Calling all romance readers! If you're a fan of swoon-worthy novels, then you'll appreciate today's recommendations from the Helena Romance Book Club. Longtime friends Allison and Heather founded the club in June 2022 as a way to connect with fellow fans of the genre in the Helena community. A year later, the club is going strong, with monthly meetings and selections that run the gamut from contemporary to historical to paranormal and beyond.
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Here are a few of the books the club has read and enjoyed discussing:
Red, White and Royal Blue by
When his mother became President, Alex Claremont-Diaz was promptly cast as the American equivalent of a young royal. Handsome, charismatic, genius-his image is pure millennial-marketing gold for the White House. There's only one problem: Alex has a beef with the actual prince, Henry, across the pond. And when the tabloids get hold of a photo involving an Alex-Henry altercation, U.S./British relations take a turn for the worse. Heads of family, state, and other handlers devise a plan for damage control: staging a truce between the two rivals. What at first begins as a fake, Instragramable friendship grows deeper, and more dangerous, than either Alex or Henry could have imagined. Soon Alex finds himself hurtling into a secret romance with a surprisingly unstuffy Henry that could derail the campaign and upend two nations and begs the question: Can love save the world after all? Where do we find the courage, and the power, to be the people we are meant to be? And how can we learn to let our true colors shine through? Casey McQuiston's Red, White & Royal Blue proves: true love isn't always diplomatic.Find Red, White & Royal Blue in the library catalog Here
Also available for digital checkout:
Montana Library2Go/Libby app eBook and audiobook
Hoopla audiobook
Axis 360 eBook and audiobookRead more about the author Here
Take a Hint, Dani Brown by "A laugh-out-loud romantic comedy from across the pond with lots of heat and heart."
Danika Brown knows what she wants: professional success, academic renown, and an occasional roll in the hay to relieve all that career-driven tension. But romance? Been there, done that, burned the T-shirt. Romantic partners, whatever their gender, are a distraction at best and a drain at worst. So Dani asks the universe for the perfect friend-with-benefits--someone who knows the score and knows their way around the bedroom. When big, brooding security guard Zafir Ansari rescues Dani from a workplace fire drill gone wrong, it's an obvious sign: PhD student Dani and former rugby player Zaf are destined to sleep together. But before she can explain that fact to him, a video of the heroic rescue goes viral. Suddenly, half the internet is shipping #DrRugbae--and Zaf is begging Dani to play along. Turns out his sports charity for kids could really use the publicity. Lying to help children? Who on earth would refuse? Dani's plan is simple: fake a relationship in public, seduce Zaf behind the scenes. The trouble is, grumpy Zaf is secretly a hopeless romantic--and he's determined to corrupt Dani's stone-cold realism. Before long, he's tackling her fears into the dirt. But the former sports star has issues of his own, and the walls around his heart are as thick as his... um, thighs. The easy lay Dani dreamed of is now more complex than her thesis. Has her wish backfired? Is her focus being tested? Or is the universe just waiting for her to take a hint?
Find Take a Hint, Dani Brown in the library catalog Here
Ain't She Sweet? by
"A time capsule from twenty years ago, this oldie-but-goodie contemporary romance with a reformed mean-girl heroine made for one of our best discussions yet."
The girl everybody loves to hate has returned to the town she'd sworn to leave behind forever. As the rich, spoiled princess of Parrish, Mississippi, Sugar Beth Carey had broken hearts, ruined friendships, and destroyed reputations. But fifteen years have passed, now she's come home -- broke, desperate, and too proud to show it. The people of Parrish don't believe in forgive and forget. When the Seawillows, Sugar Beth's former girlfriends, get the chance to turn the tables on her, they don't hesitate. And Winnie Davis, Sugar Beth's most bitter enemy, intends to humiliate her in the worst possible way. Then there's Colin Byrne...Fifteen years earlier, Sugar Beth had tried to ruin his career. Now he's rich, powerful, and the owner of her old home. Even worse, this modern-day dark prince is planning exactly the sort of revenge best designed to bring a beautiful princess to her knees. But none of them have reckoned on the unexpected strength of a woman who's learned survival the hard way. Ain't She Sweet? is a story of courage and redemption...of friendship and laughter...of love and the possibility of happily-ever-after.
Find it in the library catalog Here
Also available for digital checkout:
Montana Library2Go/Libby app audiobook
Hoopla eBook and audiobook
Read more about the author Here
The Dead Romantics by Ashley Poston
"A contemporary romance with a paranormal twist. Pick up this debut if “Casper for adults” sounds as fun to you as it did to us."
Florence Day is the ghostwriter for one of the most prolific romance authors in the industry, and she has a problem—after a terrible breakup, she no longer believes in love. It’s as good as dead. When her new editor, a too-handsome mountain of a man, won't give her an extension on her book deadline, Florence prepares to kiss her career goodbye. But then she gets a phone call she never wanted to receive, and she must return home for the first time in a decade to help her family bury her beloved father. For ten years, she's run from the town that never understood her, and even though she misses the sound of a warm Southern night and her eccentric, loving family and their funeral parlor, she can’t bring herself to stay. Even with her father gone, it feels like nothing in this town has changed. And she hates it. Until she finds a ghost standing at the funeral parlor’s front door, just as broad and infuriatingly handsome as ever, and he’s just as confused about why he’s there as she is. Romance is most certainly dead . . . but so is her new editor, and his unfinished business will have her second-guessing everything she’s ever known about love stories.
The Dead Romantics is available for digital checkout
Montana Library2Go/Libby eBook and audiobook
Other more books by Ashley Poston are available on Hoopla and Axis 360
Read more about the author Here
A Lady for a Duke by Alexis Hall
"A sweet queer historical romance featuring a trans heroine and an irresistible friends-to-lovers plot."
When Viola Carroll was presumed dead at Waterloo, she took the opportunity to live, at last, as herself. But freedom does not come without a price, and Viola paid for hers with the loss of her wealth, her title, and her closest companion, Justin de Vere, the Duke of Gracewood. Only when their families reconnect, years after the war, does Viola learn how deep that loss truly was. Shattered without her, Gracewood has retreated so far into grief that Viola barely recognizes her old friend in the lonely, brooding man he has become. As Viola strives to bring Gracewood back to himself, fresh desires give new names to old feelings. Feelings that would have been impossible once and may be impossible still, but which Viola cannot deny. Even if they cost her everything, all over again.
A Lady for a Duke is available for digital checkout:
Montana Library2Go/Libby eBook and audiobook
Read more about the author Here -
The Helena Romance Book Club meets on the second Tuesday of every month at 5:30 pm. Meeting location and each month’s book selection can be found on the group's Instagram @HelenaRomanceBookClub, where the group also posts additional recommendations for reading, watching, and listening to all things Romance. This summer's picks will be announced soon, and the group welcomes any and all new members. They’d love to see you at an upcoming meeting.
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