Happy release week to author Emily Renk Hawthorne! From the Depths is now available!
If you enjoyed Black Water Sister, Daughter of the Moon Goddess, or The Girl Who Fell Beneath the Sea, you will enjoy Of Mountains and Seas—a Chinese mythology–inspired urban fantasy duology set in California.
From The Depths (Of Mountains and Seas #2
Release Date: June 9, 2026
Genre: Urban Fantasy
In the wake of a failed coup, peace comes at a cost.
A new regime enforces order by erasing the memories of every Shifter.
But Nivi remembers everything.
Immune to the memory-wiping tincture that silenced her kind, Nivi carries the weight of the past alone. Her powers set her apart, but so does the truth she can’t forget. Once again, Nivi finds herself isolated from her family and friends, and something begins to fracture, within herself and within the forest of her hometown Yuras.
Strange happenings are accumulating. A road of abandoned homes in Yuras. A missing crabbing crew in Alaska. A student abduction at the local Shifter school.
With danger creeping closer and reality unraveling for both Shifters and Statics, will the fight for what’s been lost be worth unearthing truths they fear?
Welcome to the book tour for Once Upon a Midnight Walk by Tetyana Walker!
Once Upon a Midnight Walk
Release Date: April 24, 2026
Genre: Romantic Fantasy
Strong and cunning heroine
Forced partnership
Slow burn romance
Enemies to lovers
“Who did this to you”
A LOT of bickering & yearning
Angst and tension with historical romance undertones
In a kingdom where the sun never sets, and only men are born with magic, Agnes Peregreene had to grow up entirely too soon.
After her mother’s death, Agnes devoted her life to caring for her younger sister. Bound by a vow she refused to break, she ensured no price was too great for Solomia’s well-being. But when Solomia is betrothed to a known wife-killer, Agnes is forced to confront the reality of her own powerlessness.
Before Agnes can find a way to save her sister, she is handed a death sentence of her own.
Desperate to buy time, she strikes a frantic bargain with the Aclanian king—she will venture into Nocturna, the realm of ever-night, and retrieve a long-lost talisman in exchange for her life and her sister’s freedom.
Lost in a realm unlike any other, Agnes must rely on her cunning mind to survive. Determined to return home successful, she sets on a path of discovery, unraveling secrets that a mysterious and wealthy man named Odeon Nox has spent years trying to keep buried.
Secrets that come with a price neither one of them is prepared to pay.
Step into this standalone fantasy romance, set between a realm of sunlight and castles and a world of night and cities rivaling 1920s New York.
Every choice has a price, and every heart hides a secret.
For fans of Jane Austen, Sarah J. Maas and V.E Schwab
Or at least, that’s how it was supposed to go. Kova of Stormwatch made a promise when she left her mother and sweetheart weeping on the shore back home: she’d earn her fortune slaying the beasts that haunt the woods and the horrors that lurk in the shadows, or she would die trying. But to do that, she needs an apprenticeship with a master monster hunter. The best of the best: Sayre Boarbane.
Pity that Sayre works alone.
When Sayre drags Kova home by the ear, they’re both in for a rude awakening. Kova’s mother? Missing. Kova’s lover? Taking long walks on the beach with a stranger.
And all those monsters Kova wanted to slay? They’re back in Stormwatch, dragging villagers into the ocean.
Welcome to the ARC tour for Cast Off by Enola M. Douglas – Available July 10th!
Cast Off (Jewels of the Nine Kingdoms Book 2) Expected Release Date: July 10, 2026 Genre: Romantasy/ Why Choose
• Arranged marriage
• Omegaverse
• Royalty
• Court Intrigue
• Forced Proximity
• Found Family
• Healer FMC / Warrior MMC
• Mutual pining
• Slow Burn
• Hurt/Comfort
• Touch her & Di3
• Second Chances
• Grovelling
• Chronic Pain/Disability Rep
• Interracial Marriage
An arranged marriage. A fragile alliance. A love neither thought possible.
Omega Princess JingYi of Xûen-Sarai has always lived in the shadows—unseen, unwanted, valued only for her skill as a healer. When she’s sent to marry a powerful Alpha lord in a distant kingdom, she sees it as an escape. A chance to reclaim her dignity.
Alpha Lord Alexander Wulfbane expects a flawless bride to restore his disgraced House—but the Omega who arrives is nothing like he imagined. The moment their eyes meet, disappointment lingers, and their fragile alliance begins to fray.
But beyond the cold marriage bed and strained diplomacy, a darker plot is brewing. Across the realm, Omegas are vanishing—and whispers of a forbidden substance threaten to destabilize the Nine Kingdoms. To survive, JingYi and Alexander must become more than a political match.
She’s not the bride he wants.
And she never asks him to be her hero.
But when the storm comes, they’ll have to choose—
stand together or be swept away.
Cast Off can be read as a standalone—but for the fullest plunge into the Nine Kingdoms, start with WHISKED AWAY. It’s the gateway that sets up the world, politics, and payoffs you’ll feel even harder in Book Two.
