Books with category đź«€ Love
Displaying books 1-48 of 249 in total

Somewhere Beyond the Sea

2024

by TJ Klune

Somewhere Beyond the Sea is the highly anticipated sequel to TJ Klune's The House in the Cerulean Sea, a beloved and best-selling fantasy novel.

Arthur Parnassus has created a good life from the remnants of a difficult past. As the caretaker of an extraordinary orphanage on a remote and unique island, he aspires to become the adoptive father to the six enchanted and powerful children in his care.

Arthur dedicates himself fully, ensuring that the children never endure the neglect and suffering he experienced as an orphan on the same island. He's not alone in his efforts; his life partner, Linus Baker, a former employee of the Department In Charge of Magical Youth, stands with him. Alongside them are the island's sprite, Zoe Chapelwhite, and her girlfriend, Mayor Helen Webb. Together, they will go to any lengths to safeguard the children.

When Arthur is compelled to confront his shadowy history publicly, he leads a battle for a future that his family and all magical beings are entitled to. The arrival of a new magical child, who embraces the term 'monster'—a label Arthur fought to shield his children from—indicates a pivotal moment for their family. They must either unite more robustly than before or risk disintegration.

Return to Marsyas Island for Arthur's tale—a narrative of perseverance and love, about the challenging journey to fight for the life you choose and the effort required to maintain it.

Two Step Devil

2024

by Jamie Quatro

Two Step Devil is an enigmatic tale that remains shrouded in mystery. As of now, the whispers about its pages suggest a dance with danger, where characters might waltz with shadows and flirt with fate. Will you dare to join the dance and discover the secrets that Jamie Quatro has artfully penned? Stay tuned for a story that promises to entwine suspense, mystery, and perhaps, a touch of the supernatural.

The Unicorn Woman

2024

by Gayl Jones

Marking a dramatic new direction for Jones, The Unicorn Woman is a riveting tale set in the Post WWII South, narrated by a Black soldier who returns to Jim Crow and searches for a mythical ideal.

Set in the early 1950s, this latest novel from Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award finalist Gayl Jones follows the witty but perplexing army veteran Buddy Ray Guy as he embodies the fate of Black soldiers who return, not in glory, but into their Jim Crow communities.

A cook and tractor repairman, Buddy was known as Budweiser to his army pals because he's a wise guy. But underneath that surface, he is a true self-educated intellectual and a classic seeker: looking for religion, looking for meaning, looking for love. As he moves around the south, from his hometown of Lexington, Kentucky, primarily, to his second home of Memphis, Tennessee, he recalls his love affairs in post-war France and encounters with a variety of colorful characters and mythical prototypes: circus barkers, topiary trimmers, landladies who provide shelter and plenty of advice for their all-Black clientele, proto feminists, and bigots.

The lead among these characters is, of course, The Unicorn Woman, who exists, but mostly lives in Bud's private mythology. Jones offers a rich, intriguing exploration of Black (and Indigenous) people in a time and place of frustration, disappointment, and spiritual hope.

The Heart In Winter

2024

by Kevin Barry

Award-winning writer Kevin Barry's first novel set in America, a savagely funny and achingly romantic tale of young lovers on the lam in 1890s Montana.

October 1891. A hard winter approaches across the Rocky Mountains. The city of Butte, Montana is rich on copper mines and rampant with vice and debauchery among a hard-living crowd of immigrant Irish workers. Here we find Tom Rourke, a young poet and ballad-maker of the town, but also a doper, a drinker, and a fearsome degenerate. Just as he feels his life is heading nowhere fast, Polly Gillespie arrives in town as the new bride of the extremely devout mine captain Long Anthony Harrington. A thunderbolt love affair takes spark between Tom and Polly and they strike out west on a stolen horse, moving through the badlands of Montana and Idaho, and briefly an idyll of wild romance perfects itself. But a posse of deranged Cornish gunmen are soon in hot pursuit and closing in fast. With everything to lose and the safety and anonymity of San Francisco still a distant speck on their horizon, the choices they make will haunt them for the rest of their lives.

In this love story for the ages—lyrical, profane, and propulsive—Kevin Barry has once again demonstrated himself to be a master stylist, an unrivalled humourist, and a true poet of the human heart.

The God of the Woods

2024

by Liz Moore

From the New York Times bestselling author of Long Bright River, an immersive, propulsive novel about a missing child whose disappearance sends shockwaves through three very different worlds—an opulent Adirondack summer estate, the rustic teen summer camp that operates in its shadow, and the blue-collar community that serves them both.

When Barbara Van Laar is discovered missing from her summer camp bunk one morning in August 1975, it triggers a panicked, terrified search. Losing a camper is a horrific tragedy under any circumstances, but Barbara isn't just any camper; she's the daughter of the wealthy family that owns the camp—as well as the opulent nearby estate and most of the land in sight. And this isn't the first time a Van Laar child has disappeared in this region: Barbara's older brother also went missing fourteen years ago, never to be found. How could this have happened yet again?

Liz Moore weaves a richly textured drama, both emotionally nuanced and propelled by a double-barreled mystery. The God of the Woods is a story of love, inheritance, identity, and second chances, a thrillingly layered drama about the tensions between a family and a community, and a history of secrets that will not let any of them go.

Husbands and Lovers

Two women—separated by decades and continents, and united by a mysterious family heirloom—discover second chances at love in this sweeping novel from the New York Times bestselling author of The Summer Wives.

A sprawling and exciting new novel from Beatriz Williams, the acclaimed author of A Hundred Summers and The Summer Wives.

Rakesfall

Rakesfall is a groundbreaking, standalone science fiction epic about two souls bound together from here until the ends of time, from the author of The Saint of Bright Doors.

Some stories take more than one lifetime to tell. There are wrongs that echo through the ages, friendships that outpace the claws of death, loves that leave their mark on civilization, and promises that nothing can break. This is one such story.

