Intrigued? Read on to discover the synopsis and an excerpt from How to Find Love in the Cereal Aisle by Alissa DeRogatis, which releases on August 4th 2026.

If you can’t write a good meet-cute, maybe you need to live one first…

Ainsley Green writes happily-ever-afters for a rabid fanbase of hopeless romantics. In real life? Her boyfriend just broke up with her, her editor wanted a new book yesterday and she’s starting to wonder if love actually exists beyond the pages of her favorite novels.

So when Lucas, Ainsley’s best friend and biggest cheerleader, insists the best cure for writer’s block is real-life inspiration, she’s ready to try anything. Enter: the meet-cute plan, a mission to take her head out of her heartbreak and force meet-cutes IRL to spark some new ideas. But as failed missions bumping into strangers at the airport and spilling coffee on men at the cafe result in nothing but embarrassment and stained clothing, Ainsley begins to wonder if maybe the romance she’s been chasing already has a leading man.

Because the truth about falling in love? It never goes according to plan.

Equal parts heartbreak, humor, and hope, How to Find Love in the Cereal Aisle is a fresh, flirty send up of dating in the modern age and a reminder that love finds us when we stop performing and start living.

EXCERPT

Chapter 4

My laptop balances on top of an open suitcase as I sort through a pile of clothes, trying to decide if I can justify packing a fourth pair of shoes.

“Why is every single piece of clothing in your suitcase black?” Ross’s voice comes through the Zoom call. “Are you a romance writer or a funeral home director?”

“Very funny,” I reply, holding up a black sweater. “Black is classic.” He raises an eyebrow. “Black is also what people wear when they’re trying to disappear. Are you sure you’re not packing how you feel?”

I pause, the sweater still in my hands. Ross never goes for a subtle look, but today he’s not wrong. “Maybe I just don’t want to draw attention to myself.”’

“You do realize the whole point of a book tour is that people are literally coming to see you, right?”

“I know.” I say, tossing the sweater into the suitcase anyway. “It’s just after that first signing, I feel like I should be hiding. Not repeating it in multiple cities.”

Ross leans in closer to the screen. “For your first event, it could’ve gone a lot worse.”

I snort. “I literally word-vomited about my ex into a microphone. In front of strangers. That’s not worse?”

“Sure, you word-vomited,” he admits. “But you didn’t run. You stayed. You answered, you signed, you got through it. Were you messy? Yes, but people kind of ate it up. They saw a real human being, not some robot spitting out PR-approved answers.”

My stomach twists. “I just keep wondering if someone’s going to ask about Cole. What if I lose it all over again?”

Ross shakes his head. “You won’t lose it. Look, yeah, you word-vomited, but you were honest. Remember what people in that line said after? That you made them feel less alone. That’s what they’ll remember, not the rambling.”

I sink onto the edge of the bed. “I don’t feel like the version of me who wrote those books anymore, and I definitely don’t feel like someone who should be up there answering questions like I have it all figured out.”

“You’re not supposed to have it all figured out,” Ross says. “Relatable is better than polished, and you proved that. Your readers want to meet the person who ugly-cries to Gracie Abrams and isn’t afraid to admit it. That’s why they connect with you.”

I blink, throat tightening.

“And if someone brings up Cole again,” he adds, leaning back with a smile creeping in, “you have every right to keep it vague. Pivot, make a joke, or blame me. You don’t owe anyone your heartbreak just because you write books about love.”

I manage a laugh, shaking my head. “Thanks. Seriously.”

“Of course.” His grin sharpens. “Now, Q and A prep. I’ll send you a cheat sheet by the end of the day. And Ainsley, I’m begging you to hire me as your stylist next tour.”

I reach for the loafers on the floor. “Why? So you can throw these away?”

Ross groans dramatically. “Exactly. But seriously, pack at least one fun top. Maybe even a heel?”

“No promises,” I say with a smile as I hang up the call.

***

The automatic doors slide open, and Boston Logan Airport greets me with its usual mix of chaos: gate change announcements, squeaky suitcase wheels, and a baby crying somewhere in the distance. I scan the crowd near baggage claim until I spot him.

Lucas stands near carousel three, holding a small white poster board that reads: looking for an anxious author with great hair. He’s smiling and totally unbothered by the fact that people are staring.

I laugh, despite the slight embarrassment warming my cheeks. “You’re insane.”

He shrugs. “I like to make an entrance.”

“You know if you hadn’t insisted on picking me up, I would’ve taken a rideshare like a normal person. Instead, you’re subjecting me to public transportation.”

Lucas grabs my suitcase and starts walking. “The T builds character. And besides, I wanted to see your face when you read the sign.”

“Mission accomplished.”

We step out into the cool fall air, and as we make our way to the shuttle to Airport Station, I let the sounds of the city buzz around me. Car horns, conversations, and the rumble of trains are almost enough to distract me from thinking about tonight. Almost.

I’m surprised by how crowded the T is this early in the afternoon. The platform smells like wet concrete and a little bit of urine, but it’s still much cleaner than New York subways. A woman in a Red Sox jacket rushes past us as a kid accidentally swings his backpack into my shoulder. Everyone looks like they’re in a rush to get somewhere else, excitement and community buzzing around me. Meanwhile, I wouldn’t have minded a flight delay and an excuse to cancel instead of facing a crowd.

Lucas glances over. “Margo’s excited for tonight, by the way.” I raise an eyebrow. “She’s coming?”

“She’s gonna try to make it after work.” He says it casually, but there’s something in his tone that tells me that it’s not a sure thing.

Margo’s a lawyer. The kind who’s crushing it in the big league, and as a byproduct, might always be too busy for anything or anyone that isn’t work. Lately, that’s even included Lucas. He’d never say it outright, but I know he’s frustrated. Most of their relationship lately seems to circle around lapsed calendar invites and logistical planning.

They met sophomore year of college in the dining hall. Lucas walked right up to the table she was sitting at with a group of her friends, told her she was cute, and asked for her number. It was direct, sweet, confident, and—unfortunately for me, someone currently on the hunt for meet- cute inspiration—completely unremarkable. It’s not that I don’t love a bold move, but even Ross said meet-cutes need a little chaos. Lucas and Margo’s story is sweet, but it lacks plot. Sorry, Lucas.

Anyway, I try not to cast Lucas in the romantic hero role, even if he might, to many readers, fit the bill. Back when I met him freshman year, he was more puppy-dog cute than anything else. He had big brown eyes, an easy grin, wavy dark hair paired with this innocent charm that made him impossible not to like, even when he was being insufferable. Like when he’d blast EDM remixes at eight a.m. and wake up the whole floor, or when he got weirdly obsessed with some fantasy video game and skipped an entire semester’s worth of parties just to stay home and slay three-headed beasts.

Now, nearly a decade later, the puppy-dog thing has faded. His dark hair is shorter, and the boyishness has been replaced by a sharp jawline and stubble he can finally grow. The confidence is still there, but he’s not the eighteen-year-old kid who lived down the hall from me anymore—he’s quieter now, more careful. Still the same easygoing Lucas, but with a tendency to gloss over conflict and wait things out instead of speak up. Especially when it matters. He’s a pleaser, a good listener because he doesn’t judge but he also doesn’t pry.

Margo’s never had that problem. She says exactly what she wants and where she sees herself going, no hesitation, which, at this stage in my life, is both as admirable as it is terrifying. She’s someone that always has a five-year plan. She grew up in Massachusetts and moved to North Carolina for school, but she always knew she’d come back. After passing the bar, she landed a job at a law office in Boston and didn’t look back.

We’ve always gotten along well, though I’m not sure you could ever quite call us friends. Mostly because she already had her own circle, one that ran around the high-achieving set at school. She’s the kind of woman who captivates a room without saying a word, and not just because of how she looks. Her caramel complexion and sleek dark brown hair make her hard to miss, but it’s the way she carries herself that really pulls people in. There’s something about her that makes you feel like she’s always the smartest person in any room. Now, picture that in a courtroom. I can’t even imagine.

The thing about college relationships is that sometimes you just fall into them without asking the questions that start to matter more as you get older. Do you want to get married? Do you want kids? Where do you want to settle down? Twenty-year-old Lucas definitely wasn’t thinking that far ahead when he started dating one of the hottest, smartest girls in our graduating class. Now, they’re stuck in a standoff. Margo’s here in Boston, Lucas is still in Raleigh, and neither one of them wants to be the person who gives up their life to make it work.

I’d be lying if I said I hope he doesn’t leave. I mean, for the sake of his relationship, I hope he does. But selfishly? I don’t want him to leave. We don’t talk about it much. Actually, we never talk about it. But I know the stagnation, the constant waiting and guessing and trying to make two opposing schedules work, weighs on him. Lucky for him, his graphic design job is fully remote, so he’s been splitting time between both cities. For now, that seems to work for them. I just wonder how long it’ll last.

The train screeches to a stop in front of us, and we board with the rest of the crowd. Lucas finds two empty seats near the back, and we settle in as the doors shut behind us. For a while, we ride in silence.

“I forgot how much I like the Northeast in the fall,” I say as I look at the city through the fogged-up window.

Lucas nudges me. “For someone who hates public transportation, you seem to love romanticizing it.”

I smirk. “It’s a coping mechanism.”

“Fair enough,” he says, stretching his legs out in front of him. “You’ve got a big night.”

“Yeah.”

He looks over at me. “How are you really feeling?”

“Off the record?” I ask, glancing at Lucas. He smiles in encouragement, our secret code landing between us.

We’ve had an unspoken rule for years: Off the record means no judgment, no follow- ups, and definitely no circling back.

