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As fall brings cooler weather, it’s the perfect time to hunker down with a good book. Club Calvi asked Sarah MacLean, author of the bestseller and Top 3 FicPick “These Summer Storms” and co-host of the weekly romance podcast “Fated Mates,” for her recommendations.
MacLean has three new books for your “to-be-read” list: “To Clutch a Razor” by Veronica Roth, “Full Bloom” by Francesca Serritella, and “The Earl That Got Away” by Diana Quincy.
“October is the perfect time for something a little paranormal, a little bit fantastical,” MacLean told Mary Calvi. “Veronica [Roth’s] ‘The Curse Bearer’ series is set in modern-day Chicago. It’s a group of monster hunters, paranormal creatures, all working together to find Baba Jaga, the witch from Slavic myth. It’s a band of people working together, fighting big bads. It’s really telling us a big adventure story, and I really love an adventure story in October. I especially love one if there’s some sort of creepy characters in there.”
MacLean calls Francesca Serritella’s “Full Bloom” a quintessential New York novel and described the premise.
“The main character has had a real day. It’s her birthday. She broke up with her boyfriend. Her friends have it all together, but she’s sort of a mess at work and in life,” she said. “She gets back to her apartment and she discovers that her neighbor, who is this elderly, magical French woman, has made her a perfume that makes her irresistible to the wide world. So she begins to use this perfume to summon people to her, to maybe get a leg up at work. But when you have that kind of power, sometimes it unleashes some secrets in your past that you are not ready for.”
MacLean says the romance novel “The Earl That Got Away” by Diana Quincy is the perfect retelling of Jane Austen’s “Persuasion.”
“The heroine is an Arab-American who walked away from the love of her life,” MacLean told Mary. “She’s back eight years later in London, Victorian London, and that poor boy she couldn’t marry because of family expectations is now an earl and the biggest bachelor on the scene. It’s spicy, and lush, and full of yearning. You’re going to want this one on the first cold night of the year.”
MacLean has written 19 historical novels. “These Summer Storms” is her first contemporary book. She wrote it during the pandemic when she and her family stayed at a small town on the coast of Rhode Island.
“I got fascinated with the world of Rhode Island, wealth, and what it would be like to be one of those wealthy families podding together,” MacLean told Mary. “I ended up writing a story about a family trapped on an island, which we all really felt like we were doing back then.”
Mary asked MacLean for her advice for people who want to write a romance novel.
“The best thing to do if you want to write a romance novel is to read a bunch of romance novels,” MacLean said. “There’s so much out there. There’s something for everyone, whether you like paranormal or contemporary or historical, a little magical realism. Once you’ve read a bunch of them and ready to tell your own story, the romance world is waiting for you. Our readers are voracious.”
You can read excerpts and purchase the books below.
The CBS New York Book Club focuses on books connected to the Tri-State Area in their plots and/or authors. The books may contain adult themes.
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“To Clutch A Razor” by Veronica Roth
Tor Books
From the publisher: A funeral. A heist. A desperate mission.
When Dymitr is called back to the old country for the empty night, a funeral rite intended to keep evil at bay, it’s the perfect opportunity for him to get his hands on his family’s most guarded relic—a book of curses that could satisfy the debt he owes legendary witch Baba Jaga. But first he’ll have to survive a night with his dangerous, monster-hunting kin.
As the sun sets, the line between enemies and allies becomes razor-thin, and Dymitr’s new loyalties are pushed to their breaking point.
Family gatherings can be brutal. Dymitr’s might just be fatal.
Veronica Roth lives in Chicago
“To Clutch A Razor” by Veronica Roth (ThriftBooks) $18
“Full Bloom” by Francesca Serritella
Ballantine Books
From the publisher: Reeling from a breakup and overlooked at her job as a lighting designer, Iris Sunnegren finds herself stuck, disconnected, and lonely in crowded New York City. Her wealthy friends are married and having babies, while she’s trying to pay for freezing her eggs. And the future she longs for feels out of reach.
Then, a mysterious neighbor, an older Frenchwoman, makes her a gift: a bespoke perfume.
One spritz, a dab behind the ears, and Iris feels like a different woman. Suddenly, she is the object of every man’s desire, and she can satisfy her own hungers for sex, love, and ambition. She can cast off her inhibitions and use her newfound allure to dazzle the high-profile client, attract a man who excites her like no other, and access all the rarified spaces that once excluded her. Invigorated by the perfume, Iris embodies her maximum power—a flower fully bloomed.
