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Cosplay and Confrontation
Sarah Zane
Publication date: September 26th 2023
Genres: Comedy, Contemporary, New Adult, Romance
Pride and Prejudice meets the legends of King Arthur in this sapphic rivals-to-lovers, sweet romantic comedy packed with plenty of banter and tension.
Obstinate and headstrong cosplayer Elaine Knight prided herself on two things; her quality cosplays and being a good judge of character. Gwendolyn Reid took both of those from her. They used to be best friends, until Gwen broke their best friend’s heart and skipped town. At least with Gwen out of the way, Lanie was a shoo-in to win the upcoming cosplay contest.
Except now Gwen’s back.
Gwendolyn Reid should be thinking about meeting her fans, winning the cosplay contest, and dancing at the ball. Instead, all she can think about is Lanie, their unresolved issues, and her unrequited feelings. Unfortunately, there’s no denying that the only feeling Lanie has for Gwen is hatred.
Lucky for them both, it is a truth universally acknowledged that rivals are bound to fall in love.

Author Bio:
Sarah is an author of happy endings for traumatized queers. She is a bisexual feminist and a licensed therapist. Her books often deal with themes of feminism, trauma, sexuality, and mental health. She lives in New England with her husband and 2 black cats named Gatsby and Mr. Darcy. When she isn’t writing, she can be found perusing a book in her home library that features over 400 books, making chaotic book themed videos for TikTok (aka Booktok), taking forest walks, visiting castles, planning exotic trips she can’t afford, or cuddled up with one of her cats crying over fictional characters or yelling at them about how badly they need therapy.
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8 weeks!!! Woohoo!!! Ok, maybe I should start with explaining my excitement… I have now managed to stay below my goal number for 8 straight weeks so yes, I’m a little excited today. Restraint has never been my friend but this week I only have six new additions to share keeping my streak going strong. 😄
As always clicking the covers will take you to the book on Amazon!**
New additions from Netgalley July 23rd – July 30th
When a body is presumed to be her missing husband’s, a woman must unravel the secrets of her own past to clear her name, find the truth, and put her conscience to rest once and for all.
All Ruby wanted was a fresh start. But after an early retirement and a relocation to a tight-knit community with her husband, Tom, and her daughter, Lily, her new beginning takes a turn.
First her troubled daughter and then her husband disappear without a trace. Unsure how to cope, grief-ridden Ruby turns to her neighborhood friends to find a way forward with new hobbies, including a murder club where they try to solve cold cases.
But just as unexpectedly as her family vanished, a body floats to the surface of the nearby lake.
And everyone is sure the body belongs to Tom…everyone except Ruby.
Determined to find out what happened to her family once and for all, Ruby digs into her neighbors’ lives, and her own, only to uncover secrets that raise more questions than they answer. And the biggest question of all—why doesn’t she recognize the body?
Southern sass and spirit make every Christmas bright!
The oldest of seven sisters, Ursula Simmons has followed in her mother’s footsteps as a novelist. With a bad case of writer’s block, she brings her notebooks and computer home to the old brothel called Paradise where they all grew up, in the hope that being home for the holidays will inspire her—and since it’s Christmas, all her sisters will be there too.
The sisters take the holidays very seriously, and as soon as they’ve celebrated Thanksgiving, it’s on to decorating for Christmas. As all pitch in to make the spirits bright, younger sister Endora is dismayed to find some of the handsome men who’ve come to help doing more flirting than anything else. She’s determined to show her sisters that no relationship is worth the heartbreak. But it might be Ursula who reminds the family that Christmas is a magical time, and finding new love is always a gift.
Neely’s monsters don’t always follow her rules, so when the little girl under her bed, the man in her closet, and the disembodied voice that shadows her every move become louder, she knows she’s in trouble.
With a history of mental illness in her family and the suicide of her older brother heavy on her mind, Neely takes a job as a tour guide in the one place her monsters can’t follow—the caverns. There she can find peace. There she can pretend to be normal. There . . . she meets Mila. Mila is everything Neely isn’t—beautiful, strong, and confident. As the two become closer, Neely’s innocent crush grows into something more. When a midnight staff party exposes Neely to drugs, she follows Mila’s lead . . . only to have her hallucinations escalate.
