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The Boy with a Bird in His Chest
Emme Lund - 2022
From the moment Gail emerged between Owen’s ribs, his mother knew that she had to hide him away from the world. After a decade spent in hiding, Owen takes a brazen trip outdoors in the middle of a forest fire, and his life is upended forever.Suddenly, Owen is forced to flee the home that had once felt so confining and hide in plain sight with his uncle and cousin in Washington. There, he feels the joy of finding a family among friends; of sharing the bird in his chest and being embraced fully; of falling in love and feeling the devastating heartbreak of rejection before finding a spark of happiness in the most unexpected place; of living his truth regardless of how hard the thieves of joy may try to tear him down. But the threat of the Army of Acronyms is a constant, looming presence, making Owen wonder if he’ll ever find a way out of the cycle of fear.A heartbreaking yet hopeful novel about the things that make us unique and lovable, The Boy with a Bird in His Chest grapples with the fear, depression, and feelings of isolation that come with believing that we will never be loved, let alone accepted, for who we truly are, and learning to live fully and openly regardless.
The Lending Library
Aliza Fogelson - 2020
How is a small-town art teacher supposed to cope without the never-ending life advice and enjoyment that books give her? Well, when she’s as resourceful and generous as Dodie, she turns her sunroom into her very own little lending library.At first just a hobby, this lit lovers’ haven opens up her world in incredible ways. She knows books are powerful, and soon enough they help her forge friendships between her zany neighbors—and attract an exciting new romance.But when the chance to adopt an orphaned child brings Dodie’s secret dream of motherhood within reach, everything else suddenly seems less important. Finding herself at a crossroads, Dodie must figure out what it means to live a full, happy life. If only there were a book that could tell her what to do…
Faded Sunset
Rachel Blaufeld - 2021
As far as I’m concerned, Tommy broke your vows when he hurt you. You deserve happiness, and I want you to get it soon. Grab all of it.” ~ my friend, Sheila Margaret Long’s world looks bright and shiny on the outside. Married to a successful attorney, she lives in a mini-mansion with her husband and their perfect daughter. No one would imagine how dim and dark her life really is. With a fractured heart and a broken body, she wonders how to break free.The day Margaret happens to meet Mick Grantham is serendipitous. With a huge appetite for success after rescuing his mom from a violent situation, he now feeds that hunger by rebuilding broken businesses, not people. Although Margaret has a vibrant personality, her fragile exterior brings out his compassion, drawing him into her world.It’s a dangerous situation, especially with Margaret’s outspoken daughter involved, who is wiser than her years. Someone is likely to get hurt, but Margaret and Mick’s attraction can’t be helped until changing circumstances force them to a halt. Not all happy endings are born easily, but those won through adversity are often the most satisfying.
White Ivy
Susie Yang - 2020
Raised outside of Boston, she is taught how to pilfer items from yard sales and second-hand shops by her immigrant grandmother. Thieving allows Ivy to accumulate the trappings of a suburban teen—and, most importantly, to attract the attention of Gideon Speyer, the golden boy of a wealthy political family. But when Ivy’s mother discovers her trespasses, punishment is swift and Ivy is sent to China, where her dream instantly evaporates.Years later, Ivy has grown into a poised yet restless young woman, haunted by her conflicting feelings about her upbringing and her family. Back in Boston, when she bumps into Sylvia Speyer, Gideon’s sister, a reconnection with Gideon seems not only inevitable—it feels like fate.Slowly, Ivy sinks her claws into Gideon and the entire Speyer clan by attending fancy dinners and weekend getaways to the Cape. But just as Ivy is about to have everything she’s ever wanted, a ghost from her past resurfaces, threatening the nearly perfect life she’s worked so hard to build.Filled with surprising twists and offering sharp insights into the immigrant experience, White Ivy is both a love triangle and a coming-of-age story, as well as a glimpse into the dark side of a woman who yearns for success at any cost.A dazzling debut novel about a young woman’s dark obsession with her privileged classmate and the lengths she’ll go to win his love
Thanks, Carissa, For Ruining My Life
Dallas Woodburn - 2022
But when Carissa breaks up with Brad, his carefully constructed life comes crashing down. Convinced everything would be perfect if only Carissa would take him back, Brad creates a “self-improvement plan” and vows to re-win her heart.Rose wishes she were having a normal senior year like everyone else, but leave it to her twin sister Carissa to butt in and ruin her life. Carissa secretly nominated Rose for the reality TV show Help Me Lose Weight and Live Again—and now Rose is on her way to Texas for three months of calorie-counting, marathon-exercising hell. Rose already felt overshadowed by her “perfect” sister, and collapsing on a treadmill on national TV is not making things any better. Plus, Rose can’t squash feelings for her sister’s boyfriend Brad (even though she knows he would never see her as anything but a friend.)For fans of friends-to-lovers romance comes a heartwarming novel about self-improvement, identity and acceptance in our image-obsessed culture.
