🩰 Best Friend’s Sister
🏈 Sneaking Around
🩰 Roommates
🏈 Sports Romance
🩰 ASL Rep
🏈 Chronic Illness Rep
🩰 Ballet Teacher
🏈 Broody, Tattooed Hero
Comeback is a football romance with lots of spice, swoon, and a happily ever after. It’s the third book in the Holland Brothers series and can be read as a standalone.
Read in Kindle Unlimited Here -> https://geni.us/Comeback
| ✨Let’s celebrate! It’s release day for STERLING FIGHT by LB Dunbar! Grab it in KU! #OneClickNowhttps://a.co/d/7KIiaqr Why you need to #ONECLICK this book… 💕Childhood Friends 🔥Crush Revealed 💕Fake Engagement 🔥More Secrets 💕Small Town Swoon 🔥All the steam! These former friends might be faking their engagement, but revealed crushes prove there might not be anything fictional about their arrangement. |
Blurb:
In college, I often saw Judd Sylver in the library. He was a cool, broody type of guy who reminded me of a deeply tortured soul who might write poetry.
He was very different from the boy I met in third grade on National Make a New Friend Day when I passed him a note, asking if he wanted to be my new friend: Check yes or no. (I’m a bit obsessed with calendar days.)
He was also vastly different from the young man who stood me up after I asked him to his prom.
Twenty years later, I can let bygones be bygones, especially when he rescues me from a bad date.
Then I witness him breaking up with his girlfriend which resulted in a sticky coffee drink on his chiseled cheeks and ice cubes on his fine-fitting jeans.
I offered him a napkin.
Hey, once a friend, always a friend, right? *insert sarcasm*
However, Judd takes us to the next level at my mother’s garden party, where a misunderstanding occurs with a teeny tiny slip of the tongue and a precious ring on my finger.
And suddenly, I’m Judd’s fiancée.
Fake or not, things are about to get a little too real with my old friend.
Overall Grade: A-
Tropes: hate to love; cinnamon roll MMC; grump/sunshine; forced proximity; workplace romance
Vi Keeland’s Indiscretion delivers a captivating romance that elevates the beloved enemies-to-lovers trope through exceptional character development and emotional depth. At its heart, this spicy contemporary romance succeeds by focusing on the compelling evolution of its main characters, Dawson and Naomi, whose journey from antagonism to love feels both authentic and deeply satisfying.
The story’s greatest strength lies in Dawson’s character arc. Keeland crafts a masterful transformation of a man initially closed off to love, peeling back his layers with deliberate care. His journey from emotional unavailability to vulnerability isn’t just convincing—it’s impossible not to invest in. The author takes her time developing his character, ensuring that each step toward opening his heart feels earned rather than rushed.
Naomi serves as the perfect catalyst for Dawson’s transformation. Keeland writes her as a force of nature who refuses to accept Dawson’s emotional walls at face value. What makes Naomi particularly compelling is how she challenges Dawson’s preconceptions about love and relationships without losing her own identity in the process. She’s written with a refreshing combination of strength and vulnerability that makes her feel real rather than just a plot device for Dawson’s growth.
The antagonistic chemistry between Dawson and Naomi crackles from their first interaction, but Keeland demonstrates her skill by building tension naturally through their evolving dynamic. The “hate” in this enemies-to-lovers story never feels contrived; instead, it stems from genuine conflict between two strong personalities with opposing views on love and life. This makes their eventual transition to romance all the more satisfying.
The spicy elements of the story are well-integrated, serving to enhance the emotional connection between the characters rather than overshadowing it. Keeland maintains a perfect balance between steamy scenes and character development, ensuring that each intimate moment advances the story and deepens the reader’s understanding of both characters.
What truly sets Indiscretion apart is how Keeland keeps readers invested in the outcome even when the happy ending feels inevitable. The journey to get there is so compelling, and the character growth is so well-executed that readers will find themselves turning pages not just to reach the conclusion but to savor each moment of Dawson and Naomi’s evolution both as individuals and as a couple.
