Love Next Door: A ‘90s Anthem Duet
Eve Kasey & Melanie A. Smith
Publication date: September 1st 2026
Genres: Adult, Contemporary, Romance

One volume, two steamy interconnected romances set in 1995 Seattle

Come to My Window
Hazel Bell has lost everything — her job, her apartment, and her future in Seattle. Now her whole world is a thrift-store wardrobe, a family of houseplants, and a stranger in the opposite window who knows exactly what to say.

They exchange notes instead of names. Confessions instead of introductions. And somehow, the man she’s never met becomes the one person she can’t live without.

Gideon Sarkis knows the truth would end them before they ever begin.

He knows exactly who Hazel is. But she doesn’t know him — or how badly he once hurt her. The more notes they write, the harder he falls. But with his obligations pressing in and her options disappearing, their time is running out.

Some windows are meant to be opened.

But some secrets can shatter everything.

Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door
Ben Pedersen is a ghostwriter stuck crafting someone else’s thrillers when a misdelivered package introduces him to the mystery of unit 203 — and its elusive occupant, Heaven Lee.

Lee is a software engineer burning the candle at every possible end, helping build one of the first online bookstores. She doesn’t have time for nosy neighbors. She barely has time for sleep. But the guy upstairs keeps getting her mail, and he’s funny, patient, and her dog likes him more than the UPS guy. So maybe one coffee not-date won’t kill her.

The neighborly arrangement that follows becomes something neither of them planned. But Lee won’t admit what’s in the misdelivered packages, and Ben’s writer brain won’t let a mystery rest. When curiosity crosses a line, both must decide what matters more: protecting their secrets or fighting for what they’ve found.

Love Next Door is two warm, witty nostalgic love stories about the secrets we keep, the walls we build, and the people worth tearing them down for.

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Author Bio:

Melanie A. Smith is an award-winning, international best-selling author of steamy romance with smart, self-sufficient heroines and strong, swoony book boyfriends with hearts of gold. A former engineer turned stay-at-home mom and author, when Melanie is not lost in the world of books you’ll find her spending time with her husband and son, crafting, or cross-stitching.

Eve Kasey writes for a design firm by day and reads (and writes!) indie romance novels by night. Her contemporary romances balance swoon and steam while aiming to teach readers something new. She loves romance for the hope the genre conveys as well as the amplification of the simple truth that everyone everywhere deserves a happily ever after - however that looks to them. Eve lives in and loves the Pacific Northwest.

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Crime Thriller / Suspense

Date Published: 09-07-2026

Publisher: Mission Point Press

Turtle Lake is a gripping tale of revenge, survival, and the intricate interplay between human nature and the natural world. The story follows Jim Peters, the comptroller at Ramsey Motors, who uncovers a corrupt scheme by the company and its insurer, U.S. Underwriters, to defraud employees of their retirement and insurance benefits before moving operations overseas. Infuriated, he devises an elaborate extortion plan to expose their corruption and protect the employees through a spectacular plot that ends up achieving national headlines. To accomplish his plan, Peters uses simple, everyday methods and lessons learned from alpha predators in the natural world.

 

Excerpt

 Life is a dangerous place to be. The woods, skies, lakes, and oceans are filled with creatures bent on killing and eating each other. Nothing in nature dies of old age, as the adage goes. 

Prey animals are taken down by predators. It’s as if prey animals are made to be food. 

Carnivore predators possess razor-sharp canine-like teeth. Carnivores are the watchers from the shadows. All of them, such as lions, tigers, bobcats, and wolves, are wired the same way. They don’t eat lettuce for lunch. To a carnivore, you simply look like another rabbit in the grass. 

There’s another carnivore that is often overlooked – humans. Humans have canine teeth. They are born wired with the same instincts as the alpha predators. 

We’re taught to control it. Supposedly. 

Birds will tell you when the sun is going to come up. At the faintest glimmer of dawn's early light, they begin to converse with each other, presumably to find out where the bugs are that day. Usually, we don't hear them in their earliness. Our day starts later. Usually. 

Frogs and insects do the same during the pre-dawn moments, buzzing and croaking in the woods, fields, and swamps. Presumably they do this to find out where the predators are. It's been said that frogs might be telling each other where the rattlesnakes and blue herons are at any given time. We don't usually hear them croaking away in the early hours of the day. Usually. 

Today, however, as the woods came to life with this early morning serenade, Jim Peters could hear them very clearly. It was August of 1990. He was in his cabin in mid-Michigan, situated on the edge of a quiet, deep-woods nature refuge known as Turtle Lake. Peters was lyingin bed backwards, that is, with his feet at the head of the bed and his head at the foot of the bed, chin resting on his wrists as he looked at a model train set. 

The train set, an ancient Lionel from the 1940s, included buildings, roads, bridges, cars, trucks, a shopping center, and a train running through it. The set looked ordinary enough to the casual passerby or rare visitor to the cabin. But in fact, it was window dressing, a model of the crime scene that was to come. The train had nothing to do with it. 

In a short while, when the birds, frogs, and bugs had quieted down, Peters would push a button and Mozart's opera The Magic Flute would float from the speakers connected to his compact disc machine. Peters liked Mozart. The music was pure and uncluttered. It flowed from one section into another so smoothly that it was hard to tell a transition had taken place. The complexities of its composition flowed as smoothly as pouring oil. 

As smoothly as the diabolical scam he was planning.

