Book picks similar to
The Only Way to Paradise by G.G. Vandagriff


fiction
chick-lit
women-s-fiction
contemporary

Covet


Tracey Garvis Graves - 2013
    Downsized during the recession and out of work for a year, Chris copes by retreating to a dark place where no one can reach him, not even Claire. When he’s offered a position that will keep him away from home four nights a week, he dismisses Claire’s concern that time apart could be the one thing their fragile union can’t weather. Their suburban life may look idyllic on the outside, but Claire has never felt so disconnected from Chris, or so lonely.Local police officer Daniel Rush used to have it all, but now he goes home to an empty house every night. He pulls Claire over during a routine traffic stop, and they run into each other again at the 4th of July parade. When Claire is hired to do some graphic design work for the police department, her friendship with Daniel grows, and soon they’re spending hours together. Claire loves the way Daniel makes her feel, and the way his face lights up when she walks into the room. Daniel knows that Claire’s marital status means their relationship will never be anything other than platonic. But it doesn’t take long before Claire and Daniel are in way over their heads, and skating close to the line that Claire has sworn she’ll never cross.

The View from Penthouse B


Elinor Lipman - 2013
    For Margot, divorced amid scandal (hint: her husband was a fertility doctor) and then made Ponzi-poor, it’s a chance to shake Gwen out of her grief and help make ends meet. To further this effort she enlists a third boarder, the handsome, cupcake-baking Anthony. As the three swap money-making schemes and timid Gwen ventures back out into the dating world, the arrival of Margot’s paroled ex in the efficiency apartment downstairs creates not just complications but the chance for all sorts of unexpected forgiveness. A sister story about love, loneliness, and new life in middle age, this is a cracklingly witty, deeply sweet novel from one of our finest comic writers. “Her worldview? Her enthusiasm, her effortless wit? Just a few of the reasons we love Elinor Lipman.”–Boston Globe

The Vintage Teacup Club


Vanessa Greene - 2012
    They decide to share it - and form a friendship that changes their lives.Jenny can't wait to marry Dan. Then, after years of silence, she hears from the woman who could shatter her dreams.Maggie has put her broken heart behind her and is gearing up for the biggest event of her career - until she's forced to confront the past once more.Alison seems to have it all: married to her childhood sweetheart, with two gorgeous daughters. But as tensions mount, she is pushed to breaking point.Dealing with friendship and families, relationships and careers, highs and lows, The Vintage Teacup Club is heart-warming storytelling at its very best.

Good Girls


Joycey Ann Crutchley - 2006
    Good Girls is a feel good, fast paced, thought provoking novel about four heroines. Four best friends who epitomise the newly evolved 21st Century Woman. The woman who dares to be different, the woman who dares to rebel. Straight-laced Cat steps out of character when she secretly flies all the way to Sydney to 'boil her soul mate's rabbits ' Jules embraces single-dom and commitment phobia, so when she falls in love with an actor ten years her junior, in the space of twenty-four hours, a spanner is well and truly thrown into her perfect life. Kizzy also meets the man of her dreams and much to her mother's chagrin they plan to spend all summer together. Unfortunately unbeknownst to everyone the man is actually her father. There's only so much sexist behaviour a woman can take. So bitter and twisted, Em leaves Japan and her boyfriend behind and embarks upon a journey that will not only avenge the male race but hopefully put her back on her correct and spiritual path. "Absolutely disgusting." Grandma. "Funny as f*#%. If Jackie Collins and Helen Fielding got it on then Crutchley would be their love child." Emma Twigge, The CP Gazette.

