High heat. Low stakes. Sharp steel.

The cozy, low stakes of Legends & Lattes meets the scorching bodyguard fantasy of Jennifer L. Armentrout's From Blood and Ash in this enemies-to-lovers romance where, yes, the swords do cross.

Mattinesh Jay, dutiful heir to his struggling family business, needs to hire an experienced swordsman to serve as best man for his arranged marriage. Sword-challenge at the ceremony could destroy all hope of restoring his family's wealth, something that Matti has been trying―and failing―to do for the past ten years.

What he can afford, unfortunately, is part-time con artist and full-time charming menace Luca Piere.

Luca, for his part, is trying to reinvent himself in a new city. All he wants to do is make some easy money and try to forget the crime he committed in his hometown. He didn't plan on being blackmailed into giving sword lessons to a chronically responsible―and inconveniently handsome―wool merchant like Matti.

However, neither Matti's business troubles nor Luca himself are quite what they seem. As the days count down to Matti's wedding, the two of them become entangled in the intrigue and sabotage that have brought Matti's house to the brink of ruin. And when Luca's secrets threaten to drive a blade through their growing alliance, both Matti and Luca will have to answer the question: how many lies are you prepared to strip away, when the truth could mean losing everything you want?

In this twisty thriller from New York Times bestselling author Colleen Hoover, a frustrated author looks for her muse in a remote hideaway, but what she finds defies all expectations…and reality.

Her words used to set the page on fire. But a viral backlash over her latest film adaptation forced Petra Rose to take a hiatus, resulting in missed deadlines and an overdue mortgage. Branded a fraud and fame-hungry opportunist, she learned the hard way what happens when the internet turns on you. And she’s been uninspired to write ever since.

Now, with her next suspense novel outlined and savings nearly gone, she retreats to a secluded lakeside cabin, hoping to find inspiration. It’s Petra’s last-ditch attempt to save her career―and herself.

Then he shows up.

Detective Nathaniel Saint arrives with disturbing news, his presence igniting a creativity in her she thought long since burned out. Petra’s words return in a rush, and her fictional cop character begins to mirror the very real cop who’s becoming her muse.

Their “research” sessions blur the lines between fantasy and reality. Each glance, every touch pulls Petra deeper into a world she thought she’d never lose herself in again. She’s never felt more alive. But inspiration this powerful comes at a cost.

When Saint starts taking his role in her career a little too seriously, Petra’s forced to confront the chaos she created. But doing so could cost her more than the reputation she’s been trying to salvage. The reputation the world wrote for her―the reputation only she can reclaim.

What happens in the dark never stays in the dark.

As one of Seattle’s most dangerous, feared men, Zeth Mayfair always carried out the jobs he was sent on without a second thought. Drugs? Guns? Dirty money? All fair game. But even his warped moral code has its limits. When Zeth’s employer decides buying and selling kidnapped women is a lucrative sideline, Zeth’s usually uncomplicated life suddenly becomes very complicated indeed. And his biggest complication goes by the name of Sloane Romera.

Sloane desperately needs to find her sister. And she knows she can’t do it alone. Zeth is terrifying, scandalously hot, and comes fully loaded with a terrible attitude and wicked smile. It also looks like he’s Sloane’s only hope. Can she work with the guy without getting herself killed, losing her job, or falling head over heels in love?

Die woord “weduwee” is ’n verdrietige woord, ’n toestand waarmee sy haarself moeilik vereenselwig. Maar hier waar Cato in die vliegtuig sit, is dit ongelukkig haar werklikheid. Haar man is dood, ’n skamele drie jaar ná hul troue. Sy is op pad terug Stellenbosch toe, waar haar ondersteuningsnetwerk is. Of dit ’n goeie plan is om terug te gaan na die plek waar sy vir Neil ontmoet het, weet sy nie, maar in dié stadium wil sy nêrens anders wees nie. Veral nie alleen in Londen nie. Êrens tussen die tyding van die motorongeluk, die blyke van waardering, die roudiens en die werklikheid van ’n leë plek langs haar in die bed, het sy haarself verloor en in haar plek ’n bang vreemdeling gevind. In Stellenbosch wag ook die gewilde Big Pink-teaterrestaurant. Hoe sy kans gesien het om dié onderneming te koop, weet sy nie, en wens dis net ’n nare droom. Dit help ook nie dat die vreemdeling langs haar op die vliegtuig vir haar sê daar bestaan nie iets soos beter dae nie…

Deep in the Australian Outback, two facilities operate side by side, separated by a fence.

