The Courage To Love


Christina Tetreault - 2014
    That is until she meets Sean O’Brien, the co-owner of the bed and breakfast. From the moment she checks in, Mia is drawn to Sean, a reserved man who sees past her celebrity status. Eighteen years ago Sean became the man of the house when his father walked out on the family. Without a second thought, he put his own hopes and dreams on the back burner and took care of his mom and younger sister. Now the co-owner of a successful bed and breakfast, Sean has accepted his position in life—until the day Mia Troy checks in. Despite his better judgment, Sean can’t ignore his physical attraction to Mia. Soon he gives into his desire, telling himself all she wants is a quick fling to pass the time. As they spend time together, his feelings grow. But can love between a small town guy and an A-list celebrity ever last?

Love Invents Us


Amy Bloom - 1996
    Hill, a nearly blind, elderly black woman, can't protect her when real love--exhilarating, passionate, heartbreaking--enters her life in the gorgeous shape of Huddie Lester.  With her finely honed style and her unflinching sensibility, Bloom shows us how profoundly the forces of love and desire can shape a life.

Love Letters


Geraldine Solon - 2011
    The sparks between Chloe and Josh fly, but Richard provides safety, financial security. Should she follow her heart or her head? The answer comes in a surprise twist. While cleaning her attic, she stumbles upon love letters written to her estranged mother forty years ago from a man she loved. When Chloe secretly brings them together again and sees how much time they’ve lost, she is challenged not to make the same mistake her mother made. Will Chloe opt for security or will she risk her heart and marry her true love?

A King in a Court of Fools


Larry Enright - 2011
    That's what she called it. Tom called it punishment. In it, he chronicles the adventures of the Caswell Gang, a group of siblings and friends with two things in common -- their love of adventure and their allegiance to Tom, their king.The 1950s book was misplaced a long time ago, and all the children have since grown up, but Harry, Tom's youngest brother, still remembers it and retells for us one of its stories in a nostalgic, heartwarming, and humorous way that will have you wishing for adventure, too.

Handbags and Poobags: Tales of a Soho Boxer Dog


Alice Wright - 2012
    and bags of laughs too! A love story with a twist in its very waggy tail. I think Alice Wright is really Bridget Bones! Forget Hugh Grant or Colin Firth though, her dog is a much better love interest (and he’s a proper Boxer!)If you’re contemplating settling down with a good dog, read this first and if it doesn’t put you off then you’ll be fine. Already had your heart stolen by a dog? You’ll definitely recognise the dogification of your wardrobe, the permanent damage to your flooring and especially the gritty bed linen!What a page-turner. I Loved it.”Beverley Cuddy, Editor DOGS TODAY MAGAZINE"Incredibly honest, genuine and captivating... a real life take on modern day doggie living. It is brutally honest yet heart-warmingly brilliant. A must for all animal fans."Jessica Brown, PETS MAGAZINEWhat happens when you drop a big, bouncing Boxer dog into the life of a glamorous girl about town? Alice Wright reveals all in her dog-memoir with a difference...Alice's busy life consists of 'parties, premieres and private members clubs' and she loves it! She certainly doesn't want the responsiblity of a partner or a pooch but seems to end up with more than she bargained for in this very funny but incredibly personal memoir about modern dog ownership.Set in the streets of Soho and the parks of North London HANDBAGS AND POOBAGS reveals why you should never wear a long cashmere scarf when poop scooping and how to hide a dog under a barstool and in the back of a taxi-cab. A bit different from the traditional pet-memoir this warm, touching real life tale is full of embarrassing anecdotes and surprising discoveries as Alice realises that owning a dog changes not only her lifestyle but her life.See facebook.com/handbagsandpoobags for updates and photos!

The Passion According to Carmela


Marcos Aguinis - 2008
    Their erotic and ideological vicissitudes are driven by a reality they cannot control, like that of Homer’s characters. Invisible gods intervene in their lives to intertwine their physical attraction and intellectual admiration, courage and fear, secrets and unexpected complicity. They build their difficult and beautiful love in one of the most turbulent and romantic scenarios of Latin American history. They swim with the current; they enjoy it and enlarge it. But they are also dragged along by eddies that leave them breathless and turn their world upside down. Aguinis’ titles tend to be paradoxical. However, for this novel, he has preferred to place emphasis on the multiple meanings of the word passion. Passion refers to love, and also to the strength of ideals, to suffering, pleasure, salvation and the yearning for freedom. The emotional combat of the protagonists runs in parallel with the dizzying brilliance of concrete situations. This is what allows the suspense to grab the reader from the first page to the very end. A free-flowing, sweeping, and thrilling rhythm dominates the text, like that of musical passions. It should come as no surprise that this novel—where the voices of the female protagonist, her lover, and the omniscient writer alternate—has been written following Bach’s counterpoint model. From a distance, ineffable, we still hear the resounding epic of another war where the liberators sang to a different Carmela—also a torch, also a passion. Aguinis portrays his creations skillfully and renders them indelible. His skill in handling emotions does leaves no line void of poetry or consequences. And his extremely accurate style is a grounding that turns this work—situated in exceptional times—into one of the best love stories to mark out the course of literature.