Shoe Strings


Christy Hayes - 2011
    The cabin she rents is perfect, but one look at the owner’s son and Angelita’s in lust big time. She finds resisting the charming Jesse Bloodworth as difficult as maneuvering small town life in her custom made stilettos. Jesse has spent years rebuilding his relationship with his teenaged son and ex-wife after running out on them eleven years ago. But his dad’s not so quick to forgive and forget. The water under the bridge becomes mighty choppy when beautiful Angelita walks into their lives. Jesse’s ex, Kerri Ann, is a far cry from where she thought she’d be in life. Even before she got pregnant with Ty, things between her and Jesse had faltered, and there was only one person to blame: Bryce Jenson. Kerri Ann never expected her long-ago crush to settle back into Sequoyah Falls to practice law. Hell, no one did. Bryce had his reasons for returning home and Kerri Ann was at the very top. They seem destined to remain just friends, until Angelita comes to town and stirs everything up. As Angelita and Jesse embark on a relationship, her father’s demands become threats and she’s forced back to Atlanta. Jesse’s attempt to save her uncovers more of her past than he bargained for. Will Angelita’s prince charming come to her rescue or does Jesse’s love come with Shoe Strings attached?

Best Friends and Bastards


Jaci Byrne - 2011
    Living on Sydney's sublime northern beaches, she's a well-respected Nurse Unit Manager of a busy obstetrics unit and married to a successful realtor. She should have ‘no worries mate’, as the Aussie saying goes.However, for Angie, this is far from the truth. Although she suspects her husband George of having had past dalliances, she chooses to live in complete denial, believing that a baby will solve this dilemma. Only problem: her biological clock is ticking, and there's no baby in sight. And her interfering mother constantly adds fuel to the proverbial marital fire.Booking a romantic holiday to Bali for her and George in order to reinvigorate their marriage, Angie soon finds herself in a situation far out of her comfort zone when her husband backs out of the holiday and her best friend Charlotte takes his place. After arguing with Charlotte, Angie calls 'time out' and travels to the Ubud Writers' Festival where she fortuitously meets the loveable larrikin Jack Ambrose. Consumed with guilt towards her feelings for Jack, Angie flees Bali.On her return to Australia, she desperately attempts to bury her feelings and concentrate on her marriage, but when she begins to suspect her husband of being a right bastard, her world is turned upside down. And her best friend is no help at all - indeed, Angie discovers that Charlotte is part of the problem.Written with splashes of compassion, streams of humour, rivers of emotion and oceans of passion, ‘Best Friends and Bastards,’ by Jaci Byrne is a waterfall of brilliant reading and a real page turner packed with action and intrigue.

The Opposite of Me


Sarah Pekkanen - 2010
    Determined to get noticed, Lindsey is finally on the cusp of being named VP creative director of an elite New York advertising agency, after years of eighty-plus-hour weeks, migraines, and profound loneliness. But during the course of one devastating night, Lindsey’s carefully constructed life implodes. Humiliated, she flees the glitter of Manhattan and retreats to the time warp of her parents’ Maryland home. As her sister plans her lavish wedding to her Prince Charming, Lindsey struggles to maintain her identity as the smart, responsible twin while she furtively tries to piece her career back together. But things get more complicated when a long-held family secret is unleashed that forces both sisters to reconsider who they are and who they are meant to be.

Very Valentine


Adriana Trigiani - 2009
    The adventures of an extraordinary and unforgettable woman as she attempts to rescue her family’s struggling shoe business and find love at the same time, Very Valentine sweeps the reader from the streets of Manhattan to the picturesque hills of la bella Italia.

Moonlight on the Nantahala


Micheal Rivers - 2011
    Moonlight on the Nantahala is set in the Appalachian Mountains of Western North Carolina. It is a contemporary and woman's fiction novel with a hint of supernatural mixed in. Who is the phantom dancing in the mist on the Nantahala River? This tale of Edward Caulfield stands as a testament of the love he held in his heart for a woman he was never allowed to grow old with. Fate took Celia from Edward early in their marriage. On her deathbed Celia vowed they would be together again, not even death would separate them. In his twilight years he moves closer to town yet keeps the old home by the river that he and his beloved Celia shared. He maintains the old home as a shrine to her to cope with his grief. Betty, his strong willed housekeeper and friend keeps the widower on his toes with her humorous criticisms. Lena, a young woman, often trespasses on the old man's property to sit by the river in deep thought. They exchange their secrets and stories eventually. Lena's emotionally abusive husband and crumbling marriage weighs heavily on Edward. He sees her like the daughter he never had and wants to protect her. Loneliness and learning to trust again forges a critically needed friendship for them. On the Nantahala River's edge under an aging oak tree could the legacy of "The Perfect Rose" forever change a troubled heart?