It started freshman year, a few months into school, when I told Lucas that I thought the guy in our psych class was cute. Then almost immediately after that, I admitted I wasn’t sure I wanted to be with my high school boyfriend anymore. I felt awful saying it, but Lucas didn’t flinch. He just looked at me and said, “Off the record?”

Since then, it’s been our way of saying the things we’re not totally ready to deal with. The almost feelings. The half decisions. The stuff you don’t want to carry alone but aren’t quite ready to say out loud to anyone else.

I’m the one who uses it more, especially now. Lucas, even with me, has grown into a bit of a closed book. He will say something off the record here and there— things like Off the record, I’ve been think-ing about growing a beard or Off the record, I don’t think Taylor Swift’s Karma album exists. Once he even admitted, Off the record, I kind of like the taste of airplane coffee, and another time it was Off the record, I think socks are optional in sneakers. But definitely not as often as I do. He usually just waits things out, hoping someone else will fill the silence for him or work it out. Or forget there was a problem in the first place.

He nods. “Always.”

The post Read An Excerpt From ‘How To Find Love In The Cereal Aisle’ by Alissa Derogatis appeared first on The Nerd Daily.

”That’s what it’s like living with grief. Loneliness, even while you’re surrounded by people.”

One of these days Julian Winters is going to have to pick up my therapy tab if he keeps releasing books that make me question how I live my own life.

Find My Way Down to You ticked all my boxes. You have a pinch of fantasy, you have romance, and you have grief portrayed really well with a strong focus on healing.

The funny thing about grief is that no two experiences are ever the same. One could, for example, not relate to books like You’ve Reached Sam that had everyone in a chokehold back in the day, yet absolutely devour this tale of grief. This was the case for me with Find My Way Down To You. I admit I rarely pick up books that focus on grief and loss (you have to be in the right headspace for it), but this novel dealt so well with it and most of that may come down to the fact that while this is a story about grief, its main focus is on moving on and finding new ways to get back to actually living your life instead of being in the passenger seat waiting for someone else to take the wheel to get you back on track.

Don’t get me wrong, there is sadness here, it is a book about loss, after all. Auggie has been living in this kind of eternal limbo where he can’t and doesn’t seem to want to move on, but there are also so many moments of hope and progress that truly make this book stand out.

What I love most is how Auggie showcases some of the worst side effects of grief, the way you can lose yourself because you lost someone that in a lot of ways has affected how you see the world and interact with it. This, of course, drastically changes when he meets Cary, the ferrier of souls and gets introduced to death in an altogether new manner.

As always, Winters shines in portraying characters that are essentially good guys, but also flawed. Cary is your brooding boy that is secretly a marshmallow that always puts others and their feelings first. I love how he constantly tried to lift up Auggie.

Auggie, meanwhile, lives his life in pursuit of making other people happy…even when that ends up hurting him or making him lose his own way. The two of them worked together so well because at the core they care about the mark they leave on the (under)world, leaving it kinder than it was before. Their interactions were sweet and their conversations often felt like a warm hug. My only gripe would be that I wish there would have been a few more moments focusing on their relationship and the trouble that comes with falling for a guy whose literal job is carrying souls into the underworld. But since the focus here really was on grief and living again, I understand that this wasn’t supposed to be a super in-depth romance with all the expected beats.

The best part of this story is of course the gradual progress of healing. From the very difficult beginnings where you meet Auggie and realize just how much he has given up on his own life and future after losing his boyfriend London while everyone including his roommate has moved on to grander things, to the small, gradual steps he takes to participate in life again. It serves as a powerful reminder that no matter what losses we face, there is always something worth living for—we just have to find what that is for us.

Heartbreaking and hopeful in equal measure, Find My Way Down to You is a life-affirming story that puts a new spin on grief turning your world upside down, perfect for fans of You’ve Reached Sam and At the End of the River Styx.

Find My Way Down to You is available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org, and other good book retailers, like your local bookstore, as of August 4th 2026.

Will you be picking up Find My Way Down to You? Tell us in the comments below!

Synopsis

You’ve Reached Sam meets Hadestown in this enchanting, intoxicating romance across the mortal world and the underworld.

Eighteen-year-old August is trying to navigate life after the sudden death of his boyfriend left him devastated, aimless, and feeling guilty. Years after the tragic accident, August mistakenly stumbles into a world beyond his own—the Underworld. Unlike his own gray existence, the underworld is a lavish extravagant place, full of mystery and a flurry of charismatic gods, all curious about August’s arrival in their world. Realizing right away the opportunity in front of him, August goes searching for his lost love, guided by Cary, the smoldering, broody ferrier of souls. But the more time August spends down below, the more his intentions begin to blur. Is he visiting this realm to reunite with his soulmate? Or is he desperately, inexplicably, intoxicatingly drawn to Cary? With his own world in pieces and a dangerously seductive realm promising him a new existence at a heavy cost, August must choose: a life with grief or a love that might destroy him.

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Intrigued? Read on to discover the synopsis and an excerpt from International Relations by Zac Hammett, which releases on August 4th 2026.

Max has never had time for a relationship working in the high-stakes world of international diplomacy. But when a high-profile ambassadorial position opens up in Athens, Max is discreetly advised that his single status isn’t helping his chances. In this line of work, appearances matter, and Max’s rival Quentin has an advantage in the form of his charming and accomplished girlfriend.

Determined not to lose out, Max hires Hunter, a charismatic actor, to play the perfect boyfriend. Hunter dazzles on the diplomatic circuit, but soon the charade takes on a life of its own. When visa complications force Max and Hunter to make their relationship official, they find themselves trapped in a marriage of convenience that is anything but convenient. There’s only one thing that could make all this even more complicated—if Max and Hunter’s feelings for each other start becoming real . . .

International Relations is a fake dating to fake marriage romance filled with glamorous locations, sizzling chemistry, and a love story that will capture your heart.

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Intrigued? Read on to discover the synopsis and an excerpt from You’ll Be Sorry by Liz Alterman, which releases on August 2nd 2026.

ONE
APRIL 2025
MIA

This story begins with a face. His face. Smiling. Beaming, really, at me from mid-magazine. Not a splashy one like Vogue or Vanity Fair. It’s the local kind addressed to “Resident,” filled with fluff pieces about high-schoolers collecting canned goods or gently used sports equipment so they’re able to “demonstrate leadership” in college essays.

Amid these faux do-gooders and a flurry of advertisements for dentists and interior designers, he’s there, wearing a navy suit that brings out the blue in his eyes and the same grin that sent sparks zipping through me the first moment I saw him.

I lean against the white marble island for support. It’s late afternoon. Beyond the kitchen windows, a steely drizzle falls on the bleak landscape. I adjust the pendant lights and lift the magazine, drawing it closer for a longer look.

It’s definitely, unmistakably Ethan.

His lips are parted and he’s doing that thing with his tongue, pressing it against the back of his straight white teeth. It sounds weird, but picture the hottest actor you know making a similar face. I’ll wait.

See? Oddly charming. It’s like he’s about to tell you a joke or let you in on a secret. What he actually wants to do, according to this glossy full-page spread, is sell you a house. It takes a full ten seconds for that to register.

It’s not easy to shock me but he’s done it. Again.

It’s quiet except for the refrigerator’s gentle hum and Button’s soft purr as she weaves figure-eights between my ankles, her tail tickling my calves.

When I collected the mail on my way in from yoga, a sweaty sheen coated my skin. Now a chill creeps up my spine.

This is not how I expected my afternoon to go. I’d been sifting through a mix of bills and birthday cards. They’d arrived right on time. Tomorrow I’ll turn forty.

Seeing my old name—Aimee Montgomery—scrawled across envelopes in my aunts’ lovely, loopy cursive stirred a sharp, unsettling recognition. I stiffened.

You could say I was rattled even before I spotted Ethan.

As I study him, in his probably airbrushed splendor, dots float at the edge of my vision. I blink, willing them to disappear. They don’t.

The Pierce Lachlan Group Welcomes Ethan Blackmore is written in an elegant gold font, bold against a shiny black backdrop. Below that announcement, in a small circle set off to the side, a silver-haired man stands, chin tucked, arms crossed. He looks a bit hostile, but maybe people want real estate agents who appear ready to spar on their behalf. Is he Pierce or Lachlan? Two people own this firm or one? Who cares? I focus only on Ethan.

Even if I hadn’t seen his name, I’d know him anywhere.

I snap the magazine shut like I’m twelve again and my sister Lyla’s caught me reading her diary.

I would’ve missed this, him, if the invitation to my cousin Daphne’s wedding (her second) hadn’t gotten stuck inside a Land’s End catalog I tossed in a basket beside the toilet a few months back. Not that I’d have minded skipping that bland affair (complete with mashed potato bar) but my non-response opened the Pandora’s box I prefer to keep locked.

“Still too painful?” my Aunt Lois whispered when she called to ask why I hadn’t RSVP’d.

“Gotta move on sometime, kid,” Uncle Ray barked in the background.

How many post-dinner glasses of port rendered my aunt bold enough to ask, “Did you ever end up freezing your eggs, dear? You were always so good with children.”

When I didn’t answer, she said, “Aimee? You still there?”

It goes without saying: my eggs are none of her business. It was “Aimee” that threw me. I’ve been “Mia” for more than a decade now. After a few dark turns that splintered my world into the beautiful before and the devastating after, I wanted nothing to do with my old life. I faced a starkly different future. Why not enter it with a new name? Amelia Montgomery lends itself to dozens of variations.

To avoid conversations like that one with my aunt, I flip through everything now. You never know what—or who— you may find.

Ethan.

I open the magazine again with unsteady hands, turning pages until I’m staring him down.

