Do you have an ever-growing To Be Read pile or list? Me too! I try to keep up with books I want to read on Goodreads, but my list is out of control. It does not help when so many fantastic books are being released month after month. With around 500 on my TBR list, some will languish on the list for months or years to come. But I continue to add to my TBR when new novels by some of my go-to authors or that have an incredible amount of buzz surrounding them get pre-ordered or purchased as soon as they land on my radar.
February offers no shortage of great books this year. I’ve seen at least 20 new releases of novels of various romance genres of the clean, closed door, or Christian vein launching this month. Several of them look really interesting to me, but here are five I’m extra excited about, most of which I’ve already bought:
The Cairo Curse, Pepper Basham
Clue meets Indiana Jones with a fiction-loving twist only Grace Percy can provide.
Newlyweds Lord and Lady Astley have already experienced their fair-share of suspense, but when a honeymoon trip takes a detour to the mystical land of Egypt, not even Grace with her fiction-loving mind is prepared for the dangers in store. From an assortment of untrustworthy adventure-seekers to a newly discovered tomb with a murderous secret, Frederick and Grace must lean on each other to navigate their dangerous surroundings. As the suspects mount in an antiquities’ heist of ancient proportions, will Frederick and Grace’s attempts to solve the mystery lead to another death among the sands?
The Cairo’s Curse is a delightful sequel to The Mistletoe Countess by Pepper Basham.
The Sound of Light, Sarah Sundin
When the Germans march into Denmark, Baron Henrik Ahlefeldt exchanges his nobility for anonymity, assuming a new identity so he can secretly row messages for the Danish Resistance across the waters to Sweden.
American physicist Dr. Else Jensen refuses to leave Copenhagen and abandon her research–her life’s dream. While printing resistance newspapers, she hears stories of the movement’s legendary Havmand–the merman–and wonders if the mysterious and silent shipyard worker living in the same boardinghouse has something to hide.
When the Occupation cracks down on the Danes, these two passionate people will discover if there is more power in speech . . . or in silence. Bestselling author of more than a dozen WWII novels, Sarah Sundin offers pens another story of ordinary people responding to extraordinary circumstances with faith, fortitude, and hope for a brighter future.
Memory Lane, Becky Wade
After surviving a trauma several years back, Remy Reed relocated to a cottage on one of Maine’s most remote islands. She’s arranged her life just the way she wants it, spending her time working on her wood sculptures and soaking in the beauty of nature. It’s quiet and solitary—until the day she spots something bobbing in the ocean.
Her binoculars reveal the “something” to be a man, and he’s struggling to keep his head above water. She races out to save him and brings him into her home. He’s injured, which doesn’t detract from his handsomeness nor make him any easier to bear. He acts like a duke who’s misplaced his dukedom . . . expensive tastes, lazy charm, bossy ideas.
Remy would love nothing more than to return him to his people, but he has no recollection of his life prior to the moment she rescued him. Though she’s not interested in relationships other than the safe ones she’s already established, she begins to realize that he’s coming to depend on her.
Who is he? What happened that landed him in the Atlantic Ocean? And why is she drawn to him more and more as time goes by?
There’s no way to discover those answers except to walk beside him down memory lane.
My Phony Valentine, Courtney Walsh
A chance meeting. A hunky hockey player. A fake romance.
Hardly an ordinary day in the life of Poppy Hart.
My days usually consist of agonizing over my failing restaurant, worrying about my mountain of debt and nursing my broken heart.
Everything changes when I bump into a man in the coffee shop and claim him as my new boyfriend. To my absolute horror, he turns out to be hockey’s most renowned bad boy, Dallas Burke. To my absolute delight, he goes along with my story.
When his no-nonsense manager and meddling grandmother jump in the picture, they see a win-win solution for my failing restaurant and Dallas’s less-than-stellar reputation.
A full-fledged fake romance complete with contract negotiations, pretend dates and phony PDA.
But as I get to know the real Dallas Burke, who is not the man the press says he is, it becomes clear that if this isn’t real. . . someone better tell it to my heart.
Royal Gone Rogue, Emma St. Clair
I need to find the perfect woman to be my queen. Love was never supposed to be part of the arrangement.
I’ve always done things by the book–that’s the burden of being the heir to the Elsinorian throne. So when my father grows ill and my coronation seems imminent, I intend to find my future queen the same way … with logic and a list of eligible women who fit a detailed set of data points.
My brother agrees to cover for me at the court, and I set out to offer a common woman the chance to be something more.
Only … nothing goes according to plan.
Alessia is far more than she seemed on paper, and she stirs feelings I never imagined having. The next thing I know, I’m washing dishes in her grandfather’s restaurant, hoping to win her hand and her heart.
Meanwhile, my absence in Elsinore has been noticed and the whole kingdom is wondering if I’m abdicating the throne. Though I love the simple village life, I need to return home, and I won’t do so without Alessia.
The only problem: I might not have mentioned the fact that I’m the crown prince of Elsinore.
Royal Gone Rogue is the second in the Sweet Royal RomCom series with laugh-out-loud humor, heart-warming love stories, and sizzling chemistry that keeps the bedroom door closed.
Your turn
How many books have you read so far in 2023? Any February book releases you’re looking forward to? What have you added to your TBR pile recently? Will you add any of these?