Book picks similar to
Blue Summer by Jim Nichols


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The Forever Summer


Jamie Brenner - 2017
    But one moment of weakness leaves Marin unemployed and alone, all in a single day. Then a woman claiming to be Marin's half-sister shows up, and it's all Marin can do not to break down completely. Seeking escape, Marin agrees to a road trip to meet the grandmother she never knew she had. As the summer unfolds at her grandmother's quaint beachside B&B, it becomes clear that the truth of her half-sister is just the beginning of revelations that will change Marin's life forever. THE FOREVER SUMMER is a delicious page-turner and a provocative exploration of what happens when our notions of love, truth, and family are put to the ultimate test.

The Australian Billionaire


Britney M. Mills - 2019
     Jackson Walker hasn't had the best family life. Growing up in the foster system in Australia, it wasn’t until he met his college football coach that he understood what a normal family looked like. When he gets the call that Coach has passed away, he returns to California for the funeral and to find a place to honor the man. Hailey Montgomery threw herself into real estate soon after breaking up with her boyfriend nearly five years ago. She’s been working to build a name for herself and when the chance to make partner at her firm becomes available, she jumps at the chance. But the only way to achieve that distinction is to find a commercial property for the guy she’s nicknamed ‘Golden Boy’ from all the stories her father told about him. As spending time together brings them closer, the trust between them is called into question. Can they work through what’s happened in their individual pasts to create a relationship that will last?

As Long As There Is Chocolate


Tana Lovett - 2018
     Sick of heartbreak, Kate decides to devote her life to making fine chocolates and forget about relationships altogether. But when she opens a gourmet chocolate shop across the street from a deli—run by a handsome Italian she dubs 'Fabio the Sandwich Boy'—she discovers she's not the only one dishing out temptation. Gio wants to help Kate overcome her fears about love, but his big, boisterous Italian family gets in the way. Even long dead relatives get in on the act—leading them on a treasure-seeking adventure. Can Gio convince Kate to take a chance on him? Or will his family's secrets get in their way?

The Hopefuls


Jennifer Close - 2016
    At dinner parties, guests compare their security clearance levels. They leave their BlackBerrys on the table. They speak in acronyms. And once they realize Beth doesn't work in politics, they smile blandly and turn away. Soon Beth and her husband, Matt, meet a charismatic White House staffer named Jimmy and his wife, Ashleigh, and the four become inseparable, coordinating brunch, birthdays, and long weekends away. But as Jimmy's star rises higher and higher, their friendship--and Beth's relationship with Matt--is threatened by jealousy, competition and rumors.

Dear Daughter


Elizabeth Little - 2014
    A change of clothes. A wig. An inconspicuous sedan. We doubled back once, twice, then drove south when we were really headed east. In San Francisco we had a girl who looked like me board a plane to Hawaii.Oh, I thought I was so clever.But you probably already know that I'm not.LA IT girl Janie Jenkins has it all. The looks, the brains, the connections. The criminal record.Ten years ago, in a trial that transfixed America, Janie was convicted of murdering her mother. Now she's been released on a technicality she's determined to unravel the mystery of her mother's last words, words that send her to a tiny town in the very back of beyond. But with the whole of America's media on her tail, convinced she's literally got away with murder, she has to do everything she can to throw her pursuers off the scent.She knows she really didn't like her mother. Could she have killed her?

The Party


Robyn Harding - 2017
    A lifetime of regrets.Sweet sixteen. It’s an exciting coming of age, a milestone, and a rite of passage. Jeff and Kim Sanders plan on throwing a party for their daughter, Hannah—a sweet girl with good grades and nice friends. Rather than an extravagant, indulgent affair, they invite four girls over for pizza, cake, movies, and a sleepover. What could possibly go wrong?But things do go wrong, horrifically so. After a tragic accident occurs, Jeff and Kim’s flawless life in a wealthy San Francisco suburb suddenly begins to come apart. In the ugly aftermath, friends become enemies, dark secrets are revealed in the Sanders’ marriage, and the truth about their perfect daughter, Hannah, is exposed.Harkening to Herman Koch’s The Dinner, Christos Tsiolkas’s The Slap, and Liane Moriarty’s Big Little Lies, The Party takes us behind the façade of the picture-perfect family, exposing the lies, betrayals, and moral lapses that neighbors don’t see—and the secrets that children and parents keep from themselves and each other.

Ginny Moon


Benjamin Ludwig - 2017
    She’s fourteen, autistic, and has a heart-breaking secret…Ginny Moon is trying to make sense of a world that just doesn’t seem to add up….After years in foster care, Ginny is in her fourth forever family, finally with parents who will love her.Everyone tells her that she should feel happy, but she has never stopped crafting her Big Secret Plan of Escape.Because something happened, a long time ago – something that only Ginny knows – and nothing will stop her going back to put it right…A fiercely poignant and inspirational story a lost girl searching for a place to call home. Ginny Moon will change everyone who spends time with her.

An American Tune


Barbara Shoup - 2012
    Not even her husband knows that back in the ‘60s she was Jane Barth, a student deeply involved in the antiwar movement. An American Tune moves back and forth in time, telling the story of Jane, a girl from a working-class family who fled town after she was complicit in a deadly bombing, and Nora, the woman she became, a wife and mother living a quiet life in northern Michigan. An achingly poignant account of a family crushed under the weight of suppressed truths, An American Tune illuminates the irrevocability of our choices and how those choices come to compose the tune of our lives.

