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A State of Jane by Meredith Schorr


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44 Charles Street


Danielle Steel - 2006
    And every square inch was being devotedly restored to its original splendor—even as a relationship fell to pieces. Now Francesca Thayer, newly separated from her lawyer boyfriend Todd, is desperate. The owner of a struggling art gallery, and suddenly the sole mortgage payer on her Greenwich Village townhouse, Francesca does the math and then the unimaginable. She puts out an advertisement for boarders. Soon her house becomes a whole new world.First comes Eileen, a fresh, pretty L.A. transplant, now a New York City schoolteacher. Then there’s Chris, a young father struggling with a troubled ex-wife and the challenge of parenting a seven-year-old son who visits every other weekend. The final tenant is Marya, a celebrated cookbook author hoping to start a new chapter in her life after the death of her husband. As Francesca’s art gallery begins to find its footing and Todd moves on to another woman, she discovers that her accidental tenants have become the most important people in her life. As the roommates bond, and the house fills with the aroma of Marya’s exquisite cuisine, there are shadows as well as light. Naïve Eileen explores the precarious boundaries of online dating with a series of strangers. Chris’s custody fight for his son escalates to devastating levels. Marya faces an unexpected choice that will take her into untested waters. And Francesca herself will contemplate what had seemed impossible: opening her heart once more.Over the course of one amazing, unforgettable, ultimately life-changing year, the house at 44 Charles Street fills with laughter, heartbreak, and, always, hope. In the hands of master storyteller Danielle Steel, it’s a place those who visit will never want to leave.

The Bette Davis Club


Jane Lotter - 2013
    Spending three decades in love with a wonderful but unattainable man is pretty high up on her list of missteps, as is a long line of unsuccessful love affairs accompanied by a seemingly endless supply of delicious cocktails.When the young bride flees—taking with her a family heirloom and leaving behind six hundred bewildered guests—her mother offers Margo fifty grand to retrieve her spoiled brat of a daughter and the invaluable property she stole. So, together with the bride’s jilted and justifiably crabby fiancé, Margo sets out in a borrowed 1955 red MG on a cross-country chase. Along the way, none of what she discovers will be quite what she expected. But it might be exactly what she’s been seeking all along.From acclaimed humor writer Jane Lotter comes this madcap, laugh-out-loud adventure, The Bette Davis Club. Revised edition: This edition of The Bette Davis Club includes editorial revisions.

Room to Breathe


Liz Talley - 2019
    Her dialogue is crisp and smart, her characters are vivid and real, her stories are unputdownable.” —Robyn Carr, New York Times bestselling author For a good part of Daphne Witt’s life, she was a supportive wife and dutiful mother. Now that she’s divorced and her daughter, Ellery, is all grown up, Daphne’s celebrating the best part of her life, a successful career, and a flirtation with an attentive hunk fifteen years her junior…who happens to be her daughter’s ex-boyfriend.Ellery is starting over, too. She’s fresh out of college. Her job prospects are dim. And to support her fiancé in med school, she’s returned home as her mother’s new assistant. Ellery never expected her own life plan to take such a detour. With no outlet for her frustration, she lets an online flirtation go a little too far, especially considering her pen pal thinks he’s corresponding with her mother.As love lives tangle, secrets spill, and indiscretions are betrayed, mother and daughter will have a lot to learn—not only about the mistakes they’ve made but also about the men in their lives and the women they are each hoping to become.

Cypress Point


Diane Chamberlain - 2002
    Reprint.

Butterface


Avery Flynn - 2018
    I’m not what most people would call “pretty” and, well, high school was rough. Fast forward ten years and life is good…Until a bunch of jerks think it’s hilarious to put the “butterface” (AKA me) on a wedding Kiss Cam with the hottest guy ever—and that old humiliation hits hard.I recognize him immediately. The sexiest cop in Waterbury and totally out of my league.But then he kisses me. And we totally forget the room, the crowd, everything.Then he tells everyone we’ve been dating for months.Soon everything starts to feel too real, from adorable fights over “necessary” tools to fix my broken porch to surviving a free-for-all dinner with his six siblings to picking up where our last kiss left off.But there’s something he’s not telling me about why he’s really hanging around, and I’m pretty sure it has to do with my mob-connected brothers.Because this is not a make-over story, and Cinderella is only a fairy tale…

Cinderella Screwed Me Over


Cindi Madsen - 2013
    Burned one too many times by ex-boyfriends, Darby has lost all belief in the happily-ever-after that the fairy-tale princess promised her. She's sworn off love, Prince Charmings, and happy endings and she's happy about it. Really. Or at least she was…until she met Jake, her gorgeous neighbor and the manager of her favorite restaurant. But Darby has rules about dating, ones she's culled from her years spent with so-called “princes,” and starting something with Jake would break all of them.Charming, fun, and unwilling to give up on her, Jake doesn’t fit any of the profiles Darby has created from her case studies of ex-princes-gone-bad. Finally presented with her own Prince Charming, can Darby take a chance on a happily-ever-after?Full of wit and sarcastic humor, Cinderella Screwed Me Over proves that sometimes the perfect love, like a perfect pair of shoes, is just within your grasp.

Until We Collide


Charlotte Fallowfield - 2016
    Fans of Bridget Jones will love this!" TotallyBooked BlogWhat do you get when you cross a neck brace, a jellyfish, and an encounter with a gorilla? Dating disasters only a quirky and fun woman could endure. With her thirtieth birthday fast-approaching, Paige Taylor knows she must get more than her toes wet in the dating pool. After all, she's spent way too long pining over Alec Wright, who's perpetually unavailable. Now, with some encouragement from her best friend, Paige is ready to take the plunge and find Mr. Right. But when a catalogue of catastrophic dates ensue, Paige questions what she's always wondered. Is Alec Wright her Mr. Right? An Amazon UK, and international, #1 bestselling contemporary romance, humour, and romantic comedy novel.