But there is danger in connecting to our primal emotions. Scent awakens buried memories, and nightmares of the childhood house fire she barely survived return to haunt her. As Iris ventures deeper into the glamorous and male-dominated worlds of New York real estate, dimly-lit steakhouses, and beachfront mansions in the Hamptons, she finds herself getting closer to unspeakable truths—about the people she trusted, about the people she loved, and about the new circle of power-players that invited her in.
Francesca Serritella lives in New York City.
“Full Bloom” by Francesca Serritella (ThriftBooks) $22
“The Earl That Got Away” by Diana Quincy
Avon
From the publisher: American Naila Darwish always regretted calling off her engagement to the man she loved because he wasn’t successful enough for her family. Eight years later, she travels to England for her sister’s wedding and gets the shock of her life when she runs into Basil again. Overjoyed, she wonders if the fates have given her a second chance at love.
But Basil Trevelyn is not the same carefree young man Naila rejected all those years ago. Having unexpectedly inherited a noble title, he is now the Earl of Hawksworth, one of England’s most sought-after bachelors. Still bitter after Naila’s heart-wrenching rejection all those years ago, Hawk is cold and distant, suspecting Naila is after his money and position.
When the two lost lovers are repeatedly thrown together, they discover that the chemistry between them burns brighter than ever and that some feelings are too strong to deny. Will they allow pride and lingering resentment to keep them from seizing their last chance at happiness?
Diana Quincy lives in Virginia.
“The Earl That Got Away” by Diana Quincy (ThriftBooks) $10
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“These Summer Storms” by Sarah MacLean
Ballantine Books
From the publisher: Alice Storm hasn’t been welcome at her family’s magnificent private island off the Rhode Island coast in five years—not since she was cast out and built her life beyond the Storm name, influence, and untold billions. But the shocking death of her larger-than-life father changes everything.
Alice plans to keep her head down, pay her final respects (such as they are), and leave the minute the funeral is over. Unfortunately, her father had other plans. The eccentric, manipulative patriarch left his family a final challenge—an inheritance game designed to upend their world. The rules are clear: spend one week on the island, complete their assigned tasks, and receive the inheritance.
But a whole week on Storm Island is no easy task for Alice. Every corner of the sprawling old house is bursting with chaos: Her older sister’s secret love affair. Her brother’s unyielding arrogance. Her younger sister’s constant analysis of the vibes. Her mother’s cold judgment. And all under the stern, watchful gaze of Jack Dean, her father’s intriguing and too-handsome second-in-command. It will be a miracle if Alice manages to escape unscathed.
Sarah MacLean lives in New York City.
“These Summer Storms” by Sarah MacLean (ThriftBooks) $22
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Excerpt: “To Clutch A Razor” by Veronica Roth
** This excerpt contains spoilers to “When Among Crows” **
Baba Jaga tugs the curtain back from the window with a gnarled hand. The reflection of the sun on the river is sharp as a knife. It cuts at her and she lets the curtain fall again.
Centuries of life have taught her there are certain patterns. Not just in other people’s behavior, but in her own. She falls into them without meaning to, and her body knows before she does, remembering its old shapes. When she turns back to the Knight, she’s young and sturdy, a warrior, with an as-yet-untested womb and a muscled arm.
If he’s startled by the change in her, from old woman to young, he doesn’t show it. But then, that’s what she expects from this particular Knight. And though she reacts to him as if he was truly a Knight—a zealot with a holy mission to execute so-called monsters, such as herself—she knows that pattern doesn’t actually apply to him. He chose a new path, one she’s never seen walked before.
He asked her for destruction, and then, when that didn’t suit . . . for transformation.
“And how are you settling into the new skin I gave you?” she says.
The last time she saw him, he had the look of someone who was creeping toward the edge of a cliff. Now he’s unchanged in all the ways that would matter to a mortal—still tall, still strong, still with that dusty brown hair and eyes to match it—but in the ways that matter to an immortal, he’s fundamentally altered. He looks shifty to her, like he might become something else entirely if she doesn’t keep an eye on him.
“Ala is teaching me,” he answers, and it’s that accent, too, that carries her back to another time. He’s fresh from the mother country, still on a guest visa, his consonants going still in his throat, his vowels too short.