The Bar Harbor Retirement Home for Famous Writers (And Their Muses)


Terri-Lynne DeFino - 2018
    But now he's come to the Bar Harbor Home for the Elderly to spend the remainder of his days among kindred spirits: the publishing industry's nearly gone but never forgotten greats. Only now, at the end of his life, does he comprehend the price of appeasing every desire, and the consequences of forsaking love to pursue greatness. For Alfonse has an unshakeable case of writer's block that distresses him much more than his precarious health.Set on the water in one of New England's most beautiful locales, the Bar Harbor Home was established specifically for elderly writers needing a place to live out their golden years—or final days—in understated luxury and surrounded by congenial literary company. A faithful staff of nurses and orderlies surround the writers, and are drawn into their orbit, as they are forced to reckon with their own life stories. Among them are Cecibel Bringer, a young woman who knows first-hand the cost of chasing excess. A terrible accident destroyed her face and her sister in a split-second decision that Cecibel can never forgive, though she has tried to forget. Living quietly as an orderly, refusing to risk again the cost of love, Cecibel never anticipated the impact of meeting her favorite writer, Alfonse Carducci—or the effect he would have on her existence. In Cecibel, Alfonse finds a muse who returns him to the passion he thought he lost. As the words flow from him, weaving a tale taken up by the other residents of the Pen, Cecibel is reawakened to the idea of love and forgiveness.As the edges between story and reality blur, a world within a world is created. It’s a place where the old are made young, the damaged are made whole, and anything is possible…

Little Mercies


Heather Gudenkauf - 2014
    She is a fiercely dedicated children's advocate and a devoted mother and wife. But one blistering summer day, a simple moment of distraction will have repercussions that Ellen could never have imagined, threatening to shatter everything she holds dear, and trapping her between the gears of the system she works for.Meanwhile, ten-year-old Jenny Briard has been living with her well-meaning but irresponsible father since her mother left them, sleeping on friends' couches and moving in and out of cheap motels. When Jenny suddenly finds herself on her own, she is forced to survive with nothing but a few dollars and her street smarts. The last thing she wants is a social worker, but when Ellen's and Jenny's lives collide, little do they know just how much they can help one another.A powerful and emotionally charged tale about motherhood and justice, Little Mercies is a searing portrait of the tenuous grasp we have on the things we love the most, and of the ties that unexpectedly bring us together.

Daughters of Fire


Tom Peek - 2012
    More than a decade in the research and writing, Tom Peek's debut novel mills Hawaii's tensions into an epic tale that illuminates the irrepressible spirit of a native people struggling to keep faith with aloha.

Midnight at the Blackbird Café


Heather Webber - 2019
    It is here that Anna Kate has returned to bury her beloved Granny Zee, owner of the Blackbird Café.It was supposed to be a quick trip to close the café and settle her grandmother’s estate, but despite her best intentions to avoid forming ties or even getting to know her father’s side of the family, Anna Kate finds herself inexplicably drawn to the quirky Southern town her mother ran away from so many years ago, and the mysterious blackbird pie everybody can’t stop talking about.As the truth about her past slowly becomes clear, Anna Kate will need to decide if this lone blackbird will finally be able to take her broken wings and fly.At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Ocean of Regret


Mary E. Hanks - 2018
    And complicated. Paisley Grant arrives in her hometown of Basalt Bay, Oregon, with three goals in mind—face her past, make amends, and learn how to breathe again. Three years ago, she left her husband a Dear John letter, then secretly drove to Chicago where she’s been living ever since. That wasn’t fair to Judah—or to her dad, whom she hasn’t spoken with in all this time. Facing them will be hard, but even more difficult will be seeing certain townspeople whose hurtful remarks made her run in the first place. Like her father-in-law, Mayor Grant. It will take every ounce of courage she possesses to look that man in the eye again. As determined as Paisley is to make amends, her plans don’t include getting back together with Judah. It’s time to move on—alone and independent. But when hurricane winds and destructive waves hit the coastal town, and she must face her greatest fear, will she cling to her plans and live with regret, or let them go to find love again?

At Home in Mitford / A Light in the Window / These High, Green Hills / Out to Canaan /A New Song / A Common Life / In This Mountain / Shepherds Abiding


Jan Karon - 1994
    At Home in Mitford/A Light in the Window/These High, Green Hills/Out to Canaan/A New Song/A Common Life/ In This Mountain/Shepherds Abiding

Ghosted


Rosie Walsh - 2018
    To Sarah, it seems as though her life has finally begun. And it's mutual: It's as though Eddie has been waiting for her, too. Sarah has never been so certain of anything. So when Eddie leaves for a long-booked vacation and promises to call from the airport, she has no cause to doubt him. But he doesn't call.Sarah's friends tell her to forget about him, but she can't. She knows something's happened--there must be an explanation.Minutes, days, weeks go by as Sarah becomes increasingly worried. But then she discovers she's right. There is a reason for Eddie's disappearance, and it's the one thing they didn't share with each other: the truth.