Note: Cast Off is an Omegaverse fantasy romance. It is Book Two in Jewels of the Nine Kingdoms—a series of interconnected stories, each following different main characters or pairings, all bound by a shared world and a central conflict. This book can be read on its own—but Whisked Away (Book 1) offers deeper context and emotional resonance within the overarching plot.
A Hollywood idol. The Virgin Mary. An everyday girl from Hull. Three women, three eras, surprising things in common.
On the night she should have died, Marilyn Monroe has a visitor who changes her life. The Virgin Mary appears in her kitchen with a message. Inspired, Marilyn abandons her home, her life, her fame, and disappears into the night…
Fifty-four years later, in a Hull kitchen, Flora Baker finds Mary, bathed in light. She has a similar message for the working class woman on the poverty line. Flora makes changes that impact not only her life but the lives of those around her…
Do Marilyn and Flora have more in common than Mary’s visit? Are they linked across time? And is Mary’s message for all the women of the world? Wonderful is about the way women are portrayed in both history and the world of celebrity, about women not being quiet, and about women united by the shared stories that shape them.
As a child, Louise Beech told everyone she was going to be a world-famous novelist one day. She once bet her mum ten pounds that she’d be published by thirty – her first newspaper column was published when she was thirty-one. She finally got a publishing deal in 2015 with Orenda Books.
Her debut, How to be Brave (2015), got to No4 on Amazon and was a Guardian Readers’ Pick; Maria in the Moon (2017) was described as ‘quirky, darkly comic and heartfelt’ by the Sunday Mirror; The Lion Tamer Who Lost (2018) shortlisted for the Popular Romantic Novel of 2019 at the RNA Awards and long listed for the Polari Prize 2019; Call Me Star Girl (2019) long listed for the Guardian’s Not The Booker Prize and was Best magazine’s Best Book of the Year 2019; and I Am Dust (2020) was a Crime Magazine Monthly pick. This Is How We Are Human was published in June 2021. Louise still hasn’t given her mum that tenner though.
Louise also writes under the name Louise Swanson, and her first book in that guise, End of Story, was published in March 2023 by Hodder & Stoughton and her second, Lights Out, in September 2024. Her play, How to be Brave, toured in 2024. Wonderful was published June 2026.
My thoughts: I, like the author and Flora in the book, love Marilyn Monroe, I am fascinated by her and she talents, she could have gone on to be an even more incredible actor if she hadn’t died at 36.
Which is where this book starts, instead of dying, she disappears and starts over, using her new life to do something good and help other women, women like her who need support and care.
Flora lives in Hull, caring for her mentally ill sister Bella, working in a club and trying to keep her head above water. CARE runs a shelter for women and once took in her sister when she needed help. When the Virgin Mary appears to Flora and tells her to volunteer there and Bella will be ok.
Slowly Marilyn and Flora’s lives come together and the coincidences that bring them together, including another brief appearance from Mary (who I agree with Marilyn, I wish we knew more about her, and her life (I know she ran a catering firm – it’s in the Bible))
It’s genuinely a lovely book, a lovely story and left me with a smile on my face. I wish Marilyn’s story had ended like this, much happier and less tragic than it did in this life, maybe in another universe somewhere it did.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.
Thirty years ago, that was the promise Dr. Victor Todd made when he gifted Isla Davis the antidote to mortality, trading her terminal human life for an undying eternity at his side. But when Isla wakes disoriented and bloody beside a corpse she doesn’t recognize, their Victorian home becomes the stage for a claustrophobic nightmare.
Isla’s preserved body is now wracked by the violent return of human frailty. Her mind, once a fortress, is crumbling—weeks as Victor’s patient and decades as his wife collapsing into a fractured, bleeding present. And for the first time in over a century, Dr. Victor Todd has become a patient too.
Trapped in the maze of their own unraveling, as their memories slip through their fingers and the clock they thought they’d conquered begins to tick once more, Isla and Victor are left to face a devastating truth:
Eternity is fading one agonizing heartbeat at a time.
Tropes:
Gothic & Medical Horror
Romantic Tragedy
Victorian Vampire Doctor
Amnesia & Memory Loss
Doctor x Patient
Established Couple
Found Family
Triggers:
Graphic depictions of body horror, medical distress, violence, death and dying
Penny Dreadful meets Sherlock Holmes in this beautiful new release by Jessi St. John, available today!
The Weaver’s Loom (The Last Death Witch Book 1)
Release Date: June 1, 2026
Genre: Gothic Fantasy
Penny Dreadful meets Sherlock Holmes
1890’s London
Last of her Kind
Hidden Magic
Slow Burn romantic subplot
Murder
Mystery
Edith Ashton is the last of her kind. But the world thinks she’s dead.
1893 London. Witches live uneasily alongside humans after a treaty that stripped them of their immortality in exchange for living out in the open. In that aftermath, Death Witches were hunted down and eradicated.
All but one.
Edith hides in plain sight as an investigator with the First Council, solving murders with her magic. She can see a victim’s last moments of life. It’s a convenient gift. An inconspicuous one. And it keeps her true power a secret.