Annelid and Leveret met after the war, but before the peace. They found each other in a torn-up nation, peering through propaganda to grasp a deeper truth. And in a demon-haunted wood, another act of violence linked them and propelled their souls on a journey throughout the ages. No world can hold them, no life can bind them, and they'll never leave each other behind. But their journey will not be easy. In every lifetime, oppressors narrow the walls of possibility, shaping reality to fit their own needs. And behind the walls of history, the witches of the red web swear that every throne will fall.

Tracing two souls through endless lifetimes, Rakesfall is a virtuosic exploration of what stories can be. As Annelid and Leveret reincarnate ever deeper into the future, they will chase the edge of human possibility, in a dark science fiction epic unlike anything you've read before.

The Ministry of Time

2024

by Kailane Bradley

Welcome to The Ministry of Time, the exhilarating debut novel by Kailane Bradley. This book is a time travel romance, a speculative spy thriller, a workplace comedy, and an ingeniously constructed exploration of the nature of truth and power. It is also a story about the potential for love to change it all.

In the near future, a civil servant is offered the salary of her dreams. Shortly afterward, she is told about the project she'll be working on: a recently established government ministry is gathering "expats" from across history to establish whether time travel is feasible—for the body, but also for the fabric of space-time. She is tasked with working as a "bridge": living with, assisting, and monitoring the expat known as "1847" or Commander Graham Gore. As far as history is concerned, Commander Gore died on Sir John Franklin's doomed 1845 expedition to the Arctic, so he's a little disoriented to be living with an unmarried woman who regularly shows her calves, surrounded by concepts such as "washing machine," "Spotify," and "the collapse of the British Empire." But he adjusts quickly; after all, he is an explorer by trade. Soon, what the bridge initially thought would be a seriously uncomfortable housemate dynamic, evolves into something much more. Over the course of an unprecedented year, the bridge will be forced to confront the past that shaped her choices, and the choices that will shape the future.

An exquisitely original and feverishly fun fusion of genres and ideas, The Ministry of Time asks the universal question: What happens if you put a disaffected millennial and a Victorian polar explorer in a house together?

Knife

2024

by Salman Rushdie

From internationally renowned writer and Booker Prize winner Salman Rushdie, Knife is a searing, deeply personal account of enduring—and surviving—an attempt on his life thirty years after the fatwa that was ordered against him.

Speaking out for the first time, and in unforgettable detail, about the traumatic events of August 12, 2022, Salman Rushdie answers violence with art, and reminds us of the power of words to make sense of the unthinkable. Knife is a gripping, intimate, and ultimately life-affirming meditation on life, loss, love, art—and finding the strength to stand up again.

The Garden

2024

by Clare Beams

The Garden, a novel by Clare Beams, presents a psychologically thrilling tale that explores the deep yearnings of women to become mothers and the intricate ways in which the female body has been subjected to control and manipulation throughout history.

In the year 1948, Irene Willard, having endured five miscarriages in her pursuit to fulfill her husband's desire for a child and currently pregnant again, arrives at a secluded house in the Berkshires that doubles as a hospital. This establishment is run by a duo of doctors dedicated to pioneering a treatment for her condition. With caution, Irene commits to the Halls' methods aimed at 'rectifying the maternal environment', addressing both the physical and psychological aspects.

Amidst this, she stumbles upon an enigmatic walled garden on the property, a space infused with its own mystical forces. As the medical endeavors of the Halls begin to falter, Irene and the other patients are driven to tap into the garden's potential for their own ends. They are forced to confront the immense dangers that come with the promise of extraordinary benefits.

Evoking the atmospheric tension of works by Shirley Jackson and the unsettling themes of Rosemary's Baby, The Garden delves into the realms of motherhood, childbirth, the enigmas of the female anatomy, and the historical efforts to dominate it.

There's Going to Be Trouble

2024

by Jen Silverman

A woman is pulled into a love affair with a radical activist, unknowingly echoing her family's dangerous past and risking the foundations of her future in this electrifying novel. The course of your life can change with one split-second decision.

Minnow has always tried to lead the life her single father modeled—private, quiet, hardworking, apolitical. So she is rocked when an instinctive decision to help a student makes her the extremely public face of a scandal in the small town where she teaches. As tensions rise, vandalism and death threats follow, and an overwhelmed Minnow flees to a teaching position in Paris.

There, Minnow falls into an exhilarating and all-consuming relationship with Charles, a young Frenchman whose activism has placed him at odds with his powerful family. As Minnow is pulled into the daring protest Charles and his friends are planning, she unknowingly draws close to repeating a secret tragedy from her family's past. For her father wasn’t always the restrained, conservative man he appears today. There are things he has taken great pains to bury from his family and from the world.

In 1968, Keen is avoiding the Vietnam draft by pursuing a PhD at Harvard. He lives his life in the basement chemistry lab, studiously avoiding the news. But when he unexpectedly falls in love with Olya, a fiery community organizer, he is consumed by her world and loses sight of his own. Learning that his deferment has ended and he’s been drafted, Keen agrees to participate in the latest action that Olya is organizing—one with more dangerous and far-reaching consequences than he could have imagined.

Minnow’s and Keen's intertwining stories take us through the turmoil of the late sixties student movements and into the chaos of the modern world. Exploding with suspense, heart, and intelligence, There's Going to Be Trouble is a story about revolution, legacy, passionate love, and how we live with the consequences of our darkest secrets.

I Cheerfully Refuse

2024

by Leif Enger

I Cheerfully Refuse is a career-defining tour-de-force from New York Times bestselling, award-winning novelist Leif Enger. Set in a not-too-distant America, it is the tale of Rainy, a bereaved and pursued musician embarking under sail on a sentient Lake Superior in search of his departed, deeply beloved, bookselling wife.