The Love Proof
Madeleine Henry - 2021
Sophie Jones is a physics prodigy on track to unlock the secrets of the universe. But when she meets Jake Kristopher during their first week at Yale they instantly feel a deep connection, as if they’ve known each other before. Quickly, they become a couple. Slowly, their love lures Sophie away from school. When a shocking development forces Sophie into a new reality, she returns to physics to make sense of her world. She grapples with life’s big questions, including how to cope with unexpected change and loss. Inspired by her connection with Jake, Sophie throws herself into her studies, determined to prove that true loves belong together in all realities. Spanning decades, The Love Proof is an unusual love story about lasting connection, time, and intuition. It explores the course that perfect love can take between imperfect people, and urges us to listen to our hearts rather than our heads.
In the Shadow of Satellites
Amanda Dick - 2016
He wishes he could forget.It’s 22 February 2011 and the city of Christchurch, New Zealand is bustling. Sian Bennett and her baby son are window-shopping, waiting patiently to join her husband for lunch after his business meeting.Then the ground begins to shake and the life she had is gone. Buried beneath the rubble in the aftermath of the 6.3 magnitude earthquake, Sian survives - barely - but her husband and son do not. Two years on, struggling with short-term memory loss and crippling social anxiety, Sian retreats to a lakeside cottage in Rotorua. There, among the ghosts of her family, is the only place she feels safe. When enigmatic American soldier Luke Lancaster moves into the derelict cottage beyond the trees, he respects his reclusive neighbour’s silent plea for privacy. Wrestling with ghosts of his own, he keeps himself busy by renovating his cottage and staying out of her way.Two strangers from opposite sides of the world. One secret that will either bind them together or tear them apart.How far would you go to hold on to the ones you love?In the Shadow of Satellites is Amanda Dick’s latest searing novel about love, loss and the strength of the human spirit.
Coral Holiday (Summer Beach: Coral Cottage, #3)
Jan Moran - 2021
When her sister Kai throws her energy into creating a Summer Beach performing arts theater, the entire family gets involved. Soon they are in a race to open by the holiday season.As former investigative journalist Jack Ventana struggles to adapt to his new role as a single father in a small beach town, his relationship with Marina suffers. Will this holiday bring them together or force them apart? Join Marina and Kai as they involve the entire Summer Beach community in fundraising and casting a new holiday show to celebrate the joy of Christmas and winter holidays. Relax at the Coral Cottage beach house any time of year with a group of family and friends you'll love.From USA Today bestselling author Jan Moran, Coral Holiday is the third novel in the Summer Beach: Coral Cottage series. Available in ebooks, paperback, hardcover, and audiobook editions.REVIEWS"A fun read that grabs you at the start." -Tina Sloan, Author and Award-Winning Actress"A wonderful story that is great at any time of the year. Will make you feel like the sea breeze is streaming through your hair." - Laura Bradbury, Bestselling Author, My Grape Year"The perfect blend of mystery and romance...the women in Jan's stories are always intelligent and strong. At the core of all her books is a strong, close-knit family. The story evoked a wide range of emotions but most of all love." - Betty's ReviewsSummer Beach SeriesSeabreeze InnSeabreeze SummerSeabreeze SunsetSeabreeze ChristmasSeabreeze WeddingSeabreeze Book ClubCoral CottageCoral CafeCoral HolidayTo be announced...
The Book of Dreams
Nina George - 2016
On his way to see his son, Sam, for the first time in years, Henri steps into the road without looking and collides with oncoming traffic. He is rushed to a nearby hospital where he floats, comatose, between dreams, reliving the fairytales of his childhood and the secrets that made him run away in the first place.After the accident, Sam--a thirteen-year old synesthete with an IQ of 144 and an appetite for science fiction--waits by his father's bedside every day. There he meets Eddie Tomlin, a woman forced to confront her love for Henri after all these years, and twelve-year old Madelyn Zeidler, a coma patient like Henri and the sole survivor of a traffic accident that killed her family. As these four very different individuals fight--for hope, for patience, for life--they are bound together inextricably, facing the ravages of loss and first love side by side.A revelatory, urgently human story that examines what we consider serious and painful alongside light and whimsy, The Book of Dreams is a tender meditation on memory, liminality, and empathy, asking with grace and gravitas what we will truly find meaningful in our lives once we are gone.