Amanda Richardson works in a top-secret US intelligence gathering facility. Lucas Kahn works in the neighbouring Australian satellite tracking observatory. A chance encounter through double-glazed windows, and the realisation they can communicate with Auslan sign language, develops into a complicated romance.

What they learn from each other reveals a terrifying political endgame - and people will kill to keep that a secret.

The third in the steamy, hilarious Campus Diaries series by New York Times bestselling author Elle Kennedy, set in the same world as Off Campus and Briar U.

College senior Charlotte Kingston is living two lives―and she's nailing both of them. By day, she's the perfect sorority girl, a STEM student in biomedical engineering, and the adopted daughter of an overachiever family. At night, she's Charlie: a risk-taking daredevil looking for fun who finds herself chatting on a dating app with two anonymous hotties.

Will Larsen may seem like the breezy boy next door, but his congressman father is a constant thorn in his side. After a scandal hits another Division 1 hockey program, Will's dad is determined to distance his son from it, hiring a journalist to prove how squeaky-clean Will and his team are. Which means the last thing Will wants is for anyone to find out he and his best friend Beckett Dunne―a laidback Aussie shielding secret heartache―sometimes share girls in the bedroom.

When Charlie finally meets them in person and realizes she's been chatting with two gorgeous Briar U hockey players, things get steamy―fast. But all their messy secrets are piling up, and real life soon threatens to shatter the fantasy. With Charlie, Will, and Beckett all coming to terms with what they want and what others want for them, difficult decisions will need to be made.

Especially when lust starts to look a lot like love.

Hundreds of years ago, a brutal war split a land in two. Starside is the realm of magic and immortals –the descendants of the gods, living in a power-rich paradise. Stormside is where mortals fight for scraps of that magic.

Every fifty years, the gates between them open, and fifty challengers are allowed to journey across Starside on a deadly quest to access a pool of magic that can heal, grant wealth, or extend life. Everyone has their reasons for entering, but Aris has only one: vengeance. As a child, a goddess set fire to her village, killing her family. Aris isn't after the gods' magic – she's going to kill them.

First, she must survive the Culling, the king's deadly competition to choose his fifty challengers. An orphaned blacksmith's apprentice, Aris doesn't have the superior weapons of the heirs from the Great Houses. But the greatest swords – ones that contain power – are not inherited or bought, they are claimed, by both sides. And when Aris claims a great sword, it makes her not just a real competitor – but a target.

Getting past the gates is only the beginning. Starside is deadlier than it seems. If the ancient creatures, magic-wielding beasts, and bloodthirsty immortals weren't dangerous enough, a new peril has even immortals fearing what rises from the ground at night. With a blade most would kill to claim, Aris can't trust anyone. Especially not Harlan Raker, the merciless and mysterious king's guard who betrayed her years ago – and who may now be the key to her survival.

But Aris is hiding a secret tied to her family's death. And when it's revealed, not even the gods will be able to stop what's coming…

In a world of witches she has two choices: Hunt, or be hunted.

Vic Wood’s ordinary life crumbles when her younger brother is accepted into the Acheron Order, a secret society of witches tasked with keeping the world of the dead at bay. While Henry inherited their absent mother’s magical abilities, Vic did not. So she is stunned when the Order’s mysterious leader invites her to join the other initiates at Avalon Castle, to prove his controversial hypothesis – that magic can be taught.

But outsiders aren’t welcome at Avalon, and Vic has to fight for the chance to stay. Scouring archives and libraries for anything she can use to her advantage, Vic uncovers a dangerous truth: the Order is on the brink of war, and her own mother might have started it.

And then there is Xan, the Order’s imposing, ruthless, frustrating head Sentinel. Xan makes no secret that he wants Vic gone. But even the cavernous castle can feel cramped and claustrophobic amidst their electric connection . . .

As simmering tension gives way to violence, Vic must choose whether to leave the preternatural behind, and risk losing her family, or stay, and remain powerless in a world where power is everything.

ZANDERS

Chicago hockey isn't complete without me - everyone's favourite player to hate. I know my role, and I play it well. In fact, I thoroughly enjoy spending the majority of my game time in the penalty box before leaving the arena with a new girl on my arm each night.

What I don't like is the new flight attendant on our team's private plane. She works for me, not the other way around. But I'll be sure to remind her of that, and I can guarantee, by the end of the season, she'll be begging to quit her job.

But every road trip blurs the lines, and I can't quite figure out if I keep pushing that flight attendant call button in order to push her buttons, or if it's more than that.

