Everything was Beautiful and Nothing Hurt

Ben Reeves

Travis Smith is Death in the modern world. He lives with his cat in a grey English town. He offers people comfort in their final days and hours of life. He's stoic, gentle, a little naive, despite what he knows. He's handsome, he seems young, despite what he is. Each death has a meaning to him, and he never tries to change anyone's fate. He listens and never judges, and ultimately escorts each of them to rest.Travis is desperately lonely, and when he crosses paths with young single midwife called Dalia who lives across the way and her boisterous eight-year-old daughter Layla, he can't help but be drawn to them. Dalia is beautiful and overwhelmed, and Layla seems to have a never-ending trove of small treasures to show Travis, and he's never felt the importance of making every moment count so clearly. Because he knows what's to come, and he can't make himself look away. As he learns what it means to really experience death, he's torn between his nature and his newfound understanding of the important things about being alive.

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All Rhodes Lead Here

Mariana Zapata

Losing people you love is hard. Aurora De La Torre knows moving back to a place that was once home isn’t going to be easy. Starting your whole life over probably isn’t supposed to be. But a small town in the mountains might be the perfect remedy for a broken heart. Checking out her landlord across the driveway just might cure it too.

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Spark of the Everflame

Penn Cole

When old secrets catch fire, everything will burn. In a mortal world colonized by the gods and ruled over by the Descended, their cruel offspring, Diem Bellator yearns to escape the insular life of her poor village. Her mother’s sudden disappearance—and the discovery of a dangerous secret about her past—offer Diem an unexpected opportunity to enter the dark world of Descended royalty and unlock the web of mysteries her mother left behind. With the dying King’s handsome, mysterious heir watching her every move, and a ruthless mortal alliance recruiting her to join the growing civil war, Diem will have to navigate the unwritten rules of love, power, and politics in order to save her family—and all of mortalkind. Spark of the Everflame is the first book in The Kindred's Curse Saga, a four-book fantasy romance series. This slow burn, enemies-to-lovers epic is perfect for lovers of magic, dragons, angst, and banter and will appeal to fans of books like A Court of Thorns and Roses, From Blood and Ash, Gild, and The Serpent & the Wings of Night.

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Cherry Baby

Rainbow Rowell

Everybody knows that Cherry's husband, Tom, is in Hollywood making a movie... Almost nobody knows that he isn't coming home. Tom is the creator of Thursday--a semi-autobiographical webcomic, turned bestselling graphic novel, turned international phenomenon. Semi-autobiographical. That means there's a character in this movie based on Cherry... "Baby." Wide-hipped, heavy-chested, double-chinned Baby. Cherry never wanted this. No fat girl wants to see herself caricatured on the page--let alone on the big screen. But there's no getting away from it. Baby looks so much like Cherry that strangers recognize her at the grocery store. While her soon-to-be ex-husband is in Los Angeles getting rich and famous and being the Internet's latest boyfriend, Cherry is stuck in Omaha taking care of the dog he always wanted and the house they were going to raise a family in...and wondering who she's supposed to be without him. Cherry had promised to love Tom through thick and thin. She'd meant it. One night, Cherry decides to leave all her problems, including Tom's overgrown puppy, at home. She ventures out to see her favorite band play her favorite album...and someone recognizes her from across the room. Russ Sutton knew Cherry when she was a young art student with a fondness for pin-up dresses and patent leather heels. Before Tom. Russ knows Cherry. He likes Cherry. And best of all...he's never heard of Thursday.

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Everything was Beautiful and Nothing Hurt

Ben Reeves

Travis Smith is Death in the modern world. He lives with his cat in a grey English town. He offers people comfort in their final days and hours of life. He's stoic, gentle, a little naive, despite what he knows. He's handsome, he seems young, despite what he is. Each death has a meaning to him, and he never tries to change anyone's fate. He listens and never judges, and ultimately escorts each of them to rest.Travis is desperately lonely, and when he crosses paths with young single midwife called Dalia who lives across the way and her boisterous eight-year-old daughter Layla, he can't help but be drawn to them. Dalia is beautiful and overwhelmed, and Layla seems to have a never-ending trove of small treasures to show Travis, and he's never felt the importance of making every moment count so clearly. Because he knows what's to come, and he can't make himself look away. As he learns what it means to really experience death, he's torn between his nature and his newfound understanding of the important things about being alive.

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Devour Me

Emily Rath

From New York Times bestselling author Emily Rath comes a dark, spicy MMF paranormal romance series set on a New England island about the entangled fates of a witch, wraith, and mortal... Dáinn the Devourer has spent the last two hundred years of his undead life reluctantly bonded to a dark witch, doing her dirtiest work. Devouring corrupt souls may not be satisfying for a wraith, but it keeps him fed. Sent on a job to Burr Island, Dáinn is forced by his mistress to devour the soul of a powerful rival witch, Jasper Prescott. Dáinn is busy devouring the witch when he’s interrupted by a human. With one word, this human does what no being has ever done…she takes his breath away. Forced to stop feeding, Dáinn is shattered as the soul he was devouring slips back inside the dying witch. Who is this human? And what dark magic must she possess to stop a wraith? The more Dáinn learns about Birdie Rhodes, hapless historian and sometimes shop girl, the more determined he is to become part of her world. Sweet Birdie works for the witch Dáinn was ordered to devour. Now Jasper Prescott is on the hunt too. For answers. As a powerful witch, with a coven at his command, Jasper will stop at nothing to find out what magical mischief is happening on his island. Why is a wraith haunting his tea shop? Which fellow witch wants him dead? And who the hell is Birdie Rhodes? Dáinn, Jasper, and Birdie become entangled in a magical love affair which could lead to their ruin. Tropes Shadow daddyUnrequited instaloveAge gapWhy Choose/PolyamoryMMFDysfunctional throupleLurking is my love languageGrumpy witch x grumpy demon x sunshine humanNo one gets to kill you but meThe cat is not a cat

