Book picks similar to
Unconventional by J.J. Hebert
fiction
first-reads
favorites
considering
The Things We Don't Say
Ella Carey - 2018
Years after Patrick’s death, ninety-year-old Emma still has the painting hanging over her bed at their country home as a testament to their love.To Emma’s granddaughter, Laura, the portrait is also a symbol of so much to come. The masterpiece is serving as collateral to pay Laura’s tuition at a prestigious music school. Then the impossible happens when an appraiser claims the painting is a fraud. For Laura, the accusation jeopardizes her future. For Emma, it casts doubt on everything she believed about her relationship with Patrick. Laura is determined to prove that Patrick did indeed paint the portrait. Both her grandmother’s and Patrick’s legacies are worth fighting for.As the stories of two women entwine, it’s time for Emma to summon up the past—even at the risk of revealing its unspoken secrets.
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…
The Heart of Thornton Creek
Bonnie Leon - 2005
Daniel's father, Bertram, not only controls the prosperous ranch, but everything and everybody for miles around--including his son.Will Rebecca adjust to the bullying, or will Bertram drive the young couple apart?
Kate's Song
Jennifer Beckstrand - 2012
But Kate is blessed with a beautiful singing voice, and when another path leads her to the academy for vocal training, she struggles to understand God's will for her life. She returns to Apple Lake, haunted by a violent encounter with a fellow student, and finds herself drawn to the peace and devotion of her Amish home. But can she give up her dreams? Or will her calling forever separate her from the people and the way of life she holds so dear? Nathaniel King has never wavered in his commitment to the community and the Old Order Amish Church into which he is baptized. He has been in love with Kate for as long as he can remember, and he is devastated when she leaves Apple Lake to attend the academy. When Kate returns, will she make his most profound hopes a reality--or will she break his heart all over again?
Paradise Cove
Patrice Wilton - 2016
This new heart-warming contemporary romance takes place in the Florida Keys and promises romance/passion, family values, and plenty of adventure. Cardiac surgeon Sean Flannigan lost his daughter to a rare form of leukemia; he can mend broken hearts, but his is beyond repair. Kayla Holmes, along with her sisters, inherited guest cottages in the Keys after their stepfather died. Their high spirits and positive energy are a beacon of light that directs Sean's sailboat into Paradise Cove. Can Kayla's compassion find a crack in Sean's armor? Sometimes love isn’t enough to heal a wounded heart.
The Accidental Bestseller
Wendy Wax - 2009
Ten years later they're still friends, survivors of the ultra-competitive New York publishing world. Mallory St. James is a workaholic whose bestsellers support a lavish lifestyle. Tanya Mason is a single mother juggling two jobs, two kids, and too many deadlines. Faye Truett is the wife of a famous televangelist and the author of inspirational romances: no one would ever guess her explosive secret. Kendall Aims's once-promising career is on the skids-and so is her marriage. Her sales are dismal, her new editor detests her work-and her husband is cheating. Barely able to think, let alone meet her final deadline, Kendall holes up in a mountain cabin to confront a blank page and a blanker future. But her friends won't let her face this trial alone. Together they collaborate on a novel using their own lives as fodder, assuming no one will ever discover the truth behind their words.No one is more surprised than they are when the book becomes a runaway bestseller. But with success comes scrutiny and scandal...as these four best friends suddenly realize how little they've truly known each other.
Alice I Have Been
Melanie Benjamin - 2009
Now, in this spellbinding historical novel, we meet the young girl whose bright spirit sent her on an unforgettable trip down the rabbit hole–and the grown woman whose story is no less enthralling.But oh my dear, I am tired of being Alice in Wonderland. Does it sound ungrateful?Alice Liddell Hargreaves’s life has been a richly woven tapestry: As a young woman, wife, mother, and widow, she’s experienced intense passion, great privilege, and greater tragedy. But as she nears her eighty-first birthday, she knows that, to the world around her, she is and will always be only “Alice.” Her life was permanently dog-eared at one fateful moment in her tenth year–the golden summer day she urged a grown-up friend to write down one of his fanciful stories.That story, a wild tale of rabbits, queens, and a precocious young child, becomes a sensation the world over. Its author, a shy, stuttering Oxford professor, does more than immortalize Alice–he changes her life forever. But even he cannot stop time, as much as he might like to. And as Alice’s childhood slips away, a peacetime of glittering balls and royal romances gives way to the urgent tide of war. For Alice, the stakes could not be higher, for she is the mother of three grown sons, soldiers all. Yet even as she stands to lose everything she treasures, one part of her will always be the determined, undaunted Alice of the story, who discovered that life beyond the rabbit hole was an astonishing journey.A love story and a literary mystery, Alice I Have Been brilliantly blends fact and fiction to capture the passionate spirit of a woman who was truly worthy of her fictional alter ego, in a world as captivating as the Wonderland only she could inspire.
The Pastor's Wife
Jennifer AlLee - 2009
But when "the other woman" in her marriage turned out to be her husband's congregation, she ran. Six years later, she's back in the small community of Granger, Ohio, for the reading of a will that names both her and Nick as beneficiaries. Now, Maura must face the husband - and the congregation - she left behind.
Pink Slips and Glass Slippers
J.P. Hansen - 2012
Her widowed father did his best to raise his baby girl to be a strong-minded business woman. Then she found Tanner. Just when her world seemed perfect, everything turned upside down.Following Tanner’s tragic death, Brooke joins a start-up company that is developing a cure for the disease that killed the love of her life. Just before the treatment is ready to market, the company is gobbled up by a giant conglomerate. She moves to the acquiring company as its youngest VP and becomes enamored with CEO Chase Allman—only to be betrayed by him.Brooke rebounds again and sets out on a personal journey to discover what will truly make her happy. Sparks fly when she and Chase cross paths again in an unlikely way. Now, they need each other to find an abducted child and save thousands of people.
