Book picks similar to
All Things Irish by Michael Loynd
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Self Helpless
Rachel Hall - 2014
But despite being an expert in self-improvement, her life still seems to be stuck in a rut. Her designer clothing rental business, even with its well-heeled Orange County clientele, is mysteriously losing money. And although it goes against every fiber in her moral makeup, the one guy she pines for happens to be her best friend’s husband. But are her fortunes about to change? A super-cute mystery guy has just recommended a new book, and from the moment she opens the pages of A Better Life, her world is turned upside down in ways that not even Dr Phil could have predicted.
Off Schedule
Andrea Buck - 2021
Ten days. One motorhome. What could go wrong?When Paula runs into the ex-love of her life, she believes it’s fate. When he introduces his new fiancée, Paula thinks fate should get fired. And when her ex has the nerve to ask what’s going on in her life, she does what any reasonable person would do, she lies.Her musician neighbor is willing to play the fake boyfriend. He just needs a tiny favor in return. Piece of cake, he tells her. Nothing to worry about.Paula sets off to deliver an antique instrument, but ends up stranded in the desert with a homeless dog, an impossible deadline, and ancient motorhome. Only a miracle could get her home. When the miracle shows up looking like a Greek god in a Levi’s ad, staying on schedule becomes the least of Paula’s problems.
You Me Everything
Catherine Isaac - 2018
Comfy chair, check. Box of tissues, check. You Me Everything is everything you need for a moving, funny, heartbreaking, and ultimately joyous read." --Susan Wiggs, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Map of the HeartSet in the French countryside on an idyllic summer vacation, a delicious, tender novel about finding joy and love even in the most unexpected places.Jess and her ten-year-old son William set off to spend the summer at Ch�teau de Roussignol, deep in the rich, sunlit hills of the Dordogne. There, Jess's ex-boyfriend--and William's father--Adam, runs a beautiful hotel in a restored castle. Lush gardens, a gorgeous pool, delectable French food, and a seemingly never-ending wine list--what's not to like? Jess is bowled over by what Adam has accomplished, but she's in France for a much more urgent reason: to make Adam fall in love with his own son.But Adam has other ideas, and another girlfriend--and he doesn't seem inclined to change the habits of a lifetime just because Jess and William have appeared on the scene. Jess isn't surprised, but William--who has quickly come to idolize his father--wants nothing more than to spend time with him. But Jess can't allow Adam to let their son down--because she is tormented by a secret of her own, one that nobody--especially William--must discover.By turns heartwrenching and hopeful, You Me Everything is a novel about one woman's fierce determination to grab hold of the family she has and never let go, and a romantic story as heady as a crisp Sancerre on a summer day.
If I Forget You
Thomas Christopher Greene - 2016
What follows is a tense, suspenseful exploration of the many facets of enduring love. Told from altering points of view through time, If I Forget You tells the story of Henry Gold, a poet whose rise from poverty embodies the American dream, and Margot Fuller, the daughter of a prominent, wealthy family, and their unlikely, star-crossed love affair, complete with the secrets they carry when they find each other for the second time.Written in lyrical prose, If I Forget You is at once a great love story, a novel of marriage, manners, and family, a meditation on the nature of art, a moving elegy to what it means to love and to lose, and how the choices we make can change our lives forever.
Better Luck Next Time
Julia Claiborne Johnson - 2021
There’s one catch: they have to wait six weeks to become “residents.” Many of these wealthy, soon-to-be divorcees flock to the Flying Leap, a dude ranch that caters to their every need. Twenty-four-year-old Ward spent one year at Yale before his family lost everything in the Great Depression; now he’s earning an honest living as a ranch hand at the Flying Leap. Admired for his dashing good looks—“Cary Grant in cowboy boots”—Ward thinks he’s got the Flying Leap’s clients all figured out. But two new guests are about to upend everything he thinks he knows: Nina, a St Louis heiress and amateur pilot back for her third divorce, and Emily, whose bravest moment in life was leaving her cheating husband back in San Francisco and driving herself to Reno.A novel about divorce, marriage, and everything that comes in between (money, class, ambition, and opportunity), Better Luck Next Time is a hilarious yet poignant examination of the ways friendship can save us, love can destroy us, and the family we create can be stronger than the family we come from.
