Book picks similar to
Tuesday's Socks by Alison Ragsdale


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Adulting


Liz Talley - 2021
    She’s been written off as a Hollywood casualty by almost everyone, including her own mother. But handsome superstar Spencer Rome has her back. So does an uncompromising stranger determined to start Chase at square one and help her pull her future into focus. If Chase is willing.Life coach Olivia Han is devoted to “adulting” boot camp therapy. It’s not just her professional specialty, though—it’s also one way to avoid focusing on building a life of her own. To escape the pressures of Tinseltown, the two women head to Olivia’s cabin in the wilds of Northern California. There they discover a place in need of TLC. As they work together to rehab the once-charming cabin, they create a refuge where Chase can come to terms with her unsettled past, and where Olivia has an unexpected reckoning with her own troubling history.For two women doing damage control, this is a time for second chances—in life, in finding love, in forgiving family, and in an emerging friendship that might be exactly what each of them needs to heal.

The Reluctant Healer


Andrew Himmel - 2018
    Will Alexander is cautious and conventional. But when he meets Erica, a beautiful, intense energy healer, he becomes troubled not only by her unorthodox endeavors but also by the limitations of his own existence. Amidst this turmoil, Will is startled to discover that he may possess metaphysical gifts of healing that confront the narrow doctrines of his regulated life.​The Reluctant Healer paints a portrait of a reasonable man who traces a path between skepticism and belief. Flawed, funny, and agnostic, Will distrusts much of the alternative world, even as he struggles internally with phenomena that challenge both his sense of self and his orderly perspective. Will’s love for Erica, the exposure to her world, and his newfound powers place his life in a state of uncertainty, teetering between disruption and liberation.

Speaking in Tungs


Karla M. Jay - 2015
    In this entertaining first novel, set in rural Pennsylvania, a young San Francisco woman searches for her birthparents and from the moment she arrives in the backwoods town of Tungston, she falls under the spell of unforgettable characters, the unexpected-but-real threat of a violent fugitive, and the unexpected-but-real charm of a local fireman—all leading her to discover the true meaning of family.

The Walls


Hollie Overton - 2017
    Her job exposes Kristy to the worst of humanity and it's one that's beginning to take its toll.So when Kristy meets Lance Dobson, her son's martial arts instructor, she believes she finally found her happy ending. She was wrong.Kristy soon discovers that Lance is a monster. Forced to endure his verbal and physical abuse, Kristy is serving her own life sentence . . . unless she's willing to take matters into her hands. Perfectly poised to exploit the criminal justice system she knows so well, Kristy sets out to get rid of Lance - permanently.The Walls explores domestic violence, the morality of murder and how far one woman will go to protect her family.

Maybe One Day


Debbie Johnson - 2020
    That belief nearly destroyed her. Seventeen years later, when cleaning out her mother’s house, Jess unpacks a box of cards and letters hidden in the attic and makes a discovery that changes everything about life as she knows it.Shaken but empowered, Jess—and her two stalwart best friends—set out on a remarkable journey to follow a set of faded postmarks around the world. Is Joe still alive? Does he know that Jess never forgot him? Maybe their love story isn’t over.Maybe one day they’ll find each other again…

Flight Risk


Joy Castro - 2021
    After decades of turning her back on her past, she’s forced to return to Appalachia when she receives news of her estranged mother’s death.But going back means revisiting the traumatic childhood she escaped—and the family that cast her out when she needed them most. Back on the land she has inherited, she’s flooded with memories of the forest where she once roamed free, of her beloved lost brother, and of the old house in the West Virginia hills where she grew up. Her mother has left her another legacy, too, which reveals secrets that Isabel is only beginning to understand.As forces bear down and threaten to take what she has left, it’s time for Isabel to step into her power, reclaim her roots, and finally confront the painful memories that have kept her from the life she truly wants.

The Secrets of Married Women


Carol Mason - 2007
    Frustrated, she seeks comfort in her friends: fierce Leigh, with her high-powered career and doting family, and sweet, uncomplicated Wendy, who has a rock-solid marriage any woman would envy.Leigh and Wendy’s lives seem perfect. But beneath the surface are secrets that could tear their friendship apart.Leigh has grown tired of her stay-at-home husband and is looking for excitement—outside of the marriage bed. And after seventeen years of marriage, Wendy can’t shake the sense that there is something missing in her life.As Jill is drawn deeper into her friends’ relationships, she is confronted by a temptation of her own: an intriguing stranger whose good looks and charm spark an instant connection.Full of the realities of modern-day marriage, The Secrets of Married Women asks the question: how well can we ever know our husbands, our friends, or even ourselves? Revised edition: This edition of Secrets Of Married Women includes editorial revisions.

The Mothers


Genevieve Gannon - 2020
    Inspired by a real-life case of an IVF laboratory mix-up.Grace and Dan Arden are in their forties and have been on the IVF treadmill since the day they got married. Six attempts have yielded no results, and with each failure a little piece of their hope dies. Priya Laghari and her husband Nick Archer are being treated at the same fertility clinic, and while they don’t face the same time pressure as the Ardens, the younger couple have their own problems. On the same day that Priya is booked for her next IVF cycle, Grace goes in for her final, last-chance embryo transfer. Two weeks later, both women get their results. A year on, angry and heartbroken, one of the women learns her embryo was implanted in the other’s uterus and must make a devastating choice: live a childless life knowing her son is being raised by strangers or seek custody of a baby who has been nurtured and loved by another couple.