If You Must Know


Jamie Beck - 2020
    Amanda follows the rules—at the school where she works; in her community; and as a picture-perfect daughter, wife, and mother-to-be. Erin follows her heart—in love and otherwise—living a bohemian lifestyle on a shoestring budget and honoring her late father’s memory with a passion for music and her fledgling bath-products business.The sisters are content leading separate but happy lives in their hometown of Potomac Point until everything is upended by lies that force them to confront unsettling truths about their family, themselves, and each other. For sisters as different as these two, building trust doesn’t come easily—especially with one secret still between them—but it may be the only way to save their family.

My Sweet Revenge


Jane Fallon - 2017
    This isn't an exercise in 1950s wifeydom. I haven't been reading articles in old women's magazines. 'Twenty ways to keep your man'. That couldn't be further from the truth.I want him to fall back in love with me so that when I tell him to get the hell out of my life he'll care. He won't just think, 'Oh good'.I want it to hurt.Paula has had Robert's back since they got together as drama students. She gave up her dreams so he could make it. Now he's one of the nation's most popular actors. And Paula's just discovered he's having an affair.She's going to remind Robert just what he's sacrificing. And then she's going to break his heart like he broke hers. It will be her greatest acting role ever.Revenge is sweet. Isn't it?

Why Can't I Be You


Allison Larkin - 2013
    Exploring this universal longing, Allie Larkin follows up the success of her debut novel, Stay, with a moving portrait of friendship and identity. When Jenny Shaw hears someone shout “Jessie!” across a hotel lobby, she impulsively answers. All her life, Jenny has toed the line, but something propels her to seize the opportunity to become Jessie Morgan, a woman to whom she bears an uncanny resemblance. Lonely in her own life, Jenny is embraced by Jessie’s warm circle of friends—and finds unexpected romance. But when she delves into Jessie’s past, Jenny discovers a secret that spurs her to take another leap into the unknown.

In Twenty Years


Allison Winn Scotch - 2016
    Now, mostly estranged from one another, the remaining five reluctantly gather at that same house on the eve of what would have been Bea’s fortieth birthday.But along with the return of the friends come old grudges, unrequited feelings, and buried secrets. Catherine, the CEO of a domestic empire, and Owen, a stay-at-home dad, were picture-perfect college sweethearts—but now teeter on the brink of disaster. Lindy, a well-known musician, is pushing middle age in an industry that’s all about youth and slowly self-destructing as she grapples with her own identity. Behind his smile, handsome plastic surgeon Colin harbors the heartbreaking truth about his own history with Bea. And Annie carefully curates her life on Instagram and Facebook, keeping up appearances so she doesn’t have to face the truth about her own empty reality.Reunited in the place where so many dreams began, and bolstered by the hope of healing, each of them is forced to confront the past.

The Summer Seekers


Sarah Morgan - 2021
    After she has a run-in with an intruder, her daughter wants her to move in to a residential home. But she’s not having any of it. What she craves—what she needs—is adventure.Liza is drowning under the daily stress of family life. The last thing she needs is her mother jetting off on a wild holiday, making Liza long for a solo summer of her own.Martha is having a quarter-life crisis. Unemployed, unloved and uninspired, she just can’t get her life together. But she knows something has to change.When Martha sees Kathleen’s advertisement for a driver and companion to share an epic road trip across America, she decides this job might be the answer to her prayers. She’s not the world’s best driver, but anything has to be better than living with her parents. And traveling with a stranger? No problem. Anyway, how much trouble can one eighty-year-old woman be?As these women embark on the journey of a lifetime, they all discover it’s never too late to start over.

Divorced, Desperate and Delicious


Christie Craig - 2007
    But all that changes when the reindeer-antlered Fabio drags in a very desperate, on-the-run detective who decides to take refuge in her house.

Confessions of an Alli Cat


Courtney Cole - 2012
    What she doesn’t have is a husband, because she kicked her lousy, cheating ex to the curb nine months ago. Since then, Alli has paid her dues with seemingly endless self-improvement and seemingly endless mourning. Now she’s ready to move on and try new things. Alli’s idea of “trying new things” is nothing like that devil-of-a-best-friend of hers. Somehow, Sara, the devil of a best friend, talks Alli into trying out a sex toy, sleeping with a younger man and letting a stranger in a lab jacket put hot wax on a place that should never, ever, ever see wax. And that’s only the beginning. Alli never saw her life going quite like this. She also never thought she’d meet someone else who had the very real potential to change her life forever. But she did. Enter the new guy. He’s gorgeous, refined and mature. He’s also marriage material. But that poses a problem for Alli, who renounced the institution of marriage when she renounced her ex. What’s a girl to do? They say that what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas. But what the heck happens when you can’t leave Vegas? Well, you spin the wheel, of course. You play the game and let the chips fall where they may. Alli just hopes she can find them all. *******Caution! Only read this book if you want to laugh and are not offended at adult themes and language. This is not a Young Adult book.

A Vintage Wedding


Katie Fforde - 2014
    In a small Cotswold country town, Beth, Lindy and Rachel are looking for new beginnings.So they set up in business, organising stylish and perfectly affordable vintage weddings.Soon they are busy arranging other people's Big Days.What none of them know is that their own romances lie waiting, just around the corner ...