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Arrivals and Departures
by Amanda Eyre Ward
From the New York Times bestselling author of The Jetsetters comes a witty and wonderful new novel about one unforgettable family and the journeys we take--across oceans and through heartbreak--to find our way back to love. The Perkins family has problems. They're scattered across the globe. Lee, a glamorous reality-TV star, is struggling with her mental health in the spotlight. Reagan, her younger sister, has fallen for a romance scammer. Cord, their charming brother, is one drink away from losing it all. And their mother, Charlotte, still longs for the love she let slip away a decade ago, a lover who sailed off with her heart to a remote island in Greece. When Reagan disappears, Lee flies first-class to Athens to save her family--again. There, against the glittering Mediterranean and the shadow of the Acropolis, Lee contends with emotional nieces, relentless paparazzi, and her own fragile heart. Lee is desperately searching--for her sister, and for the hope and joy she thought was gone forever. Across continents and crises, each member of the Perkins family must face the same question: is it ever too late to choose love? Featuring characters from Ward's bestselling novel The Jetsetters, Arrivals and Departures is brimming with humor, honesty, and hope. It's the story of a family finding the courage to say the only words that can save us--I love you.
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| Bumblebee Season by Eileen GarvinJake, who's paralyzed below his waist, can't gather all the honey from his dozens of hives alone. With locals uninterested, he takes on Flaco, an undocumented teen fleeing violence. In Oregon studying bumblebees, neurodivergent doctoral student Abigail and her research team members also agree to help with the harvest. Then, after a local politician causes trouble, they all band together in this sweet tale. Though Bumblebee Season continues Jake's story from The Music of Bees, it works well as a standalone. |
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Daughters of the Sun and Moon
by Lisa See
From beloved New York Times bestselling author Lisa See, the story of three Chinese women whose unexpected friendship helps them survive and, despite the odds, thrive, in the turmoil of post-Civil War Los Angeles. In 1870, three Chinese women arrive in the small, dusty, and violent pueblo of Los Angeles. Dove, the bound-footed daughter of an imperial scholar, is entrancing and innocent. These characteristics should bring her great rewards, beginning with her arranged marriage to a much older merchant. Petal, the big-footed daughter of peasants, has grown up hungry and with dirt between her toes. In a moment of desperation, Petal's father sells her to buy money for rice seed, and she is loaded onto a ship to the Gold Mountain--America--where she is once again sold. Moon is married to a doctor of traditional Chinese medicine. She is educated, speaks fluent English, and has been endowed with a face of great beauty, yet her failed footbinding as a child has left her with a limp that lessens her value in the eyes of many. Each woman has her own desires. Dove wants to love and be loved, Petal desires freedom, and Moon seeks justice. Together they face a larger society that wishes them not one ounce of good will. Anti-Chinese sentiment is strong in Los Angeles, and this eventually leads to the Night of Horrors during which all three women are challenged in ways they could not have imagined. Brought together by hardship and heartbreak, they must use their bravery, endurance, and ability to eat bitterness to discover their voices, find freedom, and connect through solace and friendship. Together they are daughters of the sun and moon.
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Down with the Shipmans
by Meg Mitchell Moore
Meg Mitchell Moore is my own go-to for beach reading, and Down With the Shipmans is a pure delight. It's a family drama with three sisters, some very charismatic dogs, and a glorious setting. I promise you will LOVE this--and all of Meg's other books as well. --Elin HilderbrandMoore is a dependable ingredient in any summer reading souffl . Her airy novels accomplish what they came to do: entertain and transport. The stakes are high, the drama is juicy and the views are sublime. --The New York TimesIt's the week after Fourth of July, and the Shipman sisters are returning to their picturesque summer home on the New Hampshire coast for what they believe is a family reunion, the first without their late mother. However, their tranquil setting quickly becomes a stage for drama when their father, Calvin, drops the bombshell news that he plans to sell the cherished beach house.Mae, the youngest daughter, who has a newfound penchant for attracting trouble, is distraught, already dealing with her own emotional scars and a problematic rescue dog. Natalie, the middle sister and social media darling known for her seemingly idyllic life as a tradwife, is equally anxious, especially since her flawless public image is on the verge of imploding. Meanwhile, Jordan, the eldest, a high-powered crisis communications expert, is ready to be rid of the house so she can tend to her own professional disaster.As old memories are stirred up and the sisters navigate both the packing of the house and their personal crises, the arrival of Calvin's new wife pushes Jordan, Natalie, and Mae to decide how far they're willing to go to preserve the Shipman bond.A delicious summer read that explores the enduring power of family and sister connections, Down with the Shipmans is a humorous, heartfelt reminder that home is not a place, but the people who love you, no matter how imperfectly.
