Intrigued? Read on to discover the synopsis and an excerpt from Too Cold for Comfort by Nisha J. Tuli, which releases on November 10th 2026.

Photographer Aadya Williams has trekked all the way to northern Canada to nab a career-making shot of a polar bear … and to put 1,500 miles between her and a messy breakup. Despite expecting freezing temperatures, nothing’s colder than the welcome she gets from Reid Doerksen, the gruff owner of the Northern Wilderness Polar Bear Lodge. Even worse, the lodge is overbooked, so now she has to share the private family wing with him for the next two weeks.

At least Aadya has plenty to keep her occupied when she’s not out searching for the perfect photo op. But when a storm strands Aadya and Reid together at the lodge, it’s impossible to avoid the heat simmering between them. As the snow comes down, so do Reid’s walls, and Aadya begins to realize the most important shot of her life may not be one she takes with her camera.

EXCERPT

Chapter 1

My breath catches as the Twin Otter hits the solitary runway with a lurch, engines whirring as the roar of the wind envelops us like we’ve just ripped through Velcro. The tiny aircraft hurtles along the pockmarked pavement, wings tipping and tilting before slowing down and coming to a gentle stop.

I peer out the small oval window, taking in miles of blank white tundra rolling in every direction, like a painter’s canvas, ready for its first dip of color. But spring is ages away, and this landscape will remain mostly unchanged for the next six months.

At first, it would be easy to think there’s nothing out here. Just snow and rocks and spindly trees, and you’d mostly be right as long as you don’t count the thousand-pound mammal covered in white fur that’s now regarding me and my fellow passengers with a pair of curious black eyes.

He definitely counts.

“Folks, we’ll have to wait this out,” our pilot, Andy, says, slinging an elbow over his seat and smiling at us like a polar bear blocking our way is the most normal thing in the world.

He looks exactly like a bush pilot who lives at the edge of nowhere should. A thick reddish beard that’s due for a trim, sun-kissed skin with freckles bridging his nose, and one of those plaid hats with the floppy things that go over the ears, lined with sheepskin, of course.

I’ll say this for northern Canada—they’ve got their branding down pat.

Andy sports only a thick plaid jacket, suggesting a seasoned immunity to the cold. Conversely, the plane’s other six passengers and I are bundled into thick parkas with fur-trimmed hoods.

Andy scratches his chin and wrinkles his nose, watching the polar bear watch us. “Hopefully, Hector won’t hang around long.”

The bear’s expression seems to suggest we’ve very rudely interrupted his afternoon nap.

Meredith and Wesley, an elderly white couple from New Zealand, occupy the two seats in front of me and have their faces pressed to the window. We met in Churchill’s tiny airport before we boarded the half-hour flight to the middle of nowhere.

Meredith picks up the iPad on her lap, flips open the case, then holds the tablet up with one hand while trying to keep it steady enough to snap a clear picture with the other.

The passengers on the far side of the plane have unbuckled their seatbelts and are now leaning over the aisle, trying to get a better look at the bear. I also release mine with a click and twist to face the window.

Unsurprisingly, Hector is massive. He’s all bulk with limbs like tree trunks, a giant round butt, and paws the size of dinner plates. He swings his massive head toward us and sniffs the air to the sounds of wonderous gasping at this rare glimpse of untouched nature.

“This is one of the biggest boys you’ll find wandering out here,” Andy tells us, pride in his voice. Like this monster is a blue-ribbon pet he’s lovingly raised and plans to enter in the local polar bear show.

More phones and cameras find their way out of coats and bags and are aimed through the tiny, slightly fogged airplane windows. The blonde woman leaning over me tugs off her mitten with her teeth, smacking me across the cheek.

“Ouch,” I say, rubbing the spot where the plastic toggle on the wrist caught the corner of my eye. She either doesn’t hear me or doesn’t care that I’ve been aggressively assaulted by her winter gear because all she does is lean closer, her entire body crowding my arm and shoulder and thigh. I sigh and press myself against the wall of the plane, resigned to my fate with another inconsiderate tourist of the world.

My own camera and a variety of lenses are stored safely in the bag at my feet, but a photo snapped through a hazy plastic window is not the shot I’ve traveled 1,500 miles to get.

What I need is something award-winning. Nature-channel worthy, to make women and children weep. Something that will inject a dose of life into my wilting career.

If it also proves to Christopher that my decision to choose my travel writing and photography over my relationship with him was the right one, well, then I’ll happily kill two birds with this stone. Metaphorically, of course. I respect nature in all its forms.

Wesley, the elderly man from the first couple, turns to Andy and asks, “How big do they get?”

“Anywhere around a thousand pounds and up,” Andy replies. “The females are a bit smaller. If we’re lucky, we might see a mom and her cubs this week, but they won’t be anywhere close right now. The males see the babies as tender little appetizers, so the moms avoid them after giving birth. ”

A round of gasps circles the cabin while the woman pressed against me straightens up, relieving the pressure on my internal organs. I inhale a gusty breath, glaring at her, but she still doesn’t acknowledge my existence.

“How long is this going to take?” the woman asks, framing it as a question that sounds more like a demand. I roll my eyes. There are two types of people in the world. Those who understand the wild can’t be poked or prodded into compliance. That nature doesn’t live by our rigid, man-made rules or schedules. And those who want to experience the wilderness but don’t actually want to be inconvenienced by the wilderness.

After going on dozens of these trips, I know there’s always one. Usually more. And I can already tell this lady is going to be their ringleader.

“As long as it takes,” Andy says with a wink that could be called rakish if we were starring in a Regency period drama. This guy is the perfect type for this job. Calm. Cool. Collected. Fazed by almost nothing. Even Karens in overstuffed Gore-Tex who would like a word with the manager. She huffs and drops back into her seat across the aisle.

“Steve, tell me when something interesting happens,” she says to the man seated in front of her, who I presume is her husband. She digs into her pyramid scheme–brand backpack, pulling out a domestic thriller in which the fed-up female protagonist plots to murder her philandering husband and get away with it.

“Yes, my bride,” Steve says with what sounds like several decades of threadbare weariness.

In front of them sit two other women, probably in their mid-thirties, a few years older than me. One holds up an expensive camera and points it at the window. She has pale white skin and short, straight blonde hair cut in a bob. After snapping a photo, she frowns while checking the screen on the back of her camera, probably realizing this isn’t the ideal vantage for photos.

“Get a few with your phone, Erica,” she says to the other woman, who has deep brown skin and corkscrew curls pulled into a high knot on top of her head.

Erica pulls her phone from the chest pocket of her navy Canada Goose parka and aims it at Hector. “We’ll get more later,” she says before pecking the blonde woman on her cheek. “We can’t leave until you make full use of that ridiculous thing. It’ll be the only way to get our money’s worth.” Her words are pointed, but there’s affection in her tone. The other woman grins and goes back to fiddling with the buttons and knobs on her camera.

I turn to the window to find Hector, who’s still watching us through lowered eyelids like he can’t quite figure out what we’re doing on his runway. Fair enough, dude. I’d be annoyed if these people dropped into my bedroom too.

He settles his giant furry butt onto the tarmac and then raises an eyebrow that suggests he isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.

Andy huffs out a noise of frustration and cranks open the window on his side of the plane. “Go on, Hector. Get outta here.”

Hector shifts his black eyes to Andy, regarding him haughtily for a brief moment before they slide closed again. Dismissed.

“Wake him up,” the Karen says, looking up from her book. “I didn’t spend so much money to sit in a tin can all day!”

Andy grins, sloughing off her ire like a phoenix from the ashes. “Patience…what’s the name?”

“I’m Stacy,” she snaps.

“Stacy,” Andy says, rubbing his hands. “This is the wilderness. The great outdoors. The thing you really paid for. Mother Nature is the boss out here, and she doesn’t move to anyone’s clock.”

Stacy narrows her eyes, and even I can feel the stinging heat of her wrath. But Andy is only a red-blooded human, and his smile finally slips before he spins around to grab the airplane radio. “Okay then, let’s see if we can get another bear guide out here to shift old Hector, shall we?”

He gets on the radio, mumbling something against the crackle of the line. It’s impossible to decipher everything he’s saying, but it sounds a lot like “unhappy” and “get out here,” and I swear I’m not imagining it when he says “Karen.”

I cover my mouth, stifling a laugh. Stacy shoots me a dirty look, finally noticing me, I guess.

While everyone watches Hector, we wait a few minutes before we hear the roar of a quad flying at breakneck speed from the opposite direction. A man with short black hair and medium-brown skin, swathed in a bright red parka, straddles the machine and brings it to a skidding halt just short of the plane. He hops off and slings a silver rifle over his shoulder before circling around to the other side of the aircraft.

“Like me, Sandeep here is a trained bear guide,” Andy tells us. “The guns are for our protection, but in twenty-five years of operation, the Northern Wilderness Polar Bear Lodge has never had to fire a single shot, thanks to our extensive preventative measures. When approached correctly, there’s no reason for the bears to turn on us. We do everything we can to ensure their preservation and protection. Nature is to be respected out here, not tamed, and certainly not controlled.”

His gaze flicks to Stacy for a fraction of a second, and it’s clear where he’s directing that final statement.

Sandeep rounds the plane and approaches Hector slowly while keeping his distance. It’s obvious he’s relatively comfortable around the bear, despite the fact that it could likely squish his head with its enormous jaws.

Hector perks up, looking at Sandeep like a puppy who’s just heard the key in the front door. Sandeep reaches down, picks up two palm-sized rocks, and clicks them together.

We’re all watching so intently that the windows begin to fog with our breath.

Steve, Stacy’s partner, makes a scoffing noise, folding his arms awkwardly thanks to the bulk of his puffy coat. “What is he doing? He’s planning to scare him off with a couple of rocks? That’s ridiculous.”

Andy grins and gives Steve what I’m coming to decide is his signature wink before Hector suddenly heaves himself onto his enormous paws. He stretches out, a ripple running over the hairs on his back, then he yawns, his giant snout opening to reveal a set of sharp white teeth. Everyone starts gasping, murmuring, snapping photos at light speed.

