New Romance & Fiction Books of 2023
- The Year of Cecily by Lisa Lin
- The Book Proposal by KJ Micciche
- Sugar, Spice, and Can’t Play Nice by Annika Sharma
- Right Girl, Wrong Side by Ginny Baird
- Twelve Hours in Manhattan by Maan Gabriel
- Mr. & Mrs. Witch by Gwenda Bond
- The Daydreams by Laura Hankin
After grad school, I started working in publishing for a well-known trade magazine for librarians. I became a reviewer for the romance section of that publication and so I received these books for review from publishers:
The Year of Cecily by Lisa Lin (Jan 2023, Tule Publishing) is about San Francisco attorney Cecily Chang, who is ready to tackle the New Year head on. Soo she creates a list of resolutions guaranteed to reboot her life-right after her dutiful visit home to Sunset Park, Brooklyn, for the Lunar New Year. Cecily prepares to face her critical, meddling mother, nosy relatives, and the chaos and drama family togetherness brings. At least the food will be delicious. This holiday, Cecily vows to remain calm-as long as she doesn’t see Jeffrey Lee, her former sweetheart who ended things ten years ago.
Mr. & Mrs. Witch by Gwenda Bond (March 2023, St. Martin’s Griffin) is a modern fantasy romance where a couple discovers at the altar the surprising secret identities they’ve kept from each other. Savannah Wilde is a witch, a very powerful one–an identity that only her fellow witches know. Following a whirlwind romance that surprised herself and her family, Savvy is all set to marry the love of her life. But she isn’t the only one with a secret that needs to be kept. Little does she know, her soon-to-be husband, Griffin Carter, is a top agent for a clandestine organization that used to primarily hunt witches.
Right Girl, Wrong Side by Ginny Baird (March 2023, Sourcebooks) is a Puerto Rican rom-com about two rival families forced to share the same vacation cottage for a week.
Twelve Hours In Manhattan (April 2023, She Writes Press) is the sophomore novel of Maan Gabriel, author of After Perfect. In this contemporary romance, Bianca Curtis has a chance meeting in New York city with “Eric,” better known as insanely famous Korean actor Park Hyun Min. They spend twelve perfect hours together–only to be torn apart at the end of the night by the inescapable realities of their very distinct worlds. But their story isn’t even close to over yet.
The Daydreams (May 2023, Berkley) is the latest book from Laura Hankin, author of Happy & You Know It and A Special Place for Women. A deliciously entertaining novel about the stars of a popular teen show from the early 2000s–and the reunion special, thirteen years after their scandalous flameout, that will either be their last chance at redemption, or destroy them all for good.
Sugar, Spice, and Can’t Play Nice by Annika Sharma (May 2023, Sourcebooks) is the follow-up to Love, Chai, and Other Four-Letter Words. When Payal Mehra’s detached parents insist she marry fellow Londoner and serial dater Ayaan Malhotra in order to save their own company, she has a choice: get disowned from the luxurious life they’ve funded and put her dreams on hold while she works a soul-sucking day job…or get engaged to save her family’s fortune and maybe rescue her own vision of a dream come true.
The Book Proposal by KJ Micciche (May 2023, Sourcebooks) is a hilarious debut bookish romcom about romance writer Gracie Landing, who emails her long ago high-school crush.
