Is there anyone who could spot me $50? I need to get Matthew to the Social Security office to change his direct deposit; then he needs to get to a factory where he's supposed to do a pre-hire drug test, and then back home. We're estimating the Ubers at $15 each, with a dollar or two for a tip. His drug screen is at 2:30p, Eastern time.
Paypal is kimandmattg6794
Many thanks in advance <3
xposted to Dreamwidth and LJ, read/comment where you wish
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One Killer Night by Trilina Pucci is $1.99! I just added this to my TBR pile and now it’s on sale! Perfect timing. This was published by Amazon’s romance imprint, so it’s only available digitally through them.
USA Today bestselling author Trilina Pucci cranks up the heat in this sexy slasher filled with dark family secrets, classic horror tropes, and banter as sharp as a deranged killer’s knife.
Love is patient.
Love is kind.
Love will stab you from behind.
It’s Halloween night, and out-of-work writer Goldie Monroe’s trip to the drugstore scares up more than the fake blood she’s looking for. It leads to the man of her naughtiest dreams. And in spite of her costume, sparks fly from the moment they meet.
Noah Adler, aspiring sneaker designer, is impossibly gorgeous—like a tatted-up version of Goldie’s favorite blue-eyed vampire. He’s there for candy, but it’s Goldie he can’t resist. When she invites him to her sister’s F/X company bash, he’s all in without a second thought.
The pair’s flirty connection heats up fast, carrying them to electrifying new heights. But after Goldie discovers Noah is hiding a dark secret, it all starts to crumble. Looking for answers about her own past awakens new dangers, and when Goldie and Noah land at a slasher camp for adults, a deadly tragedy threatens to repeat itself. If they can survive this one killer night, they can definitely slay a happily ever after.
A Fellowship of Bakers & Magic by J. Penner is $1.49! This is book one in the Adenashire series, which is described as a cozy fantasy romance. I do wonder if this is a “no plot, just vibes” sort of book. Have you read this one?
A human, a dwarf and an elf walk into a bake-off…
In the heart of Adenashire, where elfish enchantments and dwarven delights rule, Arleta Starstone, a human confectionist works twice as hard perfecting her unique blend of baking and apothecary herbs.
So when an orc neighbor secretly enters her creations into the prestigious Elven Baking Battle, Arleta faces a dilemma.
Being magicless, her participation in the competition could draw more scowls than smiles. And if Arleta wants to prove her talent and establish her culinary reputation, this human will need more than just her pastry craft to sweeten the odds.
While competing, she’ll set off on a journey of mouthwatering pastries, self-discovery, heartwarming friendships and romance, while questioning whether winning the Baking Battle is the true prize.
Escape to for a delightful cozy fantasy where every twist is a treat and every turn a step closer to home.
Grace & Henry’s Holiday Movie Marathon by Matthew Norman is $1.99! This is a holiday romance between main characters who have lost their spouses. I’ve heard really good things about this one!
A sentimental advertising creative and a blunt, no-nonsense bar owner find a second chance at love while binge-watching iconic holiday movies in this poignant and heartwarming romance, from the author of Charm City Rocks and All Together Now.
“Norman weaves nostalgic references to modern holiday classics . . . throughout this comforting romance.”—The Washington Post (Noteworthy Books of the Month)
The new year had barely begun when Grace White and Henry Adler both lost their spouses. Now, nearly a year later, the first holiday season since their “Great and Terrible Sadnesses” approaches. Although their mothers scheme to matchmake the two surviving spouses, it’s clear that neither is ready to date again. Yet no one understands what they are going through better than each other, and a delicate friendship is born.
When Henry sees an ad for a Christmas movie marathon—once an annual tradition for him and his wife—Grace offers to watch some films with him, despite her aversion to a few of his picks. Her two young kids, Ian and Bella, also join in whenever possible—bedtimes permitting, of course.
With each movie, Grace and Henry’s shared grief eases as they start to see a life beyond the sadness. But as they draw closer, other romantic possibilities leave them uncertain about their future together. Is their bond merely the result of loneliness and shared circumstances, or have they found something that’s worth taking a shot at . . . again?
There’s Something About Mira by Sonali Dev is $1.99 on Amazon! I believe this is Dev’s latest release and features main characters who are trying to track down the owner of a ring.
From USA Today bestselling author Sonali Dev comes the heartfelt story of a woman determined to reunite a lost ring with its owner, who ends up finding herself along the way.
Mira Salvi has the perfect life—a job she loves, a fiancé everyone adores, and the secure future she’s always imagined for herself. Really, she hasn’t a thing to complain about, not even when she has to go on her engagement trip to New York alone.
While playing tourist in the city, Mira chances upon a lost ring, and her social media post to locate its owner goes viral. With everyone trying to claim the ring, only one person seems to want to find its owner as badly as Mira journalist Krish Hale. Brooding and arrogant, he will do anything to get to write this story.
As Krish and Mira reluctantly join forces and jump into the adventure of tracing the ring back to where it belongs, Mira begins to wonder if she is in the right place in her own life. She had to have found this ring for a reason…right? Maybe, like the owner of the lost ring, her happy ending hasn’t been written yet either.
Far be it from me to question the existence of any cake - it's CAKE, after all - but sometimes, when I'm staring with horrified fascination at a spotted vomitous mass one of you found on a display shelf, I have to ask myself: "Hey, what's that little blue duck doing there?"
We may never know what these bakers are thinking/inhaling behind closed bakery doors, of course, but at least their creations make for some fun cake titles!
You know, like:
The Argyle Dog Beat Poet
"WOMAN. Whoah, man. Whoooooah, MAN. SHE WAS A THIEF. YOU GOTTA BE LEAF. SHE STOLE MY HEART AND MY CAT." [extinguishes cigarette in sponge beard]
What The Fern?
Is it your houseplant's birthday? Did you forget to order a custom airbrush portrait? NO PROBLEM. This bakery's got you covered!