Indiscretion proves that even familiar romance tropes can feel fresh and exciting in skilled hands. Through strong character work, emotional authenticity, and engaging storytelling, Keeland has created a romance that will satisfy readers looking for both heat and heart.
In love and romance,
Professor A
Overall Grade: A-/B+
Tropes: second chance romance; high school sweethearts; small town; pro football; accidental pregnancy; soul mates; he falls first
I’ve recently fallen into the world of big “teddy bear” MMCs who fall hard for their FMCs. Tia Louise’s newest book, The Way We Score, is a lovely, engaging romance that reminds us that first loves are hard to get over. In this story, Olivia and Garrett, are high school sweethearts who lose each other to long distance in college. Years later, newly divorced Olivia returns home for her friend’s wedding, only to be met with Garret, her friend’s older brother and the one “who got away.” Attraction is re-kindled, and the two spend a passionate night on the night of the wedding. A couple of months later, Olivia, who has since left town out of a fear of her growing attraction to Garrett, realizes she is pregnant. She also misses the simplicity and ease of her hometown, so she returns to their small town to be near her mother. What she doesn’t expect is Garrett deciding he would end his football career so he can be close to her and the baby. Over time, they grow closer and realize they want to be together. When a couple of incidents threaten their happy lives, Olivia and Garrett work together to find solutions, landing squarely in their happy ending.
From the start, Tia Louise crafts Olivia and Garrett so that you cannot help but root for them as a couple. Garrett clearly adores Olivia, and Olivia has never moved past her feelings for Garrett, even though she works hard to ignore them. Their chemistry is off the charts. It is easy to love them throughout this story. In fact, there is no third-act break-up here; instead, they have to learn to navigate some challenges which Louise quickly resolves for her reader without much tension.
This new series from Tia Louise, The Bradford Boys, has become one of my favorites of hers. Louise writes them as realistic; they are characters you cannot help but swoon over. Adding to that realism is a small town filled with characters who add dimension to each of her stories in this series. One of my favorite parts is the Dare Dish challenges of the fictional Cooters & Scooters found in each of the series’ stories. It’s the moment when the characters come together with banter and sibling love. You cannot help but love the Bradford family and their community.
My only criticism relates to a slight plot point with Olivia’s husband. Creating that complication seemed unnecessary. It seemed tangential and out of focus. However, it’s a small moment in a larger enjoyable read.
If you’re looking for a story that grabs at your heart, steams up your glasses, and leaves you with all of the small town happily ever after feels, run and grab this book.
In love and romance,
Professor A
Overall Grade: A-
Tropes: small town; preacher’s kid FMC; age gap; close proximity/neighbors; single dad MMC
Expectations – the heavy suggestions that society lays on you based on some arbitrary set of standards. Many times, it’s impossible to live up to those expectations. When we try, we conscript ourselves to wear an identity far too big or small for our spirit. Some wear the heavy clothing of expectation with a facade of perfection. Don’t look too closely, though. You’ll see the tears in the fabric or the breaks in the musculoskeletal system from carrying that uncomfortable weight. Others will throw off the garment of expectation and make their way, but that way is often lonely and fraught with unease because making one’s own rules about life is a bumpy path away from society’s suggestions.
You may be curious why I began this review for Jewel E. Ann’s The Apple Tree with this reflection on expectations. Well, her first two stories in her Sunday Morning series underscore this idea of expectations. Yes, she shades around these ideas with the story of a “good girl” hate to love romance with a “bad boy,” her boyfriend’s brother in book 1, Sunday Morning. But the second book, The Apple Tree, provides a bit of the antithesis to the first book. Eve, the younger sister of Sarah, the FMC of Sunday Morning, isn’t afraid to “break the rules” of the household when she falls hard for the new next-door neighbor, single dad MMC, Kyle and his son, Josh.
