Terri Osburn
Meant to Be
Montlake/ May 21, 2013 / $10.36 print, $3.99 digital

Sometimes the next best thing is what you’ve been looking for all along…

Beth Chandler has spent her whole life pleasing others. She went to law school to make her grandparents happy. She agreed to marry her workaholic boyfriend, Lucas, to make him happy. And, despite her fear of boats, she took a ferry to see Lucas’s parents just to make them happy.

While suffering through a panic attack on the ferry, Beth meets a tall, sexy stranger who talks her down from her fear—and makes her heart flutter in the process. Soon, she has a new reason to panic: her gorgeous, blue-eyed rescuer is Lucas’s brother, Joe. But could she ever leave her fiancé for his own brother…even if Lucas is more focused on making partner than on making their relationship work…and even if Joe turns out to be everything she never knew she wanted?

Filled with excitement and delight, Meant to Be is the story of a young woman torn between urban pressures and small-town pleasures.

I am not a fan of love triangles, but, as with most romance tropes that I insist I don’t like, the right author can prove me wrong. Terri Osburn is the right author in this case. And she proves me wrong using siblings in the triangle, something that usually makes me toss a book immediately. The reasons I loved this book, triangle included, are threefold.

[Exhibit One...]

Tessa Bailey
His Risk to Take
Entangled / May 13, 2013 / $1.99 digital

Homicide cop Troy Bennett had a reputation with the Chicago PD for being fearless and in control—until the night his daredevil partner is killed during a raid. From that moment on, he swears he’ll never again be responsible for the loss of a loved one. To escape his demons, Troy transfers to the NYPD, bringing him up close and personal with Ruby Elliott, a beautiful, street-savvy pool hustler.

Reckless and stubbornly independent, Ruby embodies everything Troy’s avoiding, but when she walks into the pub he’s at with his new coworkers and blows his carefully laid plans to hell, Troy knows he has to have her—risks be damned. But there’s a connection between Ruby’s shadowed past and a case Troy’s working involving a notorious Brooklyn felon, throwing her safety into jeopardy. Confronted with his biggest fear, will Troy push Ruby away to keep her safe or fight to keep her in his arms where she belongs?

Troy Bennett, from Tessa Bailey’s His Risk to Take, is a cop with a very special talent. He is an alpha hero who takes protectiveness to a new level, especially once he meets Ruby Elliot, a pool hustler with a dubious past. But what is Troy’s special talent? When things heat up in the bedroom, Troy’s mouth goes into overdrive, talking—making Troy one of the dirtiest talking heroes I’ve run across in my years of reading romance.

[Talk dirty to me...]

Amy Sue Nathan
The Glass Wives
St. Martin’s Griffin /  $14.99 print / $8.89 digital / May 14, 2013

Evie and Nicole Glass share a last name. They also shared a husband.
When a tragic car accident ends the life of Richard Glass, it also upends the lives of Evie and Nicole, and their children. There’s no love lost between the widow and the ex. In fact, Evie sees a silver lining in all this heartache—the chance to rid herself of Nicole once and for all. But Evie wasn’t counting on her children’s bond with their baby half-brother, and she wasn’t counting on Nicole’s desperate need to hang on to the threads of family, no matter how frayed. Strapped for cash, Evie cautiously agrees to share living expenses—and her home—with Nicole and the baby. But when Evie suspects that Nicole is determined to rearrange more than her kitchen, Evie must decide who she can trust. More than that, she must ask: what makes a family?

The title of Amy Sue Nathan's The Glass Wives is wickedly clever. Glass is fragile. Glass can break and shatter. Glass wives can, too. The premise alone—that of an ex-wife and a widow—had me thinking, could I do that? Could I share my life with someone who caused me so much pain? Could I share my grief over the death of an ex, the father of my children, with the woman he left me for and her newborn son?

[What a tough call...]

Suzanne Carroll
Over the Edge
Writer's Coffee Shop / May 9, 2013 / $18.99 print

In six weeks Zoe Harper will marry Dan Costi in an over-the-top Sydney society wedding, complete with fire-eaters and belly dancers. But when she receives an unexpected gift from her future mother-in-law, Zoe realises she’s making a huge mistake. In a blazing sidewalk argument, she breaks up with her fiance, and his mother—who has joined the fight via conference call.