The Authenticity Project
Clare Pooley - 2020
But what if they were? And so he writes--in a plain, green journal--the truth about his own life and leaves it in his local café. It's run by the incredibly tidy and efficient Monica, who furtively adds her own entry and leaves the book in the wine bar across the street. Before long, the others who find the green notebook add the truths about their own deepest selves--and soon find each other in real life at Monica's café.The Authenticity Project's cast of characters--including Hazard, the charming addict who makes a vow to get sober; Alice, the fabulous mommy Instagrammer whose real life is a lot less perfect than it looks online; and their other new friends--is by turns quirky and funny, heartbreakingly sad and painfully true-to-life. It's a story about being brave and putting your real self forward--and finding out that it's not as scary as it seems. In fact, it looks a lot like happiness.The Authenticity Project is just the tonic for our times that readers are clamoring for--and one they will take to their hearts and read with unabashed pleasure.
I Wish for You
Camilla Isley - 2015
But now that she has seen him with another woman, and one she knows only too well, her life seems to have reached a whole new level of low. Yet, when she stumbles across an ancient object infused with magical powers and a stranger with a dark past appears out of nowhere promising to grant all her wishes, she finds herself hoping again. Suddenly Ally’s life is turned upside down; she has a mystery to solve, a rival to beat, a millenarian curse to break, and well, she wants to have some fun playing with her new “gifts”… But can she wish her way to happily ever after?
Sophie Valroux's Paris Stars
Samantha Verant - 2021
Everybody wants a piece of grand chef Sophie Valroux. With her once-destroyed reputation fully recovered and then some, Sophie is making her mark in the culinary world. She's running the restaurants of Château de Champvert, the beautiful estate that she inherited from her grandmother. She and her fiancé, Rémi, are closer than ever, and she's even bonding with his daughter Lola. Everything should be perfect.Yet, Sophie still feels something in her heart is missing.When she's invited to cook at an exclusive event her culinary idol is attending, she thinks this could be the thing to catapult her to greater heights, maybe even bring her one step closer to her one and only dream of achieving the stars--Michelin stars.But fate has other plans for Sophie. After she accepts to cook for the Parisian elite, her world crumbles. She suffers a fall and loses her senses of smell and taste. Certain that her career will vanish if people find out, she keeps this secret to herself, not even telling Rémi. She fakes it all: the menus for every meal, the taste of fresh figs, the juicy cherries in the orchard. All she has to do is get through life--and the event--tasteless without missing a single step. Fake it 'til you make it...right?
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.
Not the Witch You Wed
April Asher - 2022
But when the two of them are forced by arcane Supernatural Laws to find mates, Violet and Lincoln agree to fake-date their way to a fake-mating in order to conjure themselves some time.The joke’s on them. When old feelings make a reappearance—along with Violet’s magic—they both realize there’s nothing fake about their feelings. But there are old secrets and looming threats that could snatch away their happily ever after, again. One thing’s for sure: magic doesn’t make dating and love any easier. In Not the Witch You Wed, April Asher brings all the hilarity and sweet, sexy moments you love in a romantic-comedy—plus a fun dose of magic—to this spell-binding new series about being sexy, single, and supernatural in New York City.
Love, Comment, Subscribe
Cathy Yardley - 2021
Now, at twenty-eight, she feels like she’s finally on the cusp of succeeding as a beauty influencer—if she can hit five million subscribers, brands will take notice and she could get her own makeup line.Fellow Nerd Herd alum Tobin Bui has had a lot of success as a YouTube gamer. But the road to online stardom has been rocky. First, he disappointed his parents by dropping out of college, and now, after years of pranks, skits, and playthroughs, he’s struggling to come up with new content to satisfy his ever-growing fan base. His agents say he needs cross-audience appeal, a new twist.When Nerd Herd frenemy Lily approaches Tobin about teaming up to do a video to bolster her brand and reinvigorate his, he agrees. But when their first collab video goes viral, their relationship heats up too. With the whole internet watching, will these two former misfits finally realize they’re perfect together?