Romance

Olive Smith finally has her PhD and the happy ending she once dreamed of: a promising scientific career, wonderful friends, and Adam Carlsen by her side. But life after the happily-ever-after proves more complicated than expected. As Olive navigates the uncertainty of postdoctoral research, an increasingly competitive academic world, and the challenge of establishing herself as a scientist in her own right, she and Adam must learn how to balance their ambitions with their relationship. A witty, heartfelt sequel to The Love Hypothesis, this romance explores what happens when love is certain but the future is not.

In a small Irish town in 1982, Róisín and Red form an intense bond as two sharp-minded teenagers who feel out of place in their own lives. Red is rebellious and troubled, while Róisín carries the pain of growing up with an absent father and a difficult home life. When Red’s encounter with the law forces him to leave Ireland for England, their connection survives across distance, becoming a fragile thread linking them through the years. Eventually, Róisín travels to London to visit her estranged father and finds Red again, moving into his squat in Pimlico. But the life he has chosen is darker and more complicated than she imagined, and the pair gradually drift apart. Even as their paths diverge, Róisín remains haunted by her unfulfilled passion for him. Moving between Ireland and London over decades, Stations explores first love, addiction, friendship, and the lasting consequences of youthful choices. It asks whether we can release the people who shaped us—and whether learning to love someone else begins with learning to love ourselves.

Clara and Seb are about to fall in love. They just don’t know it yet. When they meet in a quiet corner of London, an unexpected connection sparks a romance that captivates everyone around them. Clara dreams of becoming a film director, while Seb, an aspiring actor who has drifted between different careers, is still searching for his purpose. As their relationship deepens, Clara casts Seb in the film that could launch her career, but what should be the happiest moment of their lives ends in a devastating betrayal. Spanning two decades, Main Characters tells their love story through the eyes of the people who witness it: friends, flatmates, former lovers, rivals, and strangers. Each has a different perspective on the couple, revealing how little we can truly know about other people’s relationships. With its inventive narrative structure, this novel explores love, perception, friendship, and the complicated ways our lives intersect.

Rome, 1953. David is a young Catholic priest who has devoted his life to God and sworn himself to celibacy. Margaret, meanwhile, is a fiercely independent woman drawn to theology and the possibility of a more progressive Church. When their lives intersect in 1960s England, an intellectual connection develops into a love that challenges everything they believe about faith, duty, and freedom. Decades later, their grandson Adrian discovers the extraordinary secret behind his family history while caring for his aging grandmother. As the past gradually emerges, the consequences of David and Margaret’s choices reveal themselves across generations. Inspired by the author’s own grandparents, A Private Man is a tender, complex exploration of forbidden love, religious devotion, and the difficult compromises between personal desire and deeply held convictions.

When sharp-tongued literary critic Selina Chan delivers a devastating review of novelist Parker Navarro’s work for the second time, their private animosity erupts into a viral public feud. But behind the headlines and cutting remarks, an unexpected connection begins to grow. A witty, slow-burn romance set in the world of books and publishing, Bad Words explores ambition, vulnerability, and the complicated relationship between art, criticism, and the people who create it.

Nora has spent a decade building a life with her partner, Robin. Their relationship is comfortable and deeply affectionate, shaped by private jokes, quiet mornings, and the small rituals that make a shared life feel like home. When Robin unexpectedly proposes, Nora says yes. They had always agreed that marriage was unnecessary, but perhaps this is simply the next step in a life that already feels settled. Then, on the night of their engagement party, Bren appears at her door. Bren was Nora’s childhood best friend, the person everyone once assumed she would eventually marry. But a painful heartbreak drove them apart: he left, she stayed, and the feelings neither could articulate remained unresolved. Now his return rekindles an attraction Nora thought belonged to the past, forcing her to reconsider the choices that brought her to this moment. Moving between the comfort of a long-term relationship and the intoxicating pull of a love left unfinished, Daverley explores the complicated nature of commitment, longing, and regret. This tender, emotionally perceptive novel asks whether the right life is necessarily the one we have chosen—or whether the people we once loved can reveal possibilities we never fully considered. It is a story about the paths not taken, the misunderstandings that shape our lives, and the difficult work of understanding our own hearts.

