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I’ll Call You Home
Sharon L. Clark’s I’ll Call You Home is a warm, lively blend of second-chance romance, family drama, and romantic suspense. Charlotte Trevino returns from San Francisco to her family’s Texas horse ranch after her father is injured, only to discover that the ranch is sinking financially and a wealthy developer is pressuring the family to sell. Her homecoming also puts her face-to-face with Jason Archer, the first love who broke her heart nearly eight years earlier. From there, the novel builds around two connected questions: whether Charlotte and Jason can finally speak honestly about their past, and whether the Trevinos can protect the land that has shaped their family.
Charlotte is the book’s driving force, and her personality gives the story much of its spark. She’s loyal, stubborn, impulsive, and fully prepared to confront anyone who threatens the people she loves. Her warning to the predatory Gerard Chancellor captures her perfectly: “Don’t be fooled by my size. A rattlesnake is small, but you sure don’t want to tangle with one.” Clark lets that toughness sit alongside Charlotte’s grief, uncertainty, and longing, so she feels like more than a stock fiery heroine. Jason is gentler and more guarded, with responsibilities that include caring for his mother as dementia gradually changes their relationship. His quiet devotion to family and his buried desire to become a chef make him an appealing match for Charlotte, even when his habit of withholding information creates real frustration.
The romance works because Charlotte and Jason’s history isn’t treated as a simple misunderstanding that disappears after one conversation. They loved each other deeply as teenagers, and their breakup shaped the adults they became. Their alternating viewpoints show how each has spent years interpreting the same events differently, which gives their anger and attraction real emotional weight. The chemistry is strong, but the more satisfying part is watching them learn to stop making decisions on each other’s behalf. Their eventual reconciliation feels tied to personal growth, not just lingering physical attraction, and the playful proposal near the end fits the comfortable intimacy they’ve rebuilt: “Charlotte Rose Trevino, wanna marry me?”
The supporting relationships give the novel a pleasantly full world. Charlotte’s banter with her brother Brandon feels lived-in, while her father Arthur and veterinarian Janelle bring tenderness and humor to the ranch scenes. Jason’s friendship with Mitch adds comic energy, and his relationship with his mother supplies some of the book’s most vulnerable moments. The suspense plot grows steadily from financial pressure into stalking, sabotage, corruption, and violence, eventually revealing a much larger criminal operation behind the attempted land purchases. That escalation gives the final third plenty of momentum, though the middle sometimes circles familiar conflicts as Charlotte and Jason repeatedly hesitate to share important information. Even so, the ranch, diner, general store, horses, and close-knit town make Zearing feel like a place with its own rhythms.
I’ll Call You Home is about choosing a life because it genuinely fits, not because guilt, fear, or someone else’s expectations have chosen it for you. Charlotte has to decide what home means after building a successful life elsewhere, while Jason has to accept that caring for others doesn’t require abandoning his own ambitions. Clark brings those threads together in a satisfying conclusion that gives the romance, family conflict, suspense, and career journeys room to resolve. The result is an affectionate, emotionally direct novel with spirited dialogue, a strong sense of place, and characters who are at their best when they finally trust one another enough to tell the truth.
Pages: 278 | ASIN : B0FR3DM766
No Perfect Safe Haven
I’ll Call You Mine follows a woman fleeing San Francisco and a stalker for the quiet life of her small Midwestern hometown, who finds herself falling for her new coworker while her stalker’s threats escalate. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?
Honestly, the television show Criminal Minds was instrumental. That, with a curiosity around psychology and true crime, and a fascination with the way phrases considered romantic can also be rather threatening. For example, “I’ll always find you” or “we belong together.” Many people dream of hearing these words – but only from the right person. Coming from someone we don’t know or don’t feel the same about, the words take on a very different and sinister meaning.
Enderlin feels comforting and claustrophobic at the same time, offering protection, but also scrutiny and exposure. Why was it important that the town never become a perfect “safe haven”?
For me, it was important to show that there is no perfect safe haven. Even ‘home’ has its flaws, although we may not remember it that way once we leave. Katie thought she could outrun her troubles, perhaps looking to go back to a simpler time when she was taken care of by others: her parents, her brother, the community. But I wanted Katie to find her own strength and to build the life she wanted rather than trying to find it.
