Not Like Before by Lily Seabrooke, Jacqueline Ramsden

Lola never wanted to be on camera alongside an A-list star—but maybe Mackenzie is everything she needs. History professor Lola Barnes never cared about celebrities, and filming alongside superstar actress Mackenzie Vale isn’t exactly on her bucket list. But there aren’t a lot of experts on Mackenzie’s hometown on the remote Celadon Isles, so when the studio filming a deep dive of Mackenzie’s backstory comes knocking, no isn’t really an option. This exposé is the last thing Mackenzie wants to do. She’s had a good run as an actress without the ravenous press finding out she’s trans, but keeping it that way when the media is digging around in her childhood and with her gossipy family isn’t going to be easy. But it might be her last shot at her dream casting—and her agent doesn’t take no for an answer, anyway. And it isn’t any easier when Mackenzie is immediately head-over-heels for the gorgeous professor they tapped to film with her. And it isn’t any easier when going back to the isles means confronting all the things Lola ran away from there over twenty years ago—and that the only thing comforting her is a bond with the last person she’d ever expect to fall for. As a tight filming schedule, a nosy agent and a relentless director force Lola and Mackenzie to face the ghosts of their pasts, will they crumble in the face of everything they ran from once? Or can they find strength in one another and be more than they were before? Not Like Before is a 90,000-word grumpy/sunshine celebrity romance with a trans woman lead set on a fictional island where everyone is at least a little gossipy, and is the second collaborative novel between Lily Seabrooke and Jacqueline Ramsden. Features a celebrity actress made of pure sunshine and a historian who’s secretly soft under the surface, a meddling ex, Mackenzie’s meddling family, Lola’s meddling friend who loves Mackenzie more than she loves life, and Mackenzie’s agent, who is, unsurprisingly, meddling. Content warnings for on-page sex, a toxic ex, parental abandonment, gambling addiction, implicit threats of outing, a panic attack, falling off a boat, Hope being a fangirl, Taron being smug, and of course, the granny bra incident.

The Conjuring of Zoth Averex by K.R.R. Lockhaven

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Kept hidden by the United States government for decades, the Site is a place where magic is real. But that doesn't mean that everything happening there is sparkly. Soul-sucking policies and layers of stifling bureaucracy threaten to take all the fun out of magic. Harris, a newbie Conjurer, starts his first day of work at the Site bursting with excitement: he's been brought on for an extremely big project happening the very next day. In a triumph over its habitual inefficiency, the Site manages to carry out its plan and conjure an actual dragon to be used by the military. The dragon (Zoth-Avarex, the self-proclaimed greatest dragon in the multiverse) immediately eats the person next to him, snatches a "princess" from the ranks of the Conjuring Department, and flies away to the Space Needle. There he manipulates the media, outwits the Site's bumbling management, demands sixty-three billion dollars' worth of treasure (because Smaug was said to have had sixty-two billion in his hoard), threatens to destroy the city--and installs a couple of food trucks. While this book skewers the same fantasy genre it gleefully inhabits, it also pokes fun at corporate culture, today's obsession with wealth and celebrity, and our denial that life is anything more than meets the eye. Hapless Harris, believing in magic all along, learns to apply what he's picked up between the pages of fantasy literature.

The Case Files of Sheridan Bell: The Vanishing Beast by Em Rowene

A strange woman comes to Detective Bell with an even stranger problem: she’s about to be arrested for murder and needs Detective Bell to clear her name. When the police confuse a simple protection charm for something more sinister and arrest the wrong person, Bell must untangle cons, confront powerful sidhe families, and find the mysterious beast that roams the streets of his city.

Wedding Dragon by Liv Rider

Bringing a fake boyfriend to his sister's wedding seems like a great idea. Until he meets one of the groomsmen. His sister's wedding raises a lot of issues Shaun doesn't want to deal with. The worrying thought that his life is going nowhere. Two adventurous, ring-bearing cats. Bridesmaids from his old hometown who love bringing up his past mistakes and are still convinced he's a car thief. Desperate to get people off his back, he asks his straight roommate to pose as his boyfriend. Telling a few lies to impress people is fine, right? What could go wrong? The one thing he hasn't counted on: a distractingly sexy groomsman who can't stand liars and is a powerful dragon shifter. Mitchell never expected his fated mate to have a boyfriend. Mitchell thought meeting his fated mate would be the best day of his life, but meeting Shaun's boyfriend makes it the worst. How can he focus on his brother's wedding now? As he spends more time around Shaun, he realizes his mate has more problems than just bridesmaids spreading rumors. Resisting the urge to go after Shaun is the hardest thing he's ever had to do. Especially since his mate is irresistible. After a disastrous moonlit kiss, Shaun and Mitchell are determined to stay away from each other. But when the bridesmaids threaten to expose Shaun's lies, he has a choice: Run away from his past, or ask for help from the one man he wants to have a future with. Wedding Dragon is a m/m paranormal dragon shifter/human romance with a HEA and no cliffhangers. It is the third book in the Lewiston Dragons series, following Protector Dragon and Halloween Dragon. All books can be read separately.

Empire of Ash and Blood by Matthew Thompson

Matias De Laurentiis, Ablaze champion 2019, learns his loved ones perished at the hands of the Cult of Ra, a renegade faction out to eradicate bloodmans. But before seeking those responsible, he must escape the Ablaze Haven—the first to do so. Meanwhile, Luna Adjani’s entrapment of human dominance pushes her tolerance to new limits. With inner strength, aided by her faith, she embarks on her purpose. But to see it, first she must survive the tournament of Ablaze—claimed the greatest show on earth. Their lives are destined for change in the Pretorius Empire of 2043, Egypt. They are not alone; a Bloodman Rights inspector breaks protocol to aid the insurgent uprising; and an empress consort, after over twenty years in her role, debates whether to risk abandoning the emperor and his empire.

Seasons of Albadone (The Eighth Chant Book 1) by Élan Marché and Christopher Warman

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Four seasons. Four stories. An aspiring enchantress searches for a way to lift a terrible curse. A drunken father makes a dangerous wish. A foreman tilts the balance between nature and progress. A mother travels with her dying child in search of a healer. Four paths merge. Four destinies intertwine.