Archives de catégorie : Contemporary Romance

LOVE WALKED IN de Sarah Chamberlain

A sunshiny American bookstore whisperer clashes with the grumpy British owner of the shop she’s trying to save in this winning opposites-attract romance for book lovers.

LOVE WALKED IN
by Sarah Chamberlain
St. Martin’s Press, September 2025
(via Kaplan/DeFiore Rights)

He has a struggling bookshop. She has a knack for bringing bookstores back to life. As soon as she walks into his store, all bets are off…

Mari Cole’s whole life is her dream job: rescuing and revitalizing indie bookstores. Friendship? Love? No thanks. After a hard childhood, she doesn’t want to get too close to anyone. Besides, books have never let Mari down the way people have. Then she gets the offer of a lifetime: rescuing Ross & Co. Once the most prestigious independent booksellers in London, the store is a shadow of its former self and needs an expert outsider to turn things around. But the offer turns out to be a double-edged sword: Leo Ross, the store’s new owner, is as cold and hostile as the British winter.

For as long as he can remember, Leo Ross has known his future is becoming the next generation to run Ross and Co. He’s sacrificed almost everything he cares about, but the bookshop is still failing on his watch, and now there’s an obnoxiously cheerful American woman convinced that she’s going to magically make everything better. Leo’s life is difficult and messy enough as it is, and he doesn’t want her help.

When Mari and Leo are forced to work closely together to bring the store back to life, Leo’s icy surface thaws to reveal the passionate man underneath. As winter gives way to the possibility of new beginnings, Mari begins to see that true love could be even better in real life than in the pages of a book. Can they put their pasts aside and learn to let love in?

« A comfort read for lovers of books, Richard Curtis movies, and romance with a touch of enemies-to-lovers. » ―Kirkus

« The grumpy/sunshine trope animates this charming rom-com… Readers will fall in love with Mari and Leo as Chamberlain skillfully reveals their hidden depths and believable vulnerabilities. The result is a multilayered love story that hits all the right notes. » ―Publishers Weekly

Sarah Chamberlain is a writer, editor, and cookbook translator whose articles have appeared in VICE, The Guardian, Food52, and McSweeney’s Internet Tendency. When she’s not writing witty, sexy contemporary romance, she enjoys making dinner for her friends and family, watching Cary Grant movies, and setting records as an amateur competitive powerlifter. Originally from Northern California, she lives in London.

THIS IS WHY WE DON’T DATE SERIAL KILLERS de L.M. Gilmore

Fans of Brynne Weaver and Navessa Allen will delight in this killer dark romcom by upcoming author L.M. Gilmore. When your soulmate’s a serial killer, true love gives ‘touch her and die’ a whole new meaning—but all the red flags in the world won’t stop Roxie from being with the man of her dreams until death (or murder) may they part.

THIS IS WHY WE DON’T DATE SERIAL KILLERS
by L.M. Gilmore
Sourcebooks, January 2027

After narrowly escaping death at the hands of a serial killer, Roxie wants one thing and one thing only: her rescuer’s phone number. Too bad he disappears into the night, determined to return to his solitary life of hunting down the men who give serial killing a bad name.

The last thing Maximilian Ruscombe wants is to be saddled with an unhinged stalker who’s determined to make him out to be some kind of hero. But when Roxie puts herself in the direct path of another serial killer in order to draw him out, he has no choice but to kidnap her and take her in hand.

Only instead of showing fear at her captivity, Roxie kind of likes it. In fact, she’s never had a hotter experience in her life. She’ll stop at nothing to enjoy it again and again…even if it means convincing Max to let her be used as bait to draw out one of the worst criminals Sin City has ever seen.

As the pair of them join forces to catch a killer before time runs out, Max and Roxie discover that dating in the modern world comes with its challenges—especially when one of them is a sociopath and the other just wants her Happily Ever After.

L.M Gilmore is the open pen name of Lucy Gilmore, celebrated novelist in a wide range of genres, including literary fiction, contemporary romance, and cozy mystery. She began her reading (and writing) career as an English literature major and ended as a book lover without all those pesky academic papers attached. She lives in Spokane, WA with her family.

THE LOST MASTERPIECE de Lou Morgan

The Time Traveller’s Wife meets I Capture the Castle in this sweeping love story with a time travel (and bookish!) edge.

THE LOST MASTERPIECE
by Lou Morgan
Penguin Michael Joseph, January 2027
(via Mushens Entertainment)

When Jess – grieving the loss of her brother – returns to her family home she is alarmed to find a man living in the tower room. Solomon Nash has been stuck there for 150 years, unable to finish his novel. Determined to help set him free – and to unravel the mystery of what her brother intended to tell her before his accident – she doesn’t expect Solomon to unlock a part of her no one else has. But how can she fall in love with someone who doesn’t belong to this time?