Faye, Faraway


Helen Fisher - 2021
    Every night, before she puts them to bed, she whispers to them: “You are good, you are kind, you are clever, you are funny.” She’s determined that they never doubt for a minute that their mother loves them unconditionally. After all, her own mother Jeanie had died when she was only seven years old and Faye has never gotten over that intense pain of losing her.But one day, her life is turned upside down when she finds herself in 1977, the year before her mother died. Suddenly, she has the chance to reconnect with her long-lost mother, and even meets her own younger self, a little girl she can barely remember. Jeanie doesn’t recognize Faye as her daughter, of course, even though there is something eerily familiar about her...As the two women become close friends, they share many secrets—but Faye is terrified of revealing the truth about her identity. Will it prevent her from returning to her own time and her beloved husband and daughters? What if she’s doomed to remain in the past forever? Faye knows that eventually she will have to choose between those she loves in the past and those she loves in the here and now, and that knowledge presents her with an impossible choice.Emotionally gripping and ineffably sweet Faye, Faraway is a brilliant exploration of the grief associated with unimaginable loss and the magic of being healed by love.

A Beginner's Guide to Free Fall


Andy Abramowitz - 2020
    Brothers and sisters. Mothers and daughters. Okay, everybody. Hold on tight. Davis Winger has it all. A respected engineer who designs roller coasters in theme parks across the country, he is deeply in love with his wife and has a beautiful young daughter and a happy home. Until an accident strikes on one of his rides. Nothing fatal—except to his career. And to his marriage, when a betrayal from his past inadvertently comes to light. In one cosmically bad day, Davis loses it all.His sister, Molly, is at a crossroads herself. She’s coasting through a dire relationship with an incompatible man-child. And she’s a journalist whose deeply personal columns about mothers and daughters are forcing her to confront the truth about her own mother, who abandoned Molly and Davis years ago and disappeared.For these two siblings, it’s just a matter of bracing themselves for one turbulent summer in this redemptive and painfully funny family drama about making the best of the sharp turns in life—those we choose to take and those beyond our control.

The Almond Tree


Michelle Cohen Corasanti - 2012
    Living under occupation, the inhabitants of the village harbour a constant fear of losing their homes, jobs, belongings – and each other. On Ahmed’s twelfth birthday, that fear becomes a reality. With his father now imprisoned, his family’s home and possessions confiscated and his siblings quickly succumbing to hatred in the face of conflict, Ahmed embarks on a journey to liberate his loved ones from their hardship, using his prodigious intellect. In so doing, he begins to reclaim a love for others that had been lost over the course of a childhood rife with violence, and discovers new hope for the future.

Fractured


Catherine McKenzie - 2016
    Since Julie doesn’t know anyone in her new town, when she meets her neighbor John Dunbar, their instant connection brings measured hope for a new beginning. But she never imagines that a simple, benign conversation with him could set her life spinning so far off course.After a series of misunderstandings, Julie and her family become the target of increasingly unsettling harassment. Has Julie’s stalker found her, or are her neighbors out to get her, too? As tension in the neighborhood rises, new friends turn into enemies, and the results are deadly.

The Memory of Butterflies


Grace Greene - 2017
    The Memory of Butterflies is a poignant story of family and forgiveness--of knowing when to let go and when to hold each other close.Hannah Cooper's daughter is leaving for college soon. The change is bittersweet. A single mother since the age of eighteen, Hannah isn't eager to confront the pain of being alone, but she's determined not to let her own hang-ups keep Ellen from the future she deserves. As Ellen's high school graduation approaches, Hannah decides it's time to return to her roots in Cooper's Hollow along Virginia's beautiful and rustic Cub Creek.With the help of longtime friend Roger Westray, Hannah devotes her energies to building a new house on the site of the old family home, destroyed in a fire more than a decade ago. But Hannah's entire adult life has revolved around one very big secret. And her new beginning comes with unanticipated risks that will cost her far more than she could have imagined--perhaps more than she can survive.When a confrontation forces Hannah to expose her secret, the truth may destroy her beloved daughter. Hannah is prepared to sacrifice everything to protect her family, but can their lives and their bond withstand the seismic shift that's coming?

Days of Night


Jonathan Stone - 2017
    But a difficult investigation turns much tougher when all communication with the outside world is suddenly cut off.While Heller works diligently to reconstruct the scene of the crime, evidence mounts that a pathogenic event could be ravaging the rest of the planet. As night descends, fear mounts, and confusion reigns, the killer strikes again. If this is a global cataclysm, is someone now picking off the human race’s few remaining survivors? Is this the end of the world—or just the end of Joe Heller’s?

Everything You Are


Kerry Anne King - 2019
    Now, unable to play, adrift in an alcoholic daze, and with only fragmented memories of his past, Braden wants desperately to escape the darkness of the last eleven years.When his ex-wife and son are killed in a car accident, Braden returns home, hoping to forge a relationship with his troubled seventeen-year-old daughter, Allie. But how can he hope to rescue her from the curse that seems to shadow his family?Ophelia “Phee” MacPhee, granddaughter of the eccentric old man who sold Braden his cello, believes the curse is real. She swore an oath to her dying grandfather that she would ensure Braden plays the cello as long as he lives. But he can’t play, and as the shadows deepen and Phee finds herself falling for Braden, she’ll do anything to save him. It will take a miracle of forgiveness and love to bring all three of them back to the healing power of music.