Jewel E. Ann uses the idea of expectations to underscore how we might come to her story with a set of expectations mired in societal standards. Should Eve and Kyle have a successful romance if 1) they have a ten-year age difference, 2) she isn’t quite sure what career she wants, and 3) as a teacher and coach, their small community might have certain opinions about them? You can’t help but notice your awareness of their plight as you read their story. Ann deftly moves us through the complications of their burgeoning relationship, forcing readers to encounter and interrogate their expectations for Eve and Kyle. What she leaves you with, though, is a realization that it doesn’t matter. Love is love, after all, and Eve and Kyle have the qualities necessary for working through the difficult moments in a love relationship.
Everything standard in a Jewel E. Ann romance is found in The Apple Tree. Obviously, the ongoing tension that underpins the angst of her romance both drives the story forward while also slowing the read (some of us have to read the ending to remember the promise of romance’s HEAs). Her prose is some of my favorite in romancelandia. It isn’t like a Kennedy Ryan or Sierra Simone’s almost academic elegant prose, but she writes sentences that grab at you with their candor and reflection. Even more, Eve and Kyle are likable, even when they make choices that pull the happiness out of the story. You understand their choices because they feel like choices the reader would make. Jewel E. Ann’s characters, even when set in unreal plots, are relatable because they live in worlds (most of the time) like our own.
If I have one criticism of The Apple Tree, it’s the same as I had for Sunday Morning. I don’t understand the need to set it in the ‘80s. Honestly, the ‘80s references are sprinkled throughout the book in such a way that she could have removed them, and we wouldn’t miss out on them. I know it allows her to remove cell phones and technology of the 21st century, but I don’t believe it would have changed the story. Again, this is my curiosity. I’m sure there are ’70s and ’80s babies who love the allusion to one of their favorite time periods.
Jewel E. Ann’s The Apple Tree continues her Sunday Morning series beautifully. I prefer Eve and Kyle’s story to the story of her first book. Kyle and Eve fall hard for each other. Their love for each other, at its core, is never the problem of this book. They find “their person” in the other. It’s the expectations of everyone around them that muddies their love (well, except for Grandma Bonnie – my favorite character in the book). Thankfully, Jewel E. Ann aptly walks us through their story carefully and gifts us with a beautiful happily ever after to revel in.
In love and romance,
Professor A
He’s a single dad starting over in a new town. She’s a relentless flirt with a penchant for trouble, ten years younger than him, and the babysitter. What could go wrong?
Eve has just graduated from high school, but she doesn’t know what’s next aside from working at the local motel, spying on Kyle, her neighbor, and stealing apples from his orchard. If she doesn’t figure things out soon, she’ll be stuck at home and treated like a child forever.
Kyle is a single dad and the new football coach who needs a babysitter for his adorable son. When he meets Eve, there’s an instant connection because she reminds him of someone—himself. But Eve is the preacher’s daughter, off-limits, and Kyle has already had his heart trampled by his ex.
After earning his son’s affection with her homemade apple sauce and youthful spirit, Eve asks Kyle to teach her things like driving his fishing boat and shooting his hunting bow. Despite his better judgment, he agrees, but swears Eve to secrecy so no one gets the wrong idea about them.
Their playful banter and innocent flirting crosses a line, and Kyle misses the heartbreaking secret Eve’s hidden in plain sight.
When tragedy strikes, can they find their way back to each other?
The Apple Tree is a standalone in the Sunday Morning series by USA Today & Wall Street Journal Bestselling author Jewel E. Ann.
Download today or read for FREE with Kindle Unlimited
Amazon: https://amzn.to/47LyBJy
Amazon Worldwide: https://mybook.to/TheAppleTree
Hardcover: https://mybook.to/AppleTreeHC
Add to Goodreads: https://bit.ly/4dryjbZ
Meet Jewel E. Ann
Jewel is a Wall Street Journal & USA Today bestselling author with a quirky sense of humor. When she’s not saving the planet one tree at a time, you can find her role modeling questionable behavior to her three boys, binge-watching Netflix with her husband, and writing mind-bending romance.
