Hi, I'm Jessica, and if you don't know me, I bring
you this video every single Tuesday showing you the newest romance and fantasy books. So without
further ado, let's get into the romance section. I want to buy all of the books on this list today,
but I'm only letting myself buy one of them, and that's one of my most anticipated reads of 2024.
And that is just for the Summer by Abby Jimenez. In this book, we follow our main character named
Justin who has a curse, and thanks to Reddit, that
curse has been put on the internet for everybody
to see. And that curse is that every single time he dates a woman, that woman when they break up,
goes on to find her soulmate. And in this book, Emma has a similar curse, and so she slides into
Justin's dms and says, Hey, why don't we date? And then we can break up and we can both go on to
find our soulmates. And Justin's like, okay, yeah, sure, let's do it. So it's just supposed to be a
quick summer fling, but things get a little bit more c
omplicated when Emma's toxic mother comes in
and Justin has to take care of his three younger siblings. That really complicates things and some
feelings do develop between Justin and Emma, and it's a romance, so obviously they end up together
at the end. So that is just for the summer by Abby Jimenez. Also, a quick note, if you haven't read
anything by Abby Jimenez before, please go do that. I talk your ear off about Abby Jimenez all
the time, so I will just be, I'll keep this short, but Ab
by Jimenez is just perfection, so go
check her stuff out if you haven't read it yet. Then we have one of my personal favorites.
We have an Enemies to Lovers story, and that is a bridesmaid for Hire by Megan Quinn. In this
book, it follows our main character named Maggie who owns a wedding planning business. And after a
few years of doing that and working her tail off at that, she's like, I need a vacation. So she
goes to Bora Bora. But when she's in Bora Bora, she comes across her sworn ene
my named Brody,
who also happens to be her brother's best friend. Maggie then learns that Brody is in Bora Bora for
his boss's daughter's wedding. It looks like he's trying to get a little bit of a promotion out of
being here, and Maggie soon realizes that there could be something in it for her because she
offers bridesmaids for hire services as well as her wedding planning services. But the
issue is in order to provide her services, she has to pretend that Brody is her
boyfriend and thing
s kind of go from there. And this just seems like a super fun read. So
that is Bridesmaid for Hire by Megan Quinn, and if you're looking for an Enemies to Lover's
Second Chance Romance with probably closed Door Romance, AKA, really no spice, then I would
check out the Rule book by Sarah Adams. This book follows Nora, who is a new full-time
sports agent, but unluckily for her. Her first client is an ex-boyfriend that she
had in college. Derek is an NFL tight end, and he's really salty about
Nora breaking his
heart when they were in college. So he says if she wants to represent me, then she's going
to have to work for it. So obviously they have that enemies to lovers kind of situation, but
then they go to Vegas and have a wild night together and they wake up in the same bed and
they're married and the story goes from there. So that is the Rule book by Sarah Adams. The
next romance we have on this list is Only and Forever by Chloe Liese. This is an addition to
the Beloved Bergm
an Brothers series and it follows Viggo Bergman who is a hopeless romantic, who
is tired of waiting for his happily ever after, but it seems like maybe he's just a little bit too
busy to find love. So let me just explain to you everything that he does in his life. He opens and
runs a romance bookstore. He coaches kids soccer and he also has a household of pets to take care
of. So he might just be a little bit too busy to find the love of his life that is until Talulah
Clark comes along and
she's a chilly cynic with a bad case of writer's block. She's writing
a thriller right now with a romance subplot, and she needs help with the romance subplot
because that's just not really her thing. And obviously Viggo runs this romance bookstore,
so it seems like he might be the person to help her with it. So Tallulah starts helping Viggo
with the bookstore and Viggo promises to help with this romance subplot, and they end up living
together and the romance kind of goes from there. So th
at is only and forever. This next one
is How To Plot A Payback by Melissa Ferguson. This follows Finn Masters who has just gotten
his dream job as a screenwriter on Neighbors, which is one of the longest running sitcoms
in Hollywood history. The only downside to this is it puts him back into proximity
with the show's star Lavender Rhodes, who has been inadvertently ruining this guy's
life since they knew each other when they went to school in England. She doesn't even
