ANA KIRK SHAW – Featured Author

Ana Kirk Shaw wrote her first romance at eight years old. It was a shifter romance starring Scar from The Lion King and Amelia Bedelia. It was weird.

She is now a public school special education teacher by day and romance author by night (plus weekends and summer break). Ana loves writing silly, swoony, steamy stories about strong heroines and the heroes that love them. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband, kids, and cats.

Website: anakirkshaw.com

Instagram: @anakirkshaw.author

Facebook: Ana Kirk Shaw

Threads: @anakirkshaw.author

My boss is the stiff, surly, suited city bureaucrat… and I’m the new teacher of his nightmares.

I’m desperate for a fresh start at a new school. Lucky for me, Oliver Flores, the infuriatingly hot principal of PS 2, is desperate for a new teacher.

He’s forced to hire the Sweaty Albeit Beautiful Trash Siren he found amongst the dumpsters (I had a morning, okay?). I’m forced to take the job.

He’s all label makers and lists. I’m all creativity and chaos.

He needs to loosen up. I need to tighten up.

He demands control. I need freedom.

For right now, I have no choice but to follow my boss’s every explicit directive and not make any waves. No drama llamas. Because he needs his promotion. And I need to keep this job.

But what happens when Mr. Flores’s orders go from “send me your lesson plans” to “see me after school”? What happens when they go from “take it out” to “let me in”?

For the sake of both of our jobs, we’ll need to keep this a secret. It’s a terrible idea … but I might just love it when Oliver orders me around.

Beyond the Bell is the first book in the Lessons in Love series and can be read as a total standalone. It’s for fans of high heat romantic comedies, and features a grumpy boss and his sunshine employee, a fresh start, a secret relationship, BIPOC representation, found family, and tons of spice.

Buy Link: Amazon

She’s my roommate and my best friend’s forbidden little sister. And now she wants me to teach her how to date.

Me. The himbo who’s messed with half the women in the city. The guy whose nuts her brother will feed to the squirrels if he finds out.

I should’ve said no. But it’s Mia—my Mia. She’s tired of being a wallflower, and I’m the perfect guy to give her advice.

I shouldn’t teach her how to kiss. We shouldn’t practice in my bed.

I shouldn’t know how many freckles she has on her stomach, or love the way she fits in my arms.

But what definitely shouldn’t happen? The dude she’s known her whole life—the one who was just supposed to help—should not want to spend the rest of his life doing it.

Mia’s brother might break my face, but Mia? She might break my heart.

The PS 2 staff room shenanigans continue in Teach Me a Lesson …a super spicy romantic comedy about a brother’s best friend who’s a childhood-friend-to-lover, roommate, and coworker all in one. You’ll laugh, cry, swoon, and find forced proximity, golden retriever energy, a secret relationship, and lots of spice lessons.

Buy link: Amazon

ELLA LEON – Featured Author

Ella Leon writes historical romantasy with intrigue and suspense. Her debut historical romantasy series will be released in 2025 with Dragonblade Publishing.

During her 9-5 career, she has delved into many different styles of writing: journalism, public relations and marketing. Fiction, however, is where she finds the most freedom to transform the page. Like the Victorians she writes about, she loves all things gothic and supernatural. Unlike the Victorians, she is a feminist who enjoys exploring the precolonial past.

When she’s not writing, you can find her spending time with her family or tending to her rose garden. She lives in the Chicago area.

Substack: ellaleon.substack.com
Tiktok: @ella_leon
Facebook: @EllaLeon
Instagram: @author.ellaleon
Threads: @e.k.toth

THE SAPPHIRE HEIRESS

A pirate who walks amongst the highest circles of society.
A governess desperate to escape servitude.

“Exciting, dramatic, romantic; infused with magic, danger and mystery, The Sapphire Heiress reinvents the historical romance. Wondering what Historical Romantasy looks like? This is it.”
– New York Times Bestselling Author Amanda Quick

In Victorian England, the Silver Order has kept its supernatural discoveries hidden for centuries. Those who seek its secrets must always pay a price …

Mae Blackthorne, the daughter of an English shipbuilder and a Filipina immigrant, has been taught to ride sidesaddle, embroider pillows, and dance the waltz. So when her brother disappears at sea, she hasn’t a clue what to do when the family’s shipbuilding business falls into bankruptcy.

It isn’t long before Mae is penniless. Or so she believes. Forced to accept a post as governess in the very home she was raised in, Mae takes on the challenge in good spirits. Yet she is restless and yearns for the life of adventure her daredevil father and brother once had. That is, until she meets Ethan Locke, a pirate who offers her an enticing opportunity to recover her secret inheritance.

Unbeknownst to Mae, her family used their shipbuilding business to shroud generations of successful piracy. Locke, who was once partners with her father, has an old score to settle. He claims that her father stole from him an object of great value: a sapphire that can stop its wearer from growing old. As her father’s last surviving heir, Mae is Locke’s only hope of finding this supernatural jewel hidden amidst her family’s secret fortune.

Agreeing to work together and split the fortune amongst themselves, they share an instant spark of attraction. But they’re not alone in their search. The original owners of the sapphire, who operate an elite secret society, are far more powerful than Mae and Locke could have ever imagined. As danger closes in and the supernatural proves real, Mae fears she has much more to lose than just a second chance at a new life.

Summarized best as Pirates of the Caribbean meets Jane Eyre, The Sapphire Heiress is a suspense-filled historical romance perfect for fans of Amanda Quick.

Buy Link: Amazon

THE CRYSTAL ALCHEMIST

She wanted nothing to do with the supernatural … until him.

In Victorian England, the Silver Order has kept its supernatural discoveries hidden for centuries. Those who seek its secrets must always pay a price…

When her father’s death puts his estate in her hands, Hazel Grey must return to the home she ran away from as a child. Tucked away in the mystical landscape of the Malvern Hills, notorious for its ancient pagan past, Whitestone Manor is the headquarters of the Silver Order, the enigmatic secret society Hazel has both hated and feared. She’s never believed the Silver Order’s claim to power: an ability to see into the future. But when the property becomes so sought-after that a young stranger, Theo Pierce, offers a small fortune and a lifelong friend offers her his hand, all to obtain it, Hazel begins to reconsider…

Years ago, Theo Pierce’s family was forced to sell Whitestone Manor to Miss Grey’s father. Ever since, he’s dedicated his life to winning it back and redeeming his family’s honor—no matter the cost. When a snowstorm traps him and Miss Grey within the manor, it becomes the perfect opportunity to win her trust and, more importantly, the estate. But the deeper Theo pulls her into his world of secret laboratories, botanical mysteries, and crystal alchemy, the more he begins to want something other than redemption.

Soon, everything Hazel once believed is called into question. A crude and shocking vision reveals that a romantic tryst with Mr. Pierce is inevitable. Rather than fight it, she finally decides to put aside her cynicism and give into fate. But as she starts to uncover the truth behind her father’s death and the secret society’s darkest secrets, secrets about herself unravel too, secrets that threaten to keep her a prisoner of the Silver Order for good.

The Crystal Alchemist is a Gothic romance perfect for fans of Amanda Quick and Adalyn Grace.

Preorder Link: Amazon