Snowed In


Christina Bartolomeo - 2004
    No heat. The wrong shoes. The wrong clothes. Discover if true love can be far behind.Imagine having always lived in Washington, D.C., and suddenly being stuck in Portland, Maine, for a year. With the pipes freezing---inside the house. And a husband who seems to have his eye on a hiking-booted L.L.Bean femme fatale rather than you. Not to mention the mother-in-law from hell who never fails to let you know that you leave much to be desired. That's Sophie Quinn's life. Lucky for Sophie (an unassertive type who's always favored daydreams over day planners), her new life is about to throw in her lap some weird and valuable opportunities to trample down her fears and transform her prospects for happiness. And true love just might come knocking on her door....For any woman who has ever had to confront the landlord about the heat, for any woman who has ever longed for impractical shoes instead of sturdy winter boots, for any woman who has ever been in the wrong place at the right time, Snowed In will have you laughing, crying, and rooting for Sophie Quinn.

Flirty Thirty


Cassie Mae - 2016
    But when a shirtless god jogs down your street, grabs your face, and kisses you… you kiss that man back! Cooper is on a mission to find the love of his life, and he’s gotten desperate. Over thirty years old with more money than he could spend in his lifetime, he’s ready to spoil and love his soul mate. After hiring the beautiful woman he kissed on the street as his realtor, he’s convinced that fate has led him to her. Maya doesn’t buy into fate and definitely doesn’t want something serious. She’s not ready to become one of her baggy-eyed friends who all have two or more kids and one or less husband. But when Cooper challenges her to a week of living the married life, Maya dives in headfirst thinking she’s sure to prove that singlehood is really the way to go, even if she does end up falling head over heels.

How to Choose a Guy in 10 Days


Lila Monroe - 2018
    All she has to do is take some fashion-backward guy from geek to GQ-worthy. The only problem? The man in question is her hairy manwhore of a next-door neighbor. AKA Bigfoot.Zach Morrison has zero interest in being Gemma’s makeover mannequin. Sure, it’s fun getting his smart-mouthed neighbor all riled up, but after cashing out of his tech start-up and going through an ugly break-up, he’s taking a permanent vacation. If he wants to wear sweatpants and sleep on a mattress in the corner of an empty apartment—OK. Maybe he needs a little push in the right direction. But as Gemma races the clock to win her bet, she finds that Bigfoot’s been hiding a few things under his baggy flannel shirts. Like abs of steel, and a surprisingly big...Heart. He has a big heart.Soon, sparks are flying between this unlikely couple, but can Zach embrace a fresh start - however manscaped it might be? And will Gemma beat out her Instabitch rival for the top spot - and keep the truth about their bet from Zach?

The Note


Zoë Folbigg - 2017
    Maya knows immediately and irrevocably, that he is The One.But the beautiful man on the train always has his head in a book and never seems to notice Maya sitting just down the carriage from him every day. Eventually, though, inspired by a very wise friend, Maya plucks up the courage to give the stranger a note asking him out for a drink. Afterall, what's the worst that can happen?And so begins a story of sliding doors, missed opportunities and finding happiness where you least expect it.Based on the author's true story, The Note is an uplifting, life-affirming reminder that taking a chance can change everything...

Now That You Mention It


Kristan Higgins - 2017
    Two steps back. The Tufts scholarship that put Nora Stuart on the path to becoming a Boston medical specialist was a step forward. Being hit by a car and then overhearing her boyfriend hit on another doctor when she thought she was dying? Two major steps back.Injured in more ways than one, Nora feels her carefully built life cracking at the edges. There's only one place to land: home. But the tiny Maine community she left fifteen years ago doesn't necessarily want her. At every turn, someone holds the prodigal daughter of Scupper Island responsible for small-town drama and big-time disappointments.With a tough islander mother who's always been distant and a wild-child sister in jail, unable to raise her daughter--a withdrawn teen as eager to ditch the island as Nora once was--Nora has her work cut out for her if she's going to take what might be her last chance to mend the family.But as some relationships crumble around her, others unexpectedly strengthen. Balancing loss and opportunity, a dark event from her past with hope for the future, Nora will discover that tackling old pain makes room for promise...and the chance to begin again.

