All Books Considered

The Botanist's Assistant by Peggy Townsend Blurb from Goodreads : A murder in the science lab shatters a woman’s quiet and ordered life when she decides she must solve the crime herself in this entertaining and uplifting mystery. Plenty of people consider Margaret Finch odd. Six-feet-tall and big-boned, she lives alone in a small cabin in the woods, drives a 20-year-old truck, and schedules her life so precisely you can tell the time and day of the week by the chore she is doing and what she is wearing.  But the same attributes that cause her to be labeled eccentric—an obsessive attention to detail and the ability to organize almost anything—make her invaluable in her job as Research Assistant II to a talented and charismatic botanist. It's those very same qualities, however, that also turn Margaret into a target after a surprising death sha...

Daddy Issues by Kate Goldbeck Blurb from Goodreads : A jaded twentysomething is stuck living at home, her life on pause, when a single dad becomes her new neighbor and unexpectedly sets her life—and her heart—into motion in this modern love story from the bestselling author of You, Again. Sometimes love shows up where you least expect it—right next door. At twenty-six, Sam Pulaski expected to be thriving in her academic career, living on her own in some exciting city. Expectations meet She has massive student loan debt from studying art history, a dead-end service industry job, a situationship that’s equal parts intoxicating and toxic. And she’s been crashing in her mom’s condo—at least it’s not a basement?—for the last five years. If she can finally get accepted into a PhD program and get out of Ohio, the adult life that’s been on hold for half her tw...

Haven't Killed in Years by Amy K. Green Blurb from Goodreads : No one is supposed to know harmless office worker Gwen Tanner is the vanished daughter of serial killer Abel Haggerty. But a low profile and a new name aren’t going to cut it when an obsessive new killer starts targeting her, in this lively and propulsive thriller with a standout voice. Marin Haggerty, the daughter of a notorious serial killer, was only a child when they arrested her father. Ripped from her home and given a new identity, Marin disappeared. Twenty years later, Gwen Tanner keeps everyone at a distance, preferring to satirize the world around her than participate in it. It’s for her safety—and theirs. But when someone starts sending body parts to her front door, the message is I Know Who You Are. To preserve her secrets, Gwen must hunt down the killer, a journey which i...

Never Over by Clare Gilmore,  Narrated by Carly Robins Blurb from Goodreads : A swoony second-chance romance where facing the one who broke your heart could be the thing that makes your dream come true. Twenty-five-year-old Paige Lancaster is one contract away from earning a living doing her favorite thing in the world: writing songs. But when a music industry professional suggests she might be holding back with her lyrics to lessen the heartbreak of an old flame, Paige doubts if her music is ready to be heard. In a rare, impulsive move, Paige contacts Liam Bishop after four years of no contact to ask him for a small favor: date her, and then re-break her heart, all so she can remember what those big, songworthy emotions felt like. And since Liam is the one who first set Paige on this career path, he hesitantly agrees. Across three months of Liam’s summer work travel, the exes are forced to share hotel beds, rehash...

Grape Juice by Eliza Dumais Blurb from Goodreads : “The characters are just as vivid as the setting . . . an addictive contemporary that will delight hopeless romantics and armchair travelers alike.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review A gorgeous, seductive fiction debut from wine and dating columnist Eliza Dumais, about parsing romantic clarity amidst the mind-muddling effects of fermented grapes, the French language, and exhausting physical labor. Perfect for fans of Under the Tuscan Sun, French Kiss, and The Pairing. Alice is bored—romantically, professionally, creatively. So when her boss, a prominent wine importer, suggests she work a grape harvest in France, she sees it as a welcome opportunity to course-correct her apathy. Though Alice is plenty skeptical of the drink-pray-love premise, she begins to let her guard down when she finds herself picking riesling and practicing her French alongside a charming cast of...

The Fangirl Project by Beth Reekles Blurb from Goodreads : From the bestselling author of The Kissing Booth comes a romantic comedy about a girl who joins a book fantasy fandom to win over her crush, only to discover that love is just as complicated online. When Cerys’ secret crush Jake moves to a new college, she realizes she’s running out of time to take their relationship from platonic to romantic. She’ll do anything to get out of Jake’s friend zone, even if that means finally diving into the huge fantasy fandom he loves so much. Though she absolutely can’t see the appeal in Of Wrath and Rune, if Jake loves it, then Cerys will too. When Jake introduces Cerys to his shiny new friend Max, who goes to all the fandom conventions—in cosplay (cringe)—Cerys realizes she’ll need to do a lot more to grab Jake’s attention than just read a few fanfics. But Max, with his dimples and dry humor, always seems to be hanging around...

Lightbreakers by Aja Gabel Blurb from Goodreads : What would you give to relive the past? Maya, an artist, and Noah, a quantum physicist, share an insatiable curiosity about the world. But their happy marriage has a shadow over Serena, the child Noah had with his first wife, who died before she turned four. When Noah is invited by the Janus Project to unravel the secrets of time travel, he jumps at the opportunity. At a laboratory deep in the Texas desert, he begins participating in a dangerous experiment that could result in something he thought seeing his daughter again. Meanwhile, Maya embarks on a journey back to her own past in Japan, and to a formative lover who once shattered her heart. As Noah and Maya grapple with hope and despair, new information emerges that the experiments might not be exactly what they seems. A heartachingly moving nove...

6:40 to Montreal by Eva Jurczyk Blurb from Goodreads :  Agatha's husband has bought her a first-class ticket on the scenic six-hour train from Toronto to Montreal as a gift—a one-day writing retreat so she can get some serious work done on her new book, a highly-anticipated follow-up to Agatha's runaway bestseller debut novel. The first-class car is the perfect place to be productive, with only a handful of other passengers, plenty of snacks and drinks, and beautiful views flying by outside the window.  But Agatha has other plans for her day out… plans that are unexpectedly derailed when the train breaks down in the middle of the frigid Canadian woods and one of Agatha's fellow passengers dies quietly in his seat. Soon, a pleasant morning in transit turns into a fight for survival against an unknown and unseen enemy. Will Agatha—or any of the passengers—make it out alive? From international bestselling auth...

Alice Rue Evades the Truth by Emily Zipps Blurb from Goodreads : In this sapphic homage to While You Were Sleeping, a down-on-her-luck receptionist is mistaken as the girlfriend of a comatose man and doesn’t have the heart to come clean to his devastated family—even when she starts falling for his sister. Alice Rue has never spoken to her longtime crush Nolan Altman, but after she saves his life, the EMTs tell his family that Alice is Nolan’s girlfriend. She wants to set the record straight, but Nolan’s in a coma, and if the family feels comforted by the idea of Nolan having his “girlfriend” by his side for what might be his last moments, isn’t it kinder to go along with it? At least for now? The Altmans are impossibly nice and supportive, and there’s something about Nolan’s sister Van that makes Alice feel more seen and understood than she has in yea...