Hector flicks his head as if waving “see you later” before he turns around and pads away.

Steve blinks, his mouth dropping open and his face turning red.

“I guess these guys know what they’re doing,” I say. He pins me with a frown, a deep line forming between his eyebrows that I sense has been thoroughly worn, thanks to Stacy.

Sandeep is talking into the radio secured to his shoulder, and a few moments later, two large vans trundle over the horizon like a pair of white horses here to deliver us to our castle.

“Okay, everyone out!” Andy says. “It’s just a short walk to the lodge.”

“Walk?” Stacy asks, wrinkling her nose. “Why can’t we take the vans?”

“That’s for your luggage. Don’t worry—the fresh air will do us all some good.”

Stacy harrumphs, her pink cheeks puffing out, clearly not buying that shit for a second.

The main door to the plane swings open, and Erica and her partner are the first two to exit, followed by Meredith and Wesley. Steve leaps out, not waiting for his wife, and Stacy finally scoots out of her seat, grabbing her bag and stuffing her book into a pocket.

“Steve! Where are you going? Wait for me!”

I dig out my bag from under the seat and hop off the plane, my boots striking the pavement, before I inhale a deep breath of fresh air. I close my eyes while the cold breeze kisses my cheeks, and I embrace the stillness of my surroundings. Immediately, my shoulders relax, and the tight knot of anxiety I’ve been carting around since I fled New York three days ago eases from the center of my chest.

It was a long journey that included a flight from LaGuardia, with a layover in Montreal, to the city of Winnipeg, in the province of Manitoba. There, I boarded a train for a forty-eight-hour ride through mostly unpopulated prairie and boreal forest to the small, coastal town of Churchill, known as the polar bear capital of the world. Nestled on the southwestern shore of Hudson Bay, it boasts a population of a mere nine hundred residents, who welcome visitors from dozens of countries every summer and fall, thanks to its proximity to some of the best wildlife viewing in the world.

A moment later, Stacy shatters the silence, yelling at Steve in the too-near distance. He marches a few steps in front of her, his head down and his collar turned up, while she trots behind him with her backpack bouncing from an elbow.

Heaving my camera bag over my shoulder, I trudge behind the group, staring up at the clear sky. It’s a pale blue streaked with gentle whisps of clouds, like puffs of locomotive smoke. A bird screeches in the distance, its cry both beautiful and mournful, and I absorb another cleansing breath into my lungs.

I’m so relieved to be away from the city for the next twelve days. I was suffocating there. My skin felt too tight between Christopher and my mother, and the constant noise. Like I’d been stuffed into a pair of wrong-size pantyhose and couldn’t yank and pull them in the right direction to stop them from pinching.

I once craved the bustle of the city, but it’s beginning to feel more and more like living in a cardboard box without holes to let in air or light. When this assignment came up, it was an answer to a wish I’d forgotten to make.

While I’m terribly sorry Barry Ferguson tripped and fractured his fibula on the Spanish Steps, he can have one of the next life-changing assignments reserved mostly for the elder millennial and middle-aged white dudes.

Before making it official, my editor, Grant, was sure to mansplain everything about this trip and the story and photos he wanted in great detail—as if I haven’t done this a hundred times before. Though truthfully, it has been awhile.

I catch up to the group and pass Stacy and Steve, who are busy bickering. Or rather, she’s doing the bickering, and Steve just looks like he wants to die.

As we crest the gentle slope, I catch my first sight of the lodge up ahead. It’s bigger than I thought, based on the photos I looked up online. It sprawls out in all directions, crawling along the flat landscape of the taiga, where we’re currently standing. I learned this from my research. We aren’t technically in the tundra this far north; we’re just south of it, in a subarctic area known as the taiga. But most people tend to refer to it as the tundra anyway.

Mansplain that, Grant.

The lodge is made entirely of different shades of wood, with peaked roofs and decorated gables. Smooth stones inset along the bottom half give it that rustic aesthetic. I read that since there are no roads this far north, everything had to be trundled in on huge vehicles with treads like tanks instead of wheels. I can’t imagine what a feat of planning and organization that must have been.

A high chain-link fence surrounds the entire building, giving it the slightly menacing air of a prison compound, except for the fact that I know the lodge inside embodies the very best in top-notch luxury.

The fence is to keep the bears out, not the inmates in.

We arrive at the gate, and Erica and her partner enter first, followed by Meredith and Wesley.

On the wide steps up to the lodge stands a white man with wavy, dark brown hair that falls just past his chin. He has light grey eyes, tanned skin, and the kind of cheekbones and jawline you see in GQ magazines. A day or two of dark scruff covers his chin, and I can’t help but note the tantalizing swell of biceps and thighs encased in a light denim shirt and fitted jeans.

Rugged is the first word that comes to mind. Windswept is the second.

Hello. Who is this?

He’s absolutely fucking gorgeous. Instinctively, I start smoothing the nest of my black hair around my face, trying not to appear like I just spent the last two days traveling. Hopefully, he can’t smell me from this distance.

It seems I’ve ceased walking because I hear Stacy say, “Oh my,” as she stops and presses a hand to her chest. I’m not sure why that annoys me. I glare at her and then turn back to the man, who’s now staring at me. Except it’s definitely not with the same approving interest.

If anything, it’s more like flesh-melting lasers shooting from his eyes.

I turn around, wondering if someone else is behind me, but nope, it’s just me. When I turn back again, he’s still watching me, his arms crossed, and his forehead furrowed. Stacy is now lurching up the steps, her posture supplicating, her hand held out.

“I’m Stacy,” she says, a little breathless, and fuck, I can’t even blame her for that. He looks down at her because he’s rather tall and nods.

“I’m Reid,” he says, not deigning to shake her hand. “Welcome to the Northern Wilderness Polar Bear Lodge.”

His voice is emotionless, but Stacy doesn’t seem to notice as she nods eagerly and enters through the door that he’s now holding open. She disappears into the lodge, and then Reid turns back to me, gracing me with one more angry look before he disappears through the door and lets it slam shut with a definitive thud.

The post Read An Excerpt From ‘Too Cold for Comfort by Nisha J. Tuli appeared first on The Nerd Daily.

Intrigued? Read on to discover the synopsis and an excerpt from To Vex & To Hex by Neena Noon, which releases on November 3rd 2026.

Lucy Ansari has a magical life. Literally ― she’s a witch, managing a perfect little bookshop. And whenever she’s a little lonely, she turns to Charles ― her beloved, ageing boss ― to keep her company.

Disaster strikes when Charles breaks his hip: his prickly (and gorgeous) grandson Grayson arrives. The English professor from Dublin has never bothered to visit before, but now he’s determined to look after Charles and his bookshop, and Lucy’s ideal life is thrown into disarray.

But Grayson is as stubborn as he is handsome, and he’s set on winning Lucy over, one way or another. As sparks fly between them, Lucy and Grayson may find themselves spellbound by more than just magic…

EXCERPT

From To Vex & To Hex by Neena Noon © 2026 by the author and reprinted by permission of St. Martin’s Publishing Group.

Chapter 1

Lucy Ansari was in a terrible mood.

She did not look up to the sky to appreciate the clouds as she made her way into her car, nor did she take time to enjoy the sweet scent of baked goods wafting from the back seat. She did not fiddle with the radio, nor did she open her window to catch a breath of fresh morning air.

When she arrived on Main Street in the town of Little Brook, she only smiled politely at her neighbors; she did not ask them how they were getting on, for her mood was too foul. On any other morning, she might admire the colorful buildings, painted blue or yellow or pink.

She loved this small town, the streets jutting off Main Street, whimsically named drives like Storybook Court and Blueberry Lane. Especially, she loved it this time of the year: early November, when every storefront—not only hers—was decorated with lights or wreaths or maybe even holly, but today she could not enjoy that, either.

What else could be expected of her? It was ten in the morning, and she’d been up for hours, baking and collecting flowers from her garden for the shop. She was now in front of Crawley Books, and the door was locked of all things, a horrible, physical reminder of everything that was wrong.

She had a key, of course; she’d been working there as a manager ever since she’d graduated from college two years ago, but she’d never had cause to use it until now. The owner, Charles Crawley, had always beaten her to it.

Each morning, she would enter with her arms full of her purse, her water bottle, the baked goods, flowers, a sweater, an extra pair of socks, her lip balm, a clip, and anything else she might need, and he would always be inside, white hair neatly combed to the side, large glasses sitting on his nose. He’d already be sipping away at a cup of tea, reading a book or watering his plants, waiting for her.

“Lucy-Lu,let me help you with that,” he would say. He loved to call her Lucy-Lu, and she loved it when he did. “It’s a wonder you manage to carry all that.”

To which she would grin. At the same time, they would both say, “Magic.”

She was a witch, after all, a fact he knew well, since he was, too.

But magic couldn’t save an eighty-year-old man from slipping down the stairs and breaking his hip, so Charles had been in the hospital for the past two days, recovering from surgery.

This was her third morning without him.

The store felt empty, like a fireplace with no fire. With a sigh, Lucy carried on. The store would be opening soon, and she needed to get everything sorted before then.

With a snap of her fingers, the lights switched on, and the many fairy lights draped across the window display and shelves plugged themselves in (it took forever to do it by hand). Being a witch openly could court danger—people were always so quick to act in hatred against anyone who might be different—but because no one was around, she could use her magic freely and without worry.

With another snap, a duster began dancing across the tops of the bookshelves, brushing away the thin layer of dust settled on the wooden fixtures as she set to making her breakfast in the café section of the store.

As the espresso machine whirred to life, she pulled out one of her favorite mugs, which was shaped to resemble a knitted sock. Lucy stuck a thick slice of bread in the toaster, then made herself a brown sugar latte, inhaling the sharp smells of espresso and vanilla and sighing.

When the toast popped out with a ding, she slathered the golden bread with French butter, relishing the shining pools of melted goodness that settled into her almost-burned toast.

Between sips of her sweet coffee and bites of her delicious toast, Lucy unpacked the boxes of baked goods she’d brought in, arranging them handsomely in the display case. Everything was warm and fresh: the cardamom buns, the butter pecan chocolate chip cookies, the pumpkin scones, the ramekins of apple crumble she would reheat and top with ice cream before serving.