 

About the Author

Bob Milne has been hailed throughout his 60-year career as one of the best ragtime/boogie-woogie piano players of all time. A solo concert performer, he traveled all over the world playing for dignitaries and celebrities as well as small town audiences. He was given the title of National Treasure by the Library of Congress and deemed an Ambassador of Music by the U.S. Department of State.

Bob’s extraordinary musical abilities were the subject of numerous brain studies, which have inspired a popular RadioLab podcast.

Little did they know that Bob was also a talented writer.

For years he wrote articles about his saloon-playing days for music publications. Many of these stories were compiled into a book called The Journeyman Piano Player: Adventures in Gracious Dining. Bob has written reams of poetry, some of which became lyrics to songs that he composed. The longest piece of poetry he ever wrote was the lyric book for The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, a grand opera he composed and orchestrated.

Mr. Milne has been fascinated by nature his entire life. At a young age he realized that instincts are present in all species of birds, mammals (including humans), and literally every living thing in nature. He has used this information countless times over his lifetime to predict what the human species will do in future situations.

Bob is now retired from the long piano tours and is enjoying his woodland home. Today he spends his time studying nature in the woods. Signed copies of his book may be purchased through his website.

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Title: Venomous Games

Series: The Venomous Series

Author: T.L. Smith

Genre: Dark Romance

Tropes: Secret Society; Forced Marriage; Marriage of Convenience; Enemies to Married Couple; "We have to pretend we're happily married"; Bound by Duty; Reluctant Partners; Opposites Attract; Detective x Assassin; Secret Identity

Release Date: September 24, 2026

Cover Design: RBA Designs

Discreet Design: Hang Le

He was supposed to catch killers, not marry one.

Detective Boston has built a career on hunting dangerous people. Rules don’t scare him. Blood doesn’t bother him. And morality has always been … negotiable.

But nothing prepares him for the night he walks in to find her.

An assassin for hire with electric blue hair, a blade in her hand, and no intention of being caught.

He should arrest her.

Instead, he makes her an offer.

Marry him, and he’ll keep her secret.

Refuse, and her life will fall apart.

For him, it’s a calculated move.

For her, it’s blackmail dressed up as a wedding.

Living with an assassin was never part of the plan.

But the longer they’re married, the harder it becomes to decide who is more dangerous.

USA Today Best Selling Author T.L. Smith loves to write her characters with flaws so beautiful and dark you can’t turn away. Her books have been translated into several languages. If you don’t catch up with her in her home state of Queensland, Australia you can usually find her travelling the world, either sitting on a beach in Bali or exploring Alcatraz in San Francisco or walking the streets of New York.

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Title: Tethered

Trilogy: The Wicked West #2

Author: Candice Wright

Genre: Dark Romance

Tropes: Morally Grey Characters, Cowboys

Killers, Convicts, Witch FMC, Found Family

Release Date: August 6, 2026

BLURB

May contain spoilers if you have not already read Wrangled.

I thought I’d prepared for every eventuality, but fate somehow always manages to pull the rug right out from under me.

I was ready to face the townfolks and their insidious attitudes, the local police and their biased ones, and even the condescension from the ranching community because I wore boobs with my cowboy boots,

What I wasn’t prepared for, though, was for Austin Dyer to walk back into my orbit like he had a right to—like he wasn’t the one who pulled the pin on my life then stood back and watched it explode.

Worse still, I let him make me feel small and weak, like the last fifteen years I spent reinventing myself into someone strong were nothing but a dream.

And I hate him even more because of it.

This time, though, I’m not a terrified girl waving a white flag as I face the world alone.

I’ve made friends and found lovers. I have people worth fighting for, and I’ll bleed all over those white flags before I ever surrender again.

Tethered is Book Two in The Wicked West Trilogy. It is a dark romance series with elements that some will find upsetting. A full list of trigger warnings can be found at the front of the book. Please check them out before continuing.

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Releasing September 17

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Candice Wright is the international bestselling author of the Underestimated Series. Hailing from the UK, Candice lives with her three slightly unhinged children and the long-suffering partner. When she isn’t busy raising the next generation of crazy, you can find her sitting at the computer writing words she hopes will resonate or snuggled up reading stories by the authors that cultivated her love of the written word.

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Sci-Fi / Fantasy

Date Published: May 5, 2026

Publisher: Manhattan Book Group

 

Freedom’s End is a mythic sci‑fi/fantasy saga about a reincarnating rebel fighting to break cycles of oppression across lifetimes. Born a slave in the mines of Septra, Paintr rises again and again—across bodies, eras, and worlds—to confront a necromancer who seeks to enslave every sentient mind. Blending science fiction, dark fantasy, and supernatural western elements, the story explores identity, liberation, trauma, and the cost of reclaiming one’s soul. With its emotional depth, genre fusion, and expansive worldbuilding, Freedom’s End speaks to readers who love character‑driven epics, mythic resonance, and stories about resilience in the face of impossible odds.

 

About the Author

SE Estes is a sci‑fi and fantasy author whose work blends mythic symbolism, emotional depth, and genre fusion. A multicultural military‑brat upbringing and early career in computing shaped SE’s fascination with identity, technology, and transformation. Now based in Indianapolis, SE writes expansive, character‑driven universes—including Freedom’s End, the first book in a multi‑volume saga about liberation and the soul’s long journey across lifetimes.

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