In this mystery/romance, a woman whose longtime crush just married her sister escapes to her godmother’s crumbling castle in France only to encounter the snarky best man in residence.

New Yorker Merry DeLuca is dreading walking down the aisle. She is a bridesmaid at her sister Angela’s wedding but has been friends with the groom, Leo Fernandes, for years and is secretly in love with him. She was finally going to confess this to Leo when, alas, he met the more beautiful Angela. Further aggravating matters is Leo’s best man, Noah Wright, a famous travel documentarian. A pre-wedding meeting did not go well, with Merry spotting that the guarded, watchful Noah dumped her gift of wine in the trash. At the wedding, stressed-out Merry gets drunk and flirts with Noah, waking up the next day in a hotel room to find him sleeping beside her. She sneaks out and faces further challenges. A human resources mediator, she has to fire a lot of people, and then Angela announces that she’s pregnant. So Merry quits her job and follows her unconventional godmother Jupiter Mountlake’s advice that “you’re allowed to escape if your life is in a trash compactor.” Merry goes to stay at the French countryside chateau that Jupiter purchased. Unfortunately, the place is a dump, and worse, Jupiter rented the chateau to Noah. Amid missteps, Merry and Noah learn to open up to each other and uncover a painting by a renowned missing artist, providing new clues for Noah—the vanished artist turns out to be one of the underlying reasons for Noah’s travels.  

Ready has written a tale that deliciously taps into its French trappings. Merry enjoys pungent cheeses and the attentions of a handsome local art gallery owner called—but of course—Pierre. Yet this novel also includes psychological nuances that enrich what could have been simply a rather glossy and superficial story. Lead couple Merry and Noah are sketched out with childhood backstories that explain their wary natures. Even secondary characters Angela and Leo return for their own revealing twists, including one on the Lovers’ Bridge that figures prominently for several reasons in the tale. The mystery weaving through this romance gets overly convoluted at times (What took Noah so long to get to this chateau?). There are also a lot of rather fortuitous, just-in-time entrances by other characters who block Merry and Noah at critical moments. But overall, it’s hard to resist a story with a female hero who reprieves a lobster and realizes that Angela’s appropriation of what Merry first desires is a pattern (“I know that look. It’s the red bike look”). The novel’s final moments, which bring together the characters in an emotionally satisfying way, update the book’s opening scene. Merry and Noah would certainly make for engaging detectives unraveling mysteries in future installments. His roaming adventures could be aided by her mediator skills, which come in handy during a tense moment with Pierre in this tale. Indeed, Ready perhaps hints at this future with Merry’s final note: “Don’t forget to watch his latest episodes, where we travel to all the most romantic locations in the world—the Amalfi Coast is next.”

A charming dramedy featuring a promising sleuthing duo.

A young performer in a family band and the daughter of an ultrarich New York business mogul fall in love in Ready’s contemporary romance novel.

A young man named Jace Morgan races through New York’s Central Park to try to stop a wedding, sharing an intense look with the bride when he arrives. “I almost can’t reconcile the Andi lying in my arms last night with the Andi standing in the gazebo,” he muses. The narrative then cycles back to Jace at 17 years old, being taunted by Reid Shilling and other rich boys from the private school that he attends on scholarship. The bullies disperse when the fight is broken up by a girl named Andrea Leighton-Hughes, who introduces herself as Andi. The teens hang out and fall in love. Jace plays guitar in a band called the Morgan Brothers with his brothers, Dean and River. His musician parents were the victims of a shooting incident in a Bronx bodega, forcing eldest son Dean to take on construction work to support the family while also trying to score their band gigs. Jace chokes up singing in public, but he is able to relax when he sees Andi at their shows. When the band gets a last-minute job at a charity gala, Jace discovers that Andi is the daughter of Robert Chatham Leighton-Hughes, one of the richest men in Manhattan. She tells him that she is merely a “chess piece” in her family and that she has a particularly cold mother. Andi travels with Jace for months when the band gets a national tour but returns to New York following a shocking betrayal. Andi forms new bonds with both Reid and her mother while Jace contends with fame and family issues. Years later, the lovers reconnect and move forward.