Lucy reached for a pumpkin scone, but her hand froze midway. It didn’t feel right to sneak an early morning treat without Charles there to share it with her. His sweet tooth was worse than hers, and she loved seeing him savor her treats, the way he’d close his eyes in bliss, the wrinkles on his face shifting with enjoyment as he smiled.

The fact that he wasn’t here made her frown, and so she slid the display door shut with a snap, hand empty.

Unease rippled through her as she thought of Charles alone in the hospital. It reminded her of the terrifying moment when Charles had called three days earlier to inform her not only that he was in the hospital, but that he had slipped and fallen down the stairs in his home. An ambulance had brought him to the hospital soon after, and he’d had hip surgery.

So much had happened, and she hadn’t even known until it was all over. When Lucy had arrived at the hospital, the first thing she did after seeing Charles was ask the receptionist why she hadn’t been called as soon as he’d been admitted.

“What’s your name?” the receptionist had asked, looking at her computer.

“Lucy Ansari,” Lucy had replied.

“I don’t see your name here,” the receptionist had said. “Looks like his emergency contact is Grayson Crawley.”

Her vision had gone red. Charles’s useless, absent grandson—a man who couldn’t even be bothered to show up to his own grandmother’s funeral—had no business being Charles’s emergency contact.

From To Vex & To Hex by Neena Noon © 2026 by the author and reprinted by permission of St. Martin’s Publishing Group.

The post Read An Excerpt From ‘To Vex & To Hex’ by Neena Noon appeared first on The Nerd Daily.

EXCERPT

CHAPTER ONE from THE OTHER SIDE OF STARTING OVER by Mara Williams, courtesy of Lake Union Publishing

When I fling the door open, I expect the scent of home to hit me like an unsealed memory capsule—wood varnish, leather, dusty pages, and Dad. Instead, the store smells surprisingly clean, with an unfamiliar note of citrus.

“Bea.” Dad’s voice booms through the shop, rattling a mid-century cherry cabinet filled with Wedgwood dinnerware as he meets us by the counter. He wraps me in a hug, and I wish it would fix everything. But his arms aren’t quite as strong as they once were, and my problems aren’t nearly as simple.

“I thought I’d start a day early and shadow you this afternoon.” It’s been a while, but not much has changed, which is exactly why they need me. I took Jake’s business from a hustle to our meal ticket, without changing the family-owned charm. I plan to do that here, too.

“Tuesdays are slow. We were about to head out.” Dad holds my shoulders in his hands. I sense him scanning me for emotional wounds, and I smile and let him because he won’t find any. My mask is impenetrable.

“Is that my darling Bumblebee?”

I turn to catch Gigi padding toward me, her cane banging against the parquet floor.

She gathers me to her and pats my cheeks with smooth palms, drawing my focus down to her shrinking frame. She’s swimming in a Giants jersey, her face hidden under a matching baseball cap.

“I didn’t know you’d be here.” I draw her into a gentle hug, but she puts her whole body into it, knocking me off balance.

“They do let me out sometimes. It’s assisted living, not prison,” Gigi grumbles. “Besides, the boys are playing at five.”

By the boys, I’m assuming she means baseball. The Giants moved to San Francisco from New York the same year Gigi married my grandfather and moved out west. A year later, my grandparents opened this shop on opening day of the Giants’ first season in California. She calls the team her kindred spirit; a good season is a harbinger of blessings to come, a bad season a warning of calamity. They won the World Series the year the twins were born, and again a few years later, but they haven’t been good in a while.

“She likes to watch the games at our house,” Mom says.

“She gets in trouble for swearing at the television in the common room,” Dad says.

“Those old people are a bunch of squeamish little ninnies,” says Gigi.

“Be careful with that foul mouth. There are kids living at Mom and Dad’s now,” I tease.

“Ah.” Gigi waves her hand in the air. “It’ll be good for them to expand their vocabularies. Every kid needs some good curse words to vanquish their bullies.”

It certainly was her approach when I was a kid. I’m not sure it turned out great for me when I was sent to the principal’s office for calling Shane Weasley “Shitnugget Weaseldick” before punching him in the nose. But the bully who’d made fourth grade a living hell never bothered me again.

My gaze catches on a large figure emerging from our warehouse, dressed in black and crouching through a narrow aisle. I turn toward him, on alert, even though Suncrest is too sleepy for a burglary in broad daylight.

“Hello?” I step out of Gigi’s arms and bypass a Chesterfield sofa before making a beeline toward the oil paintings in the far alcove. “Hello?” I call out again before pulling up short when I witness Mom, Dad, and Gigi staring at me in confusion.

I panic that I might be hallucinating again before the man appears above a row of crystal, standing to his full height and propelling me backward. He looks like a villain from an action flick, menacing and muscular, with deep-set dark eyes and a thick head of black hair. I bump into a display of silver tea sets, and the metallic clang finally attracts his attention. He removes an AirPod and blinks once.

“I’m sorry, ma’am. Can I help you?”

Ma’am? At least I know I’m not imagining him, because I would never conjure that ageist slur on purpose.

“Bea.” Mom comes to my side, rebalancing the silver. “This is Simon. Remember, we told you about him? And, Simon, this is our daughter, Beatrice.”

When Mom and Dad mentioned they hired Simon to help with the shop last year, I didn’t picture this beast of a man. Simon is an old and new-again name, so I assumed he was an elderly gentleman with wire-framed glasses and narrow shoulders, or a studious teen who wanted to earn some extra cash. Nobody with a name like Simon should look like he could hoist that Chesterfield sofa onto his shoulders and trample me in the process.

“Simon.” I taste the sound on my tongue. “I’ve never met anyone in our generation named Simon.”

“Can’t say I’ve met a Beatrice of any generation.” He doesn’t look at me. Instead, he places a pencil between his teeth and holds a clipboard aloft before turning a vase upside down, squinting at the tag. Maybe he needs a pair of wire-rimmed glasses after all, although they’d look ridiculous on his broad face.

“I’ll be starting here full-time tomorrow.” I watch that pencil as if it’s being violated, Simon’s incisors holding it steady while his full bottom lip protrudes outward in a little pout.

“Paul mentioned that,” he mumbles around the pencil before pulling it out and marking something on his clipboard. “I set some time aside to show you around.”

Show me around? I grew up in this shop. I held a lemonade stand outside the storefront, played hide-and-seek in the aisles, greeted customers by name before I could spell my own, and spent every summer sweating behind the front desk before we had air-conditioning installed.

“That won’t be necessary,” I say.

Simon shrugs and ducks, sorting through a collection of cut glass bowls. He furrows his thick brows and bites on the pencil again, this time with both rows of teeth piercing the soft wood. His black hair flops onto his forehead before he flicks it aside.

Dad appears on my right, fiddling with the catch on a curio cabinet storing porcelain figurines. “Simon has a good eye.”

Gigi slides in beside me and says, “He’s not too bad on the eyes either.”

“Mother,” Dad scolds her, “you may not be able to hear us, but everyone can hear you.”

“Well, it’s the truth, isn’t it?” Gigi says. “Besides, I could have said something about his nice posterior, but I didn’t.”

This is why I didn’t expect Gigi to be here. My parents have limited her access to customers since her already-meager filter disintegrated to dust sometime in her eighth decade. At ninety-two, she now has zero fucks left to give, but many fucks left to say in polite company.

Simon doesn’t even flinch. He’s tuning us out and focusing on his project, not even offering a polite smile to my grandmother. To be fair, she is objectifying him, but most men find the attention of my little old granny charming. Simon, however, doesn’t seem to know what charm is. I watch his reflection, refracted through the glass shelves. He’s traveling the length of the aisle in a deep squat like a baseball catcher, even though his knees should have aged out of that position. Mine sure have.

My dad points to a pristine mahogany piece set along the far wall, uncluttered by knickknacks.

“Simon found that Hepplewhite sideboard at a garage sale we visited last spring. Paid next to nothing for it, and it’s worth thirty thousand dollars.”

“Wow.” I hope they have it insured.

“He’s taken on most of the buying,” Mom adds.

This raises my antennae. When I volunteered to move home to take over, Dad confessed that business hasn’t been great for a while. The last thing they should be doing is outsourcing inventory to a stranger. Is that why the finances are in the red—Simon’s good eye, or worse, sticky fingers? It wouldn’t be the first time my parents trusted the wrong employee.

But that’s a sore subject none of us want to revisit.

“We’re going to head home if you’ve got it handled here, Simon,” Dad says.

“I’ll wait for the kids with Bea,” says Mom.

But I sense an opportunity. “No, head home with Dad and Gigi. I’ll round up the kids and be right behind you.”

“Are you sure?” Mom looks tired. She doesn’t have the stamina she used to, which makes me even more suspicious of Simon, who happened to show up with an eye for antiques as Mom and Dad began to lose theirs.

I slide on the I’m fine smile I’ve practiced for months. “Absolutely.”

After another round of are you sures and instructions, they shuffle off toward the back.

Gigi points her cane toward Simon and cups her other hand beside her mouth. “Keep your eye on this one, Bumblebee,” she stage-whispers as she exits.

What on earth does that mean?

I wait until they’re all out of earshot before I close the distance between Simon and me. “Remind me how long you’ve been working here?”

“About a year.” Simon doesn’t look up, and it feels like a dismissal.

“What were you doing before that? What’s your background?”

“I’m from Seattle.”

“Your background in antiques,” I clarify, but I sense he intentionally misunderstood the question.

He rises to his full height, peering at me from an altitude I’ll never visit. I’m not short, but I feel miniature now. He removes the pencil from his mouth. He really looks at me for the first time, and I notice his eyes are almost black, like the depths of an oil well, and the contrast is shocking against the long flare of his lashes, the only soft thing about him. There’s something kinetic about the way his gaze bores into me, assessing his opponent, crafting his strategy.

“You want my résumé?”

It’s not a question; it’s a challenge. But I’ve worked with enough male egos to handle him. After ten years in tech and another five managing Jake’s landscaping company, I know bro culture of the white- and blue-collar variety.

