Sweet Thing


Renee Carlino - 2013
    then you'll hear the sound of your soul."Mia Kelly thinks she has it all figured out. She's an Ivy League graduate, a classically trained pianist, and the beloved daughter of a sensible mother and offbeat father. Yet Mia has been stalling since graduation, torn between putting her business degree to use and exploring music, her true love.When her father unexpectedly dies, she decides to pick up the threads of his life while she figures out her own. Uprooting herself from Ann Arbor to New York City, Mia takes over her father's cafe, a treasured neighborhood institution that plays host to undiscovered musicians and artists. She's denied herself the thrilling and unpredictable life of a musician, but a chance encounter with Will, a sweet, gorgeous, and charming guitarist, offers her a glimpse of what could be. When Will becomes her friend and then her roommate, she does everything in her power to suppress her passions—for him, for music—but her father's legacy slowly opens her heart to the possibility of something more.A "heartbreaking and romantic" (Aestas Book Blog) debut, Sweet Thing explores the intensity and complexities of first love and self-discovery.

Astrid Sees All


Natalie Standiford - 2021
    But the recent death of her father has so devastated her that her mother wants her to remain home in Baltimore to recover. Phoebe wants to return to New York, not only to chase the glamorous life she so desperately craves but also to confront Ivan, the older man who painfully wronged her.With her best friend Carmen, she escapes to the East Village, disappearing into an underworld haunted by artists, It Girls, and lost souls trying to party their pain away. Carmen juggles her junkie-poet boyfriend and a sexy painter while, as Astrid the Star Girl, Phoebe tells fortunes in a nightclub and plots her revenge on Ivan.When the intoxicating brew of sex, drugs, and self-destruction leads Phoebe to betray her friend, Carmen disappears, and Phoebe begins an unstoppable descent into darkness. She may have a chance to save herself—and Carmen, if she can find her—but to do it she must face what’s hiding in the shadows she’s been running from—within her heart and in the dangerous midnight streets.

Infinity + One


Amy Harmon - 2014
    She’s rich. She’s beautiful. She’s impossibly famous. And Bonnie Rae Shelby wants to die.Finn Clyde is a nobody. He’s broken. He’s brilliant. He’s impossibly cynical. And all he wants is a chance at life.One girl. One boy. An act of compassion. A bizarre set of circumstances. And a choice – turn your head and walk away, or reach out your hand and risk it all?With that choice, the clock starts ticking on a man with a past and a girl who can’t face the future, counting down the seconds in an adventure riddled with heartbreak and humor, misunderstanding and revelation. With the world against them, two very different people take a journey that will not only change their lives, but may cost them their lives as well.Infinity + One is a tale of shooting stars and fame and fortune, of gilded cages and iron bars, of finding a friend behind a stranger’s face, and discovering love in the oddest of places.

Deadly Commitment


Kathy Harris - 2019
    As days go by, she becomes convinced the homeless man outside her building is stalking her. But after learning the real identity of the intimidating stranger, she faces something even more threatening--the truth about her fiancé. Deadly Secrets is a new fiction series with southern charm and big-city twists. Set in the author's hometown of Nashville, Tennessee, it is filled not only with intrigue and suspense but subtle glimpses into how God is at work in the lives of ordinary people doing ordinary jobs . . . or maybe they aren't so ordinary after all.

Fury


Michelle Pace - 2012
    Finally success is within her grasp. A journalist for the music magazine, The Sound Wave, the assignment of a lifetime just landed in her lap. An all access pass to tour with the British rock band, Fury. Their latest album went triple platinum and they've never granted interviews.Once her assignment begins, Fury's tour explodes in a Molotov cocktail of sex, scandal, and violence that threatens to ruin Fury's quest for worldwide success. Can Cheyenne navigate her treacherous path unscathed, or will the demons of her past poison her blossoming career?

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

Letters for Emily


Camron Wright - 2001
    My hope is that you'll consider my words and remember my heart.... LETTERS FOR EMILYHarry Whitney is dying. He has Alzheimer's disease, and he knows his "good" time is dwindling. So he compiles a book of poems for his beloved granddaughter, Emily, hoping that his words of hard-won wisdom will heal the old wounds that are tearing his family apart. But Harry's poems contain much more than meets the eye; clues and riddles that lead to an extraordinary cache of letters and a promise of hidden gold. Are they the ramblings of a man losing touch with reality? Or has Harry given them a gift more valuable than any one of them could have guessed?A memorable tale of the power of love and family, Letters for Emily is a novel sure to enrich readers of all generations.

Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet


Jamie Ford - 2009
    It has been boarded up for decades, but now the new owner has discovered the belongings of Japanese families who were sent to internment camps during World War II. As the owner displays and unfurls a Japanese parasol, Henry, a Chinese American, remembers a young Japanese American girl from his childhood in the 1940s—Keiko Okabe, with whom he forged a bond of friendship and innocent love that transcended the prejudices of their Old World ancestors. After Keiko and her family were evacuated to the internment camps, she and Henry could only hope that their promise to each other would be kept. Now, forty years later, Henry explores the hotel's basement for the Okabe family's belongings and for a long-lost object whose value he cannot even begin to measure. His search will take him on a journey to revisit the sacrifices he has made for family, for love, for country.

