Fall is for soup.
I don't make the rules.
Hello Romantics!!
We are finally getting some fall weather in Texas and it’s making me a much better person to be around. I wanted to share a few of my favorite fall things, just because!
Book Beau’s Reading Pillow!!
What says fall more than lounging on the couch?! We have three reading pillows from Book Beau (don’t judge) and they are the best for reading, scrolling, couch work, and the PERFECT nap pillow!
Soup Season!
I love all soups but here are a few of my favorite soup recipes that Mr. Rachel does an amazing job of executing! 😉
Crackling Candles
Fall isn’t fall without a crackling candle on the mantle. Skip the cult-y big craft store and get a gorgeous candle from a small business! I love Artesanias Claudia — a frequent vendor at Get Lit: Grown-Up Book Fairs!
Alright enough of the fall things! Enjoy these author spotlights!
Second Swing by Nicole Devonne
Tropes:
Age Gap
Second Chance
Fear of Love/Doesn’t believe in love
“I can fix her”
Plus size FMC
Interracial/Multicultural (Puerto Rican FMC/Black MMC)
Golf Pro
Nicknames
Waffle Obsessed
Cat Mom
He’s down bad/Obsessed
Strong Female Friendships
Blurb:
She walked away from love. Now it’s waiting for her on the green.
Seven years ago, Clinton Morrison left Cypress Lake with a pro golf contract… and a shattered heart. Now he’s back—older, wiser, and ready to launch his youth golf program and finally put down roots. But the woman who left him standing at the gate? She’s still here, and so are the feelings he thought he buried.
Paloma has spent years pouring everything into the cozy bookish bar she co-owns with her best friend, determined to avoid the kind of love that breaks you open. But when she sees Clinton again—salt-and-pepper swagger, soft eyes, and a smile that still undoes her—the carefully built walls she’s spent her whole life building, start to crack.
Thrown together for a charity golf tournament, their chemistry is as electric as ever… and so is the unresolved heartbreak.
Is it too late for a second swing or is forever still in play?
Tropes:
🌾 Ex-Boyrfriend’s Dad
🌾 Single Mum
🌾 Cowboy/Farmer MMC
🌾 Forbidden Romance
🌾 Forced Proximity
🥵 He spits on her 🐱
😮💨 Hayshed Shenanigans
🫠 “I’d give up the world for you”
Blurb:
She shouldn’t want to stay. He doesn’t want to convince her to go.
Under the threat of widespread flooding, Emory Mayfield must put her dreams of leaving Gardner Creek on hold and evacuate her tiny cottage. But in a town where everyone knows her name but no one says hello, there’s only one dry place left for her to go. And the only thing worse than being flooded in with her ex-boyfriend’s dad is falling for him.
In his mid-forties, Byron Gardner knows his time on the farm is limited. But he doesn’t like change any more than he likes feeling lonely in his big, empty farmhouse. Until that change is Emory, brightening his life and warming his bed.
Temptation is rising faster than the floodwaters, and staying dry might end up costing Emory everything.
Higher Ground is a contemporary romance set in a small Australian town. It’s a story of forbidden, all-consuming love, following your dreams, and making tough choices.
Smoke Show by Aimee Vance and B. Perkins
Blurb:
When the dean of Bishop College in Boston threatened to close Petra Ambrose’s Pre-Revolutionary American History department, she could feel all of her work towards her dream career slipping through her fingers. To her dismay, students weren’t interested in American Puritanical culture and the status of women in their time, not unless it involved trendy witches glamourized in modern society.
In a last hope to save her job, Petra was tasked with finding something new and exciting to draw in more students. Not exactly sure where to start, she headed up the coast to explore sites other than cliche and touristy Salem.
Small-town Maine had her imagining a quaint village straight out of a romance novel on the water. To some extent, she found it, with the quirky, nosy neighbors, but Deadlights Cove was entirely too dingy to be run by its no-nonsense mayor. Plus, everyone in town seemed to be in on some joke at her expense, none more so than the mischievous and overly friendly bartender, Blaze. Far too handsome for his own good, the man had the unfair ability to irritate her more than anyone else ever had while simultaneously setting her heart racing.
With obstacles popping up at every turn, Petra was ready to throw her hands up and go back to the drawing board for a new strategy until she wound up at the center of a murder investigation.
Nothing was as it seemed in Deadlights Cove, and Petra could have just unearthed more than she’d ever imagined. But was discovering the truth about this town worth giving up everything she’d worked so hard for?
Follow Petra and Blaze’s story, along with the quirky band of local misfits, through the Deadlights Cove series, beginning with book one, Smoke Show.
Hope y’all have an amazing week! Happy almost Halloween and SCORPIO SEASON! 🦂
xo, Rachel