This Week in Indies (1/16/24):
It is a New week and that means New Releases!!!
This week has been BITTER cold for your poster and so this weeks list got out a tad bit later then usual. so I appologize. but I hope this weeks reads find you well and safe and warm inside.
Its been around 0 degrees here with a below zero windchill. My poor house can hardly keep up with it. I blame the drafty windows. I have been huddled inside with my cats watching anime and catching up on my manga series, So I dont have much else to share this week.
(I do not see any profits from the links used in this blog)
Jan 16th:
The Write Choice: A Sweet and Spicy Romantic Comedy (Leade Park Book 3)
By: Allie Samberts
Genre: Romance
Loving someone is seeing their worst moments and choosing them anyway.
When Katie and Brandon unexpectedly became parents, they were just starting to fall in love with their baby and each other. Life was good.
Now, seven years later, Brandon has a wife, two kids, and a career in New York City. He’s just having trouble figuring out how to balance it all.
Katie—eight years sober and immersed in motherhood—is frustrated with her husband’s late nights and her own loneliness. She’d love to fill the gaps with her art, but she doesn’t have much time.
Suddenly, Brandon is offered a golden opportunity: taking over his parents’ architecture firm. The catch? It’s in Chicago. But when Katie’s sobriety is put at risk, he makes a quick decision to transplant his family to suburban Leade Park, Illinois.
Katie begrudgingly gives Brandon two months to persuade her that this move will be better for everyone. If he can’t, she’s going to pack up the kids and go back. With or without him.
With the kids in school, she’ll have time for her art, and they’re finally reunited with friends and family. It should be easy to convince her, right?
But the familiar pull of the job and the unfamiliarity of a new place have them slipping further away from each other with each passing day.
Can Katie and Brandon blend their visions and design the life they want? Or will they choose to go their separate ways?
CW's: Substance use disorder, accidental pregnancy
Waking Up in Vegas (The Vegas Series Book 1)
Genre: Romance
In the city that never sleeps...
Marissa Jung Waters is a workaholic – a Group Sales Manager by day and a cocktail waitress some nights at the newest lux hotel on the Las Vegas Strip - the Blossom. Despite being all for the grandeur of the Vegas hotel scene, she’s made a vow to stay away from the “sin” in Sin City after falling into it's trap. But, her resistance fades when she’s forced by her BFF Kayley to visit a nightclub to celebrate her birthday. While there, she meets (and kisses) a man that sweeps her off her feet, only to meet the woman he hooked up with seconds prior.
The following week, Marissa is called into a company-wide meeting announcing the new Director of Operations of the Blossom and Marissa’s shocked to see that it’s the man she kissed at the club. To add – it’s Kellen Zhang, the son of the owner of the Blossom Hotel, newly arrived from NYC to continue his journey of working in the family business.
On Kellen’s first day, he’s met with death glares and disrespect from the hotel’s employees. An heir in control? No thank you. To make matters even worse, he’s almost kidnapped on the casino floor. Kellen barely escapes, with the help of a familiar face coming to his rescue. He asks Marissa if she’d be interested in adding another job on her plate – work closely as his detective-slash-bodyguard to figure out who is out for him. Marissa’s hesitant at the offer – she’s already feeling a mix of emotions from their meet disaster, and Kellen’s trying to earn her forgiveness. Will she be able to resist the man she can't stop thinking about? And what secrets will she unearth as she explores a side of Vegas she vowed to let go of?
CW's: Physical violence, attempted kidnapping, racism
The Manchineel
Genre: Psychological Thriller / Romance
In the glittering heart of Los Angeles, Elyse Santiago finds a new life far from her roots in the sultry Miami mangroves. An enchanting social media persona shares her passion for plants, but behind her smile hides a haunted past, a lethal secret, and the tormenting voice of the man she thought she'd silenced forever.
When she's introduced to Ben, a charming Hollywood attorney ensnared in a bitter marriage with the volatile Ana, Elyse's quiet solitude is unsettled. Confronted with an intensifying primal attraction, their lives entwine perilously. But as their connection deepens, so do the roots of a deadly plan.
The Manchineel―a gripping tale of passion, vengeance, and the brutality of nature.
CW's: Domestic violence, sexual abuse, murder, adultery
A Lodge Affair
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Ivy Lawson loves a to-do list, hates surprises, and the only outdoor activity she’s interested in is brunch on a patio.
After catching her long-term boyfriend (and co-worker) cheating, she’s thrown into leading a high-profile client event at The Emerald Canopy Lodge.
AKA: her nightmare destination.
Ivy finds herself desperate and anxious to get her job done and leave the lodge as soon as possible. But when she meets the lodge owner, Holland Holt, a man of few words who prefers even fewer people, she slowly realizes that maybe the lodge has a few more charming attributes than she originally assumed. After one chaotic mishap after another, Ivy is forced to extend her stay and come to terms with her affection toward the lodge’s owner.