Tear


Rachel Van Dyken - 2012
    But for Natalee Murray, things have just gotten way more difficult. Bored with life, she can't wait to graduate high school and get out of town, especially considering the famous band members from AD2 suddenly start attending her school, making her once boring life, absolutely insane.It starts with a pen. A single brush of fingers, and she is captivated.But Alec and Demetri have a dark secret, one that could shatter their reputations and Natalee's heart. What do you do when one guy paints your life with color while the other infuses your soul with passion? How do you choose when your heart is divided?*This is a New Adult/Mature YA. Minor swearing and drug usage.

Tuesday Nights in 1980


Molly Prentiss - 2016
    Among them: James Bennett, a synaesthetic art critic for The New York Times whose unlikely condition enables him to describe art in profound, magical ways, and Raul Engales, an exiled Argentinian painter running from his past and the Dirty War that has enveloped his country. As the two men ascend in the downtown arts scene, dual tragedies strike, and each is faced with a loss that acutely affects his relationship to life and to art. It is not until they are inadvertently brought together by Lucy Olliason—a small town beauty and Raul’s muse—and a young orphan boy sent mysteriously from Buenos Aires, that James and Raul are able to rediscover some semblance of what they’ve lost.As inventive as Jennifer Egan's A Visit From The Goon Squad and as sweeping as Meg Wolitzer's The Interestings, Tuesday Nights in 1980 boldly renders a complex moment when the meaning and nature of art is being all but upended, and New York City as a whole is reinventing itself. In risk-taking prose that is as powerful as it is playful, Molly Prentiss deftly explores the need for beauty, community, creation, and love in an ever-changing urban landscape.

The Legend of Arturo King


L.B. Dunbar - 2015
    A quiet girl in the shadows. Fate has plans for them.The generous lover.Arturo King has it all - fame, fortune, and a band family. But the one thing he needs is her.Quiet, complex, and sexy, she is his destiny.He just doesn’t know it yet.The unsuspecting partner.Guinevere DeGrance wants two things - music and recognition.As the daughter of a prominent rock star builder, she’s no stranger to bad boy band members, like him.Dark, talented, and completely irresistible, he’s a future rock king.And she will be his queen, if her father has his way.A story steeped in tradition where fate cannot be denied, this centuries’ old romance retells the tale of a man destined for greatness and the woman guaranteed to ruin his heart. Live on, Arturo King.+++The Legendary Rock Stars is a series and best enjoyed in order:The Legend of Arturo KingThe Story of Lansing LotteThe Quest of Perkins ValeThe Truth of Tristan LyonsThe Trials of Guinevere DeGranceFull-length novels full of rock star hotness, strong heroines, gritty sexiness, and a bit of suspense.

Unbecoming


Rebecca Scherm - 2015
    She calls herself Julie, says she’s from California, and slips back to a rented room at night. Regularly, furtively, she checks the hometown paper on the Internet. Home is Garland, Tennessee, and there, two young men have just been paroled. One, she married; the other, she’s in love with. Both were jailed for a crime that Grace herself planned in exacting detail. The heist went bad—but not before she was on a plane to Prague with a stolen canvas rolled in her bag. And so, in Paris, begins a cat-and-mouse waiting game as Grace’s web of deception and lies unravels—and she becomes another young woman entirely.Unbecoming is an intricately plotted and psychologically nuanced heist novel that turns on suspense and slippery identity. With echoes of Alfred Hitchcock and Patricia Highsmith, Rebecca Scherm’s mesmerizing debut is sure to entrance fans of Gillian Flynn, Marisha Pessl, and Donna Tartt.

All The Wrong Reasons


J.L. Paul - 2011
    That first night with him was a mistake.So was the second, the third...And what about Dustin?

These Girls


Sarah Pekkanen - 2012
    It’s a professional coup, but her new job comes with more complications than Cate ever anticipated.Cate’s roommate Renee will do anything to nab the plum job of beauty editor at Gloss. But snide comments about Renee’s weight send her into an emotional tailspin. Soon she is taking black market diet pills—despite the racing heartbeat and trembling hands that signal she's heading for real danger.Then there’s Abby, whom they take in as a third roommate. Once a joyful graduate student working as a nanny part time, she abruptly fled a seemingly happy life in the D.C. suburbs. No one knows what shattered Abby—or why she left everything she once loved behind.Pekkanen’s most compelling, true-to-life novel yet tells the story of three very different women as they navigate the complications of careers and love—and find the lifeline they need in each other.

Up in Smoke


Hannah R. Conway - 2017
    Her dreams of a high profile law career are reduced to rubble when she returns home to assume custody of her sister, Brie. Without the financial means to take legal custody of her sister—or a binding will to place her safely in her arms—Leanna’s future becomes more uncertain than ever. Already prepared for a blazing custody battle, with less than capable relatives, Leanna’s world is set ablaze when her ex-fiancé complicates matters in an attempt to destroy her future and her faith. US Army, SSG Garrison Burke has spent the last few years alone—balancing flag and fatherhood since the tragic death of his wife. Facing deployment, Garrison is desperate to find a safe caretaker for his son, Ezra—preferably anywhere but the abusive home he grew up in. So, when Leanna Wilson walks unexpectedly back into his life, he’s not sure if she’s a blessing or a curse. More importantly, Garrison cannot seem to forget how he betrayed Leanna many years ago. Yet, as Leanna and Garrison begin to run out of time, they start to see that the solution to their problems might lie within each other, but will they forget the past and allow their broken hearts to mend? As sparks begin to fly and their love is rekindled, a marriage of convenience will either make their wildest dreams come true or cause their best-laid plans to go up in smoke.