In six weeks Angus is supposed to lead the opening waltz at a charity ball in New York City. Only problem is, the handsome billionaire construction magnate with the tabloid past can’t dance. Not one step. Tainted by gossip and with a well-publicised failed engagement behind him, Angus has become a master at keeping an emotional distance. Until he meets Zoe.

What starts as dancing lessons, slowly becomes something more. Angus begins to let down his guard and open his heart, even when his past makes an unexpected and unwelcome return. As Zoe discovers the real man behind the headlines, she questions where her new choices are taking her. Her goals look good on paper, but are they what she really wants? And by the time she realises where her heart lies, will it be too late?

Suzanne Carroll’s debut novel, Over the Edge, is a lovely combination of subgenres: call it humorous chick lit, with elements of women’s fiction, and a charming romance plot that weaves throughout.

[Charmed, I'm sure...]

Beth Kendrick
The Week Before the Wedding
NAL Trade / May 7, 2013 / $15.00 print, $9.99 digital

After enduring a chaotic childhood, Emily McKellips yearns for a drama-free life, complete with a white picket fence. Her dreams are about to come true: She has a stellar career, a gorgeous house, and a fiancé any woman would die for. But as friends and family arrive in picturesque Valentine, Vermont, for her wedding, an uninvited guest shows up.

Ryan is Emily’s first husband from a disastrous starter marriage. They wed on a whim, only to discover that combustible chemistry couldn’t ensure a happily ever after. But Ryan is no longer the headstrong boy she left behind. He’s now a successful film producer who just happens to be scouting a resort in Valentine with his adorable retriever in tow.

As the bridesmaids revolt and the mothers of the bride and groom do battle, Emily is surprised to discover new sides of both her ex and her fiancé. She thought she had life and love all figured out, but the next seven days might change her mind—and her heart.

While The Week Before The Wedding is the first Beth Kendrick book I've read, it won't be the last.

[Really? Tell us more...]

Logan Belle
Miss Chatterly, Parts I-IV
Pocket Star / May 13, 2013 (Part I) / $.99 digital (each part)

Torn between love and sex. By the time Connie decides, it could be too late.

I’ve loved Cliff since the day we met. For three years, he’s been my boyfriend and my best friend. But for the first time, something is missing. Sex. It’s been months since Cliff has touched me. And I don’t know how much longer I can wait—especially since I’ve met someone else. For the first time, I feel doubt. Temptation.

Oliver Mellors is nothing like Cliff. He’s purely physical and intensely focused on my body. But then, he has to be: he’s my CrossFit trainer. I know I can’t confuse sex with love. I know I shouldn’t risk love for sex. But now, caught between two men, I wonder: Is there a way to have both?

Logan Belle's Miss Chatterley, a modern re-take on a classic that stands on its own, takes on that elusive, forbidden subject of cheating—without skirting the issue, without excusing or exploiting it, but running with it. Miss Chatterley fully explores and examines what can lead a heroine we root for to do what she does. And it does so not only with care and aplomb, but with such deftness we can't help but be fascinated as it unfolds and breathless for the final outcome.

[Feeling short of breath already...]

Erin McCarthy
True
Penguin / May 7, 2013 / $3.99 digital

When Rory Macintosh’s roommates find out that their studious and shy friend has never been with a guy, they decide that, as an act of kindness they’ll help her lose her virginity by hiring confident, tattooed bad boy Tyler Mann to do the job…unbeknownst to Rory.

Tyler knows he’s not good enough for Rory. She’s smart, doctor smart, while he’s barely scraping by at his EMT program, hoping to pull his younger brothers out of the hell their druggy mother has left them in. But he can’t resist taking up her roommates on an opportunity to get to know her better. There’s something about her honesty that keeps him coming back when he knows he shouldn’t…

Torn between common sense and desire, the two find themselves caught up in a passionate relationship. But when Tyler’s broken family threatens to destroy his future, and hers, Rory will need to decide whether to cut her ties to his risky world or follow her heart, no matter what the cost…

New adult, the newest trend in romance, may just be Erin McCarthy's true calling. In this hybrid between the innocent awakening of young adult and the sexy discovery of adult romance, there's Rory, a science-minded, sweet but aloof college sophomore more comfortable with books than parties and who's preferred to keep herself emotionally distant since her mother died when she was a kid. There's another reason why Rory feels a little set apart from the other college co-eds: she's a virgin. And with all of the exploration that comes with college, Rory wants to experience sex too. But she wants it to mean something.

