Book picks similar to
Leaning Into the Abyss by Amie McCracken


interior-design-formatted
magical-realism
relationships
relationships-friends

A Life Worth Living


Louise Guy - 2018
    Struggling journalist Leah envies Eve’s seemingly perfect life—the loyal husband, the beautiful twin daughters, the stellar career—little knowing that what Eve longs for most is Leah’s independence.When a shocking event upends their world, one woman seizes a split-second chance to change everything and follow her sister down a different life path. It’s a spontaneous choice, but there’s no going back. How will she deal with the fallout when covering up one untruth means lying to everyone—about everything?One thing is clear: both twins have secrets, and both just want to be happy. But what price will they pay to live the life they’ve always wanted?Revised edition: This edition of A Life Worth Living includes editorial revisions.

Rescue You


Elysia Whisler - 2020
    He’s got scars that haven’t healed. With the help of some rescue dogs, they’ll discover that everyone deserves a chance at happiness.After a year of heartbreak and loss, the only thing keeping Constance afloat is the dog rescue she works at with her sister, Sunny. Desperate for a change, Constance impulsively joins a new gym, even though it seems impossibly hard, and despite the gym’s prickly owner.Rhett Santos keeps his gym as a refuge for his former-military brothers and to sweat out his own issues. He’s ready to let the funny redhead join, but unprepared for the way she wiggles past his hard-won defenses.When their dog rescue is threatened, the sisters fight to protect it. And they need all the help they can get. As Rhett and Constance slowly open up to each other, they’ll find that no one is past rescuing; what they need is the right person—or dog—to save them.

Kalyug


R. Sreeram - 2014
    The helplessness left him, in its place was a hardened resolve that he would still have the final say. A third option. The middle-finger to the middlemen who had driven him to this. A few moments later, Major General Iqbal Qureshi fired the shot that shook the nations conscience.The death of a decorated war veteran, one of India's foremost military officials, triggers a chain of events that threatens to spiral out of control. The democratically-elected government is overthrown and a new one is formed in its place.A fierce and pure regime that promises it's people the kind of governance they have been deprived of. Just. Fair. Unyielding. Operation Kalyug has begun. Caught in the middle is Bala Murali Selvam, a writer who is still tormented by the memories of his persecution at the hands of the erstwhile-establishment. As the new government battles factions fighting for control, international intervention, personal agendas and incompatible motives, Selvam is swept along, a bewildered-pawn in a high-stakes game. Forced to question everything he has believed so far, even his innate sense of justice, Selvam struggles to choose sides. Will his instincts fail him when he needs them the most?

The Second Chance Boutique


Louisa Leaman - 2019
    Never covet a dress2. Never sell a dress that led to a doomed marriageThese two rules have helped Francesca build her reputation as a woman with a knack for matching a bride-to-be with the perfect gown.At Fran's shop every gown has its history, and the dresses seem to whisper their secrets to Fran, telling her the perfect match.But Francesca breaks both these rules the day she finds a beautiful 1950s couture floor-length gown. In her desperation to know the dress's background, she inadvertently becomes entangled with the original owner's son who would like the dark history of the dress to remain hidden forever.

Influenced


Eva Robinson - 2021
    Her former friend Rowan—glamorous Instagram star—has money and leisure spare. Once bound by a tragic accident, the two women have lost touch. At least, until Hannah forces herself into Rowan's beautiful world. When a party takes a shocking turn, history starts to repeat itself. Now, the Cambridge police are closing in, and the reunited friendship starts to unravel. Suspected of murder, Hannah and Rowan have to choose: do they keep each others' secrets, or do they try to save themselves? "Influenced is the sort of book where you end up staying up until the middle of the night because you can't let it go. Hannah is a character you fall in love with... and then stay on the edge of your seat as her life spirals out of control. A must read for psychological suspense lovers." -- New York Times and Washington Post Bestseller Mike Omer

What's Left Untold


Sherri Leimkuhler - 2020
    Then during college, Lia inexplicably walked out on their friendship and disappeared, leaving Anna hurt, confused, and disillusioned.Twenty years later, Anna discovers a letter Lia wrote the summer after high school — a letter that contains a cryptic postscript concealing a devastating truth. With her twenty-year high school reunion approaching, Anna moves closer to uncovering the secret in Lia’s letter and the heartbreaking consequences it set in motion.As the layers of deceit and betrayal begin to unravel, Anna is forced to question everything she believes and come to terms with what it means to forgive the one person who hurt her in the worst way imaginable.

