Riverside Reapers, book 5: The First Kind of LoveCeleste Briars2025

Shiloh Nguyen is a one-woman army. Married to her job at the ripe age of twenty-four, her vision board consists of espresso machines and foam art instead of white dresses and wedding bells. With her family’s business about to go under, her future’s balancing on a knife’s edge of guilt and responsibility. She has her whole life planned out—in a pretty little schedule planner, no less—until a rogue hockey slapshot comes careening into her tiny coffee shop, dismantling everything she thought she knew about herself.

Fulton Cazzarelli—well-known nervous wreck and bearer of the dreaded virgin title—has been crushing on the pretty barista who’s been serving him dairy-free coffee for the last four years. He never thought he’d muster the courage to ask her out…until one of his teammates springs a destination wedding on the entire team. Now, with his friends goading him into bringing a plus-one, Fulton takes a quantum leap of courage to get the girl of his dreams.

A hesitant Shiloh agrees to three weeks in Cabo with the Riverside Reapers’ biggest sweetheart, yet her work obligations simmer on the back burner the moment her feet hit that golden sand. But as she gets closer to Fulton—and she discovers they’re more alike than she thought—Shiloh is caught in a crossfire of loyalty to her parents and loyalty to her heart. Playing pretend isn’t on her itinerary, and neither is prioritizing a short-lived relationship. Fulton, however, knows what lies in his future, and it consists of one brown-eyed brunette.

Will Shiloh finally find the balance between business and pleasure, or will she let the best thing that’s ever happened to her drift out to sea?