Brothers of the Vine
Forever Evermore
Women of W.A.R.
Season two of The Summer I Turned Pretty just finished airing on Amazon Prime, and the debate as to which *team* you are on has hit the internet as everyone speculates how the third and final season will end (the answer is Belly).
We have Jeremiah, the embodiment of friends to lovers (sometimes boring, but always a safe bet).
Then we have Conrad, the embodiment of the moody older brother love interest (a roller-coaster that is both toxic and enthralling).
Finally, there is team Belly. She’s a romantic with a complicated love life but is trying to focus on herself!
Here is what I think you should read depending on what *team you’re on*.
What to read if you’re team Jeremiah
Team Jeremiah loves when the understated best friend in the fight of the love triangle
If you love the classic trope of friends to lovers…
Would You Rather by Allison Ashley
Would you rather play it safe in the friend zone, or risk it all with a modern marriage of convenience?
Noah and Mia have always been best friends. Life is going great for Noah and he’s up for a promotion in a job he loves. But Mia’s life is on hold as she awaits a kidney transplant. She’s stuck in a dead-end job and, never wanting to be a burden, has sworn off all romance. So when the chance of a lifetime comes to go back to school and pursue her dream, it’s especially painful to pass up. She can’t quit her job or she’ll lose the medical insurance she so desperately needs.
To support her, Noah suggests they get married – in name only – so she can study full-time and still keep the insurance. It’s a risk to both of them, with jobs, health and hearts on the line, and they’ll need to convince suspicious coworkers and nosy roommates that they’re the real deal. But if they can let go of all the baggage holding them back, they might realise that they would rather be together forever.
If you want the underdog to win…
The Wrong Kind of Weird by James Ramos
Cameron Carson has a secret. A secret with the power to break apart his friend group.
Cameron Carson, member of the Geeks and Nerds United (GANU) club, has been secretly hooking up with student council president, cheerleader, theater enthusiast, and all-around queen bee Karla Ortega since the summer. The one problem — what was meant to be a summer fling between coffee shop coworkers has now evolved into a clandestine senior-year entanglement, where Karla isn’t intending on blending their friend groups anytime soon, or at all.
Enter Mackenzie Briggs, who isn’t afraid to be herself or wear her heart on her sleeve. When Cameron finds himself unexpectedly bonding with Mackenzie and repeatedly snubbed in public by Karla, he starts to wonder who he can truly consider a friend and who might have the potential to become more…
If You Change Your Mind by Robby Weber
Sometimes love has its own script.
Harry wants nothing more than to write Hollywood screenplays. The first step? Winning the screenwriting competition that will guarantee admission into the college of his dreams. With his priorities set, he’s determined to spend his summer free of distractions — also known as boys — and finish his script. After last year, Harry is certain love only exists in the movies anyway.
But then the cause of his first heartbreak, Grant, returns with a secret that could change everything — not to mention, there’s a new boy in town, Logan, who is so charming and sweet, he’s making Harry question everything he knows about romance. As Harry tries to keep his emotions in check and stick to his perfect plan for the future, he’s about to learn that life doesn’t always follow a script.
‘A romantic hero’s journey with a happy ending that will leave you smiling and sw
What to read if you’re team Conrad
You love the brooding bad boy that brings a roller-coaster of emotions to the table and honestly, that’s fair.
If you’re in it for the grumpy hero…
In at the Deep End by Penelope Janu
Opposites attract in this charming, funny Australian-set coastal romance about losing your cool and finding your place in life.
What woman doesn’t love a real-life hero? Harriet Scott, for one. The fiercely independent daughter of famous adventurers, she grew up travelling the world on the environmental flagship The Watch. So when Harriet’s ship sinks in Antarctica and she has to be rescued by Commander Per Amundsen, an infuriatingly capable Norwegian naval officer and living breathing action hero, her world is turned upside down.
Like their namesakes, the original Scott and Amundsen who competed to reach the South Pole first, Per and Harriet have different ways of doing things. Per thinks Harriet is an accident waiting to happen; Harriet thinks Per is a control freak. But when Harriet realises that Per is the only one who can help her fund the new ship she desperately wants, she is forced to cooperate with him.
Per refuses to assist unless Harriet allows him to teach her to swim. But there is more to Harriet’s terrible fear of water than meets the eye. Can Harriet face her fears and come to terms with the trauma and loss of her past? And will she begin to appreciate that some risks are well worth taking-and that polar opposites can, in fact, attract?
The Dachshund Wears Prada by Stefanie London
How do you start over when the biggest mistake of your life has more than one million views?
