Risking It All Books in Order

The Risking It All books are set in Haven, North Carolina, a small town where everyone seems to know one another's business and feelings have a way of getting bigger than expected. Across the series, a group of friends are tied together by plans for an outdoor adventure business, local history, and the kind of loyalty that makes romance feel like part of a larger community. These are classic small-town contemporary romances, warm, sexy, and packed with familiar faces.

The series opens with the prequel novella Rock with You, which gives readers an easy way into Haven. Carly Taylor, a baker, gets stranded in a mountain cabin during an ice storm with Sam Weiss, a rock star who feels wildly out of place and completely irresistible. It is a compact version of what the series does well: forced proximity, strong chemistry, and a setting that makes characters stop running from what they want.

Then Run to You lays down the core friend group. Ethan Hunter, an Olympic gold medalist, is back in Haven to help launch an extreme outdoor adventure facility. Gabby Winters is lying low after a bad breakup. Fake dating enters the picture because Ethan's grandmother thinks she has spotted true love, and from there the whole series starts humming. Gram, like many great small-town romance elders, has a talent for nudging people exactly where they need to go.

Haven may be small, but the feelings are not.

Crazy for You and Can't Forget You deepen the emotional side of the series. Emma and Ryan's story leans into long-held crushes, friendship, grief, and the risks of wanting more from someone who already knows all your weak spots. Jessica and Mark, meanwhile, bring in second-chance energy and a strong external conflict when they go after the same piece of land for competing dreams. He wants it for the adventure business. She wants it for her spa. That kind of collision gives the romance room to crackle.

There is also My Gift is You, a holiday novella that adds a festive note and helps connect Haven to the world of Almost Royal. That crossover feeling fits the series well because Risking It All is very much about a whole little ecosystem of people. Friends recur, family members meddle, pets wander through, and the town keeps reminding everyone that private feelings rarely stay private for long.

If you like romance with lots of community texture, this is a strong place to start with Rachel Lacey's earlier work. The books are grounded in work and place, but they always make room for softness too. Outdoor business dreams, military pasts, old heartbreaks, and family baggage all matter, but the real appeal is watching characters realize that the biggest risk is not loving someone. It is deciding they are brave enough to let that love stay.