NBJ WEEKLY RECAP

NEW RELEASES

✭ NBJ TOP RECOMMENDATION | WORKPLACE ROMANCE

Luna Canning trusts numbers more than people—and for good reason. As a forensic accountant who specializes in exposing fraud, she knows numbers never deceive, unlike the toxic family she’s spent a lifetime trying to escape. Now living in her grandmother’s Victorian home, Luna has built a carefully ordered life behind walls she thought were unbreakable.

When her car is stolen from an airport parking lot, former FBI agent turned PI Nate Warren steps in to help—and proves more dangerous to her defenses than any thief. Despite Luna’s ironclad rules about mixing business with pleasure, their chemistry ignites, and for the first time, she considers letting someone past her guard. But just as their relationship begins to blossom, Luna’s manipulative mother arrives unannounced, dragging with her a dangerous man and decades of unresolved trauma that threaten everything Luna has built.

Now Luna must confront the ghosts of her past—both metaphorical and possibly literal, as strange occurrences in her historic home suggest she’s not alone. With a violent threat looming and her heart on the line, Luna discovers that sometimes the hardest person to trust is yourself.

This is a standalone novel in the all-new Queen Anne Hill series.

Series recommended reading order: Lead Me Home | Always Been You (Jan 2027)

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SINGLE MUM + GRUMPY/SUNSHINE + ROCKSTAR + HE FALLS FIRST

I came to Seattle to settle my late aunt’s estate.

Not to uncover a family secret that rewrites my entire life.

Definitely not to fall for the grumpy neighbor across the hall.

Alec Horvath is broody, intense, and completely incapable of minding his own business.

He acts like my daughter, and I are temporary inconveniences in his carefully controlled life.

Unfortunately for him, my daughter, Mila, decides he belongs to us almost immediately.

The problem?

I’m still grieving.

Still untangling decades of lies buried inside my family.

Still trying to understand why the woman I thought was my aunt was actually my mother.

Falling in love was never part of the plan. And maybe the scariest part is this:

I’m starting to want forever with him too.

But love requires trust.

And trust feels impossible when your entire life has been built around people leaving.

Alec keeps promising he’ll stay.

But can my heart believe that’s possible?

This is a standalone novel in the Heartbreak Mixtapes series.

Series recommended reading order: (Not So) Simple Lyrics | Lyrics Remain Unchanged | Every Shattered Note | Never After Us

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FAKE DATING + MISTAKEN IDENTITY + FORCED PROXIMITY

He hired a fake boyfriend for the weekend.
The man who showed up wasn’t the escort.

Sawyer Montgomery spends his nights broadcasting heartbreak on his prime-time radio show—spinning sad songs, giving terrible love advice, and pretending he’s totally over the ex who shattered his heart.

(Spoiler: he’s not.)

But when he needs a fake boyfriend to survive a weeklong family celebration with that very ex, hiring an escort seems like the perfect solution.

Simple. Efficient. No emotions required.

The only problem?
The man he mistakes for the escort… isn’t one.

Beckett Calder walks into the hotel lounge expecting to meet his blind date. Instead, he finds Sawyer—a romantic disasterwho clearly thinks Beckett is the escort he hired.

Beckett should correct the misunderstanding.
He should walk away.

(Spoiler: he doesn’t.)

Because there’s something about Sawyer—maybe it’s the sarcasm, the bruised heart, or the way he looks like he could really use someone on his side—that makes Beckett say yes.

Now he’s pretending to be Sawyer’s devoted boyfriend.

For an entire week.

Which would be manageable…if the chemistry between them didn’t feel so dangerously real.

Because the longer they pretend, the harder it becomes to remember it’s all an act.

And when the week ends, Beckett might be the one mistake Sawyer never wants to stop making.

This is a standalone novel in the Hate to Love You series, set in the same world as the Fallen Angel series.

Series recommended reading order: Bedhead | Heartsmashed | Lovestruck (2027)

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PARANORMAL/ROMANTIC FANTASY

She escaped the monster realm.
Fate dragged her back—twenty years earlier.

Waking up in the past wasn’t on Moriah Shaker’s bingo card, but after surviving a brutal world of cannibals, rabdogs and lethal poppy fields, it happens anyway. Now, she has one chance to save her mother, undoing the death that started it all. First, she must return to Hakeldama, where survival is never guaranteed and destiny always demands sacrifice. At her side is Jasher, the ruthless, axe-wielding executioner who melts only for her. Until he’s trapped in a monstrous form, becoming a weapon for her destruction. To him, she’s an enemy. To her, he’s everything.

Armed with only a cryptic journal that whispers of a lost gemstone, Moriah is forced to bargain with a tricky water maiden who is equal parts redemption and ruin. Worse, she’s transforming into something she no longer recognizes: The Oracle Great and Terrible.

As secrets unravel and a forbidden attraction rekindles, Moriah must decide what she’s willing to sacrifice to unravel time: the past she’s desperate to save…or the man she isn’t supposed to love.

This is the second book in the No Monsters Like Hers series.

Series reading order: The Great and Terrible | The Ember and the Emerald

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ENEMIES TO LOVERS + GRUMPY/GRUMPY + FORCED PROXIMITY + HE FALLS FIRST + SMALL TOWN + DARK ROMANTIC COMEDY

It’s time to reap what you sow.

