My to be read pile grew substantially over the weekend, and I could not be MORE excited for it! Thank you for having sales on a payday weekend!
The haul includes books from four authors I haven’t read before and only one hockey book! Can you believe it?!
I’m beginning to make the move from my hockey romance era to my new era of cowboy romance, so of course I had to include two Elsie Silver books, the QUEEN of cowboy romance. I’ve also read enough reviews of Penelope Douglas books and have tip-toed my way around them long enough that it’s time I finally took the dive. I’m a little nervous. But I’ve read NOTHING but good things, so I’m sure it’ll be worth the wait! Add in my love for historical and documentary work (yes, I do read other genres), and my quasi-obsession with the Space Shuttle Challenger, Taylor Jenkins Reid’s Atmosphere was an easy add to cart.
Lesser known authors, at least to me, round out the pile. Any romance book about men with beards, count me in! If you’ve seen or met my husband, you’ll understand why. An unconventional way to selecting books? Probably. But it works for me, and that’s why Penny Reid’s Grin and Beard It is in this week’s pile. Marriage of convenience, best friend’s sister, and (of course) hockey are three of my FAVORITE themes at the moment, which is how Terms and Conditions, Wildest Dreams, and Offside came home with me.
Read below for the synopsis of each to find out which one(s) you need to add to your to be read pile next!
Heartless (Elsie Silver), currently on the Best of BookTok: Working as a nanny for the world’s grumpiest single dad should have been simple. Except I can’t keep my eyes off him. And he can’t keep his hands off of me. Cade Eaton is thirteen years older than I am and barely looks my way. Until I get him into the hot tub one night for a game of truth or dare. Then all bets are off—and so are our clothes. He’s gruff, a little rough around the edges. But broad-shouldered ranchers with calloused hands and filthy mouths are this city girl’s kryptonite. So who am I to resist? But it’s in our quiet moments together that he softens. It’s when he takes care of me that I realize his hardened exterior is just a façade. It’s when I watch him go all sweet with his little boy that I really fall for him. Someone convinced him once that his best wasn’t good enough. But I’ve never felt more cherished than I do in his arms. My contract may say this arrangement is only for two months. But my heart says this is forever.
Hopeless (Elsie Silver), currently on the Best of BookTok: Beau Eaton is the town prince, a handsome military hero with a tortured past. I’m the outcast bartender, a shy girl from the wrong side of the tracks. He’s thirty-five and all man, and I’m twenty-two and all . . . virgin. He’s also my fiancé. Correction: my fake fiancé. We start out as a bet. He doesn’t believe that anyone holds my last name against me. So he offers me his to prove a point. It’s win-win. He gets a break from his concerned family’s prying, and I get a chance to shed my family’s reputation while I save up to ditch this small town. He says all I have to do is wear his ring, follow his lead, and pretend I can’t keep my hands off of him in public. But it’s what happens between us in private that blurs all those carefully drawn lines. It’s what transpires behind closed doors that doesn’t feel like pretending at all. This engagement was supposed to be for show. This agreement? It has an end date. He once told me he’d never fall in love. And yet here I am, head over heels for my fake fiancé.
Terms and Conditions (Lauren Asher), Goodreads Choice Awards Nominee:
Declan
I’m destined to become the next CEO of my family’s media empire. The only problem? My grandfather’s inheritance clause. Fulfilling his dying wish of getting married and having an heir seemed impossible until my assistant volunteers for the job. Our marriage was supposed to be the perfect solution to my biggest problem. But the more we act in love for the public, the more unsure I feel about our contract. Caring about Iris was never part of the deal. Especially not when breaking her heart is inevitable.
Iris
My plan to marry Declan was simple in theory. Move in together. Throw a wedding. Have a baby. We set rules to prevent any kind of issues. Ones that were never meant to be broken, no matter how much Declan tempts me. But what happens when our fake relationship bleeds into our real one? Falling in love was never an option. At least not for me.
Nine Month Contract (Amy Daws): Help Wanted: Grumpy mountain man seeks baby momma. Job is an incubator position only. Surrogate must be impervious to grunting as the form of communication and nosy brotherly neighbors. Rustic mountain range housing available upon request. I wanted to pummel my irritating brothers when they posted their own version of a wanted ad to help me with my life. But I can’t fault the results once the right woman lands in my lap. Becoming a single father is not a decision I made lightly. In fact, it’s the biggest decision of my entire life. Which is why when I interview Trista, I know she’s perfect. She’s wild, she’s opinionated, she wears cowboy boots. Even my pet goat loves her…She’s the exact type of person I was holding out for. And to my great horror, I realize on our first night of attempting this baby-making dance—when the lights are low, the cheap wine is flowing and the home-insemination supplies are laid out on the kitchen counter—I want to do a lot more than just make her my surrogate. I want to make her mine.