The book repeatedly shows how stalking changes ordinary behavior: how Katie reads rooms, measures people, and notices small details. Did you do research into the psychological aftermath of stalking and harassment?
Yes, I did do research! I wanted to not only learn the effects of being stalked, but also find the ways in which victims learned to manage the lasting impact and to find joy in life. I watched quite a few true crime shows that focused on stalking cases in which the victim was able to add context. Hearing them recall how they felt and how it affected not only their lives but the lives of those around them helped a lot. The story of singer/songwriter Coles Whalen was really eye-opening and exceptionally informative on several fronts.
Can you tell us more about what’s in store for the town of Enderlin and the direction of the second book?
Through the series Enderlin Calling, the town is the thing that connects all the stories, although not all of the stories take place there. Book 2 has Katie’s best friend, Charlotte, as she goes to Texas to save the family horse ranch. She finds sabotage – and her old flame – and has to figure out how to navigate both without losing everything. Book 3 is in the works and follows one of Katie’s coworkers away from Enderlin and back again. Book 4 will center around Katie’s brother, Nick, but it is still nothing more than a dream at this point.
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For Ben, life in Enderlin is quiet and peaceful, his biggest concern, the ex-fiancée who keeps turning up like a bad penny. That is, until he literally bumps into a curvy brunette with stunning blue eyes and something to prove. Parker is a complication he doesn’t want or need; so why can’t he get her out of his head?
Katie settles into her new life, reconnecting with family and friends and falling for Ben’s easy charm a little more every day. But her attempt to escape seems to have made the stalker bolder, and his love letters quickly escalate to threats she can’t ignore.
When the mounting danger crosses the point of no return, Katie is left shocked, terrified – and utterly alone. But she knows one thing for certain; if she wants to get back to Ben and everyone she loves, she’s in for the fight of her life.
I’ll Call You Mine
I’ll Call You Mine by Sharon L. Clark is a romantic suspense novel about Katie Parker, who flees San Francisco for her Iowa hometown after a stalker turns her life into a private siege. Back in Enderlin, she tries to rebuild: reconnecting with her brother Nick, starting over professionally, and sparring her way into a combustible romance with Ben Collins. But the threats follow her home, turning small-town comfort into something more watchful and claustrophobic.
I enjoyed how the book lets romance and danger breathe in the same room without letting either one fully domesticate the other. Katie’s fear feels persistent rather than decorative; it changes where she stands, how she reads faces, how she measures a room. That gives the love story with Ben a sharper edge. Their chemistry is flirtatious, exasperating, sometimes almost too heated for office hours, but it works because Katie is not simply being “rescued.” She is trying, messily and stubbornly, to reclaim her own life.
What surprised me most was the warmth around the suspense. Enderlin could have been painted as pure refuge, but Clark makes it more interesting: safe places can still have shadows, and familiar people can become unsettling when seen from the wrong angle. I also liked the texture of the supporting cast, especially Nick, whose protective humor keeps the story from sinking into dread. The banter runs broad, but the book’s best moments have a nimble push-pull: a joke lands, a threat intrudes, and suddenly the air tastes metallic again.
I would recommend this to readers of romantic suspense, stalker thrillers, and small-town romance, especially those who like danger wrapped around a high-chemistry love story. Fans of Nora Roberts’s romantic suspense or Karen Rose’s blend of menace and emotional intensity will find familiar pleasures here, though Clark leans more into small-town heat and bantering attraction. This is a tense, tender romance about learning that home is not the absence of danger, but the place where you stop facing it alone.
Pages: 294 | ASIN : B0DND3Q3MY
Recipe for Murder (A Pine Cove Mystery)
Marla A. White’s Recipe for Murder, a Pine Cove Mystery, follows ex-LAPD officer turned B&B owner Mel O’Rourke as she is pulled into a suspicious death far from home. In New Orleans, Jackson Thibodeaux discovers his friend Kaya Woods dead at a culinary school; moments later, someone knocks him unconscious, and when he wakes, the crime scene has been scrubbed clean. Back in Pine Cove, Mel must sort through Jackson’s claim of staged suicide while juggling a struggling inn, a snarled romantic triangle, a nosy but formidable family, and a mystery with more heat than any cooking-school rivalry.
