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Book Beat aims to highlight other books that we may hear about through friends, social media, or other sources. We could see a gorgeous ad! Or find a new-to-us author on a list of underrated romances! Think of Book Beat as Teen Beat or Tiger Beat, but for books. And no staples to open to get the fold-out poster.
Cash Delgado is Living the Dream
A small-town bartender juggles motherhood and a sexual awakening in this heartwarming queer friends-to-lovers romance from the author of Sammy Espinoza’s Last Review.
Cash Delgado has a good life in the quaint town of Ridley Falls. She has Joyce’s Bar, where she manages a familiar group of regulars and emcees the ever-popular Karaoke Thursday. She has her six-year-old daughter, Parker, whose spunky attitude always keeps life interesting. And she has her best friend, Inez O’Conner, who improves Cash’s sometimes overly responsible outlook with one full of joy and potential.
But change is on the horizon when Chase Stanton, the former bar manager at Joyce’s (not to mention Cash’s last hookup), returns to town with business prospects that could threaten the local institution and all of Cash’s plans to someday bring new life to the place. And if that isn’t enough, Cash starts having very intimate dreams of Inez. Dreams that could threaten the foundation of her well-ordered life.
As Cash embarks on a reluctant journey of self-discovery, she’s forced to confront all the ways she’s been hiding in her own life. But will she choose to remain the same, or will the desire for love (even a love that looks different than she ever imagined) prove worth the risk?
A small town romance that is queer and diverse!
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As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.
We also may use affiliate links in our posts, as well. Thanks!Duchess in Diamonds
Author: Jennifer Ashley
Released: April 23, 2026 by JA / AG Publishing
Genre: Historical: European, Romance
Series: Satin and Silk #1Eamon Stone, Hayden McCormick, and Dominic Wolfe have survived everything together—from a brutal schoolboy existence to deadly missions against Napoleon. Stranded behind enemy lines at Waterloo, they make a pact: if they live through the day, each will try to settle down and marry, leaving the last bachelor standing the loser of their wager.
No one expects Eamon Stone, son of a disgraced swindler, to fall in love first, least of all Eamon himself.
London, 1816
When Eamon calls on the widowed Duchess of Aylesmore to assess her late husband’s art collection, he hardly imagines she’ll be young, lovely, and in desperate straits. Caro Aylesmore, raising her nine-year-old son alone and drowning in her husband’s debts, hopes the paintings will save them.
Dragged across Europe by his trickster father, Eamon learned all about art, including frauds and forgeries. He hates disappointing the late duke’s beautiful second wife—so much so that he impulsively offers to search the entire house for anything of value.
He’s not certain why he’s being so gallant. But Caro’s quiet resilience reaches him in ways he can’t explain, and young Leo, the new duke, is already finding a place in Eamon’s heart.
Caro faces more than stern debt-collectors. Her husband’s ambitious nephew aims to claim Leo for himself, and is all too eager to expose Eamon as the fraud he once was. If scandal touches Caro, she could lose her beloved son to a man who covets the title more than the boy.
As Caro falls for the disarming Eamon, she faces an impossible choice: her heart, or her son’s future.
Eamon may have to sacrifice his own happiness to keep her safe—even if it means losing the wager and his heart.
Jennifer Ashley has a new historical romance series kicking off next week.
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“Heartfelt and smart, Love Sick is just what the doctor ordered.”—Emily Wibberley and Austin Siegemund-Broka, authors of The Breakup Tour
Their bedside manner needs a little work…
Love may be the best medicine, but first-year resident Grace Rose isn’t prescribing it anytime soon. Not since her ex broke her heart in med school, and especially not since hearing the rumor that she slept her way into the OB-GYN program. (Spoiler So not true.) With her social anxiety already in full spiral, Grace is determined to set the record straight. But after a tense first encounter with fellow resident Julian Santini—with his annoying good looks and witty charm—she realizes that her reputation may never fully recover.Julian didn’t mean to offend Grace. After all, he’s just as fed up with the toxic “BrOB-GYN” culture as she is. He’s got his own drama to triage anyway—like proving that he earned his spot in this residency, not simply lucked into it. Still, something about Grace gets under his skin…and not always in a bad way.
Forced to work together through grueling shifts and sleepless nights, Grace and Julian try to cut back on the bickering for the sake of their training. Before long, however, a different kind of tension exposes the cracks in their truce. With their hearts in critical condition, will they accept that love is the best remedy of all?
Grey’s Anatomy meets The Hating Game in this delicious, laugh out loud rom-com set in the world of a tight-knit group of OB-GYN residents—written by a practicing physician.
A medical romance written by a doctor, which seems pretty neat.
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As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.
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Author: Agustina Bazterrica
Released: March 4, 2025 by Scribner
Genre: Horror, LGBTQIAThe long-awaited new novel from the author of global sensation Tender Is the Flesh: a thrilling work of literary horror about a woman cloistered in a secretive, violent religious order, while outside the world has fallen into chaos.
From her cell in a mysterious convent, a woman writes the story of her life in whatever she can find—discarded ink, dirt, and even her own blood. A lower member of the Sacred Sisterhood, deemed an unworthy, she dreams of ascending to the ranks of the Enlightened at the center of the convent and of pleasing the foreboding Superior Sister. Outside, the world is plagued by catastrophe—cities are submerged underwater, electricity and the internet are nonexistent, and bands of survivors fight and forage in a cruel, barren landscape. Inside, the narrator is controlled, punished, but safe.
But when a stranger makes her way past the convent walls, joining the ranks of the unworthy, she forces the narrator to consider her long-buried past—and what she may be overlooking about the Enlightened. As the two women grow closer, the narrator is increasingly haunted by questions about her own past, the environmental future, and her present life inside the convent. How did she get to the Sacred Sisterhood? Why can’t she remember her life before? And what really happens when a woman is chosen as one of the Enlightened?
A searing, dystopian tale about climate crisis, ideological extremism, and the tidal pull of our most violent, exploitative instincts, this is another unforgettable novel from a master of feminist horror.
If Tender is the Flesh is your ideal mindfuck of a book, this is Bazterrica’s latest.
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English (US) · 