This season is all about inclusive romance and genre benders, from paranormal rom-coms to historical romantic suspense novels—plus plenty of small-town charm and holiday cheer.
Top 10
Angelika Frankenstein Makes Her Match
Sally Thorne. Avon, Sept. 6 ($17.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-0-06-291283-1)
Victor Frankenstein’s brilliant sister undertakes her own mad science experiment to make a perfect husband for herself in Thorne’s take on Mary Shelley’s classic.
Before I Let Go
Kennedy Ryan. Forever, Nov. 15 ($15.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-5387-0679-4)
Divorced couple Yasmen and Josiah give in to their lingering attraction with a passionate affair, risking the fragile equilibrium they’ve found as coparents and business partners.
The Gentleman’s Book of Vices
Jess Everlee. Carina Adores, Nov. 29 ($15.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-335-67998-7)
Everlee debuts with a queer Victorian romance about a rakish erotic novel collector who, on the brink of a loveless marriage, seeks out an affair with his favorite author.
A Ghost in Shining Armor
Therese Beharrie. Zebra, Sept. 27 ($16.95 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-4201-5340-8)
Gemma Daniels and Levi Walker, the ghost who’s haunting her, explain his presence to her friends and family by faking a relationship while Levi works to win a second chance at life by reuniting Gemma with her long-lost sister.
The Holiday Trap
Roan Parrish. Sourcebooks Casablanca, Sept. 6 ($15.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-72825-627-6)
Fed up with lesbian dating in small-town Maine, Greta swaps homes with Truman, a New Orleans man looking for a clean break from his ex-boyfriend, for the holiday season.
Lunar Love
Lauren Kung Jessen. Forever, Jan. 10 ($15.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-5387-1025-8)
In Jessen’s debut, a woman working to save her Chinese-zodiac-based matchmaking service goes head-to-head with the developer of a dating app that threatens to put her out of business.
Pride and Protest
Nikki Payne. Berkley, Nov. 15 ($16 trade paper, ISBN 978-0-593-44094-0)
Payne’s debut reimagines Pride and Prejudice as the enemies-to-lovers romance between a DJ determined to protect her Washington, D.C., neighborhood and the property developer she sets out to thwart.
A Shot in the Dark
Victoria Lee. Dell, Jan. 3 ($17 trade paper, ISBN 978-0-593-50051-4)
Ely Cohen, a recovering addict and ex-Orthodox Jew, returns to Brooklyn to study art and has a steamy one-night stand with a trans man she meets on her first night home—only to discover the next day that he is wunderkind photographer Wyatt Cole, her new teacher.
Something in the Heir
Suzanne Enoch. Griffin, Sept. 20 ($16.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-250-84252-7)
Bestseller Enoch’s Regency rom-com follows two people in a long-standing marriage of convenience who must pretend that they’re in love—and that they have children—in order to inherit from a wealthy relative.
To Catch a Raven
Beverly Jenkins. Avon, Aug. 23 ($8.99 mass market, ISBN 978-0-06-286174-0)
The third Women Who Dare novel from romance legend Jenkins returns to the Reconstruction-era South, where a con woman is tasked by the U.S. government with retrieving the stolen Declaration of Independence—with help from a handsome special agent.
Romance & Erotica
Avon
Full Exposure by Thien-Kim Lam (Dec. 6, $16.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-0-06-323729-2). A Mardi Gras misadventure throws together boudoir photographer Josie Parks and documentarian Spencer Pham—but will their relationship last when the party is over?
A Merry Little Meet Cute by Julie Murphy and Sierra Simone (Sept. 20, $21.99, ISBN 978-0-06-322257-1). When porn star Bee Hobbes stumbles into the lead role of a clean family Christmas movie alongside her teenage crush, former boy bander Nolan Shaw, chemistry ignites both on and off camera.
Partners in Crime by Alisha Rai (Oct. 18, $16.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-0-06-311946-8). Mira Patel’s sure that her matchmaker has misfired when she pairs Mira with Naveen Desai—until the pair are kidnapped and must work together to evade mobsters and thieves in this rom-com/romantic suspense mash-up.
