Book picks similar to
Diva Diaries by Janine A. Morris


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Falling Together


Marisa de los Santos - 2011
    Now, six years later, Pen is the single mother of a five-year-old girl, living with her older brother in Philadelphia and trying to make peace with the sudden death of her father. Even though she feels deserted by Will and Cat, she has never stopped wanting them back in her life, so when she receives an email from a desperate-sounding Cat asking her to meet her at their upcoming college reunion, Pen goes. What happens there sends past and present colliding and sends Pen and her friends on a journey across the world, a journey that will change everything.

The Wish


Nicholas Sparks - 2021
    Sent away at sixteen to live with an aunt she barely knew in Ocracoke, a remote village on North Carolina’s Outer Banks, she could think only of the friends and family she left behind . . . until she meets Bryce Trickett, one of the few teenagers on the island. Handsome, genuine, and newly admitted to West Point, Bryce gradually shows her how much there is to love about the wind-swept beach town—and introduces her to photography, a passion that will define the rest of her life.By 2019, Maggie is a renowned travel photographer. She splits her time between running a successful gallery in New York and photographing remote locations around the world. But this year she is unexpectedly grounded over Christmas, struggling to come to terms with a sobering medical diagnosis. Increasingly dependent on a young assistant, she finds herself becoming close to him.As they count down the last days of the season together, she begins to tell him the story of another Christmas, decades earlier—and the love that set her on a course she never could have imagined.

Foreign Fruit


Jojo Moyes - 2003
    That is, in the eyes of young Lottie and Celia, members of the respectable Holden family who like nothing more than escaping the family home to explore.So when a group of Bohemians move into Arcadia, a grand Art Deco house on the seafront, Lottie and Celia are tempted into their alternative way of living . What ensues at the house has tragic and long-lasting consequences for all.Now almost fifty years on, Arcadia is being renovated, once again arousing strong feelings for the town's veterans. And as the house returns to life, so do the secrets buried within it from all those years ago, prompting the question: can you ever leave your past behind?

Digging In


Loretta Nyhan - 2018
    Since his death, she’s been sleepwalking through life, barely holding on for the sake of her teenage son. Her house is a wreck, the grass is overrun with weeds, and she’s at risk of losing her job. As Paige stares at her neglected lawn, she knows she’s hit rock bottom. So she does something entirely unexpected: she begins to dig.As the hole gets bigger, Paige decides to turn her entire yard into a vegetable garden. The neighbors in her tidy gated community are more than a little alarmed. Paige knows nothing about gardening, and she’s boldly flouting neighborhood-association bylaws. But with the help of new friends, a charming local cop, and the transformative power of the soil, Paige starts to see potential in the chaos of her life. Something big is beginning to take root—both in her garden and in herself.

If I Could Turn Back Time


Beth Harbison - 2015
    She made her fortune and now she hob nobs with the very rich and occasionally the semi-famous, and she enjoys luxuries she only dreamed of as a middle-class kid growing up in Potomac, Maryland. But despite it all, she can't ignore the fact that she isn't necessarily happy. In fact, lately Ramie has begun to feel more than a little empty.On a boat with friends off the Florida coast, she tries to fight her feelings of discontent with steel will and hard liquor. No one even notices as she gets up and goes to the diving board and dives off...Suddenly Ramie is waking up, straining to understand a voice calling in the distance...It's her mother: "Wake up! You're going to be late for school again. I'm not writing a note this time..."Ramie finds herself back on the eve of her eighteenth birthday, with a second chance to see the people she's lost and change the choices she regrets. How did she get back here? Has she gone off the deep end? Is she really back in time? Above all, she'll have to answer the question that no one else can: What it is that she really wants from the past, and for her future?

Maybe in Another Life


Taylor Jenkins Reid - 2015
    She has lived in six different cities and held countless meaningless jobs since graduating college. On the heels of leaving yet another city, Hannah moves back to her hometown of Los Angeles and takes up residence in her best friend Gabby’s guestroom. Shortly after getting back to town, Hannah goes out to a bar one night with Gabby and meets up with her high school boyfriend, Ethan.Just after midnight, Gabby asks Hannah if she’s ready to go. A moment later, Ethan offers to give her a ride later if she wants to stay. Hannah hesitates. What happens if she leaves with Gabby? What happens if she leaves with Ethan?In concurrent storylines, Hannah lives out the effects of each decision. Quickly, these parallel universes develop into radically different stories with large-scale consequences for Hannah, as well as the people around her. As the two alternate realities run their course, Maybe in Another Life raises questions about fate and true love: Is anything meant to be? How much in our life is determined by chance? And perhaps, most compellingly: Is there such a thing as a soul mate?Hannah believes there is. And, in both worlds, she believes she’s found him.

The Last Piece of My Heart


Paige Toon - 2017
    But, after numerous rejections from publishers, she accepts an alternative proposition: Nicole Dupre died leaving behind a bestselling novel and an incomplete sequel, and the family need someone to finish it. Bridget is just thankful to have her foot in the publishing door. But as she gets to know Nicole’s grieving family, and the woman behind the writing, Bridget’s priorities begin to change …

Adulting


Liz Talley - 2021
    She’s been written off as a Hollywood casualty by almost everyone, including her own mother. But handsome superstar Spencer Rome has her back. So does an uncompromising stranger determined to start Chase at square one and help her pull her future into focus. If Chase is willing.Life coach Olivia Han is devoted to “adulting” boot camp therapy. It’s not just her professional specialty, though—it’s also one way to avoid focusing on building a life of her own. To escape the pressures of Tinseltown, the two women head to Olivia’s cabin in the wilds of Northern California. There they discover a place in need of TLC. As they work together to rehab the once-charming cabin, they create a refuge where Chase can come to terms with her unsettled past, and where Olivia has an unexpected reckoning with her own troubling history.For two women doing damage control, this is a time for second chances—in life, in finding love, in forgiving family, and in an emerging friendship that might be exactly what each of them needs to heal.