Forget diamonds — the internet is forever. Social media consultant Isla Thompson learned that lesson the hard way when she went viral for all the wrong reasons. A month later, Isla is still having nightmares about the moment she ruined a young starlet’s career and made herself the most unemployable influencer in Manhattan. But she doesn’t have the luxury of hiding until she’s no longer Instagram poison. Not when her fourteen-year-old sister, Dani, needs Isla to keep a roof over their heads. So, she takes the first job she can get: caring for Camilla, a glossy-maned, foul-tempered hellhound.
After a week of ferrying Camilla from playdates to pet psychics, Isla starts to suspect that the dachshund’s bark is worse than her bite — just like her owner, Theo Garrison. Isla has spent her career working to make people likable and here’s Theo — happy to hide behind his reputation as a brutish recluse. But Theo isn’t a brute — he’s sweet and funny, and Isla should not see him as anything but the man who signs her paychecks. Because loving Theo would mean retreating to his world of secluded luxury, and Isla needs to show Dani that no matter the risk, dreams are always worth chasing.
If you want your love interest to be unattainable (because he’s deceased).
The Dead Romantics by Ashley Poston
Florence Day is a ghost-writer with one big problem. She’s supposed to be penning swoon-worthy novels for a famous romance author but, after a bad break-up, Florence no longer believes in love. And when her strict (but undeniably hot) new editor, Benji Andor, won’t give her an extension on her book deadline, Florence prepares to kiss her career goodbye.
Although when tragedy strikes and Florence has to head home, the last thing she expects to see is a ghost at her front door. Not just any ghost, however, but the stern form of her still very hot – yet now unquestionably dead – new editor.
As sparks start to fly between them, Florence tells herself she can’t be falling for a ghost – even an infuriatingly sexy one. But can Benji help Florence to realise love isn’t dead, after all?
What to read if you’re team Belly
If you’re team Belly you’re a little bit of a mess and so is your love life but, it’s a messy kinda’ cute!
Pets of Park Avenue by Stefanie London
What do you do when The One is also the one who broke your heart?
Self-proclaimed hot mess Scout Myers is determined to prove she’s finally got her act together. Raised by grandparents who saw her as her wayward mother’s wayward daughter, Scout’s used to being written off. So when the opportunity for a promotion arises at Paws in the City, the talent agency where she works, Scout is desperate to rise to the occasion. With shared custody of her little sister also on the line, Scout can’t afford a single mistake…like suddenly needing a canine stand-in for an important photoshoot. Luckily (or not) she knows the owner of the perfect pup replacement: the estranged husband she walked out on years ago.
On the surface, it appears Lane Halliday’s life has been blissfully drama free without Scout, but she suspects her handsome-as-ever not-quite-ex-husband doth protest too much. Working together even feels like old times — except for all that lingering, unresolved tension. But Scout’s not sure she’s ready to confront the reasons she left Lane, and when their plans to finalise the divorce become very real, Scout starts to wonder whether second chances might be worth a little hot mess.
Seoulmates by Susan Lee
Her ex-boyfriend wants her back. Her former best friend is in town. When did Hannah’s life become a K-drama?
Hannah Cho had the next year all planned out — the perfect summer with her boyfriend, Nate, and then a fun senior year with their friends.
But then Nate does what everyone else in Hannah’s life seems to do — he leaves her, claiming they have nothing in common. He and all her friends are newly obsessed with K-pop and K-dramas, and Hannah is not. After years of trying to embrace the American part and shunning the Korean side of her Korean American identity to fit in, Hannah finds that’s exactly what now has her on the outs.
But someone who does know K-dramas — so well that he’s actually starring in one — is Jacob Kim, Hannah’s former best friend, whom she hasn’t seen in years. He’s desperate for a break from the fame, so a family trip back to San Diego might be just what he needs…that is, if he and Hannah can figure out what went wrong when they last parted and navigate the new feelings developing between them.
The Ex-mas Holidays by Zoe Allison
Falling in love can sometimes go off-piste…
There’s never a good time to bump into your ex – so Maya Bashir is shocked when she comes face to face with her old flame Sam Holland, who is wearing nothing but a tiny apron, working as a naked butler at her friend’s Christmas party.
Having driven home for the holidays after losing her boyfriend, flat and job – and dreading her father’s inevitable disappointment that she still doesn’t have a fifty-year-plan – perhaps Sam is exactly the distraction Maya needs.
But as sparks begin to fly, Maya doesn’t know if she can let Sam back into her heart so easily… With Christmas day fast approaching, will Maya find love or disaster under the tree?
Releasing in paperback November 1.
Now let us all cry in impatience as we wait for season 3!
*not*