Book picks similar to
The Hard Way by Julie Luongo


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Table Manners


Mia King - 2009
    Deidre McIntosh is everyone's favorite go-to person. She seems so successful, so capable, so just plain perfect, with a popular cooking show, her own line of cakes and cookies, and an ideal relationship with Kevin Johnson-considered one of the most desirable men in Seattle. Then Kevin's ex-fiancée, sultry magazine publisher Sabine Durant, suddenly appears, and Deidre needs help. Already intimidated by Kevin's glamorous, moneyed world-and his sister, who wants Deidre out of Kevin's life-she fears she's no match for Sabine. And the go-to girl must figure out where to go next before the tablecloth is pulled out from under her...

A Tiny House on Wheels


Enni Amanda - 2020
    She quits her advertising job, and moves into a small coastal town, in a tiny house on wheels. Surely, the laid back country life with organic veggies will turn back the clock for her. Now, she only has to find the right guy–and it can’t be her odd, new neighbour who doesn’t want kids. No matter how hot he is. This time, Nina is determined to follow the plan, not her heart.Jay is used to solitary life. After his father’s death, he tries to keep the farm running, even if he’s more comfortable with the veggies than people. But who needs social skills? In the backside of Raglan, nothing ever happens. Until a cute, Finnish blonde moves into the neighbouring lot, in a ridiculous tiny house. Can Jay work out his issues and take a chance on the most exotic thing that’s ever walked into his life?Work, life, love and all those other big questions that vex us are are tackled in this humorous and thought-provoking book, which will stay with you long after you reach the end.

Outtakes from a Marriage


Ann Leary - 2008
    After many lean years, they’ve got a grand Upper West Side apartment and an Amagansett beach house, and their two kids go to elite private schools. Even better, Julia and Joe are still madly in love.Or so Julia thinks until the fateful evening when she accidentally hears a voice mail on Joe’s phone— a message left by a sultry-sounding woman who clearly isn’t just a friend. Suddenly Julia is in a tailspin, compulsively checking Joe’s messages, stalking him in cyberspace, and showing up unannounced on his sets, wondering all along if she should confront him. Julia’s search forces her to consider the possibility that in the long process of helping Joe become something, she has become a bit of a “nothing,” as her daughter once described her to her class on career day. A big husband-stalking nothing.When Julia and Joe first met, she was an edgy East Village girl who wrote music reviews for the Village Voice and threw famed parties in a gritty downtown loft with her friends. Joe was a shy, awkward drama student who followed her around like a lovesick spaniel. After he won her heart, Julia helped Joe evolve into a roguishly handsome charmer who became increasingly obsessed with his looks and his career. Julia, meanwhile, settled into doting motherhood and a new life of comfy clothes and parenting associations. Now, faced with the looming awards show and the possibility of a destroyed marriage, Julia embarks on an accelerated self-improvement routine of Botox, hair extensions, and erotically charged shrink sessions while dodging the sancti-mommies who lie in wait for her at her son’s preschool each day.A unique take on the perennially popular issue of women trying not to lose themselves in matrimony and motherhood, Outtakes from a Marriage is expertly and humorously set against the Manhattan preschool mafia, the Hollywood machine, and the ticking clock of a waiting red carpet.

Why the Tree Loves the Ax


Jim Lewis - 1998
    Readers of Denis Johnson, David Foster Wallace, Mary Gaitskill, Susanna Moore, and other contemporary fiction writers will welcome this haunting novel about a 27-year-old woman who flees her failed marriage only to find herself involved in a perplexing spiral of murder, counterfeit, and false identity.

