[Note from Frolic: We’re so excited to welcome author Lola West to the site today. She’s sharing ten of her favorite novellas with us. Take it away, Lola!]
I wasn’t always a short romance fan. I was a diehard, the longer the better, make it a thousand pages kind of a reader, but then I got a husband, and a job and eventually a kid and there just wasn’t enough room in my life for endless out sessions in bed with a book. Still, from time to time I needed a good booking. So, I turned to quickies. But, a poorly realized short-read can leave you wanting. I like my fast and steamy just as fulfilling as the long drawn out slow burn. In the world of amazon algorithms, finding great short reads is rough, so I went ahead and made you a list of some really good novellas.e
Nerdgasm by Kimberly Reese
Virginal nerd hero alert. I don’t know about you, but I am a sucker for sweet smart nerdy heroes and Reese does not disappoint. Theo, a swimmer with broad shoulders and thick thighs, manages a lifelong struggle with a stutter that has always made him feel socially isolated. Like most short-reads, Theo’s attraction to outgoing Addison is immediate. But interestingly, this shorty spins the virgin trope on its head and watching Theo feel his way through his first time is not only sexy but also informative. Just saying, you might want to read this one to the lovers in your lives.
Tofu Cowboy by Lola West
In this first book of the Big Sky Cowboys series, vegetarian cowboy, Luke falls quick for Maddie, a blue haired body-positive beautician. The two meet in an art class. Maddie is the nude art model, a choice she made to further her body positive journey, and Luke is an artist secretly taking the class because he’s afraid of the teasing he’ll face from his three hunky brothers. Somehow this book is a slow burn and still sexy all throughout. Added bonus, you’ll find yourself laughing all along the way.
The Italian by Lisa Marie Rice
In this romantic suspense, designer Jamie McIntyre travels to Palermo to get artistic inspiration and instead winds up entangled in a heated affair with Judge Stefano Leone. Stefano has spent the last three years surrounded by armed guards, as he attempts to prosecute Sicily’s most brutal mob boss. Constantly avoiding danger, Jamie and Stefano heat up Sicily’s most exclusive locals. This quickie is written in the third person and filled with rich and downright literary descriptions of the Sicilian landscape. Also while it is more about love than danger, it will still have you on the edge of your seat.
Hefty by Jessa Kane
A friend to lover romance, this intensely steamy novella stars Zach, a hefty football player who has secretly harbored his love for Jill since the eighth grade. Jill also adores him, but their mutual struggles with self-confidence keep them apart. If you like super steamy, Kane’s writing is always elegant but the real nuance and magic to this particular tale is Zach’s size. Larger men with full bellies very rarely get represented and that choice is a service to this book. Zach is an incredibly memorable, and endearing character. He is not to be missed, definitely pick this one up.
Real Men Love Curves by Kat Baxter
Curvy girl Erin has just broken up with an awful boyfriend, and had nowhere to stay other than with her best friend Luke who has always held a piece of her heart. Luke is traditionally handsome and charismatic and because of her size, Erin struggles to see herself as someone that Luke could find sexy. As far as Luke is concerned, Erin is the cream of the crop. This lighthearted romp in the friends to lover’s trope is a tale as old as time, but Baxter’s invigorates this old favorite with her clean, endearing and elegant prose.
Flameover by Esther E. Schmidt
Strangers Leontine (Lee) and Kain get crazy one night in Vegas – and the outcome is a baby. But for legitimate reasons, neither tells the entire truth about their identities on the night of their liaison, so it’s a three year hiatus before they genuinely connect. Kain, a fireman, shows up when an arsonist attacks Lee’s house and almost immediately knows he has to have her and her daughter and their daughter in his life. This well layered, suspenseful instalove novella is part of the K. Bromberg’s Everyday Heroes and also Schmidt’s MC’s.
Cross my Heart by L.H. Cosway
David Bowie lover, Iris is homeless. She’s got no one, and it’s been that way for a long time. She meets Liam at her job washing dishes in a restaurant. He is her boss’s not so little, little brother and a cop. And, for some reason he’s always worried about her. I’m not going to lie, I read anything Cosway writes. She’s just straight up talented. So, if you haven’t checked out the Hearts Series, do it. You don’t have to start here, but you can.
Rough Sketch by Kate Canterbary
A captain of industry, Neera is an unflinchible, focused woman who helps others succeed and Gus is the artist in residence at the silicon valley corporation that she calls home. His inability to fit a mold infuriates her, but it also inspires her darkest and most delicious desires. In this love affair, control is up for grabs in any given moment. Canterbary’s characters are complicated and charming, and she is more than capable of creating an aura and setting in a shortened time span without forgoing emotional development.
A Novel Seduction by Claire Hastings
Evie was Drake’s tutor in college. Back then, she was a shy romance book lover and he was an all-star baseball player. They weren’t friends, but while she knew him, she started receiving mail that contained romance books with sexy notes in the margins. Years later, when life is more complicated they run into each other in a bookstore and then the notated romance novels reappear. Honestly, no reader can deny the sweet and sexy love affair in Hastings second-chance romance – especially because it’s based on reading books.
Tikka Chance on Me by Suleikha Snyder
Even growing up in the same small town, Trucker and Pinky weren’t friends. She was a secretly adventurous but still dutiful daughter, pledged to help care for her family’s Indian restaurant and he was a hooligan, a bad boy biker. As adults, they’re still not friendly, but whenever he comes into the restaurant to eat, they can’t ignore the connection between them. This opposites attract story is rife with twists and turns, rich with cultural layers, and resonating with moments that are honest, funny, and real.
About the Author:
Lola West writes short, sweet, smart, silly, sexy romance. She has a PhD in woman’s studies and a flair for the dramatic. She likes cotton candy, astronomy, kitten heels and small-town hunks. Lola writes heroes that make you swoon and heroines that talk back. She believes that consent is always sexy, even in books.
Connect with Lola:
Tofu Cowboy by Lola West, out now!
She’s a nude model, and her meaty vegetarian cowboy wants a private session.
Tall, blond, rugged Luke Morgan knows how to handle a herd. He’s everything a cowboy should be – but he still feels like the blond sheep in his family because he’s also a soulful artist with a penchant for veggie lasagna.
Twenty-five year old, blue-haired, buxom, beautician Maddie Richards just moved to Conway, Montana. She’s new to small town life, the gossip and the intimacy. Being open and letting people in isn’t what Maddie does best. On a body positive journey, she’s inspired to model nude for a local drawing class.
From the first minute he sees her, up on the podium, modeling, Luke can’t take his eyes off Maddie. Their attraction is magnetic, but Maddie has a secret that could ruin everything.
This sexy, smart, rip roaring good time gallops with tease and titillation and introduces readers to the entire Morgan tribe, a tight knit family of ripped and rowdy ranchers. When the Morgan’s get together, shenanigans abound. If this is your first foray into the Big Sky Boys Series…well, howdy and welcome to the family!
