Dolly R. Sickles

Zoey Castile is back with the third installment of her Happy Endings series, Flashed. It begins as just another sexy story about a hot male model and stripper (who’s a player on the soccer pitch and off). But it evolves into so much more. Once Patrick Halloran is disfigured from a life-altering accident, his inner beauty is able to shine through, giving this romance a hint of Beauty and the Beast with some reverse ugly duckling thrown in.

The woman who finally breaks through Pat's self-imposed isolation is Lena Martel, an aspiring artist working her way through college by keeping house. As you can imagine, it is unusual to work for a grumpy hermit of a man who has zero communication skills. Until they begin messaging each other. Sexily. Without the benefit of face-to-face interaction, Pat and Lena are forced to wade through getting to know each other with no posturing, allowing them to focus more on who they are, deep inside where the vulnerable bits are safely hidden.

For a man whose livelihood has always been his body—his strength, speed and beauty—Pat finds relying on his wits is new. But for Lena, an artist used to experiencing and touching and feeling life around her, relying on digital communication tests her, too. Patrick and Lena are incredibly likeable characters, and they defy the odds by sticking with one another. Great romances remind us that the heart wants what the heart wants, and it knows when it’s time to move forward. Even if you’re a man who wonders if his is the face the woman of his dreams can love forever.

This is a story for all the less than perfect people out there who have relied on being nice, funny and kind; who are often overlooked at first pass because they’re not shiny and sparkly and perfect. Those who know the truth about love and relationships because at the end of the day (and when it really, truly counts), substance trumps shine any day.

Samantha Chase is back with the seventh installment of her popular Shaughnessy Brothers series. Set in a small coastal North Carolina town and as refreshing as a warm summer breeze, Tangled Up in You hits bookshelves at precisely the right time for summer reading.

When police officer Bobby Hannigan is shot in the line of duty, he’s forced to take some rest and relaxation. In his downtime, he meets single mother and widow Teagan Shaughnessy, who’s just brought her son back home to be near family.

The timing is wrong for Bobby and Teagan. Their future’s too uncertain, the changes too big. But as John Lennon said, “Life is what happens to you when you’re busy making other plans.” Their attraction is gentle at first, and they forge an undeniable bond through their shared emotional struggle to adjust to their respective new normals. Bobby’s love for Teagan’s son, Lucas, only reinforces their inevitable happy ever after.

Chase takes readers on an emotional journey, and you’ll laugh and cry and get sucked into the drama of the Shaughnessy clan. If you’re a fan of big, meddling families and a full cast of secondary characters, you’ll enjoy it all the more. And even if you haven’t read the preceding books in the series, Tangled Up in You is a great standalone love story.

Brenda Jackson kicks off a sensual new series set along the sultry Lousiana Gulf Coast with Love in Catalina Cove, a complicated tale of renewal and second chances. There’s an old-school feel to this book, with its colorful characters and gasping melodrama. Catalina Cove is a small town, with gossipy, small-minded people who circle around a scandal like a pack of vultures. Vashti Alcindor is living proof that sometimes, there’s no escaping the nosy small-town opinions. Years ago, they turned her personal tragedy into a community-wide scandal.

The book is written in two parts, the first focused on the weight of forging a new path after a tragedy. Vashti became pregnant by the boy she dated and loved in secret, but her parents drastically changed the trajectory of her life by letting her think the son she delivered died shortly after birth. Every choice she’s made since then has been influenced by the scandal that developed afterward, from leaving town to closing off her heart. Part two of the book deals with the reality of moving forward when, fourteen years later, Vashti returns to Catalina Cove. She meets the handsome sheriff, Sawyer Griffin, a single father raising his sixteen-year-old daughter, and he wants to forge a new future with Vashti, despite her reluctance for scandal.

Jackson is a smooth storyteller, setting a pace as leisurely and sultry as the southern setting. Though older and wiser upon her return, Vashti’s relentless focus on the scandal can be frustrating. Fortunately, Sawyer is a refreshingly forward-thinking man, who loves his daughter to distraction and encourages Vashti to move beyond the bubble of safety in which she’s enveloped herself.

Jackson was the first African-American author to make both the New York Times and USA Today romance bestsellers list. And after twenty years in the business, books like Love in Catalina Cove prove that she’s still a prevailing force in romance.

Family, culture and tradition run deep in Kianna Alexander’s Couldn’t Ask for More. A North Carolina native, Alexander sets the action close to home in the romance between fashion designer Alexis Devers and textile manufacturing heir Bryan James.

Over the last few decades, the Tar Heel State has evolved from an agrarian economy to a hub of world-class universities, technology and creative arts. And Raleigh is the epicenter of that progressive boom. The people moving in are young, professional and multicultural, bringing a diverse new face and vibe to one of the South’s most dynamic states. One of the most compelling things about Couldn’t Ask for More is its evocation of the diverse, vibrant culture of Raleigh.

Like the city, fashion designer Alexis is young and bright and driven. Having enjoyed a successful decade in the industry working for other designers, she’s finally building her own brand and fashion line. It doesn’t even dim her excitement to learn that part of the buzz circulating around her new line is the fictional fiancé that her business partner made up—so Alexis propositions Bryan James, whose company will be manufacturing her new line. Not only is he handsome and willing to go along with the façade, he’s her brother’s best friend.

This story isn’t fraught with tension, and there’s no romantic waffling. Rather, with her fresh voice and obvious penchant for life in a big, nosy family, Alexander weaves a modern tale of two individuals forging their own paths to success, on their own time and in their own way. Her characters, like her voice, are contemporary, moving and effortlessly relatable.