When Mila is found brutally murdered in the caverns, Neely has to admit that her memories of that night are vague at best. With her monsters now out in the open, and her grip on reality slipping, Neely must figure out who killed Mila . . . and face the possibility that it might have been her.
From the authors of Horror Hotel, called “fast-paced and freaky” by #1 NYT bestselling author Kendare Blake, comes another addictive YA horror about a group of teen ghost hunters who are invited to travel onboard a haunted historic cruise ship.
All aboard…
After their fateful stay at the Hearst Hotel, the Ghost Gang is back with more spooks and more subscribers. They’ve been invited to record onboard the RMS Queen Anne, a transatlantic luxury ocean liner with a colorful past of violent deaths of hundreds of passengers—souls that bought a one-way ticket to the afterlife (and never disembarked).
When Chrissy, Chase, Kiki, and Emma board the ship, they have a funny feeling they’ve been sucked into a ghostly time warp—a theory that takes a frightening turn when Chrissy goes missing on the first night.
Unbeknownst to the rest of the group, Chrissy has been sucked into another time by a passenger who wants the Ghost Gang to know her untimely death was not an accident and the perpetrator is still alive—and on board this ship.
In April Asher’s new Supernatural Singles novel, a witch takes a stroll on the wild-ish side, sparking an
alert that saddles her with her very own Guardian Angel…who happens to be her secret crush—and
new roommate.
Olive Maxwell much prefers teaching about the supernatural world to taking part in it and leaves the
magical shenanigans to her two sisters—the Prima-Apparent and Bounty Hunter-In-Training. But after
assigning her college students a project designed to nudge them outside their comfort zones, Olive
realizes that she’s never once stepped a toe over her own…and it’s about time that changed. Her first
trip into the unknown? Moving in with her long-time crush—and friend…tattooed, motorcycle-riding,
and pleasantly pierced, Baxter Donovan.
Bax Donovan, Guardian Angel not-so-extraordinaire, has acquired so many black marks on his record it
looked like a scantron sheet. He’s given one last chance to keep his Guardian wings intact, a high-profile
Assignment he knows all too well. Olive is usually as low-risk as it got. Hell, she wrote the safety manual.
But something landed her on the Guardian Affairs radar and his guess was it had something to do with
the heart-pounding stunts she’s determined to check off her Dare I Docket list.
Keeping Olive out of trouble is about to be his toughest assignment yet, and not because he’s forced to
shake the dust off his feathers and embrace his inner aerialist. He’s at real risk of shattering the only
Guardian Angel Code of Conduct Rule he’s yet to break: Don’t fall in love with your Assignment. And he
isn’t so sure that’s a bad thing.
If love didn’t play by the rules, why should they?
An obituary writer finds one of her neighbors dead before her time in this debut cozy mystery perfect for fans of Jenn McKinlay and Eva Gates.
Obituary writer Winter Snow is no stranger to grief, and writing obituaries for the citizens of Ridgefield, Connecticut, is her way of providing comfort to those who have been in her shoes. But funerals and eulogies are meant for the dead, so when the very much alive Leocadia Arlington requests her own obituary by the end of the week, Winter’s curiosity is piqued. Even more so when she finds Mrs. Arlington dead soon after. Officer Kip Michaels and his relentless partner Tom Bellini make it clear that Winter is under suspicion for the death.
Drafting an obituary for someone who hadn’t died yet certainly looks bad, but Winter knows that it wasn’t her, and she becomes obsessed with trying to figure out the real killer. She dives headfirst into the investigation to give Mrs. Arlington and herself some peace. When Winter realizes Mrs. Arlington was working on a revealing memoir that has now gone missing, Winter begins to wonder if the death wasn’t exactly random–accident or otherwise.
With the help of her foodie Uncle Richard, her wise octogenarian neighbor Horace, her best friend Scoop, and Diva, the Great Pyrenees puppy she inherited from Mrs. Arlington, Winter must uncover the killer before the next obituary written is her own.