The Secrets We Keep


Mia Hayes - 2018
    When she’s not going to Costco or day-drinking with her best friend, she’s trying to escape her past. And it seems to work – until an anonymous gossip blog begins spilling the women of Waterford’s darkest secrets. Now, the blurred conversations and blank spots in Elizabeth’s mind give way to panic and anxiety. If her secrets – like a hospitalization for bipolar disorder and a suicide attempt - don’t stay buried, she faces social shunning. Because after all, life in Waterford must look Instagram perfect at all times. With her mental health in tatters and her marriage on the brink of imploding, Elizabeth fights to protect her family, her reputation, and her sanity. The past, however, has a way of not being forgotten.

A Funny Kind of Paradise


Jo Owens - 2021
    At nearly 70, she feels she's earned a peaceful retirement. But when a massive stroke leaves her voiceless, partially paralyzed and wholly reliant on the staff of an extended care facility, it seems her freedom is lost.However, Francesca is still clear-headed and sharp, and she knows one thing: she wants to live. She savours her view of a majestic chestnut tree through the hospital window, and speaks in her mind to her beloved friend Anna, dead for two years. The daily tasks and dramas of the rotating crew of care aides tether her to the world: Young Lily, eager to fall in love and regularly falling apart when things don't work out; Michiko, with her spiky hair and tattoos and wicked sense of humour; Molly, endlessly kind and skilled in her work; Blaire, cold and enigmatic.Amidst the indignities of bed baths and a feeding tube, Francesca is surprised to experience flashes of hilarity and joy, even the blossoming of a new friendship with a fellow patient. But as she reflects to Anna on her dutiful son and her troubled and absent daughter, regrets and painful realizations rise to the surface. For the first time, there is nowhere for Francesca to hide from her own choices, and she must reckon with her past before it's too late. A Funny Kind of Paradise is a warm and insightful novel about one woman's opportunity for reinvention--for unconditional love, acceptance and closure--in the unlikeliest of places. A poignant, uplifting, brilliantly insightful story of one woman's end-of-life reckoning with her past, her lost daughter and herself, for readers of The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry , Still Alice and Elizabeth Is Missing .

Why Ram? : Beyond the Lakshman Rekha


Rakhi Kapoor - 2019
    

The Dinner Party


Brenda Janowitz - 2016
    Yes, there will be a quick service and then a festive meal afterwards, but this night is different from all other nights. This will be the night the Golds of Greenwich meet the Rothschilds of New York City.The Rothschilds are the stuff of legends. They control banks, own vineyards in Napa, diamond mines in Africa, and even an organic farm somewhere in the Midwest that produces the most popular Romaine lettuce consumed in this country. And now, Sylvia Gold's daughter is dating one of them.When Sylvia finds out that her youngest of three is going to bring her new boyfriend to the Seder, she's giddy. When she finds out that his parents are coming, too, she darn near faints. Making a good impression is all she thinks about. Well, almost. She still has to consider her other daughter, Sarah, who'll be coming with her less than appropriate beau and his overly dramatic Italian mother. But the drama won't stop there. Because despite the food and the wine, despite the new linen and the fresh flowers, the holidays are about family. Long forgotten memories come to the surface. Old grievances play out. And Sylvia Gold has to learn how to let her family go.

Fatigue


Jennifer Acker - 2019
    Accustomed to their independent routines, they will have to reform both their lives to accommodate the enervating illness. As Jennifer’s sense of self falls away, however, the couple is struck again. Her husband’s “frozen shoulder” all but locks one side of his upper body, leaving him in excruciating pain, partially immobilized, and as dependent on Jennifer as she is on him. But their needs are not in competition. In communion and reciprocal caregiving, they learn to love—and to explore—each other anew.