“Since I’m taking over here, it would be helpful to know a bit about your skill set, yes.”

Simon stares, skipping a few blinks before he speaks again. “Paul and Linea didn’t say anything about you taking over.” He folds his arms across his chest. “They said you’d be helping out.”

I smile, and this one is genuine, or as close to genuine as my professional smile has ever been. “Helping out by taking over.”

“Funny, they didn’t mention you having a background in antiques.”

“Business is business. I’ve worked in tech and managed a landscaping company.”

Simon raises an eyebrow, and the judgmental gesture tells me all I need to know about him. I wonder whether his disapproval has more to do with my gender than my expertise. If I had PhDs in art history and antiquities, I bet he’d still underestimate me.

“Are you suggesting that makes me unqualified?”

He glances around the store. “I don’t see any computers or flower beds in here.”

The nerve of this asshole. “I grew up in this store and worked every afternoon and summer before I left for college, where I was a double major in business and marketing and then earned my MBA.”

His stare is like the sun through a magnifying glass, and I’m an insect getting fried. “Good to know, but I wasn’t the one asking for your résumé.” When he drops his gaze to return to his earlier task, my body temperature drops, too.

“It sure sounded like you were.”

He makes a haphazard mark on the clipboard before inspecting a bronze tray and setting it aside, but the relief of his retreat is short lived because he drags his oil well eyes back to mine. His expression is impassive. “I don’t care what your degrees are in. All I care about is running this shop efficiently and keeping this business open, and that’s not going to be easy if I have to work for a nepo baby without relevant expertise.”

I release an incredulous laugh. Nepo baby? Of a struggling antiques store in the middle of bumfuck nowhere. Who the hell is this guy? “You care about keeping this business open but not about being polite enough to keep your job?”

He shrugs. “If I can’t be honest, we probably can’t work together anyway.”

“In my experience, what some people call honesty is actually a lack of tact.”

“In my experience, what some people call tact is actually insincerity.”

The bell above the door chimes, breaking our standoff. I turn as a group of middle-aged women, animated and mid-conversation, enter the shop. Grateful for the interruption, I head toward the front to greet them. But my attention snags on a figure behind them, leaning against a column outside the store, hands in his pockets, head lowered, shaggy hair falling onto his forehead.

Jake. In the baseball cap and Levi’s. Jake.

I hover there, caught between one footstep and the next, studying his gestures like plots on a treasure map that can lead me back to my old life. I’m afraid if I speak or move, he’ll disappear again. I’m afraid if I fixate too long, I’ll freeze in this ephemeral state between heaven and earth. Between reality and insanity.

Jake pushes off the column and is almost out of sight when I return to my body. I take off to follow him. I think Simon says something behind me, but I don’t wait around to find out what, and I emerge onto the street as Jake passes the diner. Without the glass to obscure him, he seems solid, whole, and more than a mirage. His stride is longer, his pace faster, so I speedwalk, dodging a little kid on his bike, a teen walking her dog. But still he outpaces me, and it feels like that nightmare I have sometimes, when the kids are in danger but I’m running in place, unable to save them.

He gets to the end of the short drag of Main Street, and I’m only one storefront behind, so I take off on a jog.

I’m a few feet away, almost close enough to reach out and touch him, when I slam directly into someone leaving Genevieve’s and lose my footing.

“What the . . .” Miles grabs my arms, steadying me.

“You’re so dramatic,” Tess says. “We were barely two minutes late. You didn’t have to chase us down like a bear after her cubs.”

“It’s not like anything could happen to us in Suncrest,” Miles says. “It’s too small to get lost here.”

“And too boring to get into trouble,” Tess says.

When I step out of Miles’s grip and peer down the street, I’ve lost Jake—and likely my mind.

The post Read An Excerpt From ‘The Other Side of Starting Over’ by Mara Williams appeared first on The Nerd Daily.

Intrigued? Read on to discover the synopsis and an excerpt from Sunflower Season by Danica Nava, which releases on November 3rd 2026.

Drained by her high-pressure tech job, June Walker finds an escape in homesteading videos and the fantasy of a quieter life. When she finally hits her breaking point, she does the only reasonable thing: She quits her job and buys a crumbling sunflower farm in rural Oklahoma, where she grew up.

June thought her biggest challenge in restoring Sunshine Farm would be the rotting fences but soon comes to the crushing realization that “positive vibes” are not a business plan. Nothing, however, tests her resolve quite like running into her first love, the boy she left behind after her world imploded when she was seventeen. She’s back for a fresh start, not to unpack old heartbreaks.

Noah Abbott never left Love County. Between his family, his job with the local fire brigade, and a town that knows him inside and out, he has everything he needs—except answers. So when June Walker returns as the new owner of Sunshine Farm, Noah is determined to find out why the girl who once meant everything to him vanished without a word.

As old wounds crack open and attraction flares back to life, June and Noah are forced to reckon with their past and decide whether first love is a memory best left buried or the one thing worth replanting.

EXCERPT

Chapter 1

June

It was dying!

Oh no. Oh no. Oh no.

This was tragic. Months of routine and discipline were going to be lost. The warning notifications for WahLah buzzed in my pocket and flashed on my smartwatch.

WahLah was an app that I created where you could grow your own little virtual garden that flourished the longer you spent time offline and walking outside. And now all that work planning, coding, and developing was for nothing because I was forced to sit in the dumbest HR-mandated team-building workshop ever. The rolling chair in the conference room was scratchy. The slides were ugly, with so much text compacted onto the 16:9 aspect ratio. And the voice of this consultant, just droning on and on, was grating on my ears. And all the while, my virtual garden was dying. What was I even doing here?

Why did I choose product marketing as my profession of choice in college ten long years ago? It seemed like the safest bet with the tech boom, and marketing was always needed to make products and companies stand out against a sea of competitors.

My decision for this career path was not out of any passion or love for product marketing. It came down to one simple thing: job security. Job security ruled every decision of my life, from where I went to college to where I rented my apartment, down to the way I styled my hair.

Employability.

I didn’t have fun tattoos . . . or any tattoos really, apart from my microbladed eyebrows, which I never knew if that counted as real tattoos. Whenever I was asked about tattoos, I was always sure the person meant some design or cliché quote across my abdomen. I didn’t have unconventionally colored hair or even a trendy haircut. I looked safe, marketable, and dependable. I lived in a crappy studio apartment fifteen minutes away from the office so that I could come in when needed and wouldn’t be stuck in traffic somewhere.

I packed my lunch every day to save money and calories. Everyone at the office loved going to the Americana diner across the street for lunch, where everything was some version of a deep-fried cheese. My acne-prone skin couldn’t handle that. After the few work dinners I couldn’t get out of, I always woke up with a breakout the next morning.

I liked my routines. I thrived on them. I liked knowing exactly how any given day of the week would go with little to no variety. I was prone to anxiety and worry-tripping about the future. Having my planner with my appointments, meals, and outfits written out in advance helped me cope in a world that was predestined for chaos, but I, June Walker, was not chaotic. My life was dependable.

I worked a lot of overtime, so I needed my days planned down to the minute to make sure nothing slipped through the cracks . . . like laundry. Oh shit! I passed out watching YouTube last night and forgot to change over the load. Battling mildew was not in my schedule. What my small studio apartment lacked in sunlight, it made up for by having an in-unit washer-and-dryer combo next to the sink in the kitchenette. Every Tuesday and Thursday night I did a load of laundry as I caught up on YouTube videos. And on a lot of Wednesdays and Fridays I ended up redoing the laundry to get rid of the smell of mildew. Just an average single twenty-eight-year-old workingwoman’s life. Carrie Bradshaw would never.

I have been employed by Muse Intelligence since I graduated from undergrad six years ago as a double major in computer science and marketing-again, for employability. I didn’t even like computer science. I pretty much detested every man in the product-and-engineering department, which meant I detested everyone in the product-and-engineering department-because in our company that’s who was employed there. Men. It was a sea of arrogant, mediocre men in this software company that provided AI for marketers. Who wanted to write content anymore when you could have these fun agents called “The Three Muses” that could write the copy for you, check to make sure it followed all regulatory guidelines, and publish and track the performance? I was essentially marketing my replacement, and soon I’d be obsolete. This was why in my spare time, I created my little app WahLah. For now, it was just for me and gave me purpose. I just got tired of always being online and glued to my phone. I even got a little walking pad for under my desk so that the app could track my steps, and with each milestone, my garden grew. That’s where the name WahLah came from; it was from the Chikashshanompa’ word wah lah, which means grow, as in plants growing. I thought it was cute.

My day job that paid the bills consisted of me making pitch decks and performing market research to get people excited to present our products at trade shows while rubbing elbows with the Adobes and Salesforces of the world. For six years I have done everything that has ever been asked of me and more.

Our CEO was the founder of the company, which meant he was bonkers. Thomas Finch slept in the office because that was what Steve Jobs did. You know who else did that? Elizabeth Holmes, and we all know how that turned out.

But I, too, have spent many all-nighters in this office. How could any of us go home when the CEO himself refused to. Keep working! This has to be the biggest product launch anyone has ever seen! He said that every product launch, even for the small add-ons that nobody cared about. That’s where product marketing came in-it was my job to get people to care.

But then Thomas and the company were sued by an ex-employee last year for fostering a hostile work environment, and now today, instead of hours of boring business-review meetings and decks, we were all forced to do HR-mandated team building. Which was probably the worst thing I have ever had to endure at this company that now employed a “chief fun officer.” Said CFunO (as not to be confused with the title of chief financial officer, CFO), Randall, was sitting next to me.

Lightning, strike me down, please.

“For this session of team building, we are going to break the ice with a fun little game of two truths and a lie. Anyone want to volunteer to go first?” Gail, the consultant who was hired by our HR team, asked at the head of the long U-shaped conference-room table. She seemed nice enough, if old-fashioned with her agenda of team-building exercises that looked like someone googled “last-minute team building exercises that cost zero dollars.”

My knee was bouncing as I looked at the clock on the wall. Cell phones were not allowed on the conference table, but my smartwatch was vibrating incessantly. Goodbye, little garden, it was a nice yearlong streak. It was rudimentary graphics, barely an upgrade to old Tamagotchis, but I was fond of it.

