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Reviews

Reviews

by Dianna Rostad - Fiction, Historical Fiction

Montana, 1925: An Irish boy orphaned by Spanish flu, a tiny girl who won’t speak, and a volatile young man who lies about his age to escape Hell’s Kitchen are paraded on train platforms across the Midwest to work-worn folks. Fate guides them toward the ranch of a family stricken by loss. Nara, the daughter of a successful cattleman, has grown into a brusque spinster who refuses the kids on sight. She works them without mercy, hoping they’ll run off, but they buck up and show spirit. And though Nara will never be motherly, she begins to take to them. So when Charles is jailed for freeing wild horses that were rounded up for slaughter, and an abusive mother from New York shows up to take the youngest, Nara does the unthinkable, risking everything she holds dear to change their lives forever.

by Trish Doller - Fiction, Romance, Women's Fiction

After a reminder goes off for the Caribbean sailing trip Anna was supposed to take with her fiancé, she impulsively goes to sea in the sailboat he left her, intending to complete the voyage alone. But after a treacherous night’s sail, she realizes she can’t do it by herself and hires Keane, a professional sailor, to help. Much like Anna, Keane is struggling with a very different future than the one he had planned. As romance rises with the tide, they discover that it’s never too late to chart a new course.

by Dawnie Walton - Fiction

Coming of age in Detroit, Opal believes she can be a star. So when the aspiring British singer/songwriter Neville Charles discovers her at a bar’s amateur night, she takes him up on his offer to make rock music together for the fledgling Rivington Records. In early ’70s New York City, just as she’s finding her niche as part of a flamboyant and funky creative scene, a rival band signed to her label brandishes a Confederate flag at a promotional concert. Decades later, as Opal considers a 2016 reunion with Nev, music journalist S. Sunny Shelton seizes the chance to curate an oral history about her idols. But as her interviews dig deeper, a nasty new allegation from an unexpected source threatens to blow up everything.

by Peter Swanson - Fiction, Psychological Suspense, Psychological Thriller, Suspense, Thriller

Abigail Baskin never thought she’d fall in love with a millionaire. Then she met Bruce Lamb, a stable, level-headed, kind guy. But right before the wedding, Abigail has a drunken one-night stand on her bachelorette weekend. She puts the incident out of her mind and now believes she wants to be with Bruce for the rest of her life. Then the mysterious stranger suddenly appears --- and Abigail’s future life and happiness are turned upside down. He insists that their passionate night was the beginning of something much, much more --- and he’s tracked her down to prove it. To make the situation worse, Abigail sees a terrified woman in the night shadows, and no one at the resort seems to believe anything is amiss…including her perfect new husband.

by Jacqueline Winspear - Fiction, Historical Fiction, Historical Mystery, Mystery

While on a delivery, young Freddie Hackett, a message runner for a government office, witnesses an argument that ends in murder. When he arrives at the delivery address, he’s shocked to come face to face with the killer. Dismissed by the police when he attempts to report the crime, Freddie goes in search of a woman he once met when delivering a message: Maisie Dobbs. While Maisie wants to help the boy, she must maintain extreme caution: she’s working secretly for the Special Operations Executive, assessing candidates for crucial work with the French resistance. Her two worlds collide when she spots the killer in a place she least expects. She soon realizes she’s been pulled into the orbit of a man who has his own reasons to kill --- reasons that go back to the last war.

by Talia Hibbert - Comedy, Fiction, Romance, Women's Fiction

No matter how hard she strives to do right, Eve Brown’s life always goes horribly wrong. Bed and breakfast owner Jacob Wayne is on a mission to dominate the hospitality industry. So when a purple-haired tornado of a woman turns up out of the blue to interview for his open chef position, he turns her down. Then she hits him with her car --- supposedly by accident. Now his arm is broken, his B&B is understaffed, and the dangerously unpredictable Eve is trying to help. Before long, she’s infiltrated his work, his kitchen --- and his spare bedroom. Sunny, chaotic Eve is Jacob’s natural-born nemesis, but the longer these two enemies spend in close quarters, the more their animosity turns into something else.

by Naima Coster - Fiction, Women's Fiction

A community in the Piedmont of North Carolina rises in outrage as a county initiative draws students from the largely Black east side of town into predominantly white high schools on the west. For two students, Gee and Noelle, the integration sets off a chain of events that will tie their two families together in unexpected ways over the span of the next 20 years. As love is built and lost, and the past never too far behind, WHAT’S MINE AND YOURS moves between the years, from the foothills of North Carolina, to Atlanta, Los Angeles and Paris. It explores the unique organism that is every family: what breaks them apart and how they come back together.

by Claire Christian - Fiction, Humor, Women's Fiction

Of all the women and men Noni Blake has pleased in her life, there’s one she’s often overlooked --- herself. After the end of a decade-long relationship, Noni decides it’s time for that to change. She’s finally going to prioritize her wants and desires and only do things (and people) that feel good in the moment. As she embarks on a pleasure-seeking quest that takes her halfway around the world, she discovers that maybe she can have everything --- and everyone --- she’s ever wanted.

by Kazuo Ishiguro - Fiction, Science Fiction

KLARA AND THE SUN, the first novel by Kazuo Ishiguro since he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, tells the story of Klara, an Artificial Friend with outstanding observational qualities, who, from her place in the store, watches carefully the behavior of those who come in to browse, and of those who pass on the street outside. She remains hopeful that a customer will soon choose her. The book offers a look at our changing world through the eyes of an unforgettable narrator and explores the fundamental question: What does it mean to love?

by Ali Benjamin - Fiction, Women's Fiction

Ethan has always been one of the good guys, and for years, nobody has appreciated this fact more than his wife, Zo. Until now. Jolted into activism by the 2016 election, Zo has transformed their home into the headquarters for the local resistance, turning their comfortable decades-long marriage inside-out. Meanwhile, their boisterous daughter, Alex, grows wilder by the day. Ethan’s former business partner needs help saving the media company they’d co-founded. Financial disaster looms. Enter a breezy, blue-haired millennial making her way through the gig economy. Suddenly, Ethan faces a choice unlike any he’s ever had to make.