COVER REVEAL - The Challenge by Penelope Ward

 

Title: The Challenge

Author: Penelope Ward

Genre: Standalone Contemporary Romance

Tropes: Single Dad, Second Chance, Forced Proximity

Friends to Lovers, Small Town, Found Family

Cover Design: Letitia Hasser, RBA Designs

Photographer: Robert Dahey Photography

Model: Beau Carrillo

Release Date: August 30, 2026

BLURB

From New York Times bestselling author Penelope Ward comes a new, STANDALONE contemporary romance…

Nothing says welcome home like accidentally moving in with your first heartbreak…and his little girl.

Coming back to my small Wyoming hometown was supposed to be temporary. I only planned to stay long enough to help my ailing mother and sort through the mess of my family’s old belongings.

Instead, I somehow ended up living in Evan Ricci’s house. The single dad now owned a bunch of properties and one of them was the place I’d rented. He’d taken it off the market and moved in before I got there. I just never got the memo. Unfortunately, there was no other place in town available, so Evan let me stay.

Evan—the guy my parents took in years ago after his mother died.

The same Evan who used to dare me into ridiculous challenges that somehow always made me stronger—a game we’d dubbed The Challenge.

The same guy who ultimately rejected me before I left for college after I’d finally garnered the courage to shoot my shot.

Now Evan was a rugged single dad with an eight-year-old daughter, a cocky attitude, and a dangerous ability to make me forget every reason I should still hate him.

Sharing a house with him should’ve been unbearable. Instead, it felt dangerously familiar, nearly making me forget that I had a life and a job to get back to in Chicago. I realized the biggest challenge wasn’t surviving living with Evan Ricci.

It was not falling in love with him all over again.

ADD TO GOODREADS

PRE-ORDER LINKS

Special pre-order price of $3.99

(price will go up after release)

AMAZON US / UK / CA / AU

Will be free in Kindle Unlimited

SPECIAL EDITION PAPERBACK

Audio Preorder will go live in mid-August.

The current paperback preorder is for the alternate cover only.

A model-cover paperback will be live on release day.

WHAT YOU CAN EXPECT

SINGLE DAD

SMALL TOWN

FRIENDS TO LOVERS

SECOND CHANCE

FORCED PROXIMITY

FOUND FAMILY

AUTHOR BIO

Penelope Ward is a New York Times, USA Today and #1 Wall Street Journal bestselling author of contemporary romance.

She grew up in Boston with five older brothers and spent most of her twenties as a television news anchor. Penelope resides in Rhode Island with her husband, son, and beautiful daughter with autism.

With millions of books sold, she is a 21-time New York Times bestseller and the author of over forty books. Her novels have been translated into over a dozen languages and can be found in bookstores around the world.

AUTHOR LINKS

FACEBOOK
FACEBOOK GROUP
INSTAGRAM

TIKTOK
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OTHER BOOKS BY PENELOPE WARD

SEE ALL BOOKS HERE

New Release: SWEET DEVOTION by Riley Hart

 SWEET DEVOTION

Riley Hart 

Release Date: July 15 

Meet Riley Hart:

Riley Hart’s love of all things romance shines brightly in everything she writes. Her primary focus is Male/Male romance but under various pen names, her prose has touched practically every part of the spectrum of love and relationships. The common theme that ties them all together is stories told from the heart.

A hopeless romantic herself, Riley is a lover of character-driven plots, many with flawed and relatable characters. She strives to create stories that readers can not only fall in love with, but also see themselves in. Real characters and real love blended together equal the ultimate Riley Hart experience.

When Riley isn’t creating her next story, you can find her reading, traveling, or dreaming about reading or traveling, and spending time with her two perfectly snarky kids, and one swoon-inducing husband.

Connect with Riley Hart:

https://www.instagram.com/rileyhartwrites/ 

Blurb:

When I first laid eyes on Zuri Alexander, I knew she was mine.

And becoming more than friends was just as easy as breathing.

But she doesn’t know my secrets. There’s a dark side to the family business. So, I lie to her to cover it up.

I know she can feel the wall building between us, and I want nothing more than to tear it down…but the only way to do that is to share my truth with her.

That the girl she’s dating is involved in organized crime.

But When Zuri becomes a target of what appears to be some red pill incel, I know we’re the only ones who can keep her safe.

I just hope she can trust me one last time.

Because my devotion to her means there is nothing I won’t do to protect her.

Sweet Devotion is a 24k word FF novella that contains violence, misogyny and discussion of losing parents.