Involuntarily, I search for his ring finger. His hands are tucked inside his pants’ pockets. Only his thumbs are exposed. My gaze returns to his smile.

“Oh, Button.” I exhale and lower my shoulders down from my ears. “I hoped someone might’ve punched out those perfect teeth by now.”

Button meows. I want to believe it’s in solidarity—more likely, she’s hungry.

I scoop her onto my lap. “We all want something, don’t we?” I murmur into the soft triangle of her ear.

While I’ve changed a lot in the last thirteen years, Ethan hasn’t. Not really. Fine lines crease the corners of his blue eyes. There’s a bit more flesh around his square jaw, but his hair is still thick, still the golden brown of a wheat field shining in the late-September sun.

The first time he met my parents, my father steered him to the backyard to admire the garden—as if it could ever compare to the grounds of the Blackmore estate. Mom waited until Dad was in the middle of his lecture on the challenges of growing heirloom tomatoes before she speared a fat olive from her martini, arched her eyebrows, and said, “Ethan’s quite handsome.”

I understood the subtext: What is he doing with you?

I stroke Button’s shiny coat, hoping her purr will slow my jackhammering heart. I close the magazine, push it to the side. What I’d like to do is torch every page, but the fireplace in my overpriced townhouse is gas-powered. We’ve traded our caveman instincts for convenience.

I should shower, prepare for my birthday dinner with Matthew. I began seeing him to stop Sheri, my former assistant-turned-friend, from making “use it or lose it” jokes while pointing at my crotch.

This lackluster courtship gives me a reason to get out of the house, and Matthew’s safe—the human equivalent of vanilla ice cream: a sweet, respectable choice but, let’s be real, no one’s favorite.

At the end of our first date (bowling—I won), he said, “This was fun. Let’s do it again,” and opened a Google calendar to schedule it, decimating any hint of the romantic suspense that stems from waiting, wondering if he might like to see me again. (Spoiler: I would neither have waited nor wondered.)

The microwave’s clock reads 5:48. He’ll be here in an hour.

I can’t go. Not now. Not when spotting Ethan brings everything back.

Button meows. I’m clutching her too tightly around the middle. I kiss her head, an apology, and set her on the floor.

Moving as if I’m wading through rough tide, I open a can of cat food and spoon it into her monogrammed bowl. Usually, I sit and scratch her back while she eats. Instead, I drift into my home office, pulled by a force—the need to answer all the questions I’ve blocked. My legs go limp, boneless, and I drop into the overstuffed swivel chair beneath the desk.

I open my laptop, sign in, and click to bring up a new tab. The cursor flashes, tempting me at the same time Lyla’s voice pleads inside my head, No! Stop! You’ve moved on. Do not look back. You swore you wouldn’t.

I try to ignore it. It grows louder. You have built a life. Maybe not the one you pictured, but a life just the same. You have been good for so long.

Lyla: often bossy, usually right.

“I have been good, and where has it gotten me?” I say in response. Button stands in the doorway licking her paw, wiping her whiskers.

I turn back to the screen. The cursor continues its steady blink. I’m waiting.

On the corner of my desk rests a picture of Lyla and me in a silver frame. She’s four, wearing a pink gingham dress. I’m a newborn, swaddled in the blue blanket our mother knitted hoping I’d be a boy. Lyla’s sitting on a floral sofa, cradling me, her round dark eyes wide with worry, mouth open in a tiny ‘O’ as she gapes at me.

“Why were you making that face?” I asked her one Christmas Eve after we’d finished watching Love Actually and had begun sifting through old photos.

“Dad was using his camera with that giant scary lens. Mom was shouting, ‘Support her neck! Don’t drop her!’ I was terrified. You were my new favorite toy. I didn’t want to break you when I’d only just gotten you.”

I teared up. The Lyla I’d known my entire life was all cool confidence, bold, and fearless.

“That was the moment I knew it was my job to protect you.” She leaned forward and kissed my forehead with an exaggerated mwah. The Christmas spirit and Mom’s high-octane eggnog rendered her uncharacteristically sentimental.

After the holidays, I took the photo back to my tiny apartment and stuck it in this frame. Wherever I’ve lived, it’s always come with me, reminding me of our bond.

If Lyla were beside me now, she’d try to protect me from myself. But she’s not.

I set the picture face down, place my fingers above the keyboard, and type “Ethan Blackmore” in the search bar, breaking the promise I made to my sister more than a dozen years ago.

I hold my breath and hit return.

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Intrigued? Read on to discover the synopsis and an excerpt from The Castle in the Glen by Rhys Bowen, which is August 4th 2026.

Australian writer Emma Callander has been recruited to complete the final historical mystery in a series by celebrated author Iris Blackburn. It’s 1965, and Iris’s memory is fading. She’s certain that only Emma can do justice to her novel about a murder on the Isle of Skye. When Emma ventures to Scotland for research, she discovers the story is not fiction at all but rather a true crime, unsolved for more than fifty years.

It was 1904 when a couple’s suspicious drowning led to the disappearance of a mysterious young woman the locals called the Wild Girl. To this day the mystery is unforgettable, especially among the descendants of an aristocratic family who’ll do anything to keep their secrets buried. From the misty Highlands to a medieval castle, Emma and Tony Gordon, Iris’s handsome lawyer, work ever more closely to uncover them.

But while Iris may be known for her fiendishly clever twists, there’s one not even Emma could have seen coming.

Chapter 3

As Emma was getting out of the car the front door opened and a stout middle-aged woman came out. She looked, to Emma, like the classic British countrywoman, wearing a tweed skirt and a hand-knitted twin-set in a dark, muddy green that made her pale complexion look even more washed out. She wore a strand of pearls at her neck and sensible shoes. Her greying hair was cropped in a mannish bob and there was no hint of make-up on her face.

“Here you are,” she said in a throaty posh-accented voice. “And you’ve made good time, too. Iris is waiting for you in the conservatory. I expect you’re ready for a sherry.” She turned her attention to Emma. “And I take it you are the young Australian writer. Your book made quite a splash, so we heard. Iris did enjoy it. I’m afraid I didn’t read it. I’m not much of a reader, apart from Country Life and Horse and Hound, much to Iris’s dismay. I’m Cynthia. Cynthia Morton. I’m Iris’s secretary and general dogsbody.” She gave a hearty laugh and pumped Emma’s hand in greeting. “Come on then. In we go.”

Emma stepped into a square central hall. It had a slate floor and whitewashed walls. The only adornment was a mirror above a glass-topped table on which there was a bowl of fresh flowers. A maid in a black dress with a crisp white apron and cap stepped out to greet them. “Can I take your coat, miss?” she asked.

Emma was conscious that her mack was not up to the standard of the house. She handed it over quickly, then glanced at herself in the mirror. Why hadn’t she worn something different today? Her grey flannel pleated skirt, white silky blouse and navy cardigan were almost like a school uniform, making her look ridiculously young and unfashionable. Still, there was nothing she could do about it, but she wondered whether Mr Spencer asking her to accompany him had been a last minute idea or something he’d been asked to do because of her nationality. If it was the latter then he could at least have warned her ahead of time!

“This way,” Cynthia Morton said. “Do you need to spend a penny before we go through?”

“No, thank you,” Emma muttered.

“If you do later there’s a cloakroom off the hall here. That little passageway to the left. Right then. Come on. Let’s not keep Iris waiting.” Cynthia took off down a long hallway with doors on either side.

At the end she turned into a sitting room with a sofa and armchairs arranged around a marble fireplace. Where French doors should have been there was now the entrance to a magnificent conservatory. The sound of conversation floated through until someone said, “Ah, the visitors have arrived,” and all conversation stopped. Emma hung back, letting Cynthia and Mr Spencer go before her. The conservatory was delightfully warm and Emma noticed radiators around the walls. The furniture was white wicker and everywhere there were tropical plants. Orchids hung in baskets and in one corner was a huge palm tree. Beyond the glass walls was a terrace with a fountain. Further off a lawn led to an orchard and woodland. A huge property, Emma thought. Too much for one woman.

She glanced around quickly trying to take in the scene before her. On a wicker chaise, facing the view, was a frail-looking older woman. She must have had fine features once, with high cheekbones and a good jaw, but these now made her face look sunken. Her wrinkles betrayed too many years in the cruel Australian sunshine. Her hair must have once been reddish-blonde but was now streaked with grey and was set in immaculate curls. She wore a pale mauve cashmere jumper and a large opal brooch at her neck. She had a sheepskin rug over her knees, in spite of the warmth of the room. Emma recognized her instantly. There was a photo of her on the wall at Barlow and Barlow, receiving an MBE from the queen. Sitting in a rocking chair beside her was an older man with a shock of grey wiry hair and a round, pink and remarkably boyish face. He had a glass of sherry in his hand. Emma thought she recognized him, that he might have come to Barlow and Barlow on occasion. And on Iris’s other side Emma was surprised to see a slim young man in a blazer and slacks, his dark hair neatly parted. Nobody had mentioned him and Emma wondered who he could be. She had understood that Iris had no family.

“Here they are,” Cynthia said heartily.

Iris attempted to sit up and Cynthia immediately rushed to help her.

“I’m not a complete invalid yet,” Iris snapped. “Don’t fuss.” She held out her hand to Mr Spencer. “David, my dear. How lovely to see you. It’s been ages.” Her voice sounded more smooth upper-class English than Australian and Emma guessed that she had worked on it over the years. David Spencer took her hand and kissed it. Then Iris’s gaze moved from David and fastened on Emma. “So this is my young compatriot,” she said. “Come over here, dear, don’t be shy.” She held out her hand. Emma wondered if she too was supposed to kiss it, but instead Iris grasped Emma’s hand and pulled her forward. The hand was bony. It felt like being caught by a bird of prey.

