Before I Saw You


Emily Houghton - 2021
    They talk for hours every day. And they’ve never seen each other face-to-face. After being in terrible accidents, the two now share the same ward as long-term residents of St. Francis’s Hospital. Although they don’t get off to the best start, the close quarters (and Alfie’s persistence to befriend everyone he meets) brings them closer together. Pretty soon no one can make Alice laugh as hard as Alfie does, and Alfie feels like he’s finally found a true confidante in Alice. Between their late night talks and inside jokes, something more than friendship begins to slowly blossom between them. But as their conditions improve and the end of their stay draws closer, Alfie and Alice are forced to decide whether it’s worth continuing a relationship with someone who’s seen all of the worst parts of you, but never seen your actual face. A tender novel of healing and hope, Before I Saw You reminds us that connections can be found even in the most unexpected of places—and that love is almost always blind.

Diary of an AssCan


Andy Weir - 2015
    Read on for more from this exceptional character. Please note: This story includes language that some might find offensive.

Madam Tulip


David Ahern - 2016
    Spurred on by an ultimatum from her awesomely high-achieving mother, and with a little help from her theatrical friends, Derry embarks on a part-time career as Madam Tulip, fortune-teller to the rich and famous. But at her first fortune-telling gig - a celebrity charity weekend in a castle - a famous rap artist will die.As Derry is drawn deeper into a seedy world of celebrities, supermodels and millionaires, she finds herself playing the most dangerous role of her acting life. Trapped in a maze of intrigue, money and drugs, Derry's attempts at amateur detective could soon destroy her friends, her ex-lover, her father and herself.Madam Tulip is the first in a series of Tulip adventures in which Derry O’Donnell, celebrity fortune-teller and reluctant detective, plays the most exciting and perilous roles of her acting life.

The King of Pain: A Novel With Stories


Seth Kaufman - 2012
    Rick has 48 long hours ahead of him until his housekeeper will come to his rescue and nothing to pass the time except pain, bad memories—and a strange book he finds lying beside him. Called “A History of Prisons,” it is written by one Seth Kaufman, and it seems mysteriously relevant to Rick’s predicament…

The Story of Forgetting


Stefan Merrill Block - 2008
    Abel Haggard is an elderly hunchback who haunts the remnants of his family’s farm in the encroaching shadow of the Dallas suburbs, adrift in recollections of those he loved and lost long ago. As a young man, he believed himself to be “the one person too many”; now he is all that remains. Hundreds of miles to the south, in Austin, Seth Waller is a teenage “Master of Nothingness”–a prime specimen of that gangly, pimple-rashed, too-smart breed of adolescent that vanishes in a puff of sarcasm at the slightest threat of human contact. When his mother is diagnosed with a rare form of early-onset Alzheimer’s, Seth sets out on a quest to find her lost relatives and to conduct an “empirical investigation” that will uncover the truth of her genetic history. Though neither knows of the other’s existence, Abel and Seth are linked by a dual legacy: the disease that destroys the memories of those they love, and the story of Isidora–an edenic fantasy world free from the sorrows of remembrance, a land without memory where nothing is ever possessed, so nothing can be lost. Through the fusion of myth, science, and storytelling, this novel offers a dazzling illumination of the hard-learned truth that only through the loss of what we consider precious can we understand the value of what remains.

Hot as Puck


Lili Valente - 2017
    We're talking my last date went home with our waitress kind of failure.But I have an ace in the back pocket of my mom jeans--my sexy-as-sin best friend, NHL superstar forward, Justin Cruise.Justin owes me favors dating back to seventh grade, long before he became a hotshot with a world famous...stick. So in return for my undying platonic loyalty, all I want is an easy-peasy crash course on how to be a sex goddess.How hard can it be?***I have never been so hard in my life.The things I want to do to my sweet, kindergarten-teaching, mitten-crocheting best friend Libby Collins are ten different kinds of wrong. Maybe twenty.But I'm a firm believer in teaching by example, and by the end of our first lesson, we've graduated to a hands on approach to her education: my hands all over her, her hands all over me, and her hot mouth melting beneath mine as I prove to her there isn't a damned thing wrong with the way she kisses.Give me a month, and I'll transform Libby from wall flower to wall banger, and ensure she's confident enough to seduce any guy she wants.Problem is... the only guy I want her seducing is me.Hot as Puck is a sexy, flirty, friends-to-lovers Standalone romantic comedy from USA Today Bestseller Lili Valente.

Fools Rush In: An April Fools Day Anthology


Celia KennedyKaran Eleni - 2015
    On the first day of April, tricksters play their pranks, but what will be the outcome? Some will find love, while others will experience betrayal. Other pranksters will seize adventure and travel to confess or rekindle romance. Some may face rejection, seek forgiveness, or earn a second chance. Read on and find out how love and laughter rule the day.

Saabrina


Seth A. Cohen - 2015
    WHAT IF YOU'RE A SENTIENT SPACECRAFT who wants to be more than an intelligent weapon to implement government policy? Do you partner with another by-the-book sentinel like the one you just lost to your enemies or gamble on someone different, even if they are a middle-aged dad from a primitive world called Earth? And can you learn to work with him before your enemies kill billions? In Saabrina, book one of the Saabrina series, Saabrina, a small sentient spacecraft called a Saab (not the car from Sweden, but she can become one to blend in on Earth and anywhere else you’re expected to keep four wheels on the ground), gets a new partner, Bob Foxen, and maybe a start to something more.

The Christmas Heist


Landis Wade - 2015
    Several people want Edmonds in jail, including a man who says he works for an international toy company. Witness by witness the facts come out but who is to be believed and are there any True Believers? As the courtroom clock ticks down on Christmas Eve, it becomes clear that the fates of the defendant and Christmas are inextricably intertwined. A local newspaper reporter stirs things up by blogging about what he calls the “Trial of the Century” and tweets that the “Court’s Ruling Could Halt Christmas for Thousands.” Can an irascible judge looking toward retirement find it within himself to save Christmas?

The French Detective's Woman


Nina Bruhns - 2012
    Jean-Marc's by-the-book superiors are convinced his unorthodox methods make him a loose cannon...but he refuses to let the slippery master-of disguise get the better of him. So he starts hunting the man on his own time. "Lovers by Night..." Little does Jean-Marc realize that the ghostlike man is really a woman-Ciara Alexander, a stunningly seductive American art student whose accidental but sizzling stumble-upon at a nightclub leaves him breathless and hungry for more. That very night, their dangerous game of cat and mouse deepens...determined enemies chasing across Europe by day, intimate strangers by mask of night. That is, until the awful moment when Jean-Marc realizes the truth about Ciara, and must make the terrible choice between honor and duty...and the notorious woman he has unwittingly come to love.Former titles: The Paris Caper; The French Detective's Woman