[Enter Tyler Mann...]

Nancy Ohlin
Thorn Abbey
Simon Pulse / May 7, 2013 / $16.99 print, $9.99 digital

Becca was the perfect girlfriend: smart, gorgeous, and loved by everyone at New England’s premier boarding school, Thorn Abbey. But Becca’s dead. And her boyfriend, Max, can’t get over his loss.

Then Tess transfers to Thorn Abbey. She’s shy, insecure, and ordinary—everything that Becca wasn’t. And despite her roommate’s warnings, she falls for brooding Max.

Now Max finally has a reason to move on. Except it won’t be easy. Because Becca may be gone, but she’s not quite ready to let him go.

Nancy Ohlin’s Thorn Abbey revisits Daphne Du Maurier’s romantic classic, Rebecca. Mysterious Max, his dead girlfriend Becca, and the first-person narrator, Tess, reenact a teen version of the Gothic triangle, with Tess’s boarding school roommate serving in the housekeeper role.

[You had me at Rebecca...]

Toni Blake
Half Moon Hill 
Avon / April 30, 2013 / $5.99 print, $5.69 digital

You never know what destiny has in store . . .

A rugged loner and ex-biker-gang member, Duke Dawson is looking for some peace and quiet while recovering from an accident. But when Anna Romo comes wandering through his woods and into his cabin, she completely rocks his world. The last thing he expected or wanted was to find himself hungering after a woman whose eyes held hurt even deeper than his own . . .

Running from a troubled past, Anna is building a new life in Destiny. When she first meets Duke, she's terrified—but something about him calls to her very soul. The hard-bodied rebel is soon helping her turn her new home into a bed and breakfast, and close quarters quickly lead them into her bed. Their passion is palpable, but can she convince a man who has turned his back on life to take the biggest leap of faith of all and fall in love?

Half Moon Hill is the latest in Toni Blake's delightful Destiny series, and this pairing of bad-boy biker Duke Dawson with the sultry, sassy princess Anna Romo is what first-time love is all about: hot-to-the-touch chemistry, overwhelming feelings that can't be explained, and true connections that can't be defined. At this point in the series, the lively little town known for its summer garden parties and festive carnivals feels like home, but somewhere on the outskirts, hidden on a hill and tucked in the woods, are Duke and Anna, both of whom feel the need to escape. Little do they know that this is the very thing that brings them together.

[Go ahead, escape together...]

Kat French
Undertaking Love
Harper Collins / April 25, 2013 / $1.99 digital

The moment love-phobic Marla Jacobs discovers that the shop next to her Little White Wedding Chapel is to become a funeral parlour, she declares all-out war.

Marla’s chapel in the sleepy Shropshire countryside has become a nation-wide sensation, but the arrival of Funeral Director Gabriel Ryan threatens everything Marla has worked for. She can picture the scene: wedding limos fighting for space in the street with hearses; brides bumping into widows; bouquets being swapped for wreaths

Marla’s not going down without a fight. She enlists a motley crew of weird and wonderful local supporters, and the battle lines are drawn. But, as soon as Marla meets her nemesis, she realises just how much trouble she’s really in. His gypsy curls and Irish lilt make her stomach fizz—how is she supposed to concentrate on destroying him, when half the time she’s struggling not to rip the shirt off his back?

American ex-pat Marla Jacobs has worked hard to make The Little White Wedding Chapel the quirky national sensation that it is, despite the fact that the Vegas-style chapel resides in a most unlikely location—the sleepy English countryside. The marriage business is booming, and the icing on the cake? There's a new cupcake bakery setting up shop on their street. With every bang of the hammer and clang of the workmen out front, Marla envisions a union of sorts, the beginnings of a beautiful relationship between the bakery and the chapel. She can practically taste the scrumptious wedding cake samples and daily sweet treats they'll all be enjoying with their afternoon tea courtesy of their new neighbor.