know that she ruined
his acting career and ruined the relationship that he had with
the love of his life, and he wants revenge. And so he starts writing for this show and puts
her character into weird situations, I guess, and it kind of starts to backfire on him. And
these two start coming together, it seems like there might be a little bit of a second chance
romance in here. So that is How To Plot A Payback by Melissa Ferguson. This next one is Here We
Go Again by Alison Cochun. I'm so excited for this one bec
ause if you don't know, I'm writing a
romance novel right now with the travel element, and this book is a romance novel with the
travel element. So super excited to see how the plot plays out and maybe take a little bit of
inspiration for my own book. So I'm going to read the back of this book for you. It reads A long
time ago, Logan Maletus and Rosemary Hale used to be friends. They spent their childhood summers
running through the woods, rebelling against their conservative small town in
dreaming of
escaping, but then an incident the summer before high school turns them into bitter arrivals. After
graduation, they went 10 years without speaking. Now in their thirties, Logan and Rosemary find
they aren't quite living the lives of adventure they imagined for themselves still in their small
town and working as teachers at their alma mater. They're both stuck in old patterns, uptight.
Rosemary chooses security and stability over all else working constantly. And her most stable
relationship is with her label maker, chaotic and impulsive. Logan has a long list of misguided ex
lovers in an apathetic shrug. She uses to protect herself from anything real and as hard as they try
to avoid each other and their complicated pasts, they keep crashing into each other including with
their cars. But when their beloved former English teacher and lifelong mentor tells them he has only
a few months to live, they're forced together once and for all to fulfill his last wish across
country road trip, stuffed into the gayest van west of the Mississippi, the three embark on a
life-changing summer trip from Washington state to the Grand Canyon, from the Gulf Coast to coastal
Maine that will chart a new future and perhaps lead them back to one another. I think this one
just sounds so cute. It sounds so funny. So I'm just really excited to get my hands on this one,
but I am kind of on a book buying ban right now, and I told myself I can only buy the Abby Jimenez
book, so
it'll be a while until I get to this one, but super excited for it. The last romance on
this list is Love in Tandem by Becca Kinzer After a failed engagement and her mother's battle
with cancer, Charlotte is determined to turn her life around, and it seems like it's going that
way because she's just gotten her dream job as a music teacher. The only problem is the music
program is going under and Charlotte has to do everything that she can to save it. Also, we have
our main male character na
med Zach in this story, and he is back in town to see his brother Ben
get married. And Ben is actually Charlotte's ex-fiancee. That's the failed engagement that
she had. And it seems like everyone thinks that Zach and Charlotte are together, and these two
actually come together to go on a cross country bicycle trip on a tandem bicycle to raise
money to save Charlotte's music program. And also Zach needs the money for something for
himself as well. So it seems like these two might fall in lo
ve over this bicycle trip.
And also another story with some travel in it. These are very popular. I've seen a
lot of these books come out recently, so I might have to put my
hands on this one too eventually. So that is Love in Tandem by Becca Kinzer. So
those are all the romances on this list. And now we're going to get into the fantasy section.
The first one on this list is someone who can build a nest in by John Wiswell. And I'm
going to read the back of this book as well. Discover this cr
eepy, charming, monster,
slaying fantasy romance from the perspective of the monster by Nebula Award-winning
debut author John Wiswell. She has made a mistake fatal to all monsters. She's fallen in
love. Shesheshen is a shapeshifter who happily resides as an amorphous lump at the bottom of
a ruined manner when her rest is interrupted by hunter's intent on murdering her. She
constructs a body from the remains of past meals, a metal chain for a backbone, borrowed bones for
limbs, and a bear
trap as an extra mouth. However, the hunter's chased Shesheshen out of her home
and off a cliff. Badly hurt. She's found a nurse back to health by homily, a warm-hearted human who
has mistaken Shesheshen as a fellow human homily is kind and nurturing and would make an excellent
co-parent an ideal place to lay. She she's eggs so their young could devour homily from inside out.