I liked the book most when it let Pine Cove be gloriously, inconveniently alive. The mystery has sharp elbows, but the town is the real seasoning: Grandma O’s filthy one-liners, Poppy’s theatrical Britishness, Gregg’s prickly lawman energy, Jackson’s wounded charm, and Mel’s exhausted competence all crowd the page in a way that feels deliberately noisy. White understands that a cozy mystery doesn’t need to be soft; it can have bite, vinegar, and a little smoke under the sweetness.
Mel makes a satisfying narrator because she isn’t merely “spunky,” that exhausted label often slapped on women with sarcasm and a gun. She’s brave, but not tidy about it; funny, but often as a defense mechanism; capable, but still porous to fear, jealousy, and old damage. The romantic tension occasionally threatens to steal the wheel from the murder plot, yet I found that messiness part of the book’s appeal. The story is at its best when danger, desire, plumbing disasters, and small-town gossip all arrive at once, like a dinner party where every guest brought a weaponized casserole.
The target audience is readers who enjoy cozy mysteries, small-town fiction, romantic suspense, and humorous mysteries with an ensemble cast and a heroine who can trade insults while chasing clues. Fans of Joanne Fluke’s food-centered mysteries may recognize the genre pantry, though White’s tone is sassier, more kinetic, and closer at times to Janet Evanovich’s chaos-with-a-body-count verve. Recipe for Murder is a lively whodunit that proves comfort reading can still be thrilling.
Pages: 288 | ASIN : B0GTRJ24MV
Shared Sense of Excitement
Detective Lucian follows a stubborn detective on Haven Island who makes it his personal mission to protect a sassy realtor who was attacked by a client, but falling in love was not part of his plan. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?
I dedicate a significant amount of my time volunteering for our local sheriff’s office, where I contribute to realistic role-playing scenarios for recruits and participate in numerous ride-alongs. Our sheriff’s department is deeply committed to its community, and I aimed to reflect that strong bond in my writing. Also, with several realtor friends, I’ve learned how careful they are when they show a house. I put a lot of my experiences into my writing.
Josie and Lucian clash almost immediately. How did you balance Lucian’s protective instincts without letting him overshadow Josie’s independence?
My goal was for Josie to come off as a capable, independent woman who wasn’t afraid to ask for help, but could also go it alone. Josie needed to have a hard and soft side to her personality. It was crucial to demonstrate Lucian’s unwavering support for her, without infringing on her independence.
The novel leans into emotion without hesitation. Do you think romantic suspense works best when feelings are close to the surface?
I do. By allowing their emotions to surface, the characters create a stronger connection with the reader. Then, not only does the character’s adrenaline begin to surge, but the reader’s does too, creating a shared sense of excitement.
I hope the series continues in other books. If so, where will the story take readers?
The focus of this series is the Haven Island Police Department, detailing their work on diverse cases as they strive to ‘protect and serve’ their community. Book 1 acted as my transition from my initial series, “Path Series,” to the setting of Haven Island. It introduced Deputy Sean, who relocates to a new town and finds himself falling for the diner’s waitress, who is unfortunately being stalked. Book 2 delved into Chief Alejandro’s past, revealing his heroic rescue of Sammie’s daughter from an unhinged ex-husband. The fourth book, releasing soon, focuses on Hudson, a Patrol Officer tasked with locating a missing child.
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Josie
I’ve worked two jobs for as long as I can remember—realtor in the afternoon, hotel host before sunrise. Exhausting? Absolutely. But after years of grinding, my nest egg is almost full, and my dream is finally within reach.
Then one client crosses a line.
And everything spirals.
Someone is watching me. Waiting. And the infuriatingly intense Detective Lucian Warrick—the man who drives me crazy on a good day—is suddenly the only shield between me and the darkness closing in.
He swears he’ll protect me.
He swears he won’t let anything happen to me.
I pray he gets to me in time.
Lucian
Josie Hale crashed into my life with a smart mouth, a stubborn streak, and a smile I can’t shake. She gets under my skin in all the wrong ways… and all the right ones.
But when a predator sets his sights on her, the lines blur fast. And keeping her safe means ignoring the heat between us, the one that could burn down every rule I’ve lived by.
I’ll tear apart this island to stop him.
I’ll put my life on the line without hesitation.
