The Daisy Chain Flower Shop

The Daisy Chain Flower Shop by Laurie Gilmore (2026) 364 pages

A florist in a small resort town is considered by her townspeople to be cursed because of bad luck in her lovelife: a broken marriage and more recently, a broken engagement. She loses the biggest money-making part of her business‒weddings‒because no one wants to have her curse ruin their marriage. (Mind you, the story is set in modern times.) This florist, Daisy, is from a line of Daisies working in this shop: her mother, her grandmother, and so on. She's afraid her buisness will not survive.

Enter Elliot, a shy man who has moved to this town to get away from New York, where he had lived with his wife until she abruptly left him. His self confidence is shot. His mother and brother are worried and constantly checking up on him, even a couple of years later. If he had a relationship with someone else, his family would not fret so much.

Daisy, who is also fearful of another bad relationship, comes up with the idea of them having a fake relationship, thinking that the townspeople might think her curse is over and that they can trust her with their weddings again. All of this lead-up feels so contrived. But. If you want a light read and can just accept the implausible, it's not a bad story, even if its outcome seems obvious.

My Vampire Plus-One

My Vampire Plus-One by Jenna Levine (2024) 368 pages

Amelia is an accountant who knows and appreciates the definitiveness of the IRS tax code. She has given up on romance: she's happy with her job and her friends and her cat, and doesn't want to go through another breakup. The only problem is that her mother keeps pressuring her to date. When Amelia hears that yet another one of her cousins is getting married, and that her invitation will include a plus-one, she tells her mother that she is dating someone, to get her to stop harping on her lack of relationship. But now she needs to find someone willing to pretend to be dating her.

Who else besides Reginald, who appears as the annoying (but funny) dude in Levine's first vampire mystery, My Roommate Is a Vampire. Amelia makes Reginald's acquaintance when he plows into her on the sidewalk outside her office. When she sees him again at a coffee shop, in spite of the fact that she doesn't know him, she asks if he will help her out.

Thus starts their fake dating relationship with the twist: Reginald is a vampire. He actually tells her about it, but she thinks he's joking. Oh, and Reginald is on the run from a gang of vampires who want to kill him for a crime that they think he committed 150 years ago. This novel is a fast and funny read.