So Much For My Happy Ending


Kyra Davis - 2006
    Between her flaky, tree-hugging mother and her she-devil boss, marriage seems like the place she'll find love and security. Tad's exactly the kind of man April wants: smart, ambitious and wildly romantic. But soon after they're married, the honeymoon ends. Tad's crazy, extravagant gestures are starting to look less romantic and more…well, just plain crazy. Is it normal for her husband to never mention his family, rack up secret credit card debt and get less sleep than your average insomniac? Are you still supposed to stand by your man, even if it turns out he isn't who you thought he was? When she promised "for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health," this isn't what she pictured. But sometimes you don't get the life you imagined. And sometimes you have to figure out how to write your own happy ending.

First Wives Club Vol.1 Melanin Magic


Keisha Ervin - 2018
    Her melanin is popping, her career has taken off like magic, and her love life is like something from a fairytale. After rekindling her love affair with Dame, he came back in her life, showed her how to move in a room full of bitches and swept her off her feet. When they met 20 years ago, she never knew the impact she’d made on his life. Because of her, Dame didn’t even know bitches. With him, she found her forever. His love was like no other. The stars in the sky were aligning perfectly. Then, within a blink of an eye, her dream became a nightmare. When the smoke clears, and the dust settles, will Chyna be able to hold on to everything she holds dear, or will she end up alone - all over again? Gray Rose and Gunz have two kids and a home together. You would think, after 10 years together, she’d have a ring too… but Gunz still isn’t ready for marriage. Maybe it’s because he’s always fly, stays in the cockpit and can’t stay out the streets. Gray is over trying to keep a man that doesn’t want to be kept and Gunz ain’t beat, she can jump off his dick. All it takes is one nigga to remind her that she’s bad as fuck, and that they’re a real nigga. After 11 years, four kids, a house and a dog, Mo and Boss finally got married. From the outside looking in, everything seems perfect, but Mo is secretly drowning. When she looks in the mirror, she doesn’t even recognize herself anymore. She used to have that up North glow, body looking like cinnamon, but between breast-feeding, soccer practice, ballet class, keeping house, a bitchy, loud-mouth mother-in-law and a husband who won’t keep his mama in check but constantly wants to fuck, Mo is five seconds away from putting everybody on the front porch. Can she keep it together without losing her sanity? Chyna, Gray and Mo are going through it, but with their girls, Meesa, Mina and Dylan by their side, they’ll go through their trials and tribulations with love, laughter, a few tears and style every time they touch the city - STOP IT!!

Wilbur Smith's Smashing Thrillers: Elephant Song / Hungry as the Sea / Wild Justice (Three Books in One Collection)


Wilbur Smith - 2013
    Meanwhile in London, anthropologist Kelly Kinnear is forced into violent confrontation with the shareholders of the most powerful conglomerate in the City of London, warning them of the destruction of an African country. Now the time has come to act. Together, Armstrong and Kinnear forge a passionate alliance – and begin the fight against the forces of greed, evil and corruption attacking a land they would both give their lives to save . . .Hungry as the Sea: Nick Berg - robbed of his wife and ousted from his huge shipping empire - is hell-bent on vengeance. It is the sea which gives him his opportunity. When his arch-rival's luxury liner is trapped in the tempestuous Antarctic, Nick stakes all to pit his powerful salvage tug, the Warlock, in a desperate race against time and the elements . . .Wild Justice: The hijacking of a jumbo jet off the Seychelles galvanizes anti-terrorist chief Peter Stride into the action for which he has spent a lifetime training. But in the hail of bullets which follows, he knows that this is only the beginning of a nightmare. Stride is the one man who might find the twisted genius who holds the world hostage – if only his every move were not anticipated by the enemy . . .

Prowl


Stephanie Nicole Norris - 2017
    Their parents co-own and operate Patterson Pharmaceutical Company, a thriving business that has continuously grown over the last ten years. But after the economy took a hard turn, the family business suffered significant losses, leaving the family’s income on pins and needles. To make matters worse, the property the Patterson’s inherited from their late grandparents is up for auction from missed payments the family was not aware they’d missed. With the family’s debt growing and relationships being tested, the four friends decide to take drastic measures to get the funds needed to secure generational survival. Being high-end thieves was not something they agreed on overnight. Taking from the less fortunate they couldn’t stomach, But stealing from those who already had plenty might just save the family from ruin.

The Help


Kathryn Stockett - 2009
    She may have a degree, but it is 1962, Mississippi, and her mother will not be happy till Skeeter has a ring on her finger. Skeeter would normally find solace with her beloved maid Constantine, the woman who raised her, but Constantine has disappeared and no one will tell Skeeter where she has gone.Aibileen is a black maid, a wise, regal woman raising her seventeenth white child. Something has shifted inside her after the loss of her own son, who died while his bosses looked the other way. She is devoted to the little girl she looks after, though she knows both their hearts may be broken.Minny, Aibileen's best friend, is short, fat, and perhaps the sassiest woman in Mississippi. She can cook like nobody's business, but she can't mind her tongue, so she's lost yet another job. Minny finally finds a position working for someone too new to town to know her reputation. But her new boss has secrets of her own.Seemingly as different from one another as can be, these women will nonetheless come together for a clandestine project that will put them all at risk. And why? Because they are suffocating within the lines that define their town and their times. And sometimes lines are made to be crossed.In pitch-perfect voices, Kathryn Stockett creates three extraordinary women whose determination to start a movement of their own forever changes a town, and the way women, mothers, daughters, caregivers, friends, view one another. A deeply moving novel filled with poignancy, humor, and hope, The Help is a timeless and universal story about the lines we abide by, and the ones we don't. (jacket flap)Librarian's note: An alternate cover edition can be found here

Call Me By Your Name


André Aciman - 2007
    Unprepared for the consequences of their attraction, at first each feigns indifference. But during the restless summer weeks that follow, unrelenting buried currents of obsession and fear, fascination and desire, intensify their passion as they test the charged ground between them. What grows from the depths of their spirits is a romance of scarcely six weeks' duration and an experience that marks them for a lifetime. For what the two discover on the Riviera and during a sultry evening in Rome is the one thing both already fear they may never truly find again: total intimacy. The psychological maneuvers that accompany attraction have seldom been more shrewdly captured than in André Aciman's frank, unsentimental, heartrending elegy to human passion. Call Me by Your Name is clear-eyed, bare-knuckled, and ultimately unforgettable.