“So you are Emma Callander,” she said. “Writer of The Blue Gum Murders.” The eyes that fastened on Emma were remarkably bright, in contrast to the old, greyish face.

“I am.” Emma smiled at the old woman. “And I am so honoured to meet you, Miss Blackburn.”

“Sit down, darling,” Iris said. “Pull up a chair for her, dear boy.”

The young man leapt out of his own chair, pulled it forward, placing it beside Iris’s chaise.

“Thank you, you’re a sweetheart,” Iris said, giving him a beaming smile. Emma wondered for a moment if he could possibly be a toy boy, but that was too ridiculous to contemplate. But the moment the thought had flashed into her mind Iris said, “I don’t think you’ve met Arthur Gordon, have you David?”

“I don’t believe I have,” David said. He broke off abruptly, realizing what he was saying and frowned. “Arthur Gordon? But he’s . . .”

The young man laughed. “Arthur is my father. I’m Tony Gordon.” He had a nice laugh, Emma thought. Until then he had looked serious, almost worried, but she noticed how his eyes sparkled when he smiled. Not bad, she thought.

“Arthur’s boy? All grown up?” David asked.

“That’s right, sir,” Tony said, still smiling. He glanced across at Emma and their eyes met for a second. “All grown up and qualified as a solicitor. My father is getting ready to retire so I’m taking over the reins of the business.”

“Heavens above. How time flies. Well, congratulations.” Mr Spencer turned to Emma. “Arthur Gordon was Iris’s solicitor for years. He made sure all her contracts were legal.”

“And favourable,” Iris said, giving a throaty laugh. “Thanks to Mr Gordon I have this house.” As the laughter faded Iris looked around the room. “That’s my wonderful agent, Jeremy Feathers. Now who are we still missing? Dr Harkness, of course. That man is always late. Probably delivering a baby again. They breed like rabbits around here.”

Cynthia leaned closer to her. “Remember Dr Harkness telephoned to say he couldn’t make it today?” she said in a low whisper. “He had to go up to town for a medical conference?”

“Oh. Oh yes. Of course. No Dr Harkness then.” Iris brushed it off. “That means we’re all complete. Shall we go through to lunch then?”

“You haven’t even offered us a sherry yet, dear lady,” Mr Spencer said. “We are parched after having driven all this way.”

“Oh dear me. How ungracious. I’m turning into a terrible hostess,” Iris said. “It comes from living out here in the country. Give them a drink, for God’s sake, Cynthia, while I talk to this delightful young lady.”

Iris turned to examine Emma so critically that Emma felt herself blushing. “So tell me all about yourself, darling,” Iris said. “I want to hear all about everything.”

“There’s not much to tell,” Emma said. “I had an idyllic childhood in many ways. My family ran a vineyard in the Hunter Valley.”

“Oh, the Hunter Valley. How glorious. Sauvignon blancs?”

“Exactly.” Emma smiled, feeling herself relax a little. “And there were no other children within reach so I spent a lot of time alone.

“Did you do any writing in those days?”

“Yes, I did.” Emma looked down at her hands. “Just silly little stories, but I was always pretending to be someone else.”

“Just like me,” Iris said. “My stories were my escape from what was a harsh reality. So go on. What else did you do?”

“I rode my pony, swam in the pond and read a lot of books, including your Miss Favershams, until I was sent off to boarding school when I was thirteen.”

“How was boarding school? I hear they can be pretty grim, although when I was a girl I longed to go to school.”

“Mine was quite nice,” Emma said. “There were some rich and snooty girls who looked down on me, but on the whole I enjoyed my time there. I was all set to go to university when my father died.”

“That’s so sad. What was it, heart attack?”

Emma shook her head. “A horrible accident. He was killed when a piece of farm equipment rolled onto him.”

“You poor little thing,” Iris said. She gripped Emma’s hand again. “So which university were you heading to, Newcastle or Sydney?” Iris asked.

“Actually I’d been offered a scholarship to Oxford.”

“To Oxford. My my. Impressive. But you didn’t take it?”

“I couldn’t,” Emma said. “My mother was a wreck. Someone had to look after her. And what’s more we lost our home. The vineyard was owned by the family trust and my father’s cousin came to run it. I suppose we could have stayed on, although it would have been really crowded with his family there. I had to find a job. So we moved down to Sydney and I worked in a bookshop.”

“Good training for a writer,” Iris said.

Cynthia put a glass of sherry into Emma’s hand, but she hesitated to take a sip while Iris was still grilling her.

“It was. The owner was a wonderful old man, and when my mother got married again he let me live above the shop so I didn’t have to pay rent.” She paused. “He even helped me polish my book.”

“Ah yes. The famous book,” Iris said. “I found it most interesting. That little Abo boy. What a character. Where did he come from?”

Emma tried not to wince at the derogative term, obviously quite accepted in Australia in Iris Blackburn’s day. “There was an aboriginal family who helped with the horses at our vineyard,” Emma said. “The young son was so bright and talented and should have had a great future. But the way most people spoke to him and his family . . . it was awful. They treated them like less than human. And once there was a minor theft in the neighbourhood and immediately his family was suspected. I remember thinking at the time if he was arrested he’d get no justice from a white jury.”

Iris was nodding while she spoke. “That’s what gripped me about this story,” Iris said. “Justice. You care about justice. You wanted to make things right. That’s exactly what I do with Inspector Melrose. He has to make sure justice is served in every case. It matters to me. I’ve been passionate about it. That’s why my books resonate with so many people. In real life there is often no justice.”

She broke off, looked around, then laughed. “Listen to me, preaching away again. Drink your sherry, darling, and have one of the cheese puffs. Mrs Fisk is a whiz at cheese puffs.”

Cynthia held out a plate and Emma took one. Before she could take a bite Iris asked, “So what is the next book about? Also set in Australia? Same characters?”

Emma hesitated. “I haven’t started on a next book yet. Frankly I’m finding it hard, feeling so much like a fish out of water here. I can’t write about London. I still don’t know enough about how people think and interact, and yet Australia seems so remote now. To be honest I’ve been feeling quite homesick lately. I’m thinking of going back home.”

“No, you can’t do that!” Iris said the words so forcefully that Emma almost spilled her sherry. Iris looked around the room. “We won’t let her go, will we, darlings?”

“Not until she’s written the next book,” Jeremy Feathers said quickly, and Emma watched him glance at Mr Spencer.

At that moment a woman appeared in the doorway. She was short and round with hair pinned back in a bun and wearing a flowery pinny. “If you don’t come in for your lunch soon the soufflé will have fallen!” she announced, hands on her hips.

As they walked through to lunch Tony fell into step beside Emma. “Well done,” he muttered moving closer to her. “You survived a cross-examination worse than being in court.”

Emma shot him a grateful smile and he returned it.

Excerpted from The Castle in the Glen, by Rhys Bowen. Lake Union Publishing, 2026. Reprinted with permission.

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Intrigued? Read on to discover the synopsis and an excerpt from Embrace by Bal Khabra, which releases on August 4th 2026.

Kian Ishida is all about parties, hockey, and living in the moment. But when he realizes he’s headed to the NHL without his degree, his late dad’s one wish for him, he’s determined to make up those last few credits. Desperate for help, he joins a study group led by none other than Scarlett Kilner. She’s as gorgeous as she is smart. Too bad he doesn’t know yet that she’s his coach’s daughter.

After making a reputation for herself, all Scarlett wants for her senior year is to prove she’s more than her mistakes and graduate without tarnishing her well-respected father’s name. But when Kian Ishida, one of her dad’s star hockey players, joins her study group, things get complicated.

As Scarlett helps Kian, their study sessions turn into something more—stolen glances, lingering touches, and a connection neither of them expected. Kian has to decide what’s more important: the dream he’s worked for his whole life or the girl he never saw coming.

EXCERPT

I go to toss my empty cup of ramen when someone calls my name.

As usual, my stomach tightens, because at Dalton you never know who’s going to approach you. But when I turn, I see Kian Ishida walking toward me.

My gaze catches on the sliver of skin at his exposed midriff, his wrinkled white shirt stiff and short on his long frame. I don’t dare look at his veiny arms, or the rings adorning his thick fingers. He’s got on faded blue jeans, ripped in some places, and white sneakers. “You weren’t at the library,” he says, slightly out of breath when he reaches me. “Huh?”

“The library? We were supposed to meet there to talk about our new arrangement, remember?”

Arrangement? Oh my God. The deal. This can’t be real.

“That was a joke. Y-you were drunk,” I remind him.

“I wasn’t,” he says. “Well, drunk, yeah, but I wasn’t joking. You shouldn’t have to deal with those creeps. I can keep them away, and you can help me graduate. That’s what we decided, right? Your reputation, my graduation?”

My words catch in my throat as I blink rapidly. “Do you realize what hanging around me would do to your reputation?”

I expect him to realize I’m right, that this won’t be worth it for him.

“Well, it’s a good thing their opinions don’t mean shit to me. Which, by the way, is lesson one: Fuck. Everyone.” He pauses. “Well, excluding the people you actually care about.”

I shake my head hard enough to rattle something loose. “Look, it’s a nice thought and all, but you don’t need to do that. You don’t have to associate yourself with me. I can find you someone who actually tutors Dunn’s students—”

But Kian’s already moving. He climbs onto the table I was just eating at, right in the middle of the dining hall, startling a guy who is now seated there, and the sound of Kian’s sneakers hitting the wood makes half the room look up.

