New Releases: January 2024

Today’s post is sponsored by Beverly Gandara and What Did You Know and Who Did You Tell, out now!

When Did You Know and Who Did You Tell? LGBTQAI+/Biographies

Interviews with 25 diverse LGBTQAI+ Role Models

How would you cope if your family rejected you, your religion abandoned you and society labeled you an outcast? Read the Inspirational, heartfelt coming-out stories by 25 LGBTQAI+ role models from the ages of 21-80 who journeyed from strength to strength to become their authentic selves.

Buy it: Amazon

***

The Curse of Eelgrass Bog by Mary Averling (2nd)

Nothing about Kess Pedrock’s life is normal. Not her home (she lives in her family’s Unnatural History Museum), not her interests (hunting for megafauna fossils and skeletons), and not her best friend (a talking demon’s head in a jar named Shrunken Jim).

But things get even stranger than usual when Kess meets Lilou Starling, the new girl in town. Lilou comes to Kess for help breaking a mysterious curse—and the only clue she has leads straight into the center of Eelgrass Bog. Everyone knows the bog is full of witches, demons, and possibly worse, but Kess and Lilou are determined not to let that stop them. As they investigate the mystery and uncover long-buried secrets, Kess begins to realize that the curse might hit closer to home than she’d ever expected, and she’ll have to summon all her courage to find a way to break it before it’s too late.

Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon

Just Happy to Be Here by Naomi Kanakia (2nd)

Tara just wants to be treated like any other girl at Ainsley Academy.

That is, judged on her merits—not on her transness. But there’s no road map for being the first trans girl at an all-girls school. And when she tries to join the Sibyls, an old-fashioned Ainsley sisterhood complete with code names and special privileges, she’s thrust into the center of a larger argument about what girlhood means and whether the club should exist at all.

Being the figurehead of a movement isn’t something Tara’s interested in. She’d rather read old speeches and hang out with the Sibyls who are on her side—especially Felicity, a new friend she thinks could turn into something more. Then the club’s sponsor, a famous alumna, attacks her in the media and turns the selection process into a spectacle.

Tara’s always found comfort in the power of other peoples’ words. But when it comes time to fight for herself, will she be able to find her own voice?

Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon

Cupid’s Revenge by Wibke Brueggemann (2nd)

It was never Tilly’s intention to fall in love, but Cupid will get you when you least expect it. That’s exactly what happens when Tilly’s best friend, Teddy, ropes Tilly into a plan to woo his dream girl, aspiring actress Katherine Cooper-Bunting. It turns out Teddy’s not the only one who finds her dreamy.

But Katherine is off-limits. The only thing more important than Tilly’s feelings for someone she just met is not hurting Teddy, whose heart has been broken in the past.

Though, avoiding temptation is easier said than done, as Teddy convinces Tilly to help him audition for a local play as a way to get to know Katherine better—a complete horror for someone who grew up in an artsy family but doesn’t have a creative bone in her body. On top of dealing with her growing feelings for the girl she shouldn’t like (but who may like her back), Tillie is still grieving a loss while navigating her grandfather’s recent Alzheimer’s diagnosis. So yeah, that’s a lot for any sixteen-year-old to handle without Cupid’s vengeful arrows getting involved.

Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon

Okay, Cupid by Mason Deaver (2nd)

Okay, Cupid by [Mason Deaver]As a cupid, Jude thinks they understand love a little bit more than the average human. It makes sense — Jude’s been studying love their whole teen life. And, yes, there have been some bumps in the road, and they’re currently on probation for doing something that they absolutely, definitely shouldn’t have done… but they’re ready to prove they can make matches without ever getting involved.

Only… Jude’s next assignment isn’t about setting up two adults. No, this time Jude has to go to high school, with kids their own age. And the assignment is a tough one: two best friends who are meant to be more than just best friends… but who aren’t currently speaking to each other after a huge falling out.

Jude thinks they’ve got this one all under control, and that they won’t get involved whatsoever.

Which proves that maybe Jude hasn’t learned the first lesson of humans and love … It’s complicated.

Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon

Lulu Sinagtala and the City of Noble Warriors by Gail D. Villanueva (9th)

Lulu Sinagtala can’t wait for a fun Christmas break. She’s excited to hang out with her sister, Kitty, and best friend, Bart; to reenact her favorite legends from Tagalog folklore (like the amazing tale of Bernardo Carpio); and, of course, to eat as much yummy street-side inihaw as possible!

