A sale as large as the one Harlequin’s got going on this week can be very overwhelming. Not only is it 10,000 books marked down, but there’s authors who are on many, many auto-buy lists. I could write posts for days pointing folks to all the backlist for Jill Shalvis, Sarah Mayberry, Jennifer Lohmann, and on and on.
I want to highlight a few of the titles I love to recommend when people ask me about Harlequins, but I also want to know: which books that are on sale do you recommend? What have you bought? Please tell us in the comments!
Shopping note: if you’d like to use the links below, they are affiliate-enabled, so SBTB receives a percentage commission from purchases made. If you use them, buckets o’ thanks to you. If you don’t want to use them, no worries at all!
Sex, Straight Up
Sex, Straight Up by Kathleen O’Reilly is one of the category romances I have recommended most frequently, especially when I need to change someone’s mind about the genre. I reviewed this book and gave it an A-, writing:
There are two things you need to know about this book: you like tortured, healing heroes who are genuinely good guys? Go find this book. O’Reilly’s mastery of the incredibly sexy, almost-three-dimensional man continues in this book.
Second, I was unfortunately predisposed to dislike it. I knew that Daniel is a widower whose wife died in the World Trade Center.
O’Reilly is a very, very talented writer, and I loved this book a LOT. And, with this big sale right now, it’s $1.99.
Meeting a handsome loner on a deserted beach in the Hamptons was like being hit by lightning. One steamy weekend in bed with Daniel O’Sullivan and Catherine Montefiore was marvelously woozy from a delicious cocktail of sun, sand and superhot sex.
Abruptly, though, Catherine’s forty-eight hours of fun are at an end when her family’s exclusive auction house is hit by a very public scandal. She’s ready to step in and save the day, but she’s hoping Daniel, her hot Irish hunk, will lend a hand. After all, he’s got the necessary skills and, straight up or not, Catherine wants another long drink of Daniel before another forty-eight hours are up and her legacy is lost forever!
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Boomerang Bride
Boomerang Bride by Fiona Lowe is also $1.99. This book won a RITA for Best Contemporary in 2012, it kicked all kinds of butt in the DABWAHA that year, and it’s got a heaping ton of positive reviews, too. Our RITA Reader Challenge reviewer, Turophile, gave it an A- and wrote: “this book contained all the rights elements for a contemporary romance: humor, an independent heroine who doesn’t roll over for a hot man, and a sexy romance that builds throughout the book.”
Matilda Geoffrey had risked it all for love.
She’d left Australia to be with Barry—the man who had swept her off her virtual feet. Now, wearing a wedding dress, she’s alone on Main Street in small-town Wisconsin, and things aren’t working out exactly as planned….
In town for his annual family visit, Marc Olsen had never seen a bride quite like Matilda—staring into a storefront window, holding a tottering wedding cake and looking desperately in need of a groom. He doesn’t have many warm feelings for his hometown, but meeting Matilda just as she discovers she’s been scammed by her online “fiancé” stirs something in him.
Matilda is not the kind of woman Marc imagined himself with, and Marc is anything but the romantic hero that Matilda has always dreamed of. But as unlikely circumstances throw them together, can they let go of their misconceptions and risk their hearts for love?
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Back to the Good Fortune Diner
Back to the Good Fortune Diner by Vicki Essex is $1.99, too. I selected this book as a Sizzling Book Club selection and still think about it. The heroine, Tiffany Cheung, finds herself laid off and evicted, and has to move home to a small town in upstate New York, where her family is not really pleased to have her back. There are so many layers to this story, and like I said, I still think about this book.
Everville, New York—it’s the town where Tiffany Cheung grew up, and the last place she wants to be. But after losing her job in Manhattan, that’s exactly where she finds herself. Worse, she’s working at her family’s Chinese diner and feeling like the outsider she once was. The only bright side is that Chris Jamieson, the boy she used to tutor, is still around. Her high school crush is hotter than ever, and he needs her help…again.
Tutoring Chris’s son is the perfect temporary job. Except, Chris finally seems interested in her—and is hinting about a less temporary arrangement. Talk about bad timing! Because Tiffany’s not staying and nothing will stop her from getting back to her real life. But maybe what’s real is about to change….
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The Bride
The Bride by Maya Banks was originally titled The Tycoon’s Rebel Bride, and I have recommended this book a bunch of times. Jane from DearAuthor, I think, was the first to tell me about it – the heroine is the one who pursues the hero, and she’s determined, despite her sheltered upbringing and lack of experience with matters, shall we say, such as these. As with the others, it’s $1.99 for a limited time.
The story of a woman who always gets what she wants by #1 NEW YORK TIMES and USA TODAY BESTSELLING AUTHOR MAYA BANKS
Tycoon Theron Anetakis had only one problem—and she just walked through his door. With his business takeover complete, he’d intended to arrange a marriage for himself to further secure his future. However…
Little Isabella Caplan had blossomed into a voluptuous vixen with plans of her own, and they didn’t include letting the executor of her father’s estate arrange a marriage for her to another man! She had pined for Theron long enough. Now it was time to seduce her hot-blooded hotel tycoon and bring him to one bended knee.
THE BRIDE was originally published as The Tycoon’s Rebel Bride
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Hot Under Pressure
Hot Under Pressure by Kathleen O’Reilly is $1.99. I know I’ve already mentioned O’Reilly, but this book is terrific, too. I gave it an A-, saying:
Ashley lives with her mom, her sister, and her niece in Chicago after a painful divorce. David lives by himself and travels all over the US for his job, working 90% of his waking hours, following an equally painful divorce. When they end up sitting next to one another on a crowded flight that’s delayed for hours before finally being cancelled, they notice each other, and realize that parts of themselves they thought might have been extinct are working just fine.
Usually I dislike the whole “Instant bonerating attraction, oh wait, our sex is meaningful, my wang is a divining rod, you are the ONE” storyline a LOT. Like, heaping, steamy piles of a lot.
But O’Reilly works it and works it hard and well and I couldn’t put the book down.
Boutique owner Ashley Taylor hates flying. Especially when there’s a sugar-fueled little hellion on board. But then David McLean (sexy!) sits next to her, and suddenly Ashley finds herself hoping the delay will last forever–and that David won’t notice her comfy pink bunny slippers (sadly, the opposite of sexy).
David does notice Ashley, and when the flight is delayed overnight, they can’t get to the airport hotel fast enough. Off with the slippers and in with the zing! Fortunately, America is filled with cities–L.A., New York, Miami–and nothing says “smoking-hot passion” like an intercontinental affair!
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