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You Should Be So Lucky
by Cat Sebastian
An emotional, slow-burn, grumpy/sunshine, queer mid-century romance for fans of Evvie Drake Starts Over, about grief and found family, between the new star shortstop stuck in a batting slump and the reporter assigned to (reluctantly) cover his first season--set in the same universe as We Could Be So Good.The 1960 baseball season is shaping up to be the worst year of Eddie O'Leary's life. He can't manage to hit the ball, his new teammates hate him, he's living out of a suitcase, and he's homesick. When the team's owner orders him to give a bunch of interviews to some snobby reporter, he's ready to call it quits. He can barely manage to behave himself for the length of a game, let alone an entire season. But he's already on thin ice, so he has no choice but to agree.Mark Bailey is not a sports reporter. He writes for the arts page, and these days he's barely even managing to do that much. He's had a rough year and just wants to be left alone in his too-empty apartment, mourning a partner he'd never been able to be public about. The last thing he needs is to spend a season writing about New York's obnoxious new shortstop in a stunt to get the struggling newspaper more readers. Isolated together within the crush of an anonymous city, these two lonely souls orbit each other as they slowly give in to the inevitable gravity of their attraction. But Mark has vowed that he'll never be someone's secret ever again, and Eddie can't be out as a professional athlete. It's just them against the world, and they'll both have to decide if that's enough.
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Cleat Cute
by Meryl Wilsner
Grace Henderson has been a star of the US Women's National Team for ten years, even though she's only 26. But when she's sidelined with an injury, a bold new upstart, Phoebe Matthews, takes her spot. [Twenty-two-year-old] Phoebe is everything Grace isn't: a gregarious jokester who plays with a joy that Grace lost somewhere along the way. The last thing Grace expects is to become teammates with benefits with this class clown she sees as her rival. Phoebe Matthews is too focused on her first season as a professional soccer player to think about seducing her longtime idol. But when Grace ends up making the first move, they can't keep their hands off of each other. As the World Cup approaches and Grace works her way back from injury, a miscommunication leaves the women with ... different perspectives on their relationship.
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See You at the Finish Line
by Zac Hammett
Their only path to victory is each other. George and Lucas can't stand each other - which makes it awkward being on the same Cambridge University rowing team. The uber-charming, womanising George got parachuted into Cambridge from America for his sporting prowess, despite his subpar grades, whereas Lucas worked for everything he's got - which sadly doesn't include a boyfriend. When George is told that this year he'll have to sit his exams fair and square, Lucas agrees to help him study - in exchange for help in wooing his crush, Amir. Together, they embark on a journey to seduce, cheat, and beat their way to the top. They face rivals within their own squad, cutthroat competitors at Oxford, and their own annoyance with each other. But as they get closer, they find that they actually make a great duo. Will Lucas and George help their rowing team beat their arch rivals in a centuries-old feud? Will George manage to pass his fiendishly hard exams? Will Lucas finally work up the courage to ask Amir out? And what will Lucas and George do when they realise that what they really want is each other - even if that means changing their lives forever--
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The Prospects
by Kt Hoffman
Gene Ionescu, a gay trans man in his third year in the minors with the Beaverton Beavers, is a solid shortstop, but he's no one's idea of a major league prospect. He's just happy to be here, though, getting underpaid six months of the year to play the sport he's loved since childhood. ... But his plans go awry when Luis Estrada--Gene's rival since their college days--gets traded to his team--and promptly takes Gene's position. After Gene's coach forces him over to second base, he and Luis can't manage a civil conversation off the field or a competent play on it--a major issue for the team since their two positions make up the critical keystone combination on the infield. But when Gene finds Luis having a panic attack in their shared hotel room, he offers to start extra practices together--
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Never Coming Home
by Hannah Mary McKinnon
First comes love. Then comes murder. Lucas Forester didn't hate his wife. Michelle was brilliant, sophisticated and beautiful. Sure, she had extravagant spending habits, that petty attitude, a total disregard for anyone below her status. But she also had a lot to offer. Most notably: wealth that only the one percent could comprehend. For years, Lucas has been honing a flawless plan to inherit Michelle's fortune. Unfortunately, it involves taking a hit out on her. Every track is covered, no trace left behind, and now Lucas plays the grieving husband so well he deserves an award. But when a shocking photo and cryptic note show up on his doorstep, Lucas goes from hunter to prey. Someone is on to him. And they're closing in. Told with dark wit and a sharply feminist sensibility, Never Coming Home is a terrifying tale of duplicity that will have you side-eyeing your spouse as you dash to the breathtaking end--
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Scrap
by Calla Henkel
Recently dumped and stuck with a mortgage, artist Esther Ray wants to burn the world, but instead, she reluctantly accepts a scrapbooking job from the deliriously wealthy Naomi Duncan. The scrapbooks, a secret birthday gift for Naomi's husband, Bryce, trace the Duncan's 25-year marriage. The conditions: Esther must include every piece of paper she's been sent, must sign an NDA, and must only contact Naomi using the burner phone provided. Otherwise she'll spoil the surprise. As Esther binges true-crime podcasts and works through the near-200 boxes of Duncan detritus, she finds herself infatuated with the gilded family--until, mid-project, Naomi dies suspiciously. When Esther becomes convinced the husband killed her, she uses the scrapbooks' trove of information to insert herself into the Duncans' lives to prove it. But the more Esther investigates, the further she is dragged back to the scorched earth of her past and the famous artist who paid her to disappear.
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The Winner
by Teddy Wayne
Conor O'Toole has never been anywhere like Cutters Neck, a gated community near Cape Cod. It's a sweet deal for the summer: in exchange for tennis lessons, he receives free lodging in a luxurious guest cottage, far from the cramped Yonkers apartment he shares with his diabetic mother.In this oceanfront paradise, however, new clients prove hard to come by, and Conor has bills to pay. When Catherine, a sharp-tongued divorcée, offers double his usual rate, he soon realizes she is expecting additional, off the court services for her money, and Conor tumbles into a secret erotic affair unlike anything he's experienced before.Despite his steamy flings with a woman twice his age, he simultaneously finds himself falling for an artsy, outspoken girl he meets on the beach. With cautious, strategic planning, Conor somehow manages this tangled web--until he makes one final, irreversible mistake.
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I'm Not Done with You Yet
by Jesse Q. Sutanto
Some friends--and friendships--are worth killing for in this dark, twisty suspense novel by national bestselling author Jesse Q. Sutanto. Jane is unhappy. A struggling midlist writer whose novels barely command four figures, she feels trapped in an underwhelming marriage, just scraping by to pay a crippling Bay Area mortgage for a house--a life--she's never really wanted. There's only ever been one person she cared about, one person who truly understood her: Thalia. Jane's best and only friend nearly a decade ago during their Creative Writing days at Oxford. It was the only good year of Jane's life--cobblestones and books and damp English air, heady wine and sweet cider and Thalia, endless Thalia. But then one night ruined everything. The blood-soaked night that should have bound Thalia to Jane forever but instead made her lose her completely. Thalia disappeared without a trace, and Jane has been unable to find her since. Until now. Because there she is, her name at the top of the New York Times bestseller list: A Most Pleasant Death by Thalia Ashcroft. When she discovers a post from Thalia on her website about attending a book convention in New York City in a week--Can't wait to see you there!--Jane can't wait either. She'll go to New York City, too, credit card bill be damned. And this time, she will do things right. Jane won't lose Thalia again.
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Have recommendations? Contact me by email, lvollmer@seolibraries.org, or in person. |
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