A brilliant Iranian-Indian American scholar has a PhD from UCLA, an underwhelming academic career, and a growing fear that she has failed to achieve the comfortable life her immigrant parents worked so hard to build. When her best friend jokingly suggests she marry rich, she takes the idea seriously, embarking on a summer of one hundred dates with wealthy Angelenos. Armed with spreadsheets and intellectual confidence, she approaches romance as another problem to solve. But when a family emergency takes her to Tehran, an unexpected queer attraction challenges her carefully constructed plans and forces her to reconsider what she wants from love, family, and her future. Witty, provocative, and deeply perceptive, Liquid explores the contradictions of ambition, the pressures of cultural expectations, and the search for belonging between different worlds. With sharp humour and emotional honesty, it turns the familiar romantic comedy into a thoughtful examination of identity, desire, and the lives we imagine for ourselves.

Martha Mullins has always felt like an outsider. Growing up with a glamorous but judgmental mother and a mostly absent father, she finds refuge in the myths of ancient Rome, discovering in the underworld and its gods a world that reflects her own feelings of isolation, desire and longing. As she navigates adolescence, Martha gradually discovers the joys of friendship, intimacy and the freedom of being understood by others. Her circle of friends introduces her to spontaneity, laughter and experiences that challenge her tendency to retreat into her imagination. But when events take a painful turn, Martha must confront the difficulties of growing up and the limits of the worlds she has created to protect herself. Following her intellectual and sexual awakening through school and into adulthood, Laguna’s novel explores loneliness, queer identity, grief and the search for belonging. Blending classical mythology with the emotional realities of contemporary life, The Underworld is a tender portrait of a young woman learning how to inhabit a world in which she can be herself.

Jess Capodimonte Baratta has spent much of her life putting everyone else first. Recently divorced, she retreats to her parents’ basement in Lake Como, New Jersey, where family obligations and Sunday dinners leave little room for her own ambitions. A talented draftswoman working in her uncle’s marble business, Jess has more potential than she realizes—but an unexpected family loss brings buried secrets to light and forces her to question everything she thought she knew about the people closest to her. Determined to reclaim her future, Jess travels to her ancestral home in Carrara, Italy, where the marble mountains of Tuscany and the vibrant streets of Milan offer the possibility of a fresh start. As she explores her family’s past and meets Angelo Strazza, an artist who works in gold, Jess begins to discover her own creative gifts and a new sense of belonging. Blending romance, family drama, and Italian-American heritage, this warm, spirited novel explores the courage it takes to reinvent yourself and build a life on your own terms.

In June 1934, Anna arrives with her husband, Carlo, in the small southern Italian village of Lizzanello, in the sun-soaked region of Salento. An outsider from northern Italy, she stands apart from the village women: she reads unconventional books, refuses to follow traditional expectations, and believes women deserve the same rights as men. When the local post office begins hiring, Anna seizes the opportunity to become the village’s first female letter carrier—a decision that challenges deeply rooted social conventions. As she delivers letters carrying news of love, separation, longing, and loss, Anna gradually becomes an essential thread connecting the community. Yet beneath the village’s familiar rhythms lie forbidden desires, old resentments, and family secrets that threaten to change several lives forever. Inspired by the author’s own great-grandmother, this sweeping historical novel explores a woman’s determination to shape her own destiny in a world that expects her to conform.

Homeseeking follows Suchi and Haiwen, childhood sweethearts whose lives are transformed by the political upheavals of twentieth-century China. They first meet in Shanghai, where Haiwen’s violin draws Suchi into his world. Their young love is interrupted when Haiwen joins the Nationalist army in 1947, leaving Suchi behind with little explanation. Over the following decades, war, migration, and changing political circumstances carry them through Hong Kong, Taiwan, and the United States, shaping their lives in different ways. Sixty years later, they unexpectedly encounter one another again in Los Angeles. Chen moves between their perspectives to explore memory, sacrifice, and the meaning of home. The novel examines how historical forces can separate people while emotional attachments continue to endure across distance and time.

In this sequel to What the River Knows, Inez Olivera continues to navigate the dangerous world she encountered in Egypt. Still reeling from betrayal and the murder of her cousin Elvira, Inez faces new threats involving her inheritance, her family’s secrets, and the mysterious forces surrounding her investigation. Her uncle presents her with an ultimatum that could determine her future: marriage to Whitford Hayes, a former British soldier whose true intentions remain uncertain. Although their relationship is marked by distrust and unresolved attraction, the two must confront the dangers surrounding them. Set against the atmosphere of nineteenth-century Egypt, the novel combines historical adventure, romance, and supernatural mystery. Inez must decide whom she can trust as she seeks answers and fights to retain control over her own destiny.