The Light of the Fireflies


Paul Pen - 2013
    Before he was born, his family was disfigured by a fire. His sister wears a white mask to cover her burns.He spends his hours with his cactus, reading his book on insects, or touching the one ray of sunlight that filters in through a crack in the ceiling. Ever since his sister had a baby, everyone’s been acting very strangely. The boy begins to wonder why they never say who the father is, about what happened before his own birth, about why they’re shut away.A few days ago, some fireflies arrived in the basement. His grandma said, There’s no creature more amazing than one that can make its own light. That light makes the boy want to escape, to know the outside world. Problem is, all the doors are locked. And he doesn’t know how to get out.…

Honeysuckle Season


Mary Ellen Taylor - 2020
    Though her new life as a wedding photographer provides a semblance of purpose, it’s also a distraction from her profound pain.When asked to photograph a wedding at the historic Woodmont estate, Libby meets the owner, Elaine Grant. Hoping to open Woodmont to the public, Elaine has employed young widower Colton Reese to help restore the grounds and asks Libby to photograph the process. Libby is immediately drawn to the old greenhouse shrouded in honeysuckle vines.As Libby forms relationships and explores the overgrown—yet hauntingly beautiful—Woodmont estate, she finds the emotional courage to sort through her father’s office. There she discovers a letter that changes everything she knows about her parents, herself, and the estate. Beneath the vines of the old greenhouse lie generations of secrets, and it’s up to Libby to tend to the fruits born of long-buried seeds.

Younger


Suzanne Munshower - 2015
    Desperate to prove she is still relevant, the fiftysomething accepts a shady job offer from Pierre Barton, secretive billionaire owner of Barton Pharmaceuticals. Isolated in a facility outside London, she agrees to test a new top-secret product guaranteed to make her look thirty years younger. Anna is starting to look on the outside the way she feels on the inside: ageless. But she soon discovers that her predecessor died under mysterious circumstances, leading her to research just who stands to gain—and lose—with this miraculous product. When Pierre drops dead in front of her, she takes off on a dangerous journey across Europe hoping to stay alive long enough to uncover the truth.With the hard-won knowledge that younger isn’t always better, Anna is determined to escape and reclaim her life before it’s too late.

Campbell Agency


Clara Kendrick - 2017
    Lots of suspense, mystery, and romance. No cliffhangers! Book One Gwen Grange doesn’t exist, as far as the world is concerned. She disappeared after her father was accused of horrendous crimes, and has been presumed dead. In reality, she’s simply living off the grid, surviving on her own. But when she comes across Jason O’Neil of Campbell’s Agency in the unlikeliest of places, she’ll be forced to come to terms with what happened to her family and become a functioning part of society once again. Book Two Bridget Barden’s greatest joy in her life is her son, Wyatt, despite the fact that his father died suspiciously after getting involved in the wrong investigation. The last thing she ever expects to do is get involved with another private investigator, but when her connection to Gwen Grange puts her in danger and her home is set on fire as a message to the Campbell Agency men, she finds herself relying on the head of the organization, Alex Campbell, to keep her and her son safe. Book Three Caleb Robinson has been charged with looking after his best friend’s sister while she works to recover from a difficult past. The problem is, he’s falling for her fast. But when his health gets in the way, he’ll doubt whether or not he’s right for the woman who has already overcome so much. Only her persistence and a case that helps him realize what’s most important in life can help him get past his doubts and accept love. Book Four Mark Thompson is determined to track down the man who has for so long been plaguing Campbell’s Agency, and having a source on the police force is a great asset. He’s eager to help Rachel when she asks, but the chemistry between them starts to get distracting. What he could never have predicted is that helping her with her own secret investigation might just crack his own wide open. Book Five Sylvia Lyons is a freelance cartoonist who works in Jackson Square in the historical district of New Orleans. Her boyfriend, Ken, works as a security guard, but he doesn’t tell her much more than that until the day he drags her to Campbell’s Agency where he proceeds to confess the fact that he’s gotten in over his head with the worst criminal possible. Their unhealthy relationship explodes, and Sylvia commits to helping Campbell’s Agency clean up the mess Ken created. When Spencer Nichols takes her under his personal protection, Sylvia is grateful, but both of them are wary of the intense connection between them and distracted by the threat on all of their lives.

