Coming Soon – The Books We’re Most Looking Forward to Reading in September 2023
September is traditionally a BIG month for new romance releases, and this September is certainly continuing that tradition with a bumper crop of new titles to get stuck into! As always, we love hearing which books YOU’RE most keen to read in the coming weeks – and just a reminder that while we do our best to make sure this list is as accurate as possible, some titles get missed because we simply don’t know about them sufficiently far in advance to be able to include them. In any case, there should be something here for everyone – happy reading!
Releasing week of 4th Sept 2023
Releasing week of 11th Sept 2023
Releasing week of 18th Sept 2023
Releasing week of 25th Sept 2023
The book I’m most looking forward is TIME TO SHINE, by Rachel Reid. I’ve already bought it in advance. It’s 7.37 euros now in Spain (7.90 dollars to change). Expensive, I know, but something I pay for one of my favourite romance novelists. I’m quite sure I’m going to enjoy it.
It’s really good – so I think you can count it as money well spent!
Looking forward to reading Murder at the Merton Library (Wrexford & Sloane, #7), A Nobleman’s Guide to Seducing a Scoundrel (The Doomsday Books, #2), Payback in Death (In Death, #57) and Resurrection Reprise: A Soulbound Universe Novel by Hailey Turner.
With my hometown mentioned in Rachel Reid’s Time to Shine, must add to the TBR.
Also released in September:
September 12 – I Like Big Dukes and I Cannot Lie (Anthology) by Tamara Gill et.al.
September 30 – Heart of the Shadow King (Bride of the Shadow King, #3) by Sylvia Mercedes (MF)
Anybody heard whether Loretta Chase has a book in the hopper? Rereading her got me thru covid.
She writes on her blog and in her irregular newsletter that she had huge problems with the third Difficult Dukes book. And that it led to many delays. I vaguely remember her writing that it was finally coming along, but not before 2024. This info is also a few months old.
Does anybody have recent news?
I am waiting, and hoping, myself.
There is no book out yet on the advance publishing sites.
I’ll be reading Disruptive Engagement, The Nobleman’s Guide to Seducing a Scoundrel, Find Me Worthy and Time to Shine! It’ll be a good month. However, I agree the price on the Rachel Reid book gives me pause, and I might end up waiting for the price to either come down, or for it to get to audio since so far my library system has gotten all her GC audibooks. I expect they’ll also get the audio of KJ Charles book, since they bought the previous one. I may also wait for Disruptive Engagement on audiobook, since it’s probably coming out soon after the print edition.
I’ve read three of those and they’re all DIKs :)
Woot!
September (particularly the last week) is shaping up to be one of the best reading months I’ve had in a while. I just hope my book budget can handle it!
YOURS CRUELLY (September 7) is the second in Winter Renshaw’s Paper Cuts series of angsty romances. This one features antagonists-to-lovers and an unplanned pregnancy. Renshaw’s books are well-written and very well-plotted. She does a great job of keeping her plot strands clear.
SALT KISS (September 12) by Sierra Simone is the first in her new Lyonesse series that is a modern retelling of the legend of Tristan & Isolde. Former soldier Tristan works at an exclusive club owned by the wealthy and amoral Mark. When Tristan is tasked with bringing Mark’s fiancée, Isolde, from Ireland to America, we already know what’s going to happen between them. I’m expecting to be thoroughly engaged by Simone’s trademark lush eroticism.
I’m going to give Elizabeth O’Roark’s THE SUMMER I SAVED YOU (September 14) a chance, even though her previous book, THE SUMMER WE FELL, was full of melodrama and what I’ve come to term as “Colleen Hooverization”, i.e., anything bad that can happen to a heroine will happen to her. Hopefully, the new book will move away from the obviousness of “a woman has to suffer traumas to appreciate a happily-ever-after”, but if it doesn’t, this may be my last O’Roark, which is a shame because her Grumpy Devils books were quite good.
HOTT SHOT (September 19) is the first in Serena Bell’s Hott Springs series about a group of siblings who run a spa & salon (we met the sister of the family when she was the heroine of Bell’s WILDER AT LAST, the last book in her Wilder Adventures series). HOTT SHOT is a romance between the woman who manages the Hott Springs spa and one of the owners. Bell always finds a way to make a trope individualized, so I’m looking forward to seeing what she does with grumpy-sunshine here.
Rachel Reid is back with a new m/m hockey romance, TIME TO SHINE (September 26). This one hits all the hockey romance tropes: backup player/superstar, veteran-rookie, roommates, grumpy-sunshine, bi-awakening. I’m really excited to read a new book from one of my favorite writers, but the only drawback is that Rachel Reid’s post-Game Changers popularity means that TIME TO SHINE’s ebook is priced at $9.99. Can I possibly wait for a sale or for the library copy to arrive before I devour the book? All signs point to unlikely.