Suckling Pigs Struggle to Stay Afloat While Mama Stares Wistfully at a Trough of Gigantic Candy Corn:
I'm trying to imagine an occasion for this cookie cake that isn't disturbing. Trying, and failing.
Death By Trash Can (While a Small Penguin Watches):
"Stanley gaped in horror. Someone had thrown away a perfectly good half-jar of mayonnaise! What was the world coming to?!"
(I'm kind of cheating with this one, since it was probably a custom order. Still, it always amazes me when bakeries use stuff like this to advertise on their websites. Just how big of a market IS there for dead bodies sticking out of trash cans, anyway? Or do I not want to know? o.0)
Of course, even when you do know what the baker was thinking, that's still no guarantee the wreck will make any more sense.
What's that? You want an example?
Aw, I thought you'd never ask.
Sarah T. asked for her wedding cake to look like a mountain, and with a climbing rope tied at the base to signify "tying the knot."
She got this:
Great yodeling lederhosen!!
I will never look at moldy chunks of insulation or albino ears the same way again.
Thanks to Stephen O., Viola D., Jill N., Christy E., Eva F., and Sarah T. for the excuse to use the words "yodeling lederhosen" together. Life achievement, unlocked!
Prairie Nightingale has formally opened her detective agency with the people who helped her solve her last case and the book begins with the four of them having a multilayered, multidirectional disagreement. Since each of them are unflinching, stubborn, sometimes prickly women, they get on each other’s nerves, even as Prairie reminds herself and them not to “flatten [someone] to the most annoying aspect of [their] personality.”
Then a wealthy, iconoclastic woman walks in with a big check, a long-running blog (hey girl, hey), and a request for help with several missing persons cases in Door County, Wisconsin – cases that law enforcement says are not related. She thinks they are the work of a decades-long serial killing spree, and no one will take her seriously.
The first half of the book was a challenge; the second half was so compelling I said out loud, “I can’t right now, I have to finish my book.” (I love that no one here argues with that statement). There were a few frustrating elements to the first part, especially Prairie’s hostility and self-defeating attitude toward Foster Rosemere, the FBI agent who provides a grounding in reality for the series, and a possible romance for Prairie. Foster is at his most effective when he reminds Prairie and the rest of them that there is a point that the information they gather must be turned over to law enforcement of one flavor or another, and he can connect them with people who will actually take them seriously.
Prairie’s mercurial attitude toward Foster – a confused resentment born out of the fact that she likes him AND she has horny pants for him and does not like that combo – wears thin so fast I almost started skimming their dialogue even though I like them together very much. A lot of the time, Prairie seemed like she was inventing obstacles or reasons to be wary of Foster, when Foster hasn’t earned that treatment in the least. He’s unflinchingly honest with her, and she mentally does the hokey pokey about whether to kiss him. If you like ample progress in a multi-book slow-burn romance, you won’t find a lot of it here, but there is some.
The start of the novel is also slow, I think, because it’s a story about people learning to work together cohesively: not only Prairie and Foster, but Prairie and the other detectives, Prairie, her ex-husband, and her daughters, and Prairie and her colleagues with their new client. Even though I liked all of them, that process was dull sometimes and I found myself frustrated with the very, very slow progress.
Then the stakes of the story change midway and lend urgency to the case, so the second half goes MUCH faster than the first, and that’s when I found it very difficult to put this book down. Every character becomes essential to the whole. I am trying not to be too specific because I don’t want to spoil anything, but once the “why” behind their work changes, and even Prairie’s children get peripherally involved with their own perspectives and pattern recognition, I could not stop until the end.
I really, really liked that at its foundation, this is a story about people learning to function as a very powerful group, and about how much law enforcement often sucks at their jobs because they don’t listen to women and marginalized people. Prairie, her fellow detectives, the woman who has been the police department administrative assistant for decades, marginalized and immigrant people: they’re all pretty easy for cops to ignore if what they’re saying means more work. Prairie maintains her unique perspective on the world, on the roles given to women, and the consequences of rejecting those roles, while using everything that makes her a bit of a misfit in the service of helping other women.
If you’re thinking of reading Trailbreaker, especially if you liked Homemaker, I recommend this one, but prepare yourself for some perseverance through the first half.
This guest post is from Lucynka! Lucynka is a long-time lurker, who has occasionally commented under a couple different names in the past. Over the last few years, she’s become really interested in the history of the romance genre, particularly those forgotten or oft-overlooked parts.
You can find her on Bluesky @lucynka.bsky.social, or else over on her WordPress, where she blogs about “obscure bullshit,” including a lot of romance pulp magazines from the 1920s-’40s – which is what she is sharing with us today! Don’t miss her reviews for The Lilac Ghost (B+) or Love’s Magic Spell (F)– and definitely don’t miss her anthology, The Best of All-Story Love: 1929, on sale and discounted right now!
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I discovered the romance pulps (or “love pulps,” as they were also called) in 2021, quite by accident—really what I was trying to do was to hunt down some lesser-known Cornell Woolrich stories. (Woolrich was a big mystery/noir author in the 1940s, and I would also categorize him as a great, unsung, proto-feminist author—and I’ll just leave it there, lest I turn this into The Cornell Woolrich Appreciation Hour.)
The problem with Woolrich is that a lot of his shorter works are out-of-print and hard to find. But I knew he got his start in the detective pulps of the 1930s, and so—figuring there might be an enthusiast community that had digitized at least some of these magazines—I started delving into pulpdom. And while I did indeed find some Woolrich, I also discovered that the pulps (the classic pulps, that is, not the mid-century paperbacks that often get lumped in with them) were a lot more than just the detectives and sci-fi and fantasy that modern pop culture had led me to believe they were. Truly, there was something for everyone here—airplane pulps and railroad pulps and, yes, romance pulps.