The author has written an entertaining, emotion-laden rich girl–poor boy romance. The novel effectively celebrates and leverages its New York City setting, with several key scenes taking place in Central Park, specifically in Belvedere Castle. Andi’s overbearing family amusingly parallels that of a real-life New York real estate mogul and former president: They live on the top floors of a gilded, garish tower; Andi’s brothers (including a Robert Jr.) vie for attention; and the matriarch is glamorous and enigmatic. Several of the book’s wealthy characters end up inspiring sympathy in ways that are surprising yet satisfying. Adding to the novel’s engaging web of plot twists are moments in which band members commit or confess to some rather grave misdeeds. Some of the periods of estrangement the lovers experience come off as a bit far-fetched, particularly a separation precipitated in part by a letter gone astray. Andi’s motivation for her marriage, however, is developed beautifully by the author to exploit its full potential for pathos. This subplot also allows for a lovely moment of contemplation by the ostensible antagonist, Reid, that provides context for the novel’s title: “And my therapist said that the best way to move through grief is to concentrate on the right now. Not the past, not the future, just this moment right here. That small space between the past and the future. Like the moment between the inhale and the exhale.”

A touching tale of adult reckonings and reunions with some heart-tugging reversals.

The fates of a “virgin-geek” relationship advice columnist and the sexy ghost in her new apartment become intertwined in Ready’s contemporary paranormal romance novel.

Jillian Nejat, 27, moves into the NYC studio apartment that she has rented sight unseen. The place has mirrors everywhere, leading her to muse, “If I’d known my new apartment was a sex maniac’s love den, I would never have invited my parents along.” Jillian has “a terminal inability to speak to men,” which starts to change when a handsome ghost named Daniel, with whom she becomes comfortable talking to, appears in the apartment. Jillian visits a psychic, who senses Daniel’s energy (only Jillian can see him) and suggests that unfinished business is preventing his spirit from moving on. Daniel proceeds to assist Jillian, who rather ironically writes an advice column on love, dating, sex, and marriage for The Daily Exposé, in fielding romance queries and improving her columns. Then he disappears just as a decent dating prospect arises. Jillian is heartbroken, since she and Daniel were mutually attracted and had even progressed to paranormal-type sex. Weeks later, Jillian is overjoyed to see Daniel, alive and corporeal, at the Met. She rushes into his arms, but he doesn’t know her. She becomes convinced that time bending is at play and that she must save Daniel from dying to prevent him from becoming a ghost in the future. Daniel, who runs a Geneva-based watch company with his sister, is wary at first but eventually won over by Jillian’s persistence and charm. By novel’s end, the couple experience life-threatening dangers as well as—finally, and joyfully—true physical communion. A “second epilogue” offers further details about how Daniel got connected to Jillian.

Ready brings her trademark blend of lively tone, amusing details, heart-tugging romance, and adept plotting to this paranormal tale. Jillian transcends the clichéd, Cinderella-type innocent by also being funny (“If they’re living, if they’re breathing, it’s game over”) and an insightful SF fan (her Starfleet necklace turns out to be a significant accessory). Her fellow-geek best friend Serena, a particle physicist based (conveniently) in Geneva, serves as an explainer (of sorts) for the novel’s time-jumping construction. There’s an artful and enjoyable presentation of Jillian’s array of colleagues at The Daily Exposé, including a satisfying romance subplot and touching support for Jillian from the motley and usually warring crew by novel’s end. Daniel also hides depths beneath his obvious gifts of attractiveness and wealth. The narrative’s time-leaping logic is a bit challenging to follow, with a second epilogue further confusing and complicating matters. Still, Ready’s skill in maintaining the reader’s engagement with her plot and characters ultimately supersedes such concerns. “Daniel died, reached the Planck energy and then traveled through time and space to reach you,” Serena notes at one point in the narrative. “Why? How? We don’t know. But if logic only takes you so far, then what your heart is telling you must take you the rest of the way.”

A twisty time-bending saga with an appealing lead and secondary characters.

A woman comes to her first love with an unusual proposition in this romantic comedy.