Connect with Jewel
Website: https://www.jeweleann.com
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7505427.Jewel_E_Ann
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Jewel-E-Ann/e/B00IJYHDIG/
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Releasing February 11, 2025
From bestselling author Ilsa Madden-Mills comes a steamy story about first love and second chances where a city girl returns home for a Valentine’s Day tradition…and the boy who broke her heart.
Roses are red, violets are blue–someone in Rose has feelings for you…
Yeah, bad ones. Everly Davis didn’t leave her tight-knit hometown on the best terms. It’s been ten years, but you don’t forget heartbreak like that. Then again, the anonymous invite to the annual Kiss Lottery in Rose, Tennessee, gives Everly content for her podcast. And she has a bone to pick with that old heartbreak anyway.
Beckett Whitfield has never left Rose–and he’s never forgotten Everly. He even named the villain in his latest bestseller after her. Turns out she’s not happy about that. Nothing about their reunion is particularly happy, and after the way they left things, what did he expect?
When the Kiss Lottery pairs them together, Everly and Beckett will have to confront old feelings that never went away and the secrets they never shared. But finally telling each other everything might be exactly what they’ve needed all along.
Cover Designer: Letitia Hasser
RBA Designs
Preorder your copy today!
Amazon US: https://amzn.to/49BGhiI
Goodreads: https://bit.ly/4gt5tdc
Meet Ilsa Madden-Mills
#1 Amazon Charts, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and USA Today best-selling author Ilsa Madden-Mills pens angsty new adult and contemporary romances.
A former high school English teacher and librarian, she adores all things Pride and Prejudice, and of course, Mr. Darcy is her ultimate hero.
She’s addicted to frothy coffee beverages, cheesy magnets, and any book featuring unicorns and sword-wielding females. Feel free to stalk her online.
Connect with Ilsa
Website | www.ilsamaddenmills.com
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Facebook Group | https://www.facebook.com/groups/728703210580726
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Text Updates | text romance(877) 207-0713 to receive updates
Overall Grade: A
Tropes: close proximity/roommates; smokejumper MMC; travel nurse FMC; angst; second chance; grump/sunshine; age gap
“Sometimes, for something beautiful to take to life and grow, everything around it has to be sacrificed. All we see is the destruction, but if you wait long enough — if you’re patient — magic happens.”
These words, prophetic and beautifully drawn, embody the truth of Jewel E. Ann’s From Air. This newest book, the first book of a new series — The Wildfire Series — is one of my favorite stories in 2024. I began reading Jewel E. Ann with her book, Look the Part. The witty banter between the uptight MMC and the fluidly intriguing and beguiling FMC was the draw in that story. Their immediate chemistry, the hate to love, the emotionally uptight MMC drive that story forward. Until a moment that has often been characterized as the JEA Effect — the moment in the story that comes from nowhere and takes the reader out emotionally. It’s usually shocking and rarely forecasted, so it turns your head deeper into the pages of her book. For me, that moment is where I fall more deeply in love with Ann’s storytelling.
From Air has the same feel, for me, as Look The Part. It isn’t the same story. It inhabits new worlds in the JEA universe: travel nurse and smokejumper. It’s even set in a different space, one that changes due to the FMC’s occupation. However, the witty banter that Ann writes well and the chemistry that feels complicated and messy are the mainstays of From Air. In those spaces, you find Ann’s brilliance as a writer with crisp and quotable prose. There is the JEA moment —- and it comes from nowhere. I’m usually able to see the foreshadowing of plot points, but, once again, she kept me off-balance. As a multi-year reader of romance, I loved it. My heart hurt for the characters, and the only promise I had of surviving this turn of the story was the knowledge that I was reading a romance — the promise of a HEA. And that happily ever after is perfect, more poetry in storytelling motion.