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| Good Joy, Bad Joy by Mikki BrammerAt 89, widowed Joy Bridport lives alone, though she has daily check-ins with her longtime best friend Hazel to make sure they are both still kicking. When cancer leaves adventurous Hazel with just months to live, it makes Joy question her own sedate life, leading to risk-taking, rule-breaking, and petty crime in this moving and heart-warming story about friendship, grief, and second chances. Read-alikes: Hillary Yablon's Sylvia's Second Act; Marianne Cronin's Eddie Winston Is Looking for Love. |
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| Leave Your Mess at Home by Tolani AkinolaEstranged eldest daughter Sola is back in Chicago after her influencer life implodes thanks to her now ex-boyfriend. Meanwhile, Sola's golden child brother worries about impending fatherhood, her physician sister isn't sure about her career or her love life, and her college student baby sister ponders who she is. This moving, funny debut takes place over two months and culminates at Thanksgiving with the siblings' Nigerian immigrant parents. Try this next: Terah Shelton Harris' Long After We Are Gone. |
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Meet Me at the Seaside Cottages
by Jenny Colgan
This summer, escape to the Seaside Cottages in the Scottish isles with this delightful mother-daughter story about second chances in love, life, and home renovations, by New York Times bestselling author Jenny Colgan.EVERYONE IS SEARCHING FOR THEIR PERFECT HOUSE. BUT HOME IS REALLY WHERE THE HEART IS...Janey Carter has a lot to be grateful for--a home by the sea in the Scottish isles, a job that she loves, two kids who have successfully launched, and a network of kind and supportive friends. But since her husband left, her confidence has taken a nosedive. And then, out of the blue, her thirty-year-old daughter Essie announces she's moving back home. Janey loves Essie dearly, but she was never the easiest to live with, and Janie has been enjoying the empty nest life.Yes, Essie Carter has just lost her job, can't afford her rent in Edinburgh, and her boyfriend isn't ready to commit. She hates to admit defeat and isn't wild about moving back to the remote island community where she was raised. But maybe the sea air will clear her head?No sooner is Essie back under her mother's roof than an unusual opportunity pops up: the shabby and unloved Seaside Cottages next door come up for sale. Janey has some experience renovating the island's famous stone fisherman's cottages, Essie needs something to do, and they could both use a little Air B&B income to warm their pockets. Mother and daughter slowly bond over the shared challenge, which delivers some much-needed revelations for Essie, and offers Janey a surprise second chance at love as well.If I could live in a Jenny Colgan novel, I'd be happy forever. -- bestselling author Jill Mansell
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The Radiant Dark
by Alexandra Oliva
INSTANT USA TODAY BESTSELLER - A People Best Book of the Month - An Apple Best Book of the Month Beautifully written and full of wonder and humanity. -- People Just as engrossing as the mysteries swirling in outer space.--The New York Times Book Review In the wake of First Contact, one mother upends her life and her children's futures, as humanity reckons with its place in the universe. It's March 1980, and Carol Girard and her husband are living an ordinary life in a small town in the Adirondacks. They have just had their first child, and though Carol is struggling with the challenges of new motherhood, her future seems clear. Until something extraordinary happens: an inexplicable flickering of light in the sky, which is ultimately determined to be communication from intelligent life on another planet. But these beings are eleven light-years away, and nothing is known about them other than the fact that they seem to know we exist, too. As humanity reels from a shifting understanding of its place in the universe, we follow the stories of the Girard family: Carol, whose fascination with this other life sparks a desperate search for spiritual meaning; Michael, her loyal son, who finds solace not in the stars above his head but in the ground beneath his feet; and Ro, Carol's bright and ambitious daughter, whose childhood goal to work in interstellar communication will evolve into something far grander. Tracing five decades of love, loss, ambition, and self-discovery, The Radiant Dark is Daring and expansive, soul-stirring, and precise, this is a novel about love and belonging. (Eliana Ramage, author of To the Moon and Back).