“What are you doing?” I mutter, my pulse skyrocketing as people start whispering. Even the professors pause mid-bite, like this is their entertainment for the day.

“Scarlett.” His voice booms across the room. Then he crouches down and whispers, “Wait, what’s your last name?”

“Why?” He just stares, waiting for my response. I hesitate, feeling the name on my tongue before saying, “Rose.”

There’s a deep, almost instant swell of guilt in my stomach when he tilts his head, as if he’s wondering if that’s my real name, before he stands tall again.

“Scarlett Rose, will you be my friend? I cannot”—he clutches his chest dramatically—“I cannot continue this cruel, meaningless life without you by my side!”

I nearly choke on air. “What the hell are you doing? Get down!”

“It’s a grand gesture, Scar. Let it happen,” he whispers, before straightening to his full height. “So . . . is that a yes or a no? Only one will shatter my heart, but hey, that’s not your problem.”

Every set of eyes in the room lands on me, and I can feel my entire face heating up.

“Put me out of my misery, Scarlett!” “Okay! Yes. I’ll be your friend,” I shout.

A grin splits his face as he bows to the crowd, earning a smattering of confused, hesitant applause. Then, with the kind of grace that shouldn’t belong to someone his size, he hops down from the table, landing light as a cat.

“Perfect. So, tutoring tomorrow at four?” he asks casually, as if he didn’t just cause a scene. Or that his sneakers didn’t make contact with that poor freshman’s oatmeal.

“See you later, Scar.”

Scar?

I can only blink at him, caught between awe and disbelief, be-fore I manage a nod. He takes my hand, gives it a firm shake, and then he’s slinging his gear bag over his shoulder and disappearing through the double doors.

What the hell just happened?

The post Read An Excerpt From ‘Embrace’ by Bal Khabra appeared first on The Nerd Daily.

Intrigued? Read on to discover the synopsis and first chapter from How to Ruin a Wedding by Elba Luz, which releases on August 1st 2026.

Lucy Delgado knows all about things that don’t work out. Between two failed marriages and losing her job, “meant to be” doesn’t seem to mean much anymore. And watching her sister’s marriage deteriorate isn’t convincing Lucy otherwise.

Desperate for money and disillusioned by love, she turns her nothing-left-to-lose attitude into action as a professional wedding saboteur. Lucy knows how to play any part―old lover, nosy relative, wise stranger―to save brides and grooms from making the same mistakes she did.

Until she crashes the wrong ceremony.

For Anders Kennedy, Lucy’s timing couldn’t be better. She’s exactly what he needs to derail his own sister’s upcoming nuptials by posing as Anders’s new girlfriend so she can slip into the family circle and sabotage from within. And Anders has the kind of money Lucy can’t afford to turn down.

As they fake-date their way through family celebrations, high jinks, and secrets, Lucy and Anders are forced to confront their cynicism about marriage. Their schemes were meant for the greater good, but what if love really does conquer all?

1.

Face down, ass up, under a canopy of overgrown bushes in an unkempt corner of the Keos Resort is not how I envisioned spending my Saturday morning.

Sure, I’ve ended up in this position before—usually by choice and on a mattress rather than a patch of itchy, probably poison-ivy-infested grass. This is, pathetically, more action than I’ve had in months.

This secluded clearing is far from the manicured perfection of the main grounds. Hidden, quiet. The kind of place where people go when they don’t want to be seen—people like the couple currently sitting on a weather-worn bench beneath a stone archway, framed by climbing vines and wildflowers. I spy them through the dense shrubbery. The woman leans so close that her dark hair veils the man’s shoulder, and their legs tangle with each other.

I’m crouched below the benches, hidden, itchy, and crawling toward what may or may not be the most devastating evidence of infidelity I’ve ever captured.

I know who they are. And I know what this looks like.

James—the groom-to-be. Sammy—his best friend. And if Jennie’s gut is right, his not-so-secret lover.

Jennie, my newest client, has labeled them “the Birds.” Not because they’re sweet or whimsical, but because they call each other Sparrow and

Finch—the same names as the doomed lovers in James’s favorite French

war film. A film his fiancée, Eliza, never finished because she thought it was boring. But Sammy? Sammy knows every line by heart.

You can’t fake that kind of intimacy. And Jennie knows it.

She wrote to me just a week ago, her message panicked and personal: Eliza’s about to marry the wrong person. James is in love with someone else—Sammy. I’ve seen it in the way they look at each other when they think no one’s watching. I tried to tell her, but she thinks I’m jealous. Please, I need proof. You’re my Hail Mary.

So here I am, hiding in the bushes like a creeper.

I inch forward, knees bruising against the ground, phone angled up for the best shot I can manage. The blue satin of my dress is definitely not camo—it practically glows against the underbrush—but I’ve shoved myself under enough tangled greenery to be mostly hidden.

A branch snaps near my shoulder, sharp against skin. I bite back a curse.

I can hear murmuring, but nothing solid enough to form words. And though I would kill my fiancé if he was wrapped around a woman the way James is right now, they could still claim to just be the best of friends.

Got to get closer.

Slowly, so I don’t make too much of a rustle, I inch forward under the line of bushes, army crawling my way closer to my quarry. A light tingling crawls around the back of my neck, but I refrain from the instinct to jolt away or make any sudden movements. I’m sure most of these bugs are harmless—and really, I’d do anything for a paycheck, even risk a skin rash in the most sensitive of areas.

Wedding wrecking isn’t exactly glamorous, but it’s a job. And five months after my landlord pounded on my door for rent, I’ve learned dignity doesn’t pay the bills. At this point, I’d look into selling my plasma—well, I have looked, just haven’t quite worked up the nerve to actually go through with it yet.

I pause once I reach the final bench, and gain a better vantage point of James and Sammy. My cheek presses against the ground as I angle my phone up and start recording.

“We’re just friends,” Sammy says, her nose nearly touching James’s. “We always have been.”

James shuts his eyes like he’s in physical pain. “Just friends,” he repeats, like a prayer. “We don’t work any other way?” The last part is framed like a question, a plea. I zoom in, holding my breath as a tickle develops in my throat.

“That was the last time.” Sammy pulls her face back, but her hands grip his thighs and travel up until they reach his crotch.

Jennie, your instincts are so on point.

“We tried before, and—”

“And we almost ruined a good thing.” Sammy pulls away.

James grabs the back of her head before she can establish a distance between them. My heart pounds in my chest. I steady my hands to ensure the camera doesn’t shake.

“Wait,” he says, his eyes on her mouth. “Just one more time.” “Finch,” Sammy says, breathless.

“Tonight, while everyone is in bed. Come to my room. I’ll be alone,” James tells her. “I need this. I need you.”

This is good. A planned meetup. More opportunity to get evidence. I’d already knocked on James’s and Sammy’s hotel doors earlier—feigned confusion, pretended I’d taken a wrong turn—but no one answered. They weren’t at brunch either; the bachelor party was off getting hammered at one of the bars, blissfully oblivious. The bridal party was holed up at the spa. I even tried the obvious choreographed moves—asked the concierge with a smile, slipped the bartender a casual question while pretending to order another drink, and scanned the pool cabanas for anything suspicious—and still came up empty.

Sammy shuts her eyes, and their mouths gravitate toward each other.

Someone clears their throat. The Birds jerk away from each other, standing and placing themselves an arm’s length away.

Luckily a new voice masks the sound of my curse.

“Excuse us for interrupting,” a deep, amused voice says. “We thought this area would be unoccupied.” I only catch the tip of his nose from my angle.

“You’re not interrupting,” James says, so smoothly I would have believed him if I hadn’t witnessed what I did. There’s no heat rolling off him, and he stands with slightly slumped shoulders, no worries within him.

My throat tickles again, and I clap a hand over my mouth before a cough escapes.

“Are you thinking about changing locations for your wedding?” another man’s voice says from a body I can’t see at this angle. “We’re set for one of the ballrooms, but my future wife heard there was an Alice in Wonderland–esque plot of land and sent me to check it out.”

Another sneeze attempts to ricochet out of me, so I press my hand hard to my mouth to muffle as much sound as possible, but it’s still audible enough. James and Sammy glance my way, but the deeper voice says, “Ah, squirrels roaming around here. Not the best wedding guests.”

The cheating couple’s attention is drawn away from my hiding spot, and I’d breathe a sigh of relief if I didn’t think it’d send me into another fit of sneezing.

“We heard the same,” James says easily, “but it’s not well maintained. We’ll be off now. You two enjoy your day.” He walks away without checking for Sammy, who follows close behind.

My nerves barely settle as the two men still remain.

“He’s right,” my unknowing savior tells his companion. “There’s no way the staff can do enough maintenance here to be ready for tomorrow. Tell your fiancée she’ll have to live out her wonderland dreams another way.”

“Well, had to try,” the other voice says.

The two walk off, and I wait as long as I can, nearly suffocating myself, measuring out enough time until they’ll be too far to hear me.

Just as my throat feels as if it’ll burst, I remove my hand, and a string of sneezes erupts from me.

Goddamn it, I must be allergic to something here. Great time to figure that out.

I wait until the sneezes slow, but something crawls along the back of my thigh, leaving a pinch of pain and heat in its trail. The sneezes rack my body as I free myself from under the bush of flowers. I mutter curses in between each one, pulling myself to a stand and straightening my dress.

For me, the video is enough. But will it be for Eliza and the people who align themselves with James? Jennie’s hunch went ignored, chalked up to two close friends with a bond that is inexplicable to people outside the bubble.

When it comes to the ones we love, we often can’t see what’s right in front of our faces. A curse of feeling too much and loving too much is that your sense of logic halves itself.

