First Dates & Soulmates: A Romance Podcast

Why are romance readers (and publishers) obsessed with curses?

Meg and Nikki trace curse-breaking romance from Beauty and the Beast and other fairy-tale retellings through A Court of Thorns and Roses and The Ex Hex, as well as exploring curses within cozy fantasy, witchy romance, and modern romantasy.

Along the way, Meg breaks curse stories into three-and-a-half major types and introduces a seven-step curse-breaking framework: the origin wound, the rule, the false solution, escalation, the loophole, the sacrifice, and the break.

Get the full show notes

Listen to our last episode on Practical Magic 2

• The three-and-a-half major types of curse stories: fairy-tale curses, generational curses, bodily-autonomy curses, and supernatural bargains
• Why curse plots naturally create urgency and a ticking clock
• The seven beats of a curse-breaking romance
• How Practical Magic 2, Beauty and the Beast, and ACOTAR fit that structure
• Why The Ex Hex turns the traditional curse plot into a cozy small-town rom-com
• The path from fairy-tale retellings and YA fantasy to modern romantasy
• Why curse-breaking has split into two particularly useful modern modes: epic romantasy quests and community-centered cozy fantasy
• How curse stories have shifted from passive cursed heroines to women who investigate, gather allies, claim power, and actively break the condition
• Why breaking the curse isn’t necessarily enough to convince us the couple has an HEA Pasted markdown Pasted markdown

• Practical Magic / Practical Magic 2
• Beauty by Robin McKinley
• Beauty and the Beast
• Heart’s Blood by Juliet Marillier
• Entreat Me by Grace Draven
• A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas
• The Ex Hex by Erin Sterling
• The Bird and the Sword by Amy Harmon
• The Heartstone Curse by Jasmine Gonzalez
• Spellcast by Sophie Jordan
• The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab
• Take My Body by K.A. Merikan
• Wicked Villains by Katee Robert
• Grave Situation by Louisa Masters
• Axe Backwards by May Archer

Spoiler warning: we spoil the entire movie.

Practical Magic 2 is here, and Nikki and Meg have a lot of feelings about it. Meg saw it with three girlfriends (a certified First Dates & Soulmates date: tickets, popcorn, margaritas after). Nikki has script-level complaints but still had a great time. Together they break down this adaptation of Alice Hoffman's The Book of Magic, the last book in the Owens sisters series, and ask the question at the heart of every curse-breaking romance: is your romance curse cursed?

Sally's second husband Gary has died, and to protect her daughters Kylie and Antonia, she casts a spell that wipes their memories of magic. When Aunt Jet dies, Kylie's boyfriend Gideon lands in a coma right after she says "I love you," and the family heads to England to break the curse for good. Spoiler: it takes a sacrifice, and Nikki and Meg have thoughts about whose.

Get the full show notes

Listen to our episode about the original Practical Magic (1998)

1. The curse breaks too easily. The first movie "broke" the curse, the sequel reveals it never did, and then it's handled again in about a minute and a half of screen time. Where's the portent?
2. You think you can outrun a generational curse. Sally wipes the girls' memories and goes back to repressing her own magic. Meg and Nikki compare notes with A Discovery of Witches, Charmed, Frozen, and Encanto. Ignorance as protection never works, and keeping your daughters in the dark is worse than the curse.
3. A curse should change the person who carries it. Sally runs the same arc twice (love, loss, reject magic) and ends up in the same place. Nikki brings up Groundhog Day as the counterexample: same loop, but the character actually changes.
4. Everybody falls in love too fast. "I waited a long time for you" implies fate, but the film never shows it. Where's the build-up for Sally and Ian, or Kylie and Gideon? And does the curse know you're in love before you say it out loud?
5. Sisterhood is the real counter spell. The first film was a love story between Sally and Gillian. This one sidelines Antonia (Maisie Williams) to a hospital room and underuses Nicole Kidman. Meg and Nikki pitch a better version where Franny mentors Antonia and all three women are in the room.