Buy Link:

https://geni.us/SweetDevotion 

Available in KU 

Zuri and Aislin are absolutely fit!  I loved watching them learn to trust, open up, and find the happiness they both deserved. Their journey was heartfelt, emotional, and had me rooting for them from beginning to end.

The O’Shea family  are loving, protective, and so supportive of Zuri and Aislin’s relationship. I especially loved getting to spend time with the whole family and seeing them finally happy after everything they’ve been through.

This was such a sweet, emotional romance, and I finished it with a smile on my face.

Promo Blitz - The Handyman and the Barkeep, by A.M. Arthur

 

SNOW CREEK PROMO BLITZ: The Handyman and the Barkeep by A.M. Arthur

https://getbook.at/SnowCreekRanch3

Length: 60k words

Series: Snow Creek Ranch #3

Prior Reading: Prior reading NOT required

Genre: Contemporary, Small-Town

Tropes: second-chance romance, city boy/country guy, hurt/comfort, dealing with past secrets

Trigger/Content Warnings: discussions of past trauma

Designer: L.C. Chase

Malcolm Montgomery will moonlight as almost anything, if you need him to do the job. While he enjoys being the preferred handyman at Snow Creek Ranch, his favorite role is full-time Uncle to his recently-widowed sister’s four kids. Working hard helps him forget he’s never managed a long-term relationship, and that he’s unlikely to find one in small-town Chance, Colorado—not until his first love books a red-eye flight right back into his life.

Ichabod “Iggy” Donohue adores being a mixologist. The job is creative, high-energy, lets him travel, and it puts a physical barrier between himself and other people every night. When his beloved Uncle Howie falls gravely ill and needs help running his saloon, Iggy has no choice but to return to Chance—his old hometown and the site of his greatest heartbreak.

Iggy and Malcolm fell deeply in love back in high school, but a viscous teenage prank left Iggy humiliated and alone, and he’s run from it ever since. He fully expects seeing Malcolm again after seventeen years will be uncomfortable, maybe even painful. Instead, their reunion is like slipping into his boyfriend’s softest sweatshirt: warm, familiar, and he doesn’t want to give it back. They’ve both lived a lifetime without each other, with only empty beds to show for it, but what if…?

Malcolm is settled in Chance; Iggy isn’t here to stay. This second chance might be exactly what they’ve both been waiting for, but they’ll have to clear the wreckage of their shared past, in order to construct a solid foundation for their happily ever after.

The Handyman and the Barkeep is a 60,000-word contemporary m/m cowboy romance featuring a gentle handyman with a heart of gold, a feisty bartender with a painful secret, unexpected second chances, hurt/comfort, and a villainous can of chili. It is book three in the shared world of Snow Creek Ranch. Each book can be read as a standalone, so be sure to check out the entire series!

AVAILABLE NOW

about the author:

A.M. Arthur has been creating stories in her head since she was a child and scribbling them down nearly as long, in a losing battle to make the fictional voices stop. When not exorcising the voices in her head, she can be found in her kitchen, pretending she’s an amateur chef and trying to not poison herself or others with her cuisine experiments. A.M. Arthur’s work is available from Carina Press and Briggs-King Books.

online (http://amarthur.blogspot.com/), as well as on BlueSky (https://bsky.app/profile/am-arthur.bsky.social), Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/a.m.arthur/ ), Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/A.M.Arthur.M.A ), and Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/stores/A.-M.-Arthur/author/B01JMXKJAG
newsletter: https://bit.ly/3TWy8Pw

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New Release: PARALYZE by JJ Asher

 PARALYZE

JJ Asher

Release Date: July 13 

Meet JJ Asher:

I'm a professional procrastinator masquerading as an adult.

I write what I love to read, and can often be found scrolling through a spicy MM manhwa.

I'm a mental health advocate and an ally who communicates in k-pop memes.

Connect with JJ Asher: 

https://www.instagram.com/jj_asher_writes/ 

Blurb:

This is everything I’ve ever wanted, exactly what I’ve spent the last thirteen years denying myself of, and it’s happening in a filthy alley with the kid I swore I’d never touch.

Carey—twenty-one, flirtatious and sun-kissed, chasing a place that feels like home. His latest bright idea? Fly halfway across the world to a town he hardly remembers, to crash for the holidays with his estranged older brother who he's scarcely seen in the past sixteen years. Only to arrive on his doorstep to find that brother AWOL and the entire contents of his apartment strewn across the front lawn.