But when a vicious wakwak attacks her neighborhood and kidnaps Mom, Lulu discovers the creatures and deities of Tagalog myth are real and that two additional Realms exist beyond our own. To make it worse, Lulu has superhuman strength and the ability to wield magic, meaning she’s the only one powerful enough to stop the evil spirit who’s determined to rule the three Realms at all costs. No pressure, right?

Lulu, Kitty, and Bart set off on a quest to rescue Mom, where they outsmart cunning enemies, battle vengeful beings, and form unlikely alliances. Soon they find themselves swept into a centuries-long fight, unraveling secrets about Lulu and her past that threaten to upend everything and throw the whole universe into chaos. Can Lulu muster the strength (superhuman or not) to find out who she really is and who she can trust to save Mom and the three Realms before it’s too late?

Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon

Don’t Want You Like a Best Friend by Emma R. Alban (9th)

Gwen has a brilliant beyond brilliant idea.

It’s 1857, and anxious debutante Beth has just one season to snag a wealthy husband, or she and her mother will be out on the street. But playing the blushing ingenue makes Beth’s skin crawl and she’d rather be anywhere but here.

Gwen, on the other hand, is on her fourth season and counting, with absolutely no intention of finding a husband, possibly ever. She figures she has plenty of security as the only daughter of a rakish earl, from whom she’s gotten all her flair, fun, and less-than-proper party games.

“Let’s get them together,” she says.

It doesn’t take long for Gwen to hatch her latest scheme: rather than surrender Beth to courtship, they should set up Gwen’s father and Beth’s newly widowed mother. Let them get married instead.

“It’ll be easy” she says.

There’s just…one, teeny, tiny problem. Their parents kind of seem to hate each other.

But no worries. Beth and Gwen are more than up to the challenge of a little twenty-year-old heartbreak. How hard can parent-trapping widowed ex-lovers be?

Of course, just as their plan begins to unfold, a handsome, wealthy viscount starts calling on Beth, offering up the perfect, secure marriage.

Beth’s not mature enough for this…

Now Gwen must face the prospect of sharing Beth with someone else, forever. And Beth must reckon with the fact that she’s caught feelings, hard, and they’re definitely not for her potential fiancé.

That’s the trouble with matchmaking: sometimes you accidentally fall in love with your best friend in the process.

Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon

You Only Call When You’re in Trouble by Stephen McCauley (9th)

Is it ever okay to stop caring for others and start living for yourself?

After a lifetime of taking care of his impossible but irresistible sister and his cherished niece, Tom is ready to put himself first. An architect specializing in tiny houses, he finally has an opportunity to build his masterpiece—“his last shot at leaving a footprint on the dying planet.” Assuming, that is, he can stick to his resolution to keep the demands of his needy family at bay.

Naturally, that’s when his phone rings. His niece, Cecily—the real love of Tom’s life, as his boyfriend reminded him when moving out—is embroiled in a Title IX investigation at the college where she teaches that threatens her career and relationship. And after decades of lying, his sister wants him to help her tell Cecily the real identity of her father.

Tom does what he’s always done—answers the call. Thus begins a journey that will change everyone’s life and demonstrate the beauty or dysfunction (or both?) of the ties that bind families together and sometimes strangle them.

Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon

Bachelorette Number Twelve by Jae (10th)

Bachelorette Number Twelve by JaeEllie Fisher loves most things about being a nurse in the emergency department…just not working with Regina Novak, an icy attending physician who acts as if she’s God’s gift to medicine.

The dislike is completely mutual. Regina thinks Ellie is a starry-eyed romantic with a sentimental attitude that has no place at work.

When Regina gets talked into volunteering at a singles auction, Ellie accidentally bids on her—and ends up winning. Oops!

Since the money raised is for a good cause, they reluctantly decide to go through with the dates.

Thanks to a baking class that turns into a competition and a hot-as-hell road trip snack incident, the ice between them starts to thaw. Is it possible the ER isn’t the most unromantic place on earth after all?

Buy it: Amazon

Night of the Living Zed by Basil Sylvester and Kevin Sylvester (16th)

After some lacklustre cases involving lost books and a missing pet, the two friends have finally come across a mystery worth their attention: the secrets of Glyndebourne Manor, haunted home of a late, great opera designer. Every twenty-five years, the Manor hosts a challenge. You have three days and two nights to solve the puzzles in each room before the stroke of midnight. If you leave, you forfeit the game. If you solve the puzzles in time, you win a huge pile of money.