**This post contains Amazon affiliate links which will allow me as an associate to earn a small commission on any purchase made through the link of the products I share. This commission in no way changes the pricing of any items for the buyer.**
A Vampire’s Fate
Marie-Claude Bourque
(The Order of the Black Oak – Vampires, #4)
Publication date: June 27th 2023
Genres: Adult, Paranormal, Romance
When wolf shifter and dedicated nurse Rosalie Gauthier returns to her town to take on the leadership of her pack after her father’s illness, her birthright is challenged a tyrannic rival, and marriage to a powerful vampire is her only option to save her family’s legacy.
Bound by honor to his lifetime oath to protect the alpha of the Domaine-Lassalle pack, Mount-Royal Immortal Renaud St-Amand’s duty turns out a whole lot more complicated when he is hit with love at first sight for the future female leader on the day of their arranged marriage.
If you love loyal tough guys with hearts, satisfying slow-burn paranormal romance and safe Happily Ever Afters, the Black Oak World is for you.
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EXCERPT:
So, you’ll let her fight?” His brother Griff asked.
“Calvaire! No.” Ren jolted with dread at the idea of Rosalie facing that brute Bouchard in combat. “I’m the one who should fight this trial. I’m the Gauthiers ’protector, not just her husband.”
“Shit, man,” Cass suddenly lifted a concerned brow as he set his drink aside. “This is your wedding night. Shouldn’t you be with her right now?”
“I’m sleeping on the couch.”
“Dude.” Cass shot him a pained expression.
“Yeah,” he rasped as longing took hold of him.
His breathing deepened and he imagined how he could slide between his sheets next to her enticing body and explore every curve he should be calling his. Take her as she cried his name in the depth of passion.
“So, you haven’t…” Griff started. “Never?”
“No.” He cleared his throat and dug his nails into his palm, not wanting to discuss the matter further.
“Don’t you want to, though,” Griff said. “She’s quite attractive.”
“Dude, she’s his wife.”
“Well, apparently not,” Griff retorted.
“Not in that sense, no,” Ren huffed.
“Why the hell not?” Griff picked the crushed can from the deck and passed it to Cass who had started to pick up the empty drinks.
“Well,” Ren started, “first I barely know her. And second, she has a boyfriend.”
“Ex,” Cass corrected, dropping the dead beer cans into the brown paper bag marked with the logo of the Fortins ’grocery store.
“Whatever,” Ren said.
“So, you two will just like, live together. But…nothing?” Griff asked.
“That’s the plan,” Ren acknowledged. “This is a fake marriage. We’ll just divorce in a couple of years.”
“Fucking messed-up plan,” Griff smirked.
“Yeah.” Ren shrugged hopelessly. “Some honeymoon.”

Author Bio:
I have always been – and likely always will be – a writer.
I have led a very long life in a less-than-imagined amount of years.
From childhood abuse to earning my blackbelt; from living in my car to living at the Four Seasons; from having 4 jobs at once to being unemployed with two college degrees; to losing my loved ones and winning my life.
One of Life’s greatest joys for me is my dog (or any dog really). My beast’s name is Asher and he’s a gorgeous 100lb lap dog.
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Watch Your Back
Stacy Claflin
(Ariana Jones, #1)
Publication date: May 22nd 2022
Genres: Adult, Thriller
Even perfect neighborhoods have deadly secrets.
Ariana and Damon moved to the gated neighborhood of Rosy Hills to leave behind their traumatic pasts. Now they have their dream jobs and are part of a tight group of friends. All of that crumbles when their neighbor Rita disappears without a trace.
Now it looks like one of their own could be a killer. Ariana and Damon must figure out who it is, or they risk never finding Rita alive. If they don’t reach her in time, they could all end up dead…
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EXCERPT:
“Rita, where are you?” he called.
She readied herself to run again.
His footsteps sounded close. “Ready or not, here I come.”
She held her breath. Waited.
Had to get the shoes off.
“Rita…”
A shiver shot down her spine.
