Cover Design: Sarah Hansen Cover Photo: Wander Aguiar Photography
RELEASE DATE: JUNE 1ST, 2023
A swoony, heart-wrenching small-town romance from USA Today and Wall Street Journal bestseller Sarina Bowen!
Leila: What I meant to do: quietly divorce my lout of a husband and then have a child all on my own.
What happens instead: my crush comes back to town when I’m at my most vulnerable. After too many cocktails, I ask him to be my baby’s father.
In my defense, it’s been a rough couple of months. Seeing Matteo Rossi again after fourteen years has done a number on my emotions. And my libido.
In the morning, I’m hoping he’s forgotten the whole thing. But no such luck. In fact, Matteo has a few clarifying questions. And a few naughty ideas, too…
Matteo: What I meant to do: visit Vermont for my brother’s wedding. Make amends to my family, and mourn the loss of a friend.
What happens instead: a hot affair with the one who got away. But it can’t last. My life is two thousand miles away, and Leila deserves everything. She’s as good as gold.
But for me, there was only one man and he was destined to be both.
I used to believe in fairytales.
I thought my happy ending was inevitable.
Until I lost my father, my home, and the gorgeous golden boy I loved in the blink of an eye.
I rebuilt my life with one thing in mind – certainty.
I didn’t get my happy ending, but I spent my days making other people’s come true.
I wasn’t happy, but I was in control.
It was enough.
Until my first love crash lands back into my life and
I start questioning everything about my perfectly constructed life.
I realize that I may have moved on but my heart stood absolutely still.
And when he asks for a second chance, I throw caution to the wind and say yes.
Back in the grown up arms of the man he’s become, I rediscover a passion and pleasure I’d forgotten existed.
But our second chance is a double edged sword that forces us to face the minefield of our complicated past.
He starts asking questions
I’ve spent a lifetime trying to ignore.
In the battle between my future and my past, will love be enough to overcome the secrets that tore us apart the first time?
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Meet Dylan Allen:
Before I was “Wall Street Journal and USA Today Bestselling Author, Dylan Allen”, I was a lawyer who was unhappy at work and a bookworm who wanted nothing more than to get lost in stories I loved. I’ve always written for myself as a creative outlet, but in the year leading up to my 40th birthday, I decided to do something that had always been on my bucket list…write a book.
I’m not an independently wealthy person and had no intention of leaving my career. I didn’t think it was even possible to make a living writing the stories that lived in my vast and dynamic imagination.
That book, now called Then Came You, was so warmly and broadly received that I decided to write another. And then another… And two years after I accidentally found this amazing career, I left my job and went all in on my dream.
It hasn’t been a smooth journey. It’s been full of volatile ups and downs. But, it’s been the most rewarding and exciting thing I’ve ever done.
My favorite part of this job is connecting with my readers. I’m so honored by the kind and interesting people who read my work and reach out to connect to me.
I write compelling, dramatic, emotional romances with exceptional, diverse characters you’ll root for and never forget.
I’m a self-proclaimed happily ever junkie, I loves creating stories where under dogs find a love worth fighting for. When I’m not writing or reading, eating, or cooking, I indulges my wanderlust by planning her next globe-trotting adventure.
I was born in Accra, Ghana, raised in Houston, Texas, and finds that home is where my heart is.
I’m a proud graduate of Tufts University, Howard University School of Law, and the London School of Economics. Nearly twenty years ago, I married the love of my very own book boyfriend and together we’re raising two wonderful sons who are the light of our lives.
I believe in the power of dreams and know that nothing is beyond our reach if we’re willing to work hard and step out of our comfort zone to grab it.
I hope you find hours of entertainment and joy in my books!
Tropes: high school crush; love from afar; second chance romance; small town romance
Lauren Connolly’s Letter Late Than Never is a wonderful addition to Smartypants Romance’s Green Valley Heroes series. I found myself lost in her story as Gwen and Sebastian recognize their feelings for each other. Unlike other Smartypants Romance stories, Connolly’s Letter Late Than Never is more nuanced in its messaging. Gwen struggles with believing she can have what she wants, namely Sebastian in this story. The choices other’s made for her in the past influence her present, and she struggles to accept more from Sebastian. That she’s worthy of it. And through Sebastian’s characterization, Connolly highlights the impact of working in a trauma-filled world and the post-traumatic consequences of it: anxiety and panic attacks. Placing that struggle as Sebastian’s journey highlights discussions about masculinity, trauma, and therapy in an underserved population.