[Something tells me her plans goes awry?...]

Amara Royce
Never Too Late
Kensington / May 2, 2013 / $4.99 digital

Expect the unexpected, especially in a room filled with books…

Honoria Duchamp is well aware that men often consider widows easy prey for the role of mistress. What else could explain the attentions of handsome Lord Devin, and his visits to her bookshop? The much younger Viscount has even shown interest in the printing press with which she creates pamphlets on London’s basest injustices. Yet his chief interest appears to be in her…

Coerced to investigate Nora’s controversial pamphlets, Devin expected to find a bookish matron. Instead, he is taken with Nora’s womanly beauty, sharp intellect, and quick wit. Soon, what begins as an unwelcome task becomes a pleasure, and Devin’s job becomes more dangerous—for them both. For Nora has no idea of the vicious element she’s crossed. Now Devin will risk his reputation to protect her—and much more to win her love…

Before reading Amara Royce’s Never Too Late, I’d never encountered a Victorian romance with an older heroine and a much younger hero. Just because historical “cougar” stories are unique, however, I didn’t anticipate enjoying the main characters’ relationship. In my estimation, women mature so much more quickly than men that I expected to have a hard time believing a 40-year-old widow and bookseller would have much in common with a 26-year-old viscount. And at first, I didn’t buy it.

[What changed your mind?...]

Beth Kery
When I'm With You, Parts I-VIII
Intermix / April 23, 2013 / $1.99

Beth Kery's When I'm With You comes to its startling climax as Elise and Lucien, and Francesca and Ian, discover the truths that compel them, reveal the secrets that haunt them, and the uncontrollable desire that could destroy or heal them...

In the luxury of Ian's penthouse, he, Francesca, Lucien and Elise gather for an evening that begins in pleasure and ends in a shattering confrontation—one that finally reveals the secrets of Lucien's past. And, at Elise's impulsive urging, the bitter truth that Lucien has hidden for so long is finally exposed. But the reality is more soul tearing than Elise imagined—leaving her with the guilt that she pushed the man she loves too far.

When both Lucien and Ian go to London, Elise is left in self-doubt. Surely Lucien is furious at her for tipping his hand so impetuously—it has been his greatest fear since he met her. With a heavy heart, Elise makes a heartrending decision for both of them. But Lucien has one more reveal for Elise, one that could make or break a relationship that has consumed the both of them. One that could change their futures forever.

When I'm with You is the sequel to Beth Kery's Because You are Mine serial. We first met Lucien in Because You are Mine, where he was introduced as Ian Noble's good friend. Lucien definitely holds up on his own, and his story in When I'm with You is more romantic, and feels more complete.

[Bring on the romance!...]

Grace Burrowes
Nicholas
Sourcebooks Casablanca / May 7, 2013 / $12.99 print, $4.79 digital

Heir to the Bellefonte earldom, Nick Haddonfield has made a promise to his dying father that he’ll marry before the Season’s over. When Nick meets Lady Leah Lindsey, he realizes he’s found not only a damsel lady in need of rescuing, but also a perfect countess of convenience. Then he spoils everything by falling in love with his wife…the one woman he can never, ever have.

Nicholas by Grace Burrowes is the second in her “Lonely Lords” series. Readers might already be somewhat familiar with Leah Lindsey’s difficult situation, as a few events in Leah’s romance with Nick Haddonfield appeared in volume one as a subplot. As a reminder, after having suffered a scandal when young, Leah’s father attempts to marry her off to the highest bidder. Nick, meanwhile, is being pressured to marry because his father, the current earl, is declining in health and wishes to secure the succession.

[Neither's in an enviable position, then...]

Donna Kauffman
Honey Pie
Brava / April 30, 2013 / $14.00 print, $7.19 digital

When Honey D’Amourvell inherits property on tiny Sugarberry Island, she’s prepared to start a whole new life. Her plan is simple—make a home, open a shop, and maybe, finally, find a place to belong. But the building she now owns is leased to none other than the owner of Babycakes, which means her spot is already occupied. Honey isn’t sure how to put down roots when she has nowhere to plant them. But sexy, softhearted mechanic Dylan Ross seems determined to help. He’s everything she never imagined she would find in a man, and each kiss is more persuasive than the last…

Soon enough, Honey is another important ingredient in the spicy mix of the Cupcake Club. But will Dylan convince her that what she craves most is his love?