The Crane Wife
Patrick Ness - 2013
Impossibly, a great white crane has tumbled to earth, shot through its wing by an arrow. Unexpectedly moved, George helps the bird, and from the moment he watches it fly off, his life is transformed.The next day, a kind but enigmatic woman walks into George's shop. Suddenly a new world opens up for George, and one night she starts to tell him the most extraordinary story.Wise, romantic, magical and funny, The Crane Wife is a hymn to the creative imagination and a celebration of the disruptive and redemptive power of love.
Rooms
Lauren Oliver - 2014
His estranged family—bitter ex-wife Caroline, troubled teenage son Trenton, and unforgiving daughter Minna—have arrived for their inheritance. But the Walkers are not alone. Prim Alice and the cynical Sandra, long dead former residents bound to the house, linger within its claustrophobic walls. Jostling for space, memory, and supremacy, they observe the family, trading barbs and reminiscences about their past lives. Though their voices cannot be heard, Alice and Sandra speak through the house itself—in the hiss of the radiator, a creak in the stairs, the dimming of a light bulb. The living and dead are each haunted by painful truths that will soon surface with explosive force. When a new ghost appears, and Trenton begins to communicate with her, the spirit and human worlds collide—with cataclysmic results.
Waiting for Paint to Dry
Lia Mack - 2015
Living vicariously through her best friend Claire's perfect life wasn't the plan. However, Matty learned long ago it's easier to run and hide from life than to deal with the PTSD she’s suffered from since being raped at sixteen. Yet on the night of her thirtieth birthday, a freak accident shows Matty a truth: run from something long enough and it will consume you. She must find a way back to her life, a life full of passion in which she can follow her dreams and is not afraid to love. When Claire announces her family is moving, she asks Matty to come too. Having grown up Navy, Matty’s no stranger to picking up and starting over. However, moving half-way around the world to play nanny to Claire’s children doesn't sound like the new beginning Matty yearns for. Nor does she want to leave without first confronting her fears and coming full-healing-circle. She can’t let another decade slip by before she’s able to trust again. ** A portion of the proceeds benefit RAINN: Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network**
A House Among the Trees
Julia Glass - 2017
The unusual bond between a world-famous children's author and his assistant sets the stage for a richly plotted novel of friendship and love, artistic ambition, and the power of an unexpected legacy.When the revered children's author Mort Lear dies accidentally at the Connecticut home he shares with Tomasina Daulair, his trusted assistant, she is stunned to be left the house and all its contents, as well as being named his literary executor. Though not quite his daughter or his wife, Tommy was nearly everything to the increasingly reclusive Lear, whom she knew for over forty years since meeting him as a child in a city playground where Lear was making sketches for Colorquake, a book that would become an instant classic. Overwhelmed by the responsibility for Lear's bequest, she must face the demands of all those affected by the sudden loss, including the lonely, outraged museum curator to whom Lear once promised his artistic estate; the beguiling British actor recently cast to play Lear in a movie; and her own estranged brother. She must also face the demons of Morty's painful past the subject of that movie and a future that will no longer include him. A visit from the actor leads to revelations and confrontations that challenge much of what Tommy believed she knew about her boss's life and work and, ultimately, about her own."
Tangled: A Southern Gothic Yarn
Phyllis H. Moore - 2016
Twenty-one years old and Annette Roberta Randall is searching, looking for herself. The perception and sensitivity she relied on to bolster her through an isolated childhood have disappeared and with them her sense of self. Nettie also seeks the truth, information about her dysfunctional family and the mysteries that whisper to her in their eccentric family home. She receives glimpses in the alcohol induced monologues of her mother, Delores Cecelia, “DeCe”. However, DeCe lost herself long before Nettie was born, and she buried her secrets so deep, even the spirits haunting her cannot unlock her soul. Pup, Nettie’s peculiar uncle, may have witnessed the most recent chaos, but he cannot communicate what he knows for sure. Nettie’s struggles are apparent to her extended family and neighbors, but only she can resolve to overcome the pull of the notorius Kirkland family and Berclaire mansion. The secrets fester and DeCe clings to them like the neglected ivy tendrils on the shadowed side of the mansion. Slowly, the truth will unfold, but will it be enough to free Nettie, or the undoing of her mother, DeCe? Nettie believed it was possible her grandfather, Old Nate, was responsible for the hauntings at the Berclaire mansion, but the more she learns of her great grandmother, Roberta, she decides he might have been a victim, also. DeCe had been taking pills and drinking alcohol from before the time she was a teenager, attempting to numb herself to her dysfunctional family. Nettie could only guess at a history during her drunken orations about DeCe's childhood. Nettie knows she is the seventh child born to DeCe, the others gone before Nettie was born. Some would filter back into her life, but would they help her learn more about her identity, or bring more pain?
Stubborn Love
Wendy Owens - 2013
She had given him her youth, and all he gave in return was misery and pain. She was ready for a new beginning, but Ashton wasn’t about to let her go so easily, even if it meant destroying both their lives in the process.Three years later Emmie convinces herself she is ready to leave all of that heartbreak in the past and find a little piece of normal for herself. She heads to New York City to pick up where she left off, determined to finish art school. Emmie is determined to focus on school and not let anything distract her, but life has a way of throwing curveballs.Paige, Emmie’s new roommate, brings Colin Bennett into her life. His smoldering eyes and lean muscular body are difficult for any girl to ignore. Only thing is, Emmie isn’t any girl. Her past makes her resistant to his charms. Colin isn’t one to give up easily, and just when he thinks he may have found a way to her stubborn heart, her tragic history may have found a way to tear them apart.