“I would love to kick this off,” Randall volunteered, which surprised absolutely no one. “Let’s see, I went to Harvard . . .” He was wearing his Harvard quarter-zip fleece. His thermos was Harvard branded. Hell, every time he spoke to anyone, he dropped the line Well, you know I went to Harvard . . . As if we could forget. He continued, “I biked the loop around Yosemite in under two and a half hours . . . and Madonna asked for my number in Vegas.” He sent a wink out to everyone at the table.

The male employees looked up to Randall as if he were a god. They all pitched in and got him a gold plaque on his door that read g.o.a.t. They threw around the title like being the greatest of all time as a “fun officer” at a software tech startup was the equivalent of being the MVP in the NBA.

If only they sold m.m.m.w.e.m. plaques, which of course stood for Most Mediocre Man Who Ever Manned. That was more appropriate.

“Tricky!” Gail laughed. “Okay, team, we are going to vote. Raise your hand if you think Randall going to Harvard is true.” Every hand went up in half a second.

Gail threw her head back and laughed again. “Let’s see if the next two are just as easy. Raise your hand if you think biking the loop of Yosemite in under two and a half hours is a lie.”

Every hand shot up except for mine. He biked the loop in under two and a half hours, and we sponsored him to do it for ALS awareness. I made the flyers for LinkedIn when we didn’t have anyone running communications.

“Interesting,” she said. “So, everyone else thinks that the Madonna one is true?” Everyone around the large conference table nodded their heads. “Who thinks Madonna asking for Randall’s number is the lie?”

My hand was the only one raised. Randall kneed my thigh under the table and whispered out of the side of his mouth, “Don’t say anything.”

“One single doubter, Randall,” Gail said, laughing and turning to me. “Why do you think it’s a lie?”

“Because I was there.”

Everyone gasped.

“Spoilsport,” Randall muttered so no one else could hear. Then he started laughing, that fake kind of laugh men did to try to control a room when they were losing it. “June is right, she was on the Vegas trip when we ran into Madonna at the Wynn. June had a little too much to drink, so she probably doesn’t remember, right?”

“I never drink,” I countered. Not when working, and I sure as hell wouldn’t drink on a work trip in Vegas with these bros. That was how women went missing, trusting slimy men like these.

“Well, how do you explain this photograph?” He pulled out his phone and flashed a picture of a blond woman in huge sunglasses posing for a photo with a group of bridesmaids in pink boas.

“She was a Madonna impersonator,” I said factually. The room started laughing. “A pretty good one.” I gave credit where credit was due.

“So you didn’t meet Madonna?” Don from engineering asked.

“Of course I did, she said that was her name,” Randall scoffed with a wink.

“The game was two truths and a lie,” Don grumbled. He was a rule follower; most engineers were-they were very literal, in my experience. “All you gave were truths.”

“Madonna is the lie,” I countered.

“You got me.” Randall raised his hands.

“Okay, okay, settle down. I think it’s someone else’s turn. Why don’t you go next, June?” Gail asked.

I hated the way every pair of eyes settled on my face. I wanted to melt into the floor. My watch alerted me that my heart rate was too high. No shit! This was why I needed my walking time.

“This should be easy,” Randall snickered with that fake, sleazy-politician laugh of his again.

This man pissed me off, and I wanted to trump him.

“I grew up in Love County, Oklahoma. At seventeen I snuck into a dive bar and entered a karaoke contest and won. And . . .” The pause felt like it went on for an eternity. My brain short-circuited. “And . . . I met the Crocodile Hunter when I was eight.”

Randall chuckled into his fist, and everyone else was quick to join him. “That’s too easy, the lie is the karaoke one. Who’s going next?” And just like that I was dismissed, laughed at, and forgotten. I gripped my fingers under the table as my heart pounded.

“Joe, what have you got?” Randall asked the HR business partner to my right.

“You’re wrong,” I said as my anger seethed.

“What was that?” Randall asked me, his smile sickeningly passive-aggressive.

“You’re wrong.” My voice sounded more sure, more confident.

“One, we know you’re from Oklahoma, we can hear it in your voice.” He held up his index finger, then added a second finger. “Two has to be the lie because you are the quietest person in a room, no offense. You’re a rule follower, June. I don’t believe even at seventeen that you snuck into a dive bar to do karaoke and then won. Steve Irwin was always doing fan stuff, so you probably met him then. See, easy.”

“Okay, everything about that was offensive.” I looked at Gail and then Joe. How could that be allowed in an HR-sanctioned team-building activity? The incivility went against the entire exercise.

“It was rude but not unethical, immoral, or illegal, June, so there is really nothing we can do. Randall, do you want to apologize?” Joe asked while he fiddled with his pen cap.

“I said no offense. I just meant your character is very reserved and . . . safe. It’s impossible to believe you are capable of such bold behavior. Am I right, guys?”

The men grumbled. Gail, the only other woman in the room, looked at me with pleading in her eyes, as if to say Don’t make a big deal, let’s just move on and forget it.

I didn’t want to forget.

“Well, I did do that. I got grounded for two weeks because of it. I never met Steve Irwin.”

“Oh, shit!” the guys in finance exclaimed.

“Language,” Joe warned. He was really doing the heavy lifting here.

“What happened to you? Are you hiding the real you under all that ice?” Randall chuckled again and then looked away, moving on to the next person to play the game. It went on and on until all twenty people in the room had taken a turn.

What happened to me? Nothing happened to me. I wasn’t boring. I just worked nonstop so I could pay off my student loans-I made my last payment three years ago. Now I was saving for a down payment on a house in San Francisco to make the best investment I could. I was trying to build generational wealth as one person. Randall’s dad went to Harvard and made a fortune managing a hedge fund-by being born, Randall had it easy.

Meanwhile, I grew up in a little town called Marietta in Love County, smack-dab in the middle of the Chickasaw Nation in Oklahoma, population 2,800. It was hard to get a weekend job when everyone else was just getting by and mom-and-pop shops employed family members or barely paid minimum wage. We shopped at Angel Thrift, and an outing to the closest Walmart was considered a big deal. It took everything in me to leave Love County and never look back.

I broke the rules and pulled out my phone to check on my garden. It was shriveled up with a big green button that read START OVER? I stifled a sigh. I wished I could start over in a lot of areas in my life. I slipped my phone back into my pocket. I felt completely deflated.

Excerpted from Sunflower Season by Danica Nava Copyright © 2026 by Danica Nava. Excerpted by permission of Berkley. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

The post Read An Excerpt From ‘Sunflower Season’ by Danica Nava appeared first on The Nerd Daily.

Intrigued? Read on to discover the synopsis and an excerpt from Succubus: A Love Story by Kate Fox, which is out now.

Her touch kills, his saves the dying. Are they fated, or forbidden?

Tempest Dunlap loves romance novels, but she knows she’ll never have her own happily-ever-after. She is a sweatpants-wearing doula who homeschools her seven-year-old niece in suburban New Jersey. Unfortunately, she’s also a succubus: Every man she’s ever kissed has died. But Tempest is a good person who never intended to be a murderer, so she’s sworn off love forever.

Then she meets Joel Tav, a gorgeous, gentle doctor who makes celibacy feel impossible. Tempest knows she can’t touch him—or tell him his brother was the last man she dated and accidentally killed.

Meanwhile, a vigilante is hunting people with dark powers, and Tempest is next. Should she keep hiding in her safe, lonely life, or should she embrace the darkness she fears and risk the ultimate forbidden romance?

Maybe Tempest will get her love story after all . . . or maybe she’ll become its villain.

EXCERPT

CHAPTER 1

Benjamin Fickler was the first boy I ever killed.

No one called him Benjamin. I’m being formal, out of respect. It was Benny. We were fourteen and I kissed him first. He wasn’t sure he was ready. I could tell. I liked that about him.

My two best friends at the time—their names don’t matter—preferred boys who were the tallest, the loudest, the usual. Benny was on the short side, often smiling like he was open to the possibility that everything might turn out to be a joke.

It was early summer. I asked him to go for a walk with me. My plan was that we would kiss on the blue bridge over the lightly polluted stream in the preserve two blocks down from my house. When we got to the bridge, I stopped, and he had to stop, too, and then I said something subtle like, “Do you want to kiss me?” and he looked slightly terrified, which was more appropriate than I realized at the time.

“I guess,” he said, looking down. “Sure.”

I remember the toothpaste-white of his sneakers. He wasn’t wearing a cool first-kiss outfit, but I didn’t mind.

“Do you want to go first?” I said chivalrously. When he didn’t move, I leaned forward, too nervous to wait, and pressed my tight, uncertain lips to his soft, looser ones. It was shocking to be against his skin, his nose. His breath was on my mouth, the smell of his mom’s favorite laundry detergent rising from his shirt, a pink, overextended scent.

Why am I reliving this?

Because it’s the least I can do.

I’m not in therapy. I tried that at nineteen, when my suspicions were horrifyingly confirmed. I spoke in code of course, because the truth wasn’t anywhere in the vicinity of believable. Thank God I have Grub now. And Dee, even though she doesn’t believe me, either.

It wasn’t the kiss on the bridge that killed Benny. That was just the first drop of poison. The next time, we kept going, pecking wetly, perched like virgin birds on his musty basement couch. Then Benny got sick—his dad couldn’t wake him up one morning. That’s what I heard. They rushed him to the hospital, but it was as though his lungs had simply given up. They said it was maybe a virus. We did a memorial service: the whole school, candles lit, kids crying with our arms around each other; we couldn’t believe Benny was gone. No one had known until then that death—as distant as war, as outer space—could swoop down at any random moment and grab someone our age and carry them off, never to be seen again.

I had no idea that it was my fault. It’s funny—I was worried that maybe I’d gotten the virus from him. Maybe my lungs would quit, too.

Not funny, obviously. Nothing about it is funny. I didn’t know until college. Until Sam.

