.jpg)
The Secret Christmas Library by Jenny Colgan
was not claimed so I have randomly drawn another name.
The second-chance winner of
a print copy of The Secret Christmas Library is:
Penney W
Congrats!
Please email your full name and mailing address to:
theromancedish (at) gmail (dot) com
.jpg)
The randomly chosen winner
of a print ARC of
The E.M.M.A. Effect by Lia Riley is:
Cherie J
Congratulations!
Please send your full name and mailing address to:
theromancedish (at) gmail (dot) com
Her Time Traveling Duke
by Bryn Donovan
Publisher: Berkley
Release Date: December 9, 2025
Reviewed by Hellie
A man of science and truth, Henry Leighton-Lyons, the Duke of Beresford, has searched tirelessly for a way to turn back time and be with his late wife again. Instead, just as he’s about to pose for his portrait, he’s ripped centuries forward by a feckless, scantily dressed—and utterly bewitching—woman who believes in nonsense like magical crystals and astrology.
Unable to immediately reverse her spell, Rose vows to help Henry return to his own century, even though disguises and high jinks are required to get their hands on an enchanted astrolabe and master the art of time travel. But it’s hard not to fall for the irritable yet honorable duke.
Little does she know that he’s starting to wonder: did a reckless love spell get it right, after all?
Hellie’s Heeds:
I snatched up this frothy feel-good book after having had the opportunity to read Donovan’s debut, Her Knight at the Museum (November 2024), and it did not disappoint. For fans who loved the swoony rom-com, Kate & Leopold, as well as for those of us who wish we could bring the real Mr. Darcy into the modern-era to bypass all those Tinder ads–this is wish-fulfillment at its finest.
Tropes: Grumpy and Sunshine, also Mr. Rational Science Guy with Miss “I Perform Magic in my Nightie while Sipping Chardonnay" and a little Marvel Universe hilarity with a secondary character named Jason, who I would love to know more about in future books–and I hope there is more time-traveling books to come–or even a time-traveling damsel for Jason–that’d be fun. If you read the first book, you get to meet up with some beloved characters there as well, but you don’t need to have read the first one to enjoy this one. (There are other secondary characters that I wouldn’t mind learning more about–but Jason really stands out.)
I have to hand it to Ms. Donovan–she had me scared. There was a Black Moment where the hero really futzed it up and I thought, “Oh, my girlfriend is not going to get over this! What was he doing?” But fortunately–ruining it for all of you–they work it out. You’ll have to read it to see how though.
I took this book with me on a trip–and I was supposed to go and look at art museums and eat out in a big city–and I refused to leave my hotel room so I could keep reading it. It makes you forget whatever is happening outside of you–which is the best recommendation I can have about a book. My husband would return from work and I’d be like, “Listen, listen, I’m going to let you talk about your terrible day, but isn’t this the funniest thing you ever heard?” and would read a scene to him. And it did make his day a little better. And I had the best vacation, staying in the hotel, in bed with this delicious novel. (I also recommend a chocolate bar–that also upped the experience too.)
I’m recommending this to all my rom-com readers this holiday season. Please rush out and put it on your last minute stocking stuffer because once the presents have been torn through, you deserve a little me-time to dream about stuffy dukes from England and modern day wallflowers who deserve a happily ever after.
Melody Whitaker doesn’t just love Christmas—she worships it. After fleeing a holiday-hating cult, she’s gone all in: thousands of twinkle lights, a storage unit of trees, and more sparkle than a Hallmark movie marathon.
This year, she’s signed up to play Mrs. Claus at a local nursing home, eager to spread some holiday cheer—until she meets Eben Golding: a brooding, grumpy, Christmas-hating hottie. Maybe it’s the mistletoe, but Melody can’t stop flirting with this surly Santa...
Falling in love with someone who sees your sparkle—even the parts you thought you had to hide—might be the greatest gift of all. But when the nursing home pageant goes ho-ho-horribly, Melody is left wondering if her Christmas spirit can really save the season...and thaw Eben’s frosty heart.