Credence (Penelope Douglas), currently on the Best of BookTok: Tiernan de Haas doesn’t care about anything anymore. The only child of a film producer and his starlet wife, she’s grown up with wealth and privilege but not love or guidance. And when her parents suddenly pass away, she knows she should be devastated. But she’s always been alone, hasn’t she? Jake Van der Berg, her father’s stepbrother and her only living relative, assumes guardianship of Tiernan. Sent to live in the mountains of Colorado with Jake and his two sons, Noah and Kaleb, Tiernan quickly learns that these men now have a say in what she chooses to care and not care about anymore. As the men take Tiernan under their wing, she slowly finds her place among them. Because lines blur and rules become easy to break when no one else is watching. One of them has her. The other one wants her. But he’s going to keep her.
Grin and Beard It (Penny Reid): She’s America’s sweetheart and he’s the town pariah…Sienna Diaz is everyone’s favorite “fat” funny lady. The movie studio executives can’t explain it, but her films are out-grossing all the fit and trim headliners and Hollywood’s most beautiful elite. The simple truth is, everyone loves plus-sized Sienna. But she has a problem: she can’t read maps and her sense of direction is almost as bad as her comedic timing is stellar. Therefore, when Sienna’s latest starring role takes her to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, she finds herself continually lost while trying to navigate the back roads of Green Valley, Tennessee. Much to her consternation, Sienna’s most frequent savior is a ridiculously handsome, charming, and cheeky Park Ranger by the name of Jethro Winston. Sienna is accustomed to high levels of man-handsome, so it’s not Jethro’s chiseled features or his perfect physique that make her stutter. It’s his southern charm. And gentlemanly manners. And habit of looking at her too long and too often. Sienna has successfully navigated the labyrinth of Hollywood heart-throbs. But can she traverse the tenuous trails of Tennessee without losing her head? Or worse, her heart?
Offside (Avery Keelan), currently on the Best of BookTok: After being dumped on her 21st birthday, Bailey James rebounds right into the arms of her ex’s biggest competition…Chase Carter: antagonizer, womanizer, and infamous left winger for her college’s rival team. Following a string of scandals and substandard grades, Chase is on thin ice with his teammates and tyrannical coach. The last thing he needs is to have his focus and loyalty called into question by fraternizing with his team’s #1 competition, but a beautiful stranger who throws herself at him one night is too tempting to pass up… until she throws up on his shoes. Caught in the midst of a bitter rivalry that extends far beyond the arena, Chase and Bailey are on opposite sides of the bench. He’s worked his entire life to secure a future in the NHL. She’s tagged along while her brother has done the same. Fraternizing with the enemy is definitely out of the question, but what if the enemy is impossible to resist?
Atmosphere: A Love Story (Taylor Jenkins Reid), currently #7 this week on the Amazon charts: Joan Goodwin has been obsessed with the stars for as long as she can remember. Thoughtful and reserved, Joan is content with her life as a professor of physics and astronomy at Rice University and as aunt to her precocious niece, Frances. That is, until she comes across an advertisement seeking the first women scientists to join NASA’s space shuttle program. Suddenly, Joan burns to be one of the few people to go to space. Selected from a pool of thousands of applicants in the summer of 1980, Joan begins training at Houston’s Johnson Space Center, alongside an exceptional group of fellow candidates: Top Gun pilot Hank Redmond and scientist John Griffin, who are kind and easygoing even when the stakes are highest; mission specialist Lydia Danes, who has worked too hard to play nice; warmhearted Donna Fitzgerald, who is navigating her own secrets; and Vanessa Ford, the magnetic and mysterious aeronautical engineer, who can fix any engine and fly any plane. As the new astronauts become unlikely friends and prepare for their first flights, Joan finds a passion and a love she never imagined. In this new light, Joan begins to question everything she thinks she knows about her place in the observable universe. Then, in December of 1984, on mission STS-LR9, it all changes in an instant. Fast-paced, thrilling, and emotional, Atmosphere is Taylor Jenkins Reid at her best: transporting readers to iconic times and places, creating complex protagonists, and telling a passionate and soaring story about the transformative power of love—this time among the stars.
Wildest Dreams (L.J. Shen): He’ll protect his best friend’s baby sister from anything…other than himself. Rhyland Coltridge is a hedonistic playboy, but he isn’t stupid. He knows Dylan Casablancas is a forbidden fruit. She’s his best friend’s baby sister, a single mom, and a royal pain in his ass. All three make her entirely off-limits, which is just as well, as he doesn’t do relationships. Unfortunately for him, she’s moving into the apartment downstairs, and Rhyland’s potential business partner mistakes them for a couple. Rhyland needs to look like husband material to land this deal. Dylan needs a fake fiancé to get her clingy ex off her back. The solution? Fake it till they make it. On paper, pretending to be engaged would help them kill two birds with one stone. But in practice? When shared apartments turn into steamy late nights and pretend kisses blur into something real, Rhyland wonders if the sassy single mother just might be the death of him.The deal says their fake engagement ends as soon as Rhyland’s contract is signed, but Rhyland took a bite of the forbidden fruit, and guess what? He isn’t about to leave any crumbs for another man behind…