“Ala,” Baba Jaga repeats.
The experience of time is relative to age, with the minutes stretching long and lazy for a child and imperceptible for an adult, and so it might as well have been a second ago that she turned this Knight into a fear-eating nightmare creature. She amplified the few drops of zmora’s blood that had crept into his veins until they drowned out the rest of him. That makes him a zmora, too, but perhaps . . . not all the way.
“Ah yes,” Baba Jaga says, because it was only a second ago, after all, that Aleksja Dryja knelt on the rug not two feet from where the Knight currently stands. “Aleksja Dryja. A capable illusionist, I hear. But unimportant.”
“Unimportant.” He looks offended.
“A young Dryja who, up until you brought me the fern flower to cure her, was a ticking clock.” Baba Jaga drums her fingers on her sternum, a habit she’s passed along to some of her wraiths. The sound it makes is louder and higher than it should be, like her chest is hollow.
“The other Dryjas will not be so welcoming,” she predicts.
“I don’t expect to be welcomed.”
“No, you don’t, do you?” Baba Jaga laughs a little. “You expected death, and pain, and a life of suffering. You came to me for those things, thinking they would be your penance.” She moves closer, her feet bare on the hardwood floor. As she walks toward him, the Knight’s head bows further. “But soon you will get used to this new life, and you’ll begin to want things you don’t deserve. Acceptance, and trust, and yes—welcome.”
She reaches out, and flicks beneath the Knight’s chin to get him to raise it, to look at her.
“Already you want something you don’t deserve: your sword. That’s why you’re here, isn’t it? To inquire about your sword?”
In truth, she’s the one who summoned him here. But not everyone comes when she calls—the wise know it’s better to flee. Only the desperate turn up at her door, and she knows the source of this Knight’s desperation.
It hums behind her, fixed to her wall. A longsword made of bone, bright white with a gilded hilt. It was made by magic, but not a magic Baba Jaga understands or respects—a magic that uses pain as currency, the magic of monster-hunting Knights of the Holy Order. She can feel the agony that brought it into being every time she walks past it, like a sour taste in her mouth, like an echo of a scream. It used to be buried in the Knight’s back, formed by splitting his soul in half. And now it’s hers—and by extension, he is hers, until he manages to earn it back.
He seems to know it, given how he stands before her like a soldier reporting to his commanding officer. Shoulders back, body still, eyes forward. She would enjoy it more if he didn’t seem so damn sad about it. She can’t tease someone who’s yielded so completely.
“Yes, I . . .” The Knight looks down again. “You said I could get it back, for the right price. So I am here to ask what that price is.”
“And what is the cost to you, exactly, if I keep it in my possession? Do you even know?”
He hesitates. She isn’t sure how a Knight reacts when parted from their soul sword. She knows they can feel where it is, and they can use that feeling to track it. She knows it’s not pleasant. But that’s the extent of her knowledge.
“So far, the cost is . . . pain,” he admits, after a moment.
“But you don’t really care about pain, do you?” She tilts her head. “You believe it’s no more than you deserve. Perhaps you even crave the punishment. So what do you care if the sword lives in my apartment?”
“I . . .” He frowns. Looks away. “It’s more than that. The Holy Order believes that if your sword can’t be integrated with your body after you die, you will . . . wander the earth forever, neither alive nor dead.”
“The Holy Order believes,” she repeats. “And what do you believe?”
The Knight hesitates again. “I don’t know.”
“You should maybe find someone who does,” Baba Jaga says. “It may give you some urgency that you currently lack.”
“Do you know what will happen to me if I don’t get it back?”
He should have asked from the start. Foolish boy.
“I have suspicions,” she replies. “But whatever the truth is, I know it’s not good to walk around with only half a soul.”
The Knight swallows hard. He nods.
“You’re in a terrible bargaining position,” she says. “You come here with nothing but that tragic face, appealing to my merciful nature—Oh, this Knight who would rather suffer and die than kill another monster, take pity on him, Babcia—well, let me see how deep my well of mercy is today, shall I?”
She closes her eyes, and she feels herself shifting, hunching beneath the weight of time, her hair shivering as it turns dry as a corn husk and her skin softening over her bones. She has seen so many things, and death is one of them. And where there has been death, there have also been Knights.
Knights, their palms stained red, their eyes glinting red, their swords dripping red blood onto the hard ground.