• Practical Magic (1998) and Practical Magic 2
• Beautiful Creatures (sacrifice)
• Once Upon a Time ("magic always comes with a price")
• Wonder Woman 1984, King Arthur: Legend of the Sword, and Beauty and the Beast
• A Discovery of Witches, Charmed, Frozen, Encanto (blocking a curse backfires)
• Brave, Maleficent, and Shrek (love breaks the curse, and often it's a mother, sister, or finding your true self)
• Groundhog Day (the same arc, but with real change)
• The Skeleton Key (a curse only works if you believe in it)

• The sacrifice is a witch of the Owens line who dies in service of the curse (the villain Tom, a failed offshoot of the family)
• Ian knowingly falls in love with Sally, walking into the curse with eyes wide open, which makes honesty the thing that breaks it
• Sally dreams of Ian the way she conjured Gary, so "I waited a long time for you" actually pays off
• Practical Magic 3: the curse isn't broken, and Sally becomes a serial killer chased by the FBI

• Meg: Furious on Hulu, a dark, twisty thriller with serial killer / FBI agent Killing Eve energy. Content note: it deals heavily with child trafficking and sexual abuse. Not a rom-com.
• Nikki: The Planetary Systems Preservation Committee Decided We Needed a Nanny by Jennifer Cody, a funny alien-nanny romance where Earth is saved by a galactic government that assigns every human a nanny.

• Gillian to Sally: "You're a sentient cucumber with an attitude."
• Ian: "We're all pallbearers of our ancestors' pain. We didn't do it, but we have to carry it."

Next week we continue Spooky Scary Bookie Month with a deep dive into the cursed romance trope. If you liked "Is Your Romance Curse Cursed?", come back for more.

• Rate, review, and subscribe on Spotify and Apple Podcasts (comments on Spotify are very welcome)
• Follow us @firstdatesandsoulmates on most platforms
• Subscribe on YouTube to see our faces, Nikki's Lego collection, and Meg's excellent bangs and red lipstick
• Sponsor the show to share your new book release with our Soulmates
• Book recommendation lists and trope deep dives are on firstdatesandsoulmates.com

Following last week's werewolf archetype deep dive, Meg and Nikki pick a readalong book to test the framework against — deliberately skipping the genre's most obvious picks (no Nalini Singh, no Kresley Cole) in favor of a queer werewolf romance.

They land on Wolfsong, the first book in TJ Klune's Green Creek series.

Spoiler warning: this episode discusses the full plot of Wolfsong in detail.

In this episode:

• Why Ox's limited, "non-observant" POV does so much of the genre's work for it
• Scenting, explained two ways: pack/family-marker scent vs. involuntary attraction signal
• The stone wolf, the "asking for Ox's hand" scene, and the cringiest 30 pages in the book
• Why TJ Klune sidesteps the age-gap problem by keeping Ox in the dark
• What happens to found family when Joe, Carter, Kelly, and Gordo leave Green Creek for three years
• Why Ox becomes an alpha despite having no wolf bloodline at all — and why the book never explains it
• Mapping Wolfsong onto last week's archetype framework: Cursed Creature, Alpha, Fated Mate, and Pack
• What gay romance gains — not just loses — by stripping procreation out of the werewolf template
• A big announcement: the new firstdatesandsoulmates.com, with dedicated trope and book-review pages

Story Summary (Spoiler-Free)

Ox Matheson is a human teenager in the small Oregon town of Green Creek, still reeling from his father's abandonment, when the Bennett family moves in next door — and turns out to be a family of werewolves. Ox is drawn into their world first through friendship, then through a bond with the youngest son, Joe, destined to lead the pack one day. As Ox grows from an awkward, self-doubting kid into someone the pack relies on, the story follows found family, loyalty, and the cost of protecting the people you love. It's the first of four Green Creek novels, plus two novella-length companion pieces, each shifting POV to a different pack member.

Content Warning

Discussed on the episode: violence, off-page torture, parental death, and abandonment as a throughline theme. Both hosts flag this as an emotionally heavy read — "This is a five out of five. This is a, um, render." — on their angst scale.

Books & Media Mentioned

• Wolfsong and the rest of the Green Creek series — TJ Klune
• The House in the Cerulean Sea — TJ Klune (referenced for contrast in tone and career context)
• Bride — Ali Hazelwood (referenced re: fated-mate "romance literacy")
• Star Wars sequel trilogy (referenced re: bloodline vs. chosen destiny)

Where We've Discussed This

• Last week's werewolf archetype deep dive (direct follow-up)
• Referenced: the show's "himbo" episode (Ox's characterization)

What We're Shipping This Week

• Meg: the newly rebuilt firstdatesandsoulmates.com — dedicated pages for the werewolf archetype framework, the werewolf recommendation list, and ongoing book-specific review pages like the Wolfsong one
• Nikki: Painted in Wildflowers by Emmy Sanders (Darling Brothers series, book 4)