Ballantine
The Christmas Spirit by Debbie Macomber (Oct. 18, $22, ISBN 978-0-593-50010-1). In the latest contemporary romance from bestseller Macomber, best friends Hank and Peter switch places the week before Christmas, taking on each other’s duties as a bartender and a pastor, respectively.
Berkley
Drunk on Love by Jasmine Guillory (Sept. 20, $17 trade paper, ISBN 978-0-593-10088-2). Coworkers at a Napa Valley winery struggle to keep things professional after a scorching one-night stand, in bestseller Guillory’s latest rom-com.
Love on the Brain by Ali Hazelwood (Aug. 23, $17 trade paper, ISBN 978-0-593-33684-7). Bestseller Hazelwood delivers an enemies-to-lovers romance between a scientist and her former grad school rival when they are forced to work together on a dream project at NASA.
Two Wrongs Make a Right by Chloe Liese (Nov. 22, $16 trade paper, ISBN 978-0-593-44150-3) reimagines Much Ado About Nothing as a contemporary rom-com between a pair of sparring hearts who set out to thwart their mutual friends’ matchmaking schemes.
Bloom
Queen of Myth and Monsters by Scarlett St. Clair (Dec. 27, $17.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-72825-964-2) continues the fantasy romance epic that began with King of Battle and Blood, as the newly queened Isolde and her vampire husband, Adrian, navigate a dangerous political chessboard.
Bold Strokes
Defiant Hearts by Lee Lynch (Sept. 13, $17.95 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-63679-237-8). This career-spanning collection brings together 25 years’ worth of short stories about lesbian life and love from a titan of the genre.
Securing Ava by Anne Shade (Nov. 15, $17.95 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-63679-297-2). When private investigator Paige Richards takes a job tracking down a runaway heiress, she stumbles into a world of corporate espionage and danger—and ends up falling for her bounty.
Carina
On the Hustle by Adriana Herrera (Oct. 11, $15.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-335-60082-0) follows Here to Stay with an enemies-to-lovers romance between enterprising gig worker Alba Duerte and her loathed former boss as they’re reunited on the set of a reality TV show.
Two Christmases by Suleena Bibra (Oct. 25, $8.99 mass market, ISBN 978-1-335-62198-6). The protagonists of Bibra’s sequel to Two Houses can’t agree on which is better: Christmas in the city or Christmas in the country? As each makes their case, they find unexpected love.
Carina Adores
Pack of Lies by Charlie Adhara (Aug. 30, $15.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-335-47324-0). Julien Doran’s investigation into his brother’s death sends him stumbling into monster country—and into the arms of a snarky werewolf—in Adhara’s queer paranormal series launch.
City Owl
The Ugly Stepsister by Megan Van Dyke (Sept. 13, $24.99, ISBN 978-1-64898-191-3) offers a sequel to Cinderella told from the perspective of one of the stepsisters who teams up with a royal huntsman to save her family from the new queen’s cruel punishment.
Dell
Aphrodite and the Duke by J.J. McAvoy (Aug. 23, $17 trade paper, ISBN 978-0-593-50004-0). A widowed duke sets out to win back the heart of his first love, the woman circumstance forced him to jilt, in McAvoy’s diverse Regency romance.
Dutton
Room and Board by Miriam Parker (Aug. 16, $17 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-5247-4450-2). After Gillian’s glamorous life implodes, she takes a gig as a “dorm mom” at her boarding school alma mater—where she’s unexpectedly reunited with a high school flame.
Entangled Amara
Blush by Helen Hardt (Aug. 23, $15.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-64937-215-4). Bestseller Hardt launches an erotic romance series in which an inexperienced woman plunges into a sensual underworld led by a sexy stranger she meets online. 75,000-copy announced first printing.
Forever
The Hookup Plan by Farrah Rochon (Aug. 2, $15.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-5387-1668-7) closes out the Boyfriend Project series with the romance between two high school nemeses who attempt a no-strings-attached sexual relationship when they’re reunited as adults.
Paris Daillencourt Is About to Crumble by Alexis Hall (Oct. 18, $15.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-5387-0333-5). The second Winner Bakes All rom-com returns to the world of Rosaline Palmer Takes the Cake for another queer, foodie romance.