The Making of Us


Lisa Jewell - 2011
    His friend Maggie sits with him every day; she holds his hand and she listens to the story of his life, to his regrets and to his secrets. And then he tells her about the children he has never met and never will. He talks of them wistfully. His legacy, he calls them. Lydia, Dean and Robyn don't know each other. Yet. And they are all facing difficult changes. Lydia is still wearing the scars from her traumatic childhood and although she is wealthy and successful, her life is lonely and disjointed. Dean is a young man, burdened with unexpected responsibility, whose life is going nowhere. And Robyn wants to be a doctor, just like her father - a man she's never met. But is her whole life built on an illusion? Three people leading three very different lives. All lost. All looking for something. But when they slowly find their way into each other's lives, everything starts to change ...

By Invitation Only


Dorothea Benton Frank - 2018
    In this thoughtful, timely, humorous, and bighearted tale, perennial New York Times bestselling author Dorothea Benton Frank examines what happens when a young sophisticated Chicagoan falls for the owner of a farm on Johns Island, a lush Lowcountry paradise off the coast of South Carolina-trading the bustle of a cosmopolitan city for the vagaries of a small southern town.

The Breakdown Lane


Jacquelyn Mitchard - 2006
    . .Julieanne Gillis's family collects them. An advice columnist for a local newspaper, Julie dispenses wisdom to her readers, but somehow missed the signs that something was wrong in her own home. Devoted to being a good mother and keeping her twenty-year marriage fresh and exciting, she is shocked by her husband's surprise announcement that he needs a "sabbatical" from their life together -- and devastated when he disappears, leaving Julie with no funds to raise two teenagers and a small daughter alone. But it is the discovery that Julieanne suffers from a serious illness that truly crumbles her family's foundation -- setting her children on a dangerous, quixotic journey to locate their missing father . . . before it's too late.

My Own Miraculous


Joshilyn Jackson - 2013
    She fell for her son—deeply, instantly, completely—but as she sat at the table feeding him, her own mother was sliding eggs and bacon on her plate, feeding her.Now, four years later, Shandi is still more parented than parent. She lives with her mom, her dad pays her bills, and her best friend Walcott acts as her white knight. But Natty is no ordinary kid, and when his savant behavior catches the attention of an obsessive stranger, only Shandi sees the true menace.To protect her son, Shandi must grow up, fast, and find an answer to the question—How does a girl remake herself into a mother?

The Rumor


Elin Hilderbrand - 2015
    But this summer, something's changed, and if there's anything Nantucket likes better than cocktails on the beach at sunset, it's a good rumor.And rumor has it......that Madeline, a novelist, is battling writer's block, with a deadline looming, bills piling up, and blank pages driving her to desperation--and a desperately bad decision;...that Grace, hard at work to transform her backyard into a garden paradise, has been collaborating a bit more closely than necessary with her ruggedly handsome landscape architect;...that Grace's husband, successful island real estate developer "Fast Eddie" Pancik, has embarked on quite an unusual side project;...that the storybook romance between Madeline's son, Brick, and Grace's daughter Allegra is on the rocks, heading for disaster.As the gossip escalates, and they face the possible loss of the happy lives they've worked so hard to create, Grace and Madeline try mightily to set the record straight--but the truth might be even worse than rumor has it.

My Married Boyfriend (Love & Revenge Book 2)


Cydney Rax - 2016
    An unexpected temptation. And stakes so high no one will walk away unscathed…   Gorgeous Nicole is about to get everything she's hustled for. She's having her rich, married lover Rashad's baby. And a lucky break has made her a media heroine—and the perfect new wife material. With one more deception here, a couple more little seductions there, she'll finally push Rashad's wife, Kiara, completely out of his life. With her formidable competition gone, Nicole will lock down Rashad's ever-wandering interest, and be the next Mrs. Eason for sure… But there are some temptations even this sexy schemer finds tough to pass up. Especially her first love, ex-con Ajalon, who's just walked back into her life. His intense hunger, chiseled body, and mind-blowing endurance are throwing Nicole off her game and reigniting emotions way too hot to control—or resist. But he’s also handed Kiara, and another interested ex, the perfect ammo to expose Nicole and blow her world apart once and for all. Now the only guarantee for all involved is shattering scandal—and mutually assured destruction…Praise for the novels of Cydney Rax   “The book we can’t put down.”--Essence® on My Husband’s Girlfriend   “Fascinating, witty, and thought-provoking.” –Zane on My Daughter’s Boyfriend   “Filled with family drama.”--APOOO Book Club on My Sister’s Ex

Roadrunner


Trisha R. Thomas - 2002
    He’s married to his college sweetheart, Leah, and they have two children and a dream home in Los Angeles. But an injury has sidelined his hot career, and prescription medication and depression are pulling him into a downward spiral, leaving Leah feeling emotionally distanced and lonely. Their fighting escalates, and one night Dell commits an act of violence that changes the course of their lives forever. But Angel Lopez, the cop who arrests Dell, decides to take the law into his own hands. Determined to teach the famous athlete a lesson, he drives Dell to the worst part of town and tries to kick him out of the car. The men struggle and the car crashes. When Angel comes to, Dell is gone and no one knows if he’s dead or alive.Leah is grateful when a guilt-stricken Angel offers to chase the media away from her home and help out around the house, “just until Dell comes home.” She and her family grow to trust him, and Angel falls in love with the Roadrunner’s lovely, grieving wife. Will Dell find his way home? Will Angel replace him? And what really happened that dark night the Roadrunner disappeared?