Kicking off spooky October, Meg and Nikki tackle the second installment in their paranormal-archetype series (following last year's vampire deep dive). Nikki mapped werewolf and wolf-shifter romance onto three central archetypes — the Cursed Creature, the Big Bad Wolf, and the Alpha — plus two structural tropes that cut across all of them: Fated Mate and Pack/Found Family. Along the way: why werewolves keep winning the genre's search-volume war against vampires, the true (and very messy) origin story of the Omegaverse, and why "alpha" reads as a red flag in real life but a fantasy on the page.

In this episode:

• The three core werewolf archetypes and what each one represents psychologically
• Why L. David Mech's "alpha wolf" research is scientifically bunk — and romance ran with it anyway
• Vampires vs. werewolves: hot/cold, family/solitude, and why the two species always seem to hate each other
• The Omegaverse's real origin (a 2010 Supernatural real-person kink-meme prompt)
• Google Trends data on werewolf vs. vampire search volume since 2004
• What's coming next week: a queer werewolf readalong of Wolfsong by TJ Klune

Deep dive on our website:

Get the full show notes

Read the werewolf archetype

Get our full list of 25+ werewolf romance books

• Bitten — Kelley Armstrong
• Moon Called — Patricia Briggs (Mercy Thompson series)
• Slave to Sensation / Kiss of Snow — Nalini Singh
• A Hunger Like No Other — Kresley Cole
• The Tyrant Alpha's Rejected Mate — Kate C. Wells
• Enchanted (Hopeless Bless series, book 4) — Lark Taylor
• The Kincaid Pack series — Kiki Clark
• The Wolf Man (1941, 2025), An American Werewolf in London, Ginger Snaps, Teen Wolf (MTV), Twilight, Underworld / Rise of the Lycans, True Blood
• Harry Potter (Remus Lupin), Buffy the Vampire Slayer (Oz)
• Referenced: the show's prior vampire-archetype episode; the show's episode with "Dr. Fandom" Katie Freund on fandom's role in modern romance

Where We've Discussed This

• Vampire archetype deep dive
• Twilight / Warm Bodies: YA paranormal film study episode
• Ice Planet Barbarians / alien romance episode

What We're Shipping This Week

• Meg: The Tyrant Alpha's Rejected Mate by Kate C. Wells — a rejected-mate story that subverts the fated-bond consent problem by literally letting the heroine have the bond magically removed
• Nikki: Enchanted by Lark Taylor (Hopeless Bless series, book 4) — angel/seraphim romance, heavy angst, terminal illness and healing-powers premise

Meg and Nikki come back from a summer hiatus to dig into the film adaptation of Ali Hazelwood's The Love Hypothesis, starring Lili Reinhart as Olive and Tom Bateman as Dr. Adam Carlson. Both hosts loved it as a movie (Nikki: 9/10) while grading it more critically as an adaptation (Nikki: 8/10) — faithful through roughly the first half, then increasingly divergent in the back third, especially around the Tom subplot and how the story resolves it.

Spoiler warning: this episode discusses the full plot of both the book and the film adaptation in detail.

In this episode:

• What the adaptation gets right: Olive's competence-under-nerves characterization, the negotiation scene, keeping the "fake dating" trope named on-page
• Why cutting Adam's book-only decision that he's been quietly in love with Olive since the bathroom scene changes his arc
• The missing Holden subplot, and how much narrative work a best-friend character was doing to humanize Adam
• Casting notes on Lili Reinhart, Tom Bateman, and Rachel Marsh as Anh
• The FAKING IT framework's Agreement stage, and how well the negotiation-scene structure maps onto it
• Why the film's choice to remove the audio evidence of Tom's misconduct weakens the third act — and why "believe her" isn't the same as "there will be consequences"
• What's coming next: October's paranormal spooky season kicks off with werewolves and wolf-shifters

The film adaptation of Ali Hazelwood's The Love Hypothesis follows Olive, a PhD student at Stanford, who fake-dates standoffish professor Dr. Adam Carlson to convince her best friend Anh that she's moved on and isn't standing in the way of Anh dating Olive's ex. What starts as a mutually beneficial arrangement — negotiated, timelined, and initially very stiff — slowly becomes real, complicated by lab politics, a predatory colleague, and two people who are both much better at hiding their feelings than showing them.

