich as the devil himself, living a life of luxury she can only imagine from the outside looking in. The contrasts between them couldn’t be starker—she’s a blushing innocent with her v-card still intact, navigating college and adulthood with wide-eyed uncertainty, while he may as well have written the Karma Sutra for all the experience he’s accumulated in the bedroom. She’s grinding through her education while working herself to the bone just to keep a roof over her head and ramen in her belly. He’s on his trajectory to becoming this decade’s hottest rockstar, his future glittering with fame and fortune while hers looks like an endless cycle of exhaustion and scraping by. They exist in completely different worlds, and under normal circumstances, those worlds would never collide. 🎸

Then he makes her an offer she literally cannot afford to refuse, a proposal that sounds too good to be true but might be her only lifeline. He’ll cover her cost of living—rent, food, all the expenses that have been crushing her—which means she can ditch one of her soul-sucking jobs entirely and significantly cut her hours at the second. For the first time since starting college, she’ll have time to actually study instead of falling asleep over her textbooks at three in the morning. Better yet, she’ll be able to sleep like a normal person instead of running on fumes and caffeine. The relief would be immeasurable, the difference between drowning and finally being able to breathe. But nothing comes without a price, and his price is one that simultaneously terrifies and thrills her in ways she doesn’t want to examine too closely. 💰

The only thing she has to do—and it sounds simple when he says it with that sinful voice of his—is act as his doting girlfriend. She has to let the biggest player she’s ever spoken to play with her, both in front of others and when they’re alone. She has to let him touch her, kiss her, hold her close enough that she can feel his heartbeat and smell his cologne and forget for dangerous moments that none of this is real. She has to perform affection convincingly enough that the world believes this rockstar-in-the-making has fallen for a broke college student, that their relationship is genuine rather than transactional. The physical intimacy is part of the deal—the hand-holding, the casual touches, the kisses that need to look authentic because cameras and fans are always watching. And she has to do it all while keeping her heart firmly out of the mix, locked away where his charm and his voice and his touch can’t reach it. 💋

Because this isn’t a love song, no matter how much it’s starting to sound like one. This is a business arrangement, a mutually beneficial contract where she gets financial stability and he gets whatever he needs from having a girlfriend in the public eye. She needs to remember that when he looks at her like she matters, when his kisses linger a beat too long, when the touches that are supposed to be for show happen even when no one’s watching. She needs to keep reminding herself that he’s a player, that this is performance, that falling for him would be the stupidest thing she could possibly do. But the lines are blurring faster than she can redraw them, and she’s discovering that the heart doesn’t care about contracts or common sense or self-preservation. It’s starting to feel like a love song, and she’s terrified of what happens when the music stops. 🎵

What makes this irresistible: Alannah Carbonneau delivers a deliciously angsty fake-dating romance that hits every emotional sweet spot—the class divide that creates natural tension, the innocent-meets-experienced dynamic that promises both humor and heat, and the contract relationship that’s doomed to catch real feelings. The rockstar element adds glamour and public scrutiny to raise the stakes, while her financial desperation makes the arrangement feel believable rather than contrived. For readers who love fake relationships that become achingly real, cinnamon roll heroes hiding behind player reputations, and heroines who discover their own power through love, this promises all the feels with a side of steam. 🔥

Edward Winston has built a quiet, happy existence in the slow-paced Deep South, the kind of life where days blend into comfortable routine and drama is something that happens to other people in other places. He has his wife, his community, his predictable rhythms—everything a man could want for a peaceful life. Then one morning she’s simply gone, and Edward’s carefully constructed world flies spectacularly off the rails. His wife has vanished without explanation, without warning, leaving behind only questions and the terrible absence where she used to be. What begins as confusion and concern rapidly escalates into full-blown panic as hours turn into days with no word, no trace, no indication of where she might have gone or what might have happened to her. Edward launches a frantic search, following every lead, checking with every friend and family member, retracing her steps, but every path hits a dead end. 🏚️

The situation goes from desperate to nightmarish when Edward discovers that the local sheriff—the man who should be moving heaven and earth to find his missing wife—is deliberately refusing to confront the prime suspect. There’s someone who clearly knows something, someone whose involvement seems obvious to Edward but whom law enforcement treats with inexplicable deference. The more Edward pushes for action, the more he encounters resistance, as if powerful forces are actively working to prevent a real investigation. He finds himself cut off at every turn by what can only be described as corruption and willful inaction, watching in growing horror as the people sworn to protect and serve instead protect whoever took his wife. The small-town systems he’d always trusted reveal themselves to be compromised, controlled by interests that have nothing to do with justice and everything to do with maintaining the status quo. 🚔

