When the nights grow long...🕯️

Five stories to keep you company — some tender, some primal, all reminding us of what it means to be beautifully human.

Author

Parneet Gosal
September 28, 2025

As the days shorten, and nights lengthen, love feels softer, sweeter under fall skies. I’ve been sitting with my own family this weekend, grateful for small joys and cozy rituals, and reminded that stories can be their own kind of candlelight. They soften us. They spark us. They remind us that even in the darkening season, we are never alone in our longings.

This week, I’ve chosen stories that carry that same warmth at their core, even when desire burns hot. I hope that each one touches you gently, reminding you of the tenderness that keeps you beautifully human.

With love,
Parneet 🤍
Founder, Theo Reads

By Lauren P. Burka (🌶️🌶️🌶️ Shifters & Werewolves, Paranormal Romance)

One year after her husband disappeared, Meg lives alone with her three children and the memory of betrayal. Then, on the eve of Samhain, something wearing Elias’s face steps out of the barn. He is tender where he was once cruel. Hungry where he was once cold. And as the moon rises, Meg learns that love, forgiveness, and desire can open doors even death was meant to close.

By Kathryn K. Murphy (🌶️🌶️🌶️ Small Town, Forced Proximity)

Megan White should’ve died twenty-five years ago. Now she appears to have it all—a solid career, a trendy apartment—but she feels like a fraud. A firefighter, Megan has an edge she doesn’t deserve. She doesn’t burn. Torn between her duty and her dreams, Megan is about to escape to the life she always wanted when a handsome soldier marches into her life, testing the walls she’s built around fire and desire alike.

By Lilith Young (🌶️🌶️ Second Chances, Lesbian)

Sam is out, steady, and ready for a life lived openly. Jen is still caught between who she is and who she’s been told to be, slipping out before dawn, leaving Sam in an empty bed.

On a rain-soaked Miami morning, that fragile pattern breaks. Jen comes back, stripped of excuses, ready to stand beside the woman she loves, no matter the cost.

A quiet, sensual story of love, loss, and the moment when hiding ends and belonging begins.

By Tori Lennox (🌶️ Regency Romance)

Author’s note: When I wrote A Scandalous Bargain, I wanted to explore a love story that begins not with sparks, but with necessity.

Verity Fenwick has no dowry, only her sharp mind and dignity. Nathan Harland, a viscount bound by a legacy clause, needs a wife beyond reproach. What starts as a marriage of convenience becomes a tale of survival, loyalty, and the quiet power of choosing each other — freely, and against all odds.

By Jules Behrens (🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️ Vampires, Queer, Bisexual)

Donna is bored with her life. But getting turned into a vampire and moving into a haunted house with her bestie—and a hot immortal? That’s swinging the pendulum way too far the other direction.

Now she’s hunted by her maker, tormented by a powerful local crackpot, and struggling with inconvenient new fangs (and hungers). Meanwhile, the DIY of fixing up the house is proving tougher than dealing with the ghosts who guard it.

She’s going to be fine. She has to be. They all do. The only question is: can they get there safe, sane… and still mostly human?

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