BP Note: Greetings and salutations! This month marks the continuation of the longest March in history yet there are signs of hope it will finally transition to another month. It also signifies the month in which some of my longtime auto-buy authors release their annual next installment. Some newer auto-buys with more frequent releases are also sprinkled throughout this list. Not to mention some new to the list authors with some absolutely stunning covers. Picking the featured cover for this post might require some dart throwing. Like always please let us know what you are looking forward to this month and what we might have missed!
Happy reading!
~E
- Contemporary Romance
- Fantasy
- Fantasy Romance
- Historical Fiction
- Historical Romance
- Mystery
- Paranormal Romance
- Romantic Suspense
- Science Fiction
- Science Fiction Romance
- Urban Fantasy
Contemporary Romance
After Hours Attraction (404 Sound #2) by Kianna Alexander – 1 Mar (Harlequin Desire)
Her boss is off-limits,
but their chemistry is off the charts.Ainsley Voss is an assistant—not a seductress. So why the steamy fantasies about taking Atlanta music mogul Gage Woodson to bed? She knows the sexy bachelor was burned by his last office romance and won’t go down that road again, especially not with a single mom. Until a storm leaves them stranded. Alone. Together. But once they’ve crossed that line, is there no turning back?
Waking Up Married (The Bourbon Brothers #5) by Reese Ryan – 1 Mar (Harlequin Desire)
What’s wrong with a little fake marriage between friends?
Their night on the town is a blank, but when Zora Abbott and Dallas Hamilton awaken in a Vegas hotel room, they’re man and wife. With news of the nuptials spreading virally, the high-profile best friends decide to stay married, temporarily. Maybe under the cover of marriage, Dallas can even make his best friend’s baby dream come true. But can their friendship survive their newly unleashed passions?
Learned Reactions (Higher Education #2) by Jayce Ellis – 9 Mar (Carina Press)
Carlton Monroe is finally getting his groove back. After a year playing dad to his nephew and sending him safely off to college, it’s back to his bachelor ways. But when his teenaged niece shows up on his doorstep looking for a permanent home, his plan comes to a screeching halt. Family is everything, and in the eyes of social services, a couple makes a better adoptive family than an overworked bachelor father. A fake relationship with his closest friend is the best way to keep his family together.
If things between him and Deion are complicated, well, it only needs to last until the end of the semester.
Living with Carlton is a heartbreak waiting to happen, and once the adoption goes through, Deion’s out. He’s waited two decades for Carlton to realize they’re meant for each other, and he’s done. It’s time to make a clean break. But it’s hard to think of moving away when keeping up the act includes some very real perks like kissing, cuddling and sharing a bed.
Even the best charades must come to an end, though. As the holidays and Deion’s departure date loom, the two men must decide whether playing house is enough for them—or if there’s any chance they could be a family for real.
Act Your Age, Eve Brown (Brown Sisters #3) by Talia Hibbert – 9 Mar (Avon)
Eve Brown is a certified hot mess. No matter how hard she strives to do right, her life always goes horribly wrong—so she’s given up trying. But when her personal brand of chaos ruins an expensive wedding (someone had to liberate those poor doves), her parents draw the line. It’s time for Eve to grow up and prove herself—even though she’s not entirely sure how…
Jacob Wayne is in control. Always. The bed and breakfast owner’s on a mission to dominate the hospitality industry—and he expects nothing less than perfection. So when a purple-haired tornado of a woman turns up out of the blue to interview for his open chef position, he tells her the brutal truth: not a chance in hell. Then she hits him with her car—supposedly by accident. Yeah, right.
Now his arm is broken, his B&B is understaffed, and the dangerously unpredictable Eve is fluttering around, trying to help. Before long, she’s infiltrated his work, his kitchen—and his spare bedroom. Jacob hates everything about it. Or rather, he should. Sunny, chaotic Eve is his natural-born nemesis, but the longer these two enemies spend in close quarters, the more their animosity turns into something else. Like Eve, the heat between them is impossible to ignore—and it’s melting Jacob’s frosty exterior.