• The Love Hypothesis — Ali Hazelwood (the book this film adapts)
• Ever After: A Cinderella Story (1998, referenced for comparison)
• Riverdale (Lili Reinhart's prior work)
• The Island — Briar Prescott (Meg's ship of the week)
• Tracking Wolf — Lucy Lennox, Maid Marian Legacy book 4 (Nikki's ship of the week)

• Our original Love Hypothesis book episode
• Full book review: The Love Hypothesis — book review
• The FAKING IT Framework
• Our favorite Fake Dating Romance Books

• Meg: The Island by Briar Prescott (read from Nikki's earlier recommendation) — childhood-best-friends-to-lovers, bi awakening, stranded-on-a-desert-island survival romance
• Nikki: Tracking Wolf by Lucy Lennox (Maid Marian Legacy book 4) — dad's-best-friend age-gap romance with a road-trip chase

Media we mentioned:

"Newfoundland is an Island" video: https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTyfMutnK/

We're pulling this one out of the vault because the movie's almost here — The Love Hypothesis hits Prime Video on September 23, with Lili Reinhart as Olive and Tom Bateman as Adam. Consider this your reread assignment before the adaptation drops.

In this episode of First Dates and Soulmates, Nikki and Meg dive into The Love Hypothesis by Ali Hazelwood—a fan-favorite academic rom-com that sparked an entire wave of STEM heroines.

Click play on this week’s episode to hear:

• Why Olive is a chronic overthinker and why Adam is a misunderstood grump (who totally has a soft side)
• How this book walks the line between swoony slow-burn and sexy payoff
• The balance of realistic vs. wildly fictional about academia
• The Title IX runner that starts as a joke and becomes the whole emotional throughline
• Why we're both so glad this book stayed in Olive's POV only — and what it would've lost with a dual-POV structure
• The recording that saves Olive from her worst moment in the book (f*ck Tom)
• The 12 stages of physical intimacy framework, and how this book uses it to build a slow burn
• Why Olive's demisexuality lands as specific and earned, not just a label
• The Deep End easter egg — yes, Dr. Adam Carlsen and Dr. Olive Smith show up in Ali Hazelwood's 2025 release too

And if you loved the fake dating premise & you're looking for more like The Love Hypothesis, check out our 20+ favorite fake relationship books and our list of professional-student romances that don't feel gross.

Books & Media We Mention

* The Love Hypothesis by Ali Hazelwood

* Deep End by Ali Hazelwood

* Reacher (tv show)

* To Love a Psycho series by CF White (Dream a Little Dream, Kiss me Honey Honey)

* The Kiss Quotient by Helen Hoang

* The 12 stages of sexual intimacy

Follow the show:

Instagram https://www.instagram.com/firstdatesandsoulmates/

TikTok https://www.tiktok.com/@firstdatesandsoulmates

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@FirstDatesSoulmates

Don’t forget to rate, review, and subscribe!

Strap in. We’re going deep. This week on First Dates & Soulmates, it’s a trope episode! And we’re dissecting every glorious and absurd nuance of fake dating.

Nikki may think this trope is the Chardonnay of romance (she’ll drink it if you serve it), while Meg is out here creating full frameworks while waiting in line at Disneyland.

In This Episode:

* Why so many fake dating books fall apart if the initial premise isn’t strong

* Why romantic vulnerability matters more than jellybeans

* The difference between fake dating for good vs fake dating for damage control

* The role of the designated extroverted friend and why we all need one

* When fake dating turns into real cheerleading, and why that’s hot

This episode developed the FAKING IT Framework — First Dates & Soulmates' analytical guide to fake dating romance, built around the eight structural elements every fake dating story needs.

Meg loves a third-act breakup. Nikki wants to be your fake date and your designated hype woman.

Leave a review, comment on Substack, tell us your favourite fake dating books, or ask Nikki to be your designated fake fiance so you can get that promotion!

View the full show notes at: https://firstdatesandsoulmates.com/episode/fake-dating-trope

Get our full list of our top 20 favorite fake dating romance books!

