Silver Orphan


Martine Lacombe - 2012
    The subject matter covered in Silver Orphan is disturbing from a collective point of view. How we treat our elders, how we discard them - both in life and death - mirrors how we fare as a society. The old will soon outnumber the young - a chilling prospect treated with compassion in Silver Orphan. Interwoven in the stark reality of our superficial ethos is a story of love, redemption, and compassion. Silver Orphan should be included in ethics class curricula nationwide. A chance encounter; an unusual request; two lives inexorably transformed. When self-absorbed Brooke Blake uncharacteristically sheds her narcissistic armor, she discovers that the hand we lend may pave the way to our own redemption. Silver Orphan is a perplexing hall of mirrors where every image reflects agonizing - though liberating - secrets.

Montauk


Nicola Harrison - 2019
    For three months, this humble fishing village will serve as the playground for New York City’s wealthy elite. Beatrice Bordeaux was looking forward to a summer of reigniting the passion between her and her husband, Harry. Instead, tasked with furthering his investment interest in Montauk as a resort destination, she learns she’ll be spending twelve weeks sequestered with the high society wives at The Montauk Manor—a two-hundred room seaside hotel—while Harry pursues other interests in the city. College educated, but raised a modest country girl in Pennsylvania, Bea has never felt fully comfortable among these privileged women, whose days are devoted not to their children but to leisure activities and charities that seemingly benefit no one but themselves. She longs to be a mother herself, as well as a loving wife, but after five years of marriage she remains childless while Harry is increasingly remote and distracted. Despite lavish parties at the Manor and the Yacht Club, Bea is lost and lonely and befriends the manor’s laundress whose work ethic and family life stir memories of who she once was. As she drifts further from the society women and their preoccupations and closer toward Montauk’s natural beauty and community spirit, Bea finds herself drawn to a man nothing like her husband –stoic, plain spoken and enigmatic. Inspiring a strength and courage she had almost forgotten, his presence forces her to face a haunting tragedy of her past and question her future. Desperate to embrace moments of happiness, no matter how fleeting, she soon discovers that such moments may be all she has, when fates conspire to tear her world apart…

For One Night (Redemption Hwy 10) (The Daly's Book 3)


Leaona Luxx - 2019
     That’s all this was supposed to be. I came to Sin City with my best friend to celebrate my much-needed divorce. For once, I want to be the one with no care about tomorrow. That’s when he catches my eye. I watch as he works the room, and the women in it. He’s everything I hate in a man, but the epitome of what we all want. Sexy. Confident to a fault, and a smirk that will melt your panties. He’s everything my ex-husband is. As our eyes meet, I decide to give him a dose of his own medicine, show him how it feels to be used. Tonight, I’ll be the woman everyone stares at when she enters the room. The one I am in the boardroom, who takes no prisoners. I’ll be the one to bring him to his knees and leave him just as fast. I’ll be that woman. For One Night

The Fortnight in September


R.C. Sherriff - 1931
    The family’s only regret is leaving their garden where, we can imagine, because it is September the dahlias are at their fiery best: as they flash past in the train they get a glimpse of their back garden, where ‘a shaft of sunlight fell through the side passage and lit up the clump of white asters by the apple tree.’ This was what the First World War soldiers longed for; this, he imagined, was what he was fighting for and would return to (as in fact Sherriff did).He had had the idea for his novel at Bognor Regis: watching the crowds go by, and wondering what their lives were like at home, he ‘began to feel the itch to take one of those families at random and build up an imaginary story of their annual holiday by the sea...I wanted to write about simple, uncomplicated people doing normal things.’

At the Edge of Summer


Jessica Brockmole - 2016
    Yet his maman’s newest project is the most surprising: a fifteen-year-old Scottish girl grieving over her parents’ fate. A curious child with an artistic soul, Clare Ross finds solace in her connection to Luc, and she in turn inspires him in ways he never thought possible. Then, just as suddenly as Clare arrives, she is gone, whisked away by her grandfather to the farthest reaches of the globe. Devastated by her departure, Luc begins to write letters to Clare—and, even as she moves from Portugal to Africa and beyond, the memory of the summer they shared keeps her grounded.Years later, in the wake of World War I, Clare, now an artist, returns to France to help create facial prostheses for wounded soldiers. One of the wary veterans who comes to the studio seems familiar, and as his mask takes shape beneath her fingers, she recognizes Luc. But is this soldier, made bitter by battle and betrayal, the same boy who once wrote her wistful letters from Paris? After war and so many years apart, can Clare and Luc recapture how they felt at the edge of that long-ago summer?Bringing to life two unforgettable characters and the rich historical period they inhabit, Jessica Brockmole shows how love and forgiveness can redeem us.

