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If you'd like personalized book recommendations, check out our Tailored Titles services for both fiction and nonfiction books. |
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Meredith, Alone
by Claire Alexander
You'll be laughing and crying as the brilliant author of this brilliant book introduces Meredith, who, after spending three years inside her house, figures out how to rejoin the world one step at a time (Gillian McAllister, author of the Reese's Book Club pick Wrong Place Wrong Time). She has a full-time remote job and her rescue cat Fred. Her best friend Sadie visits with her two children. There's her online support group, her jigsaw puzzles and favorite recipes, her beloved Emily Dickinson poems. Also keeping her company are treacherous memories of an unstable childhood and a traumatic event that had sent her reeling. But something's about to change. First, two new friends burst into her life. Then her long-estranged sister gets in touch. Suddenly her carefully curated home is no longer a space to hide. Whether Meredith likes it or not, the world is coming to her door...
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Other Birds
by Sarah Addison Allen
Arriving on Mallow Island, right off the coast of South Carolina, to claim her late mother's apartment, Zoey meets her eccentric and secretive neighbors, including a girl on the run, a lonely chef, a legendary writer and three ghosts, each with their own stories whose endings haven't been written yet.
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Legends & Lattes: A Novel of High Fantasy and Low Stakes
by Travis Baldree
Come take a load off at Viv's cafe, the first & only coffee shop in Thune. Grand opening! Worn out after decades of packing steel and raising hell, Viv, the orc barbarian, cashes out of the warrior's life with one final score. A forgotten legend, a fabled artifact, and an unreasonable amount of hope lead her to the streets of Thune, where she plans to open the first coffee shop the city has ever seen. However, her dreams of a fresh start filling mugs instead of swinging swords are hardly a sure bet. Old frenemies and Thune's shady underbelly may just upset her plans. To finally build something that will last, Viv will need some new partners, and a different kind of resolve--
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The Story of Arthur Truluv
by Elizabeth Berg
Making daily visits to the grave of his beloved late wife, Arthur forges unexpected relationships with a nosy neighbor and a troubled teen who dubs him "Truluv" before the trio discovers healing and family together.
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The Fellowship of Puzzlemakers
by Samuel Burr
Raised by a group of eccentric enigmatologists, 20-something Clayton Summer, when the esteemed crossword compiler and main maternal presence in his life passes away, bestowing her final puzzle on him, embarks on a quest to uncover the secrets surrounding his birth, which will change him, and the Fellowship of Puzzlemakers, forever.
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The Lost for Words Bookshop
by Stephanie Butland
Loveday Cardew prefers books to people. If you look carefully, you might glimpse the first lines of the novels she loves most tattooed on her skin. But there are some things Loveday will never, ever show you. Into her hiding place - the bookstore where she works - come a poet, a lover, and three suspicious deliveries. Someone has found out about her mysterious past. Will Loveday survive her own heartbreaking secrets?
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The Bookshop on the Corner
by Jenny Colgan
A "literary matchmaker" who takes joy in pairing readers with perfect books moves from the city to a sleepy village where she becomes a bookmobile driver and rediscovers her senses of adventure and home while searching for a happy ending of her own.
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The Reminders
by Val Emmich
Moving away from the West Coast when someone records and uploads his bonfire of personal objects after a devastating loss, Gavin starts over in New Jersey and struggles to forget painful memories at the side of a friend's 10-year-old daughter, a girl with an eidetic memory.
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Can't Wait to Get to Heaven
by Fannie Flagg
Strange things begin to happen when Mrs. Shimfessle, an eighty-year-old woman, falls out of a fig tree in her own front yard, in an entertaining new novel about one woman's offbeat experiences in the hereafter.
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The Little Paris Bookshop
by Nina George
Prescribing books that offer therapeutic benefits to his customers, a literary apothecary in a floating bookstore on the Seine struggles with private heartbreak before embarking on a journey of healing at the side of a blocked writer and a lovelorn chef.
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Mrs. Quinn's Rise to Fame
by Olivia Ford
A contestant on a British baking show, Jenny, who, after 59 years of marriage, has decided to do something for herself, delights in her new-found independence, but finds the show unearthing memories buried decades ago—and a secret that could be a recipe for disaster.
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Less
by Andrew Sean Greer
You are a failed novelist about to turn fifty. A wedding invitation arrives in the mail: your boyfriend of the past nine years is engaged to someone else. You can't say yes--it would be too awkward--and you can't say no--it would look like defeat. On your desk are a series of invitations to half-baked literary events around the world. Question: How do you arrange to skip town? Answer: You accept them all. What would possibly go wrong?--Amazon.com.