Connolly has crafted a compelling romance in Letter Late Than Never that is sweet and spicy in equal measure. Sebastian’s realization about Gwen and Gwen’s reticence to accept his interest in her make for a story that engages the reader through to its sweet happy ending.
He was supposed to be my forever love. Until he becomes my personal hell…
The Rebound, an all-new second chance, fake relationship, billionaire romance from bestselling author L. Steele is available now!
The Rebound by L. Steele is now live!
He was supposed to be my forever love Until he becomes my personal hell…
Declan Beauchamp: he’s the super-hot, super-bad boy actor. I’m the new voice, who has an overnight break-out single. Together we are unbeatable. A match-made-in-tabloid heaven. Until he betrays me…
I manage to put him behind and move on. I even have a new boyfriend. Except my career is in freefall… Only consolation? Declan isn’t faring better either.
With my future and his at stake. Declan comes up with a plan. One movie together, And a fake relationship to catapult our futures back on track.
But when our chemistry detonates, I know I can’t survive this encounter. I tell him the deal is off, Except it’s too late…
A standalone, enemies-to-lovers fake relationship billionaire romance about mistakes, heartache, and second chances.
TW: Detailed sex scenes, BDSM themes, Age Gap themes
Letter Late Than Never, a second-chance small-town romance from Lauren Connolly, is LIVE in Kindle Unlimited!
Can a hot paramedic resuscitate this mail woman’s flatlining spirit of adventure?
Gwen Elsmere fell in love with Sebastian Kirkwood when she was sixteen, but a dead frog stole her chance to land the guy of her daydreams. Ten years later, when Gwen makes a desperate 9-1-1 call, Sebastian re-enters her life as the first paramedic on the scene. Unfortunately, she’s smeared in blood, and he’s engaged to another woman. The awkward rescue is far from the passionate reunion she’d secretly hoped for. Still, Gwen’s brief transformation from postal worker to neighborhood hero has her reevaluating her cautious nature.
If she can save a woman’s life, why can’t she change her own?
As Gwen challenges herself with adventures, big and small, she discovers an unlikely sidekick in her former crush. Sebastian reveals glimpses of the goofy teenager who first made her swoon, but there are shadows behind his eyes she wants to shine a light on. When Gwen discovers the sexy EMT is not as spoken for as everyone in Green Valley believes, she dares to hope for a second chance to risk her heart. But even as a chemist cat, drag queens, and glitter beards reward her new outgoing nature, secrets, pain, and fear threaten to snuff out her courageous spirit.
Gwen will have to decide if Sebastian and she are better late than never or better never together.
‘Letter Late Than Never’ is a full-length contemporary romance and can be read as a standalone. Book #3 in the Green Valley Heroes series, Green Valley Chronicles, Penny Reid Book Universe.
Lauren Connolly is an award-winning author of contemporary and paranormal romance stories. She’s lived among mountains, next to lakes, and in imaginary worlds. Lauren can never seem to stay in one place for too long, but trust that wherever she’s residing there is a dog who thinks he’s a troll, twin cats hiding in the couch, and bookshelves bursting with stories written by the authors she loves.
Dough You Love Me?, an all-new second chance small-town romance from Stacy Travis, is now available in Kindle Unlimited!
First rule when returning to your hometown after storming out of sight: don’t fall for the guy who broke your heart.
Julia Browne should know better than to kiss where she bakes. She’s built a bread empire in California, and only plans to stay in Green Valley long enough to sell the family house.
She certainly won’t spend any more time with Shane Meadows than she has to…and she will not let him draw her in with his soft blue eyes or level her with his handsome smirk of a grin.
The last thing she wants is a temporary gig at Donner Bakery, baking sourdough side-by-side with Shane and clashing with his ego. And he thinks the sassy baker should take her fancy bread and go back where she came from.
But that’s before they take a series of wrong turns on a road trip to look at wheat, leaving them stranded for the night. Out on the open road, neither of them can escape the sizzling attraction and old feelings that feel a lot more real this time around.
