This nearly perfect rom-com hit all the right notes for me. Monaghan's tone was spot-on, and her fake-dating story and characters had me abandoning real-life duties to get back to reading this delightful, banter-filled, layered, lovely novel. Single mom Dolly Brick (her mother was a country music fan) returns to her seaside Rhode Island hometown of Whitfield for the summer to help her hardworking dad with his fish shop, support her brother, who has schizophrenia following a t

Horror isn't my favorite genre, but a medieval-set quest and a battle between good and evil is an irresistible setup for me. I was intrigued by the latter elements while nervously cringing through the former. It's 1348, and Thomas, formerly a knight but now fallen in with brigands, encounters Delphine, a young, innocent girl whose father has died of the Black Death, which is ravishing France. Thomas almost immediately falls back into his honorable past persona, protecting Del

Abby Jimenez knows how to layer difficult situations and messy complications into her rom-coms, and her main protagonists must confront and overcome past and present difficulties in order to banter their way through the story and build a sweet life together. I was hooked on the chemistry and fascinated by the significant, heartbreaking obstacles and how they might possibly be addressed to allow for love. Larissa made a split-second decision one night after a concert, when she

Count me in for Irish-set novels--and for suspenseful, mysterious-past stories that hint at darkness, dangerous secrets, and the destructive power of the truth. But Hurtubise builds the true heart of this story around the development of its characters and relationships. This is a fast, intriguing read that I loved. When she was old enough, Sarah ran from an emotionally cold childhood in Michigan and mysterious circumstances to the rugged coast of Donegal, Ireland, where she n

Cate Kay is a bestselling author--and a pseudonym used by a woman who's been running from her past for decades. Cate is at times a young dreamer, a haunted lover with a hardened heart, a wildly successful author dipping her toe in the world of Hollywood, and an imperfectly healed friend ready to face the future. My friend Jenny mentioned this book to me, and I'd never heard of it but loved the premise. I was hooked the whole way through as I read. The reclusive author Cate Ka

I loved Sunny's body positivity and her self-made-woman status. I didn't fully buy into one of her love interests but was hooked on the...

Pony Confidential is a cute story of a bond between a pony and its long-ago owner. It's nominally a mystery, but it's mainly a...

In Kristy Boyce's young-adult charmer, high schoolers Riley and Nathan, coworkers who have nothing in common, end up in a fake-dating...

Lula Dean focuses on the incredible power of books and truth-telling as characters discover their bravest selves and confront difficult...

Blaylock's story centers around a packhorse librarian in 1930s Appalachian Kentucky and adds layers like a complicated past, second...

Espach layers complex emotional challenges like suicidal thoughts, grief, and loneliness with funny, quirky, poignant moments in this...

The reality-show setting and LGBTQIA+ representation in Ever After flips the traditional fairy tale in satisfying, heartwarming ways in...

The Paris Novel is the first novel by food writer, memoir author, food critic, and James Beard award-winner Ruth Reichl. It's a...

I was taken with the main characters of the past storyline here: a young boy at a children's home and his unlikely best friend. When his...