Gwen & Art Are Not in Love by Lex Croucher 

Book Description 

Heartstopper meets A Knight’s Tale in this queer medieval rom com YA debut about love, friendship, and being brave enough to change the course of history.

It’s been hundreds of years since King Arthur’s reign. His descendant, Arthur, a future Lord and general gadabout, has been betrothed to Gwendoline, the quick-witted, short-tempered princess of England, since birth. The only thing they can agree on is that they despise each other.

They’re forced to spend the summer together at Camelot in the run up to their nuptials, and within 24 hours, Gwen has discovered Arthur kissing a boy and Arthur has gone digging for Gwen’s childhood diary and found confessions about her crush on the kingdom’s only lady knight, Bridget Leclair.

Realizing they might make better allies than enemies, they make a reluctant pact to cover for each other, and as things heat up at the annual royal tournament, Gwen is swept off her feet by her knight and Arthur takes an interest in Gwen’s royal brother. Lex Croucher’s Gwen & Art Are Not in Love is chock full of sword-fighting, found family, and romantic shenanigans destined to make readers fall in love.

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Never Wager with a Wallflower by Virginia Heath 

Book Description 

Never Wager with a Wallflower is the third and final delightful installment in Virginia Heath’s Merriwell Sisters Regency rom-com series.

Miss Venus Merriwell has been waiting for her prince to come since the tender age of fourteen. She wants a man who is a selfless academic like her, and free from all the wretched vices her gambler father enjoyed far too much before he left the Merriwell sisters practically destitute. Unfortunately, after a slew of romantic disappointments, there is still no sign of that prince at twenty-three and the only one true love of her life is the bursting-at-the-seams orphanage in Covent Garden that she works tirelessly for. An orphanage that desperately needs to expand into the empty building next door.

For Galahad Sinclair, gambling isn’t just his life, it’s in his blood. He grew up and learned the trade at his grandfather’s knee in a tavern on the far away banks of the Hudson in New York. But when fate took all that away and dragged him across the sea to London, it made sense to set up shop here. He’s spent five years making a success out of his gaming hall in the sleazy docks of the East End. Enough that he can finally afford to buy the pleasure palace of his dreams—and where better than in the capital’s sinful heart, Covent Garden? The only fly in his ointment is the perfect building he’s just bought to put it in also happens to be right next door to the orphanage run by his cousin’s wife’s youngest sister. A pious, disapproving and unsettling siren he has avoided like the plague since she flattened him five years ago.

While Venus and Galahad lock horns over practically everything, and while her malevolent orphans do their darndest to sabotage his lifelong dream, can either of them take the ultimate gamble—and learn to love thy neighbor?

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Death in the Spires by KJ Charles 

Book Description 

The newspapers called us the Seven Wonders. We were a group of friends, that’s all, and then Toby died. Was killed. Murdered.

1905. A decade after the grisly murder of Oxford student Toby Feynsham, the case remains hauntingly unsolved. For Jeremy Kite, the crime not only stole his best friend, it destroyed his whole life. When an anonymous letter lands on his desk, accusing him of having killed Toby, Jem becomes obsessed with finally uncovering the truth.

Jem begins to track down the people who were there the night Toby died – a close circle of friends once known as the ‘Seven Wonders’ for their charm and talent – only to find them as tormented and broken as himself. All of them knew and loved Toby at Oxford. Could one of them really be his killer?

As Jem grows closer to uncovering what happened that night, his pursuer grows bolder, making increasingly terrifying attempts to silence him for good. Will exposing Toby’s killer put to rest the shadows that have darkened Jem’s life for so long? Or will the gruesome truth only put him in more danger?

Some secrets are better left buried…

From the bestselling, acclaimed author of The Magpie Lord and The Secret Lives of Country Gentlemen comes a chilling historical mystery with a sting in the tail. You won’t be able to put this gripping story down!

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A Governess’ Guide to Passion and Peril by Manda Collins 

Book Description 

Jane Halliwell once dreamed of a home of her own—but those dreams (and her dowry) died with her father. Now, she works as a governess, preparing her charge for a future no longer within her reach. When her employer is murdered during a house party, however, Jane is forced back into the world of the ton. But stepping in as hostess will require working with the same lord who once broke her girlish heart.

Lord Adrian Fielding was too consumed with his job at the Foreign Office to pay young Jane much heed, but he always considered her a friend. Which is why he’s confounded by her icy demeanor now. More troubling still is his desire to melt the tensions between them. But his mentor’s murder means he must first find the culprit—and ensure Jane’s safety as she manages a house full of foreign dignitaries.

Only Jane insists on joining the investigation, and Adrian, despite all his diplomatic skills, finds himself seduced by her sharp wit and sparkling eyes. But with a vicious killer circling ever closer, will it soon be too late for their chance at forever?

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Trouble by Lex Croucher 

Book Description 

There’s a new governess at Fairmont House, and she’s going to be nothing but trouble.

Emily Laurence is a liar. She is not polite, she’s not polished, and she has never taught a child in her life. This position was meant to be her sister’s––brilliant, kind Amy, who isn’t perpetually angry, dangerously reckless, and who does (inexplicably) like children.

But Amy is unwell and needs a doctor, and their father is gone and their mother is useless, so here Emily is, pretending to be something she’s not.

If she can get away with her deception for long enough to earn a few month’s wages and slip some expensive trinkets into her pockets along the way, perhaps they’ll be all right.

That is, as long as she doesn’t get involved with the Edwards family’s dramas. Emily refuses to care about her charges – Grace, who talks too much and loves too hard, and Aster, who is frankly terrifying but might just be the wittiest sixteen-year-old Emily has ever met – or the servants, who insist on acting as if they’re each other’s family. And she certainly hasn’t noticed her employer, the brooding, taciturn Captain Edwards, no matter how good he might look without a shirt on . . .