Knights, chasing her brothers and sisters, daughters and sons, into the ancient woods of her old home.
Knights carving wounds into their own flesh to curse her kind with bloodthirsty crows or flesh-hungry wolves.
Knights who take every powerful symbol they find to twist it and warp it into their own.
Knights who crave death, and seek it, and cling to it like an oath.
Excerpt from TO CLUTCH A RAZOR by Veronica Roth. Copyright © 2025 Veronica Roth. Reprinted by permission of Tor Publishing Group, a division of Macmillan Publishing Group, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Excerpt: “Full Bloom” by Francesca Serritella
Chapter One
Iris Sunnegren hadn’t planned to host her best friend’s baby shower one hour after learning that her own fertility was alarmingly low, it just happened that way. She jogged up the red-carpeted steps of the Plaza with the cold squick of ultrasound jelly in her underwear and three bags of decorations under her arms. With some effort, she checked the time on her phone. She was running behind schedule.
The Plaza was Iris’s favorite building in New York City, a pedestrian pick for someone who works in architecture and design, but Iris had never lost the fondness formed from reading Eloise as a child, a book that made being a little girl with missing parents seem enviable, glamorous, and free, instead of lonely or sad. The baby shower plan was to celebrate with a classic tea service in the hotel’s famed Palm Court. The dining room was part jewel box, part botanical garden, with a dated glamor that made Iris nostalgic for her and Hannah’s millennial childhood. Huge potted palms bordered the room, and neoclassical pillars held up the greenhouse-like stained-glass ceiling. A large circular bar plaited with white trellis detail burst with a profusion of orange tiger lilies, filling the room with their elegant fragrance.
Iris hustled to the maître d’ and introduced herself. “I have a reservation for fifteen, the baby shower.”
“Welcome, and congratulations!”
“I’m the host, I’m not preg—”
“You’re early. Your reservation is for two o’clock, and it’s one forty-five. But you’re welcome to wait by the bar.”
“I’m sorry, but when I spoke with your events team, they said I could have the table at one-thirty to have time to set up my decorations. I’m actually late.”
The maître d’ said he’d see what he could do.
I’m actually late.
She hadn’t meant to repeat the phrase from her fertility appointment, but the conversation with the doctor lingered in her ears. After her blood tests came back from her regular gynecologist in the “yellow to red” zone of fertility freakout, Iris had been desperate to get in to see booked-for-months Dr. Alsarraj of Family Tree Fertility, so when a cancellation opened up this morning, she’d grabbed it.
“So I’m actually late to do this?” she had asked, after he’d laid out a rather bleak assessment of her stats and ultrasound.
“You’re not early. Your follicles are underproducing for your age by at least two standard deviations. And you haven’t checked your AMH levels or anything fertility-related before this, correct?”
“Well, I was in a long-term relationship, but it ended unexpectedly—”
“I don’t mean to pry, I only ask to see if these levels are stable for you or if we’re on a downward trajectory. But in reality, all fertility is a downward trajectory.” A smile equal parts polite and patronizing crossed his face. “Women today are living modern lives with old- fashioned biology. Why should you be ruled by a primitive timetable? Why should you have to be on a different schedule than your male peers? You shouldn’t. And we have a modern solution with egg freezing—”
The maître d’ returned, interrupting her rumination. “Follow me.” Iris hiked the bags up on her shoulder and opened her iPhone party checklist. She loved plans, checklists, blueprints—in her work or personal life, they were how she made sense out of the unpredictable, or tried to. Today she had ten minutes and a plan. Iris confirmed the tea platter choices with the server—check. She tied pink and blue ribbons on every chairback—check. Hannah had requested no gifts but children’s books, which had given Iris the idea for the library theme. She laid out the name cards she’d made to look like library ID cards on each plate, along with a mini pencil, a stick-on manila sleeve, and a borrowing card for the guests to write Baby Lefebvre a sweet message in their gift book—check, check, check. And she unpacked the retro Polaroid camera she’d bought so they could take pictures to tuck into the books as well. Iris knew how precious old photos could become.
