Genre: Contemporary Romance Tropes: Small Town/Neighbours/Tattooed Bartender/Hollywood Alpha Release Date: June 20, 2024
Celebrity dog trainer Prudence Cassidy never imagined her life would be like this. Filming in Hollywood went haywire when she caught the charismatic Mr Hollywood’s eye—but Prue doesn’t have room in her life for complications. She’s still recovering from retrograde amnesia so she flees to Robertson, home of the ‘Big Potato’ in country Australia, determined to start anew.
For Darius Dalton, family comes first. Always. His architectural dreams can wait while he tends bar in the family restaurant in Robertson, dazzling patrons with his cocktails whilst maintaining the complex he built with his late father. Day in, day out, work is all he sees—until Prue.
When she moves into his apartment building, Darius falls head over paw for the animal-loving brunette—and it seems she feels the same way. Their chemistry is undeniable. The more time they spend together, the more Darius questions if he can have it all: a life outside of work, and love.
When Mr Hollywood himself comes to town, intent on winning her back and casting her simple life in the spotlight, who will Prue choose?
That’s the thing about the past—your dirty laundry will always find you.
Jennifer Ryder is a bestselling romance author who loves to write about small towns, swoony heroes and strong females who aren’t afraid to fight for what they want.
A born and bred Canberra girl, now living on a rural property in New South Wales, Australia, she enjoys the best of city and country. Her loving husband is ever willing to provide inspiration, and her two young cherubs, Jack Russell named Buddy and sheep that don’t see fences as barriers, keep life more than interesting.
Genre: Romantic Suspense Tropes: Small Town/Opposites Attract Military Protector Romance Release Date: June 18, 2024
Dead to their pasts. Ghosts. No family ties. No connections.
Six men with a top-secret mission move to a small town where they have to navigate local life, protect their secret, and, above all, stay single.
Former Hostile Operations Team soldier Blaze “Shadow” Connolly knows what it’s like to lose everything. He’s got nobody except his job and his team and that’s the way he likes it.
But when he walks into a gas station during a robbery and locks eyes with Emma Grace Sutton, he knows he’ll do anything to protect the pretty girl with the blue glasses.
ER doctor Emma had a bright future until her ex-boyfriend became the kind of nightmare she was certain could never happen to her. With her self-esteem shattered and her confidence in ruins, she left a promising career and returned to her hometown to take over her dad’s small family practice. It’s not what she wants, but it’s what she needs to rebuild her life.
Until she gets that prickly feeling she’s being watched again. Did her ex follow her to Sutton’s Creek or is she imagining things? Is she in danger or is it PTSD? She doesn’t know, but she knows a man with the skills to find out. The ruggedly handsome sexy protector who saved her from a bullet once before.
Blaze isn’t supposed to get involved. Doing so could put the mission at risk. But how can he turn Emma away when the desperation in her eyes hints at even darker secrets? He can’t — and that might just be the final nail in his coffin.
A small town, nerdy girl, opposites attract, military protector romance from NYT bestselling author Lynn Raye Harris
“Attraction and arousal are complicated phenomenons. You have to have the right amount of sympathetic nervous system activity. Your heart races, you tingle, and feel jumpy. That’s the fight-or-flight reaction. But then you have the parasympathetic nervous system which regulates the physical signs of arousal, like genital swelling and releasing sexual fluids. Add in the dopamine hits that come from being around you, and it’s a perfect storm of need and desire.” “That’s your reason?” he asked, his voice hoarse. “It’s biological?” “Mmm,” she said, dropping her mouth to kiss his chest. God, this was so unlike her, but it was also precisely what she wanted to do in the moment. His breath hissed in, his hands closing gently around her upper arms. He didn’t push her away, though. “It’s biological, yes,” she said. “But it’s mental, too. Because you’re you, and everything about you makes me want you. Whether it’s biological, evolutionary, chemical—I don’t really care. It’s a need in my belly, in my core, that I haven’t felt before. Nothing about this makes sense to me. And I feel like, if I fight it, if I don’t express to you that I want whatever you can give, that I’ll regret it on some level. I’m tired of living scared. I want to live with the kind of wild joy that comes from choosing to get on the rollercoaster.” His hands slid around her body to cup her ass. Emma had to bite back a groan at the feel of those big hands on her bottom. “I’m a rollercoaster, now?” he asked with a laugh before he bent to nibble her earlobe. “You might be,” she breathed. “But I want to take the ride.”