But life is complicated, and Julia’s life in California might derail their second chance at love. Will they wake up and smell the sourdough?
They say you should leave the past in the past, but what if it’s the winning recipe for love?
‘Dough You Love Me?’ is a full-length contemporary romance, can be read as a standalone, and is book #2 in the Donner Bakery series, Green Valley World, Penny Reid Book Universe.
My eyes traveled to one of the musicians who stood out from the others, not just because he was tall and lean with a dark shock of hair hanging over his forehead. He sat playing the French horn, a gleaming gorgeous pretzel of brass with a bell at one end.
The sound was a love language that spoke directly to my heart.
But an intricately curved, soulful symphony instrument at a country music jam session full of Tennessee local boys . . . WTF?
I didn’t have to be a country music aficionado to know that one of these things was not like the others.
Every other instrument came from the string family—banjo, guitar, fiddle. An older man with a gray beard stood behind Cletus playing the bass, plucking the strings, and nodding along with the music.
The faces in the room started looking more familiar. Maybe I’d known some of them once. Maybe I wasn’t such a stranger. Not that it mattered, since I had no plans of sticking around afterward to chat. I felt worn out from the funeral and the travel.
But . . . that horn . . .
My eyes remained riveted to the instrument and the man playing it. I’d been to a couple of orchestra performances with a full brass section. Those were the types of places people normally found a French horn—with musicians wearing tuxedos and following a conductor.
This man and his instrument stuck out like a glossy gemstone in a sea of wicker and cardboard. And yet, oddly, it worked. He pursed his lips and blew out notes that had no business sounding so beautiful.
Nodding and stomping one foot, he picked up the rhythm of the other instruments and made his accompaniment sound like it belonged there.
He kept one hand in the bell-shaped end of the horn and used his other hand to draw out a melodic sound. From the first note, he had me willing to follow him down whatever path he took. For the first time since I’d arrived in town—hell, for the first time in months—I felt a glimmer of happiness. Double-chocolate cupcake happiness.
I wanted to hear more, and at the same time, I knew exactly what I would hear. Something in his beautiful aching call sounded familiar, as though I’d been hearing it my whole life.
But that was impossible.
I hadn’t been in town in years. Even if I’d heard this man play before, it had to have been so long ago that surely the sounds wouldn’t be familiar now.
The music called, and I answered by freeing myself of the funereal black jacket I wore over a white tank top and getting comfortable leaning against the wall. As a spectator, I had license to gaze at him for as long as I wanted.
My senses scrambled and competed for which one should win out—the sight of him, the sound of his music, or the touch I felt from him halfway across a crowded room.
Taking a couple steps closer, I cautiously took in the whole of the man playing the gleaming horn. He looked about my age, early thirties, and the strong cut of his jaw and short beard made things happen to my lady parts that hadn’t happened in a very long time.
He wore a dark brown corduroy sport coat over a fine-checked plaid flannel shirt and dark blue jeans. His eyes were a pale blue, like an illusion of shallow water that actually runs deep enough to be dangerous. Soulful. Like repositories of hurt or art or knowledge.
Almost as though he could feel the heat of my stare, his eyes fastened to mine and didn’t let go.
So I did the only logical thing a person could do when faced with a sexy, soulful stranger’s lingering gaze.
I ran from the room.
About Stacy Travis
Stacy Travis writes charming, spicy romance about bookish, sassy women and the hot alphas who fall for them.
Writing makes her infinitely happy, but that might be the coffee talking.
She’s worked as a journalist, camp counselor, TV writer, SAT tutor, corporate finance researcher, education technology editor, and non-fiction author. When she’s not on a deadline, she’s in running shoes complaining that all roads seem to go uphill. Or on the couch with a margarita. Or fangirling at a soccer game.
She’s never met a dog she didn’t want to hug. And if you have no plans for Thanksgiving, she’ll probably invite you to dinner.
Stacy lives in Los Angeles with her very tall sons and a poorly-trained rescue dog who hoards socks. And she’s serious about the Thanksgiving thing.