Nine Women, One Dress


Jane L. Rosen - 2016
    Felicia has been quietly in love with her happily married boss for twenty years; now that he’s a lonely widower, she just needs the right situation to make him see her as more than the best executive assistant in Midtown Manhattan. Andrea is a private detective specializing in gathering evidence on cheating husbands—a skill she unfortunately learned from her own life—and can’t figure out why her intuition tells her the guy she’s tailing is one of the good ones when she hasn’t trusted a man in years. For these three women, as well as half a dozen others in sparkling supporting roles—a young model fresh from rural Georgia, a diva Hollywood star making her Broadway debut, an overachieving, unemployed Brown grad who starts faking a fabulous life on social media, to name just a few—everything is about to change, thanks to the dress of the season, the perfect little black number everyone wants to get their hands on…

The Sheikh's Marriage Bargain


Leslie North - 2020
    Marriage was never in the picture. But when her grandfather is tricked into signing a binding marriage contract to a man she finds repugnant, she has one choice: Run away. Her flight ends with a fortuitous meeting with Zayid Hasan, Crown Prince of Raihan, who offers the perfect solution to Laila’s predicament: marry him and solve both their problems. Zayid’s younger brother must marry his pregnant fiancé, and ancient laws dictate the oldest brother is required to marry first. Desperate for a way to protect both her grandfather and herself, Laila agrees. After all, their marriage will last only until Zayid’s brother can marry—and her marriage to the brooding, handsome prince isn’t much of a sacrifice. It’s not like she’s going to be foolish enough to fall in love…Zayid doesn’t know what to think about his new half-American wife. He doesn’t really want to think about her at all, but for some reason, he can’t stop himself. Strangely enough, all the royal functions that used to bore him silly are now entertaining with Laila by his side—even though he knows she’d much rather be alone creating her art. Though the marriage of convenience was his idea, he can’t help but start to wish it was the real deal. No way can he ignore the simmering chemistry that’s driving them both a bit crazy. He’s much better at ignoring what’s in his heart—until he realizes it just might break if he can’t convince Laila to stay with him forever…

The Way Life Should Be


Christina Baker Kline - 2007
    She is single in New York City, stuck in a job she doesn’t want and a life that seems to have, somehow, just happened.  She inherited a flair for Italian cooking from her grandmother, but she never seems to have the time for it—these days, her oven holds only sweaters. Tacked to her office bulletin board is a photo from a magazine of a tidy cottage on the coast of Maine—a charming reminder of a life that could be hers, if she could only muster the courage to go after it.On a hope and a chance, Angela decides to pack it all up and move to Maine, finding the nudge she needs in the dating profile of a handsome sailor who loves dogs and Italian food.  But her new home isn’t quite matching up with the fantasy. Far from everything familiar, Angela begins to rebuild her life from the ground up. Working at a local coffeehouse, she begins to discover the pleasures and secrets of her new small-town community and, in the process, realizes there’s really no such thing as the way life should be.

Dark Hunger (Warrior of Darkness #2)


Ava K. Michaels - 2019
    Protect her, not only from those hunting her but from her own demons……and from me. There’s a hunger growing inside me. I want her. Need her. Crave her. And my beast won’t stop until I have her. Mind. Body. And blood.Continue to see what lurks in the shadows of DARK HUNGER, book two in the latest dark paranormal hit series by Ava K Michaels.

Beach Town


Mary Kay Andrews - 2015
    But her last project literally went up in flames, and her career is on the verge of flaming out. Greer has been given one more chance, if she can find the perfect undiscovered beach hideaway for a big-budget movie. She zeroes in on a sleepy Florida panhandle town called Cypress Key. There's one motel, a marina, a long stretch of pristine beach and an old fishing pier with a community casino-which will be perfect for the film's explosive climax.There's just one problem. Eben Thibadeaux, the town mayor, completely objects to Greer's plan. A lifelong resident of Cypress Key, Eben wants the town to be revitalized, not commercialized. After a toxic paper plant closed, the bay has only recently been reborn, and Eb has no intention of letting anybody screw with his town again. But Greer has a way of making things happen, regardless of obstacles. And Greer and Eb are way too attracted to each other for either of them to see reason.Between an ambitious director and his entourage-including a spoiled "It Boy" lead actor-who parachute into town, a conniving local ex-socialite, and a cast of local fangirls and opportunists who catch the movie bug, nothing is going to be the same in Cypress Key. Now Greer is forced to make some hard choices: about the people and the town she's come to care about, and about her own life. True love is only for the movies, right? Can Greer find a way to be the heroine in her own life story? Told with inimitable heart and humor, Mary Kay Andrews' Beach Town is the perfect summer destination.

