There are so many new releases that have received tremendous praise from Indie booksellers. So much so that we’ve divided up this season post in two—beginning with a round-up of books that are officially available now, here are the new summer releases that you’ll soon be seeing in the staff picks shelves in your local store and in the tote bags of every reader.
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Indie Booksellers Recommend: 15 Exciting Summer Reads Out Now
“A novel for the times, a novel to pull on your heart strings, and novel not to be missed. THE HALF MOON tells the story of a neighborhood bar strapped for cash and a marriage heading for the rocks. Will it all survive? Is the glass half full or half empty? Mary Beth Keane has an amazing way with words and knows how hit all the emotional high notes. Take my advice don’t miss this one.” —Fran Ziegler, Titcomb’s Bookshop
From the bestselling author of Ask Again, Yes, a masterful novel about a couple in a small town who must navigate the complexities of marriage, family, and longing.
Malcolm Gephardt, handsome and gregarious longtime bartender at the Half Moon, has always dreamed of owning a bar. When his boss finally retires, Malcolm stretches to buy the place. He sees unquantifiable magic and potential in the Half Moon and hopes to transform it into a bigger success, but struggles to stay afloat.
His smart and confident wife, Jess, has devoted herself to her law career. After years of trying for a baby, she is facing the idea that motherhood may not be in the cards for her. Like Malcolm, she feels her youth beginning to slip away and wonders how to reshape her future.
Award-winning author Mary Beth Keane’s new novel takes place over the course of one week when Malcolm learns shocking news about Jess, a patron of the bar goes missing, and a blizzard hits the town of Gillam, trapping everyone in place. With a deft eye and generous spirit, Keane explores the disappointments and unexpected consolations of midlife, the many forms forgiveness can take, the complicated intimacy of small-town living, and what it means to be a family.
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“I would wholeheartedly recommend CROW MARY to all readers of historical fiction. The author has done intensive research and created an unforgettable story using the facts available about Crow Mary’s life. It brought to light a whole era of history in 1872 Montana when Crow Mary married a white fur trader and was incredibly brave as she moved away from her people and forged a life with her husband. She rescues five Nakoda women who were being attacked by drunken traders. The book was endorsed by Crow Mary’s great granddaughter and other students of the time. The characters are so well developed that they will remain with you for years to come. Another outstanding novel from Kathleen Grissom.” —Sarajane Giddings, Blue Door Books
The New York Times bestselling author of the “touching” (The Boston Globe) book club classics The Kitchen House and the “emotionally rewarding” (Booklist) Glory Over Everything returns with a sweeping saga inspired by the true story of Crow Mary—an indigenous woman torn between two worlds in 19th-century North America.
In 1872, sixteen-year-old Goes First, a Crow Native woman, marries Abe Farwell, a white fur trader. He gives her the name Mary, and they set off on the long trip to his trading post in the Cypress Hills of Saskatchewan, Canada. Along the way, she finds a fast friend in a Métis named Jeannie; makes a lifelong enemy in a wolfer named Stiller; and despite learning a dark secret of Farwell’s past, falls in love with her husband.
The winter trading season passes peacefully. Then, on the eve of their return to Montana, a group of drunken whiskey traders slaughters forty Nakota—despite Farwell’s efforts to stop them. Mary, hiding from the hail of bullets, sees the murderers, including Stiller, take five Nakota women back to their fort. She begs Farwell to save them, and when he refuses, Mary takes two guns, creeps into the fort, and saves the women from certain death. Thus, she sets off a whirlwind of colliding cultures that brings out the worst and best in the cast of unforgettable characters and pushes the love between Farwell and Crow Mary to the breaking point.
From an author with a “stirring and uplifting” (David R. Gillham, New York Times bestselling author) voice, Crow Mary sweeps across decades and the landscape of the upper West and Canada, showcasing the beauty of the natural world, while at the same time probing the intimacies of a marriage and one woman’s heart.
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“Our understanding of history is skewed. We see it through the eyes of our relatively short existence, in relatively limited surroundings, and with bias cut into us by our individual cultures. But what might we learn if we were to talk with some who had traveled fairly extensively and had lived for almost a decade beyond a hundred years. Goodness! Well, that’s what this book is about. Journalist David Von Drehle discovered he had a next-door neighbor named Charlie who was 104 years old at the time. As they slowly began a long relationship, questions were asked, memories were explored, and observations were shared. There’s wisdom in this book, folks. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!” —Linda Bond, Auntie’s Bookstore
One of our nation’s most prominent writers finds the truth about how to live a long and happy life in the centenarian next door.