An endearing bear of an Orphean narrator, Rainy seeks refuge in the harbors, fogs, and remote islands of the inland sea. Encountering lunatic storms and rising corpses from the warming depths, Rainy finds on land an increasingly desperate and illiterate people, a malignant billionaire ruling class, crumbled infrastructure, and a lawless society.

Amidst the Gulliver-like challenges of life at sea and no safe landings, Rainy is lifted by physical beauty, surprising humor, generous strangers, and an unexpected companion in a young girl who comes aboard. As his innate guileless nature begins to make an inadvertent rebel of him, Rainy's private quest for the love of his life grows into something wider and wilder, sweeping up friends and foes alike in his strengthening wake.

Like Love

2024

by Maggie Nelson

Like Love: Essays and Conversations is a momentous, raucous collection of essays drawn from twenty years of Maggie Nelson's brilliant work. These profiles, reviews, remembrances, tributes, and critical essays, as well as several conversations with friends and idols, bring to life Nelson's passion for dialogue and dissent.

The range of subjects is wide—from Prince to Carolee Schneemann to Matthew Barney to Lhasa de Sela to Kara Walker—but certain themes recur: intergenerational exchange; love and friendship; feminist and queer issues, especially as they shift over time; subversion, transgression, and perversity; the roles of the critic and of language in relation to visual and performance arts; forces that feed or impede certain bodies and creators; and the fruits and follies of a life spent devoted to making.

Arranged chronologically, Like Love shows the writing, thinking, feeling, reading, looking, and conversing that occupied Nelson while writing iconic books such as Bluets and The Argonauts. As such, it is a portrait of a time, an anarchic party rich with wild guests, a window into Nelson's own development, and a testament to the profound sustenance offered by art and artists.

All The World Beside

2024

by Garrard Conley

From the New York Times bestselling author of Boy Erased, an electrifying, deeply moving novel about the love story between two men in Puritan New England.

Cana, Massachusetts: a utopian vision of 18th-century Puritan New England. To the outside world, Reverend Nathaniel Whitfield and his family stand as godly pillars of their small-town community, drawing Christians from across the New World into their fold. One such Christian, physician Arthur Lyman, discovers in the minister's words a love so captivating it transcends language.

As the bond between these two men grows more and more passionate, their families must contend with a tangled web of secrets, lies, and judgments which threaten to destroy them in this world and the next. And when the religious ecstasies of the Great Awakening begin to take hold, igniting a new era of zealotry, Nathaniel and Arthur search for a path out of an impossible situation, imagining a future for themselves which has no name. Their wives and children must do the same, looking beyond the known world for a new kind of wilderness, both physical and spiritual.

Set during the turbulent historical upheavals which shaped America's destiny and following in the tradition of Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter, All the World Beside reveals the very human lives just beneath the surface of dogmatic belief.

After Annie

2024

by Anna Quindlen

After Annie is a novel that delves into the complexities of family dynamics, emotions, and the intimate secrets of life in a small town. It is a poignant exploration of the themes of loss, love, and the enduring strength that these powerful emotions can imbue in individuals.

The sudden death of Annie Brown leaves an irreplaceable void in the lives of her husband, four young children, and her best friend. Her husband, Bill Brown, finds himself struggling to cope, while Annie's best friend, Annemarie, is drawn back to old, destructive habits in the absence of Annie's supportive presence. It falls upon Annie's daughter, Ali, to take on the mantle of responsibility, striving to maintain a semblance of their former life and confronting the intricate realities of adulthood.

As the year progresses, the memory of Annie remains a towering influence in their lives. Yet, through their shared grief and love, each of them discovers an inner resilience that enables them to grow, change, and ultimately become stronger. The novel celebrates the transformative power of love and the ability to forge ahead in the face of loss.

Authored by Anna Quindlen, a writer renowned for her emotional depth and insightful portrayal of the human condition, After Annie is a testament to how adversity can shape us in unexpected and profound ways. It is a narrative that concludes with a message of hope, reaffirming the capacity for personal growth and the unyielding strength of the human spirit.

Here After

2024

by Amy Lin

Here After is a poetic, raw depiction of an unlikely love followed by a dizzying loss. A stunning, taut memoir from debut Canadian author Amy Lin that will resonate deeply with anyone who has been in grief’s grasp. “When he dies, I fall out of time.” Amy Lin never expected to find a love like the one she shares with her husband, Kurtis, a gifted young architect who pulls her toward joy, adventure, and greater self-acceptance. On a sweltering August morning, only a few months shy of the newlyweds’ move to Vancouver, thirty-two-year-old Kurtis heads out to run a half-marathon with Amy’s family. It’s the last time she sees her husband alive.

What follows is a rich and unflinchingly honest portrayal of her life with Kurtis, the vortex created by his death, and the ongoing struggle Amy faces as she attempts to understand her own experience in the context of commonly held “truths” about what the grieving process looks like. Here After is an intimate story of deep love followed by dizzying loss; a memoir so finely etched that its power will remain with you long after the final page.

Bride

2024

by Ali Hazelwood

A dangerous alliance between a Vampyre bride and an Alpha Werewolf becomes a love deep enough to sink your teeth into in this new paranormal romance from the #1 New York Times bestselling author Ali Hazelwood.

Misery Lark, the only daughter of the most powerful Vampyre councilman of the Southwest, is an outcast—again. Her days of living in anonymity among the Humans are over: she has been called upon to uphold a historic peacekeeping alliance between the Vampyres and their mortal enemies, the Weres, and she sees little choice but to surrender herself in the exchange—again...

Weres are ruthless and unpredictable, and their Alpha, Lowe Moreland, is no exception. He rules his pack with absolute authority, but not without justice. And, unlike the Vampyre Council, not without feeling. It's clear from the way he tracks Misery's every movement that he doesn't trust her. If only he knew how right he was….