Iris was loading the film cartridge into the camera to test it, the final task on her list, when she heard Hannah’s voice and looked up to see her waving eagerly alongside her mom, Cathy. Iris waved back and held up the camera to snap a picture of their smiley approach; the camera gave a nostalgic click and whirr as it spat out an undeveloped picture—check. She lowered it and smiled, though it still took her aback to see Hannah so pregnant. Iris knew the outline of her friend’s five-foot-three body at so many life stages; she’d looked for it in classrooms and horse shows and concert crowds since they be- came friends in sixth grade, after Iris came to live with her grandparents, and it had always changed in step with her own. And now Hannah looked so different and her life was about to change forever.
“Iris, honey, it’s so good to see you!” Cathy said, giving her a squeeze. She had been like a surrogate mother to Iris growing up.
Hannah hugged her next and squealed over her shoulder. “Omi-god, look at this table!” She and her mother cooed over the decorations, gushing over every thoughtful detail.
When Cathy went to the ladies’ room, Hannah pulled Iris aside. “How did this morning go? You okay?”
“Oh, fine. But I’ve never been so dressed up for a gyno appointment, I had my feet in the stirrups in heels. I was afraid they’d think I have some kind of fetish.”
Hannah snorted, but she was Iris’s best friend because she laughed at her jokes as easily as she saw through them. “But for real, are you up for all this baby stuff today? Because I get it if not. My mom and I can take it from here if you want to go home.”
“No! I want to be here to celebrate you and the baby! I told you the one thing I don’t want—”
“Is for me to feel weird, I know. But just do a gut check for me. You’re allowed to change your mind.”
“Gut’s good. Promise.”
Hannah hugged her. “So did you like the doctor? What did she say?”
“It was a he, and he was nice, but he told it to me straight. If I want to have a biological child, I should probably freeze my eggs, soon. Ideally, like yesterday.”
Dr. Alsarraj’s blunt words still rang in her ears: “Egg quality begins to decline at age thirty-five, it’s not the so-called fertility cliff as was once believed, but the likelihood of getting and staying pregnant does drop.” He glanced down at her paperwork while her stomach dropped, too. “And you’re thirty- . . .”
“Four,” Iris answered too quickly. “I turn thirty-five in a few days.” Dr. Alsarraj looked up.
“Happy birthday.”
Hannah brought her back to the present. “S***. Okay. Well, at least you have clarity.”
Iris sighed. “I guess. I still have to figure out how I’m going to pay for it.” The consultation alone was $650, which Iris found to be both outrageous and typical. Her regular gynecologist had prepared her that the full process of freezing her eggs would cost over ten thousand dollars, and the health insurance from her lighting design firm wouldn’t cover it. According to Blue Cross, a man’s wilting erection was a medical problem, but Iris’s waning fertility was because she didn’t smile more.
“Did Frank give you a timeline on your promotion?” Hannah asked.
“I didn’t ask yet. But I will soon, I swear.”
“Do it! He’s gonna say yes. You’ve earned that raise.”
“I know. Who else would wait in the office on a Saturday to receive his Peloton?”
Hannah tilted her head. “And because you’re excellent at your job!
Doesn’t he call you the ‘client whisperer?'”
“Yes, for my preternatural ability to take s*** from angry architects and developers without showing any emotion beyond reassuring detachment. Thank you, childhood trauma.”
Hannah laughed. “Just don’t sell yourself short when you talk to Frank, okay?”
“I won’t. With this egg freezing, I’m officially too broke for self-effacement.”
Excerpted from Full Bloom by Francesca Serritella. Copyright © 2025 by Francesca Serritella. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpt: “The Earl That Got Away” by Diana Quincy
Chapter One
Yorkshire, England
1887
“You are next,” Auntie Majida murmured in Arabic. “Inshallah, God willing, we will find you a very nice husband.”
Naila Darwish resisted the urge to roll her eyes. If she had a dollar for every time Auntie talked about finding her a husband, she’d be independently wealthy. “I doubt that’s going to happen.”
Auntie Majida was not easily deterred. “Laish let? Why not?”
“You know why.” Naila fiddled with the stack of thin gold bangles adorning her wrist, her finger circling the single pearl adornment on one bracelet. “Because I’ve already had my chance.”
“You had your chance?” Auntie Majida tsked dismissively. “Hakki fathee. Stop with the empty talk.” “Why? It’s the truth.” At twenty-seven, Naila was an old maid by any standard. “I did not seize the opportunity when offered.”
“That boy was a stranger,” Auntie said impatiently. “We didn’t even know if he was ibn il nas, the son of respectable people. You were jahla, a silly young girl who didn’t know better.”