When a veteran Washington journalist moved to Kansas, he met a new neighbor who was more than a century old. Little did he know that he was beginning a long friendship—and a profound lesson in the meaning of life. Charlie White was no ordinary neighbor. Born before radio, Charlie lived long enough to use a smartphone. When a shocking tragedy interrupted his idyllic boyhood, Charlie mastered survival strategies that reflect thousands of years of human wisdom. Thus armored, Charlie’s sense of adventure carried him on an epic journey across the continent, and later found him swinging across bandstands of the Jazz Age, racing aboard ambulances through Depression-era gangster wars, improvising techniques for early open-heart surgery, and cruising the Amazon as a guest of Peru’s president.
David Von Drehle came to understand that Charlie’s resilience and willingness to grow made this remarkable neighbor a master in the art of thriving through times of dramatic change. As a gift to his children, he set out to tell Charlie’s secrets. The Book of Charlie is a gospel of grit—the inspiring story of one man’s journey through a century of upheaval. The history that unfolds through Charlie’s story reminds you that the United States has always been a divided nation, a questing nation, an inventive nation—a nation of Charlies in the rollercoaster pursuit of a good and meaningful life.
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“I sat down to start reading this book at around 11 pm. I was so engrossed by the fifty-page mark that I decided I would just read straight through and finished around 3:45 am. That is something I have never done, and would likely never do again, but DROWNING was that good. It grabbed me and would not let go. It's tough to follow-up an instant bestseller with a book that matches or surpasses its original, but that’s exactly what T. J. Newman has done here. I liked DROWNING better than FALLING, and that is saying something. We'll be recommending this book to everyone who stops in this summer!” —Paul Swydan, The Silver Unicorn Bookstore
Flight attendant turned New York Times bestselling author T. J. Newman—whose first book Falling was an instant #1 national bestseller and the biggest thriller debut of 2021—returns for her second book, an edge-of-your-seat thriller about a commercial jetliner that crashes into the ocean, and sinks to the bottom with passengers trapped inside, and the extraordinary rescue operation to save them.
Six minutes after takeoff, Flight 1421 crashes into the Pacific Ocean. During the evacuation, an engine explodes and the plane is flooded. Those still alive are forced to close the doors—but it’s too late. The plane sinks to the bottom with twelve passengers trapped inside.
More than two hundred feet below the surface, engineer Will Kent and his eleven-year-old daughter Shannon are waist-deep in water and fighting for their lives.
Their only chance at survival is an elite rescue team on the surface led by professional diver Chris Kent—Shannon’s mother and Will’s soon-to-be ex-wife—who must work together with Will to find a way to save their daughter and rescue the passengers from the sealed airplane, which is now teetering on the edge of an undersea cliff.
There’s not much time.
There’s even less air.
With devastating emotional power and heart-stopping suspense, Drowning is an unforgettable thriller about a family’s desperate fight to save themselves and the people trapped with them—against impossible odds.
“This one’s complicated. I picked it up with the expectation that I'd read a few pages to confirm my preconception that it would be too cringey to stomach—because it's about a liberal Black woman and a moderate-to-conservative white man who fall in love. But I quickly found that this book is NOT a romance, at least not in any genre sense. There’s romance in it, and certainly some heady chemistry, but it’s way more nuanced than that. Through the lens of this problematic relationship (which will spike your blood pressure and keep it high, I promise), Rabess interrogates identity—both individual and in-group—in a really brilliant, intensely readable, morally complex way. The big question here is: can someone’s care for you as an individual outweigh their lack of understanding/care for you as a member of an identity group? How does complicity in systems of power—the main character works in finance—play a role in that determination? It’s extremely tangled, and Rabess doesn’t provide answers. Just really adept storytelling.” —Talia Smart, Flyleaf Books
“Extraordinarily brave...plain funny as hell, too.” —Zakiya Dalila Harris, New York Times bestselling author of The Other Black Girl
“A subtle, ironic, wise, state-of-the-nation novel, sharp enough to draw blood, hidden inside a moving, intimate, sincere and very real love story--or vice versa.” —Nick Hornby
When Jess lands a job as an analyst at Goldman Sachs, she’s less than thrilled to learn she’ll be on the same team as Josh, her preppy, white, conservative sparring partner from college. Josh loves playing the devil’s advocate and is just…the worst.