Crushing It
Lorelei Parker - 2020
. .To pitch her new role-playing game at a European conference, developer Sierra Reid needs to overcome her terror of public speaking. What better practice than competing in a local bar's diary slam, regaling an audience with old journal entries about her completely humiliating college crush on gorgeous Tristan Spencer?Until the moderator says, "Next up, Tristan Spencer . . ."Sierra is mortified, but Tristan is flattered. Caught up in memories of her decade-old obsession as they reconnect, Sierra tries to dismiss her growing qualms about him. But it's not so easy to ignore her deepening friendship with Alfie, the cute, supportive bar owner. She and Alfie were college classmates too, and little by little, Sierra is starting to wonder if she's been focusing her moves on the wrong target all along, misreading every player's motivations.Maybe the only winning strategy is to start playing by her heart . . . "Relatable, funny, and charming, this gamingesque book delivers laughs and romance in a warm, satisfying bundle." --Elly Blake, New York Times bestselling author of Frostblood "Sexy and delicious." --Kristin Wright, author of Lying Beneath the Oaks
Summer on the Bluffs
Sunny Hostin - 2021
Known for its gingerbread Victorian-style houses and modern architectural marvels, this picturesque town hugging the sea is a mecca for the crème de la crème of black society—where Michelle and Barack Obama vacation and Meghan Markle has shopped for a house for her mom. Black people have lived in this pretty slip of the Vineyard since the 1600s and began buying property in the 1800s, making this posh town the embodiment of “old money.”Every summer, Esperenza “Perry” Soto, a beautiful and talented Afro-Latina lawyer, escapes the fetid heat of New York City for the gorgeous weather, cool water, and stunning views Oak Bluffs offers. Sharing a cottage on the beach, owned by her “Ama”, with her husband and two god sisters, Perry is looking forward to trading meetings and clients for days of languor and fun.When Memorial Day arrives and the season begins, some of the nation’s wealthiest, most powerful, and famous from the worlds of politics, art, and entertainment meet to swim, dance, party, and chill. While a few can’t leave work behind, others indulge in a different kind of business affair. But this summer on the Bluffs is different. Ama is moving to the south of France to reunite with her college sweetheart. She is going to give the house to one of her goddaughters and she has invited all three of them to spend the summer with her the way they did when they were kids. Each of the women want the house desperately. Each is grappling with a secret that they fear will make them lose Ama’s approval and the house. . . .
The Talented Miss Farwell
Emily Gray Tedrowe - 2020
Dressed in couture YSL, drinking the finest champagne at trendy Balthazar, Reba, as she’s known, is the picture of a wealthy art collector. To some, the elusive Miss Farwell is a shark with outstanding business acumen. To others, she’s a heartless capitalist whose only interest in art is how much she can make.But a thousand miles from the Big Apple, in the small town of Pierson, Illinois, Miss Farwell is someone else entirely—a quiet single woman known as Becky who still lives in her family’s farmhouse, wears sensible shoes, and works tirelessly as the town’s treasurer and controller. No one understands the ins and outs of Pierson’s accounts better than Becky; she’s the last one in the office every night, crunching the numbers. Somehow, her neighbors marvel, she always finds a way to get the struggling town just a little more money. What Pierson doesn’t see—and can never discover—is that much of that money is shifted into a separate account that she controls, “borrowed” funds used to finance her art habit. Though she quietly repays Pierson when she can, the business of art is cutthroat and unpredictable. But as Reba Farwell’s deals get bigger and bigger, Becky Farwell’s debt to Pierson spirals out of control. How long can the talented Miss Farwell continue to pull off her double life?