Tropes: second chance romance; small-town romance; Penny Reid-inspired romance; going home
Stacy Travis’s Dough You Love Me? has found an apt home in Penny Reid’s crafted Smartypants Romance world. Set in the Donner Bakery series, the story follows Julia, who has returned to Green Valley after her grandmother’s death. Julia ran from Green Valley when she was younger because she was spurned by her crush, Shane. Never realizing that Shane felt like he wasn’t good for her, she left town and stayed away. She realizes she has stayed away too long in the shadow of her grandmother’s death. When she encounters Shane at the Friday jam session, long-buried feelings rise to the surface, and she runs again. Thankfully, she only runs as far as her grandmother’s home. As a friend of Cletus Winston, he connects her with his love, Jennifer Sylvester nee Winston who needs her help making bread. It becomes immediately clear that Julia will be working with Shane. As these two spend time together, those buried feelings find flight, and Shane and Julia fall in love in the specter of their past. Eventually, Julia decides to stay in Green Valley, finding her future with Shane.
Dough You Love Me? provides enough of that tension between falling in love and fighting the hurt feelings of one’s past. Julia and Shane engage in a tug-a-war of feelings until they simply can’t deny their attraction and love for each other. Through their story, Travis deftly points to how young people often struggle with differences. Shane’s story is wrapped up in his finding self-confidence in himself due to his disability. He rejects Julie out of a lack of confidence. When he finds music, specifically the French horn, he finds himself. When Julia returns to town years later, he is now able to love her despite his disability. Travis handles this storyline well.
I think Travis muted this message with the coincidence of Julia and Shane’s bread-making. On the one hand, she’s able to spend some time focusing on the importance of companies using local growers to source their ingredients. It’s an important message to consider, but I found it to undermine the larger message of Shane’s journey of self-acceptance. There were times when the story felt uneven as Travis had to balance what I felt were two storylines.
All in all, though, I loved Stacy Travis’s Dough You Love Me? as it returns us to the world of Cletus and Jennifer (even if they are sitting in the background), and it keeps us wrapped in the world of the Donner Baker’s delectable pastries and bread. I’m hoping we see more stories from Travis in this new world for her. I think Clay deserves a story in the Smartypants Romance world.
But for me, there was only one man and he was destined to be both.
I used to believe in fairytales.
I thought my happy ending was inevitable.
Until I lost my father, my home, and the gorgeous golden boy I loved in the blink of an eye.
I rebuilt my life with one thing in mind – certainty.
I didn’t get my happy ending, but I spent my days making other people’s come true.
I wasn’t happy, but I was in control.
It was enough.
Until my first love crash lands back into my life and
I start questioning everything about my perfectly constructed life.
I realize that I may have moved on but my heart stood absolutely still.
And when he asks for a second chance, I throw caution to the wind and say yes.
Back in the grown up arms of the man he’s become, I rediscover a passion and pleasure I’d forgotten existed.
But our second chance is a double edged sword that forces us to face the minefield of our complicated past.
He starts asking questions.
I’ve spent a lifetime trying to ignore.
In the battle between my future and my past, will love be enough to overcome the secrets that tore us apart the first time?
Meet Dylan Allen:
Before I was “Wall Street Journal and USA Today Bestselling Author, Dylan Allen”, I was a lawyer who was unhappy at work and a bookworm who wanted nothing more than to get lost in stories I loved. I’ve always written for myself as a creative outlet, but in the year leading up to my 40th birthday, I decided to do something that had always been on my bucket list…write a book.
I’m not an independently wealthy person and had no intention of leaving my career. I didn’t think it was even possible to make a living writing the stories that lived in my vast and dynamic imagination.
That book, now called Then Came You, was so warmly and broadly received that I decided to write another. And then another… And two years after I accidentally found this amazing career, I left my job and went all in on my dream.
It hasn’t been a smooth journey. It’s been full of volatile ups and downs. But, it’s been the most rewarding and exciting thing I’ve ever done.
My favorite part of this job is connecting with my readers. I’m so honored by the kind and interesting people who read my work and reach out to connect to me.
I write compelling, dramatic, emotional romances with exceptional, diverse characters you’ll root for and never forget.
I’m a self-proclaimed happily ever junkie, I loves creating stories where under dogs find a love worth fighting for. When I’m not writing or reading, eating, or cooking, I indulges my wanderlust by planning her next globe-trotting adventure.