But when Jess finds herself the sole Black woman on the floor, overlooked and underestimated, it’s Josh who shows up for her in surprising—if imperfect—ways. Before long, an unlikely friendship—one tinged with undeniable chemistry—forms between the two. A friendship that gradually, and then suddenly, turns into an electrifying romance that shocks them both.
Despite their differences, the force of their attraction propels the relationship forwards, and Jess begins to question whether it’s more important to be happy than right. But then it’s 2016, and the cultural and political landscape shifts underneath them. And Jess, who is just beginning to discover who she is and who she has the right to be, is forced to ask herself what she’s willing to compromise for love and whether, in fact, everything’s fine.
A stunning debut that introduces Cecilia Rabess as a blazing new talent, Everything’s Fine is a painfully funny, poignant, heartfelt novel that doesn’t just ask will they, but…should they?
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“Told with the exquisite beauty of Cape Cod described on every page, the year is 2016 and all readers will intimately come to know the members of the Gardner family in this family tale: LITTLE MONSTERS. Adrienne Brodeur is a skilled storyteller who introduces us to Adam—the seventy-year-old oceanographer with a bipolar disorder and his two adult children, Ken and Abby. Many are the secrets that will be revealed in the spellbinding pages and readers will absorb the words as the complicated characters become alive. Art and beauty and genius are displayed right next to the destructive nature of rivalry and hatred and lies. This is a family saga that will keep the pages moving rapidly to life and birth after pain and secrets.”—Nancy Pierce, Bookmiser
From the author of the bestselling memoir Wild Games comes a riveting novel about Cape Cod, complicated families, and long-buried secrets—for fans of the New York Times bestsellers The Paper Palace and Ask Again, Yes.
Ken and Abby Gardner lost their mother when they were small and they have been haunted by her absence ever since. Their father, Adam, a brilliant oceanographer, raised them mostly on his own in his remote home on Cape Cod, where the attachment between Ken and Abby deepened into something complicated—and as adults their relationship is strained. Now, years later, the siblings’ lives are still deeply entwined. Ken is a successful businessman with political ambitions and a picture-perfect family and Abby is a talented visual artist who depends on her brother’s goodwill, in part because he owns the studio where she lives and works.
As the novel opens, Adam is approaching his seventieth birthday, staring down his mortality and fading relevance. He has always managed his bipolar disorder with medication, but he’s determined to make one last scientific breakthrough and so he has secretly stopped taking his pills, which he knows will infuriate his children. Meanwhile, Abby and Ken are both harboring secrets of their own, and there is a new person on the periphery of the family—Steph, who doesn’t make her connection known. As Adam grows more attuned to the frequencies of the deep sea and less so to the people around him, Ken and Abby each plan the elaborate gifts they will present to their father on his birthday, jostling for primacy in this small family unit.
Set in the fraught summer of 2016, and drawing on the biblical tale of Cain and Abel, Little Monsters is an absorbing, sharply observed family story by a writer who knows Cape Cod inside and out—its Edenic lushness and its snakes.
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“Well, that’s one way to spend a Sunday! It’s been years since I picked up a book and didn’t put it down until it was done. ZERO DAYS by Ruth Ware kept me hooked All. Day. Long. Jack and her husband, Gabe, are penetration specialists hired by various companies to test their security systems. After a job goes horribly wrong, Jack comes home to find Gabe dead. It doesn’t take long for her to realize that she is Suspect Number One. While navigating her grief, Jack sets out discover who the real killer is. She quickly learns who she can and can’t trust while unveiling the horrible secret Gabe was hiding. Just when I thought this novel was predictable, Ware ushers in twists and turns that delivers surprising revelations and kept me reading until the sun went down. This will be a terrific cyber-crime mystery for summer vacations!” —Heidi Carter, Bogan Books
The New York Times bestselling “new Agatha Christie” (Air Mail) Ruth Ware returns with this adrenaline-fueled thriller that combines Mr. and Mrs. Smith with The Fugitive about a woman in a race against time to clear her name and find her husband’s murderer.
Hired by companies to break into buildings and hack security systems, Jack and her husband, Gabe, are the best penetration specialists in the business. But after a routine assignment goes horribly wrong, Jack arrives home to find her husband dead. To add to her horror, the police are closing in on their suspect—her.
Suddenly on the run and quickly running out of options, Jack must decide who she can trust as she circles closer to the real killer in this unputdownable and heart-pounding mystery from an author whose “propulsive prose keeps readers on the hook and refuses to let anyone off until all has been revealed” (Shelf Awareness).