“You can’t hide forever,” he said, now sounding farther away.
Stomach lurching, she peeked around the corner.
He neared the swings, his back to her.
She loosened the buckle on her right pump. It stuck. Resisted.
Footsteps grew closer.
Now he was heading her way.
She froze. Tried to fix her buckle. Fumbled.
“There you are!”
Heart nearly giving out, she turned.
He stood halfway between the playground and her.
Rita leaped to her feet and ran. Her right shoe clung to her foot loosely, the buckle not fully undone. Made it hard to remain steady. She kicked, trying to free herself from it.
Finally lost it as she darted between bushes. Rough bark dug into her bare foot. Then concrete as she reached the sidewalk. Her hips protested the three-inch difference between her two feet, one shoed and the other not.
“Gotcha!” His arms wrapped around her middle. He squeezed.
She struggled and kicked, barely able to breathe. “Help! I’m being—”
He covered her mouth.
She bit his finger.
He swore at her. Didn’t let go. Pulled her back toward the park.
Rita squirmed and flailed. Scratched at him.
She wasn’t going down without a fight.
They flew to the ground.
She landed with a hard thud.
He crashed on top of her.
She pushed and strained to get out from under him.
“This could’ve all been avoided,” he grunted. “I only wanted to talk.”
“Could’ve fooled me.” She tried to push him off.
“Don’t you see we’re meant for each other?”
Rita almost laughed at the irony of his words. “This is your way of winning me back?”
“You have to see the obvious.”
The truth was clearer now than before. But pointing that out wouldn’t do any good. Just needed to get away. Get her phone back and call the cops.
Had to think fast.
“You think we can work things out?” she asked, and stopped resisting.
“If you’re willing to change.” He loosened his hold.
She bit back a sarcastic retort. Needed to get him to move off her. “What do you want me to do?”
“You have to stop flirting with guys at the bar, for starters,” he said, giving her more space.
Not enough to run.
“Let’s talk about that,” she said.
He rolled off her and started to say something.
Rita jumped up and ran.
He called after her.
She raced to the park. Through it.
He screamed profanities at her, getting closer.
She yelled for help. For all the good that would do.
Her restaurant came into view.
All she needed was to get to her car. Her fingerprint would start it. Thank God for technology. She’d lost her keys and purse somewhere along the way. Hadn’t even noticed when.
She reached her property.
Something hard struck the back of her head.
Rita flew forward. Landed hard on the ground, her car just out of reach.
Another hit to the head.
Everything went black.

Author Bio:
Stacy Claflin is a USA Today bestselling thriller author who has published more than 75 novels, including Girl in Trouble and The Perfect Death. She has always been curious about the human mind, and in her quest to learn more, she earned a degree in Psychology. Her favorite course was Abnormal Behavior, which has been useful in writing fiction.
Her love for thrillers goes back to her early childhood when she fell in love with Unsolved Mysteries and America’s Most Wanted. When Stacy was five, she got mad at a babysitter who wouldn’t let her watch the evening news. These days, she spends her free time listening to true crime podcasts or watching documentaries on the subject.
She has been telling stories for as long as she can remember, and as child would often get into trouble for trying to convince friends her wild tales were true. Now she puts her creativity to better use by writing page-turning stories that leave readers begging for more.
Stacy occasionally dabbles in other genres, so as you peruse her library of works, you’ll find some romance and paranormal tales, all with strong suspense elements.
Join Stacy’s newsletter to get three free novels: https://stacyclaflin.com/newsletter
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Eva
Diane Solomon
Publication date: July 15th 2023
Genres: Adult, Contemporary, Romance, Suspense
Eva possesses a unique and powerful gift. But is it a curse?
She plays down her beauty, to avoid attention. But it doesn’t work. She has a magnetic quality, a calm, a power of which she is unaware. Never having known her father and having lost her mother when she was young, Eva believes she’s better off alone. She only connects deeply with animals, they are her first love. But another great love is on the horizon, along with other life-changing discoveries.