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Good Eggs
by Rebecca Hardiman
Three generations of a boisterous Irish family are upended by a matriarch's shoplifting activities and an upbeat American home aide whose initial support catapults the family into the worst crisis they have ever faced.
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The Keeper of Lost Things
by Ruth Hogan
Collecting things dropped or left behind by others and writing stories about them as a tribute to the fiancée who died the day he lost one of her keepsakes, a man bequeaths his estate to his unsuspecting assistant, who bonds with new neighbors while attempting to reunite the objects with their owners.
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Etta and Otto and Russell and James
by Emma Hooper
Embarking on a walking journey from rural Canada to the East coast so that she can see the ocean for the first time in her life, an octogenarian woman has experiences that blur her perspectives between illusion, memory, and reality.
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Under the Whispering Door
by TJ Klune
After he dies, a curious and powerful being gives Wallace one week to cross over to the land of the dead, and Wallace, who finally starts to learn about all the things he missed in life, sets about living a lifetime in seven days.
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Once in a Blue Moon Lodge
by Lorna Landvik
With her trademark wit and warmth, Lorna Landvik follows Nora Rolvaag (the do-or-die-trying daughter of Patty Jane) and a cast of characters between city and wooded retreat, Minnesota and Norway, a past that's secret and a future that's promising, but uncertain. Readers are in for a rollicking good time with characters whose strengths, foibles, and choices will have you laughing and crying.
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The Teller of Small Fortunes
by Julie Leong
A fortune teller finds an unexpected family on her journeys in this heartwarming and charming fantasy debut. Tao, an immigrant fortune teller, lives in a wagon and roams the dusty outskirts of the kingdom of Eshtera. Fleeing a troubled past, she travelsbetween villages telling only small fortunes: whether it will hail next Thursday; what boy will kiss which barmaid; when the cow will calve. Big fortunes come with big consequences...which she wants to avoid at all costs. Life on the road can be lonely but, to Tao's surprise, companionship comes unexpectedly. She encounters Mash and Silt, an ex-mercenary and semi-reformed thief; the oddball pair endear themselves to Tao and enlist her in the search for Mash's lost daughter. Next the trio finds Kina, a brilliant baker, with a knead for adventure. And, finally, Fidelitus rounds out their party, a cat smart enough to mark the travelers as ready suppliers of fish. As they journey together across Eshtera, confronting small-minded villagers and philosophizing trolls alike, Tao's unlikely new friends break down her walls and unravel her secrets. Ultimately, Tao must decide what's more important: her hard-won freedom, or reuniting a family not her own.
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The Magic of Lemon Drop Pie
by Rachel Linden
Lolly Blanchard's life only seems to give her lemons. Ten years ago, after her mother's tragic death, she broke up with her first love and abandoned her dream of opening a restaurant in order to keep her family's struggling Seattle diner afloat and care for her younger sister and grieving father. Now, a decade later, she dutifully whips up the diner's famous lemon meringue pies each morning while still pining for all she's lost. As Lolly's thirty-third birthday approaches, her quirky great-aunt gives her a mysterious gift-three lemon drops, each of which allows her to live a single day in a life that might have been hers. What if her mom hadn't passed away? What if she had opened her own restaurant in England? What if she hadn't broken up with the only man she's ever loved? Surprising and empowering, each experience helps Lolly let go of her regrets and realize the key to transforming her life lies not in redoing her past but in having the courage to embrace her present--
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Amazing Grace Adams
by Fran Littlewood
Grace Adams, a once-amazing woman who is now 45, stalled, perimenopausal and losing it, leaves her car in the middle of traffic and sets out to win back her estranged teen daughter on her 16th birthday.
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The Red Address book
by Sofia Lundberg
Living alone in her Stockholm apartment, a 96-year-old woman reminisces through the pages of a long-kept address book before starting to write down stories from her past, unlocking family secrets in unexpectedly beneficial ways.
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The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches
by Sangu Mandanna
Breaking all the rules, Mika Moon travels to the mysterious Nowhere House to teach three young witches how to control their magic and, as she gets close to the House's residents, must decide whether to risk everything to protect a found family she didn't know she was looking for.
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We Are Called to Rise
by Laura McBride
An immigrant youth struggling to assimilate, a middle-aged housewife with a troubled marriage, a Vegas social worker and a wounded soldier connect with each other and rescue themselves in the wake of an unthinkable incident.
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The Love Story of Missy Carmichael
by Beth Morrey
Reevaluating her past upon finding herself alone at age 79, Missy forges unexpected ties with two strangers and their spirited dog, discovering the power of friendship, family and self-forgiveness along the way.
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The Flatshare
by Beth O'Leary
Entering a flatshare arrangement with a man on an opposite work shift, a heartbroken woman begins exchanging notes with the roommate she has never met and becomes his best friend, and possibly soulmate, through their correspondence.