My Best Friend's Girl


Dorothy Koomson - 2006
    From the moment they met in college, best friends Adele Brannon and Kamryn Matika thought nothing could come between them—until Adele did the unthinkable and slept with Kamryn’s fiancé, Nate. Now, after years of silence, the two women are reuniting, and Adele has a stunning request for her old friend: she wants Kamryn to adopt her five-year-old daughter, Tegan.Besides the difference in skin color—many will assume that headstrong, impulsive Kamryn is Tegan’s nanny—there’s the inconvenient truth that Kamryn is wholly unprepared to take care of anyone, especially someone who reminds her so much of Nate. With crises brewing at work and her love life in shambles, can Kamryn somehow become the mother a little girl needs her to be? In My Best Friend’s Girl, Dorothy Koomson takes us on a warm and wondrous journey through laughter and tears, forgiveness and hope—and the enduring love forged by the unlikeliest of families.

Personally, I Blame My Fairy Godmother


Claudia Carroll - 2010
    So would you if you had a recession-proof career as a daredevil TV host, a palatial pink mansion, and the dream boyfriend.But, quicker than you can say Cinderella, her life falls to pieces and suddenly her prince isn't quite so charming, her party-loving friends disappear and even her faithful friend Visa no longer loves her?Utterly heartbroken and jobless, Jessie is forced back home, to live with her stepmum and two evil stepsisters.Is it time for her to give up on the dream - or will Jessie learn that happy endings can come in the strangest of places?Avon's hot new acquisition presents a tale of princes who turn out to be frogs, Manolo Blahnik glass slippers and not-so-happily-ever-afters?

The Diary of V: The Affair


Debra Kent - 2001
    But payback - in the shape of a man - will be hers.

A Version of the Truth


Jennifer Kaufman - 2007
    Now Kaufman and Mack return, introducing a character with a unique voice you’ll never forget: Cassie Shaw, an irrepressible young woman who reinvents herself—with unexpected consequences—in a funny, wise, and utterly original novel about friendship, love, wildlife, and other forces of nature.In the wilds of Topanga Canyon, Cassie is right at home—with the call of birds, the sound of wind in the trees, the harmony of a world without people. But everywhere else, life is a little harder for Cassie. Her mother believes in Big Foot. Her wisecracking pet parrot is a drama queen. And at the age of thirty, newly single and without a college degree, Cassie desperately needs a decent paycheck. Which is why, against all her principles, she lies on her résumé for an office job at an elite university—and then finds herself employed in academia by two professors who are as rare as the birds she covets.One of her new bosses is Professor William Conner, a sexy, handsome, cheerfully aristocratic expert in animal behavior. Soon, under Conner’s charismatic tutelage, Cassie carefully begins her personal transformation while meeting the kind of people who don’t flock to wildlife preserves—from impossibly brilliant academics to adorably spoiled college boys. But her future—and unlikely new career—is teetering on one unbearable untruth. And Cassie’s masquerade is about to come undone…in a chain of events that will transform her life—and the lives of those around her—forever.A novel for late bloomers of every exotic shade and stripe, A Version of the Truth is pure entertainment—at once hilarious and wry, lyrical and uplifting.From the Hardcover edition.

One for My Baby


Tony Parsons - 2001
    Full of biting social commentary and overwhelming emotion, One for My Baby is a warm and witty novel of love, family, sex, and Tai Chi. Returning to London from Hong Kong after a brief, idyllic marriage ends in tragedy, Alfie Budd finds his world collapsing. Believing his chance for love has passed, he takes comfort in fleeting affairs with his students at Churchill's Language School while watching his parents' marriage, his grandmother's health, and his career ambitions rapidly deteriorate. But then Alfie meets two people who help him to start healing: the old Chinese man he sees practicing Tai Chi in the park every morning and a single mother who needs Alfie's help in completing her education. Soon, our bereft widower is learning much more than Tai Chi and falling for one student above all others. But can Alfie give up meaningless sex for a meaningful relationship? And how much room in our hearts do we really have for love?