Three of my favorite Harlequin Presents writers are also dropping new HPs on September 26: Pregnant with Her Royal Boss’s Baby is the third and final book in Jackie Ashenden’s Three Ruthless Kings trilogy. I’m expecting plenty of angst, drama, and references to dysfunctional childhoods in this unplanned pregnancy romance. Caitlin Crews’s THE SPANIARD’S LAST-MINUTE WIFE is the second of Crews’s Innocent Stolen Brides series. In TSLMW, the heroine steps in when the hero is jilted at the altar, but there’s a lot to unpack because the heroine believes the hero is the father of her late-cousin’s baby. Maisey Yates’s A VIRGIN FOR THE DESERT KING is the second of her Royal Desert Legacy books of Sheikh romances. In this one, a king who was imprisoned for much of his life falls for the consultant hired to prepare him for his new royal position.
I was thrilled to discover that Julie Kriss (one of Romancelandia’s most underappreciated writers, imho) was writing one more book in her Road Kings series of rock romances: WHAT HAPPENED LAST NIGHT (September 28) is the story of the guy who funded the Road Kings’ reunion tour and his assistant. There’s enforced proximity in a snowstorm, which is always one of my favorite tropes. And I can’t wait to catch up with what’s been happening to the members of the band and their partners.
If it helps, the Reid is REALLY good. Very different to GC, but very good.
If you would like me to include any titles in these lists, please feel free to email me – I’m always happy to find new books to include.
That’s good to hear as I’ve preordered the ebook for a shocking £10.20.
It may be the most expensive ebook that I’ve ever bought!
Much as I’m a firm believer in authors getting paid properly for their work, that price is way out of my budget. If I didn’t review so much, I wouldn’t be able to afford to read half the amount I do – the local library (e-library) has nothing I want to read and used isn’t an option because I really struggle to read paper books these days.
Oddly though, I see a lot of books reviewed here that retail for over $10 in the US that are only 2 or 3 quid here.
I have to say, it depresses me to read here, so often, a wish for books to be cheap. In the past week, I’ve had conversations with three stellar authors who are quitting writing romance because there’s no money in it for them.
Reid publishes around a book a year. If she makes 10% on each book she sells–on the high side–she’d make $1.00 per book. So, if she sold 20K books, she’d make 20K for the year on that book.
What’s a reasonable wage for an author? Especially those who take time to write good books? As the WaPo pointed out recently about streaming in music and as many have written about film, consumers pay vastly less than they used to per work of art.
I realize I am super cranky about this because this same mentality has made it almost impossible for AAR to survive financially. I think we as consumers can’t just blame Amazon, Netflix, Spotify, and all the other big corporations that also contribute to paying artists pennies. We are now so wedded to free and low-priced content that I think we have a hard time recalling when it was the norm to pay well over ten dollars for a new book by an author we love or two dollars for a new song.
And, in the long run, we may be happy with the world we’ve created. But I suspect that like so many things we don’t value until they are gone, we will miss a world where good authors could publish quality books and be rewarded for doing so.
I completely understand your point and even agree, but it’s also a catch-22 for many of us who live on a more restrictive income. If I had to pay $10 for every book I read that isn’t from the library, I’d have to cut my reading in at least half, if not more like two thirds, so some author’s wouldn’t be getting any of my money. I have a fixed budget for books/ audiobooks, so I have to maximize what I buy and that means not reading some books I want to because I can’t fit them into my budget. I think more people have budgets like mine than there are people with the ability to spend as much as they’d like on books. So if I buy $10 ebooks, a few authors may get more money, but more authors will get nothing from me because my budget is gone.
Either way money is tight for authors, and I’m sorry about that. It’s tight for many of us. The fact is, books are a big part of my personal budget, and I skimp on buying new clothes or things for the house to afford them. Up until the pandemic I also worked 35 hours a week for 8 years in retail making less than $24,000 a year, and yes, that sucked but I did it because I needed to help get my kids through college.
And you’re lucky you have such great libraries – if I had to rely on mine, I’d be struggling to find anything I wanted to read.
I’m very fortunate to live in a reasonably sized city in Canada with a great library that has over 1000 romance audiobooks and 6000 romance ebooks. I will never run out of something to read! (as if my own TBR wasn’t overextended too)
Dabney, I agree with a lot of what you say, however I think part of the problem also lies with libraries and how many books they make available to the public. I never used to wait for books as long as I have to wait nowadays. We consumers in the US would not have to buy as many books ourselves if our libraries were making them readily available to us.
I tried to figure out how much libraries are spending on books, and I found this link for the U.S. which give per capita spending on collections for the 25 largest library systems. On the lower end, Riverside, CA spends a measly $1.11 per capita, and Houston spends $1.50. On the upper end, the King County, WA library system spends $9.28 and the New York City system spends $7.81. https://libguides.ala.org/librarystatistics/largest-public-libs
My library system is not on this list, but it seems we often have long waits for popular books, and many romances and KU books are never acquired. I think library budgets are tight, publishers are squeezing every dollar they can out of them, and that is forcing readers to find book dollars in our own budgets.