PJ's Thoughts:
Grumpy, Christmas-hating Santa (he has reasons) meets over-the-top, Christmas-loving Mrs. Claus (reasons here too) and the two end up stuck with each other as volunteers at a retirement home bubbling over with frisky, mischievous senior citizens? Sign me up!
Nancy’s Thoughts:
Christmas at the Ranch is a delightful second-chance holiday romance about two engaging people. I enjoyed the story very much, but I had some problems with the book’s structure.
I’ll save the structural issues for last and start with the setup and the characters. Emory is easy to root for. In her wealthy, society-oriented family, she often felt like a changeling, so she makes her living as a freelance journalist and doesn’t touch her large trust fund. The scandal of her father’s arrest, however, tanks her journalism career. That and family pressure related to the scandal cause her to flee. She’s well on her way to Evergreen when she realizes where she’s headed.
Her failed romance with Tate Wilder a decade previously makes Evergreen a less attractive refuge than it might’ve been, but she has nowhere else to go. She figures she doesn’t have to see him. A combination of unfortunate circumstances, however, traps her at the Wilder ranch, where Tate’s father insists she stay in Tate’s house, which is empty because he’s away at a trade show.
Of course, Tate returns early, and their reunion is beyond awkward. He doesn’t seem to hold any ill will from their long-ago past, though. He and Emory reconnect over the Wilder horses, but the past is always a stumbling block, and Emory attributes any withdrawal on his part to unpleasant memories of the past coming between them. That’s not always the case, though.
Tate is courteous and friendly. There are lovely, emotional moments where he and Emory connect again, even though they both retreat afterward. Their shared love of the ranch’s horses and Emory’s pleasure in riding again help bring them together. He’s responsible, kind, and concerned that Emory not leave town until she has somewhere to go.
The book is written in first person, present tense, so we have only Emory’s viewpoint and excerpts from the diary she kept ten years before. The present-tense form is not a favorite of mine, but I’m aware many readers enjoy it.
My main problem with the story is in its use of the diary. The book opens with a diary entry from ten years previously that tells us how Emory and Tate met. As a prologue, this works. This entry, like all the others is beautifully written. This one shows us the immediate attraction between Tate and Emory in a believable way. The action then skips ten years to Emory’s family scandal. Flashbacks in the form of lengthy diary entries are interspersed in the story. Every one of them stops the forward action and, for me, slows the pace.
Despite all this looking backward, we don’t know until nearly the end of the book exactly what happened between Emory and Tate that has her so sure he would never want to try again. Emory obviously remembers what happened, and we spend the entire book in her point of view. Yet that information isn’t shared until late in the story. If I had known what happened between them, I would’ve been more sympathetic to her qualms and more inclined to share them.
Emory refers a couple of times to a book by the author bell hooks, who does not capitalize her name. Because I had never heard of her, seeing the name made me wonder each time whether the book was about hooks for bells. I couldn’t figure it out until I resorted to a Web search. I’m not quibbling with hooks’s choice about capitalization, but I do question McKay’s choice to use the name in a novel where readers might not be familiar with it and so might be stopped by it, as I was.
The resolution to the romance was satisfying and also tied up some of Emory’s longstanding family issues as she dealt with her father’s scandal. The descriptions of small-town life and of trail rides in the snowy woods were very well done. Aside from the diary flashbacks, the story moved at a good pace. The townspeople had distinct, varied personalities, and the hesitation some of them felt about Emory’s return was believably grounded in her father’s actions years before. And Tate and Emily had me rooting for them from the beginning.
Overall, as I said, I enjoyed the story a lot. I
highly recommend it.
~Nancy
Everything changes when The E.M.M.A. determines that finding Gale’s perfect match is essential to his peak performance. Even worse? According to its data, that match is Harriet.