Gemma Jacobs is running out of time to make her dream come true. The 32-year-old social media manager for a popular self-help guru always wanted a child of her own. But a cheating husband, a divorce, and a diagnosis of stage 4 endometriosis have significantly impeded the process. Enter Josh Lewenthal, a handsome comic artist whom Gemma’s known her whole life. Not only did Josh grow up in the same small town outside New York City, he also was Gemma’s brother’s best friend—and the one whom she lost her virginity to as a teenager. At Gemma’s family’s annual New Year’s Eve party, she proposes that Josh donate his sperm so she can finally conceive via in vitro fertilization. Though Josh resists at first, he quickly comes around and asks to be involved in the child’s life, as his father and only family member is dying. As Josh and Gemma start spending more time together, the chemistry they had as teens surfaces. At the same time, Gemma’s boss, the handsome and charismatic Ian Fortune, begins pursuing her with full knowledge she’s undergoing IVF. Will Josh stay a donor and co-parent or become something much more? And will Gemma be able to get pregnant? Romance author Ready gives Gemma rich and complex motivations for wanting a baby. The author also creates a vibrant cast of characters, especially the protagonist’s fertility support group, whose members range from a tough-talking attorney and a wealthy socialite to an optimistic hippie, all united in their desire for children. Josh is an ideal contemporary romance hero: devoted to his dad, more of a creative genius than Gemma originally thought, fully supportive of her decision to have a baby with his sperm, and with a body that includes “rock hard abs.” The details of reproductive challenges and medical interventions are explicit and not for the faint of heart but can provide information and comfort to those who are curious or have experienced fertility struggles themselves.

An unusual and winning read about a little-discussed topic.

A young woman in love with her handsome but aloof boss finds that wishes can have unexpected consequences in Ready’s novel.

This fourth installment of the author’s Ghosted series introduces Anna Benoit, who works as a housekeeper for Max Barone, the owner of a wildly successful jewelry empire in Geneva, Switzerland. For Anna, meeting Max was love at first sight, despite the fact that Max barely seems to register her existence: “Looking at him was like looking at the desolate sweep of an arctic winter the moment before the sun rises for the first time in months. I was struck, pierced, and flayed by the promise of that sunrise.” One day, while cleaning Max’s library, Anna finds a sapphire necklace along with a brittle old note claiming that it grants wishes. On a whim, she wishes that Max loved her and that they were married. When Max walks in on her, however, he accuses her of stealing the necklace, which has mysteriously moved to Anna’s pocket. Though she is immediately fired, Anna somehow wakes up the next morning in Max’s chateau with everyone calling her “Mrs. Barone.” She and Max are the only ones who have both sets of memories—of Anna the housekeeper and of Anna and Max’s happy seven-year marriage. Anna explains the wish she made, and she and Max go about attempting to reverse it—first by wishing on the same necklace again, then by flying to Paris after Max comes up with an alternate theory. As they work together to put everything right, they begin falling for each other for real. But Max has foresworn passion and true love, which means they’ll just have to forget about each other once everything returns to normal—ifthey can undo the wish.

Fans of the author’s previous works will likely be delighted to revisit the character of Max, who pointedly did not get his happy ending in Ready’s earlier novel, Fated (2024). Anna proves to be a worthy match for him; her over-the-top romanticism plays nicely against Max’s stoicism. Just when the story seems to tip over into predictable romance tropes (they’re falling for each other despite their differences!), Ready tips the scales and forces readers to reexamine their own preconceived notions of what “should” happen (their plan to reverse the wish will work!). This blend of comforting romantic touchstones with witty dialogue and keen human observations makes for an enchanting read that manages to build genuine tension—both sexual and narrative. Anna is clearly a genuinely good person and easy to root for as a protagonist, although her fixation on Max before she even gets to know him as a person sometimes comes across as a bit childish. But her relentless positivity and wry observations (“Well, there’s a word for optimistic naivety, and that word is tomorrow”) are likely to eventually win over even the most hard-hearted readers. Ready, while crafting a sexy romp that ticks all the romance boxes, also manages to introduce heavier themes that provide a surprising amount of food for thought, including the fantasy of a person vs. the reality, fake happiness vs. real misery, and the ways in which memories shape the present. These elements, supported by smooth writing and briskly paced action, result in a genuine thinking-person’s love story.

A fun read that perfectly balances swoon-worthy romance with a thoughtful examination of first impressions.

In Ready’s novel, when a would-be couple decides that they’re just too different to be together, the universe itself forces them to consider another perspective.