The Garden of Small Beginnings


Abbi Waxman - 2017
    One mental breakdown and some random suicidal thoughts later, she’s just starting to get the hang of this widow thing. She can now get her two girls to school, show up to work, and watch TV like a pro. The only problem is she’s becoming overwhelmed with being underwhelmed. At least her textbook illustrating job has some perks—like actually being called upon to draw whale genitalia. Oh, and there’s that vegetable-gardening class her boss signed her up for. Apparently, being the chosen illustrator for a series of boutique vegetable guides means getting your hands dirty, literally. Wallowing around in compost on a Saturday morning can’t be much worse than wallowing around in pajamas and self-pity. After recruiting her kids and insanely supportive sister to join her, Lilian shows up at the Los Angeles botanical garden feeling out of her element. But what she’ll soon discover—with the help of a patient instructor and a quirky group of gardeners—is that into every life a little sun must shine, whether you want it to or not…READERS GUIDE INCLUDED*HelloGiggles**Bustle

Something to Talk about


Sarah Webb - 2002
    Soon easy-going Max is running scared of man-eater Jenny and would prefer to be out flying his power kites than falling into the dating pit again. But fate works in mysterious ways.

Kiss Carlo


Adriana Trigiani - 2017
    The Palazzini Cab Company & Western Union Telegraph Office, owned and operated by Dominic Palazzini and his three sons, is flourishing: business is good, they’re surrounded by sympathetic wives and daughters-in-law, with grandchildren on the way. But a decades-long feud that split Dominic and his brother Mike and their once-close families sets the stage for a re-match. Amidst the hoopla, the arrival of an urgent telegram from Italy upends the life of Nicky Castone (Dominic and his wife’s orphaned nephew) who lives and works with his Uncle Dom and his family. Nicky decides, at 30, that he wants more—more than just a job driving Car #4 and more than his longtime fiancée Peachy DePino, a bookkeeper, can offer. When he admits to his fiancée that he’s been secretly moonlighting at the local Shakespeare theater company, Nicky finds himself drawn to the stage, its colorful players and to the determined Calla Borelli, who inherited the enterprise from her father, Nicky must choose between the conventional life his family expects of him or chart a new course and risk losing everything he cherishes.From the dreamy mountaintop village of Roseto Valfortore in Italy, to the vibrant streets of South Philly, to the close-knit enclave of Roseto, Pennsylvania, to New York City during the birth of the golden age of television, Kiss Carlo is a powerful, inter-generational story that celebrates the ties that bind, while staying true to oneself when all hope seems lost.Told against the backdrop of some of Shakespeare’s greatest comedies, this novel brims with romance as long buried secrets are revealed, mistaken identities are unmasked, scores are settled, broken hearts are mended and true love reigns. Trigiani’s consummate storytelling skill and her trademark wit, along with a dazzling cast of characters will enthrall readers. Once again, the author has returned to her own family garden to create an unforgettable feast. Kiss Carlo is a jubilee, resplendent with hope, love, and the abiding power of la famiglia.

Goodbye, Ruby Tuesday


Donna Hay - 2005
    Her daft name, her hand-me-down clothes, her mother's habit of turning up to school parents' evenings dressed like Shirley Bassey. Most of all she hated being the daughter of Normanford's only single parent, failed nightclub singer and resident goodtime girl, Sadie Moon. As soon as she could, she decided to quit Yorkshire. She bought a one-way ticket to London, changed her name and escaped - for ever, so she thought. But nearly twenty years on, fate has conspired to send Roo MacPherson, now a successful management consultant, back to Normanford. Back to the friends and family she once knew too well, and the boy who broke her heart. And back to the infamous Sadie, now in her 50s and still acting like a teenager. But as Roo discovers, there are two sides to every story. Perhaps the past is not exactly as she remembers it ...

A Life Without Water


Marci Bolden - 2019
    But on the day before their daughter’s thirtieth birthday, John barges back into Carol’s life with a request that threatens the fragile stability she has built.John Bowman is sick. Very sick. While he still can, he has some amends to make and some promises to fulfill. But to do that, he not only needs his ex-wife’s agreement…he needs her.With the past hovering between them like a ghost, Carol and John embark on a decades-overdue road trip. Together they plunge back into a life without water…but which may ultimately set them free.