With official channels closed to him and time running out, Edward makes a decision that will change everything—he reaches out to a shadowy source buried deep in his past, someone he’d hoped never to contact again. This connection comes with complications and costs Edward doesn’t want to think about too closely, but desperation makes men do things they’d normally consider unthinkable. Just as he’s trying to navigate this dangerous alliance, the situation deteriorates even further: law enforcement names Edward himself as a person of interest in his wife’s disappearance. Suddenly he’s not just fighting to find her but fighting to clear his own name, dodging accusations while simultaneously trying to unravel the mystery of where she went and why the local power structure seems so invested in ensuring she stays missing. 🕵️

As Edward digs deeper, following threads that connect in increasingly disturbing ways, he uncovers a connection between his missing spouse and a secret that the city’s power elite will do literally anything to keep hidden. Whatever his wife stumbled onto—whether deliberately or accidentally—it’s significant enough that influential people are willing to let her disappear, willing to frame Edward, willing to corrupt entire systems to maintain their grip on this explosive information. Revenge, murder, and betrayal swirl around Edward as the stakes escalate beyond anything he could have imagined when he first reported his wife missing. Now he’s not just trying to find her and clear his name—he’s fighting for his life against enemies who have home-field advantage and unlimited resources. The only way out is through, and that means exposing the truth and getting out of Tupelo alive. ⚖️

Why this grips you: Mark Gilleo crafts a taut thriller that transforms the familiar missing-person framework into an examination of small-town corruption and the terrifying powerlessness of an ordinary man against entrenched interests. Edward’s journey from worried husband to fugitive to reluctant crusader creates escalating tension, while the Deep South setting provides both atmospheric richness and the insularity necessary for conspiracy to flourish unchecked. For readers who love legal thrillers like John Grisham’s early work or small-town noir with genuine stakes, this delivers that satisfying combination of personal desperation and systemic evil that makes you keep turning pages long past bedtime. 📚

From USA Today bestselling author Kelly Rey comes a holiday novella that proves Christmas mysteries can be ho-ho-hilarious even when things get seriously strange. Jamie Winters thinks she’s seen it all in her adventures as an amateur sleuth, but nothing could prepare her for what happens when her elderly neighbor Jack disappears just one week before Christmas. At first it seems straightforward—an older gentleman who maybe got confused, wandered off, will turn up sheepishly at the local diner or visiting a friend he forgot he was supposed to see. But Jack doesn’t turn up, and as the hours turn into days with no sign of him, Jamie can’t shake the feeling that something is genuinely wrong. Teaming up with her landlord’s fearless teenaged niece—a kid with more guts than sense and a nose for trouble that rivals Jamie’s own—she starts investigating Jack’s disappearance in earnest. 🎄

The more they dig into where Jack might have gone and why, the stranger things become. This isn’t your typical missing-person case, not by a long shot. Details emerge that don’t add up, behaviors that don’t match the Jack that Jamie thought she knew, connections to things that seem impossible. The investigation takes increasingly bizarre turns as Jamie and her young partner start uncovering evidence that Jack isn’t the man they thought he was—in fact, he bears a suspiciously striking resemblance to a certain jolly old figure in a red suit. The clues pile up in ways that defy rational explanation: mysterious comings and goings in the dead of night, unexplained supplies appearing and disappearing, and a workshop in Jack’s basement that looks like it could produce toys for the entire neighborhood. Could their elderly neighbor actually be Santa Claus? And if so, what does his disappearance mean for children everywhere? 🎅

What follows is a wild ride through a holiday season that bears no resemblance to anything in Hallmark movies. Jamie finds herself dealing with one carjacking that seems designed to send a message, some genuinely spooky reindeer that appear in places reindeer have no business being, a little person who may or may not be one of Santa’s helpers, and a skinny green man whose role in all this is deeply unclear but definitely suspicious. Each bizarre encounter pushes Jamie further down a rabbit hole where the line between reality and Christmas magic blurs beyond recognition. The stakes keep escalating as Christmas approaches and Jack remains missing—if he really is who they’re starting to believe he is, then children around the world are about to have a very disappointing holiday morning. 🦌

By the time Jamie gets to the bottom of Jack’s disappearance, she’s experienced way more than she bargained for this holiday season. The investigation has taken her places she never imagined going, introduced her to characters who shouldn’t exist outside of storybooks, and challenged everything she thought she understood about what’s possible. The resolution is both heartwarming and completely bonkers, delivering exactly the kind of Christmas chaos that makes for unforgettable holiday memories—assuming Jamie survives to remember them. What started as a simple favor for a worried neighbor has transformed into a full-blown Christmas adventure complete with yuletide danger, magical mayhem, and the kind of revelations that change how you see the world forever. 🎁

