Cage of Stars


Jacquelyn Mitchard - 2006
    The author of The Deep End of the Ocean delivers a compelling, emotionally charged tale of tragedy, revenge, and redemption, set in a close-knit Mormon community, whose peace is shattered by two brutal murders.

The Very Picture of You


Isabel Wolff - 2011
     At thirty-five, Gabriella Graham—“Ella” to her family and friends—has already made a name for herself as a successful portrait artist in London. She can capture the essential truth in each of her subjects’ faces—a tilt of the chin, a glint in the eye—and immortalize it on canvas. This gift has earned Ella commissions from royals and regular folks alike.But closer to home, Ella finds the truth more elusive. Her father abandoned the family when she was five, and her mother has remained silent on the subject ever since. Ella’s sister, Chloe, is engaged to Nate, an American working in London, but Ella suspects that he may not be so committed. Then, at Chloe’s behest, Ella agrees to paint Nate’s portrait.From session to session, Ella begins to see Nate in a different light, which gives rise to conflicted feelings. In fact, through the various people she paints—an elderly client reflecting on her life, another woman dreading the prospect of turning forty, a young cyclist (from a photograph) who met a tragic end—Ella realizes that there is so much more to a person’s life than what is seen on the surface, a notion made even clearer when an unexpected email arrives from the other side of the world. And as her portraits of Nate and the others progress, they begin to reveal less about their subjects than the artist herself.A picture is worth a thousand words, and in Isabel Wolff’s vibrant and textured story, these words are brilliantly crafted to convey the humor, mystery, and beauty that exists within each of us.

The Christmas Wedding


James Patterson - 2011
    Since her husband died three years ago, Gaby's four children have drifted apart, each consumed by the turbulence of their own lives. They haven't celebrated Christmas together since their father's death, but when Gaby announces that she's getting married--and that the groom will remain a secret until the wedding day--she may finally be able to bring them home for the holidays.But the wedding isn't Gaby's only surprise--she has one more gift for her children, and it could change all their lives forever. With deeply affecting characters and the emotional twists of a James Patterson thriller, The Christmas Wedding is a fresh look at family and the magic of the season.

The House of Hope & Chocolate


Ava Miles - 2021
    In this first Friends & Neighbors novel, meet a woman determined to realize her dreams and revitalize a beloved neighborhood with two things she believes most in: hope and chocolate.From the time she was a little girl with a chocolate stand instead of lemonade, Alice Bailey dreamt of opening a chocolate shop. After all, chocolate heals everything, from heartache to woes.If Alice has learned anything recently, it's that life is precious. It’s now or never—carpe diem time. She's ready to put down roots and live her dreams.Only opening up a chocolate shop in this close-knit community proves harder than she imagined, especially when other neighborhood businesses are experiencing hard times. She's not only an outsider, but resentment over her circumstances breeds distrust among some of the other business owners.And as she struggles to heal and rebuild, she shows her new friends and neighbors that life offers more richness than they realize.

Red Hook Road


Ayelet Waldman - 2010
     In the aftermath of a devastating wedding day, two families, the Tetherlys and the Copakens, find their lives unraveled by unthinkable loss. Over the course of the next four summers in Red Hook, Maine, they struggle to bridge differences of class and background to honor the memory of the couple, Becca and John. As Waldman explores the unique and personal ways in which each character responds to the tragedy—from the budding romance between the two surviving children, Ruthie and Matt, to the struggling marriage between Iris, a high strung professor in New York, and her husband Daniel—she creates a powerful family portrait and a beautiful reminder of the joys of life.  Elegantly written and emotionally gripping, Red Hook Road affirms Waldman’s place among today’s most talented authors.

