Featuring five-pepper spice, a strong female protagonist, and beloved tropes like forced proximity, enemies to lovers, and monster romance, I PUNCHED AN ALIEN is perfect for fans of Ruby Dixon’s Ice Planet Barbarians series. And it’s officially out now!

Title: I Punched an Alien and Now We’re in Couples Therapy
Book Series: Cosmic Chaos #2
Author: Kimberly Lemming
Genre: Science Fiction, Monster Romance
Release Date: August 18th, 2026
Publisher: Berkley

About The Book: 

A zany and sexy romance about a woman who finds herself stranded on a far-off planet and mated to the warlord alien king, from USA Today bestselling author Kimberly Lemming.

It’s not in Blair’s nature to just give up. Not when she’s beamed up to a spaceship and then dropped on an alien planet. Not even when she’s in the middle of a forest fire surrounded by dinosaurs. And definitely not when she’s captured by an arrogant alien king. If King Osid thinks he can break her, he’s in for a shock. Blair lives by one motto: If you stay ready, you never have to get ready.

But absolutely nothing could have prepared her for finding out that she’s that arrogant King Osid’s mate.

Despite recent hiccups, the alien researchers are determined to get their breeding program back on track. With that in mind, Blair and Osid are bundled off to the research center for what they’re told is couples counseling. As they face a series of increasingly dangerous challenges, it soon becomes clear the research aliens may have confused an episode of The Bachelor with Survivor. Bonding over their common enemy, and shall we say…encouraged by love darts, Blair and Osid let down their walls (and take off their clothes). When they discover that there are—somehow—even more secret plans in the works, another hilarious, steamy, over-the-top adventure is in store.

Praise for I Got Abducted by Aliens and Now I’m Trapped in a Rom-Com

“A breath of fresh air…Come for the alien threesomes; stay for the wildlife biology.”
—The New York Times

“If the title and cover alone aren’t enough to convince you to dive into this hilarious and very raunchy tale, here’s a bit more about it: It centers around Ph.D. student Dory, who is, yes, abducted by aliens and promptly teams up with a pair of sexy and mysterious extra-terrestrials to find her way back home. The start of any great love story!”
—Marie Claire

“Hilarious, unhinged, heart-wrenching and fantastically heavy on the spice…This one is scorching hot, full of joy and unmissable.”
—Ali Hazelwood, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Bride

Purchase: Amazon | B&N | Bookshop.org

Excerpt:

Nothing got your blood pumping like the moment just before you struck your first chord onstage. The dimmed lights, the silent anticipation of the crowd, the pounding of your heart as your mind dances on the cusp of that high you can only get from roaring applause. I steadied my breathing as the announcer made his introduction. Up here I wasn’t just a fry cook. Up here, I wasn’t a forgotten member of my own family. Up here, people listened. And when the music started to play, the magic of their attention felt like gold in my veins. Unfortunately, the music was far too loud for me to actually listen to them. At the first scream of “SNAKE!” I thought maybe the crowd had come up with a new stage name for one of us. It wasn’t until I heard the telltale hiss against my ear that I looked to my shoulder to find Piper half uncoiled from her hiding place in the skull of my jacket. In the corner of my eye, I could see Porsha throw her drumsticks aside and lunge for me. She wasn’t fast enough. The snake poised to strike and shot out to bite my face. A blinding white light flashed. The snake’s fangs were frozen mere inches from my eye. I couldn’t move an inch. My body became weightless as I was hurled toward something in the sky. “Is that a damn spaceship?” Chapter 2 Blair Monsoon 54, Year 10, Waffles Terrible squawking noises woke me out of a dazed slumber. I rubbed at my tired eyes, only to be startled by the sound of sloshing water as I brought my hand up. I opened my eyes to see a cracked glass pane that obscured most of my view. A thick green liquid came up to my neck and gushed out of the crack in the glass in a steady stream. Just beyond the glass, I could make out the blurred shapes of what looked like panicked birds fighting off a much 

bigger, snarling blob. There was a shriek, then an orange bird slammed against the glass, causing the crack to spiderweb even further until the glass broke completely, and I fell from the tank in a rush of the green liquid. The room was in utter chaos. Freaky looking owl creatures were locked in battle with the most pissed off lion I’d ever seen. Rows of cylinder tanks like the one I’d been in lined the room, each of them held their own floating unconscious occupant. “What . . . what’s happening?” Someone screamed, and I followed the noise to find a woman with wild red hair holding what looked like a cattle prod. She swung at the freak owls like a mad batter before bolting out of the room, several of the owls hot on her trail. The lion noticed the girl’s departure and tried to run after her. A blue owl zapped him with his cattle prod. The lion gave off an enraged roar before sinking his teeth into the bird’s skull. There was a crunch, and the bird fell limp. The lion tossed it aside and took off in the direction the girl ran. The remaining birds flew out of the room in absolute chaos. One chirped loudly into a mic on the wall while owls in white coats rushed in to cart off the wounded. Several larger looking birds grabbed cattle prods from a shelf on the wall and chased after the lion. I slowly stepped away from my broken pod. Glass crunched beneath my boots, alerting the owl shouting commands into the mic. His large yellow eyes locked in on me. Both of us froze to a standstill. Then the owl shrieked, pointing at me with his little clawed hand as he began shouting new commands into the mic. I whipped my pistol from my jacket and took aim, but water gushed out of the barrel. Not knowing what else to do, I pocketed the pistol, picked up the unconscious orange owl from the pile of broken glass, and chucked it at the screeching snitch, effectively shutting him up. Before I could find out who the bird was calling, I darted out of the room toward where I saw the girl and lion escape. For all I knew, the redhead had found a way out, and I sure as hell didn’t want to stay in the creepy-ass lab room with the rest of the floaty tube women. 

^{Excerpted from I Punched an Alien and Now We’re in Couples Therapy by Kimberly Lemming Copyright © 2026 by Kimberly Lemming. Excerpted by permission of Berkley. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.}

About The Author: 

Kimberly Lemming is a USA Today bestselling author who is on an eternal quest to avoid her calling as a main character. She can be found giving the slip to that new werewolf that just blew into town and refusing to make eye contact with a prince of a far-off land. But when she’s not running from fate, she can be found writing diverse fantasy romance. Or just shoveling chocolate in her maw until she passes out on the couch.

Connect With Kimberly: Website | Goodreads | Instagram | TikTok

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