Five Dates with the Billionaire


Alyssa J. Montgomery - 2020
    Five dates together, then I'll have this surgery.'Billionaire CEO Connor Stewart is being blackmailed. By his own grandmother, no less, who is refusing to have life-saving surgery unless Connor dates Mia Simms, his dull and dowdy marketing employee.For Violet's sake, Connor agrees to the crazy scheme. There's no risk of breaking his 'short-term only' rule with Mia Simms; she's not the kind of woman Connor is interested in ... and he's sure she's hiding something. He just doesn't expect it to be delicious curves and a firecracker personality.Mia Simms is hiding something, and it's much more dangerous than her looks. All she wants to do is live life in the safety of the shadows and avoid discovery. But perhaps a short-term fling is exactly what she needs to remind her to live.But what if Violet is right to push them together? Can Mia trust Connor enough to let him see the real person behind the facade she's built? Or is Violet's little scheme about to put both their lives in danger?

The Cecelia and Kate Novels: Sorcery & Cecelia, The Grand Tour, and The Mislaid Magician


Patricia C. Wrede - 2014
    But in 1817, as they approach adulthood, their families force them to spend a summer apart. As Cecelia fights boredom in her small country town, Kate visits London to mingle with the brightest lights of English society. At the initiation of a powerful magician into the Royal College of Wizards, Kate finds herself alone with a mysterious witch who offers her a sip from a chocolate pot. When Kate refuses the drink, the chocolate burns through her dress and the witch disappears. It seems that strange forces are convening to destroy a beloved wizard, and only Kate and Cecelia can stop the plot. But for two girls who have to contend with the pressures of choosing dresses and beaux for their debuts, deadly magic is only one of their concerns.  In The Grand Tour, seasickness during the Channel crossing is the price Cecelia must pay for her budding magical skill. As her nausea ebbs, she is comforted by her new husband, James, and the knowledge that at long last they are on their honeymoon. In their company is Cecelia’s cousin Kate, newly minted as the Marchioness of Schofield, and her husband, Thomas. The shared journey guarantees the two couples a happy start to married life, if they can survive the perils of the Continent. In Calais, a mysterious woman visits Cecelia with a package intended for Thomas’s mother. Inside is an alabaster flask of noble manufacture, one of the royal artifacts that have been vanishing all over Europe as part of a magical plot against the French crown. This is no simple honeymoon: On their tour of Europe, Kate and Cecelia must save the monarchy from an emperor-in-exile named Napoleon. In The Mislaid Magician, it’s been a decade since Kate and Cecelia foiled Napoleon’s plot to reclaim the French crown. The cousins now have estates, children, and a place at the height of wizarding society. It is 1828, and though magic remains at the heart of the British Empire, a new power has begun to make itself felt across England: the steam engine. As iron tracks crisscross the countryside, the shaking of the locomotives begins to disrupt the workings of English magic, threatening the very foundations of the Empire. A foreign wizard on a diplomatic mission to England vanishes, and the Prime Minister sends Cecelia’s husband to investigate. In order to accompany her husband to the north of England, Cecelia leaves her children in Kate’s care. As Cecelia and James fight for the future of magic, Kate is left with a no less daunting problem: how to care for a gaggle of disobedient, spell-casting tots.

Her Last Secret


P.L. Kane - 2020
    But Jake hasn’t seen Jordan for over three years and, with secrets of her own, she was far from the child he abandoned all those years ago.Jake’s ex-wife Jules, is reluctant to let him waltz back into her life. But with a question mark hanging over the case, Jake knows that he must piece together the fragments of evidence before it is too late.Will he ever discover the truth?

The Off-Islander


Peter Colt - 2019
    is hired to find a missing father--but may find far more than he bargained for . . . Boston, 1982. Private investigator Andy Roark has spent the past decade trying to rediscover his place in the world. In Vietnam, there was order and purpose. Everything--no matter how brutal--happened for a reason. Back home, after brief stints in college and with the police force, Roark has settled for a steady, easy routine of divorce and insurance fraud cases.Roark's childhood friend, Danny Sullivan, dragged himself out of blue-collar Southie to become a respected and powerful lawyer. Now he wants Roark to help one of his clients with a sensitive request. Deborah Swift, wealthy wife of an aspiring California politician, is trying to trace her father, last seen on Cape Cod, who walked out on her and her mother long ago. Other investigators have turned up nothing, but Roark's local connections might give him an edge.The case takes Roark to the island of Nantucket, tranquil in its off-season, and laden with picturesque charm. Yet even here, on the quaint cobblestoned streets and pristine beaches, Roark's finely honed senses alert him to danger just below the surface. Nothing is quite as it seems. And the biggest case of Roark's career may just shatter what little peace of mind he has left . . .