When they learn of her gift, the media jackals gather, and Eva is forced into the limelight she’s avoided all her life. Facing challenges at every turn, including her own inner demons, she must fight to protect, even embrace, her newfound ability.
But someone wants her dead.
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EXCERPT:
Prologue
Summer 1995, New England Marine Institute,
Near Fall River, Massachusetts
There they were, speeding to greet her, the reason Marianne could haul herself out of bed at 5 a.m. The two dolphins chirped and whirred, pressing up against her legs where she sat on the wood planks of the dock.
“Good morning, Mamie. Hey Sugarloaf!” She stroked their noses, then gasped as she slid into the water. Although a warm day in early July, the seawater off the coast of Massachusetts held a definite chill.
Being allowed to swim with these rescued wild dolphins was an act of spiritual generosity on their part. Anytime she needed peace and comfort she found it with them.
Mamie nuzzled her beak against Marianne’s belly, cackled, and grinned her huge grin, then Sugarloaf gently bumped his melon directly into her abdomen. That’s odd. It is as if they know. But how was that possible? She had only found out herself a few days ago.
When Sugarloaf whacked her gently with his tail, she grinned. “Ok, I hear you. Breakfast!” Pulling herself up out of the water, she reached for the bucket of fish on ice. The dolphins gulped down mackerel and herring and smiled for more.
Due to the additional responsibility, this summer internship was more rewarding than the previous year. Now, instead of assigning her grunt work, the staff in charge at NEMI felt safe with her and she was now entrusted with feeding and entertaining the rescued dolphins.
This was her life’s dream. But she was going to need a Bachelor’s, then a Master’s in marine biology. How would she manage? A lump formed in the back of her throat as she tried to figure out, yet again, how to tell her dad.
Gazing out across the gray-blue water, she could just make out the outline of the Elizabeth Islands. One was Cuttyhunk. It had been just as the travel brochure described: “An hour’s sail to a secluded paradise.” She sighed. An unusually warm day in May had extended into a glorious evening of sunburn, seafood, and laughter, with a sense of magic in the air. Not to mention the shots of Tequila, which added confidence, even pushiness, to his advances. She never knew if alcohol released a person’s inhibitions, to display who that person really was, or if it created a totally different persona. Well, it didn’t matter, now. To be fair, she’d had a few glasses of wine herself, so the fault wasn’t all his.
Mamie sidled up to Marianne’s leg and chattered softly. Sliding back into the water with plastic balls, Marianne played with her two friends, laughing out loud as they leaped into the air, tossing the balls back and forth.
“Marianne, good morning!”
“Hey, Trish!” Marianne headed back to the dock.
Tiny Trish Silva was in her mid-fifties, but from a distance looked sixteen. Slender and fit, she buzzed with energy, making Marianne think of a honeybee or a hummingbird, staying that thin thanks to a super-charged metabolism. Trish called out, “Labs show Mamie’s still thiamine deficient, so we have to dose her. You fed them yet?”
Marianne grinned. “Oh, I think I can persuade her.” She slipped the pasty little ball of nutrients into a chunk of fish and tossed it down Mamie’s open mouth. “Ta-da.”
Trish asked, “So, did you end it with him?”
Marianne nodded.
“How did he take it?”
“Not bad. At first.”
Trish shook her head. “Huh. What do you mean, at first?”
“Well, now he just keeps calling…”
“Oh man, seriously? I didn’t know rich guys did that.”
“Well, he’ll get it, eventually.” Marianne heard the doubt in her own voice and when Trish gave her an odd look, she repeated, “He’ll get it. If I ignore him, he’ll get the message.”
Trish shuddered. “Glad I don’t have to go through any of that anymore. OK, moving on, we had a rescue last night–Jeremy and the team found a short-beaked common dolphin, a baby, just a few days old. She’s in the smallest tank and we’ve been holding her afloat…” She glanced at her watch. “Peter’s on now, then I need you to take a shift.”
“What happened to her?”
Trish ran her hands through her spiky gray hair. “An incident with a boat propeller–cut her fin up badly. The vet’s been and stitched her up, but she’s lost a lot of blood. We couldn’t find her mother or the pod. We named her Grace.”
