Book picks similar to
Dinner at Mine by Chris Smyth


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Missing Evidence (Goodlove and Shek #5)


Al Macy - 2021
    The boy asks for help because he thinks his older sister may be some kind of vigilante. Belinda, eighteen and way too sexy for her own good, has been missing for five months. The police are convinced that she’s just another runaway. Her bullheaded stepdad agrees.But the younger brother found Belinda’s secret stash of chatroom texts. They suggest she’s on a misguided mission to entrap and kill a sexual predator. If so, she’s in over her head and on a collision course with a first-degree murder indictment.Goodlove promises Belinda’s family that he’ll help her.But first, he has to find her.Missing Evidence may be enjoyed as a standalone book or as part of the Goodlove and Shek series.

Friends ForNever


Melissa Baldwin - 2016
    She’s focused on her career and determined to leave her tiny cubicle behind for a fabulous corner office! But when a new co-worker, a friendship drama, and a hot workplace crush collide, Erin finds it harder and harder to focus. Especially when that crush on the oh-so-yummy Aiden Thomas starts to materialize into what feels like a magical relationship. Erin's life seems to finally be heading in the right direction...until suddenly friends aren't such great friends after all, her magical relationship hits a bumpy road, and her career could be derailed by it all. Erin learns a lesson the hard way: Sometimes people aren’t who they seem to be. With her happiness on the line, can Erin rise above her disappointments and create the life she's always dreamed of or will she be stuck being Friends ForNever? "Packed with love, laughter, and deliciously devious frenemies, Friends ForNever is an entertaining romantic comedy for the keeper shelf!" ~ Gemma Halliday, New York Times & USA Today bestselling author

Where'd You Go, Bernadette


Maria Semple - 2012
    But worn down by years of trying to live the Seattle life she never wanted, Ms. Fox is on the brink of a meltdown. And after a school fundraiser goes disastrously awry at her hands, she disappears, leaving her family to pick up the pieces--which is exactly what Bee does, weaving together an elaborate web of emails, invoices, and school memos that reveals a secret past Bernadette has been hiding for decades. Where'd You Go Bernadette is an ingenious and unabashedly entertaining novel about a family coming to terms with who they are and the power of a daughter's love for her mother.

Perfect Imperfections


Taryn Leigh - 2017
    Despite immediate success in her business, she struggles to understand who she really is and where she belongs in the world. So begins a journey of discovery as Sarah re-unites with Katy in the land where she was born, where the air is lavender scented, and weekends are spent cycling on the beach. Until the day when she has to return to London to face the ghosts of her past and confront a situation that has grown more complicated in her absence. Perfect Imperfections is an intriguing tale which hints at wrongdoings and deceit without giving too much away. The author cleverly weaves a tale around fragile yet strong Sarah as she tries to reconcile her past with her future, engaging the reader to the point where we simply want the best for her and for happiness finally to come her way.

Vince and Joy


Lisa Jewell - 2005
    Now nearly twenty years later they've both begun to ask themselves if that long-ago romance was the enduring love that they've been searching for.

The Wisdom Of Secrets: The Templar Covenant


Ami Noone - 2014
    Although they have been mentioned in the bible and traces of their existence are scattered throughout the globe, Peter Madeloy had always presumed that the myths of the possible existence of an ancient brotherhood, living on Earth for milennia, was nothing more than that, a myth. Until one day his father is brutally murdered and his mother is kidnapped. In exchange for his mother’s safe return, Peter must enter his father’s secret world, uncover the truth about his mother’s kidnappers and find the ancient artefact his father had dedicated his life to protecting. Peter enlists the help of his uncle, Daniel O'Brien, a professor of Philology and avid researcher of veiled organisations and his wife, Emily, a geneticist, to unravel a series of clues his father has left him. Together they embark on a journey that thrusts them into the centre of an ancient battle for supremacy that uncovers a truth that for them, will change the history and future of humanity simultaneously. With the enemy watching their every move Peter, Daniel and Emily must figure out his father's clues in time to save his mother and ultimately protect the world from the true secret that was unearthed from beneath King Solomon's Temple all those centuries ago.