Plus Size Heart: A story of life, love and cake


Lisa Anderson - 2017
    Gorgeous, cynical and mega rich property tycoon Liam Moran only dates super thin society women or models and isn’t impressed at all by Sophie when they first meet. He has plans to convert parts of Sophie's town into a shopping mall and is convinced he won't meet any opposition from anyone, let alone a woman.  The project becomes more difficult than he ever imagined when it becomes clear he needs Sophie’s land for his development.  She isn't impressed by his money, his temper, or his looks and doesn't want a shopping mall in her town. Sophie promptly organizes the locals to resist Liam's plans, placing herself directly in his path.  Liam finds himself increasingly attracted, against his will, to the outspoken and lovely Sophie, who challenges all his accepted notions of beauty and how women behave around rich men, and she in turn finds it more and more difficult to resist the kind but wounded heart she can see under his ruthless exterior. Liam and Sophie are on a collision course over the property development as well as their own long held prejudices.  Money, ambition and rejection also create enemies, and Liam’s past behavior with women comes back to create a violent and dangerous confrontation that they must deal with before they can be together.

The Barefoot Summer


Carolyn Brown - 2017
    Leaving three widows behind is just plain despicable. Oil heiress Kate Steele knew her not-so-dearly departed husband was a con man, but she’s shocked that Conrad racked up two more wives without divorcing her first. The only remnant of their miserable marriage she plans to keep is their lakeside cabin in Bootleg, Texas. Unfortunately, she’s not the only woman with that idea.Fiery, strong-willed Jamie wishes Conrad were still alive—so she could kill the scoundrel herself. But for their daughter’s sake, she needs that property. As does Amanda—twenty-eight, pregnant, and still weeping over the loss of her true love. On a broiling July day, all three arrive in Bootleg…with a dogged detective right behind who’s convinced that at least one of them conspired to commit murder. One momentous summer filled with revelations, quirky neighbors, and barefoot evenings on the porch offers three women the chance to make the journey from enemies to friends, and claim a bright, new beginning.

Saving Nathaniel


Jillian Brookes-Ward - 2010
    Following the deaths of his wife and baby, he has lived with unresolved guilt and grief, and it is tearing him apart. One rainy day, Megan Thomas literally bursts into his kitchen - and into his life. Before long, their relationship becomes more than employer and housekeeper. Under her gentle, compassionate influence things begin to change, and he starts to come to terms with his past. When Megan's temporary secondment is over, the extent of his dependence and affection becomes apparent. He loves her and wants her back. But will she want him and all his accumulated baggage cluttering up her life? If not, what then? The prospect of living the rest of his life without her is a prospect he cannot contemplate. He would rather die.

Every Little Piece


Kate Ashton - 2013
    A story of love, hope and healing.** Needing the truth… I wanted to spend the night before graduation making out with Seth, but one of my best friends had the whole night planned. Lucky for me, we ran into him and his friends playing pool where we made some silly bet over a game, and the losers had to run through town in nothing but their underwear. A year later, I wish more than ever we’d just made out at Raker’s Bluff instead, because maybe the night would’ve turned out differently. Now Seth’s back, the guy who broke my heart, the guy I’m still in love with…I just hope he doesn’t break me all over again. Desperate for redemption… No one wants to fess up to having a screwed-up family. When my parents dropped the big divorce bomb on me, I decided to keep it a secret. Just the thought of the pity-stares and pats-on-the-back made me feel sick. I’d tell Haley and my friends another time. Except, I never got the chance. Stuff happened. Stuff that totally sucked and changed our lives forever. Instead of telling my truth, I took the coward’s way out, and I’ve regretted it ever since. But I’m back, determined to tell Haley everything, down to the last gritty detail, if she’ll give me the chance…even if it means losing her forever.

Me & Emma


Elizabeth Flock - 2005
    The girls live in a terrible situation: they depend on an unstable mother that has never recovered from her husband's murder, their stepfather beats them regularly, and they must forage on their own for food. Stop here and you have a story told many times before, as fiction and nonfiction in tales like Ellen Foster, or I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings --stories in which a young girl reveals the horrors of her childhood. Me & Emma differentiates itself with a spectacular finish, shocking the reader and turning the entire story on its head. Through several twists and turns the reader learns that things are not quite the way our narrator led us to believe and everything crescendos in a way that (like all good thrillers) immediately makes you want to go back and read the whole book again from the start.