November 1, 1932
One of the resources I’d come across in my search was The Pulp Magazines Project, and I saw that they had three digitized issues of Love Story Magazine available on their site, all from the mid-1930s. I knew nothing about the romance pulps at this point, let alone anything about that specific title, but I’d had an interest in the history and evolution of the genre for a number of years, and so, curious as to what a “vintage pulp romance” might be like, I gave them a look.
I can’t remember exactly which stories I first read—mostly because they didn’t leave much of an impression, to be honest. A big problem is that I had no frame of reference for what I was reading. There were no convenient Goodreads reviews for these stories, nor even summary/teaser blurbs that might let me know what I was getting into, plot-wise.
These days, if you want to dip your toe into an old-skool bodice-ripper (for instance), you at least have the back of the book, and there are resources out there that can help you contextualize the sexual politics on display in those stories. There are authors and texts from the era held up as critically important to the genre, that can give you an idea as to where to start and what to appreciate.
With the pulps, I had none of that. In case you couldn’t guess, the pulp community is overwhelmingly male, and so there historically has been very little interest in the female-aimed romance pulps, even though they were a huge part of the industry. No anthologies or collections of popular authors, or reprint facsimiles of magazines as a whole—nothing to act as a guide. So was my initial lackluster response to these stories simply a result of them not being very good on an objective level, or was the fault my own, for not having the contextual knowledge to parse what I was looking at? I just didn’t know.
But there were, at least, elements and tropes I recognized—fake dating, marriages of convenience, etc.—and those, combined with the historical details (all of these were written as contemporaries, but due to the sheer passage of time, they now read like historicals), kept me casually poking at the issues over the course of a few days.
And then I got to “The Love Pawn” by Hortense McRaven (Love Story, March 10, 1934), which is an absolutely bonkers kidnap/heist/revenge romance, with gender politics that—if you can believe it—actually hold up surprisingly well to modern reading. I hesitate to call the story “good,” in the traditional sense of the word, but I was nevertheless riveted, and by the end of it was just like, “OH. OH, MAYBE THERE’S SOMETHING HERE FOR ME, AFTER ALL???”
March 10, 1934
A browse of the secondhand market on eBay brought up one more McRaven story (this time in the March 27, 1937 issue of All-Story Love), and thus my first romance pulp was purchased.
That said, it took me about another year before I started to become a capital C “Collector.”
As was the case with many of us, I’m sure, the pandemic saw me looking for more podcasts to listen to, and so I started to dig back into the SBTB archive, unearthing—among other things—Sarah’s 2018 interview with then-Bowling Green Pop Culture Archivist Steve Ammidown. That, combined with other interviews I found with rare book dealer Rebecca Romney, promoting her 2021 survey The Romance Novel In English, made me start thinking differently about my own collecting habits (effectively non-existent at this point), and I also started to think differently about the romance pulps as a whole—this very much forgotten part of the genre’s history.
No longer content to just passively consume whatever few, random issues were digitally available on the internet, I started to actively seek out hard copies to explore. And, well, here we are.
September 11, 1937
One of the things that continually fascinates me about the romance pulps is how very much of the modern genre’s—and specifically the modern American side of the genre’s—DNA I can see in them. Romances certainly existed before Love Story’s game-changing debut in 1921, but—in the pulps, at least—they existed in the general fiction magazines, alongside men’s adventure stories and whatnot, and that definitely influenced their tone and tenor.
A good example of this is Edwina Levin’s Honor, which I collected earlier this year. Published in 1921 in a general fiction mag, it’s emphatically a romance, but the protagonist is male, and—as he’s a gentleman thief—a lot of emphasis is put on his criminal exploits.
You could certainly make the case that the birth of the romance-specific pulps in the 1920s ghettoized the genre (you seem to get far fewer men writing romances once they become confined to dedicated “women’s” magazines), but you also see a veritable explosion of female writers, and the modern formula as we know it really starts to coalesce. Things are admittedly wobbly in those first few years (I’ve run into male-centric mysteries where the romance is reduced to a mere subplot, in addition to female-centric stories that don’t end happily), but by the late-1920s or so, it all begins to click: The HEA becomes editorial law, not up for negotiation, and (with very few exceptions) it’s female protagonists or GTFO.
November 9, 1935
Starting in the late-1920s, but really taking off in the early-’30s, you also see this seismic shift in the romance pulps, where all of a sudden (relatively speaking) everything becomes significantly less old-fashioned, less Victorian/Edwardian, and more recognizably modern—from sheer narrative style down to the sensibilities on display. This is something that was even noted in a few trade journal articles of the time (the “new” love pulp, as the phenomenon was dubbed), so, like, it isn’t just my imagination—something happened.
In many ways I feel it parallels the shifts that romance would see in the 1970s (with second-wave feminism and the advent of sex-on-page), or even the 1990s (with third-wave feminism and the genre finally moving out of the bodice-ripper era). In which case, maybe first-wave feminism is to blame for this earlier shift in the pulps—just something in the socio-political water, as it were. But I’ve also considered that it might—at least partly—be due to American authors finally finding their own voices and breaking free of the previously-dominant British tradition.
December 15, 1934
This is one of the reasons I felt it was so important to include “The Love Master” by British author Ethel M. Dell in my anthology, The Best of All-Story Love: 1929. To tell the truth, I don’t much like the story, on a personal level. (It’s technically well-written, sure, but I find the heroine annoying more often than not, and I really don’t like the messaging, that basically sees said heroine punished for her modernity with sexual assault.)
Still, Dell was a big name author at the time (notably influential on Georgette Heyer), the story is one of her extremely rare ones (never collected, as far as I can tell), and it furthermore so neatly demonstrates the differences that existed between the British and American “schools” at the time. You compare “The Love Master” to any of the other stories in the anthology, and there almost is no comparison. Which isn’t to denigrate it, but to point out that it’s apples and oranges here, not apples and apples.