As their paths continue to overlap, Ivy must decide if she’s ready to relinquish control over every aspect of her carefully curated life, and Holland needs to find a way to move forward with the hand life dealt him.
A Lodge Affair is a grumpy sunshine, opposites attract rom-com.
CW's: Chose to not add CW's
Jan 18th:
A Love Like Venom: A Dark MC Romance
Genre: Romance, Dark Romance, Motorcycle Club Romance
They say without knowing the darkness then we would never know the light. He was my light, burning brighter than the sun. But he also had a darkness I was inexplicably drawn to. There wasn't anything I didn't know about him. Our nights gazing upon the stars he was an open book whereas I was a locked chest with a lost key. And while I kept my secrets from him I never thought anything could tear us apart. Not even when he gave his heart to my sister when it should've been me. But then one fateful night when I was seventeen destroyed everything. Even us. Five years later he's back in my life. But not as the boy I once knew. He's cruel. Malicious. Intent on making my life a living hell. Except he's not the only one out to get me. Razor, The Vice President of a rival sick and twisted MC wants me all to his disturbed self. And as much as Snake says he hates me, he won't allow for anyone else to hurt me, let alone claim me. There's a fine line between love and hate. And that line has never been more blurred when it comes to Snake and I.
CW's: Alcohol use, drug use, child neglect, child abuse, domestic abuse, mentions of rape, sexual assault, graphic violence, gory details, knife play, blood play, branding, morally grey MMC, bully romance, spice
My Dear Watson (My Dear Watson Series Book 1)
by Elm Jed
Genre: Romance, Contemporary, Suspense
On the surface, Autumn Watson is just another barista in NYC. On the surface, Leonardo Luciano is just another hotel mogul. Neither saw the other coming, a meet-cute disaster bringing together two of the most unlikely people.
Autumn, a cult-classic movie lover who spends her free time working in the bookstore she lives above, finds herself in front of the hotel mogul by accident. Although Leo appears to be a man with little emotion, something in his hazel eyes tells her there’s more beneath the hardened personality. As their relationship evolves beyond customer and barista, Autumn discovers layer after layer behind his furrowed brow that makes her smile. With every discovery, she increasingly opens up to him, finding comfort in the man who knows how to navigate her panic attacks. Her traumatic past may haunt her, but she feels hope for lasting happiness with every step he’s willing to take with her. A Rom-Com in the making—on the surface.
We all have bones in closets we wish would stay there. While other secrets are out in the open, hiding in plain sight. Only time will tell which of them will have Autumn and Leo question everything they’ve known about the other. But…whose secret tumbles the first domino?
WARNING- Cliffhanger This is Book One of a series; a contemporary romance with suspense and harsh topics. Please check the content warnings at the front of the book
CW's: PTSD flashbacks, depiction of panic attacks, Severe anxiety, discussion of SA, discussion a of loss and death, stalking, FMC is attacked, bullying, and depiction of insominia
A Fine Line: An Ends World Novel, Book 3
Genre: Romantic suspense with dark themes and laughs
This book is an interconnected standalone within the Ends World. While you don't have to read the Ends Duet before reading this book, it is recommended that you do in order to understand the entire Ends World up to this point.
Carolina
I didn’t mean for anyone to get hurt. That wasn’t my intention. And I knew he would come for me. Was it too much to hope he would just forget about me and everything that transpired between us. Forget about my betrayal. Probably. Because here I am… In a box. And he’s out there, lying in wait for me. He wants me to bleed for him. To purge my soul. He wants his pound of flesh, but what he doesn’t know is that I have already sacrificed everything. My body, my soul, just to save the person I love the most. And I have nothing left to give.
Tony
She thinks I've forgotten, and that I'll just let it go. But how can I forget about the worst kind of betrayal? The death of someone I cared about. So I will push her to the point of desperation, to the point of no return. I will break her against my cold, dead heart and see what lies beneath her calm façade. She will suffer my depravity. She will never see me coming.
CW's: There will be a list in the beginning of the book. Mostly trauma redemption, vigilante stuff, human trafficking
Jan 19th:
Spark and Tether
by: Lilian Zenzi
Genre: queer science fiction romance
queer adult science fiction romance Working odd jobs across the Outer Ring gets a little lonely sometimes—not everyone loves having a synchronist with supraliminal perception around. But all Sacheri wants, he tells himself, is to wander the stars.
Then he takes a salvage run to an abandoned moon where he meets the wry, reserved, strictly-by-the-rules archivist Jin. Mesmerized by their confidence and charm, Sacheri can’t resist showing off his abilities–and instead of the damaged ai he was tracking, he stumbles onto a signal left by a synchronist who went missing decades earlier.