By then, I’d also killed a boy named Arlo Wu, who was the captain of the debate team junior year of high school. He was long-haired, sarcastic, and sensitive. A little goofy, like Benny. We got mozzarella sticks at the diner. I invited him over when my mom was at work late, and Dee, my little sister, was at twirling practice. We made out on my bed and put our hands down each other’s pants, and that was the first time I touched a penis.

His heart gave out two days later. A Thursday. Maybe he’d had an undiagnosed heart defect, they said. I went to his funeral, and I’ll never forget his little sister’s face as she watched her parents holding each other and crying in heaving gasps as though Arlo had taken the air with him into that casket.

My hair, always frustratingly thin and limp, seemed thicker in the weeks afterward. It was easier to wake up in the morning, even if I hadn’t gotten much sleep. I felt lit up, buoyant through my sadness. As though every microscopic thing inside me was suddenly going right, even as everything outside me went wrong. You could say I was full of life. As though I’d eaten an extra helping of it.

I am so unlucky, I wrote in my diary.

“You are so unlucky,” Carly (okay, that was the name of one of the best friends) told me. “It’s like every boy you like dies.”

“Don’t say that!” I yelped.

But I didn’t date anyone else in high school. I felt like maybe I’d been in love with Arlo. I learned guitar and wrote some songs about him. Then I went to college, became more of a hippie, and killed Sam (the first boy I had sex with), and I began to wonder.

When I turned nineteen and killed Omar, I knew.

From the book SUCCUBUS by Kate Fox. Copyright (C) 2026 by Kate Fox. Reprinted with permission from St. Martin’s Griffin, an imprint of St. Martin’s Publishing Group. 

The post Read An Excerpt From ‘Succubus’ by Kate Fox appeared first on The Nerd Daily.

Intrigued? Read on to discover the synopsis and an excerpt from Eight Ways to Say I Love You by Amanda Elliot, which releases on October 27th 2026.

This Hanukkah, Shira Levinson is returning home to New Jersey riding the high of achieving major milestones. Though she only just graduated from college, she’s got her dream job and a perfect Los Angeles apartment—an actual miracle in the city of dreams.

Life has not been quite as kind to Leo David. Not only did he fail out of college, he was forced to move in with his estranged dad, who he still hates for cheating on his mom years ago. The only silver lining? Getting to see Shira, his childhood friend (and crush, though he’ll never tell her that) while she’s home for her family’s holiday party.

But that’s just the beginning. Over the next eight years, Shira’s and Leo’s lives spin them in all sorts of directions as they grow and change, taking them places they never imagined going. Sometimes those paths take them farther away from each other, and other times closer together. If they can only time it right, they might uncover a love that burns forever.

EXCERPT

She hesitated, then took a deep breath before saying, “I was so sad when you left.”

He was quiet for a moment. She glanced over to find him frowning at the road. “Yeah,” he said, sliding into the right-turn lane without a signal. She’d almost forgotten that, too—how it was almost a point of pride here to make turns without signals. Stupid. “I was, too.”

Stupid. Of course he’d been sad. She might have lost her best friend, but he’d lost his home, his dad, his sense of security, and all his friends. Hopefully he didn’t feel her stupid comment like itchy wool on his neck. “Sorry, I didn’t mean—”

“I hear that in addition to working at a famous gallery, you’re a famous artist now.” He made a sharp right into a parking space before another car could swoop in; the place was packed, which she probably should have expected, considering it was only a few days before the holidays. “Your paintings are going to be in the Met? Something like that. Your mom had a lot to say.”

Shira rolled her eyes as they got out of the car and slammed the doors behind them. “None of that is true,” she said dryly. They walked up the row of the parking lot toward the front of the store. “I don’t have a—”

Leo flung his arm out, catching her across the front; she stopped short against it. Her mouth opened in a silent O of surprise just as a car flew past, so close the wind blew her hair back. “Sorry,” he said, glancing over. “You okay?”

His arm was still there, holding her back from the lane. She blinked and was suddenly thirteen years old again, and he’d slung his arm around her shoulders as he always did, but the feeling of his skin warm on hers was now something new and strange, something that brought warmth flushing her belly from the inside out. “Yeah,” she said. “Totally fine.”

Inside, she quirked a smile to see the supermarket displays featuring giant hams and bags of cranberries instead of an assortment of organic juices and salad kits. Some things she didn’t love about LA, chief among them being the food culture. Some-times she just wanted a muffin that wasn’t gluten-free or sugar-free or full of black beans but in a way you couldn’t taste them (you absolutely could taste them). “Okay,” she said, clapping her hands together. If they stood here in the entrance much longer, they’d get mowed down by a shopping cart. “So, where to?”

“Potatoes,” Leo said. He squinted off to the side. “Over there.” They headed off in the direction of the potatoes, dodging careening shopping carts and people arguing passionately about the difference between white and yellow onions. “How many do you think we need?” Shira asked once the mounds of delicious brown orbs were in sight.

“I don’t know, how many latkes per person? Three? Five?” “Let’s say two, because making five hundred latkes sounds

like the punishment some obscure Greek god might give you for overconfidence,” Shira said. “So . . . let’s google . . .” Her eyes nearly popped out of her head. “Sixty to seventy pounds of potatoes?” She blinked hard, as if trying to force her eyeballs back in. “Okay, maybe we can’t make our own latkes. Can we even carry sixty to seventy pounds of potatoes? Can we fit that in your car?”

But Leo was already shoveling up potatoes into his arms and piling them into their cart. “Google says that one potato weighs about one pound,” he said. “So that’s only sixty to seventy potatoes. Not bad.”

“I hope nobody else needs potatoes for the holiday. We’re about to clear out this store,” Shira said. She felt sorry for a second, then not. This was an emergency. A potato emergency.

Excerpted from EIGHT WAYS TO SAY I LOVE YOU by Amanda Elliot, published by Berkley, an imprint of Penguin Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House, LLC. Copyright © 2026

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Intrigued? Read on to discover the synopsis and an excerpt from The Gilded Rose by Joanna Shupe, which is out now.

Love isn’t always a fairy tale.

Charming and popular, Orson Grey is the most sought-after bachelor in Manhattan. When Caroline pledges to spend her life with him, it feels like the beginning of a fairy tale.

The fairy tale quickly turns into a nightmare.

Behind closed doors, Orson is controlling and cruel. Trapped by laws that prevent women from leaving unhappy marriages, Caroline has no choice but to endure her husband’s behavior. Each day grows more intolerable, and her frustration and resentment mounts. Even her passion for rare books is stifled, leaving her isolated and lonely, a fading rose trapped under glass.

When Caroline is offered the opportunity to catalogue a private library, she seizes it like a lifeline. Exploring the literary treasures, she discovers a friend in the library’s owner, Zane Bishop—a brilliant, wealthy recluse who was disfigured in an explosion years ago.

Thoughtful and kind, Zane is everything Orson is not. As their trust builds, Zane realizes that Caroline’s pain runs much deeper than she lets on. He suffers with her, knowing precisely of Orson’s cruelty firsthand. Zane will stop at nothing to set Caroline free, even if it means risking everything.

The Gilded Rose is a story of resilience, passion, and the transformative power of love.

EXCERPT

September, 1898

“Smile,” my husband hissed under his breath as we moved through the ballroom. His fingers pressed into my wrist almost to the point of pain. “I won’t have people thinking you aren’t proud to be on my arm.”

As we walked through the crowd, I affixed a grin on my face as if John Singer Sargent himself had drawn it there. With my hair coiffed in an elegant sweep and my new Worth gown, I knew I looked perfect. But inside I was screaming, protesting, wishing to be anywhere but here. The pretense exhausted me, and the entire joyless and soul-crushing night stretched ahead like dark, fathomless depths, ready to swallow me whole.

After eight weeks of marriage, I’d lost faith in myself, as well as the world around me. I thought the situation would improve once Orson and I returned from our honeymoon two weeks ago. In New York, I hoped to gain distance from him and reclaim a bit of my former life.

It proved impossible. In fact, it was worse.

Orson wished to know where I was at all times. He hated when I left the house, even for the simplest errand, and insisted on coming with me. Then he complained and hurried me through every outing, including visits with my father. Callers to the house were refused, which didn’t bother me. To be honest, I had no desire to put on a brave face for anyone—including for tonight’s ball.

I elongated my spine and lifted my head. “I wish to leave, Orson.”

We happened to pass a mirror and Orson stopped to check his reflection. “Nonsense. We’ve just arrived and everyone is staring at us, so we must give them what they want—a peek at the most handsome couple in all of New York.” His eyes flicked to me. “Besides, aren’t you curious about this place?”

“This place” was the home of one of New York’s most reclusive tycoons, Mr. Zane Bishop. No one ever saw him and he didn’t receive guests at his seventy-five-room mansion. His sister, however, was active in society and charities, a well-known figure about town. Somehow Camilla Bishop Marshall had convinced her brother to host tonight’s ball as a benefit for the Association for Improving the Condition of the Poor.

Seizing at the rare opportunity, all of Manhattan’s upper crust had turned out tonight. The ballroom was packed with an impressive list of society’s elite, wealthy businessmen, and Broadway actors. Even European royalty were mingling amongst the ice sculptures and coupes.

The old Caroline would’ve circulated and chatted easily with acquaintances until the wee hours. Now my skin itched with betrayal, my sharp eyes spotting duplicity in every smile and greeting. These people . . . I used to feel comfortable around them. Nestled in the bosom of their privilege, I never imagined I would be led astray, swindled into such a marriage as this. Why hadn’t anyone warned me about Orson? Shouldn’t there have been signs? They must have known.

I couldn’t look at their faces without wanting to shout at them for ruining my life.

The crowd swallowed us as we ventured deeper into the ballroom. Men clapped Orson on the shoulder, jostling him in enthusiastic greeting. Young women giggled behind their fans as he passed, their eyes devouring him like a bon bon from Schrafft’s. The older women used every excuse to brush against his arm, then murmured their apologies in a husky, inviting tone.

“What a beautiful couple,” Rebecca Barbey murmured as Orson and I drifted past.

Wearing his most charming smile, Orson drew us to a halt and faced the woman, who was standing with her husband. “Mr. and Mrs. Barbey. Good evening.”