Calvin “Fitz” and Jaymes “Jamie” took me on a complicated journey filled with humor, tension, sadness, and pain. Other beautifully written characters, like their roommates Will and Maren, Fitz’s grandmother, and Jamie’s best friend, Melissa, add dimension to the story and provide hope for the future stories in this series.
As I said at the beginning of this review, From Air is one of my top five romances of 2024. Jewel E. Ann illustrates her dexterity in drawing stories that interrogate social norms, incite intense emotions, and beguile her readers. I can only look forward to the other books in this compelling series.
In love and romance,
Professor A
🩰 Rebecca Yarros’s Variation is masterful storytelling. Allie and Hudson’s second chance, fated love story is one for the ages: eternal, devastatingly beautiful, and beautifully written. If you love an MMC who falls hard and fast and forever, an emotionally wounded FMC with high emotional walls that the MMC must destroy, and gorgeous prose that pulls at your heart, GRAB Variation TODAY! 🩰
𝐕𝐚𝐫𝐢𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐢𝐬 𝐋𝐈𝐕𝐄!
✅ a second chance for first love
✅ Friends to enemies to accomplices to…
✅ Fake Dating 💜
✅ He falls first
𝐆𝐫𝐚𝐛 𝐢𝐭 𝐇𝐄𝐑𝐄:
https://rebeccayarros.com/variation
Amazon: https://geni.us/VariationKindle
AUDIO: https://geni.us/VariationAudible
Paperback: https://geni.us/VariationPB
Target: https://geni.us/VariationTarget
B&N: https://geni.us/VariationBN
BAM: https://geni.us/VariationBAM
BLURB:
𝐅𝐫𝐨𝐦 𝐭𝐡𝐞 #𝟏 𝐍𝐞𝐰 𝐘𝐨𝐫𝐤 𝐓𝐢𝐦𝐞𝐬 𝐛𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐬𝐞𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐚𝐮𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐫 𝐨𝐟 𝐅𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐭𝐡 𝐖𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐬 𝐚 𝐧𝐞𝐰 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐦𝐩𝐨𝐫𝐚𝐫𝐲 𝐫𝐨𝐦𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐚𝐛𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐞𝐫 𝐚 𝐜𝐞𝐥𝐞𝐛𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐝𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞𝐫 𝐫𝐞𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐧𝐬 𝐡𝐨𝐦𝐞 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐮𝐧𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐡𝐬 𝐲𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐟𝐚𝐦𝐢𝐥𝐲 𝐬𝐞𝐜𝐫𝐞𝐭𝐬 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐝𝐞𝐞𝐩 𝐫𝐞𝐠𝐫𝐞𝐭𝐬 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐂𝐨𝐚𝐬𝐭 𝐆𝐮𝐚𝐫𝐝 𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐜𝐮𝐞 𝐬𝐰𝐢𝐦𝐦𝐞𝐫 𝐬𝐡𝐞 𝐧𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫 𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐠𝐨𝐭.
Elite ballerina Allie Rousseau is no stranger to pressure. With her mother’s eyes always watching, perfection was expected, no matter the cost. But when an injury jeopardizes all she’s sacrificed for, Allie returns to her summer home to heal and recover. But the memories she’s tried to forget rush in and threaten to take her under.
As a Coast Guard rescue swimmer, Hudson Ellis knows that hesitation can mean the difference between life and death. He’s always prided himself on being in the right place at the right time, especially when it came to Allie Rousseau…until the night he left for basic. After the biggest regret of his life, the secrets he keeps mean he can never be with the one woman he wants more than his next breath.
When Hudson’s niece shows up on Allie’s doorstep, desperate to find her birth mother, Allie finds herself in an unimaginable position. Allie and Hudson’s past and present might be endlessly complicated. The thread that tied them to each other all those years ago may have unraveled, but the truth could pull them back together, or drive them apart forever.
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