Why this charms and thrills: Kelly Rey has crafted the perfect holiday palate cleanser—a cozy mystery that embraces the absurd without losing its heart, combining genuine suspense with laugh-out-loud humor and a premise that dares to ask “what if your neighbor really is Santa Claus?” The novella length makes it perfect for reading in one festive sitting, while the quirky cast of characters (including spooky reindeer and mysterious little people) ensures this isn’t your grandmother’s Christmas mystery unless your grandmother has excellent taste in delightfully weird holiday fiction. For readers who love Janet Evanovich’s humor, Carl Hiaasen’s Florida weirdness transplanted to a Christmas setting, or anyone who wants their holiday reading both cozy and slightly unhinged, this is the perfect stocking stuffer. 🌟

She’s forbidden in every way that matters, and he knows it from the moment their eyes meet. He’s her doctor, bound by professional ethics and the sacred trust patients place in physicians. She’s his patient, vulnerable and dependent on his medical expertise during what might be the most frightening time of her life. Every oath he’s taken, every principle that guides his practice, every boundary that separates appropriate from inappropriate screams that he needs to maintain professional distance. But the heart doesn’t care about ethics boards or professional standards, and from the first moment he sees her, something shifts inside him that has nothing to do with medicine and everything to do with the kind of connection that defies rational explanation. 💔

She’s pregnant, scared, and devastatingly alone—the trifecta of vulnerability that should make her even more off-limits than she already is. She walks into his office carrying not just a baby but the weight of circumstances that clearly have her terrified, and he can see it in her eyes that she’s in trouble beyond just the medical complications of pregnancy. There’s something else happening in her life, something that makes her flinch at loud noises and check over her shoulder and radiate the kind of fear that comes from knowing someone dangerous is looking for you. As her physician, he should document his medical findings, refer her to appropriate social services, and maintain the professional boundaries that keep the doctor-patient relationship uncomplicated. But from the moment he sees her, he knows she’s in trouble, and more importantly, he knows he can’t walk away. 🤰

Despite the consequences that loom over every interaction—the potential loss of his medical license, the destruction of the reputation he’s spent years building, the risk of professional ruin that would end everything he’s worked for—his need to help her becomes all-consuming. It starts with small justifications: making sure she has prenatal vitamins, confirming she has a safe place to stay, offering resources that any good doctor would provide. But it escalates quickly beyond professional concern into something far more dangerous. He finds himself checking on her outside of scheduled appointments, making excuses to see her, lying awake at night worrying about whether she’s safe. He knows he’s crossing lines that exist for good reasons, boundaries that protect both doctors and patients from the complications that arise when professional relationships become personal. Even though he could lose everything he’s worked for—his practice, his license, his credibility in the medical community—he can’t stay away. 👨‍⚕️

The question that haunts him as he gets deeper into this forbidden connection is simple but terrifying: How far will he go to protect her? When protecting her means violating the ethics he swore to uphold, when it means putting his career and freedom at risk, when it might mean confronting whoever or whatever has her so frightened—how far is too far? The answer, he’s discovering, is that there is no “too far” when it comes to keeping her safe. He’ll risk everything—his reputation, his career, his freedom—to ensure that she and her baby are protected from whatever threat has her looking over her shoulder. The vows he took as a doctor said to do no harm, but he’s learning that sometimes protecting someone requires breaking other vows, crossing boundaries that can never be uncrossed, and accepting consequences that will change his life forever. ⚖️

What makes this compelling: Samantha Christy delivers a forbidden-love romance that takes one of the most ethically complex relationship dynamics—doctor and patient—and explores it with both emotional intensity and an understanding of the real stakes involved. The pregnancy adds layers of vulnerability and protection instinct that make the hero’s rule-breaking feel believable rather than reckless, while the mysterious danger surrounding the heroine creates external tension to match the internal conflict. This is a standalone in the Stone Brothers series, making it perfect for readers who love protective alpha heroes willing to risk everything, heroines who need saving but aren’t helpless, and forbidden romance that acknowledges why the rules exist even as it breaks them. 💕