If I’d learned that lesson earlier in life, I wouldn’t have racked up two failed marriages, but that’s a conversation for my therapist . . . whenever I can afford one again. I need to regroup.

A sharp pinch burns into my arm, and I swat at the insect that hitched a ride on my skin. I’ll be finding welts, like the hives already spreading across my side, for days, but it’s fine—temporary pain for something bigger.

Every job I take gets me closer to what I’ve been working toward for years: buying into Save a Paw, the shelter where I started volunteering as a teenager. The owner’s retiring soon, and I’ve got a narrow window to come up with my share before he hands it off to someone else. I can’t let that happen. I’ve pictured myself owning part of that place since I was sixteen. All these inconveniences will fade into forgotten memories soon.

First, I’ll shower and lather myself in lotion to help with the itching. Then, I’ll check the Excel grid and see where else there’s an opportunity to catch the Birds—extra evidence wouldn’t hurt. They’re meeting at night, so that’s something, but I’d like to have less risk involved. Something might happen that means they can’t meet, or whatever evidence I gather won’t be enough. I’ll try to force as many interactions as I can before the day is up.

“Should I call security?” A voice brushes over my skin, and I yelp, whirling around.

My body stalls. I stand there in shock, half because his rough five o’clock shadow and dark, windswept hair seem so out of place in the delicate richness of where we are. This resort is like a slice of heaven, and he looks like he just sauntered his way through a storm.

The other half of me freezes to admire the height, the collection of muscles, and the eyes that seem simultaneously to be blue, green, or brown—their beautiful hazel a color I’d probably have tried to buy contacts to match a decade ago. He’s not overly muscled, but not too lean either. Like he works out when he feels like it, but it’s not a priority for him. His pale shirt is loose on him, aside from his biceps, where his sleeves seem to cling, rolled up to reveal veins and a Rolex.

And then I remember I just crawled out from under a bush. And his words sink in.

“And why would you do that?” I try to straighten myself out and make it seem like I’m not doing anything wrong. There’s a chance he didn’t see me unearth myself. I’m wandering around, just like him.

I get distracted by the dimple that appears as he speaks, when he points to me and then to my previous hiding spot. “I just assumed someone hiding under a bush isn’t a guest at the resort.” His Adam’s apple bobs as he speaks, his finger back to pointing at me. “Your wig is falling off.” Shit.

I adjust the bundle of synthetic ginger curls atop my black hair as much as I can without a mirror. “Plenty of people wear wigs. Is that a problem for you?”

He raises a thick brow. “Not at all.” I realize his voice is that of my savior from earlier. “Do you have an explanation for the first part of my question?”

I make a show of looking around. “Funny, I didn’t hear any question marks.”

He tilts his head, his full lips, with a sharply pointed Cupid’s bow, pulling up. “They were more like statements, you’re right. I just thought if I said them, you’d answer.”

“Well, I’m not a mind reader. If you have a question, you should ask it.”

I blink as the scent of mango and sandalwood encircles me. “Okay, stranger, why were you hiding under the bushes?”

“I don’t know you. I don’t have to tell you anything.”

Amusement glimmers in his gaze, which travels up and down my body, and it takes all my self-control not to shift my weight or fidget. Usually, I have so much restraint over myself, but being caught like this is disorienting.

His thickly lashed eyes, the hazel that changes color depending on the way the light hits them, narrow on me. “You’re right again.” I’m sure he broke his nose during childhood, the way it crooks at an angle slightly. “But I saw you when I first walked through, and my curiosity is more than piqued.”

I’m well aware the curiosity is more about my actions than me, but the way he says it, softer, sexier, sends ripples of awareness down my spine. Suddenly, I remember just how long it’s been since I had sex, since I had a man speak to me with his gaze piercing me into place.

Just as suddenly, I realize what he said.

“If you saw me earlier, why didn’t you say anything?” I cock my head to the side. “You knew it was me sneezing, not an animal.”

“I’m no snitch,” he says, and his smile is too infectious for me not to mirror.

“Well, I’m not a threat, stranger. No need to call security, and thanks for keeping my hiding place a secret.” I step away, trying to make a break for it. He’s already seen my real hair under the wig and already has too much attention on me when I’m supposed to maintain a semblance of anonymity while wedding wrecking. After a job, if you saw me again, you might recognize me vaguely, but you’d never be able to give an accurate description to an artist. Whether I’m contouring my face, sculpting a sharper shape from my soft features, paling out my tan complexion, covering my freckles, plopping colored contacts over my brown eyes, or wearing crooked glasses, I always put in effort to look far removed from my actual appearance.

There’s only a slim chance someone will recognize me while ruining a relationship, but I prefer to make the margin even smaller. It’s not something I want my own circle of vastly more successful marketing peers and honor-roll college graduates to know about. As much as it feels good helping, wedding wrecking’s not supposed to be my forever career path; it’s just something I stumbled into five months ago, right after I lost my job.

Even though my curiosity wants me to stick around a bit, it’s better I skedaddle while I can.

He steps toward me. “I can’t even get your name?”

“I’d only give you a fake one.”

His chuckle is stormy and sexy, eliciting spots of warmth throughout my body, and the butterflies that have been long asleep flutter with anticipation. The way his appearance seems mysterious, but his eyes are alight with harmless mischief, is stimulating too many forgotten hormonal responses from me.

Love steals your logic, but lust steals your self-preservation.

“You’re only making me want to know more,” he says, his gaze traveling lazily up my body, and my legs actually buckle. All right, seriously, I’ve got to get out of here.

“Sorry,” I say, placing much-needed space between us. “Someone’s calling for me.”

Another amused sound escapes his throat. “I don’t hear anything.”

“Coming!” I shout to the sky, and with no other options, I literally and metaphorically run away, as fast as my heels can take me.

When I make it back to my room—after showering and popping some Claritin—I remove the three missed notifications from Taina, who’s house-sitting for me since I promised to check in on my neighbor’s cat while she was away before I got this job.

I open my camera roll and pull up the video I threw out my dignity for to send to Jennie.

The Birds are in center view, angled slightly toward each other, as if they’re in a romance poster. This could be it, what Jennie needs to save

Eliza. I crank up the volume, hit play, and— I rewind and try again.

I stare at the screen, the silence echoing in my skull.

My finger must have been on the speaker. The only noise is the occasional rustle of movement when I inch closer.

This isn’t good enough. I can’t send this to Jennie. It’s basically a silent film.

I drop the phone on the bed and flop onto my back, staring up at the ceiling. It might have sea glass embedded in it. Or maybe I’m hallucinating from stress and Claritin.

A pounding begins to drum behind my eyes.

This job’s already been harder than usual. The ruin is always simpler with time—it also allows me to infiltrate their bubbles more organically, instead of a last-minute insertion.

Some people want me to pretend I’m a long-lost lover. Others sneak me into the bridal (or bachelor) party to plant seeds of doubt into people’s heads. Less risk, less reward for my bank account. Others—and this is mainly because of the false advertisement my sister, Taina, wrote on the website, claiming I have experience as a private detective—want me to dig around and see if their gut feelings about cheating partners are correct. My one requirement is that I only target couples I’m certain are bad for each other—this isn’t about breaking up happy relationships.

Jennie’s request came just a week ago. Extra charge for the timeline, sure—terrible for infiltration. No cover, no invitation, so I’m just another plus-one at someone else’s wedding, poking around from the outside. Harder to get access, harder to find angles, harder to get proof.

Very little time to work with for a very big job. Regardless, I’m going to have to find that couple again tonight.

Get closer. Get cleaner footage.

With a long, dramatic sigh, I rub circles into my temples.

Some birthday weekend this has been—freshly twenty-eight, no real career, no real relationships, bug bites burning into my skin, and running around trying to prove someone’s infidelity.

My parents would be so proud.

Wedding wrecking was supposed to be temporary. A weird little pit stop before I found another marketing job—preferably one that didn’t involve a New York tech firm run by misogynistic man-children with god complexes and backhanded compliments that slowly crushed your will to live.

A job where I wouldn’t have to worry about dress codes or about the way I speak. Or being assertive, but not too much, because you’ll sound like a bitch. Taking exclamation points off emails because it’s not professional, letting men think they’re explaining a process to you that you already know how to do. Repeating the same marketing plan used for every campaign because the people in charge don’t believe in thinking outside the box when they have a perfectly good, boring box already.

But that was five months ago. And I’m still here.

Every time I think I’ve hit rock bottom, the floor rips from under me and reveals another level.

When I first stumbled upon wedding wrecking, I told myself it would be just one time. That I was helping someone; that love, real love, should survive a little scrutiny. Then I did it again. And again. And suddenly, I stopped needing to lie to myself about why. Because the truth is, people don’t get married for love. Not always. Not often.

People get married for so many reasons that have nothing to do with love. Money. Timing. Guilt. Social pressure. Because they’re scared to be alone. Because their mom likes him. Because it looks good on paper. Because they’re thirty-two and tired of dating apps. Because it’s easier than breaking up and starting from scratch.

It’s not that I don’t believe in love. I do. I have so much love in me—it’s kind of the problem.

That’s why this job makes sense.

If love is real, if it’s as rare and valuable as everyone says, then what I’m doing is a service. Stopping people who don’t really feel it from walking down the aisle anyway. Making space for something truer to find them later.

Or at least keeping them from signing a contract with someone they’re already lying to.

Or maybe I’m just trying to make myself feel better about blowing up other people’s fairy tales, because mine didn’t work out.

God, okay. That’s enough of a spiral for one night.

Needing a distraction, I dial Taina. She answers on the third ring.

“Hey, Taina.”

“Hey, Lucy.”