AUTHOR BIO
Lynn Raye Harris is a Southern girl, military wife, wannabe cat lady, and horse lover. She’s also the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of the HOSTILE OPERATIONS TEAM Ⓡ SERIES of military romances, and 20 books about sexy billionaires for Harlequin.
A former finalist for the Romance Writers of America’s Golden Heart Award and the National Readers Choice Award, Lynn lives in Alabama with her handsome former-military husband, one fluffy princess of a cat, and a very spoiled American Saddlebred horse who enjoys bucking at random in order to keep Lynn on her toes.
Lynn’s books have been called “exceptional and emotional,” “intense,” and “sizzling” – and have sold in excess of 4.5 million copies worldwide.
To sign up for Lynn’s VIP Reader List – where you’ll be kept up to date about all of Lynn’s books – go to http://bit.ly/LRHNews.
This series is an off-shoot of the ever popular HOT series and I LOVED it. This time around the team is in deep cover, giving deniability to the President. You wouldn’t think small town Alabama would be a hotbed of espionage, would you?
Blaze aka Shadow is a man who overcame his upbringing. He went from the unwanted and neglected child to an overprotective, special forces soldier. He and his team have orders to stay free and clear, no relationships to leave behind if things go pear-shaped. Sadly, fate said “screw” that and dropped the delightfully nerdy Dr Emma Grace Sutton in his path!
Emma has trauma of her own that’s she’s running home to her small hometown to escape. Now she has a hulking, protective, overbearing and slightly demanding neighbour who seems determined to protect her, even when she tries to head him off at every opportunity.
Emma is an incredibly intelligent, nerdy, determined ER doctor who made a bad choice in the romance department (who hasn’t!) but she refuses to let her skanky ex ruin any more of her life. But the attraction to Blaze is derailing her no men policy fast. Her outgoing best-friend, Rory, adds a splash of colour and humour to her life and I can totally see why these opposites are besties!
I did guess the bad guy but had a great time trying to figure out when Blaze and Co would twig to who he was. The underlying espionage storyline is flowing nicely and I’m intrigued to see what happens in book 2. Fab new story and I heartily recommend this to all my protector romance trope bookdragons!
A young woman returns home to the small, claustrophobic town of Knife River. When Jess was thirteen, her mother went for a walk and did not return – now, fifteen years later, bones have been discovered in the woods nearby.
Jess’s sister has remained in their childhood home – her life, their home and the town itself seemingly frozen in time. As days turn into weeks, Jess’s understanding of the past, her sister, and herself become more and more complicated – and the list of suspects responsible for her mother’s terrible fate more and more ominous .
Author bio
Justine Champine‘s short fiction has appeared in Kenyon Review, Epoch, and The Los Angeles Review of Books. She holds an MFA from Sarah Lawrence College and is a founding staff member of No Tokens Journal. She lives in New York City. Knife River is her first novel.
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A fractured family, an unsolved murder, small town gossipmongering.
Jess and Liz had hopes and dreams to get away from their small town, mundane lives but their mother going missing robbed them of that. Jess fled the town as soon as she could and Liz stayed behind, staying in their former family home, slowly turning from a sympathetic figure into someone to be pitied.
When their mothers remains are finally found, Jess and Liz will have to deal with the scuttlebutt and rumours starting again. But has the murderer finished with the family? Will the sisters finally get closure? Will they finally be able to put the past to bed and move on with their lives?