Then there’s the fact that the pulps really do strike me as the spiritual ancestor of the modern category romance, in that there were very strict word limits, and each magazine had its own specific “flavor” when it came to heat levels and the types of stories it preferred. (Love Story, for instance, tended to be very sexually conservative, whereas All-Story Love would eventually distinguish itself as a magazine more willing to be suggestive, at least, of sex/sexuality.) Readers could sign up for subscriptions if they chose, and there was even a publishing war of sorts at the time, that very much parallels the Romance Wars of the 1980s.
September 17, 1938
The modern subgenres as we know them didn’t yet exist (with the exception of Western romances), but I’ve nevertheless come across stories that function as prototypes or early examples of things we would now find ubiquitous: I’ve come across celebrity romances, sports romances, stories that would now qualify as romantic suspense. World War II would usher in a whole slew of military heroes, and I’ve even come across stories that I feel are best described as proto-erotica, due to the taboos they brush up against (“priests” and “sex with your boyfriend’s hot dad,” for those who are curious). So much of modern American romance as we know it is here, waiting, for anyone who’s willing to take a look.
I’ve already mentioned that “The Love Master” isn’t a personal favorite—but as far as what are some personal favorites, well, for starters, there’s “Saturday Night and No Date” by Dorothy Dayton and “The Timid Vamp” by Chet Johnson (both of which are conveniently available to read for free, via the ebook sample). “Saturday Night” starts with the small-town heroine lamenting about how a bombshell New Yorker has swept in and stolen her boyfriend. The narrative gets turned on its head, though, when the “other woman” doesn’t get demonized, but instead is apologetic and becomes fast friends with the heroine—and together they hatch a scheme to drive her boyfriend back to her. It backfires of course, but in the best way, and the author even gets some nice digs in at the double standards of the time.
“The Timid Vamp,” on the other hand, is basically a comedic enemies-to-lovers tale, between a female reporter and a hot-shot aviator—she’s tasked with kissing him for a newspaper stunt, but he doesn’t take it so well, and it kick-starts a rivalry between them. It’s funny, and sexy, and I can’t even be bothered when the hero says the heroine deserves a good spanking, because I 100% believe that—if he ever dared to try it—she would immediately turn around, haul him over her lap, and return the favor.
Beyond that, there’s “New Year and New Love” by Jane Littell, who’s an important figure in pulpdom—she would go on to become an extremely popular romance author, and even a romance editor in the late ’30s and early ’40s. She was also queer, and was in a life-long relationship with another woman. Censorship practices of the time meant she was stuck writing het romance, but close readings of her work reveal some really interesting things: For instance, she wrote a fair number of misfit characters, or else—as is the case with “New Year”—her heroines were often mistaken for somebody they weren’t, or otherwise had to pretend to be something they weren’t.
Illustration from “Wooing Wings”
Then there’s “The Tag-Along Girl” by Helen Ahern, which hits a number of the same beats as “Saturday Night and No Date,” but it’s significantly longer, and here the heroine has to balance her desire for love with her desire for a career as a professional dancer. Romance has always been reflective of pop culture, and while today you might see pop stars or reality show contestants, in the pulp era you had heroines dreaming of the stage or working in the nascent film industry (see again “New Year and New Love,” in which the heroine is a Hollywood extra).
Beulah Poynter’s “Remembered Rapture,” one of the two novellas, is yet another favorite, with a heroine who gets a job as a lady’s companion on a European trip, and gets tangled up in intrigue. Poynter was very feministic and progressive for her era, and while that’s not as overt here as it is in some of her other work, “Rapture” is still a really fun and well-crafted story, with a strong mystery element (which is the other genre she specialized in). It also has the great line, “How many bogus lords are there knocking about Europe?”—which, like, reading modern historical romances, amirite???
Lastly, I feel the other novella, “Wooing Wings” by Clelia S. Mount (a suspected pseudonym of C.S. Montanye), should get an honorable mention, if only because it features a scene between the two leads that—if you know how to read the coded language of the era—could very easily be interpreted as an interlude of premarital sex.
Honestly, they’re all favorites in their own ways. Even “The Love Master” has aspects I enjoy.
“The Love Master” illustration
As similar as these stories can be to modern ones, though, there definitely are differences. First and foremost, they’re all short fiction—short stories and the two aforementioned novellas. Longer, novel-length serials certainly existed (and if you find an American romance novel from the period, there’s a solid chance it was first serialized in a pulp), but they definitely didn’t make up the bulk of these magazines. As such, you have to go in with short fiction expectations (which is admittedly one of the things that tripped me up at the beginning).
The storytelling tends to be a lot faster and more focused, and if these relationships get established in what seems like an unreasonably short amount of time, you have to understand that that’s a feature, not a bug. (On the bright side, it does mean you can get through a complete story in half an hour or less, so if you’re pressed for time or your brain is unable to mentally commit to something longer, these are great little ways for you to get your romance fix.)
Also, just like these stories are hetero, hetero, hetero, they’re also—in case you couldn’t guess—white, white, white. That said, “In the Eyes of the World” and “Remembered Rapture” have unusually positive portrayals of Italians, and “Wooing Wings” features a Native American side-character. (Also, in the interest of preservation, I didn’t change any of the wording, so heads up that there are some instances of offensive language, such as the g-slur being used instead of “Romani.”) As far as gender politics go, I’ve avoided the worst of what you could find, but it was a different time, as they say, and things haven’t always aged perfectly in that regard.
Oh, and did I mention there are illustrations? Because there are! There were illustrations in the original magazines (usually two or three per story), and I’ve gone through the trouble of including them here!
Illustration from “The Road Back Home.”
If you’re curious about pulp romance, without tooting my own horn, I would recommend The Best of All-Story Love: 1929, as it’s the first anthology of its kind out there. (I’ve collected some other stories that are now in the public domain, but most of those so far are mysteries with romantic subplots, not strict romances.)