Her tone sucks every drop of relaxation from my body. Taina never answers the phone without greeting me as a ho or bitch or both. She once called me Slut-bucket while I was in the break room at work.

My heart starts to pound and my brain surges forward with every possible devastating scenario. Losing both my parents left an ever-present fear that the universe will come and finish the job by taking Taina away. I have to remind myself that she’s on the phone, so nothing could possibly be as earth shattering as that.

“What’s wrong?”

“I left for a few hours to meet a friend,” she begins. “Just a few hours! And then when I came back—well—I tried to stop him. I swear, I didn’t even notice the eviction notice he’d taped on the door. I even offered to pay the rent, but I guess he doesn’t trust you won’t be late again. That bastard must have been waiting until both of us left the place.”

Dread fills me, streaming from the pit of my stomach and spreading everywhere. “Taina, what are you talking about?”

“You’ve been evicted.”

Time pauses, and my heartbeat does too. “I sent him half the payment! He was supposed to let me stay.”

“I’m sorry.”

This can’t be right. He swore to me I could pay half now and the rest later. I rub my chest, and my heart starts to lose a steady rhythm. Maybe he just agreed to get what little out of me I had. And you, a grown woman, were naive enough to fall for it.

Taina says, “Whatever he didn’t trash, I’m having sent to my place.” Muffled, distant, she says to someone else, “Fuck you; my husband will sue you for all you have, you absolute asshole. You’re lucky I don’t shove those keys down your wrinkled-ass throat, you lizard-looking bastard.”

God, I can’t even bring myself to ask what she managed to keep. Everything, everything in there was from our parents. I didn’t get rid of a single thing after their death. Almost everything they ever owned is in storage or in Taina’s basement, but the rest, the best stuff, was in my apartment.

With me, so I could feel them every day. So it wouldn’t feel like they were in an unreachable place. So I wouldn’t be alone.

“It’s a blessing in disguise,” Taina says in my ear, focus back on me. “You’ll be more secure with me, and we can see each other more. Your place was at risk of falling apart any moment anyway. This is exciting!” Again, muffled, to someone else. “Fuck you.”

I love my little sister, but God I don’t enjoy her voice very much right now. No way I would turn a miserable moment for her into a silver lining, not until she’s had the proper time to process. It’s been thirty seconds. I deserve at least sixty.

I turn off my phone. I close my eyes and try to breathe through my nose. Try to be calm. I hate being upset. Really, being sad is the worst. Your stomach feels raw and filled with rock salt and your eyes swell until keeping them open creates this headache, like a woodpecker is stuck behind them.

My hands grip my phone so hard I’m surprised it doesn’t crack. I take another breath and it turns into a sob.

I pitch my phone to the other side of the room. It slams against the wall, and all I can think is, How much is that going to cost?

Damn it, damn it, damn it.

I rub my knuckles against my chest. Pressing as if it’ll stop my heart from beating so damn erratic.

I should have asked Taina what she managed to save. Now I’ll just think all the best stuff is gone. The Wall of Memories. Our family dog’s ashes. Dad’s favorite baseball glove. Mom’s go-to pot for rice. I need it all. It’s like glue linking me to them. A direct connection whenever I need them.

Evicted and jobless. But I can’t think about that now . . . I have a wedding to wreck.

Text copyright © 2026 by Elba Luz. All rights reserved.

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Intrigued? Read on to discover the synopsis and an excerpt from A Plagued Sea by Kim Bo-Young, which releases on August 11th 2026.

While waiting for a train to Haewon, an isolated Korean seaside village, bodyguard Mu-young gets a disaster alert on her phone. TVs throughout the station report breaking news of a massive earthquake on the eastern coast. Despite the danger, Mu-young boards the train with her niece: she’d rather face the earthquake than leave the girl in her mother’s care. That choice haunts her for the rest of her life.

Three years later, Haewon Village is home to horrors. The earthquake unleashed an ancient plague that transforms its victims into fishy monsters, and the government’s lockdown has cut off any hope for help. Mu-young’s niece is dead, and all that’s left for her is to hunt villagers who break isolation. When an officious bureaucrat from Seoul arrives in the village, he stirs up even deeper trouble. Will Mu-young survive? Does she even deserve to?

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Intrigued? Read on to discover the synopsis and an excerpt from The Roman Holiday Rule by Andra Loy, which releases on August 4th 2026.

Lexi Walker has finally committed to the Italian adventure that she and her late mother dreamed of for years–complete with a meticulously crafted itinerary, four sealed letters to open at Rome’s most iconic sites, and her mother’s final painting to present at the art festival Lexi is helping organize. She’s ready for the perfect Roman getaway. What she doesn’t expect is for her mother’s artwork to start manifesting in real life, turning her carefully planned trip into something unpredictable.

Italian-American architect Mark Russo has sworn off American tourists after having his heart broken, and he’s certainly not about to let another one distract him from winning the restoration bid that could reunite his estranged father with his grandfather. But when the captivating woman next to him on the flight to Rome proposes a photography challenge–whoever captures the heart of Italy in seven days wins–Mark can’t resist the bet or her charm.

As Lexi follows the letters from her mother around the city, she encounters Mark everywhere she goes. Their competitive banter turns to undeniable chemistry, but they both know the cardinal rule of holiday romances. Will a little magic–and a lot of mishaps–break the Roman Holiday Rule?

EXCERPT

Seventeen
Lexi

That evening, walking down narrow, tourist­flooded streets lined with shops and restaurants, I keep fingering the chain around my neck, unused to its emptiness.

Halfway to the restaurant, my phone rings. That must be Julie, since I didn’t get a chance to call her yesterday when I landed. Without looking at the number, I answer, pausing in the orange glow of a lit, wrought-iron sconce.

“Sorry, I was going to call tonight.”

“Flattered, but this is urgent,” a gravelly, amused male voice says.

I pull the phone away from my ear and scowl at the number. Mark. I don’t even try to stop the “ugh” that comes out of my mouth, because that tiny flutter in my stomach at his voice is super inconvenient, misplaced, and confusing. “I thought you were my best friend.”

“I get that a lot.”

I snort, then grit my teeth. He’s not funny. I only semi­laughed because of the delirium of jet lag.

“Are you at your hotel?”

“No, I’m headed to a restaurant. Why?” I turn down the next street and gasp. Massive, ancient columns line the front of a building. From my research I remember it’s Hadrian’s Temple, but I didn’t expect it to be so . . . imposing. This is on the schedule in a few days, so I keep walking.

“The airline dropped a suitcase off at my place while I wasn’t there, except it’s yours.”

“What? You have my luggage?”

He chuckles. “Well, I don’t have twenty pairs of shoes.”

I stop. If he were here, I’d slay him with eye daggers. “You went through my suitcase?” Apparently for Mark, three backup pairs of shoes, including sandals, is an uncountably high number. And here I thought architects were math-y.

“No, that was a joke.” He growls, and I can visualize him pinching the bridge of his nose like he did on the airplane. “Please tell me you have mine so we don’t have to wait for the airline to fix this.”

I’m caught on the fact Mark made another joke. He has an odd sense of enemy behavior.

“I won’t be at the hotel until after dinner.”

“Okay, call me when you’re there.”

I hang up before I say something I regret, like how annoying it is that in a city this size, I can’t get any peace from him or that for some inexplicable reason, it was nice to hear his voice.

It’s not until my bowl of pasta on the red plaid oilcloth is half eaten that I can spare a thought for anything but this meal. The freshly made pasta and homemade sauce with chunks of bacon­like meat they call guanciale is heaven. The recipe is a family secret—I asked.

I may already have the answer to the bet. This meal could be the heart of Italy. It’s definitely the heart of my mouth.

At this early hour, there’s not a soul but me in the dining room, so I prop my phone against my glass and video call Julie.

She opens with, “It’s about time!” and pops a potato chip into her mouth. She’s on a busy New York City street, and with her bright orange glasses and a matching chunky necklace not many people could pull off with success, she looks right at home. “You’ve been on the ground for a full day. What part of ‘let me know when you get in’ was confusing?”

I laugh. “Like you weren’t tracking my flights.”

She points a chip at the camera. “Touché. So what’s this message about the reception program? It didn’t make any sense.”

“Did you switch the design graphics on the reception program?”

Julie screws up her face and checks both ways at a crosswalk. “No. Why would I do that? I loved what we came up with.”

“That cityscape isn’t what got printed. Look.” I pull out the program and my mom’s Trevi Fountain envelope, holding them both up in front of the camera. She’s pored over those unopened envelopes with me for the past year, so her reaction is as strong as mine was.

She stops and squints at her phone screen, eyes darting between the two papers. Someone honks, and she starts moving again. “Whoa. That’s uncanny.”

“Strange, right? And then this morning, a hawker tried to sell me this exact arrangement.” I point at the watercolor bouquet on the seat of the boat below the hot air balloons.

She shivers, eyes wide. “You just blew my mind for a second. But I’m sure there’s an explanation. That combination of flowers isn’t unusual, so it’s not wild that more than one person thought to arrange it like that. Freaky, but not impossible. Ask Gia.”

She’s right. It’s bizarre, but it’s not like something fantastical is going on.

“So how’d you spend your first day? What’s the big plan this evening?”

I panorama the phone around the out­of­the­way, family­owned pasta joint with four items on the menu. The walls are cluttered with mismatched knickknacks on shelves and tiny framed photos of family.

“Okay, nothing special.” Julie shrugs. “Not jealous yet.”

“That’s because you’re not eating this.” I fork another bite of fettuccine into my mouth, humming with pleasure again, like I have with every single bite. Up until now, al dente was a cute cultural anecdote, not a way of living. Whatever I’ve been eating for years labeled as pasta was . . . not.