In the second installment of the Ghosted series, the author introduces Serena Otaki, who lives a chaotically wonderful life working at the Large Hadron Collider on the border of Switzerland and France while remaining unapologetically single (her true love is physics). But then she meets Henry Joule, a conventional Brit who looks forward to settling down. While their chemistry is palpable, Serena breaks things off after one passionate night together when she makes two horrifying realizations: She’s falling in love with him, and Henry is her new boss. Over a year later, Serena and Henry have settled into largely avoiding each other at work, until one stormy night when lightning strikes the control room and the two experience a cosmic event that somehow makes them swap bodies. From there, plenty of surprises and misunderstandings ensue. After the vegetarian Serena refuses to eat the meat that Henry loves so much (“Eat the sausage. I don’t want to be anemic when I get my body back”) and Henry discovers the wonders of female biology (“Henry is about to experience all the wonderful joys of my menstrual cycle. It should hit tomorrow or the next day, right after he’s had a crying jag, a load of cramps, bloating, and extreme cravings for peanut butter and chocolate”), their squabbling eventually turns into a mutual understanding that paves the way for them to do what they were meant to do the whole time: fall in love.

Serena narrates the vast majority of the novel in a voice that’s warm and funny, often directly addressing the reader. This is an unusual stylistic choice and one that the author pulls off with aplomb. The romance portion of the novel leans more heavily toward the sweet than the sexy, with some cutaway love scenes and one hilarious discussion about erections. From the opening line, when Serena declares that she’s “always believed that things are only impossible until they’re not. For instance: particle physics, space travel, and sex on a tree branch,” readers are given fair warning that the characters (and the plot itself) are filled with whimsy. That’s not to say that Ready doesn’t deliver some emotional punches along the way. As they’re forced to deal with each other’s major family events—including Serena’s mother’s emergency coronary bypass surgery and Henry’s brother’s wedding—the body swap compels them to finally talk to each other in an authentic, profound way. That’s when the novel moves beyond easy physical humor and into an insightful commentary on the impossibility of having it all: “I love too much. I only have room for one great love in my life. I’ve already chosen it. I don’t want to lose my dreams. I don’t want to lose everything for love.” This connection is only deepened when Serena and Henry begin getting flashes of each other’s memories, a phenomenon that urges them to have a reluctant conversation about how they want to move forward if they can’t actually find a way to swap bodies back.

A light, quirky romance; the body-swap premise provides plenty of fuel for witty one-liners and emotional reckoning.

In Ready’s novel, a young woman receives a magical watch and then, after she falls in love, fights to make her dream life a reality.

The third book in Ready’s Ghosted series introduces Moonbeam Clover Fiona Abry (who’s insisted on going by “Fiona” ever since she was 8 years old). After inheriting her family’s Swiss watch business in Geneva following her father’s death, she and her brother, Daniel, have managed to pull the business out of near-bankruptcy. Fiona, a single mother, decided long ago to never open herself up to love, mainly because her own flighty mother intermittently abandoned her as a child. Her best friend, Max,still tries his hardest to woo her nevertheless. Fiona’s mother gives her a long-lost family heirloom—a watch from her heretofore unknown Uncle Leopold. When Fiona wears it, the watch gives Fiona dreams of her greatest desire. Fiona finds herself on a tropical island where everyone calls her “Becca”; she’s married to a handsome man named McCormick and has two delightful young children. Fiona decides to settle back and enjoy her recurrent dreams, since she feels her heart is protected from truly caring about this “fantasy”; then she unexpectedly begins to fall hopelessly in love with her sensitive, thoughtful dream husband. Although Fiona attempts to try her hand at romance with Max in reality, she can’t stop thinking about McCormick. A series of shocking twists make Fiona question everything she thought she knew—including herself.

Readers of conventional romances come to expect certain genre elements, and Ready does indeed deliver them over the course of this novel, but her real talent comes in subverting such familiar beats just enough so that readers begin to question how (or even if) certain events will come to pass. Although the book has plenty of swoonworthy romance—McCormick is basically a beach god—the author also hits on heavier themes that are less common in the genre, including abandonment, infidelity, motherhood, and duty. Ready has a lot to say about each, and she does so with wit and empathy. At one point, for example, when Fiona explainshow she fell in love with McCormick in her dreams, she describes it as “a gradual thing, like the flow of the gentle tide washing over a softly sanded golden beach. At least that’s what I tell myself when I’m lying….Well, we don’t lie in dreams, do we? Everyone knows that dreams are where we tell ourselves the truth.” The dialogue feels pleasantly natural throughout, and almost all the characters are well developed. That said, a few people, such as McCormick’s supposed best friend, Robert, veer into caricature. Fiona’s and Max’s attempts at moving their nine-year friendship into romantic territory is particularly earnest and realistic—so much so that readers might even have trouble deciding whether the very real Max or the very dreamy McCormick is the best match for Fiona.

