Another month, another book haul! Have you gotten a lot of good books lately?
NETGALLEY::
Hailey Sharp has a one-track mind. Get By the Cup salad shop off the ground. Do literally everything possible to make it a success. Repeat. With a head full of entrepreneurial ideas and a bad ex in her rearview, her one and only focus is living life the way she wants to. No distractions.
Wes Jansen never did understand the fuss about relationships. With a string of lackluster first dates and the pain from his parentsโ angry divorce following him around, heโd much rather find someone who he likes, but wonโt love. Companionship, not passion, is the name of the game.
When Hailey and Wes find each other in a disastrous meet cute that wasnโt even intended for them, they embarrassingly go their separate ways. But when Wes finds Hailey to apologize for his behavior, they strike a friendship. Because thatโs all this can be. Hailey doesnโt want any distractions. Wes doesnโt want to fall in love.
What could possibly go wrong?
A laugh-out-loud, opposites attract romance about three of the worldโs most beloved Cโs: Christmas, Coffee, and Cats.
Veterinarian and animal lover Kara Ingalls needs a Christmas miracle. Opening the Meow and Furrever Cat Cafรฉ to find loving homes for adorable, adoptable cats was a dream come trueโbut with more cats than customers, itโs quickly turning into a nightmare. If Kara canโt figure out some way to get the cafรฉ out of the red, it wonโt last past the holidays.
Marketing guru Ben Reese may be annoyingly smart and frustratingly bossy, but when he hatches a plan to put the cafรฉ in the โgreenโ by Christmas, Kara realizes that sheโd be a fool to turn down his help. And so what if he turns out to be an excellent problem solver and nerdy-hotโhe canโt even handle fostering one little kitten. She needs to keep their relationship professional and focus on saving the cafe.
But if Ben and Kara can set aside their differencesโand find homes for all the cats by Christmasโthey might discover that, by risking their hearts, theyโll have their own purr-fect holiday . . . together.
One life.
One choice.
One sacrifice.
To save those closest to her, Simi traded away everything: her freedom, her family, and the boy she loves. Now she is sworn to serve a new god, watching over the Land of the Dead at the bottom of the ocean.
But when signs of demons begin to appear, it’s clear there are deeper consequences of Simi’s trade. These demons spell the world’s ruin . . . and because of Simi, they now have a way into the human realm.
With the fate of the world at stake, Simi must break her promise and team up with a scheming trickster of a god. And if they succeed, perhaps Simi can also unbreak her heart along the way, and find herself again.
Vibrantly funny, endearingly sweet, and a love letter to all things rom com, Jayne Denker’s The Rom Com Agenda is a story of two people finding love right when they least expect it.
You know how the story’s supposed to go…but love makes its own plans.
STEP 1: Find yourself
Leah Keegan is used to being alone, especially after taking care of her sick foster mother for the past year. But now thereโs nothing keeping her in the sweet town of Willow Cove. Itโs time to move on. Again.
STEP 2: Win back the one who got away
Eli Masterson thought he and Victoria were meant to be together until she decided to jet off to Rome for a year. Eli is determined to win her back. But how?
STEP 3: Become a romantic hero
Changing Eliโs physical appearance is easy, but to turn Eli into the sophisticated-yet-vulnerable ideal man, his girl pals force him to watch classic rom-coms. And take notes.
STEP 4: Fall in love?
Inadvertently drawn into the makeover scheme, Leah ends up being Eliโs guide through the wild world of meet-cutes and grand gestures. Even though she believes Eli doesnโt need to change a thing about himself. Even though she just might be falling for Eli . . . and Eli falling for her.
Each spring, Ithaca condemns twelve maidens to the noose. This is the price vengeful Poseidon demands for the lives of Queen Penelopeโs twelve maids, hanged and cast into the depths centuries ago.