Hand-Me-Down


Lee Nichols - 2005
    So how'd she fall for a secondhand man?Charlotte had the Malibu Barbie with a full wardrobe. Emily inherited a slightly used Barbie with two outfits and Anne was left with a one-armed, bald Barbie who enjoyed nudist colonies. It's little wonder that at twenty-nine, Anne drives a new car, eats only from freshly opened packages and thinks antique is a euphemism for moldy.After growing up in the shadows of her older sisters -- one a swimsuit model, the other a pop-feminist -- Anne's personality is one part sibling rivalry and two parts VD (stands for Vague Dissatisfaction, and yes, it itches). Now she's the self-professed underachiever in the family, determined to find happiness on her own terms. But when her sister's ex-boyfriend -- seemingly perfect, potentially interested -- reenters her life, Anne's got to ask: Could she possibly fall in love with a hand-me-down man?

Breakfast at the Beach House Hotel


Judith S. Keim - 2015
    Ann, quiet and reserved, is no match for brash, bossy Rhonda, who left the family’s New Jersey butcher business after she won the lottery. Amid their struggles to succeed, The Sins of the Children, a soap opera, films a number of episodes at the hotel and things get complicated in unexpected ways when Ann falls for Vaughn Sanders, the star of the show.

The Next Big Thing


Johanna Edwards - 2005
    Then she'd finally be able to arrange a face-to-face meeting with Nick, the British hunk she met online, who still thinks she's a size four. She'd finally be confident and graceful and thin-and there's that big cash prize, too, to pay for all those slinky new clothes she'd need. She'd finally have the perfect life.

After You


Julie Buxbaum - 2009
    The unexplored doubts of a marriage. And the redemptive power of literature...Julie Buxbaum, the acclaimed author of The Opposite of Love, delivers a haunting, gloriously written novel about love, family, and the secrets we hide from each other—and ourselves.It happened on a tree-lined street in Notting Hill to a woman who seemed to have the perfect life. Ellie Lerner’s best friend, Lucy, was murdered in front of her young daughter. And, as best friends do, Ellie dropped everything—her marriage, her job, her life in the Boston suburbs—to travel to London and pick up the pieces of Lucy’s life. While Lucy’s husband, Greg, copes with his grief by retreating into himself, eight-year-old Sophie has simply stopped speaking.Desperate to help Sophie, Ellie turns to a book that gave her comfort as a child, The Secret Garden. As the two spend hours exploring the novel’s winding passageways, its story of hurt, magic, and healing blooms around them. But so, too, do Lucy’s secrets—some big, some small—secrets Lucy kept hidden, even from her best friend. Over a summer in London, as Ellie peels back the layers of her friend’s life, she’s forced to confront her own as well: the marriage she left behind, the loss she’d hoped to escape. And suddenly Ellie’s carefully constructed existence is spinning out of control in a chain of events that will transform her life—and those around her— forever. A novel that will resonate in the heart of anyone who’s had a best friend, a love lost, or a past full of regrets, After You proves once again the unique and compelling talent of Julie Buxbaum.

Paper Hearts


Courtney Walsh - 2014
    As a business owner in a quaint town at the base of the Rockies, she's poured everything into dreams of expansion . . . and resisting the matchmaking efforts of the Valentine Volunteers, who gather in her store to continue Loves Park's tradition of stamping mail with the city's romantic postmark.When Abigail is unwillingly drafted into the Volunteers, she encounters the paper hearts, a distraction that couldn't come at a worse time. A hard-to-read doctor has become Abigail's new landlord, and he's threatening to end her lease to expand his practice.As she fights a growing attraction to this handsome man crushing her dreams, Abigail is inspired to string the hearts in her store, sparking a citywide infatuation with the artsy trend. But when a new batch of hearts reaches the Volunteers, it appears something tragic has happened to the couple. Will uncovering their story confirm Abigail's doubts about love, or could it rescue her dreams . . . and her heart?