The Other Side of Heartache


Sarah Jo Smith - 2013
    Summoned to her childhood home to sort through Penny’s belongings, the timing couldn’t be worse. Grieving over her losses and exhausted from a demanding teaching schedule, she worries that her marriage is collapsing under the pressure. While packing her mother’s closet, Grace discovers a box filled with mysterious keepsakes and old diaries written in Penny’s hand and takes them home. After reading pages filled with typical musings of a teenage girl from a generation ago, she stumbles upon a dark secret and is devastated to learn that what she believed her whole life about her family was based on lies.As Grace digs beneath the Rose family tree, she unearths more than one skeleton buried there. All the while, she must endure the wrath of her grandmother, Eleanor, who is determined to block her efforts to find out what happened when Penny was seventeen, as well as the underlying cause of her premature death. Yet Eleanor harbors a well-kept secret of her own, one more deceitful and calculating than Penny’s sin. Grace’s journey through an emotional labyrinth of passion, shame, and manipulation not only leads to more shocking revelations but also changes the course she had mapped for her life.Through a story told in alternating voices between the past and present where old morals and double standards from the historical 1950s and ‘60s clash with modern day values, Grace must decide if it’s worth taking an unforeseen risk to reaffirm her belief in the power of love. BOOK GROUP GUIDE INCLUDED.

The Birthday Girls


Pauline Lawless - 2013
    Their friendship has now lasted thirty-five years. As their birthdays all fall in the same week they long ago made a pact to spend each big decade birthday together. So far they'd managed it. Now as their thirty-ninth birthday looms, Angel, a famous Hollywood actress, announces that this will be her last birthday. Terrified of aging, she absolutely refuses to turn forty. So Lexi, the mother hen of the group and an artist, invites them to Florida for a week-long celebration of this, their last birthday together. Brenda, mother to five grown-up children, flies in from Dublin, eagerly looking forward to her first foreign holiday ever. Mel, however, has to be prised away from New York where she is a successful partner in a law firm - she is a workaholic with no other friends or love in her life. The four come together for the celebration but soon things start to unravel and the week ends disastrously. Lexi is distraught. Can their friendship endure? Only time will tell.

Making Your Mind Up


Jill Mansell - 2006
    1 bestselling authorLottie Carlyle isn't looking for love when she meets her new boss, Tyler Klein. Living in a beautiful cottage with her two adorable - sometimes - kids in an idyllic village in the heart of the Cotswolds, on good terms with her charming but hopeless ex-husband and with friends all around, she's happy enough with her lot. But Tyler's perfect for Lottie and quickly she falls for him - and he for her. Unfortunately, there's a problem. For reasons that are totally unfair, Lottie's children HATE Tyler. When a rival for Lottie's affections comes on the scene in the shape of charmer Seb, the children adore him, and he's certainly a distraction. But he's not Tyler - and he's not even at all what he seems. Lottie's got a problem - but thanks, in classic Jill Mansell style, to a tobogganing accident and a delicious series of mix-ups, all will be revealed and true love will find a way.

Half a World Away


Mike Gayle - 2019
    She provides for her son by cleaning houses she could never afford. Taken into care as a child, Kerry cannot forget her past.Noah Martineau is a successful barrister with a beautiful wife, daughter and home in fashionable Primrose Hill. Adopted as a young child, Noah never looks back.When Kerry contacts Noah, the sibling she lost on the day they were torn apart as children, she sets in motion a chain of events that will change both of their lives forever.By turns funny and moving, Half a World Away is a story that will stay with you long after you read its final page.