Sacheri knows from previous experience that pursuing the truth—never mind justice—could destroy everything he loves. He would defy his employers, the institution responsible for the myconeural networks that make him a synchronist, and the leadership of several worlds.
And it would complicate his new, passionate, and impossibly sweet relationship with Jin. They might be the best thing that’s ever happened to him, but they work for the very entities that ended Sacheri’s last investigation.
He knows better than to risk it.
But he’s never been able to turn away from someone in need, and there’s a voice in the void calling for aid…
CW's:
Spark and Tether contains some themes and events that may be difficult for some readers. I’ve listed them here; if you’d like more information before reading, you are welcome to contact me.
Abandonment, Betrayal, Death (past, off page), Depression, Discrimination, Prejudice, and Oppression of enhanced humans and human-made life forms, Intoxicating Substance Consumption as Negative Coping Mechanism, Life-changing injury and recovery, PTSD, Sabotage, Trauma, Use of intoxicating substances (recreational and forced/weaponized)
Frosted Kisses and Christmas Wishes: A Cozy Holiday Romance (A Touch of Holiday Love Book 1)
Genre: Romance
A second chance at love, small town Christmas romance.
A girl that has a fear of abandonment who wears her heart on her sleeve, and a guy who is understanding and as sweet as they come. A life changing event and fears of abandonment might just keep them apart.
In a small cozy town called Frostwood Falls, at a small bookstore called Solstice Books, two strangers discover a shared interest for the same book. As they talk more they realize that they were neighbors when they were younger before circumstances in Joel's life caused him to move away.
Now suddenly finding themselves in the same small town, feelings come rushing back, despite the walls that Maya had put up over the years.
Through the connection of literature and the magic of Christmas they might just get a love story of their own. Or will Maya's doubts, fear of abandonment, and a life changing event keep them apart?
CW's: none were noted
Jan 21st:
The Black Cat Bookshop
Genre: Gothic Horror
"The bookshop offers people knowledge, and it feeds from what you learn. But everyone must make a payment for the knowledge they have taken. Even you, Brandon. Even you."
An entity was born into smoke and rage, a destructive force that was bound into a Bookshop, sentient, feral, and hungry. It offers knowledge and power, enough to fulfil their wildest dreams, but there is always a price. Payment will always be due.
This book follows four characters, all seeking the bookshop for different reasons: Rachel, Matthew, Lucy and Brandon. The Black Cat Bookshop is a Gothic Horror story that explores what it is to find knowledge, and if it is really worth the price, in the end.
CW's: None were Submitted.
Jan 22nd:
Back from the Dead: A crime mystery thriller novel
Genre: Literary thriller
Hapless Bertie Haig has no idea who the bloke in bed next to him is and how the hell he got there.
Or why he's dead.
But when his nosey downstairs neighbour claims his flat is the source of a leak in her bathroom, and insists on sending up her plumber to check things out, he's thrust into a world where nothing is as it seems.
Turns out, in Bertie's corner of the world — the Scottish city of Strathburgh — everyone has something to hide. And when their past catches up with them, they'll do anything to fight back. No matter how much collateral damage they leave in their wake.
As the war between life and death spills out in the streets, the people of Strathburgh must navigate a world where violence is all too often the answer, and those who are supposed to protect you are the ones who hurt you most.
CW's: Swearing and blasphemy, mild drug use, religion, violence, torture, death
Worth Any Price: A Slow Burn Billionaire Romance (Boulder Beaumonts Book 1)
by Nika Rhone
Genre: Billionaire Romance
What is love worth when you can buy anything you want?
Hot new karate instructor? Yes, please! Rick is delicious enough to melt Amber Lovett’s common sense into a sticky puddle of goo. Oh, that dimple! But it’s his kindness toward her son that makes him irresistible enough to forget her no-relationships rule and risk her heart on another try at love.
Except he’s not who she thought he was.
No, he’s everything she’s sworn to stay far away from. Rich. Powerful. Ruthless. She made that mistake once before and lost everything. Never again.
Investment guru Richard Beaumont just jettisoned one bad relationship. He’s not looking for another. Especially not with a struggling single mom, no matter how much her down-to-earth values seem to ground him. But the connection between them is undeniable, even though Amber has no idea who he really is.
Except it seems she does.
Turns out all that attraction was to his billions, not him. Again. A fact that cracks the guarded heart he didn’t even realize had gotten involved.
It doesn’t take long for Richard to realize he’s made a huge mistake about Amber. Now he’ll have to earn not only her forgiveness, but her trust as well. And she’ll have to decide if giving him another chance is worth the price, especially when her past shows up to remind her exactly how much is at stake.
CW's: On-page sex