A Walk to Remember


Nicholas Sparks - 1999
    Every April, when the wind blows in from the sea and mingles with the scent of lilacs, Landon Carter remembers his last year at Beaufort High. It was 1958, and Landon had already dated a girl or two. He even swore that he had once been in love. Certainly the last person in town he thought he'd fall for was Jamie Sullivan, the daughter of the town's Baptist minister. A quiet girl who always carried a Bible with her schoolbooks, Jamie seemed content living in a world apart from the other teens. She took care of her widowed father, rescued hurt animals, and helped out at the local orphanage. No boy had ever asked her out. Landon would never have dreamed of it. Then a twist of fate made Jamie his partner for the homecoming dance, and Landon Carter's life would never be the same. Being with Jamie would show him the depths of the human heart and lead him to a decision so stunning it would send him irrevocably on the road to manhood. No other author today touches our emotions more deeply than Nicholas Sparks.Illuminating both the strength and the gossamer fragility of our deepest emotions, his two New York Times bestsellers, The Notebook and Message in a Bottle, have established him as the leading author of today's most cherished love stories. Now, in A Walk to Remember, he tells a truly unforgettable story, one that glimmers with all of his magic, holding us spellbound-and reminding us that in life each of us may find one great love, the kind that changes everything...

Snow Falling


Jane Gloriana Villanueva - 2017
    With these tumultuous events as inspiration, Jane’s breathtaking first novel adapts her story for a truly epic romance that captures the hope and the heartbreak that have made the television drama so beloved. Snow Falling is a sweeping historical romance set in 1902 Miami—a time of railroad tycoons, hotel booms, and exciting expansion for the Magic City. Working at the lavish Regal Sol hotel and newly engaged to Pinkerton Detective Martin Cadden, Josephine Galena Valencia has big dreams for her future. Then, a figure from her past reemerges to change her life forever: the hotel’s dapper owner, railroad tycoon Rake Solvino. The captivating robber baron sets her heart aflame once more, leading to a champagne-fueled night together. But when their indiscretion results in an unexpected complication, Josephine struggles to decide whether her heart truly belongs with heroic Martin or dashing Rake. Meanwhile, in an effort to capture an elusive crime lord terrorizing the city, Detective Cadden scours the back alleys of the Magic City, tracking the nefarious villain to the Regal Sol and discovering a surprising connection to the Solvino family. However, just when it looks like Josephine’s true heart’s desire is clear, danger strikes. Will her dreams for the future dissolve like so much falling snow or might Josephine finally get the happy ever after she’s been dreaming of for so long?

Invisible Life


E. Lynn Harris - 1991
    Law school, girlfriends, and career choices were all part of Raymond Tyler's life, but there were other, more terrifying issues for him to confront. Being black was tough enough, but Raymond was becoming more and more conscious of sexual feelings that he knew weren't "right." He was completely committed to Sela, his longtime girlfriend, but his attraction to Kelvin, whom he had met during his last year in law school, had become more than just a friendship. No matter how much he tried to suppress them, his feelings were deeply sexual.Fleeing to New York to escape both Sela and Kelvin, Raymond finds himself more confused than ever before. New relationships -- both male and female -- give him enormous pleasure but keep him from finding the inner peace and lasting love he so desperately desires. The horrible illness and death of a friend force Raymond, at last, to face the truth.

The Hate U Give


Angie Thomas - 2017
    The uneasy balance between these worlds is shattered when Starr witnesses the fatal shooting of her childhood best friend Khalil at the hands of a police officer. Khalil was unarmed.Soon afterward, his death is a national headline. Some are calling him a thug, maybe even a drug dealer and a gangbanger. Protesters are taking to the streets in Khalil’s name. Some cops and the local drug lord try to intimidate Starr and her family. What everyone wants to know is: what really went down that night? And the only person alive who can answer that is Starr.But what Starr does—or does not—say could upend her community. It could also endanger her life.Inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement, this is a powerful and gripping YA novel about one girl's struggle for justice.

Cupidity


Holly Hepburn - 2013
    Modern day matchmaking is tough – people are busy, their hearts are harder to hit and he’s had enough of wall-to-wall romance. And St Valentine has noticed…Annelise is a Lost Cause. She runs a dating agency but her heart is colder than a penguin’s feet. She thinks love is about compatibility and has no time for passion.Can Cupid prove to St Valentine that he hasn’t lost his touch by melting Annelise’s heart? Or is it curtains for Cupid?A romantic comedy novella - 23,000 words long'Gorgeously romantic, unputdownable and utterly delicious!' Miranda Dickinson, Sunday Times Bestseller (Fairytale of New York, It Started With A Kiss, When I Fall In Love)'A completely charming, fantastically funny, romantic romp, perfect reading for a sunny afternoon.' Scarlett Bailey (Married by Christmas, The Night Before Christmas, Santa Maybe)