Cape Carnage is blooming with secrets, and they’re ready to harvest. But every time Nolan Rhodes digs one up, another grows in its place. Harper isn’t who he thought she was. Arthur might be more sinister than he first thought. And Sheriff Yates? The man is everywhere he turns. When true crime fanatics descend on the town looking for answers about the death of their leader, Nolan finds himself at the center of a search and rescue operation for missing people he knows are already dead. Cape Carnage teeters on the brink of chaos. And the harder Nolan tries to keep it together, the closer Harper comes to unraveling.

Harper Starling has risked everything to bury her trauma in Cape Carnage. But now that Nolan has unearthed her past, her whole life seems ready to break apart. And who can she trust? The enigmatic man she’s falling in love with? He came to kill her. The serial killer mentor she’s vowed to protect? He’s become an unpredictable menace. The woman in the mirror? She might be the most dangerous of all.

Loyalties are tested. Bonds are bent to a breaking point. And love? That might be the deadliest trap of all.

This is the second book in The Seasons of Carnage trilogy.

Series reading other: Tourist Season | Harvest Season

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AGE GAP + ALPHA HERO/ALPHA HEROINE + FORBIDDEN + LOVERS TO ENEMIES + WORKPLACE ROMANCE

Bayou born and raised, Ronan Boudreaux’s childhood was a fight for survival. The choices he made to save his siblings and himself set him on a spiral of self-destruction…until fate put him in the path of the father he’d never known.

An old betrayal haunts three generations of his family. To destroy its malignant shadow, Ronan hides his feral nature beneath a civilized veneer and redirects his ruthlessness toward Chris Vidal, Sr. — the man whose past treachery demands the ultimate vengeance. Arriving in New York to witness Vidal’s orchestrated downfall, he’s planned for every possible intervention…except for Ireland Vidal, his enemy’s captivating daughter.

Ireland is a fierce beauty whose wild spirit ignites a hunger in Ronan that won’t be denied. Faced with a choice between balancing the scales of justice or pursuing a once-in-a-lifetime woman, he must also contend with Gideon Cross, Ireland’s formidable and protective older brother.

But Ronan isn’t the only one whose sights are set on Ireland and her family. And when mortal danger threatens the life of the woman he’s grown to care for, he must fight for a future he’d never dreamed could be his.

This is the second book in the Crossroads series, a spin-off from the Crossfire series.

Series reading order: Ireland | Illusive | Indelible (Apr 2027)

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SECOND CHANCES + LOVE TRIANGLE

It was love at first flight . . .
Now she just has to find him.

Sasha Cruz knows types. As a booked-and-busy casting agent, she’s always casting—at happy hour, the grocery store, everywhere. She’s all about finding the perfect person to slot into the perfect role. What she doesn’t do, however, is relationships. Too much energy, not enough time.

On a flight to Paris for work, a chance encounter with her type changes everything. Sasha’s seated next to a broodingly attractive mystery man, and sparks fly—but they never exchange contact information. Convinced she’s lost out on her soulmate, Sasha emails her work friend for help, but accidentally writes to the entire company worldwide! The international manhunt to find Seat F begins.

Meanwhile Sasha takes matters into her own hands. She hires a smoldering detective she knew in another lifetime—who complicates matters in unforeseen (and irresistible) ways.

With a worldwide search underway, will love take flight for Sasha?

This is a standalone novel.

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ROMANTIC FANTASY

When mysterious Rafe de la Cruz rolls into Desdemona’s life to recruit her to the elite film school Acheron, Dez has no reason to trust him—and no other option. A violent attack has just put her brother in the hospital…and Dez is the only suspect. Guilt-ridden and grieving, she finds herself running from the law to chase her longtime dream of making movies, at a school she’s never heard of. Soon, she’s dropped into Acheron’s cutthroat world of seductive intrigue, power on an otherworldly scale, and deadly competition.

Acheron may seem like the ticket to a future Dez has always wanted, but as she delves deeper into the secret work being done there, she finds herself trapped in an existential conflict on a cosmic scale—with more than her heart on the line.

This is a standalone novel.

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ARRANGED MARRIAGE + BILLIONAIRE

I’ve spent my entire life engaged to one man. But it’s his brother I’ve always yearned for.

Now, four days before our wedding, Xavier has thrown me over—and Benedict has stepped in instead. The spare. The playboy. The heartbreaker whose reputation stretches across the Mediterranean.

Benedict de Vere is everything his brother isn’t: reckless, restless, and seemingly unbothered that this match is a transaction. He’s marrying me to save my reputation. My reasons for wedding him are… more complicated.

I’m going to be his duchess.

I’m going to share his life.

His bed.

I should be up to the challenge. After all, they call me the ice queen for a reason. I’ve had years to perfect my mask.

But I’ve longed for him since I was eighteen years old. And Benedict doesn’t do serious. He doesn’t do forever. The trail of broken hearts he’s left behind is evidence of that.

Being one of those broken hearts would be devastating enough. Knowing him that intimately, then being cast aside?

Now imagine that happening in our marital bed.

It’s a loneliness I wouldn’t survive.

This is a standalone novel in the Belvedere series.

Series recommended reading order: The Heir | The Spare | The Muse (2027)

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