A dead teacher at an elite boarding school. Four students who had every reason to want her gone. Who is the monster?
At an elite New England boarding school, eight students are selected for an exclusive storytelling workshop with the one and only Meredith Graffam—an enigmatic writer, director, and actress. For sixteen days, they will live in the isolated estate of the school’s founder, surrounded by snowy woods and a storm-tossed seas. Only one of the chosen will walk away with a lifechanging opportunity to realize their creative dreams.
Everyone, including Graffam, has a compelling reason to be there—Effy, the orphan, Isaac, the legacy, Ness, the wallflower, Ramon, the outsider, and Arlo, whose unexpected arrival leaves Effy spiraling—but only the most ambitious will last the term. Graffam’s unorthodox methods push the students past the breaking point, revealing their darkest secrets, taking unthinkable risks, and slowly starting to turn on one another. But Graffam never expected they would turn on her . . .
Single All the Way meets Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agendain this festive romcom about Cam, who’s trying to find “the one” and also trying to find himself—while spending winter break working at a hectic Santa’s Village.
Escaping to NYU for college didn’t turn out the way Cameron planned—he’s flunking his theater classes, about to lose his scholarship, and he still hasn’t found anyone he can call his “people.” When he gets home for winter break, he’s so desperate to avoid a Conversation with his dad that he takes the first acting job he can get—as a mall elf. Despite how Scroogey he feels, the plus side is that there’s a cash prize for the most festive of Santa’s helpers.
But the competition is fierce—especially from fellow elf Marco. Christmas spirit oozes out of his veins. At first Cam is determined to see him as nothing but a rival, but as they spend more time together, Cam starts to second-guess himself. What if he’s finally found his people here—in the fakest consumerist nightmare place on Earth, where he least expected it?
Rian’s life as the art teacher to a gaggle of displaced boys at Albin Academy should be smooth sailing—until the stubborn, grouchy football coach comes into his world like a lightning strike and ignites a heated conflict that would leave them sworn enemies if not for a common goal.
A student in peril. A troubling secret. And two men who are polar opposites but must work together to protect their charges.
They shouldn’t want each other. They shouldn’t even like each other.
Yet as they fight to save a young man from the edge, they discover more than they thought possible about each other—and about themselves.
In the space between hatred, they find love.
And the lives they have always wanted…
Just like this.
“The romantic longing, themes of bravery and confidence, and moments of cozy domesticity shine.” —Publishers Weekly on Just Like That
My review
Just Like This by Cole McCade
This is a delightful “opposites attract” romance. Damon and Rian haven’t spoken much to each other, because they don’t think they share anything in common. But when a student who plays football and takes art class gets into trouble, they have to work together.
Their mutual frustration with each other turns into mutual attraction, but the more pressing concern is that they’re still trying to figure out what’s going in with their student, whose evasive answers are not yielding very much in the way of clues.
Their personalities are similar, despite their differences in vocation and outward appearance. Damon is buff and Rian is more ethereal, but they both pretend to keep to themselves and aren’t overly sociable, which is probably why neither tried to befriend the other before.
The attraction comes first, but as they get to know each other, both men lean on each other as “found family”, which strengthens their bond and allows them to rely on each other instead of keeping their feelings to themselves.
I would recommend Just Like This. While it’s the second book in the series, it functions well as a standalone. Rian does have a conversation with Summer, one of the protagonists from Just Like That, but readers won’t be lost if they start with this book. This is the fourth book I’ve read from McCade, and I’m looking forward to reading more in the future.
I received an ARC of this book from Carina Press/NetGalley.
exclusive excerpt
Rian Falwell had a problem.
And that problem was currently staring at him through a messy tangle of black hair, from beneath a brow dotted with gleaming beads of sweat that—beneath the glassy afternoon light streaming through the windows—turned to glistening motes of amber against dusky brown skin.
Honestly, if Damon Louis was going to come barging into Rian’s studio like this…
He could at least have the decency to wear a shirt.
The P.E. teacher took up far too much space inside the tiny cubicle of a studio, his shoulders so broad they had almost touched both sides of the door frame as he’d stalked inside. He looked as if he’d just stepped out of the gym, with his wide, sculpted, scar-rippled chest glazed in a sheen of sweat and a pair of loose black track pants hanging off his
hips, the elastic waistband barely clinging to the narrow line cut below his iliac crest. His shoulder-length tumbles of dark hair clumped together, completely drenched, droplets dangling from the tips.
But as overheated as Damon looked?
His dark brown eyes were completely cold—glossed to reflective ice as he folded thick, brawny arms over his chest and took a slow look around the cluttered space of Rian’s studio.
Rian could track the line of his gaze—starting with the gloppy pile of clay on his pottery wheel; a pile that would eventually become a vase, but right now was just misshapen lumps of gray.