Tell Me When It Hurts


Christine M. Whitehead - 2009
    A magna cum laude graduate of Smith College, with a law degree from Columbia, Archer has a great husband, a wonderful daughter, and a fulfilling career. Add to that a slot on the U.S. Equestrian Team and Archer can almost forget her mysterious past, her violent history. Almost perfect. But nothing stays at equipoise forever. When Archer's daughter, Annie, is murdered, her life shatters and deadly skills, long dormant, emerge as highly relevant. As Archer embarks on her own path to salvation, she snips all ties with the past. Love is now an extravagance, no longer affordable for her.At her darkest ebb, Connor McCall, Harvard-educated financial baron turned Wyoming rancher, stumbles into Archer's life and presses her to start reconnecting the dots. It's an edgy blend of La Femme Nikita, The Horse Whisperer, and something else.In Tell Me When It Hurts, memories can sustain or sink you, all in the same night and all the same memories*READERS FAVORITE HONORABLE MENTION AWARD8

The Amazing Racist


Chhimi Tenduf-La - 2015
    If Eddie wants to wed Menaka, it is Thilak Rupasinghe, her orthodox terror of a father, whom he must woo and whose farts he must kiss – Thilak wants his daughter to marry someone of the same race, religion and caste, and if possible from the same locality.In a desperate bid to make his dream a reality, Eddie tries to connect with Thilak in other ways – eating curries that make him bleed spice and breathe fire, driving drunk through red lights, threatening co-workers with violence, and sleeping with snakes. But will Eddie ever be good enough for a man who hates the colour of his skin?Sparkling with wit and featuring an endearing cast of characters, The Amazing Racist is the story of a man who finds a home among strangers, of a father-in-law whose bark is worse than his bite, and of bonds that grow to be stronger than family ties.

The Understudy


David Nicholls - 2005
    McQueen (no relation, unfortunately) seems to have a knack for bad luck. But a failed marriage, a stalled career, a judgmental ex-wife, a distant daughter, a horrid little studio apartment in the far reaches of the London suburbs-all these pathetic elements seem to pale in the chiseled face of his newest tormentor: the Twelfth Sexiest Man in the World, Josh Harper.Josh is the star of Mad, Bad, and Dangerous to Know, a biographical play about Lord Byron-and Stephen is his understudy. Not only is Josh fantastically, infuriatingly good-looking, internationally renowned, and remarkably talented, he's also frustratingly healthy. No matter how many all-night booze-and-coke benders Josh goes on, he always shows up at the stage door for his call like clockwork. Stephen doubts he'll ever get his chance to slip on the puffy shirt and tight breeches of Byron and tread the boards in the role that would certainly be the break he's always waited for.And just when Stephen's sure he couldn't resent Josh more, he meets Josh's witty, restless American wife, Nora . . . and discovers he likes her a little too much. Another man might curse his luck at finding that his potential dream woman is a rival's wife, but at this point, Stephen would expect nothing else. Caught between his stirring feelings for Nora, the demands of an insistent and secretive Josh, and his lifelong desire for a real career in show business, Stephen must make a terrible decision: Will it be the girl or the fame?A hapless, bumbling bloke in love, an arrogant megastar with a potpourri of addictions, a sexy married woman out of her element in the fast lane-David Nicholls brings them all together in this knockout romantic comedy.From the Hardcover edition.

The Mermaid's Sister


Carrie Anne Noble - 2015
    By day, they gather herbs for Auntie’s healing potions; by night, Auntie spins tales of faraway lands and wicked fairies. Clara’s favorite story tells of three orphan infants—Clara, who was brought to Auntie by a stork; Maren, who arrived in a seashell; and their best friend, O’Neill, who was found beneath an apple tree.One day, Clara discovers shimmering scales just beneath her sister’s skin: Maren is becoming a mermaid and must be taken to the sea or she will die. So Clara, O’Neill, and the mermaid-girl set out for the shore. But the trio encounters trouble around every bend. Ensnared by an evil troupe of traveling performers, Clara and O’Neill must find a way to save themselves and the ever-weakening Maren.And always in the back of her mind, Clara wonders, if my sister is a mermaid, then what am I?

My Invented Life


Lauren Bjorkman - 2009
    Still, they're as close as sisters can be. Until Eva deletes Roz from her life like so much junk e-mail for no reason that Roz understands. Now Eva hangs out with the annoyingly petite cheerleaders, and Roz fantasizes about slipping bovine growth hormone into their Gatorade.Roz has a suspicion about Eva. In turn, Eva taunts Roz with a dare, which leads to an act of total insanity. Drama geeks clamor for attention, Shakespearean insults fly, and Roz steals the show in Lauren Bjorkman's hilarious debut novel.