Pink Slips and Glass Slippers
J.P. Hansen - 2012
Her widowed father did his best to raise his baby girl to be a strong-minded business woman. Then she found Tanner. Just when her world seemed perfect, everything turned upside down.Following Tanner’s tragic death, Brooke joins a start-up company that is developing a cure for the disease that killed the love of her life. Just before the treatment is ready to market, the company is gobbled up by a giant conglomerate. She moves to the acquiring company as its youngest VP and becomes enamored with CEO Chase Allman—only to be betrayed by him.Brooke rebounds again and sets out on a personal journey to discover what will truly make her happy. Sparks fly when she and Chase cross paths again in an unlikely way. Now, they need each other to find an abducted child and save thousands of people.
The Marriage Code
Brooke Burroughs - 2021
But after turning down her boyfriend’s proposal, everything starts to crumble. In an effort to save the one thing she cares about—her job—she must recruit her colleague, Rishi, to be on her development team…only she may or may not have received the position he was promised. (She did.)Rishi cannot believe that he got passed over for promotion. To make matters worse, not only does his job require him to return home to Bangalore with his nemesis, Emma, but his parents now expect him to choose a bride and get married. So, when Emma makes him an offer—join her team, and she’ll write an algorithm to find him the perfect bride—he reluctantly accepts.Neither of them expect her marriage code to work so well—or to fall for one another—which leads Emma and Rishi to wonder if leaving fate up to formulas is really an equation for lasting love.
Together We Will Go
J. Michael StraczynskiJ. Michael Straczynski - 2021
Michael Straczynski.
Mark Antonelli, a failed young writer looking down the barrel at thirty, is planning a cross-country road trip. He buys a beat-up old tour bus. He hires a young army vet to drive it. He puts out an ad for others to join him along the way. But this will be a road trip like no other: His passengers are all fellow disheartened souls who have decided that this will be their final journey—upon arrival in San Francisco, they will find a cliff with an amazing view of the ocean at sunset, hit the gas, and drive out of this world. The unlikely companions include a young woman with a chronic pain sensory disorder and another who was relentlessly bullied at school for her size; a bipolar, party-loving neo-hippie; a gentle coder with a literal hole in his heart and blue skin; and a poet dreaming of a better world beyond this one. We get to know them through access to their texts, emails, voicemails, and the daily journal entries they write as the price of admission for this trip. By turns tragic, funny, quirky, charming, and deeply moving, Together We Will Go explores the decisions that brings these characters together, and the relationships that grow between them, with some discovering love and affection for the first time. But as they cross state lines and complications to the initial plan arise, it becomes clear that this is a novel as much about the will to live as the choice to end it. The final, unforgettable moments as they hurtle toward the decisions awaiting them will be remembered for a lifetime.
The Peculiar Miracles of Antoinette Martin
Stephanie Knipper - 2016
Sisters Rose and Lily Martin were inseparable when growing up on their family’s Kentucky flower farm yet became distant as adults when Lily found herself unable to deal with the demands of Rose’s unusual daughter. But when Rose becomes ill, Lily is forced to return to the farm and to confront the fears that had driven her away. Rose’s daughter, ten-year-old Antoinette, has a form of autism that requires constant care and attention. She has never spoken a word, but she has a powerful gift that others would give anything to harness--she can heal with her touch. She brings wilted flowers back to life, makes a neighbor’s tremors disappear, and even changes the course of nature on the flower farm. Antoinette’s gift, though, comes at a price, since each healing puts her own life in jeopardy. As Rose--the center of her daughter’s life--struggles with her own failing health and Lily confronts her anguished past, the sisters, and the men who love them, come to realize the sacrifices that must be made to keep this very special child safe. Written with great heart and a deep understanding of what it feels like to be different, The Peculiar Miracles of Antoinette Martin is a novel about what it means to be family and about the lengths to which people will go to protect the ones they love. “This is the kind of book that invites you home, sits you down at the kitchen table, and feeds you something delicious and homemade. You will want to stay in this world where new relationships bloom out of broken ones, sisters find one another again, and miracles really do occur.” —Tiffany Baker