An often frothy romance that manages to expertly combine emotional heft with pure escapism.

In this sequel to Josh and Gemma Make a Baby (2022), Ready continues his story of a couple as they face major changes in their lives.

The author begins this novel where the last one left off, with her two main characters, Gemma Jacobs and Josh Lewenthal, poised on the brink of a perfect life. Gemma has a career in social media marketing, Josh is an author, and the two are deliriously in love with a baby on the way; they’re about to be married in a ceremony with Gemma’s extended, loving family in attendance. They’ve put the shocking events of the previous novel behind them, which involved an encounter with Ian Fortune—a former “self-help guru” who’s now known as an “employee-abusing conniver who misled millions.” Gemma was directly involved in Fortune’s downfall, but she’s contentedly refusing all phone calls from the press about it. However, the couple’s pregnancy coach tells them that “everything is about to change,” and soon afterward, Gemma is at the altar when disaster strikes: She collapses, and when she awakens, she learns several things in quick succession: She’s given birth to her baby, Josh is not around, and Ian Fortune is back in her life. Most notably, she finds out that several months have passed while she was in a coma. Her picture-perfect future is now in tatters, and as the novel picks up steam, Gemma not only wonders if she can put it all together again, but also whether she really wants to do so.

The underlying concept of Ready’s novel is intriguingly unconventional. Most contemporary romances take their adorable couples through a series of minor tribulations before smoothing things out and leaving the characters ready to live happily-ever-after. Indeed, these are hallmarks of the genre. But in this sequel—which stands well enough on its own—the happily-ever-after moment is merely the starting point, after which Ready piles on one complication after another to darken the picture that she painted in the first book. Gemma’s world is suddenly in turmoil—not only because her own health has drastically altered for the worse, but also because Josh is nowhere to be found. Ready makes the winning decision to lighten up the narrative with quipping humor. As in the previous book, she uses Ian Fortune as the vehicle for the most amusing material, and he almost completely steals the book. When Gemma tells him that she hates him, for instance, he quips, “Please. Try to be original. The whole world hates me. Wouldn’t it be more fun to love me? Don’t be a follower, Gemma.” For a thrillingly long section of the book’s third act, Ready effectively leads readers to wonder if she isn’t going to upend every single one of the genre’s expectations. It’s a testament to her exceptional writing skill that even the most romantic-minded readers won’t be sure which outcome they prefer.

A charming and disarmingly tough story of the many ways that love can adapt to crises.

A contemporary romance in which a girl and a PI search for “the one.”

Chloe Daniels has always believed in the concept of soul mates. After all, her Aunt Erma is Romeo, New York’s resident “Soul Mate Psychic”—that is, she claimsto be able to tell people exactly who their soul mates are, and so far, she’s had a 100% success rate. However, her gift doesn’t seem to work on family members. Then, one day, she confidently announces that Chloe’s soul mate is the first boy that Chloe ever kissed. Chloe instantly recalls that boy’s name: Matt Smith, whom she met at summer camp when they were both 9. However, Aunt Erma cryptically tells her niece that she only has seven days to find him before he’s “gone forever.” She and Matt lost touch two decades ago—and how can she find a person with such a common name? To make it all easier, Aunt Erma hires Nick O’Shea, who’s recently returned to Romeo after 10 years in the military, to help Chloe out. He’s eager to get his private investigation business off the ground, so he takes the case even though he doesn’t believe in soul mates and he doesn’t particularly want to be around Chloe. As it happens, they had a bad breakup before he left the city, and things always went bad when they’d meet during his visits home. Now they’re stuck in a car together, taking a trip to find the elusive Matt Smith. But the search for a soul mate doesn’t go as anyone planned. In the first book of a new romance series, Ready effectively introduces thetown of Romeo, where the residents seem positively preoccupied with love and the notion of living happily ever after. Chloe and Nick get into a number of enjoyable hijinks over the course of their journey as they deal with an array of very different potential Matts, including one on the run from the Mafia and another at an offbeat convention. The story also features plenty of laughs along the way. The only downside is that the romance is overly predictable, and the will-they-or-won’t-they aspect of the story gets a bit tiresome as one gets closer to the end.

A fun and sweet love story that’s drawn out just a bit too long.