I like heroines who are both eccentric and neurotic, and Honey D’Amourvell, the leading lady of Honey Pie by Donna Kauffman, is definitely different. From her thick glasses and piercing green eyes to her hand-embroidered underwear, nothing about Honey is usual. Her whole life she has struggled with what she considers a curse—the ability to know other people’s past and future, both good and bad, as a result of the slightest physical contact. The poor woman’s a veritable hermit. After a failed attempt to find some semblance of a normal life at art school, she spent ten years living alone in a barn on her family farm in Juniper Hollow, Oregon. She calls herself “the equivalent of Juniper Hollow’s Fifth Horse of the Apocalypse.”

[She sounds like a trip...]

Deanna Raybourn
A Spear of Summer Grass
Harlequin MIRA / April 30, 2013 / $15.95 print, $8.69 digital

The daughter of a scandalous mother, Delilah Drummond is already notorious, even amongst Paris society. But her latest scandal is big enough to make even her oft-married mother blanch. Delilah is exiled to Kenya and her favorite stepfather's savannah manor house until gossip subsides.

Fairlight is the crumbling, sun-bleached skeleton of a faded African dream, a world where dissolute expats are bolstered by gin and jazz records, cigarettes and safaris. As mistress of this wasted estate, Delilah falls into the decadent pleasures of society.

Against the frivolity of her peers, Ryder White stands in sharp contrast. As foreign to Delilah as Africa, Ryder becomes her guide to the complex beauty of this unknown world. Giraffes, buffalo, lions and elephants roam the shores of Lake Wanyama amid swirls of red dust. Here, life is lush and teeming-yet fleeting and often cheap.

Amidst the wonders—and dangers—of Africa, Delilah awakes to a land out of all proportion: extremes of heat, darkness, beauty and joy that cut to her very heart. Only when this sacred place is profaned by bloodshed does Delilah discover what is truly worth fighting for—and what she can no longer live without.

Deanna Raybourn is best known for her Lady Julia Grey mystery series, set in Victorian England, but her new novel, A Spear of Summer Grass, is something different. There’s still a mystery, but the romance element is stronger and more self-contained. The setting, colonized Kenya in 1923, is almost a romance character in its own right, romanticized by the Europeans who live there. It’s difficult not to be reminded of the movie version of Out of Africa, set in a similar milieu.

[Mystery, romance, and more, mmm...]

Samantha Young
Down London Road
NAL / May 7, 2013 / $15.00 print, $7.99 digital

It has always been up to Johanna to care for her family, particularly her younger brother, Cole. With an absent father and a useless mother, she’s been making decisions based on what’s best for Cole for as long as she can remember. She even determines what men to date by how much they can provide for her brother and her, not on whatever sparks may—or may not—fly.

But with Cameron MacCabe, the attraction is undeniable. The sexy new bartender at work gives her butterflies every time she looks at him. And for once, Jo is tempted to put her needs first. Cam is just as obsessed with getting to know Jo, but her walls are too solid to let him get close enough to even try.

Then Cam moves into the flat below Jo’s, and their blistering connection becomes impossible to ignore. Especially since Cam is determined to uncover all of Jo’s secrets …even if it means taking apart her defenses piece by piece.

We once again enter the world of Club 39, but instead of going back to Joss and Braden’s story, we get to see Jo and new bartender Cam. Samantha Young knows tension, knows the depths of the human condition—both the light and dark parts—and she knows good sex. Best of all she knows how to write it all with a sensitivity and heat that both makes the experience believable for her readers and beautiful to read. Like in her debut On Dublin Street, Young builds the tension layer by layer and you are just about bursting at the seems when Cam and Joss finally (and explosively) get together.

[We won't keep you waiting for the rest of this post...]

Bee Ridgway
The River of No Return
Dutton / April 23, 2013 / $27.95 print, $14.99 digital

“You are now a member of the Guild. There is no return.”