Mr. Barbey bowed over my hand. “Mr. and Mrs. Grey. Marriage certainly agrees with you two.”

Hardly. My marriage felt like Hell on earth.

Orson squeezed my waist in a not-so-subtle prompt to speak. I blurted, “How do you do, Mr. Barbey, Mrs. Barbey?”

Mrs. Barbey looked me up and down carefully, as if searching for flaws. “Here you are, the lucky new bride. The whole city had been angling to get Orson Grey to the altar for years, yet you managed it in a few short weeks.”

I swallowed hard as I forced a smile, a headache brewing behind my eyes. “Quite lucky, indeed.”

“We must catch up one of these days. I’ll call on you and we’ll visit over tea.”

Rebecca Barbey and I weren’t close and I had no desire to visit with her. Refusing was rude, however. I opened my mouth to say . . . something. Then promptly closed it.

My husband addressed me, his tone no doubt coming off adoring to those in earshot. “My dear, I see someone I must speak with. I wonder if you’ll stay put until I return?” It wasn’t phrased as a request. Nevertheless, I nodded, grateful for a reprieve. “Of course.”

My husband excused himself and disappeared into the crowd. I exhaled the breath I’d been holding since we walked inside the ballroom and regarded the older couple. Mr. Barbey said, “I hear you honeymooned in Bar Harbor, Mrs. Grey. I love the place. I confess to being a bit of an angler, and the waters off the coast of Maine are a favorite of mine.”

Mrs. Barbey made a face then walked away, likely to avoid discussing fish, but her rudeness didn’t bother me in the least. The woman smacked of disingenuous intentions.

“Bar Harbor was enjoyable,” I lied. “Do you travel there often?”

During the next few minutes, as Mr. Barbey waxed poetic about bluefish, halibut, and cod, my attention wandered. I stared at the night beyond the huge windows and wondered if I could escape for a few minutes of fresh air. My head throbbed painfully.

Suddenly, a tall man caught my attention at the side of the room. Orson. I watched as he slipped through the french doors and into the night. Where was he off to in the middle of the—

Mrs. Barbey followed not five seconds behind. That was odd. Were they . . . ?

No, it was impossible. He wouldn’t dare. We were newly married, recently repeating vows before God and most of the people in this room. Orson wouldn’t carry on with an affair. Would he?

I had to find out.

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Intrigued? Read on to discover the synopsis and an excerpt from The Love Operation by Melissa R. Collings, which releases on November 1st 2026.

Dr. Cordelia Wren has always been in control―of her surgical career, her emotions, and especially her memories. But when she joins a cutting-edge memory enhancement study at her hospital, she gains an unexpected ability: the power to vividly relive any moment from her past. It seems like the perfect opportunity to analyze her failed relationships and finally understand why every man she’s ever loved has walked away.

There’s just one problem. Actually, three:

1. She may have…borrowed…access to the highly restricted memory study.
2. She’s secretly dating the hospital’s new COO while competing for chief of surgery―a relationship that could destroy both their careers if discovered.
3. Her first love has just reappeared in her life, stirring up feelings she thought she’d buried.

As Cordelia dives deeper into her past, the lines between memory and reality begin to blur. The truth she uncovers forces her to question everything she thought she knew about love, ambition, and what it means to be “in control.”

With her career hanging in the balance and her heart pulled in two directions, Cordelia must decide: Should she trust the memories that have shaped her life, or finally let go of the past to embrace an uncertain future?

Perfect for fans of Emily Henry and Ali Hazelwood, The Love Operation is a witty, emotional story about the intersection of medicine, memory, and the messy reality of loving imperfectly.

EXCERPT

From Chapter 5 TIME TRAVEL FOR ONE, PLEASE

“I feel like Bruce Banner about to meet his alter ego,” I say, only halfway joking.

A chill races across my skin. I shake it off.

The hospital is a different place at night—emptier, stretched thin, like the walls have loosened their grip on reality. Footsteps echo too long. Shadows stretch too far. The air has a different hum. The after-hours atmosphere verges on creepy.

The lab is dim, lit by work lamps and the glow of the large screen opposite us, where my lesson, the procedure I am to memorize, will soon be displayed.

Delenn dots conductive gel to my scalp, and I inhale at the sudden shock of cool and wet that becomes tacky and mildly unsettling as she presses the electrodes over it. The attached wires brush against my skin like mutant spider legs.

“I hope you’re planning to step away once you apply the electricity, in case I turn into a monster or go berserk.”

A flicker of a smile tugs at Delenn’s lips, but her focus is laser sharp. She’s half with me, half with the machine. I watch the slight crease between her brows, the measured way she checks each electrode, her gaze darting over the setup like she’s triple-checking what she’s already triple-checked, and I think, This is why we’re friends. We ride the same wavelength—driven, ambitious, wired to keep pushing forward. I trust her completely.

Still, a thread of nerves gets tangled beneath my excitement, and doubt wants to scuttle around the forming knots. Electricity will soon be applied to my head, changing things in my brain. What if it changes too much? What if this doesn’t go as planned? Lately nothing has, and this almost feels like tempting fate.

At least I’m not thinking about Isaac. Not about the fact that I haven’t heard from him all day. Not about this morning. That moment.

At least there’s that.

My mind is eased by knowing I’m not the first to have this procedure done. Three other people have gone through it earlier today. The study is officially underway, and even after the first session, it’s promising. Delenn sent me ecstatic messages all day. She couldn’t wait for me to try it.

“So, why do you think the results varied from person to person?” I ask, wanting to hear again that they’re all okay, even though I’ve analyzed all the prestudy data. It’s not like these therapies are novel—it’s only the combination that’s new. I have no reason to be concerned, but I do want to be thorough and cautious, as much as I can be in this scenario.

“It’s not surprising,” she says. “Each person’s brain encodes and stores memory in different ways. There are structural differences—variability in hippocampal volume, synaptic density, neurochemical balances. But more than that, memory retrieval is deeply affected by emotional regulation, prior trauma, and even baseline sleep cycles. And then there’s the added complexity of neuroplasticity—people who’ve trained themselves to remember differently, or repress consistently, have literally rewired how their recall pathways function. The protocol for the study has stimulated heightened recall in everyone we’ve tested so far. Their memory is, as we hoped and hypothesized, better—much better. But the interpretation still happens through the lens of who they are. It’s not just data. It’s identity.”

This explanation takes a hammer to my lingering concerns, and I lean into the anticipation.

“You swallowed all the pills?” Delenn asks, tapping a pen against her clipboard, but it’s not really a question. She watched me do it.

“A half an hour ago,” I say.

She spins away. “Good. I’m going to turn on the diffuser.”

A switch flips, and instantly a thin vapor unfurls from the top of the machine, curling into the air like the first breath of an active volcano.

My heart rate increases. It’s like I’ve just taken a breath of fresh air, but it’s clear, beautiful air, away-from-technology, mountainous air. My mind feels clear and focused—no noise, just sharp clarity.

“I think the med cocktail’s kicking in,” I say, scanning the room as if I’ve just walked into it.

Her eyes go wide and bright. “Yeah? What are you feeling?”

I stretch my hands in front of me, fingers flexing like I could actually hold the sensation in my palms. “More.”

She nods, as if she already understands.

“It’s like . . . paths have opened in my mind that were closed before, that I never even knew existed. I feel like I can breathe better. Like my whole body is processing information faster. Everything’s sharper.”

Her smile grows wider. “Good. Good.”

Something in her eagerness makes me shift. I don’t like feeling like an experiment, but I remind myself—again—to trust this. I trust Delenn. And I want what this can give me—an edge.

“Let’s start the electrical stimulation then. You ready?”

As much as the wires will allow, I shift in the chair and give her a confident “Yes. Absolutely.”

Then, before she even applies the current, something in me opens. My thoughts go clear.

“This drug combination is incredible.”

“It is, isn’t it?” she says, her eyes gleaming as she moves to the machine that controls the current. “It’s only two milliamps,” she explains, gesturing to the control panel. “You should feel a mild tingle, maybe a little warmth. I’ll turn the screen on first.”

She’s in coordinator mode because I already know this. Honestly, I feel confident I could run this experiment without her. “Great. Let’s do it.” I’m ready now. No turning back. It’s time to fully surrender—to receive everything this can offer.

Delenn squares her shoulders like she’s stepping onto a stage. With a click of her remote, the screen lights up, displaying the surgical technique for Chiari malformation type 1, a brain abnormality where the lower part of the brain extends into the spinal canal, where it shouldn’t be.

It’s not a procedure I’d normally perform—it belongs to neurosurgery, not orthopedic spine—but that’s why it’s perfect for testing memory retention outside my typical wheelhouse.

Delenn exhales. “Here we go.” She turns the dial.

A slow warmth blooms across my scalp—like static building before a shock.

“Whoa,” I breathe, because it’s the only word that makes it past the sensation.

Delenn leans in, her pen poised, eyes locked on mine. “What are you feeling? Tell me everything.”

But for a moment, I can’t speak. Everything is too much.

My body tenses, muscles buzzing with unfamiliar energy. The room is suddenly too bright, even though I know the light hasn’t changed. A faint, high-pitched hum rings in my ears.

And then—blueberry pie.

The scent floods my senses, rich and warm, like a memory spilled from another room in my brain. I blink. “Did you put blueberries in the diffuser?”

Delenn frowns. “No. Why?”

I open my mouth to explain, but then—it’s gone. The overstimulation recedes like a wave pulling back from shore, leaving behind perfect stillness. Unshaken clarity.

I exhale, my pulse steadying. I want to bottle this state of mind, keep it forever. But instead, I try to describe it. “I feel . . . open,” I say. “Like everything I take in right now will become part of me. Like I’ve been operating at half capacity, and now my brain is hungry and wants more.”

She looks pleased. “Great. And physically?”

I scan my body. Different. “My senses are heightened. It’s like I can feel the hairs coming out of my skin.”

She skims my forearm with the tip of her pen, and I inhale sharply.

“Okay.” She grins, and I can practically feel the excitement radiating from her skin. “Let’s review the procedure. Read it aloud.”