Because Misery has her own reasons to agree to this marriage of convenience, reasons that have nothing to do with politics or alliances, and everything to do with the only thing she's ever cared about. And she is willing to do whatever it takes to get back what's hers, even if it means a life alone in Were territory…alone with the wolf.

This Is The Honey

2024

by Kwame Alexander

This Is the Honey: An Anthology Of Contemporary Black Poets, edited by Kwame Alexander, is a breathtaking poetry collection that embodies hope, heart, and heritage. As the most prominent and promising Black poets and writers of our time come together, this anthology serves as a beacon of inspiration.

Featuring work from well-loved poets such as Claudia Rankine, Ross Gay, Jericho Brown, Warsan Shire, Amanda Gorman, Terrance Hayes, and Nikki Giovanni, the anthology is a rich tapestry of voices that resonate with generations of resilient joy.

The collection is replete with poems exploring themes of joy, love, origin, resistance, and praise, with language that drips with poignant and delightful imagery. It is a definitive, fresh, and deeply moving tribute to the power of words and an essential addition to any lover of language.

Iris Kelly Doesn't Date

Iris Kelly Doesn't Date is a witty and heartfelt new romantic comedy by Ashley Herring Blake. Iris Kelly, a romance author, is surrounded by love in every corner of her life, yet she prefers to stick to her commitment-free lifestyle, despite the pressure to settle down. But as she faces a looming deadline for her second book, Iris finds herself completely out of inspiration.

One night, Iris's visit to a Portland bar leads her to Stefania, a sexy stranger with whom she shares a night of passion, only for it to turn into a disaster. The plot thickens when Iris auditions for a local play and encounters Stefania again, who is actually named Stevie. In a twist of fate, Stevie convinces Iris to pose as her girlfriend, sparking an arrangement that could provide the perfect fodder for Iris's book.

As they act out their fake relationship, Iris and Stevie find themselves in a blur of emotions, questioning the authenticity of their connection and who will dare to make the first real move.

Blackouts

2023

by Justin Torres

From the bestselling author of We the Animals, Blackouts mines lost histories—personal and collective.

Out in the desert in a place called the Palace, a young man tends to a dying soul, someone he once knew briefly but who has haunted the edges of his life: Juan Gay. Playful raconteur, child lost and found and lost, guardian of the institutionalized, Juan has a project to pass along, one built around a true artifact of a book—Sex Variants: A Study of Homosexual Patterns—and its devastating history. This book contains accounts collected in the early twentieth century from queer subjects by a queer researcher, Jan Gay, whose groundbreaking work was then co-opted by a committee, her name buried.

The voices of these subjects have been filtered, muted, but it is possible to hear them from within and beyond the text, which, in Juan’s tattered volumes, has been redacted with black marker on nearly every page. As Juan waits for his end, he and the narrator recount for each other moments of joy and oblivion; they resurrect loves, lives, mothers, fathers, minor heroes. In telling their own stories and the story of the book, they resist the ravages of memory and time.

The past is with us, beside us, ahead of us; what are we to create from its gaps and erasures? A book about storytelling—its legacies, dangers, delights, and potential for change—and a bold exploration of form, art, and love, Justin Torres’s Blackouts uses fiction to see through the inventions of history and narrative. A marvel of creative imagination, it draws on testimony, photographs, illustrations, and a range of influences as it insists that we look long and steadily at what we have inherited and what we have made—a world full of ghostly shadows and flashing moments of truth.

A reclamation of ransacked history, a celebration of defiance, and a transformative encounter, Blackouts mines the stories that have been kept from us and brings them into the light.

The Long Game

2023

by Elena Armas

In The Long Game, a disgraced soccer exec, Adalyn Reyes, faces the challenge of her career when a viral video disrupts her meticulously crafted routine. Sent to redeem herself by turning around a struggling local soccer team in North Carolina, Adalyn's plans are further complicated by the team's unconventional practices and their fear of her.

Enter Cameron Caldani, a retired soccer star with a mysterious presence and a rocky first encounter with Adalyn. Despite the odds, Adalyn is determined to help this ragtag children's team succeed, with or without Cam's assistance. Her journey is a testament to resilience and the power of second chances in this heartwarming small-town love story reminiscent of Ted Lasso and It Happened One Summer.

Happiness Falls

2023

by Angie Kim

Happiness Falls is a thrilling page-turner and a deeply moving portrait of a family in crisis. This riveting book about a biracial Korean American family in Virginia is upended when their beloved father and husband goes missing.

Mia, the irreverent, hyperanalytical twenty-year-old daughter, isn't initially concerned when her father and younger brother Eugene don't return from a walk in a nearby park. But as time progresses, it becomes clear that something is terribly wrong. Eugene returns home bloody and alone, with their father nowhere to be found. The only witness to the father's disappearance is Eugene, who has the rare genetic condition Angelman syndrome and cannot speak.

What follows is both a ticking-clock investigation into the father's whereabouts and an emotionally rich exploration of family dynamics. Angie Kim turns the missing-person story into something wholly original, creating an indelible tale of a family who must understand one another to uncover the truth.

Unearthing

2023

by Kyo Maclear

An unforgettable memoir about a family secret revealed by a DNA test, the lessons learned in its aftermath, and the indelible power of love.

Three months after Kyo Maclear’s father dies in December 2018, she gets the results of a DNA test showing that she and the father who raised her are not biologically related. Suddenly Maclear becomes a detective in her own life, unravelling a family mystery piece by piece, and assembling the story of her biological father. Along the way, larger questions arise: what exactly is kinship? And what does it mean to be a family? Thoughtful in its reflections on race and lineage, unflinching in its insights on grief and loyalty, Unearthing is a captivating and propulsive story of inheritance that goes beyond heredity. What gets planted, and what gets buried? What role does storytelling play in unearthing the past and making sense of a life? Can the humble act of tending a garden provide common ground for an inquisitive daughter and her complicated mother? As it seeks to answer these questions, Unearthing bursts with the very love it seeks to understand.