The Dating Plan by Sara Desai – 16 Mar (Berkley)
Daisy Patel is a software engineer who understands lists and logic better than bosses and boyfriends. With her life all planned out, and no interest in love, the one thing she can’t give her family is the marriage they expect. Left with few options, she asks her childhood crush to be her decoy fiance.
Liam Murphy is a venture capitalist with something to prove. When he learns that his inheritance is contingent on being married, he realizes his best friend’s little sister has the perfect solution to his problem. A marriage of convenience will get Daisy’s matchmaking relatives off her back and fulfill the terms of his late grandfather’s will. If only he hadn’t broken her tender teenage heart nine years ago…
Sparks fly when Daisy and Liam go on a series of dates to legitimize their fake relationship. Too late, they realize that very little is convenient about their arrangement. History and chemistry aren’t about to follow the rules of this engagement.
Fantasy
A Queen of Gilded Horns (River of Royal Blood #2) by Amanda Joy – 16 Mar (GP Putnam’s Sons Books for Young Readers)
Now on the run, Eva is desperate for answers about her transformation and her true heritage. Along with Aketo, a small contingent of guards, and the sister she could not kill, Eva flees Ternain in hopes of finding friends and allies to the north–not to mention Baccha–to help her decide what to do next. Princess Isa is a difficult, unremorseful captive, and Eva knows better than to trust her sister, but she wants to. Despite their history, Eva is convinced that to survive the growing unrest in the queendom, she and her sister must make peace. Since the Entwining ceremony, Eva’s and Isa’s lives have been bonded, and each can only die by the other’s hand. This perhaps provides an opening for a truce and a more hopeful future for both the sisters and the queendom, if only Isa would see reason and give up the battle for the throne.
With the two princesses on the run, the Queendom of Myre is on the brink of a revolution. And without Baccha to guide and train her magick, Eva must find a way not only to survive her own metamorphosis, but to unite all the people of Myre, including her sister, by finally taking the Ivory Throne.
The Unbroken (Magic of the Lost # 1) by C.L. Clark – 23 Mar (Orbit)
Touraine is a soldier. Stolen as a child and raised to kill and die for the empire, her only loyalty is to her fellow conscripts. But now, her company has been sent back to her homeland to stop a rebellion, and the ties of blood may be stronger than she thought.
Luca needs a turncoat. Someone desperate enough to tiptoe the bayonet’s edge between treason and orders. Someone who can sway the rebels toward peace, while Luca focuses on what really matters: getting her uncle off her throne.
Through assassinations and massacres, in bedrooms and war rooms, Touraine and Luca will haggle over the price of a nation. But some things aren’t for sale.
Fantasy Romance
Captured on Film (Songs of the Amaranthine #6) by Forthright – 4 Mar (Twinkle Press)
One brother believes in impossible things. One brother denies he can see them.
When Caleb Dare’s younger brother shows up out of the blue, he’s immediately suspicious. The two of them live in totally different worlds. But Josheb threatens to camp in the middle of Caleb’s urban loft for as long as it takes to convince him to take a nice, long hike into the woods. They can camp. Swap stories around the fire. Just like old times.
Yeah, right.Josheb’s true motive is a major hassle. If not a hustle. He’s always believed in absolutely everything, from extraterrestrials to the paranormal. On a hot tip from an undisclosed source, he’s chasing a myth into the mountains, sure he’ll be the one to prove the existence of an elusive cryptid. It’ll be the story of the century, and Caleb is the only one who can give him the edge he needs.
Yeah, he’s right.
The Queen’s Weapons (Black Jewels # 11) by Anne Bishop – 9 Mar (Ace)
They are Warlord Princes, men born to serve and protect. They are the Queen’s Weapons, men born to destroy the Queen’s enemies–no matter what face that enemy wears.
