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In the Summertime by Judy Astley


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The Lavender House


Hilary Boyd - 2016
    Caught between her ageing, ailing mother Frances, and her struggling daughter Louise, frequent user of Nancy's babysitting services, it seems Nancy's fate is to quietly go on shouldering the burden of responsibility for all four generations. Her divorce four years ago put paid to any thoughts of a partner to share her later years with. Now it looks like her family is all she has. Then she meets Jim. Smoker, drinker, unsuccessful country singer and wearer of cowboy boots, he should be completely unsuited to the very together Nancy. And yet, there is a real spark. But Nancy's family don't trust Jim one bit. They're convinced he'll break her heart, maybe run off with her money - he certainly distracts her from her family responsibilities. Can she be brave enough to follow her heart? Or will she remain glued to her family's side and walk away from one last chance for love?

The Guest Cottage


Nancy Thayer - 2015
    She knows her role in life: supportive wife of a successful architect and calm, capable mother of two. But on a warm summer night, as the house grows quiet around her and her children fall asleep, she wonders what’s missing from her life. When her husband echoes that lonely question, announcing that he’s leaving her for another woman, Sophie realizes she has no idea what’s next. Impulsively renting a guest cottage on Nantucket from her friend Susie Swenson, Sophie rounds up her kids, Jonah and Lacey, and leaves Boston for a quiet family vacation, minus one.Also minus one is Trevor Black, a software entrepreneur who has recently lost his wife. Trevor is the last person to imagine himself, age thirty and on his own, raising a little boy like Leo—smart and sweet, but grappling constantly with his mother’s death, growing more and more closed off. Hoping a quiet summer on the Nantucket coast will help him reconnect with Leo, Trevor rents a guest house on the beautiful island from his friend Ivan Swenson.Best-laid plans run awry when Sophie and Trevor realize they’ve mistakenly rented the same house. Still, determined to make this a summer their kids will always remember, the two agree to share the Swensons’ Nantucket house. But as the summer unfolds and the families grow close, Sophie and Trevor must ask themselves if the guest cottage is all they want to share.Inspiring and true to life, The Guest Cottage is Nancy Thayer at her finest, inscribing in graceful, knowing prose matters of the heart and the meaning of family.

The Opposite of Me


Sarah Pekkanen - 2010
    Determined to get noticed, Lindsey is finally on the cusp of being named VP creative director of an elite New York advertising agency, after years of eighty-plus-hour weeks, migraines, and profound loneliness. But during the course of one devastating night, Lindsey’s carefully constructed life implodes. Humiliated, she flees the glitter of Manhattan and retreats to the time warp of her parents’ Maryland home. As her sister plans her lavish wedding to her Prince Charming, Lindsey struggles to maintain her identity as the smart, responsible twin while she furtively tries to piece her career back together. But things get more complicated when a long-held family secret is unleashed that forces both sisters to reconsider who they are and who they are meant to be.

The Cafe by the Sea


Jenny Colgan - 2017
    What would she have done on Mure? It's a place where everyone has known her all her life, where no one will let her forget the past. In bright, bustling London, she can be anonymous, ambitious... and hopelessly in love with her boss.But when fate brings Flora back to the island, she's suddenly swept once more into life with her brothers -- all strapping, loud, and seemingly incapable of basic housework -- and her father. Yet even amid the chaos of their reunion, Flora discovers a passion for cooking -- and find herself restoring dusty little pink-fronted shop on the harbour: a café by the sea.But with the seasons changing, Flora must come to terms with past mistakes -- and work out exactly where her future lies...

The Friendship List


Susan Mallery - 2020
    If she wants him to live his best life, she has to convince him she’s living hers.So Unity Leandre, her best friend since forever, creates a list of challenges to push Ellen out of her comfort zone. Unity will complete the list, too, but not because she needs to change. What’s wrong with a thirtysomething widow still sleeping in her late husband’s childhood bed?The Friendship List begins as a way to make others believe they’re just fine. But somewhere between “wear three-inch heels” and “have sex with a gorgeous guy,” Ellen and Unity discover that life is meant to be lived with joy and abandon, in a story filled with humor, heartache and regrettable tattoos.

A Walk Along the Beach


Debbie Macomber - 2020
    After their mother died and their father was lost in grief, Willa had no choice but to raise her sister, Harper, and their brother, Lucas. Then, as an adult, she put her own life on hold to nurse Harper through a terrifying illness. Now that Harper is better and the sisters are living as roommates, Willa has realized her dream of running her own bakery and coffee shop, bringing her special brand of caretaking to the whole Oceanside community.Harper, on the other hand, is always on the go. Overcoming a terrible illness has given her a new lease on life, and she does not intend to waste it. When Harper announces her plan to summit Mount Rainier, Willa fears she may be pushing herself too far. Harper, for her part, urges Willa to stop worrying and do something outside of her comfort zone—like taking a chance on love with a handsome new customer. Sean O’Malley is as charming as he is intriguing—a freelance photographer whose assignments take him to the ends of the earth. Soon Willa’s falling for him in a way that is both exciting and terrifying. But life has taught Willa to hedge her bets, and she wonders whether the potential heartache is worth the risk. Life has more challenges in store for them all. But both sisters will discover that even in the darkest moments, family is everything.

What Rosie Found Next


Helen J. Rolfe - 2015
    She thinks she knows exactly what she needs to make her life complete – the stable job and perfect house-sit she’s just found in Magnolia Creek. The only thing she wants now is for her long-term boyfriend, Adam, to leave his overseas job and come home for good. Owen Harrison is notoriously nomadic, and he roars into town on his Ducati for one reason and one reason only – to search his parents’ house while they’re away to find out what they’ve been hiding from him his entire life. When he meets Rosie, who refuses to quit the house-sit in his parents’ home, sparks fly. Secrets are unearthed, promises are broken, friendships are put to the test and the real risk of bushfires under the hot Australian sun threatens to undo Rosie once and for all. Will Rosie and Owen be able to find what they want or what they really need?