Tom Lake

2023

by Ann Patchett

In this beautiful and moving novel about family, love, and growing up, Ann Patchett once again proves herself one of America's finest writers. "Patchett leads us to a truth that feels like life rather than literature." --The Guardian

It's spring and Lara's three grown daughters have returned to the family orchard in Northern Michigan. While picking cherries, they beg their mother to tell them the one story they've always longed to hear – of the film star with whom she shared a stage, and a romance, years before.

Tom Lake is a meditation on youthful love, married love, and the lives parents have led before their children were born. Both hopeful and elegiac, it explores what it means to be happy even when the world is falling apart.

The Rachel Incident

The Rachel Incident, brilliantly funny novel about friends, lovers, Ireland in chaos, and a young woman desperately trying to manage all three.

Rachel is a student working at a bookstore when she meets James, and it’s love at first sight. Effervescent and insistently heterosexual, James soon invites Rachel to be his roommate and the two begin a friendship that changes the course of both their lives forever. Together, they run riot through the streets of Cork city, trying to maintain a bohemian existence while the threat of the financial crash looms before them.

When Rachel falls in love with her married professor, Dr. Fred Byrne, James helps her devise a reading at their local bookstore, with the goal that she might seduce him afterwards. But Fred has other desires. So begins a series of secrets and compromises that intertwine the fates of James, Rachel, Fred, and Fred’s glamorous, well-connected, bourgeois wife. Aching with unrequited love, shot through with delicious, sparkling humor, The Rachel Incident is a triumph.

How to Stay Married

How to Stay Married is a shockingly candid, hilarious, voyeuristic, and inspiring account of one man's personal journey through hell and back when his wife's infidelity threatens their marriage. Written by Harrison Scott Key, winner of the 2016 Thurber Prize for American Humor, this memoir dives into the complexities of love and the challenges of maintaining a marriage.

Same Time Next Summer

The ultimate summer nostalgia read, about an engaged woman who comes face to face with her first love who she hasn't seen in fourteen years, but who she spent every summer with from age five to seventeen when he broke her heart, calling into question everything she thought she knew about their love story, and herself.

Beach Rules: Do take long walks on the sand. Do put an umbrella in every cocktail. Do NOT run into your first love.

Sam’s life is on track. She has the perfect doctor fiancé, Jack (his strict routines are a good thing, really), a great job in Manhattan (unless they fire her), and is about to tour a wedding venue near her family’s Long Island beach house. Everything should go to plan, yet the minute she arrives, Sam senses something is off. Wyatt is here. Her Wyatt. But there’s no reason for a thirty-year-old engaged woman to feel panicked around the guy who broke her heart when she was seventeen. Right?

Unfortunately Yours

2023

by Tessa Bailey

Unfortunately Yours, a novel by #1 New York Times bestselling author Tessa Bailey, is a hilarious rom-com set in the picturesque Napa Valley.

Natalie, after losing her job and fiancé, returns home to recover and plan her next move. With a trust fund that requires her to be married for access, she finds herself proposing a marriage of convenience to August, a man whose presence stirs both irritation and attraction within her.

August is determined to honor his late best friend's legacy but is struggling as no bank will approve the loan he needs. When Natalie offers a solution in the form of a quickie marriage, he's tempted by the prospect despite their mutual antagonism.

What was supposed to be a simple arrangement becomes complicated by their unfortunate, unbearable, and undeniable attraction to each other.

The Will of the Many

2023

by James Islington

At the elite Catenan Academy, a young fugitive uncovers layered mysteries and world-changing secrets in this new fantasy series by internationally bestselling author of The Licanius Trilogy, James Islington.

AUDI. VIDE. TACE. The Catenan Republic—the Hierarchy—may rule the world now, but they do not know everything. I tell them my name is Vis Telimus. I tell them I was orphaned after a tragic accident three years ago, and that good fortune alone has led to my acceptance into their most prestigious school. I tell them that once I graduate, I will gladly join the rest of civilized society in allowing my strength, my drive and my focus—what they call Will—to be leeched away and added to the power of those above me, as millions already do. As all must eventually do. I tell them that I belong, and they believe me.

But the truth is that I have been sent to the Academy to find answers. To solve a murder. To search for an ancient weapon. To uncover secrets that may tear the Republic apart. And that I will never, ever cede my Will to the empire that executed my family. To survive, though, I will still have to rise through the Academy's ranks. I will have to smile, and make friends, and pretend to be one of them and win. Because if I cannot, then those who want to control me, who know my real name, will no longer have any use for me. And if the Hierarchy finds out who I truly am, they will kill me.

The True Love Experiment

Sparks fly when a romance novelist and a documentary filmmaker join forces to craft the perfect Hollywood love story and take both of their careers to the next level—but only if they can keep the chemistry between them from taking the whole thing off script.

Felicity “Fizzy” Chen is lost. Sure, she’s got an incredible career as a beloved romance novelist with a slew of bestsellers under her belt, but when she’s asked to give a commencement address, it hits her: she hasn’t been practicing what she’s preached. Fizzy hasn’t ever really been in love. Lust? Definitely. But that swoon-worthy, can’t-stop-thinking-about-him, all-encompassing feeling? Nope. Nothing. What happens when the optimism she’s spent her career encouraging in readers starts to feel like a lie?

Connor Prince, documentary filmmaker and single father, loves his work in large part because it allows him to live near his daughter. But when his profit-minded boss orders him to create a reality TV show, putting his job on the line, Connor is out of his element. Desperate to find his romantic lead, a chance run-in with an exasperated Fizzy offers Connor the perfect solution. What if he could show the queen of romance herself falling head-over-heels for all the world to see? Fizzy gives him a hard pass—unless he agrees to her list of demands. When he says yes, and production on The True Love Experiment begins, Connor wonders if that perfect match will ever be in the cue cards for him, too.

