Hide Your Wallet: February 11th Release Week!

Welcome back! We’ve reached another Tuesday and that means new releases are hitting the shelves and our e-readers.

There’s a good mix this week! We have contemporary romances (always), non-fiction, dark romance, and Gothic romance.

Which books are on your TBR pile this week? Let us know in the comments!

• Can’t Help Faking in Love

  

  A young woman with Bollywood roots hires a barista to act as her boyfriend for her cousin’s wedding—only to learn you can’t fake chemistry like theirs—in this desi romance from the author of Match Me If You Can

  Harsha Godbole has never felt love from her family, but she’s always been surrounded by their Bollywood business mogul wealth. Now back in Bangalore after studying in America, Harsha is ready to start her adult life without their money. But that becomes impossible when everything she’s worked so hard for comes crumbling down. Fearful of showing up to her cousin’s upcoming wedding as a failure—and worse, a single failure—Harsha decides to put her trust fund to good use . . .

  Veer Kannan does everything for his family. He even gave up his dreams of becoming a Bollywood star to get a more consistent gig . . . although working as a barista wasn’t really the big break he was hoping for. It’s a humble life, but a happy one, nonetheless. Then financial aid falls through for his brother’s first year in business school, so now Veer needs to come up with a large sum of money, and fast.

  Harsha’s outlandish plan to hire her favorite barista as her fake boyfriend for the weekend-long wedding bash is received surprisingly well by Veer, who hopes this will be his ticket to Bollywood. But Harsha and Veer get way more than they bargained for in this heartwarming journey to finding unexpected love and courage.

  Shana: Very excited for this one!

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• Emily Wilde’s Compendium of Lost Tales

  

  Emily Wilde has spent her life studying faeries. A renowned dryadologist, she has documented hundreds of species of Folk in her Encyclopaedia of Faeries. Now she is about to embark on her most dangerous academic project studying the inner workings of a faerie realm-as its queen.

  Along with her former academic rival-now fiancé-the dashing and mercurial Wendell Bambleby, Emily is immediately thrust into the deadly intrigues of Faerie as the two of them seize the throne of Wendell’s long-lost kingdom, which Emily finds a beautiful nightmare, filled with scholarly treasures.

  Emily has been obsessed with faerie stories her entire life, but at first she feels as ill-suited to Faerie as she did to the mortal world-how could an unassuming scholar like herself pass for a queen? Yet there is little time to settle in-Wendell’s murderous stepmother has placed a deadly curse upon the land before vanishing without a trace. It will take all of Wendell’s magic-and Emily’s knowledge of stories-to unravel the mystery before they lose everything they hold dear.

  The latest in the Emily Wilde series, which we’ve loved on the site.

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• First-Time Caller

  

  Aiden Valentine has a secret: he’s fallen out of love with love. And as the host of Baltimore’s romance hotline, that’s a bit of a problem. But when a young girl calls in to the station asking for dating advice for her mom, the interview goes viral, thrusting Aiden and Heartstrings into the limelight.

  Lucie Stone thought she was doing just fine. She has a good job; an incredible family; and a smart, slightly devious kid. But when all of Baltimore is suddenly scrutinizing her love life—or lack thereof—she begins to question if she’s as happy as she thought. Maybe a little more romance wouldn’t be such a bad thing.

  Everyone wants Lucie to find her happy ending…even the handsome, temperamental man calling the shots. But when sparks start to fly behind the scenes, Lucie must make the final call between the radio-sponsored happily ever after or the man in the headphones next to her.

  Amanda: I’ve heard good things about Borison’s contemporaries and I love this cover so much that the palette became the inspiration for my new home office!

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• Frenemies with Benefits

  

  Author: Synithia Williams
  Released:
  February 11, 2025 by
  Canary Street Press
  Genre:
  Contemporary Romance, Romance
  Series: Peachtree Cove #3

  You can’t keep a sizzling little secret in a town like Peachtree Cove…

  For a place that just won an award for Best Small Town, Peachtree Cove sure has a big rumor mill. And Tracey Thompson is tired of being at the center of it. She’s worked hard to make her bed-and-breakfast a success—only to have her soon-to-be ex’s very public affair with her business partner result in a shocking pregnancy…and the biggest scandal around.

  If the whole town is going to talk no matter what she does, maybe it’s time that Tracey stopped trying to be perfect. Maybe she should start doing things for herself—like having a little fun. And Brian Nelson, the sexy nursery owner who supplies plants for all her special events, is more than willing to help.