Simple enough, thinks Zed. They and Gabe are interested in all things ghoulish. And if they win, they will be able to give their friends Sam and Jo the large wedding they deserve.

There’s only one problem: no one has been able to stay in the house for more than a single night.

Cue a whirlwind of scary ghosts, moving walls and cryptic letters. The two friends are going to need some help. Which means figuring out who the mysterious figure holding a crowbar is. And how to get out of a room with no doors! But thanks to Zed’s fearless enthusiasm and Gabe’s encyclopedic knowledge of theatre, they might be able to survive and maybe even right some past wrongs.

Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon

Most Ardently by Gabe Cole Novoa (16th)

London, 1812. Oliver Bennet feels trapped. Not just by the endless corsets, petticoats and skirts he’s forced to wear on a daily basis, but also by society’s expectations. The world—and the vast majority of his family and friends—think Oliver is a girl named Elizabeth. He is therefore expected to mingle at balls wearing a pretty dress, entertain suitors regardless of his interest in them, and ultimately become someone’s wife.

But Oliver can’t bear the thought of such a fate. He finds solace in the few times he can sneak out of his family’s home and explore the city rightfully dressed as a young gentleman. It’s during one such excursion when Oliver becomes acquainted with Darcy, a sulky young man who had been rude to “Elizabeth” at a recent social function. But in the comfort of being out of the public eye, Oliver comes to find that Darcy is actually a sweet, intelligent boy with a warm heart. And not to mention incredibly attractive.

As Oliver is able to spend more time as his true self, often with Darcy, part of him dares begin to hope that his dream of love and life as a man to be possible. But suitors are growing bolder—and even threatening—and his mother is growing more desperate to see him settled into an engagement. Oliver will have to choose: Settle for safety, security, and a life of pretending to be something he’s not, or risk it all for a slim chance at freedom, love, and a life that can be truly, honestly his own.

Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon

Escaping Mr. Rochester by L.L. McKinney (16th)

What if the real villain of Jane Eyre was actually Mr. Rochester? In this fresh reimagining of Charlotte Bronte’s classic novel by acclaimed author L.L. McKinney, Jane Eyre and Bertha Mason—Mr. Rochester’s wife, whom he’s imprisoned within the house for years—must save each other from the horrifying machinations of Mr. Rochester in this intrigue-filled, empowering Black queer young adult romance.

Jane Eyre has no interest in a husband. Eager to make her own way in the world, she accepts the governess position at Thornfield Hall.

Though her new employer, Edward Rochester, has a charming air—not to mention a handsome face—Jane discovers that his smile can sharpen in an instant. Plagued by Edward’s mercurial mood and the strange wails that echo through the corridors, Jane grows suspicious of the secrets hidden within Thornfield Hall—unaware of the true horrors lurking above her very head.

On the topmost floor, Bertha Mason is trapped in more ways than one. After her whirlwind marriage to Edward turned into a nightmare, he locked her away as revenge for withholding her inheritance. Now his patience grows thin in the face of Bertha’s resilience and Jane’s persistent questions, and both young women are in more danger than they realize.

When their only chance at safety—and perhaps something more—is in each other’s arms, can they find and keep one another safe before Edward’s dark machinations close in around them?

Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon

So Let Them Burn by Kamilah Cole (16th)

Faron Vincent can channel the power of the gods. Five years ago, she used her divine magic to liberate her island from its enemies, the dragon-riding Langley Empire. But now, at seventeen, Faron is all powered up with no wars to fight. She’s a legend to her people and a nuisance to her neighbors.

When she’s forced to attend an international peace summit, Faron expects that she will perform tricks like a trained pet and then go home. She doesn’t expect her older sister, Elara, forming an unprecedented bond with an enemy dragon—or the gods claiming the only way to break that bond is to kill her sister.

As Faron’s desperation to find another solution takes her down a dark path, and Elara discovers the shocking secrets at the heart of the Langley Empire, both must make difficult choices that will shape each other’s lives, as well as the fate of their world.

Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon

Evergreen by Devin Greenlee (16th)

All seventeen-year-old Quill wants is a break from the family business. Flowers, plants, the generations-old garden. What he wouldn’t give for a taste of the outside world. Normalcy. But his mom won’t let him out of the house, telling him he’s just not ready…

All because he’s a dryad. Well, not just any dryad, but a male dryad—the first ever. And unlike everyone else in his family, he hasn’t a lick of magic. Just a shock of green hair, matching green eyes, and a growing frustration that there’s an entire world out there waiting to be discovered. Until the night when the outside world—specifically his new neighbor—discovers him.