I would also highly recommend Laurie Powers’ 2019 book Queen of the Pulps, which is a biography of Love Story’s long-standing editor, Daisy Bacon, and—to date—the only formal text on the subject. (While it is indeed a biography at its heart, it also functions quite well as a history and overview of the romance pulps, and even the pulp industry as a whole.)
Aside from that, there are a decent amount of magazines that have been scanned and uploaded in full to Archive.org (most of them are issues of Love Story, including the three I first found through The Pulp Magazines Project). Some of them—along with other stories from my personal collection—I’ve taken to cataloguing on my blog, with summaries, content warnings (both trope and trigger), and story links, so you’re welcome to browse to see if something catches your fancy. (If I can save someone from aimlessly floundering like I did at the beginning, so much the better!)
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Have you read pulp romance stories before? If you’re curious, Lucynka’s book, The Best of All-Story Love: 1929 is available now on sale for $5.99 through February 15, 2026. Thank you for the guest post and thorough history of romance pulps, Lucynka. This was fascinating.
Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 11 secrets from Secret Submission Post #995. Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ]. Current Secret Submissions Post:here. Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.
Fandom: YouTube RPF / Fantastic Foursome RPF Pairings/Characters: Dan Howell / Phil Lester, PJ Liguori Rating: Teen and Up Content Notes: No AO3 warnings apply Length: 147,120 words, 25 chapters Creator Links: AO3 profile Theme: Inept in Love, Enemies to Friends to Lovers
Summary: From AO3:
"Daniel Howell is 21 and Britain’s newest star. He’s just been cast in the much-anticipated film adaption of Last Man Standing, the popular teen fantasy novel with a huge fanbase hanging off his every tweet. In other words, Dan has made it big.
Phil Lester couldn’t care less. He’s a stressed out PHD student working part time at a bookshop while he struggles to get into post-production. He’s 26 and still lives in a tiny flat on the fifth floor of a building with a lift more broken than it is in use. He loves books, but he thinks big film adaptions screw with the plot too much.
Needless to say, Phil is less than impressed when Last Man Standing is getting filmed in his hometown. And he certainly doesn’t want anything to do with obnoxious, arrogant, so irritatingly perfect leading actor Daniel Howell."
Reccer's Notes: This is genuinely one of the best fanfic experiences I've ever had. Not only is it hilarious and heartwarming, it depicts Phil as asexual and explores that side of his identity really well, with lots of nuance and care. It was deeply meaningful for me to read as I came to grips with my own identity, and I have nothing but fondness for this story.
I’m hungry! We’ve been doing a lot of cooking lately, but our yummy leftovers never seem to last long. My partner works from home, so they are usually his lunches. I think we have to start doubling up on recipes. We recently made this white chili and it was so good. My partner couldn’t find green chiles and we used chipotle chiles in adobo instead. Definitely recommend the change if you want a spicier option.
Now I have to scrounge around from lunch, which will probably be some aged cheddar, Trader Joe’s green olive crackers, and some hot honey.
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Sarah: My favorite February tradition: 28 days of Black History, a curated exhibit of artifacts one per day via email.
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Burn It All Down, a feminist sports podcast, is running a Kickstarter to produce more seasons. It’s already reached funding with about a month to go.
Julia Quinn has announced the 2027 lineup for her historical romance subscription box. Definitely loving these offerings a bit more than 2026. Do you thing these authors would get you to subscribe?
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Don’t forget to share what cool or interesting things you’ve seen, read, or listened to this week! And if you have anything you think we’d like to post on a future Wednesday Links, send it my way!
Soul Searching by Lyla Sage is $1.99! I’m hoping this isn’t an expiring deal from yesterday. This one came out last September and it was mentioned on Hide Your Wallet. Did any of you add this to your TBR pile?
Home is where the heart is—and this one is haunted.
The #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Rebel Blue Ranch series returns with a brand-new story, featuring a small-town upholsterer in need of a fresh start, a photographer whose life has come to a screeching halt . . . and the supernatural forces that bring them together.
Collins Cartwright does not want to go home. Sweetwater Peak, Wyoming, was supposed to be in her rearview mirror, but when she finds out a developer is trying to buy her parents’ antiques shop out from under them, she doesn’t have a choice—at least, that’s what she tells her family. They don’t need to know she’s lost her job and is out of money. Or that the ghosts who have always been her companions have recently gone silent.
But just because she’s returned home doesn’t mean she has to stay with her parents or crash on her twin sister’s couch. Lucky for her, the new-to-town upholsterer has a room for rent above his store. Unluckily, it is absolutely crawling with more ghosts who are freezing her out. And Collins hates being ignored.
Brady Cooper is absolutely and totally fine. Seriously, there’s no secret reason why he decided to uproot his life and suddenly move to Sweetwater Peak. He just needed a change of pace. At least that’s what he tells himself. And everyone else.
When he agrees to let the elusive Collins Cartwright stay in his spare room, he doesn’t know that she’s absolutely bonkers—constantly talking to herself and having conversations with no one—or that she looked like that. But as they begin to get closer, the lines between them start to blur, leaving both of them—and the ghosts who have been pushing them together—wondering whether their temporary arrangement could be something more permanent.
The Wedding Party by Jasmine Guillory is $1.99! I feel like at this point, all of Guillory’s romances have been on sale at least once. I hope you’re collecting them all! Do you have a favorite Guillory?
The new exhilarating romance from The New York Times bestselling author of The Proposal!
Maddie and Theo have two things in common:
1. Alexa is their best friend
2. They hate each other After an “oops, we made a mistake” night together, neither one can stop thinking about the other. With Alexa’s wedding rapidly approaching, Maddie and Theo both share bridal party responsibilities that require more interaction with each other than they’re comfortable with. Underneath the sharp barbs they toss at each other is a simmering attraction that won’t fade. It builds until they find themselves sneaking off together to release some tension when Alexa isn’t looking, agreeing they would end it once the wedding is over. When it’s suddenly pushed up and they only have a few months left of secret rendezvouses, they find themselves regretting that the end is near. Two people this different can’t possibly have a connection other than the purely physical, right?