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The Lido
by Libby Page
An anxiety-riddled cub reporter for a small London paper is assigned to cover the closing of a local rec center and bonds with an 86-year-old widow who has swum in the community pool every day since childhood.
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The Guncle
by Steven Rowley
When Patrick, or Gay Uncle Patrick (GUP) for short, takes on the role of primary guardian for his young niece and nephew, he sets "Guncle Rules," but soon learns that parenting is not solved with treats or jokes as his eyes are opened to a new sense of responsibility.
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Mr. Penumbra's 24-hour Bookstore
by Robin Sloan
After a layoff during the Great Recession sidelines his tech career, Clay Jannon takes a job at the titular bookstore in San Francisco, and soon realizes that the establishment is a facade for a strange secret.
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The Wishing Game
by Meg Shaffer
Lucy Hart knows better than anyone what it’s like to grow up without parents who loved her. In a childhood marked by neglect and loneliness, Lucy found her solace in books, namely the Clock Island series by Jack Masterson. Now a twenty-six-year-old teacher’s aide, she is able to share her love of reading with bright, young students, especially seven-year-old Christopher Lamb, who was left orphaned after the tragic death of his parents. Lucy would give anything to adopt Christopher, but even the idea of becoming a family seems like an impossible dream without proper funds and stability.
But be careful what you wish for. . . .
Just when Lucy is about to give up, Jack Masterson announces he’s finally written a new book. Even better, he’s holding a contest at his home on the real Clock Island, and Lucy is one of the four lucky contestants chosen to compete to win the one and only copy.
For Lucy, the chance of winning the most sought-after book in the world means everything to her and Christopher. But first she must contend with ruthless book collectors, wily opponents, and the distractingly handsome (and grumpy) Hugo Reese, the illustrator of the Clock Island books. Meanwhile, Jack “the Mastermind” Masterson is plotting the ultimate twist ending that could change all their lives forever.
. . . You might just get it.
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Adult Assembly Required
by Abbi Waxman
When Laura Costello moves to Los Angeles, hoping to finally get away from her overprotective family, she doesn't expect to be homeless after a week. (She's almost certain she didn't start that fire . . . right?) When she's rescued by a charming but eccentric bookseller and installed in a slightly chaotic and entirely illegal boardinghouse, she isn't sure if she's fallen on her feet or just out of the frying pan. A handsome housemate, a landlady with regrets, and the unwelcome attention of an old flame conspire to make Laura's life far more complicated than she hoped. However, a set of new friends who widen her experience--and knowledge of trivia--will do their very best to help this transplant put down roots and learn what it really means to be an adult.
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Midnight at the Blackbird Cafe
by Heather Webber
Nestled in the mountain shadows of Alabama lies the little town of Wicklow. It is here that Anna Kate has returned to bury her beloved Granny Zee, owner of the Blackbird Café. It was supposed to be a quick trip to close the café and settle her grandmother's estate, but despite her best intentions to avoid forming ties or even getting to know her father's side of the family, Anna Kate finds herself inexplicably drawn to the quirky Southern town her mother ran away from so many years ago, and the mysterious blackbird pie everybody can't stop talking about. As the truth about her past slowly becomes clear, Anna Kate will need to decide if this lone blackbird will finally be able to take her broken wings and fly.
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How to Read a Book
by Monica Wood
Violet Powell, a twenty-two-year-old from rural Abbott Falls, Maine, is being released from prison after serving twenty-two months for a drunk-driving crash that killed a local kindergarten teacher.Harriet Larson, a retired English teacher who runs the prison book club, is facing the unsettling prospect of an empty nest.Frank Daigle, a retired machinist, hasn't yet come to grips with the complications of his marriage to the woman Violet killed.When the three encounter each other one morning in a bookstore in Portland--Violet to buy the novel she was reading in the prison book club before her release, Harriet to choose the next title for the women who remain, and Frank to dispatch his duties as the store handyman--their lives begin to intersect in transformative ways.How to Read a Book is an unsparingly honest and profoundly hopeful story about letting go of guilt, seizing second chances, and the power of books to change our lives. With the heart, wit, grace, and depth of understanding that has characterized her work, Monica Wood illuminates the decisions that define a life and the kindnesses that make life worth living.
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The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry
by Gabrielle Zevin
When his most prized possession, a rare collection of Poe poems, is stolen, bookstore owner A.J. Fikry begins isolating himself from his friends, family, and associates before receiving a mysterious package that compels him to remake his life.
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Avon Lake Public Library
32649 Electric Blvd.
Avon Lake, Ohio 44012
440-933-8128alpl.org |
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