Because somewhere between the chaos, the danger, and her damn irresistible sass… I realized Josie Hale isn’t just another case.
She’s mine.
And I’ll do whatever it takes to keep her with me… forever.
Detective Lucian is a first-person, dual POV, slow burn, police protection, suspenseful romance. HEA guaranteed.
Preorder your copy today!
Lucky Storm: A Romantic Suspense Thriller
Lucky Storm by E.K. Rose is a romantic suspense thriller about Stormé LaChance, a successful woman in her 50s whose life is shaken by a calculated fraud scheme, old betrayals, and dangerous romantic entanglements. What begins with a chance encounter with Emile quickly becomes part of a larger con involving identity theft, corporate sabotage, revenge, and secrets tied to Stormé’s past. As the plot widens, private investigator Maurice Constantine enters the story, bringing both investigative skill and a second-chance romantic current that gives the book its emotional center.
The book doesn’t treat romance as something reserved for the young or untouched by history. Stormé is grown, accomplished, guarded, lonely, sensual, and still figuring herself out. That felt refreshing. The romantic suspense genre can sometimes lean into danger to the point where the characters start to feel like chess pieces, but here the author keeps returning to Stormé’s inner weather: her doubt, her desire, her need to trust, and her fear of being fooled again. It gave the thriller pieces more weight because the threat was not just money or reputation. It was dignity. It was the awful feeling of realizing someone got close enough to use your softness against you.
The author makes bold choices, especially in shifting between romance, crime, family drama, and steamy intimacy. The book moves fast and goes big. The villains are tangled in personal motives, the betrayals stack up, and the emotional temperature stays high. I found that entertaining. Rose clearly knows the kind of story she’s telling. This isn’t a cold procedural. It’s a romantic suspense thriller with heat in the room, secrets in the walls, and a heroine who has to reclaim the story people keep trying to write over her. The writing is direct and accessible, with a soap-opera pull that makes it easy to keep turning pages.
I would recommend Lucky Storm to readers who enjoy romantic suspense with mature characters, high-stakes betrayal, second chances, and a strong blend of passion and crime. It will especially appeal to readers who want a heroine in midlife who is still desirable, complicated, and capable of starting over. If you want a story with romance, danger, family secrets, and emotional payoff, this book has plenty to offer.
Pages: 264 | ASIN : B0FLTPFKGW
Detective Lucian
Detective Lucian is a romantic suspense novel that drops a love story into the middle of stalking, assault, kidnapping, and a police investigation on Haven Island. At its center are Josie Hale, a realtor whose life is shaken when a showing turns into an attack, and Detective Lucian Warrick, the gruff, intensely competent officer who takes the case personally almost from the first page. The book moves between danger and desire, building a small-town world where everyone seems connected, and every new clue pushes the romance and the threat forward at the same time.
Author Neri Lopez does not circle around the book’s emotional stakes. She gets right into fear, attraction, jealousy, protectiveness, and lets those feelings sit close to the surface. That gives the story real momentum. I could feel how the book wants to be read fast, almost in one long breath. I also liked the alternating points of view because they keep the romance active instead of distant. We are not just told Lucian cares. We watch him fight it, deny it, and then fail in a relatable way. At the same time, Josie never feels like she is only there to be rescued. Even when she is terrified, she still has personality, pride, and bite.
I was especially interested in the author’s choice to lean hard into contrast. Lucian is controlled until he is not. Josie is rattled but stubborn. The island setting feels sunny on the outside, but underneath it there is real menace, which fits the “protecting paradise” idea nicely. That blend is where the book works best for me. It understands that romantic suspense is not just about chemistry or just about plot. It’s about pressure. It’s about watching two people try to reach for each other while the ground keeps shifting under them. Some scenes are sharp and funny, others are genuinely unsettling, and that swing gave the book a live-wire energy I kept responding to.
I felt like this book knew exactly what kind of ride it wanted to deliver: high-stakes romantic suspense with a protective detective, a strong-willed heroine, real danger, and a strong emotional payoff. I would recommend it most to readers who like their romance hot, their suspense close at hand, and their characters emotionally open rather than polished. If someone enjoys small-town romantic suspense, protective hero stories, and series fiction where side characters make the world feel bigger, I think Detective Lucian will be a very easy book to fall into.
