I always look forward to August, when I get to recommend the latest crop of captivating romances. After spending the beginning of the year powering through Rachel Reid’s Game Changers series on audiobook, I turned from queer hockey players to strong women. Here are some of my favorites:

The Paris Match by Kate Clayborn (Berkley, April 7): Ever since Clayborn made walking the streets of New York such an integral part of Love Lettering (2020), I’ve been waiting for her to do the same thing with another glittering city. Now she’s done it again, and it’s Paris! Physician Layla Bailey is flying to the City of Light for a week of festivities leading up to her former sister-in-law’s wedding; her own divorce was amicable and she’s trying to convince herself she still wants to be part of the family. When something she says—she’s not sure what—gives the bride cold feet, the rigid and mysterious best man, Griffin Testa, tells her the wedding has to take place—even if the two of them have to spend a week together making sure of it. Our starred review says, “The result is a tremendous love story that’s never overshadowed by its immersive Paris setting but poignantly accentuated by it, proof that Clayborn only gets better with every book.”

Second Chance Duet by Ana Holguin (Forever, March 10): Celia García has been hustling since she graduated from Juilliard a decade ago, a composer from Washington Heights striving to make it without influence or connections. Her dream is to write music for movies and television, but lately, even commercial work has been drying up, taken over by AI. Then she gets the opportunity to work on a new TV show with a big-name director; the only catch is that she’ll have to collaborate with her college nemesis, Oliver Barlowe, the talented yet standoffish son of a famous composer, and they’ll have to hole up at his summer house in Maine to do the work. Naturally, sparks fly. Holguin beautifully handles the dual-timeline story, told from Celia’s perspective, as the protagonist worries that her developing relationship with Oliver could interfere with her professional reputation. Our starred review calls her “a heroine who has more at stake than her heart.”

Dolly All the Time by Annabel Monaghan (Putnam, May 26): Dolly Brick is a 39-year-old single mother who’s already juggling three jobs when she moves home to Whitfield, Rhode Island, for the summer to help out at her father’s fish shop. When she helps Stewart Whitfield—yes, the town was named after his family—change a flat tire on his Range Rover, the New York Post somehow winds up snapping their picture. Stewart’s fiancée just dumped him for a New York Yankee, and he offers to pay Dolly to fake date him for the summer to prove to his family that he has what it takes to be the company chief executive while still having a life. The money would let Dolly fix her father’s roof—and Dolly has fond memories of striking Stewart out at Little League years ago, even if he doesn’t remember. Our starred review calls this “a charming love story that absolutely radiates warmth.”

Laurie Muchnick is the fiction editor.