Then to the thin sheets of handmade papyrus parchment drying on a clothesline strung across the room, pulped and pressed from the fallen early autumn leaves of the trees around Albin Academy, an experiment Rian had been quite pleased with when it resulted in fine paper with a green-gold translucent fragility, flecked with bits of brown from the leaves’ veins and stems.
Next, the many half-finished canvases propped about on their easels, slashed with angry, bold strokes of paint in abstract designs.
The anatomical diagrams pinned to the walls.
And the extra large sketchbook left open on his worktable, displaying loose, light sketches of male bodies in motion, focused on capturing the flow of sinew in the turn of the waist, the tightening of an arm as it drew back, the extension of the body and curve of the spine during a long, lazy reach.
Damon’s eyes lingered longest on that one, his dark, expressive brows rising fractionally, almost mockingly—and Rian’s face burned.
All of these were his personal projects, all unfinished, but still things he put everything he had into.
So why was this stone-faced, unsmiling jerk standing here looking over them like he was about to assign Rian a failing score?
What was he even doing here at all?
Those dark brown eyes snapped back to him as if Damon had somehow heard the question snarling in the back of Rian’s mind.
“So,” Damon drawled, and Rian realized this was the first time he’d actually heard Damon speak in his three years at Albin Academy, rather than noncommittal affirmative mutters during staff meetings. His voice was deep, raw, gritty, with a subtle pull to it that didn’t quite seem to echo typical New England accents around Massachusetts. “I thought this was some kinda broom closet. Chambers and Walden know you’re using it for…” He tilted his head. A damp ripple of hair fell across the refined sharpness of his cheekbone, the tip practically licking at the corner of his wide, full, stern-set mouth. “…this?”
Rian tensed.
More at the implied scorn dripping from this than at the fact he’d been…uh…
Caught using school grounds for unauthorized purposes.
He doubted Principal Chambers and Assistant Principal Walden would particularly care. Especially when Rian had been using the storeroom as a studio since he’d been hired, and no one had really noticed—though considering Lachlan Walden had only been hired last semester, the assistant principal had more things to worry about than one rogue art teacher moving a few brooms.
So Rian drew himself up, lifting his chin as he reached for the wet rag hanging from the edge of his wheel and began wiping the thick patina of clay from his hands, peeling off the cold, clinging layer.
“My broom closet,” he said firmly. “Attached to my classroom. I’m allowed to use it as I deem necessary as long as it’s for educational purposes.”
Cole McCade is a New Orleans-born Southern boy without the Southern accent, currently residing somewhere in Seattle. He spends his days as a suit-and-tie corporate consultant and business writer, and his nights writing contemporary romance and erotica that flirts with the edge of taboo—when he’s not being tackled by two hyperactive cats.
He also writes genre-bending science fiction and fantasy tinged with a touch of horror and flavored by the influences of his multiethnic, multicultural, multilingual background as Xen. He wavers between calling himself bisexual, calling himself queer, and trying to figure out where “demi” fits into the whole mess—but no matter what word he uses he’s a staunch advocate of LGBTQIA and POC representation and visibility in genre fiction. And while he spends more time than is healthy hiding in his writing cave instead of hanging around social media, you can generally find him in these usual haunts:
Carina Adores is home to highly romantic contemporary love stories featuring beloved romance tropes, where LGBTQ+ characters find their happily-ever-afters.
A new Carina Adores title is available each month in trade paperback, ebook and audiobook formats.
Just Like That by Cole McCade (available now!)
Hairpin Curves by Elia Winters (available now!)
Better Than People by Roan Parrish (available now!)
The Secret Ingredient by KD Fisher (available now!)
Teddy Spenser Isn’t Looking for Love by Kim Fielding (coming December 29, 2020)
The Beautiful Things Shoppe by Philip William Stover (coming January 26, 2021)
Our Level Best by Roan Parrish (coming February 23, 2021)
Learn to Knit in Nine Months or Less by Hettie Bell (coming March 30, 2021)
I have always loved watching Olympic gymnastics, so I was excited about this book. It’s a little bittersweet, in that the Tokyo Olympics actually take place in 2020 as scheduled, but with the way publishing works, I’m sure this isn’t the only book set in 2020 that makes no mention of the pandemic and/or the postponement of the Games.
Avery Abrams spent most of her life training to be an Olympic gymnast, but a poor showing at the 2012 Trials ended that goal. The next decade was a series of ups and downs that ends with her football player boyfriend (think TB12 circa 2004) dumping her.
Avery moves back to her small town in Massachusetts and gets a job at her hometown gym, working alongside Ryan Nicholson, who she totally had a crush on back in the day. They’re both training Hallie, a sixteen year old gymnast who has Olympic dreams of her own.
"You Have Your Hands Full!" 