Daemonar Yaslana knows how to be bossy yet supportive–traits he shares with his father, the Demon Prince, and his uncle, the High Lord of Hell. Within his generation of the family, he assumes the role of protector, supporting his sister Titian’s artistic efforts and curbing his cousin Jaenelle Saetien’s more adventurous ideas. But when a young Eyrien Queen, someone Titian thought was a friend, inflicts an emotional wound, Daemonar’s counterattack brings him under the tutelage of Witch, the Queen whose continued existence is known only to a select few.
As Daemonar is confronted by troubling changes within and around the family, he sees warnings that a taint in the Blood might be reappearing. Daemonar, along with his father and uncle, must uncover the source of a familiar evil–and Daemon Sadi, the High Lord of Hell, may be forced into making a terrible choice.
Historical Fiction
The Conductors (Murder and Magic #1) by Nicole Glover – 2 Mar (John Joseph Adams/Mariner)
As a conductor on the Underground Railroad, Hetty Rhodes helped usher dozens of people North with her wits and magic. Now that the Civil War is over, Hetty and her husband Benjy have settled in Philadelphia, solving murders and mysteries that the white authorities won’t touch. When they find one of their friends slain in an alley, Hetty and Benjy bury the body and set off to find answers. But the secrets and intricate lies of the elites of Black Philadelphia only serve to dredge up more questions. To solve this mystery, they will have to face ugly truths all around them, including the ones about each other.
The Ladies of the Secret Circus by Constance Sayers – 23 Mar (Redhook)
Paris, 1925: To enter the Secret Circus is to enter a world of wonder-a world where women tame magnificent beasts, carousels take you back in time, and trapeze artists float across the sky. But each daring feat has a cost. Bound to her family’s strange and magical circus, it’s the only world Cecile Cabot knows-until she meets a charismatic young painter and embarks on a passionate love affair that could cost her everything.
Virginia, 2005: Lara Barnes is on top of the world-until her fiancé disappears on their wedding day. Desperate, her search for answers unexpectedly leads to her great-grandmother’s journals and sweeps her into the story of a dark circus and a generational curse that has been claiming payment from the women in her family for generations.
Historical Romance
A Rogue to Remember (League of Scoundrels #1) by Emily Sullivan – 9 Mar (Forever)
After enduring five interminable seasons, Lottie Carlisle has had enough of shallow London society, her boring little life, and her uncle Alfred’s meddling. When he demands she accept a proposal by the end of next season or else he will choose a husband for her, she devises a plan: create a scandal shocking enough to make her unmarriageable and spend her spinsterhood far enough away in the countryside where no one will ever recognize her.
Alec Gresham hasn’t seen Lottie since he left his childhood friend without a word five years ago. So he’s not surprised to find her furious when he appears on her doorstep. Especially bearing the news he brings: her uncle is dying, her blasted reputation is still intact, and Lottie must return home. As they make the journey back to her family estate, it becomes increasingly clear that the last five years hasn’t erased their history, nor their explosive chemistry. Can Lottie look past her old heartache and trust Alec, or will his secrets doom their relationship once again?
The Heiress Hunt (Fifth Avenue Rebels #1) by Joanna Shupe – 9 Mar (Avon)
Is it too late…
Knickerbocker scoundrel Harrison Archer returns to New York to discover that his deceased father has bankrupted his estranged family. To save them from ruin, he’s forced to quickly find and marry an heiress. For a matchmaker, Harrison turns to the one woman he wishes he could marry: his childhood friend and true love, Maddie, who once broke his heart and is now engaged to a duke.
For true love?
When her best friend Harrison left for Paris without a word, Maddie Webster took refuge in her infatuation with tennis. Now Harrison is back and needs her help in finding a bride. Begrudgingly, Maddie arranges a house party in Newport with a guest list of eligible heiresses. But watching Harrison flirt with potential brides is more than she can bear.
