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The King’s Ransom (The Recovery Agent Series)
🔍 Author: Janet Evanovich✨ NEW RELEASEWomen Sleuths
“Thriller master” (Mystery and Suspense Magazine) Janet Evanovich takes you on a global hunt to track down missing masterpieces in this action-packed and steamy sequel to the instant New York Times bestseller The Recovery Agent.
Gabriela Rose, recovery agent extraordinaire, can find just about anything. Too bad she can’t seem to lose her gorgeous-but-infuriating ex-husband Rafer Jones. And now he needs her help. His cousin, Harley, is in trouble…big trouble.
As the president of a too-big-to-fail bank, he invested an astronomical amount of money in insuring some of the world’s most priceless artifacts at the urging of his board. It seemed like a low-risk, high-reward business move, so he jumped in with both feet. But recently, these insured pieces started going missing and worse, there’s no paper trail of Harley being directed to make these risky investments. Unless the artwork can be recovered soon, it looks like Harley is going to be heading to jail as the fall guy for an ingenious crime.
Gabriela knows what she must do: travel around the world with Rafer to find the missing works of art, keep Harley out of jail, and save both his skin and his bank. Along the way, she’ll encounter corruption, threats, murder, mysterious dark forces behind a global conspiracy to destroy the world’s wealth, and a nefarious villain who will stop at nothing to bring the world to the brink of ruin.
Janet Evanovich is the #1 New York Times bestselling author whose Stephanie Plum series has sold over 100 million copies worldwide and essentially defined modern comedic mystery. With The Recovery Agent series, Evanovich applies her signature blend of humor, sexual tension, and high-stakes adventure to a globe-trotting premise that lets her heroine hunt everything from lost treasures to stolen masterpieces. Evanovich’s genius lies in creating heroines who are competent enough to handle dangerous situations but relatable enough to feel like your funniest, most adventurous friend.
Why I’m including this: Evanovich understands that forced proximity with your infuriating ex-husband while chasing international art thieves is premium entertainment. Gabriela and Rafer have all the chemistry that made readers fall in love with Stephanie Plum and her two competing love interests, but with the added appeal of exotic locations and the art world’s high-stakes glamour. The premise hits the sweet spot between Ocean’s Eleven heist vibes and romantic comedy—they’re racing around the world to recover priceless artifacts before Rafer’s cousin goes to prison, all while navigating the unresolved tension between two people who couldn’t make their marriage work but can’t seem to stay away from each other. The global conspiracy angle raises the stakes beyond a simple art recovery mission, promising the kind of escalating danger and last-minute saves that make Evanovich’s books so addictive. If you’ve been reading Stephanie Plum for years and want something fresh from Evanovich, or if you’ve loved romantic adventure novels like Christina Lauren’s The Unhoneymooners but want more action and international intrigue, Gabriela Rose delivers that same irresistible combination of will-they-won’t-they romance and genuine danger. This is beach-read escapism at its finest—funny, sexy, fast-paced, and featuring a heroine who can track down stolen Rembrandts while trading barbs with the one man who still makes her heart race.
African American Women’s Urban Fiction
Zoya:Ever saw a dead body?I’ll ask again.Ever saw a dead body walking among us?
I’ve been dead on the inside since my parents were taken away from me, and I was forced to move out the only home I knew.
Never truly ever knowing love or what it felt like. Always witnessing everyone else have what you wished your heart could do.
Love.
That word love could walk up on me, snatch me up, and I wouldn’t have ever known. Me and that word didn’t exist, and I had come to terms with that when I watched them fighting to save my boyfriend’s life, after my brother nearly took it from him.
Again, love was never meant for me… Zoya Caselli.
Even the big dawg eventually got tired too…
Goon:There was always love around.
My mother was a single mother to two boys, but there was always enough love to go around. Never being able to leave the house without giving her a kiss on the cheek or saying I love you. Even now, if I hadn’t spoke to her in a few days, she would call to remind me that she loved me.
Physical touch was my love language.I needed it.Had to have that s**t.
I was Ms. Lawyer’s opposite in every way.
Jahquel J. writes urban fiction that centers Black love stories against the backdrop of street life, creating romance that acknowledges the violence and trauma of that world while insisting that tenderness and devotion can survive even in the hardest circumstances. Her novels have attracted readers who want their urban fiction to dig deeper than surface-level street drama, exploring how people raised in chaos learn to trust, love, and build futures when everything they’ve known has taught them that vulnerability is dangerous.
What makes this special: The dual perspective structure gives us two people approaching love from opposite directions—Zoya, who’s convinced she’s incapable of it, walking around emotionally dead after losing her parents and nearly losing her boyfriend when her brother attacked him; and Goon, who grew up surrounded by his mother’s love and needs physical affection like he needs air. The “Ms. Lawyer” reference suggests Zoya has built a professional life that doesn’t match her street origins, while Goon remains connected to that world. The fact that Zoya’s brother nearly killed her boyfriend creates instant family conflict—how do you love someone when your blood tried to take theirs? The “even the big dawg eventually got tired too” line promises that Goon, despite his tough exterior and street credibility, is exhausted by the life and ready for something real. This is the kind of urban romance that doesn’t shy away from the trauma that shapes its characters—Zoya’s emotional numbness, the violence that nearly took her boyfriend, the family betrayals that leave scars—while building toward healing through connection. If you’ve loved Ashley Antoinette’s emotional depth, Treasure Hernandez’s street authenticity, or Mz. Lady P.’s complex family dynamics, Jahquel J. delivers similar raw honesty about love trying to survive in environments designed to kill it.
The Space He Left (Willowbrook Book 1)
Author: Myst, Ivy
NEW RELEASE
Contemporary Romance
The Space He Left (Willowbrook Book 1)💔 Author: Ivy MystWomen’s Fiction
Harper Henderson has everything she’s ever wanted—a loving husband, a thriving design business, and a baby on the way. But when Jack’s ex-girlfriend Madison returns to their small town dying of cancer, Harper’s perfect world begins to crumble. What starts as Jack helping an old friend quickly spirals into something darker. Missed appointments. Broken promises. A husband who’s slowly disappearing from their life together.
Note: there is a happy ending for cancer….in more ways than one.
What makes this special: This isn’t a story where the conflict is simple betrayal—it’s something far more complicated and morally ambiguous. How do you tell your pregnant self that you resent a dying woman? How do you compete for your husband’s attention when the competition is someone fighting for their life? Harper finds herself in an impossible position: Jack is being noble, compassionate, caring for an old friend in her darkest hour. But nobility doesn’t keep Harper company at dinner. Compassion doesn’t show up for her ultrasound appointments. And caring for Madison means Jack is slowly disappearing from the life he’s supposed to be building with Harper and their unborn child. The “happy ending for cancer....in more ways than one” suggests revelations and resolutions that will reframe everything, making this a story about whether a marriage can survive when the past refuses to stay buried and whether the space someone leaves can ever truly be filled again. If you’ve loved Jodi Picoult’s morally complex family dramas, Liane Moriarty’s exploration of secrets that fracture relationships, or Jojo Moyes’s emotionally wrenching women’s fiction, this promises the same kind of impossible choices and hard-won resolutions that make you question what you would do in the same situation.