The Last Piece of My Heart


Paige Toon - 2017
    But, after numerous rejections from publishers, she accepts an alternative proposition: Nicole Dupre died leaving behind a bestselling novel and an incomplete sequel, and the family need someone to finish it. Bridget is just thankful to have her foot in the publishing door. But as she gets to know Nicole’s grieving family, and the woman behind the writing, Bridget’s priorities begin to change …

Maybe in Another Life


Taylor Jenkins Reid - 2015
    She has lived in six different cities and held countless meaningless jobs since graduating college. On the heels of leaving yet another city, Hannah moves back to her hometown of Los Angeles and takes up residence in her best friend Gabby’s guestroom. Shortly after getting back to town, Hannah goes out to a bar one night with Gabby and meets up with her high school boyfriend, Ethan.Just after midnight, Gabby asks Hannah if she’s ready to go. A moment later, Ethan offers to give her a ride later if she wants to stay. Hannah hesitates. What happens if she leaves with Gabby? What happens if she leaves with Ethan?In concurrent storylines, Hannah lives out the effects of each decision. Quickly, these parallel universes develop into radically different stories with large-scale consequences for Hannah, as well as the people around her. As the two alternate realities run their course, Maybe in Another Life raises questions about fate and true love: Is anything meant to be? How much in our life is determined by chance? And perhaps, most compellingly: Is there such a thing as a soul mate?Hannah believes there is. And, in both worlds, she believes she’s found him.

The Dinner List


Rebecca Serle - 2018
    That’s what Audrey says. She states it with a little bit of an edge, her words just bordering on cursive. That’s the thing I think first. Not: Audrey Hepburn is at my birthday dinner, but Audrey Hepburn is annoyed.At one point or another, we’ve all been asked to name five people, living or dead, with whom we’d like to have dinner. Why do we choose the people we do? And what if that dinner was to actually happen? These are the questions Rebecca Serle contends within her utterly captivating novel, The Dinner List, a story imbued with the same delightful magical realism as One Day, and the life-changing romance of Me Before You.When Sabrina arrives at her thirtieth birthday dinner she finds at the table not just her best friend, but also three significant people from her past, and well, Audrey Hepburn. As the appetizers are served, wine poured, and dinner table conversation begins, it becomes clear that there’s a reason these six people have been gathered together.Delicious but never indulgent, sweet with just the right amount of bitter, The Dinner List is a romance for our times. Bon appetit.

Chasing Kate


Kelly Byrne - 2012
    She’s single, alone in a new city, and facing rock bottom again. And she’s not exactly child-friendly, so when she finds a tiny stowaway, five-year-old Sadie Beck, in the back of her Jeep on Halloween night, she’s in no mood to play.Then her world gets weird.Against her will, Kate begins to feel a surprising connection with the odd little girl. And when she realizes Sadie may be in real trouble, she vows to protect her at any cost.On their frantic journey across several state lines Kate rips through a complex landscape of moral choices her prior transgressions have left her woefully unprepared to handle. She begins, very seriously, to wonder who’s saving whom.When they exhaust all other options, Kate’s forced to go to the one place she swore she never would again, and to make the most difficult decision of her life.At once hilarious and heartbreaking, Chasing Kate is a raucous voyage of self-transformation, fueled by an unconventional love story, wending down the twisty road to redemption.

The Seven Day Switch


Kelly Harms - 2021
    What a difference a week makes in a heartfelt, laugh-out-loud novel by the Washington Post bestselling author of The Overdue Life of Amy Byler.Celeste Mason is the Pinterest stay-at-home supermom of other mothers’ nightmares. Despite her all-organic, SunButter-loving, free-range kids, her immaculate home, and her volunteering awards, she still has time to relax with a nice glass of pinot at the end of the day. The only thing that ruins it all is her workaholic, career-obsessed neighbor, who makes no secret of what she thinks of Celeste’s life choices every chance she gets.Wendy Charles is a celebrated productivity consultant, columnist, and speaker. On a minute-by-minute schedule, she makes the working-mom hustle look easy. She even spends at least one waking hour a day with her kids. She’s not apologizing for a thing. Especially to Celeste, who plays her superior parenting against Wendy whenever she can.Who do Celeste and Wendy think they are? They’re about to find out thanks to one freaky week. After a neighborhood potluck and too much sangria, they wake up—um, what?—in each other’s bodies. Everything Celeste and Wendy thought they knew about the “other kind of mom” is flipped upside down—along with their messy, complicated, maybe not so different lives.