National Network for Equitable Library Service

Perry Hawthorne is my boss. Only my boss. And I do NOT have a crush. When one of THE Hawthorne brothers-known by their chiseled jawlines and their family-run farm and event center-hires me to be his virtual assistant, I do everything I can to keep him firmly in the work zone. His grumpy demeanor helps. His smoking hot profile picture does not. But even if I do have a crush (a very tiny one), I can't catch real feelings for a million different reasons. Besides the whole business part of our relationship, I'm a single mom. I have to think about what's best for my son, Jack.

How is it possible for the chemistry between two chefs to be hotter than a ghost pepper yet colder than liquid nitrogen? When THE Tatum Elliott shows up to run the catering kitchen at my family's farm and event center, I don't trust her any more than I did back in culinary school. But like it or not, she's here. On my territory. My turf. In the kitchen that shares a building with my farm-to-table restaurant. And she can't seem to keep her hands off my parmesan. Our old rivalry flares to life faster than a flambe, but there's something else flaming between us too.

He's a hot high school chemistry teacher living in a small town. She's a globetrotting journalist running from her past. They used to be best friends. Then one kiss changes everything. Kate Fletcher is my kryptonite. She's also my best friend. Former best friend? I'm not sure what you call it when we grew up attached at the hip and then she left Silver Creek (and me) to travel the world. The important thing is: Kate is back. (Temporarily.) And I'm still in love with her. (Permanently.) But something is different now. The attraction doesn't seem one-sided.

I'm the face of the NHL. The golden boy with quick hands and a million-dollar smile the fans adore. My contract is up at the end of the season, and with playoffs starting, I have to be on my best behavior. Keep my head down and respect the press when they shove their microphones beneath my nose. This isn't my first rodeo, so it should be easy. Right? No. Not this time. One terrible call and I'm the poster boy for bad decisions. I haven't seen my childhood best friend since the day her father betrayed me and she broke my heart. Now, eight years later, she's back.

Cassandra Reynolds can see a red flag from a mile away. As the owner of The Ex Files, a matchmaking service based in Ocean View, she dates men nearly every day of the week in order to vet them, assuring the matches she makes are perfectly informed and free of heartache. With her job comes pitfalls, though: every man she meets is hiding something, trying to impress, and not showing his true colors. But when she has to attend her father's wedding, the man who once lived his own double life, she realizes after years of matchmaking, she has no date of her own to bring to the event.

He is righteousness. She is sin. Father Cade Frederic is a holy man. Brought up in the streets of Paris, he has dedicated his life to the church. But there's a monster that lingers just beneath the surface. A sickness. One that bleeds darkness and feeds on the damned. When he's tasked to become the priest in Festivale, Vermont, a town both beautiful in architecture and riddled with despair, his sickness sings, demanding he rid the place of evil. Amaya Paquette is Festivale's beautiful mystery.

With their inheritance restricted until their marriage, sisters Clara and Louisa, both in their twenties, must live with their godfather Drosselmeyer. One night, an accident brings to life one of the strange wooden dolls in Drosselmeyer's mansion. The Nutcracker doll is a cursed Fae prince, and he pleads for the sisters' help. During the ensuing journey into the Fae realm, Clara encounters the handsome Sugarplum Faerie, and he promises her the chance to enact all her forbidden fantasies.

Sophie Liam is Formula 1's golden boy. But he's nothing but a fraud. Charming. Devious. Seductive. And someone who promises to fulfill all my naughty bucket list items. I force him behind the safe lines of the friend zone. Instead of accepting our friendship, he strikes a deal. One season. One list. One dirty secret. Liam Sophie is my greatest fantasy brought to life. And a major threat to my contract renewal. She's a part of the rival team and someone I should resist at all costs. Everyone is against our friendship. My boss. Her dad. Me.

The night the Prince of the East razed her village, Raina Bloodgood's life changed forever. Forced into someone else's war-and into the arms of the Witch Collector, Alexus Thibault-Raina discovered that everything she believed was wrong, and that she was capable of far more than anyone imagined. Now, the Prince of the East has taken the Frost King as a pawn in his war against the Summerlands, causing Alexus's life to hang in the balance.

Most life changes start with a wake up call. Lola Turner's wake up call came in the form of saving her politician father one too many times. Now she's determined to be "New Lola"-the version of herself that has always been hiding beneath duty, guilt, promises, and secrets since her mother passed away when she was fifteen. So even though she's moving on, starting her own bakery on the Ocean View boardwalk, the mess that her father always seems to get himself into still is finding its way to her.