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The Shampoo Effect
by Jenny Jackson
Funny, drama-fueled, and full of Jackson's breezy wit. . . Brilliant. --Coco Mellors, New York Times bestselling author of Blue Sisters An ambitious young woman insinuates herself into a tight-knit social set, shaking up friendships and marriages in a small seaside town. A frothy novel of love, money, sex, and friendship, from the New York Times bestselling author of Pineapple Street (Laugh-out-loud-good. --Harper's Bazaar) When Caroline Lash arrives in Greenhead, Massachusetts, she falls head-over-heels for Van Whittaker, a fleece-wearing, litter-collecting, kayak enthusiast with long, floppy hair and the personality of a Border collie. Born and raised in this picturesque coastal village, Van runs with the same crowd he did as a kid: His ex-girlfriend, Bailey, a beautiful girl who attracts men like moths to a flame; Augusta, old money, horsey, and snobbish; and Fran, surrounded by brothers and sons, too fed up with boys to ever consider marrying one. Together, the group runs wild through the marshes, beaches, and bars of Greenhead, drinking on houseboats, spending long afternoons sunbathing with their children, and playing games the way they always have. But when Bailey discovers that she is pregnant with Van's baby, the delicate balance of the group's friendship is thrown off. Soon Caroline is cast out of the circle and what she does next--in a potent mix of fury and heartbreak--exposes long-held secrets and works the entire town of Greenhead into a lather. Dazzlingly funny, sexy, and as juicy as it is astute, The Shampoo Effect is a story of late-night parties, early mornings with small children, the dawn of midlife, and a group of old friends finally growing up despite all their best efforts to the contrary.
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Take Me with You
by Steven Rowley
Only national treasure Steven Rowley could blur the otherworldly with the everyday and turn all of it into heartache-flavored comedy. --Catherine Newman, New York Times bestselling author of Sandwich and Wreck We are all alien, even to the people who know us best. College professor Jesse del Ruth has been abandoned. Thirty years into their relationship, Jesse witnesses his husband, Norman, get out of bed late one night, walk into their Joshua Tree backyard, step into a strange beam of light and . . . disappear. How could Norman desert him after a lifetime together? Where did he go? And, most confoundingly . . . will he ever return? Jesse knew they were both feeling stuck, longing for something they couldn't quite name. But was their rut so deep that Norman's only option was to leave Jesse behind? As Jesse struggles to understand Norman's disappearance, he tries to piece together his new reality. Is he expected to wait patiently for a partner who may never come back? Or is this an opportunity for reinvention? He is, after all, alone for the first time in his adult life. Should he return to the classroom? Put in a pool? Get a dog? Call his estranged mother? What does it mean to be alone when you've always been one half of a whole? When Norman's sister, Lally, lands on Jesse's doorstep with an urgent request, Norman's absence becomes even more profound. Add to Jesse's grief and confusion a conspiracy-theorist neighbor, a strange man following him, and suspicions that he may have had a hand in Norman's disappearance, and Jesse starts to crack under the pressure. With his husband missing and the world closing in, all eyes are on Jesse. Before he can understand how Norman could leave it all behind, Jesse must confront what it means to stay. In Take Me With You, Steven Rowley brings his resonant wit and emotional insight to an epic love story--an exploration of the forces that draw two people into the same orbit and the gravity that threatens to pull them apart.
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