Happy Place

2023

by Emily Henry

Harriet and Wyn have been the perfect couple since they met in college—they go together like salt and pepper, honey and tea, lobster and rolls. Except, now—for reasons they're still not discussing—they don't. They broke up six months ago. And still haven't told their best friends.

Which is how they find themselves sharing the largest bedroom at the Maine cottage that has been their friend group's yearly getaway for the last decade. Their annual respite from the world, where for one vibrant, blue week they leave behind their daily lives; have copious amounts of cheese, wine, and seafood; and soak up the salty coastal air with the people who understand them most.

Only this year, Harriet and Wyn are lying through their teeth while trying not to notice how desperately they still want each other. Because the cottage is for sale and this is the last week they'll all have together in this place. They can't stand to break their friends' hearts, and so they'll play their parts. Harriet will be the driven surgical resident who never starts a fight, and Wyn will be the laid-back charmer who never lets the cracks show. It's a flawless plan (if you look at it from a great distance and through a pair of sunscreen-smeared sunglasses). After years of being in love, how hard can it be to fake it for one week… in front of those who know you best?

Arrangements in Blue

2023

by Amy Key

Arrangements in Blue is a poignant memoir that delves into the life of poet Amy Key, who, in her forties, embarks on an exploration of living without romantic love. With expectations of love shaped by Joni Mitchell's album Blue, Key reflects on a life that has unfolded differently than she imagined.

Key's journey is one of self-discovery, as she builds a home, travels solo, contemplates motherhood, and learns to recognize her personal milestones. She uncovers the often overlooked forms of connection and care, while also confronting the challenging emotions of loneliness, envy, grief, and failure.

This memoir is not just Key's story but an invitation to live and love more honestly, honoring the life one leads completely by oneself. Arrangements in Blue is a testament to the expansive potential of self-friendship and the importance of candidly embracing the full spectrum of human experience.

Divine Rivals

2023

by Rebecca Ross

Shadow and Bone meets Lore in Rebecca Ross's Divine Rivals, an epic enemies-to-lovers fantasy novel filled with hope and heartbreak, and the unparalleled power of love.

After centuries of sleep, the gods are warring again. But eighteen-year-old Iris Winnow just wants to hold her family together. Her mother is suffering from addiction and her brother is missing from the front lines. Her best bet is to win the columnist promotion at the Oath Gazette.

To combat her worries, Iris writes letters to her brother and slips them beneath her wardrobe door, where they vanish—into the hands of Roman Kitt, her cold and handsome rival at the paper. When he anonymously writes Iris back, the two of them forge a connection that will follow Iris all the way to the front lines of battle: for her brother, the fate of mankind, and love.

Romantic Comedy

Romantic Comedy is a hilarious, observant, and deeply tender novel from New York Times–bestselling author Curtis Sittenfeld.

Sally Milz is a sketch writer for "The Night Owls," a late-night live comedy show airing every Saturday. With a history of heartbreaks, Sally has given up on love, focusing instead on the occasional fling, her career, and her stepfather to fill her life.

However, when Sally's colleague Danny starts dating a stunning actor, Sally's frustration inspires her to create a sketch that satirizes the common trope of average-looking men with beautiful partners, while highlighting the rarity of the opposite scenario for women.

Enter Noah Brewster, a charming pop star known for his model-dating history, who stirs unexpected feelings in Sally as they work together. Despite the chemistry, Sally doubts a romance between them could be possible. After all, this isn't a romantic comedy... or is it?

Curtis Sittenfeld deftly navigates the exhilarating and confusing maze of love, alongside a witty examination of modern romance's social dynamics and gender roles.

Chlorine

2023

by Jade Song

In the vein of The Pisces and The Vegetarian, Chlorine is a debut novel that blurs the line between a literary coming-of-age narrative and a dark unsettling horror tale, told from an adult perspective on the trials and tribulations of growing up in a society that puts pressure on young women and their bodies. It is a powerful, relevant novel of immigration, sapphic longing, and fierce, defiant becoming.

Ren Yu is a swimmer. Her daily life starts and ends with the pool. Her teammates are her only friends. Her coach, her guiding light. If she swims well enough, she will be scouted, get a scholarship, go to a good school. Her parents will love her. Her coach will be kind to her. She will have a good life. But these are human concerns. These are the concerns of those confined to land, those with legs.

Ren grew up on stories of creatures of the deep, of the oceans and the rivers. Ones that called sailors to their doom. Ones that dragged them down and drowned them. Ones that feasted on their flesh. Ones of the creature that she's always longed to become: mermaid.

Ren aches to be in the water. She dreams of the scent of chlorine—the feel of it on her skin. And she will do anything she can to make a life for herself where she can be free. No matter the pain. No matter what anyone else thinks. No matter how much blood she has to spill.

White Cat, Black Dog

2023

by Kelly Link

Finding seeds of inspiration in the Brothers Grimm, seventeenth-century French lore, and Scottish ballads, Kelly Link spins classic fairy tales into utterly original stories of seekers—characters on the hunt for love, connection, revenge, or their own sense of purpose.

In "The White Cat's Divorce," an aging billionaire sends his three sons on a series of absurd goose chases to decide which child will become his heir. In "The Girl Who Did Not Know Fear," a professor with a delicate health condition becomes stranded for days in an airport hotel after a conference, desperate to get home to her wife and young daughter, and in acute danger of being late for an appointment that cannot be missed. In "Skinder's Veil," a young man agrees to take over a remote house-sitting gig for a friend. But what should be a chance to focus on his long-avoided dissertation instead becomes a wildly unexpected journey, as the house seems to be a portal for otherworldly travelers—or perhaps a door into his own mysterious psyche.

