Coco Zephir is a bookseller at An Unlikely Story in Plainville, Mass., where she works on the events and marketing teams. She loves romance titles and here offers a roundup of some of the books coming out this month that she's most excited about:
Into the Blue by Emma Brodie (Ballantine)
Calling all theater, improv, and Saturday Night Live fans! Into the Blue centers on two young people who we meet in their late teens/early 20s working at a video store in western Massachusetts. AJ is writing fan fiction for a galactic TV show while dreaming of writing for SNL. Noah is living with his famous aunt while taking care of his sick mother. He's a descendant of Hollywood royalty: his aunt starred on the show AJ writes fan fiction for. To persuade Aunt Eudora to attend a convention celebrating the show, AJ and Noah agree to take improv lessons--lessons that will alter the trajectory of their lives forever.
I was hooked from the first page, and that tension kept up until the very end. Into the Blue is a must-read for literary romance fans.
The Paris Match by Kate Clayborn (Berkley)
Get ready to fall in love with The Paris Match! This beauty-and-the-beast retelling will have you gasping and giggling while reaching to book the next flight to Paris.
Layla doesn't want to be at this wedding. She's the maid of honor for a bride who is her ex-sister in law--the whole situation is awkward. When a side comment to the bride-to-be causes a storm, Layla teams up with the best man to save the wedding day, but their connection may just steal the show.
Kate Clayborn returns with a fairy tale retelling that will transport you for a compelling, dreamy love story.
The Duke by Anna Cowan (St. Martin's Press)
Need a steamy sapphic historical romance to tide you over until the next season of Bridgerton? Anna Cowan's The Duke serves up the perfect enemies-to-lovers revenge story for spring.
The Duke brings the heat, the yearning, and the glamour in a reimagined Paris and London, where women can hold the seat. When Celine learns that her protector is set for the guillotine, a duke named Kate enters the scene. Kate has the power to save Celine from her dreary fate, but denies her, sparking a journey of revenge that festers until she returns to the duke's door years later, having walked through unimaginable tragedy, with blackmail in hand.
You'll root for Celine and Kate and wonder how these two will ever end up together. Don't miss it.