definitely, possibly, maybe

in smoke and key , a dark young adult paranormal historical mystery (say that three times fast), a young woman wakes up in the under. she only knows herself by the name of key. and soon she learns that everyone who inhabits this place is dead. but she has memories she shares with another, a boy names smoke. and these fragmented memories seem to hind at the moment of her death. but someone doesn't want her unraveling that mystery. and soon the others in under start to turn up deader than they already were. and so key has to find a way to access all her memories and solve the mystery of this killer. it's a whodunit, so no spoilers here. but an enjoyable, atmospheric young adult read. **smoke and key  will publish on april 2, 2019. i received an advance reader copy courtesy of netgalley/entangled publishing (entangled teen) in exchange for my honest review.   

what happens in the highlands is told in the first person, and one thing that happens when you read first person books is that you have to like the person who's pov you happen to be in. but my issue with rose hensel is that i found her to be kind of a nincompoop. she's maybe a stereotypical jersey girl, but like being from jersey myself the stereotype didn't feel particularly well drawn. anyway, so i didn't love the main character. and how she falls in love with lachlan, her scottish hero is... i mean it maybe would have been less problematic if she'd actually recognized him before she slept with him. in the end, i find more things to pick apart here than to love, but it's still a perfectly okay contemporary romance. i just didn't love it. **what happens in the highlands will publish on april 2, 2019. i received an advance reader copy courtesy of netgalley/tule publishing in exchange for my honest review. 

oldest brother ajax ransom is used to being the biggest bad. except he kind of has this heart of gold protector vibe going for him too. when he kidnaps imogen winters as a ploy to bring her criminal father into line, he's not expecting full cooperation. imogen is tired of being held captive to her father's nefarious wants. she sees a chance to escape and to be set free in ajax's arms. it's possible that being with him will be the only thing that can quiet her unquiet mind. these two are basically meant for each other. imogen's singleminded curiosity the perfect counterpoint to ajax's stone cold determination. they are similar and yet opposite. and together in king's ransom  they make sense. **king's ransom will publish on april 1, 2019. i received an advance reader copy courtesy of netgalley/harlequin (dare) in exchange for my honest review. 

when recovering alcoholic griffin barrett is tasked with filling his uncle's shoes for a photography trek in the alaskan wilderness, he's not excited about it. he's even less excited when he meets river vale, a model turned author who looks the part of high maintenance diva, and not a guy used to roughing it. river quickly proves griffin wrong, and the two of them connect on so many levels. partly because they are such hot messes of human beings that only two people so broken could make each other whole, but also because they both have a way of seeing the beauty in the world around them. they have such a hard time in seeing it in themselves though. it's not an easy journey, but arctic sun is a story filled with emotional depth and heartfelt connection that just works as a swoony romance. **arctic sun will publish on april 1, 2019. i received an advance reader copy courtesy of netgalley/carina press in exchange for my honest review. 

stone cold heart is the thirteenth book in the tracers series. they are all standalones so it is possible to start now, but like if you have then you know what you are in for. griffin writes solid, heart-pounding thrillers, and this is another example of her absolute craft in writing these stories. somehow she is always able to make a part of the process of identifying a cold blooded killer something interesting and new. it's a gift. sara lockhart is one of the countries leading forensic anthropologists when nolan hess calls her in to help him solve a case of unidentified bones and a missing hiker, he has no idea that he's pulling at a thread. as they begin to unravel the case and sara sees connections between her past and the crime she is trying to solve, things get challenging. in a good way.  **stone cold heart will publish on march 26, 2019. i received an advance reader copy from netgalley/gallery, pocket books (pocket books) in excha...

what happens when you need to fire your entire front office, you've just taken charge of the losingest team in the nfl, your hr rep is hot, and your mom insists you bring a plus one to your brother's wedding, which happens to take place two weeks before the draft that will determine the future of your recently inherited football team? if you've had these questions, the wedding deal is here to answer them. and let's not discount the sparks that will fly while answering said questions. because even as charlotte has lance filling out every form possible in the hr handbook, there's a sexual chemistry between them that is both inevitable and undeniable. the back-and-forth between these two is just as enjoyable as all the kissing. **the wedding deal will publish on march 25, 2019. i received an advance reader copy courtesy of netgalley/entangled publishing (amara) in exchange for my honest review.

this is a revised and reissued version of off the ice  and i never read the original book, so can only tell you that this story is my catnip. i don't know why, because personal experience should find "hot for teacher" stories triggering, but i don't. i love, love, love them. here you have a pro hockey player, doing his due diligence and completing his college degree on the off season. and a hot puerto rican teacher who makes the mistake of judging him entirely on his appearance. and it's so good because he's basically teaching implicit bias and makes the mistake of falling into it. okay, so maybe that's the academic publishing nerd in me who finds that so interesting to explore. as a woman, as a minority, implicit bias is everywhere. and it's cool to have a romance novel indirectly make us think about the assumptions we make about others due to their appearance or their social strata or their job or their gender. this is what i love about romance...

think a little bit dirty dancing with some 10 things i hate about you  and you'll get the heart of the story behind eyes on me . super neurotic lily bailey only has her eye on the prize, being class valedictorian and getting in early action to harvard university. when she wakes up throwing up blood one morning, her father begs her to slow down. but he's been absent since her mother died, and even though she agrees to take a dance class to please him, she has no intention of following through. when lily shows up at stone torres's mom's dance studio and gets roped into being her partner for the hour, he thinks it's a one-off. but when her dad offers him some cold hard cash that could help save the studio, he finds himself willing to compromise his ideals. he starts to spend time with lily, and encourages her to continue dancing and let loose and have fun. and while he does all that, he falls in love with her. but how can he admit what he did, taking her fathe...

when ilya rozanov meets shane hollander in heated rivalry , it's the culmination of everything he's worked for. both are hockey superstars, ilya for russia, shane for canada, both are destined to go to the nhl. and both are crazy hot for each other. the first time they act on their attraction, it's madness pure and simple. it's aggression and desire and so much wanting. every time is supposed to be the last time. but instead it's more. it's everything. but how can they admit that? neither wants to be the poster child for gay hockey player in the nhl. everything has been made of their rivalry. they've played on opposite sides of the puck their whole career, how can what they feel off the ice change the narrative? watching them figure this out is...amazing. i cannot tell you how hot and sexy and deeply emotional this read was. what i can tell you is how much i freaking loved it. this is one of those reads that gives you a hangover where the only cure i...

it's so dark, and thorny, and atmospheric. and there's all the emotions and feelings brimming just beneath the surface. seeping out into everything. it's the story of six children. and their reunion twelve years after everything changed. six adults who think they know who they are. but when they come back to thorncombe, to the ruins of thornchapel, everything changes once again. it's discovery. and pain. and it's kinky. and seductive. a lesson in thorns  kicks of the thornchapel series. and every character matters. they have damage and baggage and all these feelings they don't know how to contain. and it's just so wickedly dreamy. the kind of story you have ideas will take you somewhere, but then it goes deeper and harder and you're left feeling raw and wrung out and hungover in the best possible way. if you liked her new camelot series or the priest series, this feels almost like an amalgam of the two. and it really works. i can't wait to ...