The Bright Years tracks a family through years of life shaped by alcoholism, secrets, tragedy, and messy redemption. The story kept me at an emotional remove, but I was most struck by Damoff's characterization of addiction and those in its orbit. Sarah Damoff's novel begins with a young couple, both reeling from past traumas, who forge a future together. But secrets, addiction, and disappointment are threads that run through their lives and largely keep them apart. The Brigh

The Isle in the Silver Sea offers a medieval setting, magical elements, a story within a story, romantasy without swooning, and characters fighting to reimagine their futures. This fantasy novel about the power of storytelling was wonderful. In an alternate medieval England, an island exists because of stories. Those who play key roles in tales die and are repeatedly reborn into various versions of the characters they must play, and they are fated to reenact their own battl

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

Desai's first novel in decades is a 688-page tale that meanders through India, New York, family and romantic relationships, and career false starts, with missteps, mysterious, powerful magical realism elements, and an undercurrent of darkness and despair. The messy resolutions felt appropriately hard-fought after the characters' extended struggles. Sonia is living away from her Indian family while she studies writing in Vermont, and after growing up used to having multiple fa

The Second-Chance Stories I love a good second-chance book in which the main character gets the opportunity to go back and try again,...

The main male protagonist was off-putting to me in his arrogance at first, but Carley Fortune is the best at developing a lakeside...

In this heartwarming story of wonderfully faulted characters who face tragedy and often make a mess of things, loyalty and steadfastness...

Comedian Zarna Garg lived several lives before falling into comedy in midlife and realizing it was where she'd belonged all along. Her...

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

This novel about the power of books takes a tough situation that ends in a death and allows for a fresh start--which might push the...

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

Sarah Rees Brennan offers a funny, dark, clever story within a story in which the heroes and villains are redefined, redemption is always...

This love story about an emotionally sensitive NFL player and his quirky, irresistible female agent is a sweet second-chance romance...

I loved the premise of a teen who wakes up as a thirty-year-old, engaged to her high school nemesis. Some of the small moments didn't...

Ron Rash's newest Appalachian-set novel explores a small town shaken by upended expectations, the Korean War, and selfish rigidity that...

Caroline O'Donoghue's coming-of-age story celebrates friendship, young love, and life-changing decisions and missteps that shape the...

Hoffman's novel is about facing dark realities, entering uncharted territory, leaning on music as a solace, and welcoming new beginnings....

Summertime is the backdrop to Fortune's Meet Me at the Lake, light fiction with an anchor in deeper issues, some steamy scenes,...

Gillian McAllister offers a smart, intriguing, twisty story that plays with time and offers second chances, revelations, betrayals, deep...

ICYMI: This is a heartwarming book from the author of Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow about books, second chances, and finding hope...