Anything for Jane


Cheryl Mendelson - 2007
    Talented, troubled, and self-centered, Jane Braithwaite makes her well-meaning upper-middle-class family miserable, enmeshing them in the complicated lives of a homeless family, a poor teenager with no family, and a would-be family foundering on childlessness. When catastrophe finally threatens, all their dilemmas are resolved by the same stunning and unexpected means.All the while, the Braithwaites involve old and new friends in their struggles–a lovesick clergyman, a lonely doctor and his baby-obsessed wife, a libertarian billionaire, a money-loving philosopher, and a hard-bitten but sexy poverty activist. Their social and political clashes provide entertainment both comic and serious.

The Breakup


Brenda Grate - 2012
    She accidentally used a knife, and now she has become something of a media sensation. Her family wants her ex-boyfriend to pay an even steeper price for his transgressions against Aja, but she won't be a part of it. To flee the media attention and the conflict between her family and Stephen, her ex-boyfriend, Aja flees to Italy. There she finds vineyards, golden landscapes, Marco and Pietro. It is time to put her life back together.She does not know her ex-boyfriend is on his way. He is not finished with her yet. The Breakup is a romantic tale of a woman who longs to be with the right man, only to realize that searching for Mr. Right has led her down the wrong path. Will she find what she is looking for? Will Stephen get his revenge?

Stella Rose


Tammy Flanders Hetrick - 2015
    But Abby struggles to connect with Olivia and she soon finds guardianship of a headstrong teenager daunting beyond her wildest misgivings. Despite her best efforts, and the help of friends old and new, she is unable to keep Olivia from self-destruction. As Abby’s journey unfolds, she grapples with raising a grieving teenager, realizes she didn’t know Stella as well as she thought, and discovers just how far she will go to save the most precious thing in her life.

The Best of Us


Sarah Pekkanen - 2013
    Tina is drowning under the demands of mothering four young children. Allie needs to escape from the shattering news about an illness that runs in her family. Savannah is carrying the secret of her husband’s infidelity. And, finally, there’s Pauline, who spares no expense to throw her husband an unforgettable birthday celebration, hoping it will gloss over the cracks that have already formed in their new marriage.The week begins idyllically, filled with languorous days and late nights of drinking and laughter. But as a hurricane approaches the island, turmoil builds, forcing each woman to re-evaluate everything she’s known about the others—and herself.

The Great Christmas Knit Off


Alex Brown - 2014
    For fans of Trisha Ashley and Jenny Colgan.Heartbroken after being jilted at the altar, Sybil has been saved from despair by her knitting obsession and now her home is filled to bursting with tea cosies, bobble hats, and jumpers. But, after discovering that she may have perpetrated the cock-up of the century at work, Sybil decides to make a hasty exit and, just weeks before Christmas, runs away to the picturesque village of Tindledale.There, Sybil discovers Hettie’s House of Haberdashery, an emporium dedicated to the world of knitting and needle craft. But Hettie, the outspoken octogenarian owner, is struggling and now the shop is due for closure. And when Hettie decides that Sybil’s wonderfully wacky Christmas jumpers are just the thing to add a bit of excitement to her window display, something miraculous starts to happen…

The Third Angel


Alice Hoffman - 2008
    Frieda Lewis, a doctor’s daughter and a runaway, becomes the muse of an ill-fated rock star. And beautiful Bryn Evans is set to marry an Englishman while secretly obsessed with her ex-husband. At the heart of the novel is Lucy Green, who blames herself for a tragic accident she witnessed at the age of twelve, and who spends four decades searching for the Third Angel–the angel on earth who will renew her faith.Brilliantly evoking London’s King’s Road, Knightsbridge, and Kensington while moving effortlessly back in time, The Third Angel is a work of startling beauty about the unique, alchemical nature of love.