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Fervor

Meg Smitherman

He has called to her all her life, but she could never reply. . . Midonia, a freelance interplanetary transporter, is on thin ice after a fatal accident on the job. So she doesn’t argue when she’s given the tedious task of flying devout Sister Irena to a remote fringe planet, where a tiny religious colony worships a strange deity called Anguish. Until now. When a solar flare grounds her ship, Midonia finds herself stuck with the cult-like sisters. Even worse, he comes to her in the night, his familiar voice louder than ever. He invades her mind with his hunger, sparking a ravenous obsession that will be near-impossible to escape.

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Female Fantasy

Iman Hariri-Kia

All's fair in love and lore. Joonie is living in a fantasy—at least that's what people keep telling her. A copywriter by day and fanfic auteur by night, Joonie continues to date and dump disappointing men in search of a happily ever after. But every potential suitor seems to have one flaw in They can't hold a candle to her book boyfriend, Ryke. The protagonist of her favorite fantasy romance series (and, notably, a sexy merman), Ryke is a symbol for the life Joonie craves and the kind of relationship she deserves. So with a book always in her back pocket, why would she ever settle for less? But when Joonie learns that Ryke's character is based on someone the author knows in real life, she embarks on an epic quest to track him down, meet him in person, and determine once and for all if soulmates really do exist. Unfortunately, her brother's annoying best friend who doesn't believe in love or happy endings insists on hitching a ride. And like any great hero's journey, it doesn't take long for the trials and tribulations to begin.  As Joonie fights her way toward her love interest, using the skills she acquired through reading, she'll learn an important You can pursue a fantasy, but you can't always write your own plot. As unhinged as it is brilliant, Female Fantasy is both a self-aware dive into the concept of genre and a wild, steamy romp. Most of all, though, it's a heartfelt love letter to romance readers everywhere.

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The Eye of the Bedlam Bride

Matt Dinniman

A pantheon of forgotten gods. An old grudge between a talk show host, an heiress, and the man they shattered along the way. A rapidly deteriorating AI system. An inconvenient tiara upon the head of a friend. It is bedlam on the eighth floor. As management reels from the unexpected conclusion of the seventh level, the surviving crawlers stumble onto the eighth and find themselves scattered. It’s a map based on Earth’s final days before the collapse, where ethereal, intangible ghosts of humanity go about their lives, oblivious of the impending doom. Living amongst these ghosts are monsters based in Earth lore. “Legendary” creatures tied to the geographical location they inhabit. Each team of crawlers is given a task: find and capture six of these beasts. The captured monsters will be turned into cards. Cards that can be summoned into battle again and again. The stronger, the deadlier, the better. At the end of the floor, the bad guys will also have decks, and they will have some of the most powerful cards available. So it’s crucial to assemble the toughest squad possible. But, like always, there is a catch. There’s always a catch. As Carl and Donut know all too well, just because someone is captured, it doesn’t mean they have been tamed. Her name is Shi Maria. She’s easily the most powerful monster in their area. If they want to survive, they must capture her. But she is no ordinary beast. She’s intelligent. She was once married to a god, a god who is now missing. Her special attack is known to drive one insane. They call her the Bedlam Bride. “Beware, beware. Beware the Eye of the Bedlam Bride”

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This Story Might Save Your Life: A Novel

Tiffany Crum

A breathless thriller with the soul of a sweeping love story. For fans of Listen for the Lie and The Love of My Life. Best friends Benny and Joy like to say they’ve been saving each other’s lives since the moment they met. Until the day Joy disappears and Benny is suspected of murder . . . Benny Abbott and Joy Moore host one of the most beloved podcasts in the world. Each week, they delight listeners with a different “against all odds” survival story, gleefully finding the weird, life-affirming humor in near-death experiences. Since their first episode on Joy’s experience with severe narcolepsy, they’ve been the best friends everyone wants to befriend—and thanks to the meticulous management of Joy’s husband, Xander, they’ve built a lucrative empire. The problem is, their next survival story may be their own. When Benny arrives at Joy and Xander’s one morning to record, he finds shattered glass and an empty house. The one clue shedding light on the couple’s disappearance is the incomplete, previously unseen first draft of Joy’s memoir. Benny is desperate to find them, even when the police soon zero in on him as their prime suspect. Millions of devoted listeners think they know the “real” Benny and Joy. But as the hours tick by, and the odds seem increasingly stacked against Joy and Xander being found alive, not even the most devoted fans could guess the terrible secrets their favorite famous BFFs have hidden from the world—and from each other. "Both a riveting mystery and a love story, This Story Might Save Your Life is one of the best thrillers I’ve read this year." —Amy Tintera, bestselling author of Listen for the Lie “A heart-pounding thriller and a heart-melting romance, this is the most compelling novel I’ve read in years.” —Annabel Monaghan, New York Times bestselling author of It’s a Love Story “I truly loved reading This Story Might Save Your Life. The pace was terrific, and it was so smart and engrossing. The pages practically turn themselves in this nuanced thriller. I couldn't put it down!” —Nina Simon, bestselling author of Mother-Daughter Murder Night

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