The Last to See Me


M. Dressler - 2017
    Now, no one remembers her hardworking life and her grand dreams--but she remembers. She remembers everything. Emma Rose still walks the coves and cliffs of her village, one hundred years after her death . . . and she doesn't plan on leaving.But when a determined hunter arrives with instructions to "clean" Emma Rose out of her haunt, the stately Lambry mansion, death suddenly isn't the worst fate imaginable. Emma Rose refuses to be hounded from the only place she's ever found peace, even if it means waging a war on the living . . . and the dead.Lyrical and haunting, this spellbinding American ghost story alternates between Emma Rose's life and afterlife as the past and present become entwined in a compelling tale of love, loss, and tenacity over a century in the making.

See Mommy Run


Laura Kennedy - 2012
    Set in the 1980s, she endures a sub-zero marriage to Mike, Assistant Manager of Friendly Finance, as well as the impossible role of mother to fifteen-and-a-half-year-old Kim and fourteen-year-old Molly. Adding to her misery, is the job she loathes at Big Brother Insurance Company. Life in the San Fernando Valley in Southern California is a soap opera. Kim and Molly skip school, smoke pot, and call each other bitch, while Mike loan sharks by day and guzzles Coors by night. Eventually a line is drawn across the matted shag carpet when Mike sides with the girls.Pushed to her limit when Kim's truancy draws the attention of the State Attorney's Office, Margie flees to San Francisco and a new life.

Shooting Star


Patricia M. Clark - 2013
    One phone call unravels that tidy world when she is summoned to the bedside of her critically ill mother, whose dying declaration stuns her. She is the adopted daughter of a murdered prostitute with an entire family she’s never met. After her mother’s funeral, Joal decides to stay in Indiana to figure out who she really is and poke around the edges of her birth family. As an investigative reporter, Joal has unraveled hundreds of sordid business deals and personal relationships. Eventually someone reveals the truth, but her mother’s murder isn’t the cliché “prostitute killed by pimp.” The answer may lie with the only witnesses. Her grandmother, the matriarch who tries to keep the family together. Her two brothers, one now a supremely optimistic minister and the other an overly pessimistic doctor. Or the murderer himself, now incarcerated in an Indiana prison.From the homey heartland of Indiana to the humid jungles of Vietnam, Joel follows two stories riddled with criminal acts and hidden agendas. Her work sends her overseas to follow a homebuilder Ponzi scheme while at home she widens the net to include some more colorful members of her family. Unwittingly, they all provide little pieces to a puzzle that begins to come together revealing a conspiracy of silence that has been suppressed for over three decades.Shooting Star is first and foremost the story of a woman trying to reclaim her shattered identity. Only by uncovering the essential truths about the mother she never knew can she put some kind of stability back into her life. Solving a thirty year old murder and finding her place in a family she never knew existed are just added bonuses.

Any Red-Blooded Girl


Maggie Bloom - 2011
    Can their chance meeting lead to true love? Or is their relationship doomed before it starts?

The Canal Bridge


Tom Phelan - 2005
    A year later, while en route to India, their troop ship is recalled and they soon find themselves in the European slaughterhouse that was World War I. As stretcher bearers, the two men witness all too closely the horrors of the battlefield and the trenches, the savagery, and the unconscionable waste of human life on fields made liquid by “the blood and guts of boy soldiers” at the Somme, Ypres, and Passchendaele. Meanwhile, back home in Ireland, Con’s sister and Matthias’s lover, Kitty Hatchel, yearns for their safe return and reminds them of their carefree childhood on the banks of the local canal, as well as their hopes for the future.Brilliantly and movingly narrated by a chorus of voices from the community — Matt, Con, Kitty, and others — The Canal Bridge tells the story of how the young men take Ballyrannel to war with them, and how the war comes back home when hostilities end in Europe. The Ireland the friends left in 1913 no longer exists, for the political landscape has been transformed by the Rising against the British in 1916. It is now a land riven with sectarian tensions and bloodshed from which there is no escape.