On the Shelf: April 2026

April was very rough in a lot of ways, so I'm glad the reading part of the month went extremely well! (And not just because I knocked out 23 books.) All the frontlist titles I picked up were great, across genres. Navessa Allen's Caught Up really worked for me in a way that Lights Out didn't quite hit. What can I say? I enjoy when a guy engages in quality groveling and is desperate to make amends. It balances out the stalking very nicely. Alisha Rai's Enemies to Lovers is a fun follow-up to Partners in Crime, and it came through for me when I desperately needed some high-jinks and shenanigans to lift my mood. I'm probably not the only person wondering if a third book with Isha and Avi is in the works. Fingers crossed!

This Kingdom Will Not Kill Me, like last year's The Everlasting by Alix E. Harrow, is one of those books everyone's going to be talking about for months—if not years! Are we surprised that Ilona Andrews knocked it out of the park, through a portal, and into a different reality? No. Maggie the Undying's tumultuous journey through the world of her favorite book series had me riveted. I can't wait for more!

The Reading Rundown
Caught Up by Navessa Allen (dark romance, contemporary romance)
This Kingdom Will Not Kill Me by Ilona Andrews (epic fantasy, portal fantasy)
Cinder House by Freya Marske (queer fantasy, Cinderella retelling)
The Seventh Veil of Salome by Silvia Moreno-Garcia (historical noir)
Cabaret in Flames by Hache Pueyo (horror, cyberpunk-ish)
Enemies to Lovers by Alisha Rai (contemporary romance)

Backlist titles & rereads: I reread all nine main books in Kit Rocha's Beyond series plus the three novellas—Beyond Temptation, Beyond Solitude, and Beyond Possession—and two of the Gideon's Riders spin-off titles, Ashwin and Ivan. Since I was engaging in a lot of screen time, I broke it up with a return to my paperback copy of Thief of Shadows by Elizabeth Hoyt and a revisiting of Again the Magic by Lisa Kleypas. I also took a break while reading the new Ilona Andrews and zipped through Ice Cold Saint by Cynthia Eden.

Currently reading: The Starter Ex by Mia Sosa and Enemy of My Enemy by Alex Segura.

On the TBR/wish list
An Ordinary Sort of Evil by Kelley Armstrong
Well Versed by Jen DeLuca
How Simi Got Her Groom Back by Sonali Dev
Captive Traitor King by Brigid Kemmerer
The Lines We Cross by Ausma Zehanat Khan
Wolf Worm by T. Kingfisher
The Wolf and the Crown of Blood by Elizabeth May
Score by Kennedy Ryan
Nobody's Baby by Olivia Waite