The Last Boyfriend


J.S. Cooper - 2013
    She is devastated when her boyfriend dumps her after sleeping with him and she vows to herself that she won't be used again. She decides that the next guy she dates and sleeps with, will be her one true love.Zane Beaumont is the mysterious and snooty guy that comes into her diner every Friday night with a different girl. He's the type of guy she's learned to avoid: carefree, fast, handsome, rich, and sarcastic. Unfortunately, she can't stop thinking about the devilish gleam in his eyes.When Lucky's car breaks down one night after a party, it is Zane who comes to her rescue. As Zane attempts to sweep Lucky off of her feet, she soon realizes that nothing is as it seems and that Zane may very well be the guy for whom she changes the rules. That is until she meets Braydon.

Getting Sassy


D.C. Brod - 2010
    Otherwise, why would she even consider kidnapping a goat and holding it for ransom?Criminal acts don’t come naturally to Robyn, but she has an ally in her accountant Mick Hughes, a former jockey with a bum leg and dubious past. Figuring that it’s best to take from those who’ve taken from others, they target Bull Severn, the man who conned Robyn’s mother, Lizzie. Bull’s Blood is a beautiful thoroughbred favored to win the prestigious Plymouth Million. But he won’t be able to race without the companionship of a very special goat, Sassy—and so Robyn and Mick hatch a scheme to kidnap the goat and bring home a hefty ransom. Turns out kidnapping a goat isn’t easy, and matters soon escalate into something much bigger than Robyn anticipated. She’s got to figure a way out of trouble before she ends up sharing her small apartment with her aging, forgetful mother, her neurotic dog Bix, and a little black goat named Sassy.

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.

Why We Came to the City


Kristopher Jansma - 2016
    A heavy snowstorm is blowing through Manhattan and the economy is on the brink of collapse, but none of that matters to a handful of guests at a posh holiday party. Five years after their college graduation, the fiercely devoted friends at the heart of this richly absorbing novel remain as inseparable as ever: editor and social butterfly Sara Sherman, her troubled astronomer boyfriend George Murphy, loudmouth poet Jacob Blaumann, classics major turned investment banker William Cho, and Irene Richmond, an enchanting artist with an inscrutable past.Amid cheerful revelry and free-flowing champagne, the friends toast themselves and the new year ahead—a year that holds many surprises in store. They must navigate ever-shifting relationships with the city and with one another, determined to push onward in pursuit of their precarious dreams. And when a devastating blow brings their momentum to a halt, the group is forced to reexamine their aspirations and chart new paths through unexpected losses.Kristopher Jansma’s award-winning debut novel, The Unchangeable Spots of Leopards, was praised for its  “wry humor” and “charmingly unreliable narrator” in The New Yorker and hailed as “F. Scott Fitzgerald meets Wes Anderson” by The Village Voice. In Why We Came to the City, Jansma offers an unforgettable exploration of friendships forged in the fires of ambition, passion, hope, and love. This glittering story of a generation coming of age is a sweeping, poignant triumph.

The Golden Rule


Amanda Craig - 2020
    Now a poor young single mother, Hannah once escaped Cornwall to go to university. But once she married Jake and had his child, her dreams were crushed into bitter disillusion. Her husband has left her for Eve, rich and childless, and Hannah has been surviving by becoming a cleaner in London. Jinni is equally angry and bitter, and in the course of their journey the two women agree to murder each other's husbands. After all, they are strangers on a train — who could possibly connect them?But when Hannah goes to Jinni's husband's home the next night, she finds Stan, a huge, hairy, ugly drunk who has his own problems — not least the care of a half-ruined house and garden. He claims Jinni is a very different person to the one who has persuaded Hannah to commit a terrible crime. Who is telling the truth — and who is the real victim?