Scorching Summer Reading List for Romance & Fantasy Lovers

Justin’s dating curse is viral. Every woman he breaks up with finds her soulmate next—just not with him. Emma has the same problem, so when she slides into his DMs, they hatch a wild plan: date each other, break up, and cancel out their curses. Easy, right? Emma’s next travel nurse assignment lands her in Minnesota, where the plan includes a summer at an idyllic lakeside cottage. But their “fake fling” gets complicated fast. Justin’s juggling guardianship of his siblings, Emma’s dealing with her toxic mother, and their not-so-fake feelings start to bloom. As chaos ensues, one question lingers: what if Fate’s finally delivered the perfect match, and their plan risks ruining it all?

Emma seems to have the perfect life: a loving husband, Leo, a beautiful daughter, and a career as a celebrated marine biologist. But her life is built on lies. Almost everything she’s told Leo about herself is false—and she might have kept her secrets forever if not for his job. When Emma faces a serious illness, Leo, an obituary writer, begins researching her life to cope. What he uncovers shatters his reality: his wife’s past is a web of deception, and even her name isn’t real. As the darkest truths of Emma’s life emerge, she must convince Leo that despite the lies, she’s the woman he fell in love with. But can their marriage survive the revelation of the other love that shaped her life?

Elspeth needs a monster to survive. But the real monster might be inside her. Living in a mist-locked kingdom, Elspeth Spindle relies on more than just luck to stay safe—she depends on the Nightmare, a powerful, ancient spirit bound within her mind. He protects her and keeps her secrets, but his magic comes with a cost. When a chance encounter with a mysterious highwayman sets her on a dangerous path, Elspeth is thrust into a quest to purge the kingdom of dark magic. The highwayman, however, is no common thief; he’s the King’s nephew, accused of treason, and they must work together to gather twelve Providence Cards before Solstice. As the mission intensifies, Elspeth faces a harrowing truth: the Nightmare is slowly taking control. Will she find the cure, or lose herself completely?

Twenty-year-old Violet Sorrengail was supposed to enter the Scribe Quadrant, living a quiet life among books and history. Now, the commanding general—also known as her tough-as-talons mother—has ordered Violet to join the hundreds of candidates striving to become the elite of Navarre: dragon riders. But when you’re smaller than everyone else and your body is brittle, death is only a heartbeat away…because dragons don’t bond to “fragile” humans. They incinerate them. With fewer dragons willing to bond than cadets, most would kill Violet to better their own chances of success. The rest would kill her just for being her mother’s daughter—like Xaden Riorson, the most powerful and ruthless wingleader in the Riders Quadrant. She’ll need every edge her wits can give her just to see the next sunrise. Yet, with every day that passes, the war outside grows more deadly, the kingdom’s protective wards are failing, and the death toll continues to rise. Even worse, Violet begins to suspect leadership is hiding a terrible secret. Friends, enemies, lovers. Everyone at Basgiath War College has an agenda—because once you enter, there are only two ways out: graduate or die.

Pug, an orphan with a quiet determination, begins his journey as an apprentice to Kulgan, the master magician in the Kingdom of the Isles. Though he earns respect, a place at court, and even the love of a princess, Pug struggles with wizardry’s conventional ways. Something within him calls for a different path—one that defies tradition. When a rift in spacetime unleashes dark forces bent on plunging the world into chaos, Pug’s unorthodox magic becomes the key to survival. As the boundaries of two worlds collide, Pug must embrace his unique gift and confront a battle between Order and Chaos that will determine the fate of both realms. Can he master the power within, or will darkness consume everything?

When nineteen-year-old huntress Feyre kills a wolf in the woods, she unknowingly sets a deadly chain of events in motion. A terrifying creature drags her to a magical land of legend and danger, where she discovers her captor, Tamlin, is no beast but an immortal faerie lord. As Feyre struggles to survive her new surroundings, her icy resentment toward Tamlin melts into fiery passion, forcing her to confront everything she thought she knew about the Fae. But the faerie lands are under siege by a wicked shadow, and Tamlin’s world is unraveling. To save him—and herself—Feyre must harness courage she never knew she possessed and face an ancient evil threatening to consume everything she holds dear. Will her strength be enough to defy the darkness?

What is the price of magic? Not the magic of tricks and illusions, but the kind that heats cities, powers armies, and transforms continents. Magic that forges empires. The Brannic Empire owes its existence to this magic, and for those in power, no price is too great. Even when that price is their own children. For it is the ashes of those with magical abilities that the Church of Alchemy harvests to fuel this machine of empire. So the furnaces burn, and the empire grows. And they call it progress. Trying to escape a lifetime of regrets—and outrun his own demons—veteran soldier Lochled Thatcher embarks on the Fourth Crusade to Leftland, a country rich in magic. Desperate to save her brothers, Rony joins Lochled’s squad only to discover that war is very different from all the songs and fancy speeches. As politics and power clash, Kayna, a Seeker, and Ord, a priest of the Church of Alchemy, find their foundations of loyalty and faith shaken and crumbling. In this theater of chaos, magic, and treachery, soldier and priest alike will find their humanity in as much danger as their lives. Will they lose themselves to cruelty and deception? Or can one good action reverse the course of generations of evil?

Benefits of a summer romance: It’s always fun, always brief, and no one gets their heart broken. Ali Morris is a professional organizer whose own life is a mess. Her mom died two years ago, then her husband left, and she hasn’t worn pants with a zipper in longer than she cares to remember. No one is more surprised than Ali when the first time she takes off her wedding ring and puts on pants with hardware—overalls count, right?—she meets someone. Or rather, her dog claims a man for her…by peeing on him. Ethan smiles at Ali like her pants are just right—like he likes what he sees. He looks at her like she’s a younger, braver version of herself. The last thing newly single mom Ali needs is to make her life messier, but there’s no harm in a little summer romance. Is there?

In the ice, east of the Black Rock, there is a hole into which broken children are thrown. Yaz’s people call it the Pit of the Missing and now it is drawing her in as she has always known it would. To resist the cold, to endure the months of night when even the air itself begins to freeze, requires a special breed. Variation is dangerous, difference is fatal. And Yaz is not the same. Yaz’s difference tears her from the only life she’s ever known, away from her family, from the boy she thought she would spend her days with, and has to carve out a new path for herself in a world whose existence she never suspected. A world full of difference and mystery and danger. Yaz learns that Abeth is older and stranger than she had ever imagined. She learns that her weaknesses are another kind of strength and that the cruel arithmetic of survival that has always governed her people can be challenged.