Determined to keep things professional, Harriet makes it search for new candidates. But as Gale dutifully endures awkward outings with pop stars and athletes, the chemistry between them only intensifies. And his willing cooperation during their sessions definitely isn’t helping her stay focused.
With her deadline approaching and The E.M.M.A. still playing cupid, Harriet must choose: trust in pure logic, or admit that sometimes taking control means letting go.
Maybe The E.M.M.A. knows something they don’t—even if they’re not ready to compute it yet.
PJ's Thoughts:
Part STEM, part hockey, and full-on best-friend's-younger-brother romance, Lia Riley has crafted a funny and emotionally complex romcom that kept me entertained throughout.
I love the best friend's brother/sister trope. This one gave me the tried and true plus interesting twists that made it original. It was fun to watch Gale and Harriet dance around the attraction between them. Their interactions are endearing, sometimes awkward, sparkling with chemistry and at times, a bit frustrating.
Nobody is more frustrated than E.M.M.A, the AI creation of Harriett and her team. E.M.M.A. is a shining star of this story. I loved how she gradually evolved throughout the book, gaining surprising insight and capabilities not only into Gale, the subject of Harriet's testing but into Harriet as well. She may be AI but she's a pivotal character in her own right and surprisingly believable.
Harriet is brilliant, accomplished, and totally lacking in relationship self-confidence. She also has control tendencies, in and out of the bedroom, which have not been appreciated by past boyfriends. Hence, her current rock-bottom dating self-worth issues. But, then there's Gale, her best friend's younger brother, her secret crush, a man who, unbeknownst to Harriet, is more than willing to relinquish bedroom control to the woman he's been half in love with since middle school. Bring on the spice. And the kittens. Can't forget the kittens.
If you enjoy STEM, hot hockey players, younger men, adorable kittens, spicy romance, humor, emotional depth, and sassy, know-it-all AI computers, check out Lia Riley's The E.M.M.A Effect.
Have you read Lia Riley yet?
Do you enjoy take-charge heroines in the books you read?
What are your favorite animals in books? Kittens? Puppies? Something else?
One randomly chosen person who posts a comment before 11:00 PM, December 15, 2025 will receive a print ARC of The E.M.M.A. Effect.
*U.S. only
*Must be 18
PJ's Thoughts:
This was my first book by Lucy Eden. It won't be my last.
So many of my favorite tropes have center stage in this story. Derek and Jasmine were childhood friends who parted amidst bad feelings and haven't spoken in years until they are reunited only to discover they are workplace rivals for the same position at a newly merged company. Enemies to lovers: one of my favorites. But it doesn't stop there. We have fake newlyweds, forced proximity, small-town romance, spicy chemistry, one bed, and...oops...one gets sick and the other nurses them back to health. Not to mention a heart-stealing, matchmaking dog (you won't convince me otherwise).
There's more to savor in this book than just Derek and Jasmine. Eden also dips into the multiple layers of the town of Miller's Cove, its citizens, and its origin story. Rising from the grief of an actual historic event in Tulsa, OK, this small Florida town is zealously guarded by the people who call it home, especially those descended from the founding families. I really enjoyed this aspect of the story and the hope rising from the ashes of an attack not enough people know about.
Then there's the dynamics stemming from Derek's and Jasmine's families, once best friends and business partners, now bitter enemies. Their history has played a significant role in Derek's and Jasmine's feelings over the years as well as their currently deepening emotions for one another. I was surprised by the truths that were revealed. I also hope we'll get to see more of Derek's brother and a certain doctor.
If you enjoy a friends-to-enemies-to-lovers romance with heart-tugging emotion, humor, multi-layered characters, spicy romance, a dog who steals not only scenes but also hearts, and a happy ending, not only for our main couple but the town as well, pick up a copy of The Love Audit. It has my enthusiastic recommendation.
.jpg)
The randomly chosen winner
of a signed print copy of
Highland Hope by Julie Johnstone is:
Diane Sallans
Congratulations!
