October 16th, 2026
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On Top Shelf
Fresh Pick
THE RALLY
📚 New Books This Week 📰 Latest News 🎪 Reader Games 👻 🎃 Halloween Contest Giveaways 🎃

October Reads Worth Falling For

Danger, desire, second chances, and unexpected romanceβ€”discover this month’s Fresh Fiction Featured Books.

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A poisoned cousin, a five-year-old's life, and a family with too many secrets.


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Supernatural sparks fly
between a bookseller
& her hard-boiled ghost.


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If Her Highness thinks I’ll let another man claim her and my child, she’s lost her royal mind. Sophaya’s mine.


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She found a body. Then she started asking the wrong questions.


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He ghosted her ten years ago. Now she’s stuck with him for Christmas.


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She’s the lady everyone overlooks. He’s the prince who can’t look away.

How to Find a Romance in a Bookshop by Poppy Alexander

Purchase

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Also by Poppy Alexander:

How to Find a Romance in a Bookshop, August 2026
Hardcover / e-Book
The Battle of the Bookshops, August 2025
Hardcover
The Battle of the Bookshops, August 2025
Paperback
Storybook Ending, August 2024
Paperback / e-Book / audiobook
The 12 Days of Christmas, November 2022
Paperback / e-Book
The Littlest Library, July 2022
Paperback / e-Book / audiobook
25 Days 'Til Christmas, October 2019
Paperback / e-Book

HOW TO FIND A ROMANCE IN A BOOKSHOP
By: Poppy Alexander

A Novel – A Slow Burn Romance about Books, Friendship, and Finding Love by the Sea

Avon
August 2026
On Sale: August 18, 2026
352 pages
ISBN: 0063497093
EAN: 9780063497092
Kindle: B0G81P843V
Hardcover / e-Book
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Romance

After a social media post gone wrong, a literary agent runs away to look after a seaside bookshop for the summer—and forms an unlikely friendship with a charming novelist struggling with his latest idea.

Petra doesn’t like books anymore—not since her career as a literary agent imploded after a social media typo went viral. Now she is stuck for six months, babysitting a little bookshop by the sea—surrounded by books that just remind her of her failure.

Ross McCloud’s award-winning debut novel blew the minds of the world’s literati, but that was five years ago. Now Ross and his keenly awaited second work have vanished. Something has gone wrong—horribly wrong—and Ross doesn’t want to talk about it.

Marooned in Capelthorne’s Bookshop miles from London, Petra can’t stop thinking about all the ways she has let people down. Then she discovers Ross lurking, incognito, in the second-hand books section. Misery loves company it seems, and a kinship tentatively forms.

In the meantime, the magic of the bookshop slowly begins to enchant Petra. Soon, her book recommendations assume legendary status; she is chairing the newly formed Beach Reads Book Club; leading a weekly writing group and hosting a series of popular talks and signings by local authors. She is even starting to read again.

Petra is also finding time to help her new best friend Jess—owner of a local telephone box library—to launch the inaugural Portneath Literary Festival. What better opportunity to put the Festival on the map—says Ross—than for Petra to unveil his second novel to the world there, before re-launching her career representing him at the Frankfurt book fair? What a comeback! But can Petra find the courage to help the man she loves?

Their love of books may be re-ignited, but is that enough to save them both from their own worst enemy—themselves?

Tropes:

  • Friends to lovers
  • Grumpy x Grumpy
  • Small-town romance
  • Slow burn