The woman he spent one hot night with ends up being his boss’s daughter, and if he wants to keep his job and not get his brothers fired in the process, he absolutely cannot touch her again. That should be simple enough—one night of passion with a stranger passing through town, no names exchanged beyond first ones, no promises made, just mutual attraction and chemistry that burned hot enough to leave him thinking about her long after she disappeared into the night. He works with his two brothers on Hawthorne Guest Ranch doing the behind-the-scenes work that keeps a real working ranch operational—the hard physical labor, the early mornings and late nights, the unglamorous reality of ranching that guests never see. They have strict orders from the boss that are crystal clear: stay away from the guests, stay away from the staff, and especially stay away from the boss’s daughters. He’s always followed those rules without difficulty because keeping his job matters more than temporary temptation. 🤠

So when a woman walks into the bar one night and says she’s just passing through, that she’ll be gone tomorrow, he sees an opportunity he’d be a fool to pass up. She’s beautiful, funny, refreshingly honest about wanting the same no-strings encounter he does. He gives her a night to remember—they both do—and tries not to think too hard about how much he’d actually like to see her again, how she’s different from other casual encounters, how she made him laugh in addition to everything else. He watches her leave the next morning telling himself it’s better this way, that complications would have been inevitable if she’d stayed, that one perfect night is enough. Then he goes to work and his entire world tilts sideways when she’s introduced not only as Jamison Hawthorne—one of the boss’s daughters he’s explicitly forbidden to touch—but as their newest staff member who’ll be working at the ranch indefinitely. 🍺

He tries desperately to stay away from her, really he does. He avoids places she might be, takes different routes around the ranch, volunteers for the jobs that will keep him far from wherever she’s working. But Jamison has a way of making a guy want more, a way of showing up exactly where he is with that knowing smile, a way of reminding him with every loaded glance that they have unfinished business regardless of who her father is. The attraction between them didn’t burn out with the sunrise—if anything, proximity makes it worse. Stolen moments turn into secret touches, secret touches become stolen kisses, and before long they’re sneaking around like teenagers, risking everything for encounters that grow increasingly difficult to keep hidden. He knows if he keeps this up he’ll lose his job, and worse, he’ll get his brothers fired too since they work as a package deal. The guilt of potentially destroying his brothers’ livelihoods should be enough to stop him, but it isn’t. 💋

The truth he’s avoiding is that he doesn’t have more to give her even if the job situation wasn’t an issue. All that’s in his name is an old mine that some whiskey CEO wants to turn into his next distillery—a piece of property that represents both family history and potential financial security, but hardly the kind of assets that make a man worthy of the boss’s daughter. He’s just a ranch hand, a guy who works with his hands and lives paycheck to paycheck, a whiskey cowboy without prospects beyond his current job. Yet Jamison doesn’t seem to care about any of that, keeps pushing for more than he thinks he can offer, keeps looking at him like he’s enough exactly as he is. So it’s up to him to figure out how to be more for Jamison than some whiskey cowboy with an old mine and a forbidden attraction—to find a way to deserve her, to build something real, to prove that the night they shared wasn’t just chemistry but the beginning of something worth fighting for even if it means risking everything. 🌟

Why this delivers: Walker Rose crafts a contemporary Western romance that combines workplace forbidden-love tension with the secret-relationship trope while grounding it in authentic ranch life rather than glossy fantasy. The hero’s genuine concern about jeopardizing his brothers’ employment adds emotional weight beyond typical “forbidden by the boss” stories, while his feelings of unworthiness create internal conflict that matches the external obstacles. For readers who love blue-collar heroes with integrity, heroines who know what they want and aren’t afraid to pursue it, and Western settings that feel lived-in rather than romanticized, this hits all the right notes with heat, heart, and cowboys. 🔥

Sebastian Drake finds himself in a predicament familiar to many a gentleman of breeding but unfortunate circumstances—he desperately needs money, and he needs it soon. With creditors circling and time running out, he faces limited options for a man of his station. No wealthy relatives are likely to leave him a fortune, no unexpected inheritance is coming his way, and working for a living is simply not done in his circles. That leaves him with only one socially acceptable path to solvency: he must marry an heiress, and he must do it quickly. Fortunately, London’s ballrooms are teeming with eligible young women of substantial fortunes, their doting papas eager to secure titled connections for their daughters. But it’s the Season’s newest arrival who truly captures Sebastian’s attention—a woman whose combination of wealth and appeal makes her the perfect target for his matrimonial campaign. 💰