Jess is a complete nomad – she drifts through life, with nothing more than a few bags of clothes to call her own. She flits from job to job and girlfriend to girlfriend. Liz is her complete opposite and seems to have grabbed onto her old life and refuses to let go. But her dreams have rotted away, and in turn she has turned bitter and shrewish.
This was a really complex novel where women are all the driving relationships and the bonds that they share, the connections they forge, as the impetus of the storyline. I must admit that neither Jess nor Liz made for very likeable main characters in my opinion. Jess could come across as selfish and rootless and a bit of a user. She certainly had no qualms in moving on from her live in girlfriend when her first love came back on the scene! Liz is quite a harsh character too. I suppose being left to deal with the aftermath of your mothers disappearance would jade you but she just felt so downtrodden sometimes.
He’s a down-to-earth highland farmer. She’s the rebellious daughter of Hollywood royalty. They might seem like they’re from different worlds, but that won’t stop them from engaging in a marriage of convenience…
It’s been five years since Jared McCulloch’s grandfather Collum passed away and he inherited his farm in the Scottish Highlands. After his grandad saved him from his past life, Jared is determined to honor Collum’s legacy. But not only has a series of bad luck put him in danger of losing the farm, his estranged father is disputing the will. In a desperate situation, Jared realizes he’ll do just about anything to save the land.
Even marrying Allegra Howard, a woman he’s avoided at all costs.
A woman who tempts him beyond reason.
There’s only one place that makes Allegra Howard feel safe; one place that feeds her artist’s soul. Allegra wants to settle down in Scotland and expand her business. But there’s a hitch: immigration intends to return her to US soil.
Panicked, Allegra finds the one person just as desperate as she is. The same person she’s lusted after for years. In exchange for marrying her, she’ll invest financially in Jared McCulloch’s farm.
However, living together only forces them to acknowledge their searing mutual attraction. And with it comes an undeniable emotional connection Jared’s not sure he’s ready for.
Yet, blurring the lines of their arrangement is the least of his concerns when someone begins terrorizing the farm.
Allegra and Jared came together to save what matters most and now that might just be each other. And unless they can figure out which of their pasts has returned to torment them, they could lose their chance at a real future together…
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Back to Ardnoch we go for some more homegrown hottie heroes and the women who bring them to their knees.
Allegra loves Scotland. Here she can just be Allegra – she’s not famous, she’s not so and so’s daughter. But after a brush with Customs she may not be able to get back for a while. How on Earth will she survive without access to her haven?
Jared has kept his distance from Allegra. Let her think he doesn’t really like her. It’s better than getting to close to the beautiful American and then have her leave him behind. He’s a farmer, she’s Hollywood royalty – they shouldn’t ever have met. But his grandads farm is in trouble and Allegra has the cash he needs. So a little marriage of convenience can solve both their problems. Maybe. Or will the problems multiply?
There’s heartbreak, tension, intense chemistry and of course beautiful Scottish scenery. There are more than a few steamy moments between these two. And when Jared starts with the “my Wife” comments I was done for! No one writes Scottish romance better then a Scot and we Scottish romance readers love it when the dialogue and idiom are just right. Sadly not all foreign born writers get it right.
As a female coach, I’ve always lived by a simple mantra: throw hard, swing for the fences, and never, ever look back—especially when it comes to past flames.
So when my ex-boyfriend somehow manages to land the job as my new assistant coach, my life is flipped upside down. The game I thought I’d mastered is now being played with a whole new set of rules.
My ex is baseball’s all-star Nathan Pierce. He’s tall, dark, and undeniably handsome. He’s also all too eager to spend extra hours working together while flashing that familiar devilish smirk of his that still sends my heart racing.
Between playful teasing and lingering stares I discover that Nathan isn’t just here to work. He’s here to rewrite history. Our history.
And when fate throws another curveball that involves me needing a place to stay, Nathan offers me his spare bedroom which sends me spiraling into emotions I believed had long since faded.
Now I’m faced with the ultimate decision: keep it professional and continue fleeing from our past, or confront it head-on by playing the game he thinks we were meant to finish together.
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