Tek—thirty-four, exhausted, and barely holding it together. Deserted by his best friend and business partner, he's left to carry the weight of a tattoo shop in the aftermath of an affair that sent staff numbers from four to one in the space of a single afternoon. He keeps his world small, and his hookups controlled on purpose. Then Carey walks in like a damn storm, making Tek question everything he ever knew about himself. Including why he can't stop thinking about the golden tan of another man's stomach.

Tek turns Carey away but desperation rewards his persistence with a job offer, and boundaries start to blur. Tek knows better. He's spent the last decade with the world at arms length with iron clad rules that he breaks for no one, especially not the sunshine-smiling younger brother of his runaway best friend. But the more Tek resists, the more Carey leans in, and the line between right and wrong starts to look too appealing not to cross.

Abandonment may have brought them together, but loneliness is what keeps them close. And the one thing Tek swore he'd never reach for again might just give him the extra strength he's always needed.

Buy Link: 

https://mybook.to/paralyze

Available in KU 

Paralyze is the second book in the A New Paradigm series.
Carey and Tek have fantastic chemistry, and their relationship develops at just the right pace. Their initial animosity makes Carey’s persistence all the more satisfying, and watching Tek slowly let his guard down was incredibly rewarding.
Carey is the perfect balance of warm and strong—kind-hearted but unwilling to let anyone walk over him. Tek is closed off, angry, and still healing from his past, making his journey toward vulnerability feel genuine and earned. Together, they complement each other beautifully.
I highly recommend this book.

New Release: THE GEEK AND THE GHOST by Cambria Hebert

 THE GEEK AND THE GHOST

Cambria Hebert 

Release Date: July 10

Meet Cambria Hebert:

Cambria Hebert is a bestselling novelist of more than fifty titles. She went to college for a bachelor’s degree, couldn’t pick a major, and ended up with a degree in cosmetology. So rest assured her characters will always have good hair.

Besides writing, Cambria loves a pumpkin spice latte, staying up late, sleeping in, and watching K drama until her eyes won’t stay open. She considers math human torture and has an irrational fear of chickens (yes, chickens). You can often find her running on the treadmill (she’d rather be eating a donut), painting her toenails (because she bites her fingernails), or walking her chihuahuas (the real bosses of the house).

Cambria has written in many genres, including new adult, sports romance, male/male romance, sci-fi, thriller, suspense, contemporary romance, and young adult. Many of her titles have been translated into foreign languages and have been the recipients of multiple awards.

Connect with Cambria Hebert:

https://www.instagram.com/cambriahebert/

Blurb:

I’m about thirty seconds from a toe tag and my own freezer at the mortuary when he materializes from the shadows and fights like hell to keep me breathing.

I had no idea homeless disasters like me got guardian angels—or that guardian angels punch people and smoke—but suddenly, there he is: a hero dressed all in black who ghosts me so hard I consider calling a medium.

But that would be a waste of money I don’t have.

I thought I’d never see him again, but just as I’m about to eat a bullet, he appears, using his body to protect mine. I might have swooned—okay, fine, I do but only on the inside—if it weren’t for the fact he thinks bleeding is an adequate apology for implying I’m a prostitute and running off with my heart.

Spoiler alert: It’s not.

Now the man with a PhD in vanishing, a tattoo that totally offends me, and eyes with their own force of gravity is suddenly stuck to me like glue and being wildly inconvenient about it.

And he won’t stop calling me a pipgeek. What even is that?

He insists I trust him, but I can’t trust anyone, not even my own body. Unfortunately, when the resident drug lord calls in that favor I foolishly owe, things go from bad to catastrophic with alarming enthusiasm.

On the upside, having a villain with a hero complex for a stalker means staying alive will be easy.

But not getting hurt again is a whole other story.

Buy Link:

https://a.co/d/07PLBaC9 

Available in KU 

The Geek and the Ghost is Book 2 in The Protectors Series, and I absolutely loved it!

Rett has spent most of his life homeless, bullied, and believing nowhere is ever truly safe. Then Ghost walks into his life, and an instant connection forms that only grows stronger as the story unfolds.

Rett is such a sweetheart—kind, gentle, and fiercely protective of the people he loves. Ghost couldn’t be more different. As a government-sanctioned assassin, he lives in the shadows, but when it comes to Rett, he will protect him with his life. I loved the contrast between these two, and their chemistry was wonderful.

One of my favorite things about Ghost was his sense of humor. For someone with such a dangerous job, he had me laughing so many times throughout the book.

The secondary storyline with mob boss Enzo wanting to help the hit men added another layer of intrigue and kept the story moving at a great pace.