When Harrison and Maddie reunite, the passion between them ignites. But with their marriages to others looming, time is running out. Is their fate inescapable . . .or can love set them free?
Wilde Child (Wildes of Lindow Castle #6) by Eloisa James – 30 Mar (Avon)
Already notorious for the golden hair that proves her mother’s infidelity, Lady Joan can’t seem to avoid scandals, but her latest escapade may finally ruin her: she’s determined to perform the title role of a prince—in breeches, naturally.
She has the perfect model for an aristocratic male in mind: Thaddeus Erskine Shaw, Viscount Greywick, a man who scorned the very idea of marrying her.
Not that Joan would want such a dubious honor, of course.
For years, Thaddeus has avoided the one Wilde who shakes his composure, but he’s horrified when he grasps the danger Joan’s putting herself in. Staring into her defiant eyes, he makes the grim vow that he’ll keep her safe.
He strikes a bargain: after one performance, the lady must return to her father’s castle and marry one of three gentlemen whom he deems acceptable.
Not including him, of course.
Mystery
The Windsor Knot (Her Majesty the Queen Investigates #1) by S.J. Bennett – 9 Mar (William Morrow)
It is the early spring of 2016 and Queen Elizabeth is at Windsor Castle in advance of her 90th birthday celebrations. But the preparations are interrupted when a guest is found dead in one of the Castle bedrooms. The scene suggests the young Russian pianist strangled himself, but a badly tied knot leads MI5 to suspect foul play was involved. The Queen leaves the investigation to the professionals—until their suspicions point them in the wrong direction.
Unhappy at the mishandling of the case and concerned for her staff’s morale, the monarch decides to discreetly take matters into her own hands. With help from her Assistant Private Secretary, Rozie Oshodi, a British Nigerian and recent officer in the Royal Horse Artillery, the Queen secretly begins making inquiries. As she carries out her royal duties with her usual aplomb, no one in the Royal Household, the government, or the public knows that the resolute Elizabeth will use her keen eye, quick mind, and steady nerve to bring a murderer to justice.
SJ Bennett captures Queen Elizabeth’s voice with skill, nuance, wit, and genuine charm in this imaginative and engaging mystery that portrays Her Majesty as she’s rarely seen: kind yet worldly, decisive, shrewd, and most importantly a great judge of character.
The Consequences of Fear (Maisie Dobbs #16) by Jacqueline Winspear – 23 Mar (Harper)
September 1941. While on a delivery, young Freddie Hackett, a message runner for a government office, witnesses an argument that ends in murder. Crouching in the doorway of a bombed-out house, Freddie waits until the coast is clear. But when he arrives at the delivery address, he’s shocked to come face to face with the killer.
Dismissed by the police when he attempts to report the crime, Freddie goes in search of a woman he once met when delivering a message: Maisie Dobbs. While Maisie believes the boy and wants to help, she must maintain extreme caution: she’s working secretly for the Special Operations Executive, assessing candidates for crucial work with the French resistance. Her two worlds collide when she spots the killer in a place she least expects. She soon realizes she’s been pulled into the orbit of a man who has his own reasons to kill—reasons that go back to the last war.
Paranormal Romance
When He’s an Alpha (Olympus Pride #2) by Suzanne Wright – 2 Mar (Self)
The golden rule of shallow flings is not to get attached, right? Well, Havana Ramos broke it. Big time. There’s just something about Tate Devereaux that pulls at her. Assertive, compelling, and self-assured, the Alpha cat shifter pushes every one of her best buttons. Like really, really hard. Having overheard an enlightening conversation, she knows he won’t give her more than a fling—something, to be fair, he’d told her well in advance. If she doesn’t want her heart to get bruised, it’s time to end what little they have. It’s not like he’ll care or anything. Except … it turns out that he does.