But when that fate comes for Leto, death is not what she thought it would be. Instead, she wakes on a mysterious island and meets a girl with green eyes and the power to command the sea. A girl named Melantho, who says one more death can stop a thousand.
The prince of Ithaca must dieโor the tides of fate will drown them all.
Half British Reaper, half Japanese Shinigami Ren Scarborough is no longer the girl who was chased out of Englandโshe is the Goddess of Death ruling Japanโs underworld. But her problems have never been greater. Her Shinigami see her as a foreigner on the throne. Her brother, Neven, is gone, lost in the deep darkness. And her fiancรฉ, Hiro, has been killed by her own hand.
Then Ren receives the most troubling news yetโReapers have been spotted in Japan, and itโs only a matter of time before Ivy, now Britainโs Death Goddess, comes to claim her revenge.
Renโs last hope is to appeal to the god of storms and seas, who can turn the tides to send Ivyโs ship away from Japanโs shores. But heโll help Ren only if she finds a sword lost thousands of years agoโan impossible demand.
Together with the moon god Tsukuyomi, who shares an uncanny resemblance to his brother Hiro, Ren ventures across the country in a race against time. As her journey thrusts her into the middle of scheming gods and dangerous Yokai demons, Ren will have to learn who she can truly trustโand the fate of Japan hangs in the balance.ย
Eighteen-year-old Victoria is a Wildblood. Kidnapped at the age of six and manipulated by the Exotic Lands Touring Company, sheโs worked as a tour guide ever since with a team of fellow Wildbloods who take turns using their magic to protect travelers in a Jamaican jungle teeming with ghostly monsters.
When the boss denies Victoria an earned promotion to team leader in favor of Dean, her backstabbing ex, sheโs determined to prove herself. Her magic may be the most powerful on the team, but sheโs not the image the boss wants to send their new client, Thorn, a renowned goldminer determined to reach an untouched gold supply deep in the jungle.
Thorn is everything Victoria isn’t – confident, impossibly kind, and so handsome he leaves her speechless. And when he entrusts the mission to her, kindness turns to mutual respect, turns to affection, turns to love. But the jungle is treacherous, and between hypnotic river spirits, soul-devouring women that shed their skin like snakes, and her ex out for revenge, Victoria has to decide – is promotion at a corrupt company really what she wants?
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ONLINE LIBRARY::
Just weeks away from ditching DC for greener pastures, Solange Pereira is roped into helping her wedding planner cousin on a random coupleโs big day. Itโs an easy gig… until she stumbles upon a situation that convinces her the pair isnโt meant to be. Whatโs a true-blue romantic to do? Crash the wedding, of course. And ensure the unsuspecting groom doesnโt make the biggest mistake of his life.
Dean Chapman had his future all mapped out. He was about to check off โstart a familyโ and on track to โmake partnerโ when his modern day marriage of convenience went up in smoke. Then he learns he might not land an assignment that could be his ticket to a promotion unless he has a significant other and, in a moment of panic, Dean claims to be in love with the woman who crashed his wedding. Oops.
Now Dean has a whole new item on his to-do list: beg Solange to be his pretend girlfriend. Solange feels a tiny bit bad about ruining Deanโs wedding, so she agrees to play along. Yet as they fake-date their way around town, what started as a performance for Deanโs colleagues turns into a connection that neither he nor Solange can deny. Their entire romance is a sham… thereโs no way these polar opposites could fall in love for real, right?
Sometimes bitter rivalries can brew something sweet
Theo Mori wants to escape. Leaving Vermont for college means getting away from working at his parentsโ Asian American cafรฉ and dealing with their archrivalsโ hopeless son Gabi whoโs lost the soccer team more games than Theo can count.
Gabi Moreno is miserably stuck in the closet. Forced to play soccer to hide his love for dance and iced out by Theo, the only openly gay guy at school, Gabiโs only reprieve is his parentsโ Puerto Rican bakery and his plans to take over after graduation.