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“I feel like I've been on quite an adventure after reading THE EAST INDIAN. Set in the 1600s, Tony, the first East Indian to go to Virginia, becomes an indentured servant against his will and does what it take to survive plus look out for others. He and two other boys sail from London and settle in for many years of hard work and lean meals, while hearing tales of the unrest outside their small community. After moving from master to master, Tony, begins an apprenticeship to a doctor and learns the art of healing. While many of the community members don't accept him because of his dark skin and curled hair, he finds friends among other servants. Gorgeous writing, engaging descriptions of the people, land, and the time period . . . you'll root for a happy ending for Tony and the many others you've come to know.” —Sara Rishforth, Roundabout Books
Inspired by a historical figure, an exhilarating debut novel about the first native of the Indian subcontinent to arrive in Colonial America—for readers of Esi Edugyan and Yaa Gyasi.
Meet Tony: insatiably curious, deeply compassionate, with a unique perspective on every scene he encounters. Kidnapped and transported to the New World after traveling from the British East India Company’s outpost on the Coromandel Coast to the teeming streets of London, young Tony finds himself in Jamestown, Virginia, where he and his fellow indentured servants—boys like himself, men from Africa, a mad woman from London—must work the tobacco plantations. Orphaned and afraid, Tony initially longs for home. But as he adjusts to his new environment, finding companionship and even love, he can envision a life for himself after servitude. His dream: to become a medicine man, or a physician’s assistant, an expert on roots and herbs, a dispenser of healing compounds.
Like the play that captivates him—Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream—Tony’s life is rich with oddities and hijinks, humor and tragedy. Set during the early days of English colonization in Jamestown, before servitude calcified into racialized slavery, The East Indian gives authentic voice to an otherwise unknown historic figure and brings the world he would have encountered to vivid life. In this coming-of-age tale, narrated by a most memorable literary rascal, Charry conjures a young character sure to be beloved by readers for years to come.
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“What if a book, written from an imagined childhood story, could unlock mysteries of the past and reunite lost loved ones? That's precisely what happens in THE SECRET BOOK OF FLORA LEA, and Henry unfolds it with expert storytelling. This is a beautiful tale of the powers of stories and love. I loved how this book highlights the use of stories to provide comfort in chaos and create bonds that transcend distance and time. I fell deeply in love with Whisperwood and the characters of this lovely novel. This book is one that, upon finishing it, you close it gently, hold it close to your heart, wipe your tears, and smile before you set it down.” —Jess Depew, The Snail Readers Circle, The Snail on the Wall
When a woman stumbles across a mysterious children’s book, long-held secrets about her missing sister and their childhood spent in the English countryside during World War II are revealed in this “transporting, heartfelt, and atmospheric” (Christina Baker Kline, #1 New York Times bestselling author) novel from the New York Times bestselling author of Surviving Savannah and Becoming Mrs. Lewis.
1939: Fourteen-year-old Hazel and five-year-old Flora evacuate their London home for a rural village to escape the horrors of the Second World War. Living with the Aberdeen family in a charming stone cottage, Hazel distracts her young sister with a fairy tale about a magical land, a secret place they can escape to that is all their own: Whisperwood.
But the unthinkable happens when Flora suddenly vanishes after playing near the banks of the River Thames. Shattered, Hazel blames herself for her sister’s disappearance, carrying the guilt into adulthood.
Twenty years later, Hazel is back in London, ready to move on from her job at a cozy rare bookstore for a career at Sotheby’s. With a cherished boyfriend and an upcoming Paris getaway, Hazel’s future seems set. But her tidy life is turned upside down when she unwraps a package containing a picture book called Whisperwood and the River of Stars. Hazel never told a soul about the storybook world she created just for Flora. Could this book hold the secrets to Flora’s disappearance? Could it be a sign that her beloved sister is still alive after all these years? Or is something sinister at play?
For fans of Kate Morton, Janet Skeslien Charles, and Kristin Hannah, this is a “fantastical” (Jamie Ford, New York Times bestselling author) celebration of sisterhood and the magic of storytelling wrapped up in a “heartrending, captivating tale of family, first love, and fate” (Kristin Harmel, New York Times bestselling author).
