Jerry Cooke

4.5⭐️ - Surprise parenthood meets forced proximity in this steamy and sweet slice of small town romance!

Archer's high pressure culinary career has had him working in Paris for a while now, but his life is upended when he finds out that his ex- Kate from Dream Harbour has passed away and left a five year old daughter called Olive that he never knew about. Struggling to fit into life in the small town and needing to go back to work in order to meet the adoption requirements, he surgely needs a nanny to support them both.

Iris has never had a serious relationship and she doesn't intend to start now, but she DOES need some reliable work and accommodation after losing yet another job. She really doesn't want anything to do with kids and the surliness of the diner's new chef doesn't make her particularly inclined to nanny for him, but when she finds out room and board are included, it's too good of an opportunity to pass up.

This was a super cute story in Dream Harbour, with the cast of characters expanding even more. The found-family vibes are extremely literal in this one, but there's also sweet inclusion of Archer in town activities as he slowly comes out of his shell (and gets that pancake recipe right, finally!). Not super seasonal, taking place in the spring, but an adorable love story!

5⭐️ and I'd rate it higher if I could!

Lily is going to die. She's not happy about it (in fact, she's incandescently angry at the medical insurance industry that caused her to be in this situation), but with her body wasting away, she's ready for the pain to be over. When she arrives in the afterlife, it becomes clear that the strict christian upbringing she escaped was dead wrong about everything.

Struggling to settle in to this new reality, and with no small amount of spite towards all the people in her adolescence who warned her this would happen, she decides to visit Hell. She finds that demons are just as respectful as they are terrifying and that souls sent for punishment are the very worst customers!

Having spent her mortal life battling many proverbial Karens and searching for purpose, she offers to lend a hand dealing with the worst of the complainants. As she meets deities, denizens, and one particularly adorable lost child, she begins to find that the family you can find in the afterlife can give you all that you wanted in life and more.

This is a beautiful work of fiction that covers trauma with tenderness, demonstrates the very greenest of green flag relationships, and deals so much humour and nerdiness. This is easily one of my favourite books of 2025 and I lost count of the number of times it brought me to tears (C18!) and had me laughing out loud.

I'll add an admission that I'm biased positively towards this book, because I adore Jaysea's TikTok series that this is a prequel to. However, while the nostalgia factor and joy of seeing Lily's entry to the afterlife contributed to the enjoyment - this book fully stands on its own merits as a fantastic work of fantasy romance!

4.75⭐️ - A ton of Christmas cuteness with a grumpy/sunshine vibe and lots of dogs!

Kira's decision to give almost all of her trust fund to charity and to buy the old Christmas Tree Farm in the small town of Dream Harbour seemed like a good idea at the time. Reality isn't quite as rosy though, with a freezing cold property, and this is forcing her to re-evaluate the statement she made to the town about not re-opening the farm. She's just pondering her lot in life when a barking outside makes her take notice of a trespasser with three adorable dogs.

Bennett, brother of Jeanie who runs the Pumpkin Spice Café, has no idea the farm was occupied and his first impression of the standoffish Kira is that she's beautiful, but mean. There's serious curiosity in the town though and as he's just visiting for a couple of months, and thus an outsider, it's deemed that he's the perfect impartial person to get to know Kira better and find out what's going on at the farm. As the two end up spending more time together, Kira's icy exterior thaws and it becomes clear that there's some possibility for Christmas warmth between them.

This was adorable and my favourite Dream Harbour book so far. Bennett and Kira have a great grumpy/sunshine relationship with the slow thawing and growing found family being super sweet to see develop. A great Christmas read!

3.5⭐️ - A Celtic fantasy with a storyline based on the movie Legally Blonde, the plot of which it sticks to a little too hard!

Having been planned to be betrothed to Prince Domhnall for many years, Princess Clia is more than a little offended when the prince tells her that she's not strong enough of a leader to be his wife. Hearing that he's going to the prestigious Caisleán Cósta, where the fiercest warriors of their land are trained, she decides to follow him, prove that he's wrong about her, and win back this marriage that will appease the gods. Rather unfortunately, she's barely any experience with the sword, but what she lacks in martial skill, she more than makes up for with determination.

I've got to preface this by saying that I think this book is marketed totally wrong - looking at it, you'd think it was in a similar fun vein as Lady's Knight, but you'd be so far off base you'd be in a different stadium. What I thought was going to be light and fluffy was in fact pretty dark, with a lot of combat, betrayal, and loss. Think of the vibe as more 'Celtic Princess goes to Basigath with less dragons' and you'll be prepared for the reality.

It tries really hard to stick to the same precise story beats of Legally Blonde (this book originally being called 'Medievally Blonde', but wisely getting a name change) and I feel like this is detrimental at points and doesn't give the book freedom to go where it will. That said, it was a perfectly enjoyable fantasy story and I enjoyed the little found family and the murderous otter-like pet Clia gets. I also appreciated that it was a really queer normative world - with good trans and non-binary representation.