Selina Lawrence, however, has very different plans for her future, and they most decidedly do not include acquiring another husband. Having only recently rid herself of one spouse, she’s savoring her newfound independence and has no intention of surrendering it to another man—particularly not to a charming scoundrel she suspects is nothing more than a fortune hunter. When the devastatingly handsome Mr. Drake begins his courtship campaign with all the practiced ease of a man who’s done this before, Selina sees through his tactics immediately. She’s learned hard lessons about men who pursue women for their money rather than their hearts, and she’s not about to become anyone’s solution to a financial crisis. But simply refusing his advances seems too easy, too kind. If Mr. Drake wants to play games, Selina decides, she’ll play along—but on her own terms. She’s going to teach this would-be fortune hunter a lesson he’ll never forget. 🎭

Sebastian approaches his courtship of Selina with the same strategic thinking he’d apply to any important venture. He deploys his considerable charm, manufactures chance encounters, and carefully constructs opportunities to showcase his better qualities while downplaying his desperate circumstances. Each calculated move is designed to position himself as an appealing match, to make Selina see him as something more than just another fortune-seeking gentleman. But as his campaign unfolds, Sebastian discovers that Selina is unlike any heiress he’s encountered before. She’s sharp, witty, and seems to anticipate his every move, almost as if she’s playing her own game entirely. Her responses to his overtures are unexpectedly clever, sometimes encouraging, sometimes cutting, and always unpredictable. What should have been a straightforward pursuit becomes increasingly complicated as Selina proves herself more than a match for his schemes. 💎

Meanwhile, Selina’s plan to humble the presumptuous Mr. Drake and teach him the error of his mercenary ways begins to produce results she never anticipated. Her clever maneuvers to expose his fortune-hunting motivations keep backfiring in the strangest ways, somehow drawing them closer together rather than driving them apart. The more she tries to unmask his true intentions, the more she finds herself genuinely engaged in their verbal sparring. There’s an intelligence behind Sebastian’s charm that she hadn’t expected, moments of vulnerability that seem too authentic to be performance, and an unexpected sense of humor that matches her own. Even more unsettling, Sebastian begins responding to her schemes not with frustration or wounded pride, but with what appears to be genuine admiration for her cleverness. The battle lines between them blur as their tactical engagement transforms into something neither of them planned for—a connection that feels dangerously real. 💕

Why this deserves your attention: Martha Keyes has crafted a delightfully subversive Regency romance that takes the tired fortune-hunter trope and spins it into something fresh and emotionally satisfying. Both characters enter with clear agendas and unshakable certainties, only to discover that the human heart refuses to follow strategic plans—a theme that feels both timeless and perfectly suited to the witty banter and social maneuvering of the Regency era. For fans of Julia Quinn’s clever heroines and Tessa Dare’s flawed-but-lovable heroes, this delivers all the sparkling dialogue and romantic tension you crave. 👑

Life felt almost perfect before everything fell apart. A beautiful baby boy who fills every day with joy and wonder. A partner who wants to build a real future together, someone worth making a life with. A gorgeous cottage in the Cotswolds that they’re renovating room by room, turning it into their dream home. The kind of peaceful, idyllic existence that makes you count your blessings and believe the hard times are finally behind you. But then Ben comes home with news that shatters that carefully constructed peace—his brother Adam is coming to stay. The announcement lands with ominous weight, especially when Ben grips her hand and makes her promise something that sends ice through her veins: “Promise me something—don’t believe everything Adam tells you.” It’s the kind of warning that makes you understand, even before the danger arrives, that nothing will ever be the same again. 🏡

From the moment Adam appears on their doorstep, everything feels wrong. He arrives with his girlfriend in tow, all manufactured charm and those unsettling dark smiles that never quite reach his eyes. There’s something off about the way he moves through their home, the way he looks at things—at her, at the baby—with an intensity that feels invasive and calculating. His girlfriend seems fragile, almost breakable, flinching at unexpected sounds and watching Adam with a mixture of devotion and something that might be fear. Adam promises they won’t stay long, that they just need a place to land for a few days while they sort things out. It’s a lie, though she doesn’t fully realize it yet. The few days stretch into a week, then longer, and Adam weaves himself deeper into the fabric of their household with the skill of someone who’s done this before. 😰

Then Adam’s girlfriend disappears. One morning she’s simply gone, and Adam’s explanation is smooth, almost rehearsed. She had to leave suddenly, family emergency, she didn’t want to wake anyone. The story should be believable, but it isn’t. The details keep shifting slightly each time he tells it, small inconsistencies that add up to something deeply wrong. Ben seems uneasy but unwilling to confront his brother directly, caught between family loyalty and mounting suspicion. The atmosphere in the cottage becomes increasingly claustrophobic as Adam settles in more permanently, acting as though he belongs there, as though he has every right to their home, their lives, their trust. And despite every instinct screaming warnings, despite remembering Ben’s plea not to believe Adam’s lies, she finds herself letting him get close. Too close. Because she never imagined—couldn’t imagine—that he would take her child. 👶

