52 Book Club 2025: #1 - A Pun In The Title

This is the first book in an 8 book series of hockey romances. All 8 books have an underlying theme of ‘life after loss’. My first book is about Natasha, a librarian in her 40s who lost a sibling as a teenager and never healed, preventing her from ever finding/committing to love…and the hockey coach who is twice divorced and has given up his dreams of ever finding his match and having a family-until he meets Natasha…. Will Coach Alex's love (along with his superior skills in the sack) be enough to break down the walls Natasha has held firm for over two decades? The 8 books go through the different players of the team, all having their own versions of loss to overcome, with the captain (Adam) being married to a woman (who happens to be a teacher at Natasha's school) who has a terminal illness and will eventually commit suicide in book 6 and the series ends with Adam's own second chance love story….

Ryo is a cute fun loving girl that is hopelessly and completely in love with the school's IT guy. She spends hours dreaming of what it would be like to date and fall in love with Oliver. In her mind they are the perfect match, there is nothing that can stop them from being together. But in the real world they can't be together. They lead two very different lives. They are as different as night and day Ryo is content with loving Oliver from a distance. She has made peace with the fact that they will never be. But when she and Oliver are forced to work together on a school project everything changes. Will she be able to keep her love for him a secret. Will she be able to keep her feelings to herself.

The night my parents died, I was found amongst the ashes of our home. My eyes glowed red, and my hair had been altered to a flaming hue to match. My pack ostracised me, deeming me responsible for the death of my beloved parents. For years, I have been treated like a slave and was underfed, bullied, and abused. The son of the Alpha, Jordan, and my cousin Ruth were the worst offenders. Yet, I endured as I planned my escape. When I turn nineteen, I am out of here. Or so I thought. One night, out of the blue, Jordan kisses me, everything changes, and I find myself falling in love with the one who was my tormentor. So naive, so foolish, just when I think I will have a happy ending, reality slaps me in the face. The same night I find myself in the arms of my mate, Jordan, I find myself rejected for a nightmare of a betrayal I had no hope in preventing. As punishment, I was shunned in the worst possible way and turned rouge. As the cold seeps in, I dream of a white wolf—my white wolf. He has always appeared in my mind when I most needed him, his presence always comforting me. Is this the end of my story? I have lost hope and the will to live.

Book 1 - You'd better watch out. The danger is not just lurking in the dark. accompanies each of our steps. Instinct drives them.In a world full of monsters, there are those who are willing to risk their lives to save humanity from ruin. The hunters.After the trauma of her childhood, the ambitious young Grace decides that she will be one of those who hunt down the monsters and does everything she can to achieve this goal. She only wants one thing, to take revenge on the beings that her parents once snatched from her. But when Grace is forced to meet the grouchy Reese and his troubled brother Nick, she has to admit that the monsters of this world not only lurk in the dark shadows of the night. She is drawn into a vortex of intrigue, power struggles and greed for money and soon finds herself confronted with a creature that is more dangerous than anything known before.-------Book 2 - You'd better watch out. The danger is not just lurking in the dark. accompanies each of our steps. Instinct drives them.In a world full of monsters there are those who are willing to risk their lives to save humanity from perdition. The hunters.Finally, the years of hard work are paying off, Grace is officially a Venator and with Reese at her side she believes she can cope with anything that fate throws at her. But an unbelievable message from Jilin pulls the shadows from the past and stirs her thirst for revenge. Grace takes on this challenge and gets a stone rolling that cannot be stopped and slowly not only she begins to doubt her sanity.

Harper Bennett hated Ryker Blackthorn throughout her entire student life. He was the textbook definition of a bully, with a heart as cold as ice. For four long years, he was her nightmare. But despite his actions, why did she still harbor feelings for him? Beneath the surface lies a story of unexpected twists. When their paths cross again, it's a tale of secrets, sparks, and a journey that will challenge everything Harper thought she knew about. Especially, when he told her that what he did was all for her...because he likes her. "From the moment I laid my eyes on you, I knew you were mine."

Following the success of her two novels, Cela receives an offer for the TV adaptation of her stories but a third story has to be written soon to complete a three-story special. She is not in to the project until she rediscovers the paper bearing the address of the meeting place of her supposed first date with Nate. Now that her mother is no longer around to interfere, she becomes inspired to reunite with him after many years and hopefully write the third novel based on their new story. Unfortunately, he is now about to get married in two months. Disappointed with the turn of events, she decides not to meet him again. She visits their old meeting place and finds it a good place to write but unexpectedly meets him there. They agree not to talk to each other if they meet there again but fate leads them to meet again under different circumstances leaving them no choice but to speak to each other. Suddenly, Nate’s fiancée starts acting weird and suggests that he spend the weekend with Cela while she is away. Although it confuses him, he figures that it is her way of helping him get closure. The two spend one Sunday reminiscing the past expecting a closure in the end but the wonderful moment they share this time only makes it harder to achieve that closure so Cela has to put a stop to it saying, “Please don't think even for a second that there is still something left or something new to explore after everything that happened or did not happen. This is not a novel. This is reality. We don't get sequels or spin-offs in real life. We just continue. We move forward and that's how we get to the ending."

Two so different and opposite heart forced into marriage gradually bearing lustful feelings for each other, and love for another, lies and secrets of the past. But when Melissa finds out that she is pregnant for the Playboy CEO Edward McDonald's who values three things most in his life_ Money, Women and Sex. She is in love with another man instead _ Andrei who works as a bartender at her usual drinking spot and is left with only two option_ to keep her baby and run away with the man she truly loves tarnishing her family's image or to kill her baby and continue her secret affair outside her marriage and save her family's image. What does she choose to do.

Liar. Selfish. Murderer. Asshole. All of these, and then some, can be and have been used to describe Dan Sanders—depending on who you ask. But if you know Dan, then you also know he wouldn’t bother denying any of it. However, the one thing no one ever has or ever will truthfully be able to call him is a coward. Especially, not his estranged crackpot brother, Chris. Though it's true that following the Rebecca Fairchild incident, the Sanders gang is in hot water. Dan has never been one to turn and run from a fight, and he doesn’t plan to start now. So while Chris may be brutal and undoubtedly brilliant, he would do best to remember what he lacks in mercy Dan lacks in morality. And there isn’t much he can’t or won’t do when you threaten those he cares for. A rivalry forged and bound by blood is nearing its climax. Chris the unforgiving versus Dan the unyielding. Let's just hope our anti-hero can clear his family's name before the bodies pile up and time runs out.

The rain starts to hit at my window, I can see dull clouds slowly coming over. I frown as I look trying to ease my mind. Again my mood is reflected in the weather outside. I'm still unsure if it is 100% me that makes it happen, but it seems too much of a coincidence for it to not. It isn't often the weather reflects my mood, when it does it's usually because I'm riddled with anxiety or stress and unable able to control my feelings. Luckily its a rarity, though today as I sit looking out of the window I can't help but think about the giant task at hand. Can Iris unlock her family secrets and figure out what she is? A chance "meet cute" with an extremely hot werewolf and things gradually turn upside down. Dark secrets emerge and all is not what it seems. **Contains Mature Content**

Elise has never thought she could be someone special until she is warped into the past—to the Land of Magic—in Ancient Egypt. She finds herself including her brother and a couple of friends in the middle of the battle, between the Scorpion King and the Cobra King. She needs to choose to forge an alliance with to be able to survive in this ancient time and place and figure out how they can go back to their present time and be reunited with their parents.