But as they grow close, she realizes humans don't think about love that way. She hates keeping her
identity a secret
from homily, but just as she's about to confess, homily reveals why she's in the
area. She's hunting a shape-shifting monster that supposedly cursed her family. Has she seen it
anywhere? Eating her girlfriend isn't an option. No, I would say it's not. Shesheshen didn't
curse anyone, but to give herself in homily a chance at happiness, she has to figure out why
homily twisted family thinks she did. As the hunt for a monster becomes increasingly deadly,
Shesheshen must unearth the truth quic
kly or soon, both of their lives will be at risk. This
is not a story that I have ever come across before. It's very different from anything I've
ever read, and I am here for it. Oh my gosh, it seems so interesting. So that is someone
you can build the nest in by John Wiswell. And next we have the Cemetery of Untold Stories
by Julia Alvarez. And I just think this cover is beautiful. And also obviously the story sounds
interesting too, but the cover just struck me. The back of this book read
s Alma Cruz, the
celebrated writer at the heart of the cemetery of Untold Stories doesn't want to end up like her
friend, a novelist who fought so long and hard to finish a book that it threatened her sanity.
So when Alma inherits a small plot of land in the Dominican Republic, her homeland, she has the
beautiful idea of turning it into a place to bury her untold stories. Literally, she creates a
graveyard for the manuscript drafts and the characters who lives she tried and failed to bring
to life and who still haunt her. Alma wants her characters to rest in peace, but they have other
ideas. And soon begin to defy their author, they tuck back to her and talk to one another behind
her back rewriting and revising themselves. Mina, a local woman hired as the groundskeeper becomes
a sympathetic listener to the Secret tales unspool by Alma's characters among them, Venita dictator,
Raphael Trujillo's, abandoned wife who was erased from the official history. And Manuel Cruz, a
docto
r who fought in the Dominican underground and escaped the United States. The cemetery
of untold stories asks whose stories get to be told and who's buried. Finally, Amma finds
the meaning she and her characters yearn for, and this everlasting vitality of stories, Julia
Alvarez reminds us that the stories of our lives are never truly finished. Even at the end. This
book is shouted on Goodreads as fantasy magical realism. But on the Penguin Random House website,
it is shelved as literary fict
ion. So it's kind of blending those genres. But I thought this one
was super interesting and I wanted to mention it here. And the last book on this list is
The Jinn Daughter by Rania Hannah. The back of this book reads a stunning debut novel and
an impressive feat of storytelling that pulls together mythology, magic, and ancient legend
in the gripping story of a mother's struggle to save her only daughter. Nadine is a Jinn tasked
with one job telling the stories of the dead. She rises every
morning to gather pomegranate
seeds, the souls of the dead that have fallen during the night with her daughter Layla at her
side. She eats the seeds and tells their stories. Only then can the departed pass through the final
gate of death. But when the seeds stop falling, Nadine knows something is terribly wrong. All her
worst fears are confirmed when she's visited by Kauna death herself and ruler of the underworld
who reveals her desire for someone to replace her. It is Layla. She wants, N
adine will do
whatever it takes to keep her daughter safe, but Kauna has little patient and a ruthless
drive to get what she has come for. Layla's fate meanwhile hangs in the balance rooted in
Middle Eastern mythology. Ran Hannah definitely leaves subtle, yet breathtaking magic through
this vivid and compelling story that has at its heart the universal human desire to somehow
outmaneuver death. That one sounds amazing, and it's also giving me an ember in the Ashes
Vibes by Sabaa Tahir. So
if you like that series, you might want to check this one out too. That is
the Jinn daughter by Rania Hannah. I think a trip to the library may be in store for me very soon
because I said I'm not allowed to buy any new books, but I want to read all of the books on this
list. So yes, the library, I will need to make a trip there. I hope you liked this video. If you
did, please subscribe to my channel so you can get updates when I post this every single Tuesday,
and I'll see you in the next o
ne. Peace out.
Comments
I do not need convincing to read Abby Jimenez I’m already sold