I zero in on the screen. The words are crisp, immediate.

Most frequent approach: suboccipital craniotomy, usually combined with dural patch grafting and cervical laminectomy of C1 through C2 or C3.

Patient position: prone on chest rolls, head in Mayfield.

Flex neck to open interspace between occiput and posterior arch of C1.

Shoulders retracted inferiorly with tape.

Midline incision . . .

As I speak, it’s like the words aren’t just being read, they’re stamped onto my brain, locked in place. Not just reviewed, but etched.

When I finish, Delenn clicks her pen. “Do you feel like you need to read it again?”

I shake my head. “No. Turn it off.” My lips curl into a grin. “Test me.”

“Cord, that was too fast. There’s no way—”

“Test me.” I feel giddy, restless, completely unmoored by the implications of this. I just absorbed a complex surgical procedure in a fraction of the time it would have taken me without these wires attached to my head and this medication in my bloodstream.

Delenn hesitates, then shuts off the screen. She grabs the physical copy of the procedure, flipping it open. “Okay. Walk me through how you’d operate on someone with Chiari malformation.”

I open my mouth and begin thinking of the first words I saw on screen, but then—

My body locks up.

I . . . I can’t believe it. I can barely process it. My heartbeats tumble over one another as I feel suddenly weightless, unattached from the present. It’s as if I’ve slipped through a crack in reality.

The scene in front of me shifts, and it’s like I’m watching a movie of the past several minutes from the inside.

Delenn paces. Not now, but before, as she did moments ago. She rubs her temple. Drops her pen. Bends to pick it up.

I see myself reading the screen. Except I’m not just remembering what happened or even watching a memory—I’m in it.

THE LOVE OPERATION by Melissa R. Collings, Text copyright © 2026 by Melissa R. Collings, Published by Mindy’s Book Studio

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Intrigued? Read on to discover the synopsis and an excerpt from The Christmas Competition by Zoe Allison, which releases on October 20th 2026.

The local rumor mill in Nisa Ansari’s small highland town is swirling about the downfall of her marriage, and in desperate need of a distraction, she enters her town’s Christmas house-decorating competition. The competition comes with the added bonus of getting on neighbor Kerr Murdoch’s last nerve. It’s the least she could do, considering her ex-husband left Nisa for Kerr’s girlfriend. And maybe if Kerr smiled or cracked a joke—just once!—his girlfriend would’ve stayed, and Nisa wouldn’t find herself alone during the holidays.

Introverted Kerr has trouble feeling comfortable around people he doesn’t know well. Newly single, he decorates his house in remembrance of his mother, who always had a soft spot for Christmas lights. But when Nisa’s and Kerr’s decorations end up nearly identical, he incurs Nisa’s wrath.

This means all-out war, complete with gaudy wreaths, twinkle lights, and too many reindeer to count. Never mind that Nisa can’t keep her eyes off Kerr’s toned forearms. Or ignore that he’s a pet-loving veterinarian with a heart of gold. After conceding to her husband’s wishes for years, Nisa is determined to get her way. But as Christmas draws near, Nisa must decide what she actually wants: the familiar rivalry she’s had for years with Kerr, or opening herself up to the chance to fall in love with someone new.

EXCERPT

I let out a slow breath, forcing myself to scroll past the photograph. I knew that I should unfollow Drew, or at least mute him from my feed, but every time the thought crossed my mind, I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Because then it would feel like giving up on us forever.

Finding out he had a new girlfriend had been like a sucker punch to the gut. My mantra that this was merely a phase, that Drew would soon realize the error of his ways and come home, had become weaker since he’d taken up with Aileen a couple months ago. Saying it out loud, as I had to Rona earlier, was a tactic to force myself to still believe. But despite the fact that this trial separation he’d wanted now included a new girlfriend, I couldn’t let the tiny flame of hope be snuffed out. He might find his way back to me yet. I just had to figure out how to distract myself from him in the meantime. Putting up the tree had helped a little, but seeing it in position had reminded me that last time it stood in the corner of the living room, Drew had been here with me.

I continued to scroll, hoping that no other triggering photos would cross my path. But a few posts down something else caught my eye, for different reasons entirely. Something on the town social media page.

The Inaugural Inverglen Christmas Lights Competition!

Do you think your property is the most festive in the land? Click the link below to enter, then decorate your house by Christmas Eve, when our team of judges will walk the streets to decide who wins first prize for best-dressed house! The lucky winner will be announced on Boxing Day and will win a luxury weekend stay for two at the Loch Glen Hotel and Spa.

Excitement sparked in my system, sidelining my melancholy for a moment. What better way to kill two birds with one stone than to enter the competition? It would provide me with the distraction I was craving, turbocharge my Christmas spirit, and also—as a bonus—be an eyesore for Kerr grumpy‑arse across the road. He was a total grinch all year round and had never decorated the outside of his house, so surely going over the top with decorating would piss him right off.

Granted, I’d never really decorated the exterior of the house before either, save for some so‑subtle‑you‑could‑hardly‑see-them icicle lights under the living room window. But that was just because Drew hadn’t wanted our house to look too gaudy. However, he wasn’t here right now, so that gave me free rein, with no one else’s feelings to consider. Except Izzy’s, but I was sure my feline companion wouldn’t mind.

As if hearing my thoughts, Izzy jumped onto my lap, purring in contentment and rubbing her soft head against my hand—which was still holding the phone with the photo of sparkly Christmas lights on display. So, I took that as a sign of approval.

Excerpted from THE CHRISTMAS COMPETITION by Zoe Allison, published by Berkley, an imprint of Penguin Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House, LLC. Copyright © 2026

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Intrigued? Read on to discover the synopsis and an excerpt from Now That We Don’t Talk by Rachel Pologe, which releases on October 20th 2026.

Norah Gold is a bolter. She avoids emotional situations at all costs, doesn’t do meaningful relationships, and when things get a little too real, she runs. She hasn’t let herself fall in love in nearly a decade, not since her whole world fell apart when her dad suddenly passed away. Desperate to escape a friends-with-benefits situation gone clingy, she returns home to Chicago for the holidays. Her one goal? Avoid Henry Cole, the boy who blew up her life and broke her heart back in high school. Easier said than done when she discovers that their mothers are dating and insist on celebrating the holidays together.

A decade later, Henry Cole is all custom suits and condescension. He is order to her chaos and absolutely insufferable about it. When Norah and Henry get snowed in together and learn just how serious their moms’ relationship is, they call a truce to make it through all eight nights of Hanukkah without setting each other on fire. As they begin to rediscover the foundation that made them so close growing up, Norah is desperate to keep her distance—the last thing she can handle is reopening decade-old emotional wounds. But even though they’ve tried to escape the past, Norah and Henry have unfinished business too pressing to ignore. Can Norah shake off her deep-seated impulse to bolt, or are they destined to flame out just like they did as teenagers?

EXCERPT

I sigh deeply and go back to my string of unanswered texts. I slowly type, I had to extend my trip. Sorry! Going off the grid!!!

Hannah peers over my shoulder and then squeals. “Mom, she’s staying!” my sister exclaims as she runs down the hall.

I follow Hannah back into the kitchen, where Mom is putting on another pot of coffee. “Oh, honey, this is my gift for the first night. You don’t even need to give me anything else.”

I look at Hannah and mouth, Gifts for every night? when Mom turns back to counting out scoops of coffee grounds. “She didn’t even do that when we were kids. What’s going on?” Hannah shrugs.

“I’m over the moon you’ll be here the whole holiday. I have big news, and I’ve been trying to figure out a way to tell you.” Mom barely waits a beat. “Do you remember Ms. Cole? Kristine?”

“Henry’s mom?” I ask.

“Yes, honey, Henry’s mom. Well . . .”

“Mom’s dating Kristine!” Hannah interrupts. “What? You were taking too long to spit it out.”

Mom shoots her a look but clearly can’t stay mad for more than a moment. I don’t know how I didn’t see it last night. My mother is fully swooning.

“She was the girl next door,” Mom says wistfully.

I’m happy for my mom. All my own hangups about Dad aside, I want her to be happy and in love. He would want that too.

“They’re coming over for dinner tonight,” Mom says as she turns the coffeemaker on. “For the first night of Hanukkah. To celebrate.”

“They?” I ask, knowing exactly who they entails.

“Kristine and Henry, of course.”

Of course.

***

“How long have you known? Why didn’t you tell me?” I bombard Hannah with questions, flopping dramatically onto her princess bed.

“I figured it out when I came home for Thanksgiving. They’re not subtle. It’d be too much if they weren’t so stinking cute all the time.”

“Thanksgiving?” It’s been a whole month of this ginormous secret.

“You were stuck working,” Hannah reminds me, repeating the excuse I made in November. “They’ve actually been dating for like, a year. Mom swore me to secrecy. She wanted to tell you herself. She thought you’d make a big thing about it.” My sister gives me a very pointed look, warning me to not start.

“I knew she was dating again, but . . .” Mom had always been open with us about her bisexuality, ever since she first gave us talks about our own bodies. She never wanted Hannah or me to think it was something she was hiding, or feel we ever had to do the same with anything of our own.

“But?” Hannah challenges.

“But Kristine? Henry’s mom? Really?”

“Yeah, that’s the part Mom was talking about. I always thought Kristine was really nice. She had the best Halloween candy.”

“Yeah, she’s great. But she’s Henry’s mom. My Henry.” It slips out before I can even realize what I’ve said.

Hannah’s eyes grow wide with amusement. “Oh, he’s your Henry now, is he?”

She knows that’s not what I meant. She knows what went down back then.

She knows he was never mine.

I roll my eyes at her. “Of all the people in the greater Chicagoland area, she has to pick the one who birthed the boy who ruined my life.”

“Love is wild.”

I look at my sister, more serious than I’ve been with her in years. “Hannah Arielle Gold. I am begging you. If you ever loved me, ever had any sisterly goodwill toward me, you will let me borrow something tonight since Henry ruined the one piece of clothing I have left in this time zone that’s not, at minimum, eight years old.”

Hannah leans forward, eyes brimming with pity. “The way you treat your clothes? Not a chance.”

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