RomeAntically Challenged
Marina Adair - 2020
Helena Vineyard series that fans of Emily Henry, Jen DeLuca, and Kate Clayborn will adore. Growing up the lone Asian in a community of WASPs, Annie has always felt out of place. Her solution? Start a family of her own. Not easy when every man she’s dated, including her ex-fiancé, finds “his person” right after breaking up with Annie. Even worse than canceling the wedding eight weeks beforehand? Learning the “other woman” plans to walk down the aisle wearing her wedding gown. New plan—find a fresh, man-free start. Too bad her exit strategy unexpectedly lands her working at a hospital in Rome, Rhode Island, rather than Rome, Italy, and sharing a cabin with a big, brooding, and annoyingly hot male roommate. Home on medical leave after covering a literally explosive story in China, investigative photojournalist Emmitt embarks on his most important assignment—cementing his place in his daughter’s life. Three men and a baby might work in the movies, but with a stepdad and devoted uncle competing for Paisley’s attention, Emmitt has lost his place at the family table. Then there’s the adorably sexy squatter in his cabin, who poses another problem, one he’d very much like to solve up close and personal. But he can’t win—Annie has sworn off men, Paisley’s gone boy crazy, and Emmitt’s estranged father reappears with a secret that changes everything. Annie and Emmitt are about to discover love comes in many forms, and sometimes the best families are the ones we make.
Heaven Can Wait
Cally Taylor - 2009
I held his face in my hands and kissed him back. I felt that life just couldn't get any more perfect. And I was right, it wouldn't. By the end of the next day, I'd be dead.Lucy is about to marry the man of her dreams - kind, handsome, funny Dan - when she breaks her neck the night before their wedding. Unable to accept a lifetime's separation from her soulmate, Lucy decides to become a ghost rather than go to heaven and be parted from Dan.But it turns out things aren't quite as easy as that. When Lucy discovers that Limbo is a grotty student-style house in North London she's less than thrilled. Especially after meeting her new flatmates: grumpy, cider-swilling EMO-kid Claire; and Brian, a train-spotter with a Thomas the Tank Engine duvet and a big BO problem. But Lucy has a more major problem on her hands - if she wants to become a ghost and be with Dan she has to complete an almost impossible task. How the hell does a girl like Lucy find a girlfriend for the dorkiest man in England? IT geek Archie's only passions are multi-player computer games and his Grandma.But Lucy only has twenty-one days to find him love. And when she discovers that her so-called friend Anna is determined to make a move on the heart-broken, vulnerable Dan, the pressure is really on...
The Sweeney Sisters
Lian Dolan - 2020
But their mother’s death from cancer fifteen years ago tarnished their golden-hued memories, and the sisters drifted apart. Their one touchstone is their father, Bill Sweeney, an internationally famous literary lion and college professor universally adored by critics, publishers, and book lovers. When Bill dies unexpectedly one cool June night, his shell-shocked daughters return to their childhood home. They aren’t quite sure what the future holds without their larger-than-life father, but they do know how to throw an Irish wake to honor a man of his stature.But as guests pay their respects and reminisce, one stranger, emboldened by whiskey, has crashed the party. It turns out that she too is a Sweeney sister.When Washington, DC based journalist Serena Tucker had her DNA tested on a whim a few weeks earlier, she learned she had a 50% genetic match with a childhood neighbor—Maggie Sweeney of Southport, Connecticut. It seems Serena’s chilly WASP mother, Birdie, had a history with Bill Sweeney—one that has remained totally secret until now.Once the shock wears off, questions abound. What does this mean for William’s literary legacy? Where is the unfinished memoir he’s stashed away, and what will it reveal? And how will a fourth Sweeney sister—a blond among redheads—fit into their story?By turns revealing, insightful, and uproarious, The Sweeney Sisters is equal parts cautionary tale and celebration—a festive and heartfelt look at what truly makes a family.