Please send your full name and mailing address to:
theromancedish (at) gmail (dot) com
.jpg)
The randomly chosen winner
of a print copy of
Wreck the Halls by Tessa Bailey is:
Shari B
Congratulations!
Please send your full name and mailing address to:
theromancedish (at) gmail (dot) com
4.75 stars
Nancy’s Thoughts:
In Ember Eternal, veteran author Chloe Neill offers a romantasy set in a fully-realized, beautifully described pre-industrial world. She always gives the reader a complete picture of the characters and their surroundings, so the mental images that flow from the pages are never vague or puzzling. Yet that picture is painted so efficiently that the description doesn’t slow the pace. I’m happy to say the book includes zero made-up terms that may sound cool but are never explained, even though they pop up often. Using words that way is a pet peeve of mine.
The heroine, an orphaned thief named Fox, can see ghosts and has other magical senses she doesn’t fully understand. She only steals what she needs and avoids taking from someone who needs the money more. Her best friend, Wren, also a thief and an orphan, is Fox’s sister in all but blood. The two of them are bond servants to a wealthy woman who hires them out for money. Neither Fox nor Wren knows how much is owed on her bond, and neither expects ever to pay it off.
Fox’s creed is “Never be noticed.” Forced to choose between doing the right thing or not being noticed, however, she chooses what is right. Almost everything that happens to her in the story springs from one such choice.
The hero, Nik, arrives at the stronghold, the city where Fox lives, in the train of the prince who is its new ruler. An assassination attempt against the prince leads Nik and Fox to work together. The romance between them builds slowly, and their cooperation leads to a number of unwelcome surprises for Fox. Her abilities draw the attention of a magic-wielder who means to destroy the prince’s dynasty, the Lys’Careths.
The characters are sympathetic, engaging, and layered, and the romance, while not the primary storyline, is strong and well developed. The heat level increases as Fox and Nik’s emotional intimacy deepens.
Because the story is told in first person, we have only Fox’s viewpoint on events and the relationship. We do get a good idea of Nik’s feelings from his reactions.
The supporting characters are varied and elicit different levels of sympathy. The Lady, who holds Fox’s and Wren’s bonds, is mercenary and grasping but not unkind to them. The palace staff and guardsmen are loyal and efficient, a contrast to the local city guard, and each has a moment to show individual personality traits.
Unfortunately, Fox isn’t the only woman interested in Nik’s heart. The other woman, while manipulative and not generally trusted, has a moment that sparks Fox’s grudging sympathy for her.
The plot is logical and builds off the unique features of the story world. The choices Fox and Nik make are believable because they are in keeping with the characters’ beliefs as established earlier in the story. The book doesn’t wrap everything up at the end, but the ending was satisfying and believable.
I’m reluctant to include more about the characters or the plot. I don’t want to spoil the twists the story takes.
You may have gathered that I was cruising toward a five-star review. I was. But one thing about the book pulled me out of the story and frustrated me. In four or five places, I needed dialogue attributions that aren’t supplied. When more than two characters are in a scene, it isn’t always possible to tell which one is speaking based on the content of the dialogue. When I’m confused because I don’t know who is talking, I have to stop and count lines back from the last attribution. Even then, I can’t always tell. This happened in only four or five places, and balancing those rare frustrating incidents against my tremendous enjoyment of the rest of the story led me to take off only ¼ of a star.
I highly recommend this book, and I can’t wait for the next one.
~ 4.75 stars
Nancy
Reader questions from Nancy:
Do you read romantasy?
If you’re a romantasy reader, where on the continuum of worldbuilding do you fall? Do you like detailed worldbuilding, or are you closer to the minimalist level of a preindustrial setting, some magic or otherworldly elements and maybe some made-up terms? Or are you somewhere in between?
Do you prefer the romance in
a romantasy to be the central story, a strong but subordinate element, or a
50/50 split?
