Book picks similar to
The Seeds of a Daisy by Alison Caiola
chick-lit
book-club
fiction
contemporary
The Moon Sisters
Therese Walsh - 2014
Olivia, an 18-year-old who can taste words and see sounds, blinds herself by staring at the sun, then decides to walk to the remote setting of her mother's unfinished novel to resuscitate her hopes and dreams. Jazz, 22, plagued by unresolved conflict with her mother and a hidden trove of her unsent letters, takes a job in a funeral home before being forced back into the role of her sister’s keeper.The sisters’ journey through the wilds of West Virginia, disaster-prone from the start, takes a turn when they meet two train-hoppers with dangerous secrets, and Jazz learns that Olivia holds a dark secret of her own in the form of their mother's final unread letter. Mistrust, resentments and new attachments threaten to tear the two apart, until a final bizarre misadventure forces them to decide what’s really important.This mesmerizing coming-of-age novel, with its sheen of near-magical realism, is a moving tale of family and the power of stories.
Perfectly Impossible
Elizabeth Topp - 2020
An artist at heart, Anna works a day job as a private assistant for Bambi Von Bizmark, a megarich Upper East Side matriarch who’s about to be honored at the illustrious Opera Ball.Caught between the staid world of great wealth and her unconventional life as an artist, Anna struggles with her true calling. If she’s supposed to be a painter, why is she so much more successful as a personal assistant? When her boyfriend lands a fancy new job, it throws their future as a couple into doubt and intensifies Anna’s identity crisis. All she has to do is ensure everything runs smoothly and hold herself together until the Opera Ball is over. How hard could that be?Featuring a vibrant array of characters from the powerful to the proletarian, Perfectly Impossible offers a glimpse into a world you’ll never want to leave.
Life, Unscheduled
Kristin Rockaway - 2021
As a user experience designer at Virtuality, an artificial intelligence company in Los Angeles, Nicole is at her desk from sunrise to sunset. She doesn’t have time for a social life (or a love life), but that’s perfectly fine with her. Until her best friend, Parisa Shahin, announces her engagement and asks Nicole to be her maid of honor.That’s when Nicole decides to meticulously schedule out the next six months of her life—from her project due dates to her dress-fitting appointments to how many hours she plans to sleep each night. If she can stick to her schedule, she’ll balance everything fine. Of course, that’s a really big if. And after she crosses paths with emerging restaurateur Brandon Phelps, Nicole is feeling feelings she hasn’t felt in…well, ever. But scheduling time to fall in love might push even the most meticulous plans into pure chaos.
Vintage
Susan Gloss - 2014
. . and so do the women who are drawn there.Yellow Samsonite suitcase with ivory, quilted lining, 1950s...Violet Turner had always dreamed of owning a shop like Hourglass Vintage. Though she knows the personal history behind each precious item she sells, Violet refuses to acknowledge her own past. When she is faced with the possibility of losing the store, she realizes that, as much as she wants to, she cannot save it alone.Taffeta tea length wedding gown with scooped neckline and cap sleeves, 1952...Eighteen-year-old April Morgan is nearly five months along in an unplanned pregnancy when her hasty engagement is broken. When she returns the perfect 1950s wedding dress, she discovers unexpected possibilities and friends who won't let her give up on her dreams.Orange sari made from silk dupioni with gold paisley design, 1968...Betrayed by her husband, Amithi Singh begins selling off her old clothes, remnants of her past life. After decades of housekeeping and parenting a daughter who rejects her traditional ways, she fears she has nothing more ahead for her.An engaging story that beautifully captures the essence of women's friendship and love, Vintage is a charming tale of possibility, of finding renewal and hope when we least expect it.