The Grant family have been caretakers of Merrith, the house of famed Victorian poet Hercules Nash, for 150 years. Everyone assumed that her brother Toby would be the one to inherit the house, which is full of old books, memories, and family history. But then Toby died, and the Nash Foundation decide to sell it, meaning that Jess is forced back to confront her complex emotions around the property and her family. Jess is lonely, very aware that Toby was the family favourite, and haunted by a mysterious message from her brother before he died.

One day, convinced that she sees someone through a tower window, she visits a room she has never entered before. Defying all reason, she discovers it’s a pocket of time: it’s always 1853 in that room, and Hercules Nash’s younger brother, Solomon, is stuck there, unable to finish his novel. It’s impossible, he’s impossible, but the more time she spends with him, the more he starts to bring her back to life. She wants to help him return to his own time, and to find out exactly why he has been erased from Hercules Nash’s history. But she’s also falling in love. Torn between helping to save him, and wanting to find a way to be with him – and with the ticking clock of the house sale on the horizon – Jess finds herself torn between her heart and her head, and utterly changed by the experience of loving him.

Since 2018 Lou Morgan he has been a regular writer for Big Finish Productions across some of their most popular Doctor Who full cast audio ranges, writing for actors including Sir Derek Jacobi, Michelle Gomez and Richard Armitage. After publishing two urban fantasy novels with Solaris in 2012, she then turned her hand to YA, where she published six novels, with four contemporary romances under the pseudonym Maggie Harcourt. Born in Wales and a graduate of University College London, she now lives in Bath with her family.

THE MUSEUM OF MODERN LOVE de Mariko Turk

Sold in a rapid US pre-empt, an irresistible instant classic about the thrilling, often infuriating, rush of first love, guaranteed to sweep you off your feet. With a dash of the dreamy atmosphere of Anna and the French Kiss, a twist of Jenny Han’s heartfelt honesty and wit, and a heap of Lynn Painter’s authentic and magnetic characters, with a flair and heart that is wholly Mariko’s own, this new novel is destined to become a vital addition to the pantheon of YA romance greats.

THE MUSEUM OF MODERN LOVE
by Mariko Turk
Henry Holt, October 2026
(via Writers House)

Tonight, inside the Metropolitan Museum of Art—somewhere between the hours of 8 PM and 5 AM—Auden Peck will fall in love with Miki Kawamura.

That’s Miki’s plan, anyway. And the plan is destiny.

See, Miki’s grandparents fell in love after accidentally being locked in the Met overnight in 1965. And now, after too many almost-confessions, hopeless romantic Miki will finally tell her best friend Auden that she loves him by retracing the path through the museum that her grandparents took that fateful night.

But destiny has other plans. For it’s not Auden who joins Miki on her midnight tour, but Lou McSweeney—the world’s most jaded cynic, and Miki’s ex. How can she possibly confess her feelings for Auden when she’s stuck sparring with this arrogant jerk? And is it possible that her original plan was not destiny’s true course after all?

Mariko Turk is the author of The Other Side of Perfect and I’ll Be Waiting for You. She received her PhD in English from the University of Florida, with a concentration in children’s literature and lives in Colorado with her husband and daughter.

SIDE CHARACTER ENERGY d’Olivia Tolich

A sharp, wise, hilarious novel about love—romantic, platonic and toxic—from a brilliant new voice in Australian fiction.

SIDE CHARACTER ENERGY
by Olivia Tolich
Text Pubishing Australia, February 2026

After a series of Mr Wrongs, Bee has finally found her Mr Right. Attractive, mature—William is everything she’s been looking for.

Gertrude is Bee’s best friend since forever (and also her flatmate, workmate and Insta content videographer). She’s happy for Bee—just as she’s been sad for Bee during those romantic missteps, and supportive of Bee in everything else. Actually, now she thinks about it, Gertrude isn’t sure there even is a Gertrude that isn’t determined by what Bee wants or thinks or feels.

Panicked to realise she’s not the main character in her own life, she turns to William’s best friend, Arthur. He isn’t the obvious choice for life coaching—apart from anything else, Gertrude doesn’t really like him—but everyone else is…Well, there is no everyone else. Just Bee.

Arthur’s mission is to find out whether there’s more to Gertrude than she thinks, and if so, what it is. The problem is, that might throw up some hard questions—about her life, her choices and above all, her friendship with Bee.

SIDE CHARACTER ENERGY is a sharp, wise, hilarious novel about love—romantic, platonic and toxic—from a brilliant new voice in Australian fiction.

‘A wonderful late summer weekend read.’ —Canberra Weekly

‘What a delight this book is.’ —Jodi McAllister

‘If you’re looking for banter, chemistry and characters who are authentically imperfect, Side Character Energy delivers.’ —Books+Publishing

Olivia Tolich is a writer based in Melbourne (Naarm). She holds a Masters of Creative Writing, Publishing and Editing from the University of Melbourne and works as an educational publisher.