Maybe, but eight years later, Naila still hadn’t outgrown the ache in her chest whenever she thought of his devastated expression when she ended things. The disbelief in his hollow eyes, the grim flat set of his mouth. She might as well have sliced his chest open and plucked out his beating heart.
Her penance was to spend her life sitting on the sidelines watching others find the joy in life that she’d carelessly tossed away. That’s why she was seated beside her aunt in her usual wall- flower position while her sister twirled across the dance floor in the arms of her betrothed, a handsome duke with dark golden hair and an aristocratic profile. It was hard to believe that in two short weeks Raya would become a duchess and the mistress of Castle Tremayne.
The evening’s prewedding festivities were taking place in the castle’s Great Hall, a cavernous chamber with stone walls, mammoth windows and soaring ceilings. The Darwish family contingent had sailed from Brooklyn, arriving two weeks earlier. Some of the Arab relatives who came for the wedding found Tremayne disappointingly dreary and rundown. But not Naila. She was enchanted. Anyone with an appreciation for construction and design could see that the castle was an architectural masterpiece.
The duke escorted Raya off the dance floor. Her sister, a vision in white, was radiant, her happiness more vibrant than a thousand burning candles. Would Naila know the same joy if she’d been brave enough to follow her heart?
Instead, she’d relegated herself to being a supporting player in other people’s lives. The aunt who looked after her older sister’s children. The person the family automatically turned to when an elderly relative required care or companionship. How had she, a girl who once craved excitement and adventure, settled for such a tedious life?
Naila sighed and tilted her head upward, inspecting the intricate stained-glass designs adorning generous arched windows. At least she had her study of architecture to distract her. Otherwise, she’d die of boredom. Or remorse. Fortunately, with its great old castles and country houses, England was the perfect place to indulge her passion.
Auntie scanned the crowded Great Hall. “Maybe there is a widower in his forties who will need a wife to take care of his children.”
“That sounds delightful,” Naila said under her breath.
“Shatra.” Missing the sarcasm in Naila’s voice, Auntie nodded approvingly. “Smart girl. An older man with money and a good family is worth everything.”
Auntie did not believe in romantic love, but Naila knew better. The bridal couple approached, Raya wearing a beatific smile while her betrothed beamed like a man who couldn’t believe his good fortune.
“Auntie Majida must dance with me,” the duke proclaimed with a twinkle in his eye.
The older woman flushed and fluttered her sparse lashes. “Malaya minuck. Don’t be silly,” she said, clearly delighted to be singled out.
Naila watched the interaction in astonishment. Up until that moment, she’d been certain Auntie Majida was uncharmable.
“Take Naila,” the older woman said.
“What?” Now it was Naila’s turn to flush. “Oh no, that’s not necessary.”
“Naila never dances.” Their elder sister, Nadine, appeared. “But I am an excellent dancer. Every- one says I am graceful enough to be a ballerina. I took lessons when I was young.”
“It shall be my pleasure to dance with Mrs. Habib,” the Duke of Strickland said, gallant as ever. “As long as Miss Darwish will consent to dance with Hawksworth.”
Naila glanced around. “Who?”
“That’s an excellent idea!” Raya said. “The Earl of Hawksworth is one of Strick’s oldest friends.” The duke tapped the sleeve of a wide-shouldered man in a perfectly tailored black evening suit standing with his back to them talking with a guest. The man turned to face them.
“May I introduce the Earl of Hawksworth?” the duke said.
The earl’s eyes met Naila’s. Deep lines framed a steely gaze and a jaw cut so sharp it could do bodily harm. Naila’s heart seized as she tumbled into the past, staring into the face that had haunted her for almost a decade.
“Hawk,” the duke said, “this is Miss Naila Darwish, my intended’s lovely sister.”
The world came to an abrupt halt. All movement in the ballroom—the dancing couples, chattering guests and roaming servants proffering refreshments—froze in place. Everything, that is, except for Naila’s plummeting stomach.
Basil.
His eyes widened, joy lighting them ever so briefly. For a fleeting unguarded moment, they were them again, connected, invincible, their hearts melded. Hope and possibility blossomed between them. But then a cold mask slid into place on Basil’s face, and a stranger, absent of all warmth, inhabited the man she’d once adored.
Still adored.