I was born in Accra, Ghana, raised in Houston, Texas, and finds that home is where my heart is.
I’m a proud graduate of Tufts University, Howard University School of Law, and the London School of Economics. Nearly twenty years ago, I married the love of my very own book boyfriend and together we’re raising two wonderful sons who are the light of our lives.
I believe in the power of dreams and know that nothing is beyond our reach if we’re willing to work hard and step out of our comfort zone to grab it.
I hope you find hours of entertainment and joy in my books!
Dough You Love Me?, an all-new second chance small-town romance from Stacy Travis, is LIVE in Kindle Unlimited!
First rule when returning to your hometown after storming out of sight: don’t fall for the guy who broke your heart.
Julia Browne should know better than to kiss where she bakes. She’s built a bread empire in California, and only plans to stay in Green Valley long enough to sell the family house.
She certainly won’t spend any more time with Shane Meadows than she has to…and she will not let him draw her in with his soft blue eyes or level her with his handsome smirk of a grin.
The last thing she wants is a temporary gig at Donner Bakery, baking sourdough side-by-side with Shane and clashing with his ego. And he thinks the sassy baker should take her fancy bread and go back where she came from.
But that’s before they take a series of wrong turns on a road trip to look at wheat, leaving them stranded for the night. Out on the open road, neither of them can escape the sizzling attraction and old feelings that feel a lot more real this time around.
But life is complicated, and Julia’s life in California might derail their second chance at love. Will they wake up and smell the sourdough?
They say you should leave the past in the past, but what if it’s the winning recipe for love?
‘Dough You Love Me?’ is a full-length contemporary romance, can be read as a standalone, and is book #2 in the Donner Bakery series, Green Valley World, Penny Reid Book Universe.
Stacy Travis writes charming, spicy romance about bookish, sassy women and the hot alphas who fall for them.
Writing makes her infinitely happy, but that might be the coffee talking.
She’s worked as a journalist, camp counselor, TV writer, SAT tutor, corporate finance researcher, education technology editor, and non-fiction author. When she’s not on a deadline, she’s in running shoes complaining that all roads seem to go uphill. Or on the couch with a margarita. Or fangirling at a soccer game.
She’s never met a dog she didn’t want to hug. And if you have no plans for Thanksgiving, she’ll probably invite you to dinner.
Stacy lives in Los Angeles with her very tall sons and a poorly-trained rescue dog who hoards socks. And she’s serious about the Thanksgiving thing.
VACATION WARS, a brand-new standalone romance from USA Today bestselling author Meghan Quinn, is Now Available in all formats!
✓ Second Chance ✓ Childhood Crush ✓ Greece ✓ Chosen Family ✓ Sisterhood ✓ Old memories ✓ New possibilities
Don’t miss this all new, second chance, standalone romance! This sexy, witty beach read will keep you laughing and swooning at the same time. One-click your copy today!
From USA Today and Amazon Charts bestselling author Meghan Quinn comes a fun, sexy story about the family dynamics that can stand in the way of rekindling a romance.
Prepared for a good time, Tessa is thrilled to spend the weeks before her sister’s wedding at their family’s favorite vacation spot: Santorini. Sandy beaches, stonewashed houses, attractive men—it’s heaven.
But Tessa’s idea of a girls’ trip comes to a screaming halt when her sister thinks it’s high time Tessa finds some love herself. Unfortunately, Tessa forgot about the deal she made back in high school: she has to find her soulmate before her sister’s wedding. Or else.
As she dodges suitors and her sister’s pranks, Tessa finds an ally in the oh-so-dreamy Myles, her childhood crush who just so happens to work at the resort. But Myles is dealing with some family conflict of his own. He’s elated at being reunited with Tessa, but his father’s refusal to acknowledge his interest in the family business and relegating him to only grunt work casts a dark cloud.
As Tessa and Myles help navigate their way through their families’ antics, they begin to realize that their past feelings may have a future—if only they can turn their island fantasies into something real.
USA Today Bestselling Author, wife, adoptive mother, and peanut butter lover. Author of romantic comedies and contemporary romance, Meghan Quinn brings readers the perfect combination of heart, humor, and heat in every book.
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Professor Romance 