Newly-appointed Alpha Tate Devereaux is never bothered when women walk away. He can’t exactly blame them, given his distrustful cat’s habit of withdrawing from relationships. But when lone shifter Havana ends their fling, everything within Tate rebels against it—including his cat. Even as she and Tate work together to crush the threat looming over her, Havana holds him at arms’ length. But if she thinks she can end their fling with no real explanation and that he’ll just tip his hat and walk away, she’s forgotten one very important thing—there’s nothing easy about shaking off an Alpha.
Erratic (Arcane Mage #3) by T.S. Snow – 11 Mar (Self)
The plan was supposed to be simple:
Graduate as a Magical Engineer? Check.
Get people to finally acknowledge my amazing tech skills? Check…
Though it was a little more than I bargained for.
Find that special someone who wants me for me? Check…times a lot.
Avoid the Arcane Heirs at all costs? Erh…
Find out who was behind the resistance and stop them from killing even more people?
It’s a work in progress.
Stay out of trouble?
*Crickets*
In my defense, chaos and trouble have always found me, no matter where I am.
And having the Arcane Heirs going out of their way to win me over only seems to make things worse.
Conflict is brewing, and I somehow ended up stuck in the middle of it all.
The last thing I wanted was to be caught in this tug of war,
Especially now that my magic has become Erratic.
Romantic Suspense
Chinook (Miranda Chase NTSB #6) by M.L. Buchman – 23 Mar (Buchman Bookworks)
When the fastest and most powerful helicopters in the US Army’s fleet start falling out of the sky, Miranda Chase and her team of NTSB crash investigators are called in.
One crash leads to another and they are fast entangled in a Chinese conspiracy to start a war. Only Miranda’s team can stop the trade war from becoming a real one.
Adverse Possession (The Anna Albertini Files #3) by Rebecca Zanetti – 23 Mar (RAZ INK LLC)
The plural form of Nemesis is Nemeses
Anna Albertini never thought she’d have to look up the plural form of nemesis. In fact, she never thought she’d have one, much less three. But as she and her new partner try to make a go of their fledgling law firm, enemies come from every direction.
First, there’s a newspaper reporter trying to make a name for herself by dogging Anna’s every move. Second, there’s a lawyer on the opposite side of every case who just doesn’t like Anna. And third, there’s Aiden Devlin’s ex-girlfriend, who decides to descend upon the sleeping Idaho town like a bird of prey. It’s too bad she’s discovered dead…after finding herself on the wrong end of a potato gun, putting Anna top of the suspect list.
Anna deals with every day as it arrives while juggling her developing relationship with Aiden, trying to pay her rent by finding at least one client who pays, and finally by partnering with her Nonna Albertini in the world’s most chaotic plan to match-make her sister with the Elk County’s prosecuting attorney, Nick Basanelli. It’s a good thing Anna has learned to thrive in chaos.
Science Fiction
A Desolation Called Peace (Teixcalaan #2) by Arkady Martine – 2 Mar (Tor Books)
An alien armada lurks on the edges of Teixcalaanli space. No one can communicate with it, no one can destroy it, and Fleet Captain Nine Hibiscus is running out of options.
In a desperate attempt at diplomacy with the mysterious invaders, the fleet captain has sent for a diplomatic envoy. Now Mahit Dzmare and Three Seagrass—still reeling from the recent upheaval in the Empire—face the impossible task of trying to communicate with a hostile entity.
Whether they succeed or fail could change the fate of Teixcalaan forever.
Science Fiction Romance
Wrapt in Crystal (Reissue) by Sharon Shinn – 2 Mar (Penguin Random House)
When a serial killer begins stalking the priestesses of a planet’s two religions, Interfed Agent Cowen Drake must immerse himself in an unfamiliar world of stark spirituality to catch the killer. A world that will trap him between opulence and sacrifice, duty and desire, and between two extraordinary women — one who could become the killer’s ultimate victim…
Urban Fantasy
An Echo in the Sorrow (Soulbound #6) by Hailey Turner – 1 Mar (Self)
Forgiveness is a hollow prayer you only hear in your dreams.
