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Reviews

Reviews

by Monica Ali - Fiction

In present-day London, Yasmin Ghorami is 26, in training to be a doctor (like her Indian-born father), and engaged to the charismatic, upper-class Joe Sangster, whose formidable mother, Harriet, is a famous feminist. The gulf between families is vast. So, too, is the gulf in sexual experience between Yasmin and Joe. As the wedding day draws near, misunderstandings, infidelities and long-held secrets upend both Yasmin’s relationship and that of her parents, a “love marriage,” according to the family lore that Yasmin has believed all her life.

by Michelle Huneven - Fiction, Humor

Dana Potowski is a restaurant critic and food writer, and a longtime member of a progressive Unitarian Universalist congregation in Southern California. Just as she’s finishing the book tour for her latest bestseller, Dana is asked to join the church search committee for a new minister. Under pressure to find her next book idea, she agrees, and resolves to secretly pen a memoir, with recipes, about the experience. That memoir, Search, follows the travails of the committee and their candidates --- and becomes its own media sensation. Ultimately, the committee faces a stark choice between two very different paths forward for the congregation. And Dana will fight the entire committee, if necessary, to win the day for her side.

by Grant Ginder - Fiction, Humor

Nancy Harrison is running for Senate, and she’s determined to win. There’s just one problem: her grown children. Greta and Nick Harrison are adrift. Nick is floundering in his attempts to write a musical about the life of Joan Didion. And then there’s his little sister, Greta. Smart, pretty and completely unmotivated, allowing her life to pass her by like the shoppers at the Apple store where she works. One morning the world wakes up not to Nancy making headlines, but to Greta. She’s in Paris. With extremist protestors. Throwing a bottle of champagne through a beloved bistro’s front window. In order to save her campaign, not to mention her daughter, Nancy and Nick must find Greta before it’s too late.

by Sascha Rothchild - Fiction, Psychological Suspense, Psychological Thriller, Suspense, Thriller

Though she may be a murderer, Ruby is not a sociopath. She is an animal-loving therapist with a thriving practice. She has had long-lasting friendships and relationships, and a husband, Jason, she adores. But the homicide detectives at Miami Beach PD are not convinced of her happy marriage. When we meet Ruby, she is in a police interrogation room being accused of Jason’s murder. Which, ironically, is one murder that she did not commit. As she undergoes questioning, Ruby’s mind races back to all the details of her life that led her to this exact moment, and to the three dead bodies in her wake. Because though she may not have killed her husband, Ruby certainly isn’t innocent.

by Ashley Winstead - Comedy, Fiction, Romance, Women's Fiction

Lee Stone kicks butt at her job as a communications director at a women-run electric car company. After work she is “Stoner,” drinking guys under the table and never letting any of them get too comfortable in her bed. That’s because Lee has learned never to trust love. Four major heartbreaks set her straight, from her father cheating on her mom all the way to Ben Laderman in grad school --- who wasn’t actually cheating, but she could have sworn he was, so she reciprocated in kind. Then Ben shows up five years later, working as a policy expert for the most liberal governor in Texas history, just as Lee is trying to get a clean energy bill rolling. Things get complicated --- and competitive --- as Lee and Ben are forced to work together.

by Beth O'Leary - Comedy, Fiction, Humor, Romance, Women's Fiction

Siobhan is a quick-tempered life coach with way too much on her plate. Miranda is a tree surgeon used to being treated as just one of the guys on the job. Jane is a soft-spoken volunteer for the local charity shop with zero sense of self-worth. These three women are strangers who have only one thing in common: they’ve all been stood up on the same day, the very worst day to be stood up --- Valentine’s Day. And, unbeknownst to them, they’ve all been stood up by the same man. Once they've each forgiven him for standing them up, they are all in serious danger of falling in love with a man who may have not just one or two but three women on the go. Is there more to him than meets the eye?

by Melissa Chadburn - Fiction

Marina Salles’ life does not end the day she wakes up dead. Instead, in the course of a moment, she is transformed into the stuff of myth, the stuff of her grandmother’s old Filipino stories --- an aswang, a creature of mystery and vengeance. She spent her time on earth on the margins. Shot like a pinball through a childhood of loss, she was a veteran of Child Protective Services and a survivor, but always reacting, watching from a distance, understanding very little of her own life, let alone the lives of others. Death brings her into the hearts and minds of those she has known --- even her killer --- as she accesses their memories and sees anew the meaning of her own.

by Rebecca Kauffman - Fiction, Historical Fiction

The seven Shaw siblings have long been haunted by two early and profoundly consequential events. Told in turns from the early 20th century through the 1950s, each sibling relays their own version of the memories that surround both their mother’s mysterious death and the circumstances of one sister’s scandalous teenage pregnancy. As they move into adulthood, the siblings assume new roles: caretaker to their aging father, addict, enabler, academic, decorated veteran, widow, and mothers and fathers to the next generation. Entangled in a family knot, the Shaw siblings face divorce, drama and death while haunted by a mother who was never truly there.

by Jane Green - Fiction, Historical Fiction

In her 20s, and already a famous model and actress, Talitha moved from London to a palace in Marrakesh with her husband Paul Getty, the famous oil heir. There she presided over a swirling ex-pat scene filled with music, art, free love and a counterculture taking root across the world. When Claire arrives in London from her small town, she never expects to cross paths with a woman as magnetic as Talitha Getty. Yearning for the adventure and independence, she's swept off to Marrakesh, where the two become kindred spirits. But as their friendship blossoms and the two grow closer, the realities of Talitha's precarious existence set off a chain of dangerous events that could alter Claire's life forever.

by Sarah Moss - Fiction

At dusk on a November evening, a woman slips through her garden gate and turns up the hill. Kate is in the middle of a two-week mandatory quarantine period, a true lockdown, but she can’t take it anymore --- the closeness of the air in her small house, the confinement. And anyway, the moor will be deserted at this time. Nobody need ever know she’s stepped out. Kate planned only a quick walk --- a stretch of the legs, a breath of fresh air --- on paths she knows too well. But somehow she falls. Injured and unable to move, she sees that her short, furtive stroll will become a mountain rescue operation, maybe even a missing person case.