Twisting and turning in astonishing ways, expertly blending realism and the speculative, witty, empathetic, and never predictable—these stories remind us once again of why Kelly Link is incomparable in the realm of short fiction.

Just My Type

2023

by Falon Ballard

To win the job of her dreams, a relationship-prone journalist needs to learn how to stay single in this heartwarming and hilarious new romantic comedy from the beloved author of Lease on Love.

Lana Parker is an expert girlfriend. After a disastrous breakup with her high school boyfriend, she's bounced from long-term relationship to long-term relationship and even works as the dating and relationships columnist for one of Los Angeles's trendiest websites. But when Lana suddenly finds herself single, she's ready to take a break, both personally and professionally. That is, until her high school ex, Seth Carson, takes an assignment at Lana's site. Having spent years traveling the world as a freelance journalist, Seth's finally ready to put down roots.

Seth and Lana's chemistry is just as combative—and undeniable—as ever and quickly leads to a competition that could shape both of their careers. Pitted against each other by Lana's boss, they are each tasked with writing an article series that goes against their usual dating type: Lana needs to write about being single and staying single, while Seth must learn to settle down and become boyfriend material. Whoever's series is most popular wins a highly coveted dream job. But when the two square off, it's not only their careers on the line—it’s also their hearts.

Secretly Yours

2023

by Tessa Bailey

Secretly Yours is a steamy romantic comedy that brings together a starchy professor and his bubbly neighbor, creating sparks at every encounter. Hallie Welch has been infatuated with Julian Vos since she was fourteen, following an almost-kiss in the vineyards of his family's winery. Years later, Julian, now a handsome enigma, returns to their hometown, and Hallie is tasked with revamping the gardens on the Vos estate, reigniting her teenage crush and the hope for that long-awaited kiss.

However, Julian is not the teenager she once knew. His formal demeanor contrasts sharply with Hallie's free spirit, leading to fiery clashes. After a night of wine and whimsy, Hallie frets over a reckless act—a secret admirer letter penned in a drunken blur. Julian, on sabbatical to write a novel, finds himself distracted by Hallie's vibrant energy and presence, which disrupts his structured life. As he uncovers the anonymous letter, Julian is drawn irresistibly into Hallie's colorful world, challenging his orderly existence and making him question everything he thought he knew about love and life.

Georgie, All Along

2023

by Kate Clayborn

Georgie, All Along is a wise and witty novel that resonates with timely questions about love, career, reconciling with the past, and finding your path while knowing your true worth.

Longtime personal assistant Georgie Mulcahy has made a career out of putting others before herself. When an unexpected upheaval sends her away from her hectic job in L.A. and back to her hometown, Georgie must confront an uncomfortable truth: her own wants and needs have always been a disconcertingly blank page.

But then Georgie comes across a forgotten artifact—a 'friendfic' diary she wrote as a teenager, filled with possibilities she once imagined. To an overwhelmed Georgie, the diary's simple, small-scale ideas are a lifeline—a guidebook for getting started on a new path.

Georgie's plans hit a snag when she comes face to face with an unexpected roommate—Levi Fanning, onetime town troublemaker and current town hermit. But this quiet, grouchy man is more than just his reputation, and he offers to help Georgie with her quest. As the two make their way through her wishlist, Georgie begins to realize that what she truly wants might not be in the pages of her diary after all, but right by her side—if only they can both find a way to let go of the pasts that hold them back.

Astrid Parker Doesn't Fail

Astrid Parker Doesn't Fail is a romantic comedy that follows the story of an interior designer who is learning to navigate her love life without a perfect plan. For Astrid Parker, failure is not an option. After ending her engagement a year prior, she has thrown herself into her career, a move her friends consider obsessive, but she views as driven.

When Astrid is selected to be the designer for the renovation of the Everwood Inn, set to be featured on the popular HGTV show, Innside America, she sees it as an opportunity to focus on something other than her personal life and perhaps even earn her mother's elusive approval. However, she didn't account for Jordan Everwood, the lead carpenter and granddaughter of the inn's owner, who is fiercely protective of her family's history and not a fan of Astrid's modern design ideas.

Their professional tension takes a turn when it's suggested they exaggerate their disagreements for the show, leading to an unexpected evolution of their relationship. Faced with new feelings and challenges, Astrid must decide what success really means to her and whether she will follow the expected path or the one she truly desires.

Signal Fires

2022

by Dani Shapiro

Signal Fires weaves the lives of two families across fifty years, revealing the profound connections between them. Under an ancient oak on Division Street, retired doctor Ben Wilf and ten-year-old genius Waldo Shenkman share a moment beneath the stars, unaware of their intertwined destinies.

In a world where secrets and lies intertwine, the Wilfs and the Shenkmans are brought together by unforeseen forces. As the narrative spans the cosmos and half a century, these families are bound by the gravity of their shared history.

Signal Fires is an urgent and compassionate tale of kinship, remembrance, and the ties that bind us together. Dani Shapiro crafts a masterful story that illuminates the heart's capacity to heal itself through connections that transcend time and space.

The Undertaking of Hart and Mercy

2022

by Megan Bannen

Hart is a marshal, tasked with patrolling the strange and magical wilds of Tanria. It's an unforgiving job, and Hart's got nothing but time to ponder his loneliness. Mercy never has a moment to herself. She's been single-handedly keeping Birdsall & Son Undertakers afloat in defiance of sullen jerks like Hart, who seems to have a gift for showing up right when her patience is thinnest.

After yet another exasperating run-in with Mercy, Hart finds himself penning a letter addressed simply to "A Friend". Much to his surprise, an anonymous letter comes back in return, and a tentative friendship is born. If only Hart knew he's been baring his soul to the person who infuriates him most – Mercy. As the dangers from Tanria grow closer, so do the unlikely correspondents. But can their blossoming romance survive the fated discovery that their pen pals are their worst nightmares – each other?

