Closed-door romance with real tension

Read this if you want a slow burn with wit, in a fantasy world.

A woman who reads debts for a living finds one in her late mother's ledger, in the name of a man she has quietly admired for three years. The price is one kiss, and it only counts if it is freely given.

How it’s different: The lightest in tone of our two fantasy novels: witty and tender, with consent at the heart of the story.

Her letter begins: “The same man has paid his border tax at my counter for three years, and I have counted on it more than I would admit to anyone.”

Read this if you want enemies bound by a marriage of convenience.

A deposed queen marries the general who took her father's throne, to break a curse. He swears not to touch her unless she asks.

How it’s different: Darker and more sweeping than The Frost Ledger, with court danger and grief around a very slow thaw.

Her letter begins: “I married the man who ended my father’s reign.”

Read this if you want forbidden love with danger around it.

A filmmaker gets six weeks inside London's underground fight circuit, and one rule from the man who runs it: nothing below the ring.

How it’s different: Our only romantic suspense. The threat is real, and content notes include violence and organised crime.

Her letter begins: “My editor told me, before any of this started, not to fall in love with my subject.”

Read this if you want sparks and banter at work.

A turnaround consultant with one rule, never take a client with history, gets six weeks to save the company of the man who once humiliated her.

How it’s different: Enemies to lovers built on sharp, witty dialogue.

Her letter begins: “I have one rule, written for men exactly like him: never take a client with history.”

Read this if you want rivals forced to share a kitchen.

A chef spends six weeks in one kitchen with the critic who savaged her first restaurant, all of it filmed for a charity series.

How it’s different: Enemies to lovers played slowly, with pride, humour and a restaurant kitchen at full pressure.

Her letter begins: “Six years ago a critic wrote three hundred and forty words about my cooking.”

Read this if you want a secret the rules won't allow.

An architect falls for the anonymous investor funding her tower, when her firm forbids any contact with him.

How it’s different: Tender rather than combative: the obstacle is a contract and a career, not a rivalry.

Her letter begins: “For two years I have written careful memos to a man I am not allowed to meet.”

Read this if you want a second chance.

A week of wedding work on a tidal Norfolk creek puts her back beside the man she loved in secret at twenty-five: the bride's brother.

How it’s different: Quiet and bittersweet, with grief in the background. Our only second-chance romance.

Her letter begins: “My friend is getting married on Saturday under a two-hundred-year-old oak, and I’m the one who has to decide whether it’s safe for eighty-four people to stand beneath it.”

Read this if you want something slower, harder and more adult.

A married engineer and the architect she works beside spend months not touching each other. Then she has to face what she has already done.

How it’s different: The most serious book on the list, about a good marriage and a line crossed. Content note: infidelity.

Her letter begins: “I have been married for eleven years to a kind man, and I love him.”