The realization, when it comes, is devastating in its clarity. All the small violations of boundaries, all the lies and manipulations, were building toward this moment. Adam didn’t come for a place to stay or for brotherly reconciliation. He came with a plan, and every charming smile, every seemingly innocent interaction, was a step in executing it. The girlfriend who disappeared wasn’t the victim of a family emergency—she was a warning sign that went unheeded. Now her baby is gone, taken by someone who’s proven himself capable of elaborate deception, and she’s left with the crushing knowledge that she saw it coming but couldn’t stop it. The betrayal cuts deeper because it’s family, because Ben trusted his brother enough to bring him into their home, and because she ignored her own instincts when they mattered most. 🚨

What makes this grip from page one: E.V. Seymour has crafted a masterclass in escalating dread, using the domestic thriller framework to explore how family bonds can become chains that prevent us from protecting ourselves and those we love most. The first-person narration traps us in the protagonist’s perspective as she watches disaster unfold with horrifying clarity, and the “I saw it coming” framing creates a devastating dramatic irony that makes every ignored warning sign feel like a betrayal of maternal instinct. For readers who devoured “The Guest List,” “The Family Upstairs,” or anything by Ruth Ware, this delivers that same suffocating tension of danger hiding behind familiar faces. 📖

Mason Sharpe’s world collapses in an instant of random violence that steals everything he thought his future would hold. His beloved fiancée, the woman he planned to spend his life with, is killed in a shooting that makes no sense—wrong place, wrong time, a senseless act that leaves him shattered and drowning in grief he can’t process. As an Army veteran, Mason has faced death before, has lost brothers in combat and learned to carry that weight. But this is different. This isn’t a war zone where death is an accepted risk; this is the woman he loved, taken in a moment of ordinary life, and the unfairness of it threatens to destroy him. Unable to cope with the suffocating memories and well-meaning sympathy that surround him, Mason makes an instinctive decision—he heads for the small North Carolina coastal town where he and his bride had planned to honeymoon, seeking some connection to the future that was stolen from him. 💔

Alone on a windswept beach, the Atlantic stretching endlessly before him, Mason confronts the bleakness of his new reality. The future he’d imagined with such clarity—the marriage, the life they’d build together, the simple joy of shared days—has been erased, replaced by an emptiness so vast it feels impossible to navigate. He stares into the abyss of his grief, wondering if there’s any point in continuing forward when everything he was moving toward is gone. The waves crash with indifferent rhythm, and Mason stands at the edge of something terrible, questioning whether he has the strength or the reason to step back from that edge. But then fate, or perhaps something darker, intervenes. A body washes ashore at his feet, pulled from the ocean’s depths by the tide, transforming his solitary moment of despair into something else entirely. 🌊

The discovery triggers an immediate police investigation, but their response feels rushed, almost perfunctory. Within hours, they’ve made their determination: accidental death, likely a drowning, no evidence of foul play. The case is essentially closed before it’s really opened, and the authorities make it clear they consider the matter settled. But Mason’s military training and combat experience have honed his instincts for reading situations, for seeing the details others miss, and something about their conclusion doesn’t sit right. The position of the body, certain injuries that seem inconsistent with drowning, the way local officials seem eager to wrap this up and move on—it all points to something being deliberately covered up. Mason voices his suspicions, pushes back against the official narrative, insists they’re missing something crucial. That’s when he realizes just how unwelcome his questions are in this tight-knit community. ⚰️

The message comes through quickly and unmistakably: Mason needs to leave, needs to stop asking questions, needs to accept the official story and get out of town. The warnings escalate from subtle to overt, from pointed suggestions to outright intimidation. It becomes crystal clear that powerful people in this seemingly peaceful coastal community have a vested interest in keeping whatever really happened to that dead man buried along with him. The locals aren’t just uncooperative—they’re actively hostile, ready to use force if necessary to run this outsider off. But they’ve badly miscalculated who they’re dealing with. Mason Sharpe isn’t some civilian who scares easily. He’s a trained soldier who’s faced down enemies far more dangerous than small-town corruption, and he’s a man with nothing left to lose. If they think they can intimidate him into silence, they’re about to learn a hard lesson. Mason has found something worth fighting for again, even if it’s just ensuring one victim gets justice. And he’ll deal with anyone who stands in his way the only way he knows how: Point Blank. 🎯