Patrick Collins has spent years handling cases as a special agent for the Supernatural Operations Agency, even as his secret standing in the preternatural community has changed. He should have confessed to his role as co-leader of the New York City god pack when he and Jonothon de Vere took up the mantle months ago, but he didn’t. Now that split loyalty will cost him at a time when he can least afford it.
Outmaneuvered, framed for murder, and targeted by the Dominion Sect, Patrick has to face a past full of lies to regain his freedom. Revealing the truth means he’ll need to give up the life that has defined him. Everything he’s fought to build with his pack is at stake, and losing them isn’t a price Patrick is willing to pay, but some choices aren’t his to make.
Jono knows they can’t cede any more territory if they want to win the god pack civil war spilling into the streets of New York City. But the souls of werecreatures are free for the taking when demons come to town and angels sing a warning no one can ignore. When Jono’s worst fear comes to life, and he loses the one person he can’t live without, the only option left is to fight.
Facing down the demons of their past and the ones in their present, Patrick and Jono will learn the hard way that some sins never wash away clean
The Solstice Countdown (SPI Files #7) by Lisa Shearin – 9 Mar (Murwood Media LLC)
As an agent of Supernatural Protection & Investigations (SPI), I know that evil doesn’t take a vacation, but this time it made an exception and followed me on mine.
I’m Makenna Fraser, seer for SPI, and I’m taking my boyfriend, goblin dark mage Rake Danescu, home for the holidays to meet my family.
Weird Sisters is a small town in the North Carolina mountains that was built on a network of ley lines that magnify psychic and paranormal energies. It doesn’t show up on Google Maps, was named after the three witches in Macbeth, and the first word of the town name perfectly describes most of its human and supernatural citizens.
A stranger has come to town, bringing with him a dormant source of primordial evil. Soon, magically gifted locals start vanishing, and the power of the ley lines is turned against us, cutting us off from the outside world and any source of help.
For a town and its people steeped in magic, and my family sworn to protect both, it’s a race against time to use a local winter solstice phenomenon to free the town from its prison. But first, I must trust a father I’ve never known to fight and defeat an awakening evil that’s existed since the beginning of time. If we fail, and it is unleashed, the world will not survive.
Wild Sign (Alpha and Omega #6) by Patricia Briggs – 16 Mar (Berkley)
In the wilds of the Northern California mountains, all the inhabitants of a small town have gone missing. It’s as if the people picked up and left everything they owned behind. Fearing something supernatural might be going on, the FBI taps a source they’ve consulted in the past: the werewolves Charles Cornick and Anna Latham. But Charles and Anna soon find a deserted town is the least of the mysteries they face.
Death sings in the forest, and when it calls, Charles and Anna must answer. Something has awakened in the heart of the California mountains, something old and dangerous — and it has met werewolves before.
Saint’s Passage (Elemental Covenant #1) by Elizabeth Hunter – 23 Mar (Recurve Press LLC)
Everyone said that Lupe Martínez was a good kid. She listened to her mom, she helped at the homeless shelter, she got good grades, and she had a bright future ahead of her.
Until she disappeared.
Now no one knows what to think. The police are sure she ran away; her mother is sure she didn’t. Days have passed and no one knows what to do until her family priest suggests they call in an old friend.
A very old friend.
Carwyn ap Bryn and Brigid Connor are two elemental vampires finding the lost, righting wrongs, and searching for meaning in the endless stretch of immortality they’ve been granted.
And trying not to blow things up, but that might be more aspirational.
The monthly Must Have list is a compilation of the upcoming release titles that we, The Book Pushers, just can’t wait to get our hands on. Don’t see a title you’re excited about listed here? Add it to the comments section below. Let us know what you’re looking forward to!