Some Dukes Have All the Luck by Christina Britton (Nov. 8, $8.99 mass market, ISBN 978-1-5387-1040-1). Spinning off from Britton’s Isle of Synne Regency series, the Synneful Spinsters series opens with the opposites-attract romance between an awkward scientist and a rakish duke who come together in a marriage of convenience.
Witchful Thinking by Celestine Martin (Oct. 4, $15.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-5387-3807-8). A wish gone awry reunites a modern-day witch with her teenage crush, who also happens to be a merman, in Martin’s paranormal rom-com debut and series launch.
Gallery
The Viper by J.R. Ward (Sept. 20, $28, ISBN 978-1-982179-90-8). Bestseller Ward’s third Black Dagger Brotherhood: Prison Camp paranormal romance follows an injured inmate, Kane, who falls for the woman who nurses him back to health and vows to secure her freedom at any cost.
Graydon House
Ben and Beatriz by Katalina Gamarra (Aug. 2, $15.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-5258-9995-9). Much Ado About Nothing gets a contemporary, collegiate twist in Gamarra’s debut, a politically charged, interracial romance set in the wake of Donald Trump’s election.
Small Town, Big Magic by Hazel Beck (Aug. 23, $16.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-5258-0471-7) takes readers to a small Midwestern town that has a magical side, where a local politician discovers she’s a witch and embarks on a friends-to-lovers romance with a member of her coven.
Token by Beverly Kendall (Jan. 3, $17.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-5258-9997-3). A PR agent who specializes in helping clients navigate diversity, equity, and inclusion issues takes her hardest job yet: rehabilitating the reputation of her ex-boyfriend’s company.
Griffin
Hold You Down by Tracy Brown (Nov. 1, $16.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-250-83493-5). A pair of sisters and single mothers in 1980s Harlem balance raising their sons, following their drams, and finding love.
Mistakes Were Made by Meryl Wilsner (Oct. 11, $16.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-250-84100-1). A one-night stand between college senior Cassie and the hot older woman she picks up at an off-campus bar has unexpected consequences when Cassie learns her mystery woman is also her best friend’s mom.
The Second You’re Single by Cara Tanamachi (Jan. 31, $16.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-250-84226-8). Writer Sora Reid protests Valentine’s Day with a well-publicized pledge to stay single—which makes it horrible timing for her childhood friend Jack Mann to walk back into her life. 50,000-copy announced first printing.
Harlequin Special Edition
Counterfeit Courtship by Synithia Williams (Nov. 29, $5.99 mass market, ISBN 978-1-335-72436-6). A reality TV ghost hunter hopes to improve his womanizing reputation by faking a relationship with the new makeup artist on his show, in Williams’s latest contemporary.
Hqn
Long Past Summer by Noué Kirwan (Aug. 2, $16.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-335-44882-8). When lawyer Mikaela Marchund takes a case defending her high school boyfriend, who’s being sued by his ex-wife and Mikaela’s former best friend, old wounds are reopened and old flames reignite.
The Second First Chance by Mona Shroff (Aug. 2, $15.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-335-45346-4). Sparks fly when childhood friends torn apart by a devastating fire reunite as adults, but their mutual trauma and wildly different life choices may keep them apart.
Kensington
The Boxing Baroness by Minerva Spencer (Oct. 25, $16.95 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-4967-3809-7) launches a feminist Regency series with the story of Marianne Simpson, a boxer in an all-female circus who’s recruited by an upstanding duke to help rescue his rakish brother, Marianne’s ex-lover, from a treasonous noble.
In the Event of Love by Courtney Kae (Aug. 30, $16.95 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-4967-3895-0). A party planner heads home for the holidays, where she’s reunited with her former flame, now a “sexy lumberjane,” as the women join forces to save their town from corporate developers.
Lake Union
The Second Time We Met by Frances Mensah Williams (Aug. 1, $14.95 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-5420-3886-7) throws together a woman from a boisterous Afro-Caribbean family and a man descended from British nobility who must find a way to meld their disparate backgrounds.
Lyrical
Every Rogue Has His Charm by Susanna Craig (Aug. 2, $7.99 e-book, ISBN 978-1-5161-1130-5). An estranged married couple finally open their hearts to one another in Craig’s sixth Live and Let Spy Regency romance—but danger and espionage threaten their romance.