Why this launches a must-read series: Logan Ryles delivers a powerful origin story that establishes Mason Sharpe as a compelling addition to the lone-wolf thriller pantheon—a hero forged in grief who finds purpose through protecting others when he couldn’t protect the person he loved most. The North Carolina setting provides both atmospheric appeal and the insularity necessary for believable corruption, while Mason’s military background makes his capabilities credible without crossing into superhero territory. For fans of Lee Child’s Jack Reacher, Brad Thor’s Scot Harvath, or C.J. Box’s Joe Pickett, this series starter promises the addictive combination of righteous justice, tactical action, and a protagonist whose emotional scars make him more interesting than a dozen invincible super-soldiers. 📚

New York, 1942. Avery stands on the precipice of a conventional life, engaged to a suitable man and settled into the comfortable routine of her library job. It’s safe, predictable, exactly what her family expects—and increasingly suffocating. She’s restless in ways she can’t quite articulate, longing for something more than the prescribed path of marriage and domesticity that stretches before her like an endless corridor with no doors. Then an unexpected opportunity arrives, one that shatters every assumption about her future: a chance to trade her quiet library work for something far more dangerous—undercover intelligence-gathering in Portugal. The offer is extraordinary, unprecedented for a woman of her background, and terrifying in its implications. But for Avery, who’s been hungering for adventure and purpose beyond the narrow confines of her expected role, it’s irresistible. She says yes, not fully grasping how profoundly this decision will transform her—not just her circumstances, but her understanding of who she is and what she’s capable of becoming. 📚

Lisbon in wartime is unlike anything Avery could have imagined. Known throughout the intelligence community as the Capital of Espionage, it’s a city where enemies pass each other on the street, where every café might hide a spy, where neutrality is a thin veneer over a cauldron of international intrigue. German agents, British operatives, American intelligence officers, and Free French resisters all operate openly in a precarious dance of secrets and lies. Avery’s mission requires her to gather intelligence from newspapers and magazines, seemingly mundane work that’s actually crucial to understanding enemy movements and intentions. But accessing the right materials, especially German publications, isn’t simple. She needs someone with connections, someone who can provide what Allied intelligence desperately needs. Enter Camille, a French widow who owns a local bookshop and has access to the enemy newspapers and periodicals that are Avery’s targets. Camille seems warm, welcoming, eager to befriend this American newcomer. But in a city where nothing is as it seems, can Avery trust these friendly overtures, or is Camille playing her own dangerous game? 🕵️

The rumors about Camille swirl through Lisbon’s expatriate community like poison, impossible to ignore and equally impossible to verify. Whispers suggest she’s romantically involved with a Nazi officer, that her bookshop serves as a meeting place for German intelligence, that her flight from France wasn’t about escaping occupation but about following a lover. If any of this is true, then Avery’s professional relationship with her is catastrophically compromised—every piece of intelligence she gathers might be tainted, every conversation a potential trap. But the alternative is equally troubling: what if the rumors are false, designed to discredit Camille or to test Avery’s judgment? What if Camille is exactly what she appears to be—a widow trying to survive in impossible circumstances, using whatever resources and connections she has? The question of trust becomes paralyzing, especially as Avery discovers that Camille’s past is far more complicated than she initially revealed. There are secrets Camille brought with her when she fled France, shadows in her history that she’s desperate to keep hidden. And Avery, tasked with gathering intelligence while maintaining her cover, must make a decision that could determine the course of the war: trust Camille completely, or treat her as a potential enemy agent. Millions of lives depend on Avery making the right choice. ⚠️

As Avery delves deeper into Camille’s world, navigating the treacherous social landscape of wartime Lisbon, she realizes that her intelligence training never prepared her for the psychological complexity of living in a city where everyone wears masks. The work demands not just courage but constant vigilance, an exhausting performance where a single slip could expose her mission and cost lives—possibly including her own. Suspicions are growing around both women as their relationship deepens. German intelligence has noticed the American who frequents the French widow’s bookshop. Allied handlers are questioning whether Avery’s judgment has been compromised by her growing friendship with someone whose loyalties remain murky. Both women are playing a terrifyingly dangerous game in a city that shows no mercy to those who make mistakes. The pressure builds with each passing day, each careful conversation, each piece of intelligence that passes between them. And the terrible truth is becoming clear: in a city of spies, where deception is currency and trust is the rarest commodity, not everyone will survive to tell their story. The only question is whether Avery and Camille can stay far enough ahead of their enemies—and their own doubts—to make it through the war alive. 🔥