STEVIE

I've been a flight attendant for years. I thought I'd seen it all, but when my new job lands me onboard working for the most egotistical and self-righteous diva in the NHL, I start to second guess everything. Including the promise I made to myself of never hooking up with an athlete again . . . no matter how annoyingly tempting he may be.

Evan Zanders is unfiltered, unapologetic, and too attractive for his own good. He loves his image, but I hate everything about it. Everything but him.

Mile High is the first book in the sensational Windy City series which has gripped over a million readers across the world. But don't worry if you're new round here, there's still time to fall in love . . .

He kissed his best friend's little sister, and the world stood still.

That night, they were two perfect strangers: the town's grumpy recluse and a gorgeous girl in the back of a bar. Until they weren't. Because Nadia Dalca isn't just some girl. She's the one girl Griffin Sinclaire can't have. Fourteen years younger than him and completely off-limits.

After their forbidden kiss, Griffin's plan is to stay away, but the universe keeps pushing them together. It's like some sort of cosmic joke, to give him a taste of something so electric―so real―something that breathed life back into him. Because he can look, but he can't touch her again.

But with her sinful curves, her lighthearted laugher, and her secret wild side, Griffin's addicted to every last bit of her. And when she turns those sultry eyes on him―the ones so full of longing, so free of judgment? Well, he's always considered himself a strong man, but for her, he's weak.

To give in to their connection would be a betrayal. Griffin's life is beyond complicated, and Nadia has the world at her fingertips. Her brother is the only family she has left, and as sad as it sounds, he's also Griffin's only friend.

But he kissed her again anyway.

He’s beautiful, brooding, and bossy…and she just agreed to three fake dates with him.

Stefan Dalca is public enemy number one in this small town, a prickly outsider with a murky past that’s hard to overlook. All he wants is to race his horses and be left alone―but when veterinarian Mira Thorne needs his help to save a sick foal, he’s too drawn to her to refuse. In exchange…he wants her.

Their time together starts as a simple transaction, but the more Mira gets to know Stefan, the more she wonders if he isn’t quite the villain everyone’s made him out to be. With every intimate conversation and lingering look, the tension between them builds. She’s been drawn to Stefan since the day she laid eyes on him…but now he’s downright irresistible.

Mira knows sleeping with the enemy is playing with fire. But like a moth to a flame, she’s attracted to the mysterious man in a way those closest to her wouldn’t approve of or understand. And the more Stefan softens for her, the harder she falls.

But as his mysteries unravel, so do hidden truths. Truths that are bound to get someone burned.

Mira just didn’t expect that someone to be her.

Jacki de Wet is verslaaf aan die internet en sosiale media. Van Facebook, Instagram, X en TikTok weet sy genoeg om gevaarlik te wees. Sy en Pulani vorm ’n formidabele span en hou Die Boekhoek aan die gang. Miskien moes iemand vir Gary, Jacki se baas en verloofde, gewaarsku het toe hy ’n affair met Sally Smith wou begin. “Ebony and Ivory” laat nie met hulle mors nie.

Om van Gary se skelmpie ontslae te raak, is maklik genoeg, maar wat doen sy met die verraad en die woede? Nou sit Jacki sonder iemand om haar ’n bietjie vas te hou, sonder werk en sonder ’n huis. In Tamatiestraat.

Toe die musikant Giovanni Ignacio Mancini sy verskyning maak, verwar hy haar verder. Hy is soos die mooie Vivaldi-musiek wat hy op sy Stradivarius-viool speel – soms guitig of baldadig, soms strelend, smeulend, altyd sensueel. En dan is daar Sebastian, die wonderkind, wat eintlik maar net ’n seuntjie is met ’n groot hartseer.

Jacki sing falsetto, sy weet nie waar sy inpas nie. Sy wil ’n sushi-en-sjampanje-lewe hê, maar die wasabi brand en gee haar sooibrand … en eintlik is sy net ’n vis-en-tjips-meisie.

HALLIE

When I was eleven, my family moved next door to his.
When I was thirteen, he was my first crush.
When I was sixteen, we fell for each other.

And when I was nineteen, we broke each other's hearts.

Six years later, I've landed an internship with a big-name interior designer in a new city. Unfortunately, that city just so happens to be the one he plays hockey for.

I thought Chicago was big enough to avoid him, until I get the surprise of a lifetime and unknowingly move in right next door. Even worse? The renovation project I'm assigned to in hopes of turning that internship into my full-time dream job...

It's his house.

But how am I supposed to update his bachelor pad into a family home when we can't even stand to be in the same room?

I may have loved Rio DeLuca once, but I'm not that same girl anymore.