Write My Name Across the Sky


Barbara O'Neal - 2021
    Knowing her own involvement in his misdeeds decades earlier, Gloria realizes she could be the next arrest and must flee. But first, she needs to make sure her nieces are protected from any fallout.The sisters, though in their thirties, are still constantly at odds with each other. Willow, struggling to live up to their mother’s fame as a singer-songwriter, is recovering from a failed album and yet another heartbreak, while Sam is desperate to revive her floundering video game company.When circumstances out of their control bring the three women back together, they will each have to reckon with and reconcile their interwoven traumas, past loves, and the looming consequences that could either destroy their futures or bring them closer than ever.

A Perfect Fit


Heather Tullis - 2012
    Learning her father picked him out to be her future husband, she is not amused, but neither can she back off the path they’ve begun together. But can two people miles apart in so many ways really make things work?

Silver Girl


Elin Hilderbrand - 2011
    Connie's had recent worries of her own, and the two depart for a summer on Nantucket in an attempt to heal. But the island can't offer complete escape, and they're plagued by new and old troubles alike. When Connie's brother Toby - Meredith's high school boyfriend - arrives, Meredith must reconcile the differences between the life she is leading and the life she could have had. Set against the backdrop of a Nantucket summer, Elin Hilderbrand delivers a suspenseful story of the power of friendship, the pull of love, and the beauty of forgiveness.

Where We Belong


Emily Giffin - 2012
    With a fulfilling career and satisfying relationship, she has convinced everyone, including herself, that her life is just as she wants it to be. But one night, Marian answers a knock on the door . . . only to find Kirby Rose, an eighteen-year-old girl with a key to a past that Marian thought she had sealed off forever. From the moment Kirby appears on her doorstep, Marian’s perfectly constructed world—and her very identity—will be shaken to its core, resurrecting ghosts and memories of a passionate young love affair that threaten everything that has come to define her. For the precocious and determined Kirby, the encounter will spur a process of discovery that ushers her across the threshold of adulthood, forcing her to re-evaluate her family and future in a wise and bittersweet light. As the two women embark on a journey to find the one thing missing in their lives, each will come to recognize that where we belong is often where we least expect to find ourselves—a place that we may have willed ourselves to forget, but that the heart remembers forever.

The House at the End of Hope Street


Menna van Praag - 2013
    A beautiful older woman named Peggy greets her and invites her to stay, on the house's usual conditions: she has ninety-nine nights to turn her life around. With nothing left to lose, Alba takes a chance and moves in. She soon discovers that this is no ordinary house. Past residents have included Virginia Woolf and Dorothy Parker, who, after receiving the assistance they needed, hung around to help newcomers - literally, in talking portraits on the wall. As she escapes into this new world, Alba begins a journey that will heal her wounds - and maybe even save her life. Filled with a colorful and unforgettable cast of literary figures, The House at the End of Hope Street is a charming, whimsical novel of hope and feminine wisdom that is sure to appeal to fans of Jasper Fforde and especially Sarah Addison Allen.

Emily and Einstein


Linda Francis Lee - 2010
    But he needed one…Emily and her husband Sandy Portman seemed to live a gracious if busy life in an old-world, Upper West Side apartment in the famous Dakota building.  But one night on the way to meet Emily, Sandy dies in a tragic accident.  The funeral isn't even over before Emily learns she is on the verge of being evicted from their apartment.  But worse than the possibility of losing her home, Emily is stunned when she discovers that her marriage was made up of lies.  Suddenly Emily is forced on a journey to find out who her husband really was . . . all the while feeling that somehow he isn't really gone.  Angry, hurt, and sometimes betrayed by loving memories of the man she lost, Emily finds comfort in a scruffy dog named Einstein.  But is Einstein's seemingly odd determination that she save herself enough to make Emily confront her own past?  Can he help her find a future—even after she meets a new man?