But as with any engagement with a nemesis, there are unspoken rules that must be abided by. First and foremost, don’t fall in love.
How to Fake It in Hollywood by Ava Wilder is $1.99! I picked this one up on a recommendation from a romance loving friend, Estelle! Estelle works in romance publishing and has been a guest on the podcast. Last time we featured this one on sale, the comments echoed how this was a great and harrowing depiction of grief and recovery.
A talented Hollywood starlet and a reclusive A-lister enter into a fake relationship . . . and discover that their feelings might be more than a PR stunt in this sexy debut for fans of Beach Read and The Unhoneymooners.
Grey Brooks is on a mission to keep her career afloat now that the end of her long-running teen soap has her (unsuccessfully) pounding the pavement again. With a life-changing role on the line, she’s finally desperate enough to agree to her publicist’s scheme . . . faking a love affair with a disgraced Hollywood heartthrob who needs the publicity, but for very different reasons.
Ethan Atkins just wants to be left alone. Between his high-profile divorce, his struggles with drinking, and his grief over the death of his longtime creative partner and best friend, he’s slowly let himself fade into the background. But if he ever wants to produce the last movie he and his partner wrote together, Ethan needs to clean up his reputation and step back into the spotlight. A gossip-inducing affair with a gorgeous actress might be just the ticket, even if it’s the last thing he wants to do.
Though their juicy public relationship is less than perfect behind the scenes, it doesn’t take long before Grey and Ethan’s sizzling chemistry starts to feel like more than just an act. But after decades in a ruthless industry that requires bulletproof emotional armor to survive, are they too used to faking it to open themselves up to the real thing?
Jade City by Fonda Lee is $2.99! This adult fantasy novel incredibly violent, according to reviews. But readers loved the world building and threads of mythology weaved into the story. This has a new cover design and I actually really like it!
JADE CITY is a gripping Godfather-esque saga of intergenerational blood feuds, vicious politics, magic, and kungfu.
The Kaul family is one of two crime syndicates that control the island of Kekon. It’s the only place in the world that produces rare magical jade, which grants those with the right training and heritage superhuman abilities.
The Green Bone clans of honorable jade-wearing warriors once protected the island from foreign invasion–but nowadays, in a bustling post-war metropolis full of fast cars and foreign money, Green Bone families like the Kauls are primarily involved in commerce, construction, and the everyday upkeep of the districts under their protection.
When the simmering tension between the Kauls and their greatest rivals erupts into open violence in the streets, the outcome of this clan war will determine the fate of all Green Bones and the future of Kekon itself.
Bride-to-be Coley got engaged in Hershey Park, so for her bridal shower her friends thought it would be fun to have a giant Hershey Kiss cake. Cool idea, right? Especially since, as far as shaped cakes go, a kiss shouldn't be that hard - I mean, it's not like it's a football helmet or anything.
In fact, while looking for a reference just now I found this one by Carrie of Half Baked. It's actually a cupcake, but c'mon: SO CUTE.
So just imagine this, only bigger. That's what they wanted for Coley's shower.
Instead, Coley's sister Tammy sent me a picture of what they did get, along with many emphatic assurances that yes, they actually paid for it (though "only" about $60), and yes, it was made by an actual "cake decorator" - though I should note she did put that part in quotes.
The cake was wrapped in tinfoil, a brilliant move on the "decorator's" part if ever I saw one, since that way no one saw the cake's true glory until it came time to serve it at the party.
At which point they unwrapped it to reveal...
....this:
Um...
Ok, call me crazy, but is that top reminding anyone else of those creepy weed guys in Ursula's lair?
No? Just me?
Ok then.
Thanks to Tammy and Coley for the kiss and tell.
*****
P.S. My "related searches" kind of got away from me today, but I think you'll approve:
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TW/CW: Frequent discussions about the heroine’s body/weight, previous mention of murder and suicide, kidnapping
I’m still using my TBR game board and landed on Historical. I prefer my books on the spicier side, so I took to Reddit for recs and found this book in the comments. Lucky for me, it was in the “available now” section on my library app.
The short of it: the heroine Jane is “ruined” by a man she assumes is a friend. The reality was that her humiliation was the result of a wager he needed to win because he’s in debt. The friend’s stuffy, icy brother, Harrison, who happens to be a rich duke, offers to marry her to protect her from ruination.
Jane is bookish, shy, plus-sized, and on her third season. She and Harrison have never gotten along because well…he’s kind of a joyless, judgmental dick.
The setup to their marriage of convenience is slow. The book opens with the heroine’s humiliation and then backtracks a little to show how we got there. A bit unnecessary, if you ask me. There are also several side characters who are just the worst. Conniving women. Older ladies who can’t mind their goddamn business. People who just love to dunk on the heroine for being fat.
But the central romance was really sweet and I loved the main characters, and the friends and loved ones they kept close to them.
If you want a hero who is obsessed with his wife, I’d recommend this one. He has so much yearning and pining that he’s afraid to show out of fear of overwhelming her. He’s worried his sexual proclivities will scare her away and by proclivities, I mean he wants to have passionate sex with her with the lights on and get a blowjob from time to time. Meanwhile, Jane loves to push her husband’s buttons and there are several scenes where she sets up elaborate traps to get him to ravish her. I just really enjoyed their dynamic and their interactions often left me grinning like an idiot.
Jane is also painfully shy around strangers and a good part of married life is watching her find ways to become more comfortable as a hostess. Like practicing icebreaker questions for guests ahead of time. I liked seeing Jane find methods that work for her to make herself an equal member of the household.
This was an easy, breezy read with spice and a touch of darker elements in passing. It’s book two in a series and I was fine jumping in here, but I will definitely go back and read the first book. Judging from the descriptions of the other books in the series, the heroes all seem to have a bit of moral grayness to them or traumatic baggage, which is very much my jam.