But the townโs new fusion cafรฉ changes everything. Between the Moriโs struggling shop and the Morenoโs plan to sell their bakery in the face of the competition, both boys find their dreams in jeopardy. Then Theo has an ideaโsell photo-worthy food covertly at school to offset their losses. When he sprains his wrist and Gabi gets roped in to help, they realize they need to work together to save their parentsโ shops but will the new feelings rising between them be enough to send their future plans up in smoke?
A clever and steamy queer romantic comedy about taking chances and accepting loveโwith all its complicationsโby debut author Ashley Herring Blake.
Delilah Green swore she would never go back to Bright Fallsโnothing is there for her but memories of a lonely childhood where she was little more than a burden to her cold and distant stepfamily. Her life is in New York, with her photography career finally gaining steam and her bed never empty. Sure, itโs a different woman every night, but thatโs just fine with her.
When Delilahโs estranged stepsister, Astrid, pressures her into photographing her wedding with a guilt trip and a five-figure check, Delilah finds herself back in the godforsaken town that she used to call home. She plans to breeze in and out, but then she sees Claire Sutherland, one of Astridโs stuck-up besties, and decides that maybe thereโs some fun (and a little retribution) to be had in Bright Falls, after all.
Having raised her eleven-year-old daughter mostly on her own while dealing with her unreliable ex and running a bookstore, Claire Sutherland depends upon a life without surprises. And Delilah Green is an unwelcome surpriseโฆat first. Though theyโve known each other for years, they donโt really know each otherโso Claire is unsettled when Delilah figures out exactly what buttons to push. When theyโre forced together during a gauntlet of wedding preparationsโincluding a plot to save Astrid from her horrible fiancรฉโClaire isnโt sure she has the strength to resist Delilahโs charms. Even worse, sheโs starting to think she doesnโt want toโฆ
Santorini felt like an island holding its breath. As if it were keeping in a secret…
Liv Varanakis doesnโt like to think about her father much, which makes senseโhe fled to Greece when she was only eight, leaving her with just a few painful memories of their shared love for the lost city of Atlantis. So when teenage Liv suddenly receives a postcard from her father, who explains that National Geographic is supporting a documentary about his theories on Atlantisโand asks if she will fly out to Greece and helpโLiv is less than thrilled.
When she arrives in gorgeous Santorini, things are just as awkward as she’d imagined. There are so many questions, so many emotions that flood to the surface after seeing her father for the first time in years. Liv doesnโt want to get sucked back into her father’s world. She also definitely doesnโt want Theo, her fatherโs charismatic so-called protรฉgรฉ, to witness her struggle.
Even so, she can’t help but be charmed by everything Santorini has to offerโthe beautiful sunsets, the turquoise water, the sun-drenched villages, and the delicious cuisine. But not everything on the Greek island is as perfect as it seems. Because as Liv slowly begins to discover, her father may not have invited her to Greece for Atlantis, but for something much more important.
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PHYSICAL BOOKS I BOUGHT:
Three weddings. Three funerals. Alessaโs gift from the gods is supposed to magnify a partnerโs magic, not kill every suitor she touches.
Now, with only weeks left until a hungry swarm of demons devours everything on her island home, Alessa is running out of time to find a partner and stop the invasion. When a powerful priest convinces the faithful that killing Alessa is the islandโs only hope, her own soldiers try to assassinate her.
Desperate to survive, Alessa hires Dante, a cynical outcast marked as a killer, to become her personal bodyguard. But as rebellion explodes outside the gates, Danteโs dark secrets may be the biggest betrayal. He holds the key to her survival and her heart, but is he the one person who can help her master her gift or destroy her once and for all?
Emily Thiede’s exciting fantasy debut, This Vicious Grace, will keep readers turning the pages until the devastating conclusion and leave them primed for more!
I am steadily getting through my arcs! But I’m excited to read some of the books I got on my online library. What did you get in your latest book haul?