Fake Dating Movies:

* How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days

* The Proposal

* 10 Things I Hate About You

* The Bachelor (Chris O’Donnell movie)

* Purple Hearts

* The Firm

* Sleepless in Seattle

* Bridgerton

* Sex and the City

* Just Go With It

Follow the show on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/firstdatesandsoulmates/

Follow the show on TikTok https://www.tiktok.com/@firstdatesandsoulmates

Follow the show on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@FirstDatesSoulmates

Order Meg’s debut novel, Peppermint Bark, No Bite (affiliate link)

Don’t forget to rate, review, and subscribe!

October starts with a bite as Nikki and Meg dive fang-first into the many flavours of vampire romance. From broody immortals to leather-pants predators, they trace the evolution of the undead in pop culture and argue over who deserves to be booped on the nose.

What you’ll hear:

• Sparkly vampires that aged like milk (sorry, Edward)
• Why Alexander Skarsgård should never own pants that aren’t leather
• The four vampire archetypes: tragic baby, sexy predator, protective dad-vamp, and monster with a secret squishy center
• Nikki’s theory of “booping the tiger” as peak vampire romance energy
• Meg’s dream vampire power: orgasms on demand (yes, really)

This episode developed the Vampire Archetype Framework — First Dates & Soulmates' guide to the four faces of the vampire romance hero and the cultural history of which type dominates in each era.

We also used this episode to build our Vampire Romance Books & Series Recommendations.

Nikki’s Vampire Book List:

• Black Dagger Brotherhood series by JR Ward
• Argeneau series by Lynsay Sands
• Anita Blake series by Laurell K Hamilton
• Twilight by Stephenie Meyer
• Dark series by Christine Feehan
• A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness
• Lords of Discord series (and Lords of Chaos spinoff) by Jocelynn Drake
• Lark Taylor's Reckless Damned Series
• Grae Bryan's Vampire's Mate series
• First Blood by Eliot Grayson
• One Bite with a Vampire by Louisa Masters
• The Necromancer’s Dance by Sheena Jolie
• Bite me! You know I like it by Fae Quin
• Cronin's Key by NR Walker
• The Tribulations of Ross Young, Supernat PA by AJ Sherwood
• Fated Mates series by AJ Sherwood
• Bite Marks & Broken Hearts by TJ Rose
• Immortal Assassins series by Mia Monroe
• Vampire Related Crimes Series by Alice Winters

Books/Media Mentioned:

• Twilight series by Stephenie Meyer
• Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice (book and film)
• Queen of the Damned (film)
• True Blood (HBO series) and Sookie Stackhouse novels by Charlaine Harris
• Vampire Diaries (TV series)
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV series)
• Warm Bodies by Isaac Marion (book and film)
• Immortals After Dark series by Kresley Cole
• Casual Felonies by Kelly Fox
• Hot Blooded by Heather Guerre

How You Can Support The Show

Follow Us On Social:

instagram.com/firstdatesandsoulmates/

tiktok.com/@firstdatesandsoulmates

youtube.com/@FirstDatesSoulmates

Email us at [email protected]

Share the show with a friend or loved one!

Got a Little Extra Money to Spend?

Buy our official merch on TeePublic: http://tee.pub/lic/6TtnpmFagAk

Get Meg’s Latest Book: All Twerk No Play: https://amzn.to/3Ee2O9Z

This week Nikki and Meg sit down with author Jessica Topper to dive into the world of rock star romance.

A librarian-turned-romance-writer, Jessica shares how her real-life concert experiences and love of music shape her stories — including her beloved Love & Steel series.

They explore:

* What makes musicians such compelling romantic leads

* Why found family dynamics hit differently in fictional bands

* The behind-the-stage drama of redemption arcs, messy characters, and their thoughts on bodyguard and manager relationships

Don’t worry, there’s enough fictional eyeliner to last you a lifetime.

(For more details about the recent changes in Rockstar Romance, check out our essay: From Fantasy to Trauma: How Rockstar Romance Learned to Tell the Truth About Fame)

About Our Guest

Jessica Topper has been in love with the beauty of the written word ever since she memorized Maurice Sendak's Chicken Soup with Rice at the age of three.

After earning a B.A. in English Literature and her Master's Degree in Library Science, Jessica went on to work as a librarian in New York City before trading in the books for bookkeeping. For seventeen years, she worked in the production office of an international touring rock band.

Jessica broke the rock romance mold with her 2013 debut novel LOUDER THAN LOVE. Her follow-up romantic comedy, DICTATORSHIP OF THE DRESS, was named one of Publishers Weekly's Best Books of 2015.