What makes this essential: Soraya M. Lane has crafted a meticulously researched tribute to the women who served in intelligence roles during World War II, using the genuinely fascinating setting of neutral Lisbon—where the war’s shadow players conducted business in plain sight—to explore the impossible moral calculus of wartime loyalty. The relationship between Avery and Camille transcends simple friendship or professional alliance; it becomes a meditation on how we decide whom to trust when deception is survival and truth might be fatal. For readers captivated by “The Nightingale,” “The Alice Network,” or “Code Name Verity,” this delivers that same powerful combination of historical authenticity, female courage, and the agonizing choices that war forces upon ordinary people thrust into extraordinary circumstances. 🌍

Joy Barlowe has made a career as Maple Creek’s fearless sports reporter, gaining access to the kind of behind-the-scenes locker room moments that most journalists never see. She’s professional, unflappable, completely comfortable in the testosterone-filled world of professional hockey—which is exactly why walking in on goalie Dalton Days in all his unabashed, completely naked glory should have been just another awkward moment to laugh off. But something about that particular encounter shifts the energy between them, because Dalton goes on to deliver the best game performance of his career that night. His save percentage is through the roof, his reflexes are superhuman, and the entire team rides his hot streak to a decisive victory. Coincidence? Dalton doesn’t believe in coincidences. He’s a professional athlete, which means he’s also deeply, perhaps irrationally, superstitious. And he’s just identified his good luck charm. 🏒

Dalton’s proposal is audacious, inappropriate, and—Joy has to admit—kind of hilarious. He wants her to take another peek before his next match, to recreate the conditions that preceded his career-best performance. It’s absurd, it’s unprofessional, and yet Joy finds herself agreeing to this ridiculous pregame ritual. Maybe it’s the journalist in her, curious to see if the pattern repeats. Maybe it’s something else entirely, something about Dalton’s confident charm and the way he looks at her like she’s not just a reporter but a woman he notices. Whatever her reasoning, the arrangement works—Dalton’s stats continue their upward trajectory, consistently delivering performances that have sports analysts buzzing and scouts taking notice. What started as a joke has become a tradition, and Joy is not only game for the arrangement, she’s actively playing along, finding excuses to ensure their pregame ritual continues. 👀

But there’s a complication neither of them accounted for, a detail that transforms their playful arrangement from harmless fun into genuinely dangerous territory: Joy is the younger sister of Dalton’s best friend. She’s supposed to be completely, absolutely, unquestionably off-limits. The bro code is clear on this point—teammates’ sisters are sacred ground, not to be flirted with, certainly not to be involved in late-night FaceTime sessions that have nothing to do with hockey and everything to do with the chemistry building between them. What happens between Joy and Dalton has to remain their secret, confined to those charged moments before games and the increasingly intimate conversations that follow. It’s just physical, they tell themselves. Just a superstition that happens to involve attraction. Nothing that needs to be examined too closely or labeled too specifically. The naked truth of their situation is that they’re playing with fire, but as long as nobody finds out, as long as they keep things compartmentalized and casual, they can maintain the illusion that this is under control. 🔥

Except it’s not under control, not remotely. With each passing game, each stolen moment, each late-night conversation that stretches until dawn, Joy and Dalton are discovering there’s far more between them than mutual attraction or convenient superstition. They’re learning each other’s stories, sharing vulnerabilities that have nothing to do with hockey or journalism. Dalton reveals the pressures of being a professional athlete, the fear of injury that could end everything, the loneliness of a life spent traveling between cities. Joy talks about the challenges of being taken seriously in a male-dominated field, the weight of her family’s expectations, the complexity of being simultaneously visible and invisible in the small-town world of Maple Creek. Falling in lust was easy—that was the simple part, the part they could rationalize and contain. Falling in love is proving much harder to hide, much harder to deny, and infinitely more complicated when the truth comes out—as truth always does in small towns where everyone knows everyone’s business. 💕

Why this is irresistible: Lauren Landish has crafted pure rom-com gold, combining the addictive appeal of sports romance with the forbidden-love tension of best-friend’s-sister dynamics, all wrapped in a premise so delightfully absurd that you can’t help but root for these crazy kids. The progression from superstitious ritual to genuine emotional connection is romance catnip, and Landish delivers exactly what her readers crave—witty banter, scorching chemistry, a small-town setting where secrets are impossible to keep, and the guaranteed satisfaction of watching two people who think they’re being casual discover they’re in way too deep to walk away. For fans of Becka Mack, Pippa Grant, or anyone who loves their hockey romance with extra heat and a side of humor, this hits every sweet spot. 🎯