But when a witch’s death exposes the disappearance of five more, she is forced into a case that rips into her past. The trail leads to the Sparrows – a long-dormant order that wiped out every Death Witch in England – including Edith’s family.
As the full moon draws near, more witches vanish. When a witch she has sworn to protect is abducted, she won’t stay hidden any longer.
To stop them, Edith will have to unmask a magic she has spent decades burying.
And once the Sparrows know that a Death Witch still lives, they will finish what they started.
We’re celebrating the release of Of Fate and Fury by Amy Woodruff!
If you need to catch up on the Blood and Curses series… book one, Of Kingdom and Curses is available on KU!
Of Fate and Fury (Blood and Curses Book Two)
Release Date: June 2, 2026
Genre: Romantasy
Cursed romance
Powerful artifacts
Found family
Memory magic
Star-crossed love
“I’d burn the world for you” energy
Escaping Elyria was only the beginning. Some curses never truly break.
Bridget Adams has returned to the human world—alive, but changed. Her memories of Elyria remain intact, though they shouldn’t. Haunted by visions she can’t explain and the ache of missing Cade, she begins to fear the price of magic is her sanity. Then a familiar face appears, shattering everything she thought she knew about herself… and about Cade.
In Elyria, Cassia watches her brother unravel, uncertain whether Bridget survived the crossing. With the reluctant help of the man she once loved, she begins to awaken powers buried deep within her… powers that could alter the fate of the kingdom. But with Quinn still missing and the stolen Bloodstone in her possession, the fragile peace holding their world together is close to breaking.
Because the Bloodstone is more than a relic. It’s the key to freeing Vega from her prison in Iegorus, and it’s bound to Bridget and Cade by a curse centuries in the making. With war brewing and magic demanding a price, Bridget and Cassia must face their destinies — or see everything they love consumed by a fate they’ve both been trying to outrun.
Welcome to the tour for Against All Waves by Chelsea Ray. If you love pirate fantasy, you’ll love this!
Against All Waves
Release Date: August 2025
Genre: YA Fantasy
Slow-burn Romance
Scheming Crewmates
Deadly Sea Creatures
Found Family
Magic
Shes a pirate. He’s a prince. Together they must conquer sea and land.
As a pirate, and only female crewmember, eighteen-year-old Elle fights daily to prove her worth despite being deemed bad luck. Facing dangerous waters, she secretly searches for her mother who had mysteriously disappeared. But she must tread carefully, for the tyrant captain of The Turbulence, her father Velis Whitlock has one rule: never to speak the name of Elle’s mother.
Axel Ardanian’s life has been laid out for him since birth. Soon to be ruler of the peaceful island of Glendora, he decides to share what the island has produced for centuries: a remedy known to cure any sickness. But during his travels to other lands, he witnesses the harsh realities of poverty and greed, which he fears will threaten the land he loves. To protect Glendora, the council and his father agree that Axel must unite with one of the kingdoms through an advantageous marriage.
When The Turbulence targets and attacks Axel’s ship, his and Elle’s lives are suddenly intertwined. In the end, both will have to choose to face their fears and protect what they hold dear to their hearts but also the truth that lingers between them.
Against All Waves is a young adult pirate fantasy with the perfect mix of a slow-burn romance, scheming crewmates, deadly sea creatures, and found family with a dash of magic.
We’re thrilled to announce that the first book in The Norse Realms Saga is now available! Get The Ninth Realm by Julia Silverwood today!
The Ninth Realm (The Norse Realms Saga Book 1)
Release Date: May 21
Genre: Norse Romantasy
Cover Designer: @trifbookdesign
Character Artist: @lulybot
Lethal trials
Ruthless gods
Norse legends
Companion beasts
Star-crossed romance
Forbidden love
Bonded mates
Political intrigue
Mythological creatures
Forced proximity
A high-stakes romantasy where The Hunger Games meets Norse mythology, packed with deadly trials, dangerous intrigue, and a slow-burn romance where your greatest enemy may be your only ally.
Nine realms. One bond. No escape.
For ten thousand years, a Keeper has stood between Earth and the chaos of the Norse realms, holding back cunning gods, legendary creatures, and beautifully wicked fae. But Saga knows nothing of this until her dying father calls her home to Iceland and leaves her his title, his secrets, and a fate she can’t refuse.
She discovers she’s bound by magic to Kalen, a mysterious fae who despises her fragile humanity because when she dies, so does he. So when the Norse gods resurrect the Tournament of Realms, a brutal contest where champions fight for the role of Keeper, Saga must obey the call, and Kalen becomes wholly infested.
To survive the trials, Saga must master her fighting skills and tether with her companion beast while navigating the intrigue of the gods. Yet her greatest challenge may be resisting Kalen, who could either save her heart or shatter the world she’s fighting for because desire is as lethal as the gods’ games.
A must-read for readers who love plot twists, dangerous trials, Norse legends, companion beasts, and star-crossed romance. Perfect for fans of Demi Winters and Danielle Jensen.
ramblingmads 