“We have met.” Time had deepened Basil’s voice, seasoning it. But those cut-glass tones were still sharp enough to stab her heart.
“You have?” Both Raya and Strickland spoke in unison.
“Many years ago.” His gaze slid away from Naila. “In Philadelphia.”
“Philadelphia?” The duke’s brows rose. He looked from Basil to Naila and back again. “This is—?” His mouth fell open. “What are the chances?”
“You are already acquainted?” Raya exclaimed with obvious delight. “It truly is a small world.”
“Unbelievably so,” Strickland muttered.
Nadine stared at Naila. “You met an earl when you visited Philadelphia?”
Stricken, Naila did not answer. Her lungs were paralyzed. After all these years, Basil Trevelyn had become more of a dream than an actual person. Yet the beautiful man standing before her, vibrant and alive, his wide shoulders filling out tailored evening clothes, was achingly real.
Strickland recovered himself enough to intro- duce Majida. “And this is the young ladies’ aunt, Mrs. Kassab.”
“We have also met.” Cynicism laced Basil’s words. He dipped his chin. “Ma’am.”
Auntie Majida narrowed her eyes at him. “Isn’t this the boy from Philadelphia?” she asked Naila in Arabic. In English, she said to Basil, “What does it mean? Earl?”
His eyes were gray ice. “It’s simply a title. One that is not as high as a duke.”
Raya interjected. “But an impressive and important noble title, nonetheless,” she explained. “Among the highest in the land.”
Majida ran an assessing glance over Basil. “Highest?”
“I assure you that I am the same man.” Scorn iced his words.
Disbelief spun through Naila. How was this happening? Surely the chances of running into the love of her life in a far-flung English castle were as remote as being crowned queen of England. And how was it possible for Basil to be an earl? That was one of England’s highest titles. She wasn’t overly familiar with how nobility worked but she knew titles were inherited and Basil’s father wasn’t an earl. Nor were any of his uncles.
The musicians struck a chord. Strick’s glance bounced between Basil and Naila before he offered his arm to Nadine. “That is our cue,” he said to her. “Shall we?”
Nadine beamed. “If you insist.”
“And Hawk will dance with Naila,” Raya said cheerfully, somehow missing the thick undercurrent of tension congealing around them. “Go on, you two.”
Basil hesitated before offering his arm. What choice did he have? To refuse would be unthinkably rude. “Miss Darwish.”
A hint of derision laced the way he spoke her name. Naila didn’t blame Basil for despising her. A truly loyal woman, a person of courage and substance, could never be persuaded to abandon the man who owned her heart. She’d bitterly regretted her decision every single day since sending Basil away.
For years, Naila had dreamed of seeing him again, yearned for a chance to set things right. But now that Basil stood before her in the flesh, her first instinct was to flee. Anything to avoid the tumult inside her. And the faint mockery in his eyes.
“Naila.” Nadine turned away from Otis, the footman who’d brought her a note. “Malik is feeling sick. He’s insisting that his auntie Naila tuck him into bed.”
“That can wait,” Raya said, clearly annoyed. “Naila is about to dance.”
“She doesn’t even like to waltz.” Nadine looked to Naila. “Do you?”
Fidgeting with the gold bangles on her wrist, Naila avoided Basil’s gaze. Yet again, when it came to him, she opted for the coward’s way out. “I will go see to Malik,” she said. “If you will excuse me.”
“Naila—” Raya started.
“Perfect,” Nadine said brightly before turning to the duke. “I am ready to dance.”
Naila didn’t look Basil’s way, but as she hurried to attend to her nephew, she felt his disdain burning through the back of her embroidered silk gown.
From THE EARL THAT GOT AWAY by Diana Quincy. Copyright © 2025 by Diana Quincy. Reprinted by permission of Avon Books, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.
Excerpt: “These Summer Storms” by Sarah MacLean
It was not a walk of shame.
Yes, Alice had slipped from beneath the heavy arm hooked over her hip and remained perfectly still, clinging to the edge of the too-small bed in Quahog Quay Room 3, staring at the door through which they’d crashed a handful of hours earlier in a breathless tangle of rain-soaked bodies and baggage (literal and metaphorical).
Yes, once she’d been certain he wasn’t going to wake up, she’d collected her discarded clothes like they were unexploded munitions and crept to the bathroom, closing the door like she was cracking a safe.