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“A debut full of heart, SUNSHINE NAILS is the story of a Vietnamese Canadian family who find their family business in danger when a high-end chain salon moves not only into their neighborhood, but right across the street. What first seems doable becomes impossible as problem after problem arises that push the family further from their dreamed of success. When faced with the choice of business or family, the Trans must decide what truly matters most in the moment. —Beth Seufer Buss, Bookmarks
“Mai Nguyen has proven herself to be a real standout.” —Taylor Jenkins Reid, New York Times bestselling author
A tender, humorous, and page-turning debut about a Vietnamese Canadian family in Toronto who will do whatever it takes to protect their no-frills nail salon after a new high end salon opens up—even if it tears the family apart. Perfect for readers of Olga Dies Dreaming and The Fortunes of Jaded Women.
Vietnamese refugees Debbie and Phil Tran have built a comfortable life for themselves in Toronto with their family nail salon. But when an ultra-glam chain salon opens across the street, their world is rocked.
Complicating matters further, their landlord has jacked up the rent and it seems only a matter of time before they lose their business and everything they’ve built. They enlist the help of their daughter, Jessica, who has just returned home after a messy breakup and a messier firing. Together with their son, Dustin, and niece, Thuy, they devise some good old-fashioned sabotage. Relationships are put to the test as the line between right and wrong gets blurred. Debbie and Phil must choose: do they keep their family intact or fight for their salon?
Sunshine Nails is a light-hearted, urgent fable of gentrification with a cast of memorable and complex characters who showcase the diversity of immigrant experiences and community resilience.
“Two pregnant women meet in a Paris park, when one of them seemingly goes into early labor. This fateful meeting changes their lives forever. Their children are born as World War 2 sneaks in and disrupts their lives. One of their husbands is a traitor and after he dies she must flee the country without her daughter. Her friend takes her daughter in to keep her safe. Years and years later they are reunited and secrets from long ago are forced out. I loved the story and the characters who were so original and heartfelt. I have read a lot of books set in this time period but this is so original and beautifully written. It gave me goosebumps.” —Suzanne Lucey, Page 158 Books
From the bestselling author of the “heart-stopping tale of survival and heroism” (People) The Book of Lost Names comes a gripping historical novel about two mothers who must make unthinkable choices in the face of the Nazi occupation.
Paris, 1939: Young mothers Elise and Juliette become fast friends the day they meet in the beautiful Bois de Boulogne. Though there is a shadow of war creeping across Europe, neither woman suspects that their lives are about to irrevocably change.
When Elise becomes a target of the German occupation, she entrusts Juliette with the most precious thing in her life—her young daughter, playmate to Juliette’s own little girl. But nowhere is safe in war, not even a quiet little bookshop like Juliette’s Librairie des Rêves, and, when a bomb falls on their neighborhood, Juliette’s world is destroyed along with it.
More than a year later, with the war finally ending, Elise returns to reunite with her daughter, only to find her friend’s bookstore reduced to rubble. Surviving neighbors tell her that Juliette and a little girl survived. But which little girl—and what happened in the bookstore’s final moments? Juliette has seemingly vanished without a trace, taking all the answers with her. Elise’s desperate quest to find out what happened to her daughter ultimately leads her to New York—and to Juliette—one final, fateful time.
An “exquisite and gut-wrenching novel” (Lisa Barr, New York Times bestselling author) you won’t soon forget, The Paris Daughter is also a sweeping celebration of resilience, motherhood, and love.
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“Words lush with sights and sounds bring a long-ago place to life in this historical fiction tale of a Ming Dynasty doctor and the world she lived in. The rustling of silk and the fragrance of gardens contrast the gritty world that lies beyond the walls of her day-to-day existence. Cloistered with the other women of her family as due her class and stature, she manages to not only hone her skills and thrive but defy boundaries becoming the stuff of legend. Lisa See once again proves herself to be a storyteller extraordinaire.” —BJ Hegedus, Postal Works Inc.
The latest historical novel from New York Times bestselling author Lisa See, inspired by the true story of a woman physician from 15th-century China—perfect for fans of See’s classic Snowflower and the Secret Fan and The Island of Sea Women.
According to Confucius, “an educated woman is a worthless woman,” but Tan Yunxian—born into an elite family, yet haunted by death, separations, and loneliness—is being raised by her grandparents to be of use. Her grandmother is one of only a handful of female doctors in China, and she teaches Yunxian the pillars of Chinese medicine, the Four Examinations—looking, listening, touching, and asking—something a man can never do with a female patient.
From a young age, Yunxian learns about women’s illnesses, many of which relate to childbearing, alongside a young midwife-in-training, Meiling. The two girls find fast friendship and a mutual purpose—despite the prohibition that a doctor should never touch blood while a midwife comes in frequent contact with it—and they vow to be forever friends, sharing in each other’s joys and struggles. No mud, no lotus, they tell themselves: from adversity beauty can bloom.