  The third book in Williams’ small town romance series!

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• Scythe & Sparrow

  

  God, I want to kiss her. I want to feel the heat of her lips against mine. Would she want that? Would she melt against me if she did? Or would the tension I feel between us snap and release something feral inside her? Inside me?

  From the #1 New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author of the genre-breaking international TikTok sensation Butcher & Blackbird and Leather & Lark comes the final book in the Ruinous Love Trilogy—a friends-with-benefits dark romantic comedy packed with murder, mayhem, and spice.

  Doctor Fionn Kane is running from a broken heart, one he hopes to mend in small-town Nebraska, far away from his almost-fiancé and his derailed surgical career. It’s a simpler head down, hard work, and absolutely no romantic relationships. He wants none of the circus he left behind in Boston.

  But then the real circus finds him.

  Motorcycle performer Rose Evans has spent a decade on the road with the Silveria Circus, and it suits her just fine, especially when she has the urge to indulge in a little murder when she’s not in the spotlight. But when a kill goes awry and she ends up with an injured leg, Rose finds herself stuck in Nebraska, at the home of the adorably nerdy town doctor.

  The problem is, not every broken heart can be sewn back together.

  . . . And the longer you stay in one place, the more likely your ghosts are to catch up.

  This dark romance series has been a big hit and this is the third book in the series. Definitely check warnings!

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• The Spirit Collection of Thorne Hall

  

  A young woman forced to live with ghosts in a mansion frozen in time must decide between forbidden love and the price of freedom in this gothic fantasy where Jane Eyre meets The Haunting of Bly Manor, perfect for fans of Starling House.

  At Thorne Hall, a grand estate nestled in the Berkshires, fifteen restless spirits roam, bound within the mansion’s walls since the Gilded Age. Elegy Thorne bears the weight of her family’s curse to preserve the mansion as it was in the 1890s, using ancient folk songs to keep the spirits secret and silent in order to avoid deadly consequences.

  When a mischievous child spirit wreaks havoc on the manor, the Thorne family calls upon their trusted preservationist to restore the mansion. He brings along his son, Atticus – a vibrant man full of life and ideas of modernization – and Elegy is captivated by him, igniting a longing for freedom she’s never dared to embrace.

  Torn between her desire to follow her heart and her duty to her family and its legacy, Elegy begins searching for a way to release the spirit collection back to the afterlife and set both herself and the ghosts free. With century-old secrets, peculiar magic, and spirits both whimsical and deadly, Thorne Hall will haunt and enrapture readers—and you might just not want to leave.

  A new Gothic romance with paranormal and fantasy vibes.

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• You Didn’t Hear This From Me

  

  Author: Kelsey McKinney
  Released:
  February 11, 2025 by
  Grand Central Publishing
  Genre:
  Nonfiction

  A delightfully insightful exploration of our obsession with gossip that weaves together journalism, cultural criticism, and memoir, from the host of the massively popular Normal Gossip podcast.

  Can you keep a secret? As the pandemic forced us to socialize at a distance, Kelsey McKinney was mourning the juicy updates, jaw-dropping stories, and idle chatter that she’d typically collect over drinks with friends. She realized she wasn’t the only one missing these little morsels and her hunger for this aspect of normalcy took on a life of its own and the blockbuster Normal Gossip podcast was born. With listenership in the millions and gossip quickly becoming her day job, Kelsey found herself with the urge to think more critically about gossip as a form, to better understand the role that it plays in our culture.

  In YOU DIDN’T HEAR THIS FROM ME, McKinney explores the murkiness of everyday storytelling. Why is gossip considered a sin and how can we better recognize when gossip is being weaponized against the oppressed? Why do we think we’re entitled to every detail of a celebrity’s personal life because they are a public figure? And how do we even define “gossip,” anyway? She dishes on the art of eavesdropping and dives deep into how pop culture has changed the way that we look at hearsay. But as much as the book aims to treat gossip as a subject worthy of rigor, it also hopes to capture the heart of how enchanting and fun it can be to lean over and whisper something a little salacious into your friend’s ear. With wit and honesty, McKinney unmasks what we’re actually searching for when we demand to know the truth – and how much the truth really matters in the first place.

  Amanda: I love gossip and I love the Normal Gossip podcast, so I am all over this.

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