Set in a world full of magic and demigods, donuts and small-town drama, this enchantingly quirky, utterly unique fantasy is perfect for readers of The House in the Cerulean Sea and The Invisible Library.

Thank You for Listening

2022

by Julia Whelan

Thank You for Listening is an uplifting novel by Julia Whelan, the author of My Oxford Year. It follows the story of Sewanee Chester, a former actress who has found a new path and success as an audiobook narrator, which also allows her to care for her ailing grandmother. Despite the satisfaction her current life brings, Sewanee has lost sight of her old dreams after a tragic accident.

Her journey takes an unexpected turn when she attends a book convention in Las Vegas and spends a whirlwind night with a charming stranger. Upon returning home, she learns that one of the world's most beloved romance novelists has requested her to narrate her last book alongside Brock McNight, the industry's most enigmatic and sought-after voice.

Sewanee, who has grown cynical of romance novels after her dreams were dashed, is hesitant to return to narrating them. However, her respect for the late author and the chance to help her grandmother more convinces her to take on the task. As she begins recording under her old romance pseudonym, Sewanee and Brock develop a genuine connection, veiled by the anonymity the job provides.

As she starts to dream again, Sewanee's life is upended by revelations and the harsh realities of life. Facing the risk of embracing long-buried desires, she stands to uncover a world of intimacy and acceptance she never thought possible—a world where she can finally listen to her heart.

Honey and Spice

2022

by Bolu Babalola

Introducing Bolu Babalola's dazzling debut novel, Honey and Spice, a story that brings together passion, humor, and heart, revolving around Kiki Banjo, a young Black British woman who has deliberately steered clear of love. However, she finds herself in an unexpected fake relationship with Malakai Korede, the very man she cautioned others about.

Sharp-tongued and secretly tender-hearted, Kiki is an expert in avoiding relationships. She's the voice behind the popular student radio show Brown Sugar, where she empowers the women of the African-Caribbean Society at Whitewell University to navigate away from the pitfalls of 'situationships', players, and heartbreak. But after a public mishap involving Malakai, dubbed 'The Wastemen of Whitewell', Kiki's show and reputation are at risk.

A novel that captures the essence of young love and self-discovery, Honey and Spice is a delightful blend of laughter, tension, and the thrill of romantic possibilities.

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow

2022

by Gabrielle Zevin

In this exhilarating novel, two friends--often in love, but never lovers--come together as creative partners in the world of video game design, where success brings them fame, joy, tragedy, duplicity, and, ultimately, a kind of immortality.

On a bitter-cold day, in the December of his junior year at Harvard, Sam Masur exits a subway car and sees, amid the hordes of people waiting on the platform, Sadie Green. He calls her name. For a moment, she pretends she hasn't heard him, but then, she turns, and a game begins: a legendary collaboration that will launch them to stardom. These friends, intimates since childhood, borrow money, beg favors, and, before even graduating college, they have created their first blockbuster, Ichigo. Overnight, the world is theirs. Not even twenty-five years old, Sam and Sadie are brilliant, successful, and rich, but these qualities won't protect them from their own creative ambitions or the betrayals of their hearts.

Spanning thirty years, from Cambridge, Massachusetts, to Venice Beach, California, and lands in between and far beyond, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow is a dazzling and intricately imagined novel that examines the multifarious nature of identity, disability, failure, the redemptive possibilities in play, and above all, our need to connect: to be loved and to love.

Nora Goes Off Script

Nora's life is about to get a rewrite...

Nora Hamilton knows the formula for love better than anyone. As a romance channel screenwriter, it's her job. But when her too-good-to work husband leaves her and their two kids, Nora turns her marriage's collapse into cash and writes the best script of her life. No one is more surprised than her when it's picked up for the big screen and set to film on location at her 100-year-old-home.

When former Sexiest Man Alive, Leo Vance, is cast as her ne'er-do-well husband, Nora's life will never be the same. The morning after shooting wraps and the crew leaves, Nora finds Leo on her porch with a half-empty bottle of tequila and a proposition. He'll pay a thousand dollars a day to stay for a week. The extra seven grand would give Nora breathing room, but it's the need in his eyes that makes her say yes.

For Nora and Leo, this kind of love is bigger than the big screen.

Book Lovers

2022

by Emily Henry

One summer. Two rivals. A plot twist they didn't see coming... Nora Stephens' life is books—she's read them all—and she is not that type of heroine. Not the plucky one, not the laidback dream girl, and especially not the sweetheart. In fact, the only people Nora is a heroine for are her clients, for whom she lands enormous deals as a cutthroat literary agent, and her beloved little sister Libby.

Which is why she agrees to go to Sunshine Falls, North Carolina for the month of August when Libby begs her for a sisters' trip away—with visions of a small town transformation for Nora, who she's convinced needs to become the heroine in her own story. But instead of picnics in meadows, or run-ins with a handsome country doctor or bulging-forearmed bartender, Nora keeps bumping into Charlie Lastra, a bookish brooding editor from back in the city. It would be a meet-cute if not for the fact that they've met many times and it's never been cute.

If Nora knows she's not an ideal heroine, Charlie knows he's nobody's hero, but as they are thrown together again and again—in a series of coincidences no editor worth their salt would allow—what they discover might just unravel the carefully crafted stories they've written about themselves.

Trust

2022

by Hernan Diaz

Trust is a sweeping puzzle of a novel about power, greed, love and a search for the truth that begins in 1920s New York. Can one person change the course of history? A Wall Street tycoon takes a young woman as his wife. Together, they rise to the top in an age of excess and speculation. Now a novelist is threatening to reveal the secrets behind their marriage. Who will have the final word in their story of greed, love and betrayal?

Composed of four competing versions of this deliciously deceptive tale, Trust by Hernan Diaz brings us on a quest for truth while confronting the lies that often live buried in the human heart.

An unparalleled novel about money, power, intimacy, and perception.

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