Microcosm
Even Cowbots Get the Blues: Queer, Smutty Stories by S. Park (Dec. 13, $9.95 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-64841-101-4) offers an array of far-future m/m erotic shorts featuring cowboys, robots, and robot cowboys.
Mira
Thief of Fate by Jude Deveraux and Tara Sheets (Oct. 25, $17.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-0-7783-8655-1). The final Providence Falls romance follows time-traveling characters whose unexpected love upsets the balance of the universe.
Montlake
Never Meant to Meet You by Alli Frank and Asha Youmans (Sept. 27, $12.95 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-5420-3410-4). A pair of wildly different women become unlikely friends as they navigate love and loss in middle age.
Morrow
The Coronation Year by Jennifer Robson (Jan. 31, $17.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-0-06-307414-9). A struggling hotel owner teams up with a handsome guest to investigate a series of bomb threats against Elizabeth II’s coronation.
Thomas Nelson
The Brilliance of Stars by J’Nell Ciesielski (Nov. 1, $16.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-0-7852-4845-3). Elite assassins on assignment to take down a Russian arms dealer during WWI must rely on their love for one another to survive the dangerous mission in this duology opener.
Putnam
Before I Do by Sophie Cousens (Oct. 11, $17 trade paper, ISBN 978-0-593-53987-3). The night before Audrey’s marriage to perfect-on-paper Josh, she’s unexpectedly reunited with Fred, a man with whom she once spent a single, wildly romantic day, forcing her to question her relationship.
The Decoy Girlfriend by Lillie Vale (Sept. 6, $16 trade paper, ISBN 978-0-593-42202-1). Author Freya Lal bears an uncanny resemblance to A-list celeb Mandi Roy. When the pair switch places to give Mandi a break from the spotlight, Freya must maintain Mandi’s tabloid relationship with her dreamy costar.
Random House
Dreamland by Nicholas Sparks (Sept. 20, $28.99, ISBN 978-0-593-44955-4) intertwines the lives of a farmer with musical dreams, a college grad turned aspiring pop star, and a single mother on the run from her abusive ex-husband.
Rosewind
Where the Sun Rises by Anna Gomez and Kristoffer Polaha (Oct. 11, $16.95 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-64548-080-8) returns to the Hawaiian setting of From Kona with Love, where a mismatched couple are thrown together by a wedding party. 25,000-copy announced first printing.
Shadow Mountain
To Capture His Heart by Nancy Campbell Allen (Oct. 12, $15.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-63993-051-7). This Victorian romance pairs a crime scene photographer with the detective she’s secretly pining for as they fake a relationship—and solve a mystery—at a legendary society event.
Sourcebooks Casablanca
My Dearest Duke by Kristin Vayden (Nov. 8, $8.99 mass market, ISBN 978-1-72823-434-2). A scholar turned reluctant duke reconnects with his brilliant and beautiful childhood friend—who’s harboring a scandalous secret—in Vayden’s second Cambridge Brotherhood Regency romance.
When Life Gives You Vampires by Gloria Duke (Oct. 4, $15.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-72825-744-0). The heroine of Duke’s rom-com debut is shocked to wake up as a vampire. Together with the gorgeous stranger who turned her, she navigates a dangerous paranormal world—and learns to love her newly immortal body.
W x Wattpad
The Many Dates of Indigo by Amber Samuel (Dec. 6, $16.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-990259-28-9). Faced with familial pressure to find a husband, the heroine of Samuel’s debut throws herself into dating—but her perfect match may be the man who’s been right by her side all along.
Zebra
The Marriage List by Ella Quinn (Dec. 27, $8.99 mass market, ISBN 978-1-4201-5446-7) spins off from Quinn’s Worthington, telling the story of Lady Eleanor Carpenter, who prepares for London’s marriage mart by making a list of the qualities she wants in a husband, but remains unprepared for love.
Three Cowboys and a Baby by Kate Pearce (Dec. 27, $8.99 mass market, ISBN 978-1-4201-5494-8). Bestseller Pearce launches a western rom-com series about three Marines turned cowboys, who are unexpectedly left taking care of a baby after the boy’s father takes off.