She lives in Western New York with her family - including two cats that love to walk across her keyboard.

Follow Jess:

Website: www.jessicatopper.com

Facebook - www.facebook.com/JessicaTopperAuthor

Instagram - www.instagram.com/jessicatopper/

Goodreads - www.goodreads.com/jessicatopper

BookBub - www.bookbub.com/profile/jessica-topper

Get our complete list of rockstar romance book recommendations

Jessica’s Recs:

• Under Your Spell - Laura Wood
• Charm City Rocks - Matthew Norman
• Juliet, Naked - Nick Hornby
• How to Kill a Rock Star - Tiffanie DeBartolo
• Don't Sleep with your Drummer - Jen Sincero

Meg’s Recs:

• VIP series (Idol, Managed, Fall, Exposed) by Kristen Callihan
• Stage Dive series (Lick, Play, Lead, Deep) by Kylie Scott
• Drive by Kate Stewart (but not the sequel, Reverse)
• The Happily Ever After Playlist by Abby Jimenez

Nikki’s Recs:

• Atrous trilogy by NR Walker (Code Red, Code Blue, Code Word) -- and listen to our full episode about Atrous
• Fallen Angels series by Ella Frank and Brook Blaine
• Fix It Up by Mary Calmes
• Replay series by KM Neuhold
• Famous series by Eden Finley
• GASP! by ZA Maxfield
• Caffeine Daydreams series by Lark Taylor
• Rhythm of Love series by Neve Wilder
• Jumping Jude (Made Marian book 3) by Lucy Lennox
• Starting From Series by Lane Hayes
• The Player by Lily Morton

Ever fall in love on vacation? Nikki hasn't — but she's got a cautionary tale about a family friend who did, and it did NOT end well. Meg's convinced the only version that actually works is the friends-to-lovers group trip. This week, Nikki and Meg unpack the logistics (and the impractical magic) of the "love on vacation" trope — from beach house hookups to European cruises to why a grand romantic gesture at the airport is a logistical nightmare and disrespectful to TSA lines.

Listen in for:

— Tropes like friends-to-lovers-on-holiday, destination wedding mix-ups, and stranded road trip partners

— Nikki's campaign against cruise ships, always

— A pitch for a merch line that will definitely get banned

— The emotional difference between "honeymoon with your ex's sibling" and "strangers in Venice"

— When Meg turned into a Scottish bar singer on a dare (it worked)

— Why a grand gesture at the airport falls apart the second you think about the logistics

Also covered: runaway grooms, coconuts and questionable toppings.

Full show notes: https://firstdatesandsoulmates.com/episode/love-on-vacation/

Nikki, on why forced-proximity vacation romance works:

Meg, on the real rule underneath every vacation romance:

Nikki, on why the honeymoon-gone-wrong trope works for her:

Get our full list of beach read recommendations: http://firstdatesandsoulmates.com/beach-reads-romance-books

Books & Media We Mention & Recommend

* Only One Beach House by K.M. Neuhold

* Waiting for You by Cora Rose

* Unhoneymooners by Christina Lauren

* People We Meet on Vacation by Emily Henry

* Every Summer After by Carley Fortune

* Wild Seasons series by Christina Lauren

* Up in Flames by Eden Finley & Saxon James

* Beat Me Next Christmas by Lindy Bell

* Love on Vacation by Keira Andrews

* Cruising by Sean Ashcroft

* Married to My Best Friend by Riley Hart

* Three’s Company by NR Walker

* Up in Flames by Eden Finley and Saxon James

* Time Out by Vinni George

* Cuckoo’s Call by Lily Morton

* Thick as Thieves by Lucy Lennox

* How to Say I Do by Tal Bauer

* Gaycation in Paradise by Ariella Zoelle

* Private Charter by NR Walker

* KM Neuhold’s Palm Island series

* Snow Way In Hell by Charlie Novak

* Shore thing series by Jaclyn Osborn

* California Crush series by Mia Monroe

* Waiting for you by Cora Rose

* The Holiday (2006)

* Letters to Juliet (2010)

* How Stella Got Her Groove Back (1998)

* Poseidon Adventure (1972)

* Forgetting Sarah Marshall (2008)

* The Philadelphia Story (1940)

* Palm Springs (2020)

* To Catch a Thief

* Love Actually

We're Shipping:

— PS I Hate You by Lauren Connolly

— Himbo Hitman by Saxon James