Two hundred years after he was about to die on a Napoleonic battlefield, Lord Nicholas Falcott wakes up in a hospital bed in twenty-first century London. The Guild, a secretive organization that controls time travel, helps him make a new life in the modern world.

But Nick yearns for home and for one beautiful woman in particular, now lost to history.

Back in 1815, that very woman, Julia Percy, finds herself the guardian of a family secret inherited from her enigmatic grandfather... how to manipulate time. But there are those who seek to possess Julia’s power and she begins to realize she is in the gravest peril.

The Guild’s rules are made to be broken, and Nick discovers how to travel back to the nineteenth century and his ancestral home. Fate and the fraying fabric of time draw Nick and Julia together once again . . . soon enough, they are caught up in an adventure that puts the future of the world into their hands.

Bee Ridgway’s The River of No Return is an unusual book: part romance, part historical, and part science fiction. I enjoyed two things about it in particular: first, the ways in which Ridgway critically interrogated how we write about the past in genre fiction; and second, the story’s unpredictability—for much of the novel, I was genuinely unsure what direction it would go next, which meant I kept turning pages. These two things go together.

[Like peanut butter and jelly?!...]

Sophie Kinsella
Wedding Night
Dial / April 23, 2013 / $26.00 print, $12.99 digital

Lottie just knows that her boyfriend is going to propose during lunch at one of London’s fanciest restaurants. But when his big question involves a trip abroad, not a trip down the aisle, she’s completely crushed. So when Ben, an old flame, calls her out of the blue and reminds Lottie of their pact to get married if they were both still single at thirty, she jumps at the chance. No formal dates—just a quick march to the altar and a honeymoon on Ikonos, the sun-drenched Greek island where they first met years ago.

Their family and friends are horrified. Fliss, Lottie’s older sister, knows that Lottie can be impulsive—but surely this is her worst decision yet. And Ben’s colleague Lorcan fears that this hasty marriage will ruin his friend’s career. To keep Lottie and Ben from making a terrible mistake, Fliss concocts an elaborate scheme to sabotage their wedding night. As she and Lorcan jet off to Ikonos in pursuit, Lottie and Ben are in for a honeymoon to remember, for better . . . or worse.

It is not often that a book comes with a Public Service Announcement, but Sophie Kinsella's Wedding Night does: DO NOT read this book late at night with a sleeping partner beside you, because if you do, you will have to listen to morning complaints about how your suppressed snorts and cackles kept them awake.

Told in the first person, Wedding Night alternates between the points of view of Charlotte (“Lottie”) and Felicity (“Fliss“), two sisters who have had a bit of bad luck in the romance department.

[Does their luck improve?...]

Cara McKenna
After Hours
Intermix / April 16, 2013 / $3.99 digital 

Erin Coffey has been a nurse for years, but nothing’s prepared her for the physical and emotional demands of her new position. Needing to move closer to her dysfunctional family, she takes a dangerous job at Larkhaven Psychiatric Hospital, where she quickly learns that she needs protection—and she meets the strong, over-confident coworker who’s more than willing to provide it.

Kelly Robak is the type of guy that Erin has sworn she’d never get involved with. She’s seen firsthand, via her mess of a sister, what chaos guys like him can bring into a woman’s life. But she finds herself drawn to him anyway, even when he shows up at her door, not eager to take no for an answer.

What Erin finds even more shocking than Kelly’s indecent proposal is how much she enjoys submitting to his every command. But he can’t play the tough guy indefinitely. If they want to have more than just an affair, both will have to open up and reveal what they truly need.

Cara McKenna writes real romance. Rough around the edges and anything but easy, the relationship between the hero and heroine is something they have to work for, and is all the more rewarding for it. Her heroes live on the fringe of society, overwhelming and demanding, big and a little mean, but never falling into stereotype. And there’s always some aspect of the plot, the characters, or the setting that’s deeply fascinating. This is the case in After Hours, a full-length novel set in a psychiatric institution. Erin Coffey is starting her first professional job as a nurse at Larkhaven, where right away she meets Kelly Robak, an orderly whose size and appearance might be mistaken for a patient’s. The control Erin has always prided herself on is completely thrown off by Kelly, even as she's continually drawn to him.

[Can't blame her a bit...]