Liam Watson lives in a culture filled with electronics, mobile devices, and social media—where there is no magic or even the belief in it. And as much as Quill finds Liam irritating (he’s so cute it’s annoying), he can’t help himself.

Now Quill’s getting a taste of the outside world and of Liam…and he wants more. But all is not well in this magical, urban garden, and someone—or something—is changing the very essence of it.

And wherever Quill goes, the danger grows…

Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon

City of Laughter by Temim Fruchter (16th)

Ropshitz, Poland, was once known as the City of Laughter. As this story opens, an 18th century badchan, a holy jester whose job is to make wedding guests laugh, receives a visitation from a mysterious stranger—bringing the laughter the people of Ropshitz desperately need, and triggering a sequence of events that will reverberate across the coming century. In the present day, Shiva Margolin, recovering from the heartbreak of her first big queer love and grieving the death of her beloved father, struggles to connect with her guarded mother, who spends most of her time at the local funeral home. A student of Jewish folklore, Shiva seizes an opportunity to visit Poland, hoping her family’s mysteries will make more sense if she walks in the footsteps of her great-grandmother Mira, about whom no one speaks. What she finds will make her question not only her past and her future, but also her present.

Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon

Sons, Daughters by Ivana Bodrožić, trans. by Ellen Elias Bursać (16th)

Here the Croatian poet and writer depicts a wrenching love between a transgender man and a woman as well as a demanding love between a mother and a daughter in a narrative about breaking through and liberation of the mind, family, and society.

This is a story of hidden gay and trans relationships, the effects of a near-fatal accident, and an oppressed childhood, where Ivana Bodrožić tackles the issues addressed in her previous works—issues of otherness, identity and gender, pain and guilt, injustice and violence.

A daughter is paralyzed after a car crash, left without the ability to speak, trapped in a hospital bed, unable to move anything but her eyes. Although she is immobilized, her mind reels, moving through time, her memories a salve and a burden. A son is stuck in a body that he doesn’t feel is his own. He endures misperceptions and abuse on the way to becoming who he truly is. A mother who grew up being told she was never good enough, in a world with no place for the desires and choices of women. She carries with her the burden of generations.

These three stories run parallel and intertwine. Three voices deepen and give perspective to one another’s truth, pain, and struggle to survive.

Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon

Eli Harpo’s Adventure to the Afterlife by Eric Schlich (16th)

When Eli Harpo was four, he underwent emergency open-heart surgery, flatlined on the operating table, and for a brief time, went to heaven and met Jesus. Or at least that’s what his father, a loving but devout Baptist minister, has raised him to believe.

Nine years later, Eli isn’t so sure. His rounds with his father to evangelize at hospices and sell his father’s self-published book, Heaven or Bust!, feel inauthentic and strange, especially now that he’s started having sex dreams about Jesus. Between that and his mother’s terminal breast cancer diagnosis, Eli feels further from heaven than ever. But when the famous televangelist Charlie Gideon shows up at the Harpos’ doorstep with a proposal to create a new attraction based on Eli’s trip to the afterlife at his Bible-themed park, Eli isn’t able to say no.

As the Harpos head off on a rollicking road trip from Kentucky to Bible World in Orlando, Eli is left to grapple with not just his faith and his sexuality, but also his own parents’ messy humanity and what happens when a family held together by mythmaking starts coming apart at the seams.

Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon

Emma and the Love Spell by Meredith Ireland (23rd)

Twelve-year-old Korean American adoptee Emma Davidson has a problem. Two problems. Okay, three:

1. She has a crush on her best friend, Avangeline, that she hasn’t been able to share
2. Avangeline now has to move out of their town because her parents are getting a divorce
3. Oh, and Emma is a secret witch who can’t really control her powers

It’s a complicated summer between sixth and seventh grade. Emma’s parents made her promise that she’d keep her powers a secret and never, ever use them. But if Avangeline’s parents fell back in love, it would fix everything. And how hard could one little love spell be?

Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon

My Fair Brady by Brian D. Kennedy (23rd)

Wade Westmore is used to being in the spotlight. So when he’s passed over for the lead in the spring musical, it comes as a major blow—especially when the role goes to his ex-boyfriend, Reese, who dumped him for being too self-involved.