I agree that libraries are wildly underfunded and are being hosed by publishers. (The limits on ebooks are criminal.)
That said, I do also believe that we, as consumers, do not wish to pay fairly for art and literature if by fairly you mean a wage that would allow writers and artists to make any kind of living.
Both things are true.
I worked for a library, and believe me publishers are squeezing every last dime out of them that they can. It is obscene what libraries pay for both actual books and e-lending rights. Libraries also have to cover a wide variety of tastes – many a patron would eliminate romance novels from the library budget if they could. Or mysteries. Or any other genre. So it is a constant balancing act and I am frankly amazed at how well most libraries do at it.
These is an example of the terms the Big Five has for libraries.
And as a librarian, I have no access to the books in Kindle Unlimited since Amazon has exclusive access. I literally cannot purchase them while they are exclusive- both the ebooks and eaudio
Ugh. That is awful.
It is worse than awful – it is anti-competitive and should be illegal. I think Amazon is getting away with it because they aren’t “selling” the books, they are only temporarily “lending” them. But it should be illegal. Either the books are available to the reading public including libraries (at a reasonable price), or they are not available to anyone.
All that is very true – and I also agree that we have become used to paying as little as possible for what we consume (it’s true of food, too).
Talking of libraries, I went to my local elibrary to check out the romance offerings. In the Libby section – which I think is new – there are a WHOPPING 47 (yes forty-seven) titles listed. In Borrowbox there are 1500. Which is probably less than the number of romance titles published a year.
I wasn’t kidding when I said I couldn’t depend on getting stuff to read from the library. I’m aware that my genre of choice (m/m) is niche and I wasn’t expecting them to have any. But even the HR offerings are slim pickings.
I absolutely believe artists deserve to be paid for their work – and its going to get tougher – we haven’t seen the worst of the AI shitstorm yet, but it’s already ruining the livelihoods of many KU authors. But it’s not about not wanting to pay a fair price it’s about not being able to. Consumers are being squeezed on all fronts (my energy bills have quadrupled and my weekly shop is up by over 25%) – and I have to think carefully about what I spend on myself.
I understand that and I sympathize.
And yet, places like AAR will vanish as will authors who take care with their work if we don’t pay them enough to survive.
I feel there is a compromise that is right for every person and it’s my hope that our readers will think hard about what best meets their goals.
So glad to hear it’s good! It’s difficult to follow up a winning series like GC since expectations are so high.
$10 for the Reid book is out of my price range, so I’ll probably wait for the audiobook. If it has a good narrator I’ll definitely want it on audio, so I’ll save my pennies for that. If I’m lucky my library will get the audiobook, since they have the audiobooks for all her GC series.
It’s Cooper North, so I’ll definitely be listening!
Like you, I have a book budget and have to make it work. I do use KU (which basically pays for itself within the first week of every month) and the library whenever possible. There are a number of authors that I will wait for a price drop (usually comes within a year of a book’s publication), but a select few (RR being one) I’d really like to read right away. I’m truly sorry that many writers are not making a living writing, but we’re all being squeezed right now, and I have to allot my fixed book budget with care.
Did you get to read The Summer I Saved You yet? It felt to me more like her Devil series and I enjoyed it. I am interested in Harrison’s story but I guess we’ll get Beck and Kate’s story in January and I wonder how she will redeem Kate. I look forward to hearing what you think.
I most look forward to the third book in Jennifer Crusie’s Liz Danger trilogy, One in Vermillion.
I really enjoyed book 1, Lavender’s Blue, am just happily reading Rest in Pink.
The last comes end September.
Of the above, Angelina Lopez and KJ Charles will probably come on my reading list, though I feel no urgent anticipation.
I am a bit tired of cute magic, and of super sweet m/m, m/f, and I cannot relate to YA most times, which is a lot of the offerings . Also loads of angst over fairly normal bad sad life stuff exhausts me.
I currently veer towards urban fantasy ( WR Gingell, C. Gockel, R. Cooper, Connie Willis), or straight fantasy , Sharon Shinn, Carol Berg, Katherine Addison, also SF, Sharon Lee&Steve Miller’s Liaden, Catherine Asaro, with some romance, rereading older stuff or discovering older stuff.
I hear you on that – it’s why I gravitate towards grittier m/m romantic suspense and angsty m/m CR when I can find it. I loved the KJC – but then I haven’t yet met a book of hers I haven’t enjoyed.
Over the last couple of years, I’ve become a fan of Nazri Noor – he writes Urban Fantasy and his last few series have included m/m romances as well. He’s prolific, so there’s a lot to choose from but I’m currently enjoying his Arcane Hearts series in audio. He’s very inventive the worldbuilding is really good and he writes with a lot of humour.
I will check out Nazri Noor!
If you do audio, he’s got some excellent narrators on board.