Hudson Hayes, star defenseman for the DC Stars, needs help. He’s been looking for a private chef for months but keeps coming up short. With the NHL season starting and no prospects in sight, he’s close to giving up. Madeline Galloway needs a job. Recently let go from her executive chef position in Las Vegas, she’s desperate as can be when she reaches out to an old acquaintance about a possible job opportunity…. in DC. After hitting it off with her prospective employer, the blond hockey star who seems to have a heart of gold, she and her daughter, Lucy, make the move east. The rules were simple: no personal relationships. No falling for the romantic guy who always made her smile, even if they were living together and spending all their free time with each other. But after a kiss on New Year’s Eve, everything changes. The lines blur. Being Hudson’s friend—and only his friend—is the last thing on her mind. And when Hudson learns American Sign Language for her daughter? It might be a slap shot to the heart. Slap Shot is a spicy slow burn friends to lovers, private chef x hockey player romance with forced proximity and a man who if he wanted to, he would.

Piper Mitchell needs one thing to go her way. Divorced, feeling stuck in her professional life and terrified of reentering the world of dating, she’s decided she’s going to work on something she can control: learning how to be good in the bedroom. Enter Liam Sullivan. The star NHL goalie might not be a people person, but he's the perfect teacher. He knows what he's doing behind closed doors, and with a little convincing, he agrees to be Piper's guide. Things between them are casual and easy. Something they can both benefit from. And when a road trip to Vegas has Piper and Liam waking up from a night they can’t remember with matching wedding rings, they decide to figure out how much more fun they can have as husband and wife. It’s just for the hockey season. It doesn’t mean anything. But as the clock ticks down on their fake-marriage-with-benefits, can Piper and Liam make it work in the real world? Or will their relationship be a power play straight to disaster?

A swoonworthy YA supernatural romcom where two academic rivals are trapped as ghosts to haunt the same house.They'd kill each other...if they weren't already dead.Tessa Sinclair is a winner. Winner of spelling bees, science fairs, and scholarships. So when she finds herself unexpectedly dead after a graduation party in an abandoned mansion, she's none too pleased. What's worse, her Harvard-bound, Mr. Perfect academic rival, Reed Walker, is there too—deceased, smug, and annoying as hell.Being a ghost is hard enough, but it's a thousand times worse having to haunt the same house as your nemesis. But as Tessa and Reed retreat to RIP in their respective corners of the mansion, a mystery unfurls about the exact cause of their deaths. Though they'd rather die (again) than work together, they'll need to overcome their differences to hunt down a murderer on the loose. And should they happen to fall for each other along the way...Who ever said you can't find love after death?

A Most Anticipated Book of 2026 by PEN America, Lit Hub, BookPage, and Ms. Magazine The wife of a popular and powerful megachurch pastor upends her charmed “rags-to-Rolex” life when her secret past comes roaring into the spotlight—in this "funny and juicy and sexy and delicious peek behind the pulpit" (Samantha Irby) from the acclaimed and beloved author of The Secret Lives of Church Ladies. From the moment Scharisse Freeman ditched her humble roots and married a megachurch pastor fifteen years her senior, she’s been labeled too brash and too “of the world” by church folks who grudgingly accepted her into their fold, and too holy by her estranged childhood bestie Petra. Schar doesn’t have many allies, but that hasn’t stopped her from building an enviable business empire spanning books to clothing to branded products, and living the comfortable life her husband's power affords her. On the eve of her 40th birthday, Schar gets the final bit of validation she’s always dreamt of: a coveted invitation to participate in the First Lady USA pageant. This is her chance to be accepted by the other pastors’ wives—First Ladies—who are “like Jesus’ disciples if they had been a group of mean girls.” Finally, blissfully, the ice between Schar and the other First Ladies begins to thaw. But as the pageant nears, a sensational scandal breaks with Schar at its center, and her carefully curated life implodes. Schar faces down shame and terrible secrets from her childhood and is reminded that in the eyes of the church, optics can matter more than the truth. Unflinchingly funny, frank, and packed with surprising turns, The True Confessions of First Lady Freeman exults in the luscious, messy pleasure of finally feeling free. "Deesha Philyaw has already established herself as one of the greatest short story writers, but in The True Confessions of First Lady Freeman she cements herself as the most soulfully entertaining writer of her era." - Kiese Laymon, author of Heavy and Long Division