But when Yunxian is sent into an arranged marriage, her mother-in-law forbids her from seeing Meiling and from helping the women and girls in the household. Yunxian is to act like a proper wife—embroider bound-foot slippers, pluck instruments, recite poetry, give birth to sons, and stay forever within the walls of the family compound, the Garden of Fragrant Delights.
How might a woman like Yunxian break free of these traditions, go on to treat women and girls from every level of society, and lead a life of such importance that many of her remedies are still used five centuries later? How might the power of friendship support or complicate these efforts? Lady Tan’s Circle of Women is a captivating story of women helping other women. It is also a triumphant reimagining of the life of a woman who was remarkable in the Ming dynasty and would be considered remarkable today.
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“Compelling mystery in an exotic setting—this book engages the reader with a look into the customs and the norms of Nigeria through the unique experiences of expat wives who struggle to meet the expectations of a culture that they can’t fully or quickly appreciate. And when one of these wives disappears, and her auntie from the UK arrives to push her husband and Nigerian in-laws to be more assertive with the local authorities in finding her. This is yet another culture clash. The ending is surprising and satisfying.” —Camille Kovach, Completely Booked
This twisty and electrifying debut novel about a young woman who goes missing in Lagos, Nigeria, and her estranged auntie who will stop at nothing to find the truth is perfect for fans of My Sister, the Serial Killer and The Last Thing He Told Me.
Nicole Oruwari has the perfect life: a handsome husband, a palatial house in the heart of glittering Lagos, Nigeria, and a glamorous group of friends. She left gloomy London and a dark family past behind for sunny, moneyed Lagos, becoming part of the Nigerwives—a community of foreign women married to wealthy Nigerian men.
But when Nicole disappears without a trace after a boat trip, the cracks in her so-called perfect life start to show. As the investigation turns up nothing but dead ends, her Auntie Claudine decides to take matters into her own hands. Armed with only a cell phone and a plane ticket to Nigeria, she digs into her niece’s life and uncovers a hidden side filled with dark secrets, isolation, and even violence. But the more she discovers about her niece, the more Claudine’s own buried history threatens to come to light.
An inventively told and keenly observant thriller where nothing is as it seems, The Nigerwife is a razor-sharp look at the bonds of family, the echoing consequences of secrets, and whether we can ever truly outrun our past.
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“Like a cheesy fondue of all my favorite tropes: fake dating, grumpy-sunshine, forced proximity, and more! This is the book the world needs right now—it's funny, honest, and full of trans joy. Jean-Pierre and Luna’s love was so impactful to read on page. This book is an escapist first-class vacation to Paris during rough times. Do yourself a favor and pick this up!” —Kassie King, The Novel Neighbor
A fake dating arrangement turns to real love in this deliciously delightful queer rom-com from the author of the sweetly satisfying Chef’s Kiss.
When Luna O’Shea is unceremoniously fired from her frustrating office job, she tries to count her blessings: she’s a proud trans woman who has plenty of friends, a wonderful roommate, and a good life in New York City. But blessings don’t pay the bills.
Enter Jean-Pierre, a laissez-faire trans man and the heir to a huge culinary empire—which he’ll only inherit if he can jump through all the hoops his celebrity chef grandfather has placed in his path. First hoop: he needs a girlfriend, a role that Luna is happy to play…for the right price. She’s got rent to pay, after all! Second hoop: they both need to learn how to cook a series of elaborate, world-renowned family recipes to prove that Jean-Pierre is a worthy heir. Admittedly, Luna doesn’t even know how to crack an egg, but she’s not going to let that—or any pesky feelings for Jean-Pierre—stop her.
Another swoon-worthy and heartwarming queer love story from a charming new voice in romance.
“Felicity ‘Fizz’ Chen is a bestselling romance author with no inspiration and a writing deadline that she has already missed. Connor Prince, single father and documentary filmmaker, works for a small company that has decided to take a new route: reality tv. Given the task of producing, Connor must find the perfect woman to be the lead in the Bachelorette-inspired show. His first thought, Fizzy. While she is hesitant and proposes a very unique and specific list of demands, Connor fulfills every single one. Eight men will go on dates with Fizzy as viewers vote with an end goal of finding ‘the one’ for her. Full of banter and sexual tension—highly recommended!” —Ayah Chreidi, Blue Willow Bookshop
Photo credit: iStock / artisteer