Lizzie & Dante


Mary Bly - 2021
    Once settled into a luxurious seaside resort, Lizzie has to make big decisions about her future, and she needs the one thing she may be running out of: time.She leaves the yacht-owners and celebrities behind and sneaks off to the public beach, where she meets a sardonic chef named Dante, his battered dog Lily, and his wry daughter Etta, a twelve-year-old desperate for a mother. While Dante shows Lizzie the island's secrets, and Etta dazzles with her irreverent humor, Lizzie is confronted with a dilemma. Is it right to fall in love if time is short? Is it better to find a mother briefly, or to have no mother at all? And the most difficult question of all: What if falling in love inevitably leads to broken hearts?A transporting, all-consuming story about love, courage, and Italian wine, Lizzie & Dante demands to know how far we should travel to find a future worth fighting for.

Villa Azure


Melissa Hill - 2019
     Life is sweet for Joanna until the day she gets a call from a lawyer in Greece that knocks her for six. Her father, whom she has never met, has died. Her late mother was always reticent to discuss a vacation romance she had over two decades ago on a tiny Greek island called Skiathos, and Joanna - a hopeless romantic at heart - has always tried to fill in the blanks. According to the lawyer, her father has left her an inheritance. The condition? Joanna must travel to the island to see it for herself...

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.

The Good Luck Girls of Shipwreck Lane


Kelly Harms - 2013
    Meanwhile, across town, Janine "Nean" Brown couldn't be more thrilled. She just knows that this house is her destiny, the chance to escape the latest in her revolving door of crappy jobs and drunken boyfriends.When both Janine Browns descend on Christmas Cove, Maine, to claim the prize they both think is theirs, however, they discover that more than just a dream home awaits them at the water's edge. Filled with wit and charm, The Good Luck Girls of Shipwreck Lane is Kelly Harms's enchanting and heartfelt debut--a testament to the many ways love finds us, the power of a home-cooked meal, and just what it means to be lucky.

Fooling in Love


S.J. Crabb - 2019
    If life isn’t living up to your expectations, is it possible to stop and start again? Rachel Asquith thinks so. She escapes the city for Bluebell cottage in the tiny Hamlet of Perivale, one of those twinkling stars that fell to earth and took root. This place has it all. Beautiful beach, pretty cottage, fabulous views and a set of neighbours who take her in and make her one of their own. Then there are the men. Logan - hot, angry and intriguing. Jack - the local handyman who is extremely handy with his… um tools. Then there’s Max. The pilot/playboy who thinks life should be lived in the fast lane and does everything at supersonic speed. Rachel soon finds that choices need to be made. At some point, she needs to head home and face the mess she’s caused. At some point, she will need to choose between her new life and old, and at some point, she needs to decide if she’s just fooling in love again with the wrong person. However, the decision faces her much quicker than she thought when she needs her old life to rescue the new one. She will have to leave the place she now calls home to save it and in doing so may just lose the man she loves. Love is a complicated business – it’s just a good thing business is what she does best.

And Then I Found You


Patti Callahan Henry - 2013
    Now it's time to do it again.Kate has a secret, something tucked away in her past. And she's getting on with her life. Her business is thriving. She has a strong relationship with her family, and a devoted boyfriend whom she wants to love with all her heart. If Kate had ever made a list, Rowan would fill the imagined boxes of a perfect mate. But she wants more than the perfect on paper relationship; she wants a real and imperfect love. That's why, when Kate discovers the small velvet box hidden in Rowan's drawer, she panics.It always happens this way. Just when Kate thinks she can love, just when she believes she can conquer the fear, she's filled with dread. And she wants more than anything to make this feeling go away. But how?When the mistakes have been made and the running is over, it's time to face the truth. Kate knows this. She understands that a woman can never undo what can never be undone. Yet, for the first time in her life she also knows that she won't fully love until she confronts those from her past. It's time to act.Can she do it? Can she travel to the place where it all began, to the one who shares her secret? Can the lost ever become found?And Then I Found You gives new life to the phrase "inspired by a true story." By travelling back to a painful time in her own family's history, author Patti Callahan Henry explores the limits of courage, and the price of a selfless act.

How I Lost You


Janet Gurtler - 2013
    One is that nothing will ever come between her and her best friend, Kya Kessler. They have a pact. Buds Before Studs. Sisters Before Misters. But in the summer before senior year, life throws out challenges they never expected. And suddenly the person who's always been there starts to need the favor returned. Grace and Kya are forced to question how much a best friend can forgive. And the answer is not what they expected.

You, Me, and the Sea


Meg Donohue - 2019
    Her beloved home is Horseshoe Cliff, a small farm on the coast of Northern California where she spends her days exploring fog-cloaked bluffs, swimming in the cove, and basking in the light of golden sunsets as her father entertains her with fantastical stories. It is an enchanting childhood, but it is not without hardship—the mystery of Merrow’s mother’s death haunts her, as does the increasingly senseless cruelty of her older brother, Bear. Then, like sea glass carried from a distant land, Amir arrives in Merrow’s life. He’s been tossed about from India to New York City and now to Horseshoe Cliff, to stay with her family. Merrow is immediately drawn to his spirit, his passion, and his resilience in the face of Bear’s viciousness. Together they embrace their love of the sea, and their growing love for each other.But the ocean holds secrets in its darkest depths. When tragedy strikes, Merrow is forced to question whether Amir is really the person she believed him to be. In order to escape the danger she finds herself in and find her own path forward, she must let go of the only home she’s ever known, and the only boy she’s ever loved....