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Ready or Not by Cara Bastone is $1.99! Bastone’s contemporaries come highly recommended by those who have read them. I loved Promise Me Sunshine, but that’s the only one I’ve read.
A surprise pregnancy leads to even more life-changing revelations in this heartfelt, slow-burn, friends-to-lovers romance of found family and unexpected love.
Eve Hatch lives for surprises! Just kidding. She expects every tomorrow to be pretty much the same as today. She loves her cozy apartment in Brooklyn that’s close to her childhood best friend Willa, and far from her midwestern, traditional family who has never really understood her. While her job is only dream-adjacent, it’s comfortable and steady. She always knows what to expect from her life . . . until she finds herself expecting after an uncharacteristic one-night stand.
The unplanned pregnancy cracks open all the relationships in her life. Eve’s loyal friendship with Willa is feeling tense, right when she needs her the most. And it’s actually Willa’s steadfast older brother, Shep, who steps up to help Eve. He has always been friendly, but now he’s checking in, ordering her surprise lunches, listening to all her complaints, and is . . . suddenly kinda hot? Then, as if she needs one more complication, there’s the baby’s father, who is (technically) supportive but (majorly) conflicted.
Up until this point, Eve’s been content to coast through life. Now, though—maybe it’s the hormones, maybe it’s the way Shep’s shoulders look in a T-shirt—Eve starts to wonder if she has been secretly desiring more from every aspect of her life.
Over the course of nine months, as Eve struggles to figure out the next right step in her expanding reality, she begins to realize that family and love, in all forms, can sneak up on you when you least expect it.
Red, White and Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston is $1.99! Aarya gave this one a C- because she found the political world building too much of a distraction.
A big-hearted romantic comedy in which the First Son falls in love with the Prince of Wales after an incident of international proportions forces them to pretend to be best friends…
First Son Alex Claremont-Diaz is the closest thing to a prince this side of the Atlantic. With his intrepid sister and the Veep’s genius granddaughter, they’re the White House Trio, a beautiful millennial marketing strategy for his mother, President Ellen Claremont. International socialite duties do have downsides—namely, when photos of a confrontation with his longtime nemesis Prince Henry at a royal wedding leak to the tabloids and threaten American/British relations.
The plan for damage control: staging a fake friendship between the First Son and the Prince. Alex is busy enough handling his mother’s bloodthirsty opponents and his own political ambitions without an uptight royal slowing him down. But beneath Henry’s Prince Charming veneer, there’s a soft-hearted eccentric with a dry sense of humor and more than one ghost haunting him.
As President Claremont kicks off her reelection bid, Alex finds himself hurtling into a secret relationship with Henry that could derail the campaign and upend two nations. And Henry throws everything into question for Alex, an impulsive, charming guy who thought he knew everything: What is worth the sacrifice? How do you do all the good you can do? And, most importantly, how will history remember you?
To Kill a Badger by Shelly Laurenston is $3.99! This is book six in The Honey Badger Chronicles. I know it’s the latest in the series, but not sure if this is the last one entirely. Do you know?
Laugh-out-loud humor, a feminist outlook, and one-of-a-kind shape-shifting romance come together with the continuation of the fan-favorite Honey Badger Chronicles from New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Shelly Laurenston.
Nelle Zhao is a social media maven who knows what matters. And the only thing that matters right now is survival. Not easy, though, when her honey badger teammates attract trouble the way she attracts attention. She didn’t know when it became her job to protect the ones she cares about from themselves, but even she has to admit…she’s really good at it. Too bad some people don’t appreciate when she’s being helpful. Especially Keane Malone, who doesn’t know how to accept a friendly paw. But Nelle excels at helping! And at ignoring other people’s irrational demands, such as doing it all alone. Keane, poor pretty kitty, doesn’t understand the kind of assistance a shit-starting honey badger like Nelle can truly offer . . .
Keane knows two things—he doesn’t like other people, and he is going to crush the de Medicis, an evil coalition of male lion shifters who are not only snatching innocent humans for fun and profit, but also killed his father. And for once, he may not be able to fight this fight alone, forcing him to let long-legged, jet-setting Nelle join the fight. And getting close to Nelle is suddenly bringing out his roar . . .
Tempests and Tea Leaves by Rachel Morgan is 99c at Amazon! This is book one in the Charmed Leaf Legacy series, which is described as a cozy, gaslamp fantasy romance.
Bridgerton meets cozy fae fantasy with a dash of Pride & Prejudice in this sparkling, no-spice tale of magical debuts, an enchanted tea house, and banter-filled romance.
In a world where both race and magic determine one’s place in society, half-fae Iris Starspun has always known she doesn’t belong. Having a human mother is bad enough, but being magicless as well? That’s simply unforgivable.
But when Iris unexpectedly manifests magic at age nineteen, her parents see it as their chance to save the family from financial ruin. Never mind that her silly paper-folding magical ability is considered frivolous at best, useless at worst. And never mind that she decided long ago not to marry. The Bloom Season has begun, and Iris must attempt to secure a match—or watch her family’s future crumble.
Enter Lord Jasvian Rowanwood, heir to the most powerful family in the United Fae Isles. His ability to calm the deadly magical tempests that form in his family’s lumyrite mines is revered by all, and he takes that responsibility very seriously. Perhaps too seriously, if you ask his meddlesome grandmother. But Jasvian knows exactly what magic should practical, purposeful, and definitely not involving delicate paper creations or half-human debutantes with razor-sharp tongues.
But then Jasvian’s grandmother—the formidable Lady Rivenna—does the unthinkable and offers Iris the coveted position of apprentice at The Charmed Leaf Tea House, the most influential establishment in all of Bloomhaven. Now Iris must navigate both her new role and the scorn of Lady Rivenna’s grandson, all while trying to secure a match that might save her family.
Set in a whimsical world of paper magic, mischievous gossip birds, and a tea house with a mind of its own, this charming romantasy serves up a perfectly steeped blend of swooning romance and delightfully barbed banter.