I catch her up on the flights, yesterday’s reception, and today’s events, lingering over my final bites. Not only to savor the buttery noodles and garlicky tomato sauce, but savoring the fact that Mark is waiting.

(Let’s not analyze if that delicious bubble of anticipation means ha, I’m making him wait, or mmm, I’ll see him again. My pasta coma is confusing all my body signals.)

“So you’re heading back to your hotel for the evening because this guy needs his suitcase?”

“I need my suitcase, Julie. All those outfits are coordinated with the ten­day forecast and my scheduled activities.” And my festival skirt is irreplaceable. Vintage, from my mom’s time in Rome.

“Dire,” she deadpans, and I laugh, because she would not be fine without her whole arsenal of fashion choices.

“Speaking of clothes, how’s the shopping trip going?”

She fills me in and gushes with anticipation at the Broadway show she’s got lined up for this evening, then we disconnect. I’m glad we closed the office this week, or I’d be tempted to help her remotely with the workload. Instead, our conversation has left me even more focused on following through with my plans here, more determined to power through this Mark-suitcase wrinkle.

I walk the two blocks back to my historic hotel building. Sure enough, a suitcase that isn’t mine sits on the far side of the lobby near the receptionist’s desk. I dial Mark’s number, giving the suitcase a light kick with my shoe, and he answers on the first ring.

“Is your luggage a tan hard case with a wonky wheel?” Honestly, it must be his because that’s pretty much how I’d describe him. Like man, like suitcase. (I’m using the wonky wheel as a metaphor for his weird sense of hu—for his unwelcome opinions.)

He lets out a long breath. “Yeah, that’s the one. I’ll come by with yours. Unless you want to do the switch in a dark alley like a spaghetti Western?”

See? Wonky wheel. He wants the helpless tourist scared out of her mind. Possibly lost. Whatever it’ll take to make me run home to Boston.

After he tells me he’s on his way, I google his address since I still remember it from the luggage forms. It’s only three blocks from here, and he said earlier this was urgent, so I wait with it downstairs, settling on the couch since the bar­restaurant off the lobby closes early on Sunday evenings.

Sixty­one minutes later, my neck starts to heat, and I clench my teeth. I’m wasting my evening when he could have been here in five minutes—it’s not the point that I’m exhausted and content to be scrolling my phone in the deserted lobby. He probably thinks a tourist stuck in her hotel is one less tourist making a mess in his city.

Finally, he opens the hotel door. I stand, glaring across the space at him. He must feel my annoyance from his side of the room because he whistles the opening measures of the soundtrack to The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. We face off, eyes narrowed.

He pushes my wheeled suitcase across the wood floor toward me, like this is a hostage exchange at an abandoned mine. So I shove his suitcase to him.

I hold my breath—the suitcases are barreling along, set to pass about a foot apart. At the last second, the crooked wheel sticks, throwing it off course. His suitcase tackles mine, bringing them both to the floor in a heap.

On accident, my exhale comes out as a laugh. We meet at the crime scene in the middle of the lobby.

“Thanks for bringing it over,” I say. It’s a type of conversational hustle. Start positive, then zing. “Did you get lost?”

“No.” The word lingers.

“Was the suitcase too heavy to manage?”

“No, why?” He frowns.

“Just trying to work out why it took you over an hour to walk three blocks.”

He lifts an eyebrow. “You memorized my address?” His voice is carefully neutral, but there’s an intense question in his eyes.

“You took my phone number. And you’re deflecting.” I fold my arms.

“I was at dinner across town.” He’s looking at me, as focused as he was at the airport, and his stormy expression does something uncomfortable to my stomach. “I left before dessert.” He pulls a small package wrapped in wax paper out of his bag and passes it to me. “My grandma sent you one of her homemade cannoli Siciliani.”

A sigh slips out until I’m drained of annoyance, leaving me empty. Cannoli are my favorite dessert. Mom and I ordered them in Boston’s North End every month when I was a kid.

I stare at the wrapped cannolo, precious, fragile, and sweet. I will have to eat it alone. This moment is what I was most afraid of in coming to Italy, why I tried to plan my time here within an inch of its life. But there’s no way to prepare for the crippling loneliness and loss when it hits in the form of a single cannolo.

Mom’s letters left a piece of her with me, kept her memory alive in every second I wondered what she had to say to me. What am I going to do after Italy, when all the letters are opened, when she’s still gone and there’s nothing left?

“Please tell your grandma thank you.” My voice cracks on the words. I take the pastry and focus on the luggage. “So how did you know that one belonged to me?”

He sets my navy suitcase upright and fingers the scrap of turquoise fabric tied around the handle. “I noticed you with it at check­in.”

My mouth opens but nothing comes out. Before he found my passport, which disappeared so suspiciously? “Was I a mark?”

I expect a flippant pun about him being the Mark here.

He shoots me a quick look I can’t read. “The airline lady at the counter was having a rotten day and you made her laugh. She was much more pleasant with the rest of us than all the people in line before you. That’s all.”

I was not prepared for that honesty. It’ll take an hour of processing to know how to respond. At least.

He yanks the handle of his suitcase and heads for the door. “Bye, Lexington.”

My hand clenches, crinkling the cannolo’s wax paper. He keeps using that name. It’s too personal and tender for someone who wishes I was a continent away.

“It’s Lexi,” I remind him, but he’s already out the door.

Content taken from The Roman Holiday Rule by Andra Loy, ©2026. Used by permission of Haven Fiction.

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Well, I am happy to report, I had nothing to worry about. Arcanjo managed to create another world and a cast of characters that feel just as fascinating as his first series.

Let’s get into it.

In Beast Mode: The Animal Awakens, we follow four characters who are gifted with the power to transform into different animals—they just don’t know how they got them. Without their memories, this thrown-together group of street-smart teens is forced into a deadly fight for survival as dark secrets, betrayals, and a dangerous conspiracy threaten them at every turn, all while trying to piece together what they’ve lost.

There are so many plot strings in Beast Mode that manage to come together beautifully without overwhelming the reader.

The mystery surrounding this group of friends and their ability to shift into different animals was the perfect set-up for a magical page-turner of a book. You have friends scrambling for survival, enemies hunting them down, a big mystery surrounding their memory loss and their abilities plus unlikely allies that—might not seem like allies in the beginning.

I also really liked that not everyone was happy about their magical abilities, cool as they may be. While Blue unequivocally loves being able to shift, Ember is desperately seeking for a cure to their dilemma. It made for some delicious tension between the friends as some are trying to find the truth just to make the puzzle pieces fit together while others don’t want to understand so much as revert their magical abilities—and go to different lengths to get what they want.

The stakes couldn’t be higher as the group tries to figure out who they were before their memory loss as they are hunted down by people who definitely do not want to help them.

Stories where you are figuring out what happened together with the characters can sometimes be frustrating if not done right, but Arcanjo absolutely nailed it here when it comes to pacing and unraveling the mystery. While Beast Mode had me in its grips from the first chapter, the story really picks up nano-speed in the second half which makes you feel like one reveal is catalyzed by the next, no moment of rest or boredom to be found. It makes for that perfect “okay, just one more chapter” feeling and makes you feel even more connected to Caine, Blue and Ember as you yourself learn the truth about shifters and how they came to be alongside them.

The shifter aspect brought that extra level of intrigue to the story. I love how Ember, Blue and Caine were already thick as thieves but then slowly opened up to Sal when they were flung together as she unraveled her own shifter animal. Their friendship might have been based on being thrown together by invisible forces but the way they support and care for each other made me smile even when the going got tough. There’s also another animal that may just be my favorite of the whole story, but I won’t spoil that part. Let’s just say Arcanjo sure knows how to keep readers on their toes.

And speaking of, Arcanjo, as always, knows to pull at the heartstrings. Without spoiling too much, as the group of friends recover some of their memories and face betrayal in more than one instance, you can’t help but feel for them. Caine’s story, especially, makes you wonder if some memories are best left buried whereas others like Ember’s truly show how often we underestimate our own power and skills. Despite the bleak moments in Beast Mode, there’s always that thread of friendship and empowerment that reminds you how important it is to surround yourself with people who care about you.

Really, the only small nitpick I have is that there were quite a few moments in Beast Mode that were just dumping info on the reader, especially when it came to the origins of the shifters instead of gradually introducing it. The holders of knowledge, and in most cases, the villains often fall into monologues about their motivations and the history of it all that goes on for pages and younger readers might struggle a tad to stay invested.

Nevertheless, Beast Mode: The Animal Awakens has me in its talons and I am eagerly awaiting the opportunity to reunite with Ember, Blue, Caine and Sal in the sequel!

Beast Mode: The Animal Awakens is the perfect read for anyone looking for a fast-paced, high-stakes adventure with unexpected twists, a quirky cast of unlikely friends and a mystery that keeps you on your toes!

Beast Mode: The Animal Awakens is available from Bookshop.org, Waterstones, and other good book retailers, like your local bookstore, as of July 30th 2026.

Will you be picking up Beast Mode: The Animal Awakens? Tell us in the comments below!

Synopsis

A brand-new, action-packed series from the author of Crookhaven, following a group of street-smart kids who have the extraordinary ability to shapeshift into powerful animals. For fans of X-Men and A. F. Steadman.

A group of young, street-smart kids with a dark secret – the ability to transform into powerful animals – must navigate a dangerous world where their extraordinary abilities are both a blessing and a curse.

As they unravel the mysteries of their past and how they came to be shapeshifters, they’ll face life-threatening challenges, betrayals, and an organisation that seeks to harness their power for evil.

It’s time to unleash your inner animal…

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