Two Sisters
Mary Hogan - 2014
Single, twenty-three, she’s living in a New York City rent-stabilized walk-up, a bird’s nest of an apartment outfitted as much by serendipity as by intent: note the three-legged bedside table, her squat hand-painted pine dresser, a splotchy framed mirror, the spindled bathroom corner shelf—all found curbside on garbage day.Her perfect older sister, Pia, lives in an endless house in Connecticut with her handsome, thick-haired husband, Will, her tween daughter, Emma, and a frothy, russet-colored Labradoodle named Root Beer. Pia is altogether Muriel’s opposite. Muriel eats takeout from the carton; Pia makes salads from the microgreens in her garden. Pia takes “me” time to pray and do yoga. She believes every word in the bible, her faith pure and unquestioning. Pia is remarkably like their mother, Lidia. Or so Lidia would have Pia believe. Muriel knows better. Years earlier she discovered the truth about her mother’s lies—not that she’ll ever tell.The story begins on an ordinary Saturday which turns out to be anything but. When Pia calls Muriel out of the blue, Muriel expects the same lecture about slimming down, toning up, highlighting her hair, getting a better job, and moving into an elevator building. Only this time it’s different. Distressingly so. Pia takes the train into the city to visit her sister and leave her with—yet another—terrible secret she is sworn to keep.
The Book of Tomorrow
Cecelia Ahern - 2009
Until a traveling library arrives in her tiny village, bringing with it a mysterious, large leather-bound book locked with a gold clasp and padlock.What she discovers within the pages takes her breath away and shakes her world to its core.A mesmerizing story about how tomorrow can change what happens today...
The Summerhouse
Jude Deveraux - 2001
Celebrating at a summerhouse in Maine, Leslie Headrick, Madison Appleby, and Ellie Abbott are taking stock of their lives and loves, their wishes and choices. But none of them expect the gift that awaits them at the summerhouse: the chance for each of them to turn their “what-might-have-beens” into reality…Leslie, a suburban wife and mother, follows the career of a boy who pursued her in college wonders: what if she had chosen differently? Madison dropped a modeling career to help her high school boyfriend recover from an accident, even though he’d jilted her. But what if she had said “no” when her old boyfriend had called? Ellie became a famous novelist, but a bitter divorce wiped out her earnings—and shattered her belief in herself. Why had the “justice” system failed her? And could she prevent its happening the second time around?Now, a mysterious “Madame Zoya,” offers each of them a chance to relive any three weeks from the past. Will the road not taken prove a better path? Each woman will have to decide for herself as she follows the dream that got away…and each must choose the life that will truly satisfy the heart’s deepest longings.
Then Came You
Jennifer Weiner - 2010
Each woman has a problem: Princeton senior Jules Wildgren needs money to help her dad cure his addiction; Pennsylvania housewife Annie Barrow is gasping to stay financially afloat; India Bishop yearns to have a child, an urge that her stepdaughter Bettina can only regard with deeply skepticism until she finds herself in a most unexpected situation. Interlocking dramas designed to ensnare; bound to be a bestseller.
Ellis Island
Kate Kerrigan - 2009
Set in the 1920s, Kerrigan’s novel tells of a young Irish woman who must choose between her new life in New York City and her husband back home in Ireland, brilliantly capturing these two vastly different worlds in the process. Readers of historical fiction, as well as fans of the novels of Frank Delany and other Irish themed works, will adore their time spent on Ellis Island.
The Brightest Star in the Sky
Marian Keyes - 2009
. . In the top-floor flat lives music exec Katie. She spends her days fighting off has-been rock stars and wondering how much cheesecake you'd need to eat yourself to death. Below her, a pair of muscular Poles share with a streetwise cabbie named Lydia, who has a sharp tongue, an even sharper brain but some unexpected soft spots. On the first floor is Fionn - a gardener who prefers the company of parsnips to people. But he looks like a fairy-tale prince and when he's offered his own television show, he's suddenly thrust into the limelight. And at the bottom of the house live Matt and Maeve, who are Very Much In Love and who stave off despair by doing random acts of kindness. But a mysterious visitor has just landed at 66 Star Street, bringing love, friendship and heartbreak, and a new-found optimism. Old secrets are working their way to the surface and all their lives are about to change in the most unexpected of ways . . .