And yes, when she’d exited the bathroom after washing her face and combing the salt and sea through her hair, she’d studiously ignored him, handsome and half-naked and asleep as she snuck out into the six o’clock sun peeking over the Bay, golden and gorgeous, promising to burn away the remnants of the night before.
She walked the quarter mile from the clapboard motel to the docks, eager to get there before the harbormaster or anyone else in that small town full of big mouths would see her—but not because she was ashamed. At least, not because she was ashamed of her one-night stand, which, while deeply out of character for Alice, had proven really pretty great—in more ways than the obvious.
Growing up Alice Storm, she’d learned to be suspicious of people who appeared from nowhere. The threats were myriad, from the obvious (photos and gossip about spoiled rich girls were the hottest of modern commodities, the messier the better) to the insidious—charming, clever parasites who would do anything, say anything, for proximity to wealth and power.
Franklin had trained all his children to be wary of any kindness that appeared freely given, resulting in something of a skills gap when it came to interpersonal relationships. The first blush of attraction that made fast friends and breathless romance for the rest of the world was not to be trusted for Storm children, and Alice had built her shields early—especially when it came to sex.
Over the years, she’d selected partners like other people selected cars, with careful consideration: miles per gallon (a career outside of tech), safety ratings (interest in Alice, but not Storm), resale value (willingness for a long-term commitment).
Sure, she’d made some mistakes (one colossal one), but the truth was, one-night stands were not well rated by Car and Driver.
But Alice hadn’t been herself the night before, and her world wouldn’t be itself again for a while, and she’d liked that big, steady man with his strong hands and sure touch and his willingness to step into the fray to keep her out of it.
She’d liked how different he was, not like the refined, polished boys of her youth or the frivolous, boisterous man she’d been planning to marry. Long Legs had been full of quiet steel when he’d punched a photographer and taken her hand in the darkness. And then he’d been deliciously rough—his palms stroking over her skin, the way he kicked the motel-room door closed behind them with a massive thud, his gruff words as he’d pressed his heavy weight to her, asking what she liked. Telling her what he liked. Praising her body, her touch, her kiss.
No hesitation. No apologies. Just . . . truth.
Truth was rare and precious in Alice’s life, so, yes. She’d basked in the truth of that man and his desire and his ability to anchor her to her own body for a few hours.
A calm before the Storms.
Alice tossed her bags into one of the three skiffs moored at the far end of the salt-weathered dock, loosened the lines and fired up the outboard motor, tucking the night away, a secret to keep with all the others as she sailed out of Wickford Harbor for the first time in five years. Since the day her father exiled her, finally, after she’d disappointed him for the last time.
The storm from the night before had blown east toward Cape Cod and out to sea, but the scars of it remained, Narragansett Bay churning beneath the small boat, choppy enough to make the six and a half nautical miles to Storm Island a challenge.
Alice had sailed since before she’d walked, however—learned at Franklin Storm’s feet how to adjust and accommodate, how to work with a mercurial sea, how to respect it. It might have been years since she’d been at the helm of a boat, but she fell back into it with ease, heading into bright sun, reveling in the sting of the salt water on her skin.
She navigated the small boat northeast into the Bay, unthinkingly taking her father’s favorite approach—via the southern tip of Storm Island, where a small, ancient building housed a fog bell atop the steep, rocky slope.
For many, this was the least interesting angle of Storm Island, but her father loved an entrance, and this route, around the cliff’s edge on the western side of the island, gave visitors and gawkers a breathtaking surprise, the rock sliding away to reveal a patchwork of trees and fields marked by centuries-old stone walls, leading to an enormous nineteenth-century manor house on the highest point of the island, like a character in a gothic novel, but without the woman in the nightgown running away from the ghosts within.
To be honest, though, the day was young.
Alice slowed the skiff as she came around the cliffside, taking in the view. The house, tall and imposing, all gables and stained glass, surrounded by a few acres of lush wild thyme in deep greens and bright whites and purples. The boathouse, with its weathered cedar shingles, large enough to house her father’s prized sailboat, The Lizzie, in the off-season. Rugged slate steps from the dock up the rocky hillside to the house. Ancient trees—her father’s favorite red oak, enormous and strong. Still there.
Five years, and nothing had changed. Except everything.
Excerpted from These Summer Storms by Sarah MacLean. Copyright © 2025 by Sarah MacLean. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.