Shy sophomore Elijah Brady is used to being overlooked. Forget not knowing his name—most of his classmates don’t even know he exists. So when he joins the stage crew for the musical, he seems destined to blend into the scenery.

When the two have a disastrous backstage run-in, Elijah proposes an arrangement that could solve both boys’ problems: If Wade teaches Elijah how to be popular, Wade can prove that he cares about more than just himself. Seeing a chance to win Reese back, Wade dives headfirst into helping Elijah become the new and improved “Brady.”

Soon their plan puts Brady center stage—and he’s a surprising smash hit. So why is Wade suddenly less worried about winning over his ex and more worried about losing Elijah?

Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon

Out of Our League ed. by Dahlia Adler and Jennifer Iacopelli (23rd)

Ambition. Drive. Determination. Talent. Courage. Teamwork.

Every athlete knows what it takes to win. But for players who are teen girls, the stakes are so much higher. In this anthology, the voices of these athletes come alive, highlighting the ferocity of those who are often shunted to the side. From navigating rampant misogyny to forging a sisterhood through sweat or just reveling in the love of the game, the stories in Out of Our League address the phenomenal physical and emotional power of teenage athletes as they compete, persevere, and thrive, on and off the field.

Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon | Books of Wonder (Signed)

Broughtupsy by Christina Cooke (23rd)

Tired of not having a place to land, twenty-year-old Akúa flies from Canada to her native Jamaica to reconnect with her estranged sister. Their younger brother Bryson has recently passed from sickle cell anemia—the same disease that took their mother ten years prior—and Akúa carries his remains in a small wooden box with the hopes of reassembling her family.

Over the span of two fateful weeks, Akúa and Tamika visit significant places from their childhood—the home they grew up in, their mother’s grave, a favorite beach—where Akúa slowly spreads Bryson’s ashes. But time spent with her sister only clarifies how different they are, and how years of living abroad haves distanced Akúa from her home culture. “Am I Jamaican?” she asks herself again and again. But beneath these haunting doubts lies her anger and resentment at being abandoned by her own blood. “Why didn’t you stay with me?” she wants to ask Tamika.

Wandering through Kingston with her brother’s ashes in tow, Akúa meets Jayda, a brash young woman who shows her a different side of the city. As the two grow closer, Akúa confronts the difficult reality of being gay in a deeply religious family, and what being a gay woman in Jamaica actually means.

Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon

The (Fake) Dating Game by Timothy Janovsky (23rd)

Ready. Set. Faux.

Holden James picked the worst time to have a meltdown. His chance to audition for his favorite game show, Madcap Market, should have been a moment of triumph—a glorious, loving homage to his adored mom, who died six years ago. Instead, he’s destroying the minibar in a grim Los Angeles hotel room…recently dumped, partnerless and sliding into a crushing black hole of anguish.

But the hotel service in abject misery is sublime. It even comes with an unfairly fit and sexy (smart-ass) concierge who arrives at the door with pizza, Monopoly and deliciously distracting forearms.

All Holden knows about Leo Min is that he’s beautiful and unexpectedly sympathetic, and the chemistry between them is beyond. Maybe it’s even enough to convince everyone, including the show’s casting directors, that they’re a real couple. All they’d have to do is crush the competition, win the huge cash prize and all of Holden’s problems—his broken heart, his buried grief, his complete lack of money and direction—will be fixed.

Of course, reality doesn’t quite work out that way. But love is an entirely different game…

Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon

Dead in Long Beach, California by Venita Blackburn (23rd)

Coral is the first person to discover her brother Jay’s dead body in the wake of his suicide. There’s no note, only a drably furnished bachelor pad in Long Beach, California, and a cell phone with a handful of numbers in it. Coral pockets the phone. And then she starts responding to texts as her dead brother.

Over the course of one week, Coral, the successful yet lonely author of a hit dystopian novel, Wildfire, becomes increasingly untethered from reality. Blindsided by grief and operating with reckless determination, she doubles ―and triples―down on posing as her brother, risking not only her own sanity but her relationship with her precocious niece, Khadijah. As Coral’s swirl of lies slowly closes in on her, the quirky and mysterious alien world of Wildfire becomes enmeshed in her own reality, in the process pushing long-buried memories, traumas, and secrets dangerously into the present.

Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon

Just Shy of Ordinary by A.J. Sass (30th)

Thirteen-year-old Shai is an expert problem-solver. There’s never been something they couldn’t research and figure out on their own. But there’s one thing Shai hasn’t been able to logic their way through: picking at the hair on their arms.

Ever since their mom lost her job, the two had to move in with family friends, and the world went into pandemic lockdown, Shai’s been unable to control their picking. Now, as the difficult times recede and everyone begins to discover their “new normal,” Shai’s hoping the stress that caused their picking will end, too.

After reading that a routine can reduce anxiety, Shai makes a plan to create a brand new normal for themself that includes going to public school. But when their academic evaluation places them into 9th grade instead of 8th, it sets off a chain of events that veer off the path Shai had prepared for, encouraging Shai to learn how to accept life’s twists and turns, especially when you can’t plan for them.

Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon

How We Named the Stars by Andrés N. Ordorica (30th)

When Daniel de La Luna arrives as a scholarship student at an elite East Coast university, he bears the weight of his family’s hopes and dreams, and the burden of sharing his late uncle’s name. Daniel flounders at first―but then Sam, his roommate, changes everything. As their relationship evolves from brotherly banter to something more intimate, Daniel soon finds himself in love with a man who helps him see himself in a new light. But just as their relationship takes flight, Daniel is pulled away, first by Sam’s hesitation and then by a brutal turn of events that changes Daniel’s life forever.

As he grapples with profound loss, Daniel finds himself in his family’s ancestral homeland in México for the summer, finding joy in this setting even as he struggles to come to terms with what’s happened and faces a host of new questions: How does the person he is connect with this place his family comes from? How is his own story connected to his late uncle’s? And how might he reconcile the many parts of himself as he learns to move forward?

Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon

Interesting Facts About Space by Emily Austin (30th)

Enid is obsessed with space. She can tell you all about black holes and their ability to spaghettify you without batting an eye in fear. Her one major phobia? Bald men. But she tries to keep that one under wraps. When she’s not listening to her favorite true crime podcasts on a loop, she’s serially dating a rotation of women from dating apps. At the same time, she’s trying to forge a new relationship with her estranged half-sisters after the death of her absent father. When she unwittingly plunges into her first serious romantic entanglement, Enid starts to believe that someone is following her.

As her paranoia spirals out of control, Enid must contend with her mounting suspicion that something is seriously wrong with her. Because at the end of the day there’s only one person she can’t outrun—herself.

Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon

Keep This Off the Record by Arden Joy (30th)

Abigail Meyer and Freya Jonsson can’t stand one another. But could their severe hatred be masking something else entirely?

From the moment they locked eyes in high school, Abby and Freya have been at each other’s throats. Ten years later, when Abby and Freya cross paths again, their old rivalry doesn’t take more than a few minutes to begin anew.

And now Naomi, Abby’s best friend, is falling for Freya’s producer and close pal, Will. Both women are thrilled to see their friends in a happy relationship — except they are now only a few degrees of separation from the person they claim to despise … and they can’t seem to avoid seeing one another.

Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon

Not in the Plan by Dana Hawkins (31st)

Free-spirited coffee shop owner meets uptight coffee addict. Is an opposites-attract match brewing… or burning?

Crushed under the weight of writer’s block and a looming deadline, Mack escapes from New York to Seattle. She meets Charlie, a beautiful, generous, nearly bankrupt coffee shop owner recovering from heartbreak. For the first time, Mack has a muse. And then Mack starts using Charlie’s private stories in her novel…

When a storm traps Mack and Charlie in the coffee shop, they share a mind-bending, knee-shaking kiss. But Charlie is an eternal optimist who sleeps with fairy-lights on, while Mack is an ironing-at-5am worrier who sleeps with… everyone. They could never turn this chemistry into something real, right?

And if Charlie finds out what Mack has been doing, turning Charlie’s most intimate secrets into a juicy page-turner, will they even have a chance to try?

Buy it: Amazon

2 thoughts on “New Releases: January 2024”

  1. I’m dying to read Don’t Want You Like a Best Friend, and Evergreen sounds fabulous. Cuckoo is a June release, though, is it not?

    I’m currently reading an ARC of The Secret Duchess, another lovely sapphic period romance from Jane Walsh.

    1. Oh, I guess I missed CUCKOO moving! I truly cannot keep up with all the pub date moves anymore. Thanks for the heads-up! And DON’T WANT YOU LIKE A BEST FRIEND was *so* cute.

Leave a Reply to sallybendCancel reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.