The two women headed back toward the facility, where the tanks held rescued turtles, otters, dolphins, and sometimes whales. They were returned to the wild, if and when possible. The center tried to limit human contact so most could be sent back to the ocean, but sometimes the animals were too injured to be considered releasable.
There, in the small holding tank, Marianne saw Peter, a staff biologist, holding the new infant. Only about two feet long, the little dolphin lay still in Peter’s hands. While keeping her afloat, her blowhole out of the water, he reached for a bottle of formula and held the nipple to the dolphin’s stubby snout. She didn’t respond.
“Hasn’t eaten yet,” he said.
“Not a good sign.” Trish sighed.
Marianne climbed down into the water and took over from Peter.
“Give us a shout if you have any problems,” Trish said as she and Peter headed for the door.
Marianne stared down at Grace. The nasty cut in the baby’s fin was held together by a clear line of stitches. Otherwise, the little dolphin’s gray skin was flawless. Through the water, Marianne could make out the distinctive yellow and gray pattern in the shape of an hourglass on her flank.
A big eye watched her.
“Hey, little Gracie, you’ll be fine, you’ll be fine.” She crooned to the baby dolphin, but it remained still.
A strange stirring in her lower belly sent an icy sensation racing up Marianne’s spine. It wasn’t pain, exactly, just pressure, almost as if her insides were vibrating. She’d never felt anything like it. Was this normal in the first few weeks?
Then the little dolphin in her arms began to stir, almost vibrate, as well. And the sensation of pressure in her abdomen grew even stronger. She opened her mouth to call for help, but then the dolphin shivered, relaxed, and lay motionless. Marianne felt another chill of dread.
She called over her shoulder, “Trish, Trish? Can you come?”
As she shouted, Grace’s tail began to sweep up and down, and Marianne could feel its muscles bunching and tightening. Marianne gasped, as with a burst of energy the dolphin pushed out of her arms. The strange sensation down low in her abdomen faded until it disappeared.
“Trish! Come quickly!” She held on to the ladder and watched, mesmerized, as Grace swooped around the tank.
Trish came running out of one of the doors just in time to see the little dolphin return to Marianne and press up against her.
“That’s great!” Trish grinned and squatted down at the edge of the tank.
Grace gave a series of clicking sounds and Marianne reached for the bottle of formula. The baby pulled at it noisily, and after demolishing the bottle, took off around the tank again. Marianne threw back her head and laughed.
“Marianne,” a voice shouted from the doorway. It was Jennifer, the motherly admin/receptionist at the front desk. “Someone’s here asking for you. Young guy… tall, blond…”
Trish flashed Marianne a look. “Is that him?”
Marianne muttered, “Oh for God’s sake.” She called back to Jennifer. “Tell him I’m unavailable, OK? Thanks, Jen.”
“Oh, Marianne. That’s annoying.” Trish touched her arm. “And a bit scary! What are you going to do?”
Marianne shook her head and bit her lip.
This situation was getting out of hand.

Author Bio:
Diane Solomon has written seven books published by Eloquent Rascals Publishing, the most recent of which is Eva.
Diane began her career in the UK as a singer and songwriter on her own BBC TV show. Then, after 15 years of traveling the world as an entertainer, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome destroyed her career. She struggled for almost eight years, wading through half a life. Finally regaining her health with the help of a homeopathic remedy. She wrote Chronic Fatigue Syndrome: A Guide to The Homeopathic Treatment of CFS/ME, hoping to help others afflicted with this dreadful disease. It quickly became the best-selling book in the homeopathy section in November 2015.
Since then she has written and published the fantasy time travel Ravenstone series, written with her husband Mark Carey. For middle schoolers, these are The Ravenstone: The Secret of Ninham Mountain and The Ravenstone: The Twain. She also wrote 88 Guys for Coffee, a humorous women’s novel about online dating.
Now retired from practice and focused on writing, Diane lives in beautiful New Hampshire with her husband, Mark. She writes, edits, researches, designs and builds gardens, always seeking more knowledge, more understanding, and more creative flow.
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