As Fairmont House draws her in, Emily’s lies start to come undone. Can she fix her mistakes before it’s too late?

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When Grumpy Met Sunshine by Charlotte Stein

Book Description

A steamy, opposites-attract romance with undeniable chemistry between a grumpy retired footballer and his fabulous and very sunshine-y ghostwriter.

When grumpy ex-footballer Alfie Harding gets badgered into selling his memoirs, he knows he’s never going to be able to write them. He hates revealing a single thing about himself, is allergic to most emotions, and can’t imagine doing a good job of putting pen to paper.

And so in walks curvy, cheery, cute as heck ghostwriter Mabel Willicker, who knows just how to sunshine and sass her way into getting every little detail out of Alfie. They banter and bicker their way to writing his life story, both of them sure they’ll never be anything other than at odds.

But after their business arrangement is mistaken for a budding romance, the pair have to pretend to be an item for a public who’s ravenous for more of this Cinderella story. Or at least, it feels like it’s pretend—until each slow burn step in their fake relationship sparks a heat neither can control. Now they just have to decide: is this sizzling chemistry just for show? Or something so real it might just give them their fairytale ending?

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Reader, I Murdered Him by Betsy Cornwell

Book Description

In this daring tale of female agency and revenge from a New York Times bestselling author, a girl becomes a teenage vigilante who roams Victorian England using her privilege and power to punish her friends’ abusive suitors and keep other young women safe.

Adele grew up in the shadows—first watching from backstage at her mother’s Parisian dance halls, then wandering around the gloomy, haunted rooms of her father’s manor. When she’s finally sent away to boarding school in London, she’s happy to enter the brightly lit world of society girls and their wealthy suitors. 

Yet there are shadows there, too. Many of the men that try to charm Adele’s new friends do so with dark intentions. After a violent assault, she turns to a roguish young con woman for help. Together, they become vigilantes meting out justice. But can Adele save herself from the same fate as those she protects?

With a queer romance at its heart, this lush historical thriller offers readers an irresistible mix of vengeance and empowerment.

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Mortal Follies by Alexis Hall

Book Description

It is the year 1814, and life for a young lady of good breeding has many difficulties. There are balls to attend, fashions to follow, marriages to consider, and, of course, the tiny complication of existing in a world swarming with fairy spirits, interfering deities, and actual straight-up sorcerers.

Miss Maelys Mitchelmore finds her entry into high society hindered by an irritating curse. It begins innocuously enough with her dress slowly unmaking itself over the course of an evening at a high-profile ball, a scandal she narrowly manages to escape.

However, as the curse progresses to more fatal proportions, Miss Mitchelmore must seek out aid, even if that means mixing with undesirable company. And there are few less desirable than Lady Georgiana Landrake—a brooding, alluring young woman sardonically nicknamed “the Duke of Annadale”—who may or may not have murdered her own father and brothers to inherit their fortune. If one is to believe the gossip, she might be some kind of malign enchantress. Then again, a malign enchantress might be exactly what Miss Mitchelmore needs.

With the Duke’s help, Miss Mitchelmore delves into a world of angry gods and vindictive magic, keen to unmask the perpetrator of these otherworldly attacks. But Miss Mitchelmore’s reputation is not the only thing at risk in spending time with her new ally. For the reputed witch has her own secrets that may prove dangerous to Miss Mitchelmore’s heart—not to mention her life.

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Infamous by Lex Croucher

Book Description

Twenty-two-year-old aspiring writer Edith (“Eddie”) Miller and her best friend Rose have always done everything together—from climbing trees and sneaking bottles of wine, to extensive kissing practice. But Rose has started talking about marriage, and Eddie is horrified. Why can’t they continue as they always have?

Then Eddie meets charming, renowned poet Nash Nicholson––a rival of Lord Byron, if he does say so himself––and he welcomes her into his world of eccentric artists and boundary-breaking visionaries. When Eddie receives an invitation to Nash’s crumbling Gothic estate in the countryside, promising inspiration (and time to finish her novel, a long-held dream), she eagerly agrees. But the pure hedonism and debauchery that ensues isn’t exactly what she had in mind, and Eddie soon finds herself torn between her complicated feelings for Rose and her equally complicated dynamic with Nash, whose increasingly bad behavior doesn’t match up to her vision for her literary hero.

Will Eddie be forced to choose between her friendship with Rose and her literary dreams––or will she be able to write her own happily ever after?



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The Secret Lives of Country Gentlemen by KJ Charles

Book Description

Bridgerton meets Poldark in this sweeping Regency romance of smugglers, adventure, mystery, and life-changing love from celebrated author KJ Charles.

Abandoned by his father, Gareth Inglis grew up lonely, prickly, and well-used to disappointment. Still, he longs for a connection. When he meets a charming man in a London molly house, he falls head over heels—until everything goes wrong and he’s left alone again. Then Gareth’s father dies, turning the shabby London clerk into Sir Gareth, with a grand house on the remote Romney Marsh and a family he doesn’t know.

The Marsh is another world, a strange, empty place notorious for its ruthless gangs of smugglers. And one of them is dangerously familiar…

Joss Doomsday has run the Doomsday smuggling clan since he was a boy. When the new baronet—his old lover—agrees to testify against Joss’s sister, Joss acts fast to stop him. Their reunion is anything but happy, yet after the dust settles, neither can stay away. Soon, all Joss and Gareth want is the chance to be together. But the bleak, bare Marsh holds deadly secrets. And when Gareth finds himself threatened from every side, the gentleman and the smuggler must trust one another not just with their hearts, but with their lives.

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