Matchmaking for Beginners
Maddie Dawson - 2018
Now that she’s marrying the man of her dreams, she’s sure this is the life she’ll get. Then Marnie meets Blix Holliday, her fiancé’s irascible matchmaking great-aunt who’s dying, and everything changes—just as Blix told her it would.When her marriage ends after two miserable weeks, Marnie is understandably shocked. She’s even more astonished to find that she’s inherited Blix’s Brooklyn brownstone along with all of Blix’s unfinished “projects”: the heartbroken, oddball friends and neighbors running from happiness. Marnie doesn’t believe she’s anything special, but Blix somehow knew she was the perfect person to follow in her matchmaker footsteps.And Blix was also right about some things Marnie must learn the hard way: love is hard to recognize, and the ones who push love away often are the ones who need it most.
If You Only Knew
Kristan Higgins - 2015
Wedding-dress designer Jenny Tate understands the happily-ever-after business, yet somehow she's still involved in her ex-husband's life. In fact, Owen's new wife may—inexplicably—be Jenny's new best friend. Sensing this, well, relationship isn't helping her move on, Jenny trades the Manhattan skyline for her hometown up the Hudson, where she'll be able to bask in her sister Rachel's picture-perfect family life…and hopefully make one of her own. Her timing couldn't be more perfect, since Rachel will need her younger sister. Her idyllic marriage has just fallen to pieces in spectacular fashion after she discovers her husband sexting with one of his colleagues. Second chances aren't in Rachel's nature, but the desire for an intact family has her rethinking her stance on adultery, much to Jenny's surprise. Rachel points to their parents' "perfect" marriage as a shining example, but to protect her sister Jenny may have to tarnish that memory—and their relationship—and reveal a secret about their family she's been keeping since childhood. During this summer of secrets and lies, temptation and revelation, Jenny and Rachel will rely on each other to find the humor in their personal catastrophes, the joy in their triumphs…and the strength to keep hanging on.
Goodnight, Beautiful
Dorothy Koomson - 2008
So when Mal and his wife, Stephanie, ask Nova to be a surrogate mother, she agrees—despite her reservations about what it might mean for their friendship. Then Nova’s fears are realized. Halfway through the pregnancy, Stephanie finds a text from her husband to Nova that reads “Goodnight, beautiful.” Already suspicious of their deep connection, Stephanie demands that Mal cut all ties to Nova and their unborn baby, leaving Nova to raise the child alone. Eight years later, Nova is anxiously waiting for her son, Leo, to wake up from a coma, while childless Stephanie is desperately trying to save her failing marriage. Despite her anger and hurt, Nova wants Mal to have the chance to know his son before it’s too late. Will it take a tragedy to remind them all how much they mean to one another?
Lift and Separate
Marilyn Simon Rothstein - 2016
Her husband, the head of a global brassiere empire, didn’t think twice about leaving her after thirty-three years of marriage for a 32DD lingerie model. Now Harvey the Home-Wrecker is missing in action, but Marcy’s through thinking about what a cliché he is. What she needs now is a party-size bag of potato chips, a good support system, and a new dress.Striking out on her own is difficult at first, but Marcy manages to find traces of humor in her heartbreak. Even while devastated by Harvey’s departure, she still has her indomitable spirit and her self-respect. She has no intention of falling apart, either, even when her adult children drop a few bombshells of their own and she discovers a secret about her new, once-in-a-lifetime friend. Life may be full of setbacks, but by lifting herself up by her own lacy straps, Marcy just may be able to handle them all.
The Arrangement
Sarah Dunn - 2017
They've got a two hundred year-old house, an autistic son obsessed with the Titanic, and 17 chickens, at last count. It's the kind of paradise where stay-at-home moms team up to cook the school's "hot lunch," dads grill grass-fed burgers, and, as Lucy observes, "chopping kale has become a certain kind of American housewife's version of chopping wood."When friends at a wine-soaked dinner party reveal they've made their marriage open, sensible Lucy balks. There's a part of her, though – the part that worries she's become too comfortable being invisible-that's intrigued. Why not try a short marital experiment? Six months, clear ground rules, zero questions asked. When an affair with a man in the city begins to seem more enticing than the happily-ever-after she's known for the past nine years, Lucy must decide what truly makes her happy – "real life," or the "experiment?"