RIO

I never thought I'd be the only single one left in my friend group. But after years of trying to find love, I've concluded it may not exist for me anymore.

That is, until I accidentally hire Hallie Hart to renovate my house and our jaded history has me rewinding memories I've kept secret for years.

You see, there's something that my friends don't know.

That connection I've been looking for since I moved to Chicago, that one person some search their entire lives to find . . . I had already found her when I was twelve years old.

And now the only girl I've ever loved is moving into the house next door.

Again.

Rewind It Back is the fifth and FINAL book in the sensational Windy City series which has gripped over a million readers across the world. But don't worry if you're new round here, you'll still love it as a standalone!

A visionary and atmospheric gothic fantasy about necromancy, vengeance, and soul-consuming love, the first in a duology from the Sunday Times bestselling author of A Study in Drowning and Lady Macbeth.

Once there was an island where the dead walked the earth, and seven noble houses ruled by the arcane secrets of necromancy.

A conqueror’s blade brought them low, burning their libraries, killing their lords, and extinguishing their eldritch magic.

But defiant against the new order stands the House of Teeth and its last living members: beautiful Marozia, the heiress to the House, and her cousin, the uncanny Lady Agnes.

Though she has not spoken a word in seven years, Agnes is the true carrier of the House’s legacy. And she has her orders. She must recapture the secrets of death magic and avenge her family’s fallen honour. She must arrange the betrothal of her beloved cousin Marozia to Liuprand, heir to the conqueror’s throne, for access to the forbidden library in his grotesquely grand castle.

Revenge burns in Agnes’s heart, but so do stranger passions – and it is Liuprand, the golden prince, who speaks to her soul. This passion is as treasonous as it is powerful, poisoning the kingdom’s roots and threatening to tear the already shattered realm in two.

For Agnes’s final order is the gravest: She must not fall in love.

Sheldon Soleskin should be having a horrible day. Even though he’s been unexpectedly transferred to a new school right before the holidays, has only one day to set up his new classroom, and just discovered his twin sister's been hiding an invitation to his ex-boyfriend’s Christmas Eve wedding, he’s still ready to take on the world with a smile on his face and a skip in his step.

Theo Berenson just wants to be left alone to his custodial duties. But when the chipper new first-grade teacher needs help moving furniture the Sunday after Thanksgiving, he's forced to do something he detests ... help. To make matters worse, Theo's overbearing parents are coming for Hanukah in a few weeks, and he's told them he has a boyfriend. Except he doesn't. Because who would want to date an oaf like Theo?

Working together, these opposites discover they might be able to help each other out. Agreeing to be each other’s dates, they become friends as they practice for their upcoming events. But when all the rehearsing starts feeling a little too real, and both men's pasts come roaring back to haunt them, will they be able to pull off the ultimate holiday masquerade?

Wren Embervale knows her duty demands a crown, even if it means a strategic betrothal to the influential Lord Darian Devereux. Their arranged marriage promises the formidable army she needs to wrestle her kingdom from the clutches of the tyrannical usurper, Silas. Yet Wren’s heart still belongs to Torj Elderbrock, her soul-bonded Warsword.

Torn between her pragmatic alliance and the visceral pull of her bond with Torj, Wren must navigate a treacherous landscape of courtly intrigue and looming war. As Silas’s shadow alchemy tightens its grip on the midrealms and a creeping poison steals Torj’s strength, Wren’s carefully constructed facade begins to crack . . .

Can Wren play the dutiful fiancée to secure her throne while her body and soul yearns for the warrior who would lay down his life for her? Or will the tangled threads of political necessity leave her kingdom – and her heart – in ashes?

From Helen Scheuerer, the Sunday Times bestselling author of Iron & Embers, discover Silver & Smoke, the blistering finale to the Ashes of Thezmarr series. Perfect for fans of romantasy.

Annabel is in the thick of sandwich generation territory.

Widowed for nearly a decade and bringing up two teenagers alone, she now faces the dilemma of what is best for her ageing mother.

Her strong-willed sisters, Ginnie and Clarissa, have already mentally sold her mother’s London house, mentally spent the proceeds, but Annabel isn't sure what her mother will think of their plan. . .

After a decade on her own, Annabel's children have also decided now is the time to act as match makers. Before she knows it, Annabel has two romantic prospects; the charming, ex-army builder currently doing the loft extension in her home and, even more unexpectedly, the vicar from her local church.

But when family secrets come to light which threaten the entire fabric of Annabel’s childhood and family, what what — or who — she needs in her life comes becomes suddenly crystal clear to her, in the most surprising of ways. . .