This HaBO request was sent in by Oyinkansola, who is looking for this romance:
Amputee doctor matchmade from heaven with a florist?
I read this book about 10 years where the hero and heroine’s mothers met in the heaven, got along, and decided to stage a meet cute for their kids. The hero is a medical doctor who is an amputee. To my memory, he is really charming and handsome. The heroine is a florist? I am less certain about her profession. I don’t know if this counts as a spoiler but they did have twin babies at the end of the book…
A short and sweet release week for us. There are contemporary romances, a paranormal, and more.
What are you excited for this week? Let us know in the comments!
Books & Bewitchment
Author: Isla Jewell Released: February 3, 2026 by Del Rey Genre:Paranormal, Romance Series: Arcadia Falls #1
In this cozy, witchy romcom, a young woman works to turn a run-down small-town video store into the bookshop of her dreams, only to discover a powerful magic that’s been lying dormant—and a forbidden love she can’t resist.
Dutiful and hard-working, Rhea Wolfe lives a simple, mundane life with her pet parrot in small-town Alabama. Sure, she may not love her desk job working for an insurance agency. And her on-again-off-again relationship with the local mechanic may not have the fiery passion she’s read about in her favorite books. Still, things are stable, which is more than she can say about the two hopelessly immature younger sisters who rely on her.
But when Rhea’s estranged grandmother dies, leaving her everything—including a magical heritage Rhea never knew she carried—she finds herself in Arcadia Falls, the quaint mountain town her mother made her swear to avoid at all costs. While the defunct business she’s also inherited needs a serious upgrade, Rhea’s lucky that resident handyman Hunter Blakely is more than happy to help—and more than easy on the eyes. If only he wasn’t the grandson of her grandmother’s sworn enemy in witchcraft.
As Rhea works to build a future, strange occurrences begin to make her think someone—or something—is trying to drive her out. As she gets closer to solving the mystery, each clue she uncovers points to Arcadia Falls’s magic hanging in the balance. To keep her new home safe, Rhea must step into her enchanted birthright . . . before it’s too late.
Author: Jill Shalvis Released: February 3, 2026 by That's What She Said Publishing, Inc. Genre:Contemporary Romance, Romance Series: Colburn Brothers #2
College rivals become workplace frenemies-turned-lovers in this warm, sexy contemporary romance from New York Times bestseller Jill Shalvis. First, they were rivals… Now they’re stuck with each other…
Retired hockey player Caleb Colburn needs this construction project to prove himself in the family business, but he also needs to recover from the injury that ended his pro career. Too bad Emma Sumner, architect liaison and Caleb’s college nemesis, is back in town and assigned to the project. They’re going to have to see each other almost every day. Which means once again she’ll make his life a living hell.
As for Emma, her job is on the line with this big project, made all the more challenging by the project manager. Caleb was the one who had snagged the scholarship she’d desperately needed to stay in college. She’s been living hand to mouth ever since and has no intention of ever forgiving the man.
But the beautiful historic building they’re renovating is exactly the kind of project that they both love best. Their surprising common ground and a burning mutual attraction start bringing them closer and closer to a potentially explosive mistake. And that’s even before the secrets come out…
A humorous, swoony, and downright terrifying horror romance in which a young woman gets caught in the middle of a murder spree at a speed-dating event and must use her encyclopedic knowledge of the horror genre to make it as a real-life Final Girl.
When Jamie Prescott and her best friend Laurie attend a speed-dating event, Jamie expects to meet a roster of mediocre men and indulge in some street food afterwards. She doesn’t expect one of her dates to have his throat slit at their table during a blackout. When the lights come back on and there are more bodies on the floor, it becomes clear that speed dating can be a very dangerous pastime.
Armed with makeshift weapons and Jamie’s extensive knowledge of what NOT to do in a horror movie, the remaining speed daters try to find an exit while the killer adds to their body count. As the night progresses and Jamie comes face-to-mask with the murderer, she begins to suspect he is committing the slayings to woo one of the daters and turn her into his real-life Final Girl. But Jamie has a different love story in mind, and as she fights for her life, she can’t help but find herself ensconced in a love triangle with two of the other speed-daters. Will she survive the bloodshed to find her happily ever after? Or does this machete-wielding psychopath have another Final Girl in mind?
For fans of Love in the Time of Serial Killers and Butcher & Blackbird, How to Kill a Guy in Ten Dates is one killer love story.
Amanda: I’m here for more horror/romance mashups! (As a note, the Australian cover is much more fun.)
Author: Rufaro Faith Mazarura Released: February 3, 2026 by Flatiron Books Genre:Contemporary Romance, Romance
The weather might be icy, but the tension is red-hot in this fake dating hockey rom-com from the author of Let the Games Begin.
Ari Shumba never expected to make it to the Winter Games, let alone be the one to lead Great Britain’s women’s hockey team through the most important competition of their lives. But when an unexpected injury catapults her to the role of team captain, Ari reluctantly shoulders the responsibility, all while trying to dodge her toxic ex.
Drew Dlamini has always feared taking risks. But after uncovering a family secret, breaking up with his ex-girlfriend and dropping out of graduate school, he’s desperate for a fresh start. So when he finds himself in London for the holidays, he decides to rekindle his hidden dream of becoming a professional photographer.
When Ari and Drew bump into each other on New Year’s Eve, neither one is looking to fall in love. Despite their instant chemistry, they’re from opposite sides of the Atlantic, and when they reveal all of their red flags, they realize that things between them would never work out. But then, when their paths unexpectedly cross two months later in the snowy Swiss Alps, memories of what they almost did that night resurface. And the combination of complicated exes, over-involved families, and stress-inducing teammates convinces them that the perfect solution to their problems is to fake date their way through the Games.
After all, there’s no risk of falling in love if it is doomed from the start . . . right?
A hockey romance just in time for the Olympics to start.
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Happy Wednesday!