Pages: 274 | ASIN : B0GF3C26DB
Unwavering Devotion
A Time for Us is a heartfelt historical romance that follows two love stories across 1947 New York and 1987 North Carolina, asking whether a bond powerful enough to survive prejudice and loss can also survive death. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?
The inspiration for A Time for Us began with a real moment in my life. In 1987, I was working the breakfast shift at a fast-food restaurant in Clayton, North Carolina; a married mother of two, living a very routine life where I saw the same faces every day.
Then one morning, a new face appeared. There was an instant, unexplainable familiarity between us. We found ourselves stealing glances, both trying to place where we might know each other from. When he came through my line, we realized we were strangers, but neither of us could shake the feeling that we weren’t.
He was in town temporarily, and for the next several weeks, he came in every day, always choosing my line. Our conversations were light and innocent, but there was an undeniable connection neither of us could explain.
On his last day, he brought me two dozen yellow roses to thank me for making his time in town special. I told him I couldn’t take them home, but I accepted them anyway. Before he left, he looked at me and said, almost in disbelief, “I still feel like I know you… maybe from another lifetime.” I laughed it off at the time, but that moment stayed with me.
I never saw him again. But I kept one of those roses, pressed inside a book of poetry that I still have. And over the years, I found myself wondering… what if that feeling meant something more?
That question became the seed for A Time for Us. The story itself is fiction, but that moment… that unexplainable connection was very real.
How did you approach writing the 1947 romance so that its tenderness and danger would feel equally present?
I’ve always been drawn to historical documentaries, especially those centered around organized crime. That’s where the element of danger in their story was born. The tenderness, though, came from a much more personal place. It was shaped by my imagination and reflects the kind of love I believe in and would want for myself (minus the “forbidden” complications, of course).
What I love most about Mario and Jeannette is that they choose each other again and again, under every circumstance. Even when tragedy should have driven them apart, they hold on tighter. There’s something incredibly powerful about that kind of unwavering devotion.
What drew you to write a love story that is so openly sincere and emotionally heightened rather than restrained?
I write the way I live my life now: from my heart. And I think that’s exactly why it took me over 30 years to finish and publish A Time for Us. For a long time, I lived with a quiet fear of what people might think of me, of my choices, of my voice.
If I had published this story decades ago, it would have been very different. More restrained. More concerned with being palatable… telling a neat, tidy story that didn’t push too far or risk offending anyone.
But the version I ultimately wrote is the one I was always meant to tell. It’s raw. It’s real. It leans fully into emotion without apology. And if that sincerity feels a little too much for some… well, I’m finally at a place where I’m okay with that.
What do you hope readers carry with them after finishing A Time for Us, the romance, the idea of fate, or something else entirely?
More than anything, I hope readers walk away believing in the power of love, not just the idea of it, but the kind of love that endures. The kind that isn’t conditional or convenient, but steady, selfless, and deeply rooted.
Life is going to bring obstacles; we all know that. But when you have real love in your life… not the transactional kind we sometimes settle for, but the kind that says, “I’m here, no matter what”, it gives you the strength to face anything.
If readers close this book feeling like that kind of love is possible… and worth holding onto… then I’ve done what I set out to do.
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In A Time for Us, readers are drawn into the life of Deborah, an African-American woman whose dreams reveal a connection to a previous existence. These dreams lead her to Pauli, a Caucasian man whose presence stirs a deep sense of familiarity within her. As Deborah explores the concept of reincarnation, she uncovers the tumultuous love story of Jeannette, an African-American seamstress from Harlem, and Mario, an Italian man entangled in the dangerous world of organized crime in 1940s New York City.
Deborah’s journey is fraught with peril as she risks everything to uncover the hidden truths surrounding Jeannette and Mario’s lives. Each revelation pulls her deeper into a historical landscape marked by racial tensions and societal constraints, where love defies the boundaries of time and circumstance. The intensity of Jeannette and Mario’s love story resonates with Deborah, forcing her to confront her own feelings and the commitments she has in her current life.
As she navigates the complexities of her dreams and the realities of her present, Deborah finds herself in a profound struggle between the haunting allure of a past love and the fragile ties of her current existence. A Time for Us is a compelling exploration of love’s endurance across time, challenging readers to reflect on the choices that shape their lives and the legacies of love that linger long after the moments have passed.
