All Books Considered

Down with the Shipmans by Meg Mitchell Moore Blurb from Goodreads : It’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-p...

Girl's Girl by Sonia Feldman Blurb from Goodreads : A hypnotic debut about the pivotal summer that shatters the delicate balance between three best friends Fifteen-year-old Mina’s whole world is her two best friends, but after an unexpected kiss, the established dynamics of their trio quickly unravel. Everything that was once shared openly, from clothes to secrets, now feels impossibly fragile. Loyalties shift and tensions simmer across the long days of this pivotal summer, where the girls have nowhere new to go and everything new to feel. Looking back, an adult Mina traces the undercurrents of longing that shaped her first experience of desire. The rituals of girlhood—gossip, selfies, sleepovers, and videogames—become threads in a delicate, volatile web of intimacy, in which everything feels achingly fleeting and permanently etched. Loving one person, Mina learns, can change the way we love everyone else—includin...

Summerland Cove by Ellen Baker Blurb from Goodreads : Lindy has the summer of a lifetime planned at her family’s beloved cottage in Summerland Cove, Maine, where she’s spent summers all her life and where she and her husband David met as teenagers. She’s slated big events three weekends in a David’s fiftieth birthday party, her parents’ fiftieth anniversary party, and her oldest daughter Hailey’s wedding. But when David doesn’t show up for his own party, everything about the life they’ve created together is thrown into question, as the shattered family sets out looking for him. Has he been in an accident? God forbid, been the victim of a crime? Or is it something more cliché—a midlife crisis, an affair? Surely, he’ll show up for his beloved daughter’s wedding—won’t he?  The agonizing days tick by and still no David. Lindy’s four nearly grown chi...

The Maidenheads by Benny B. Peterson Blurb from Goodreads : A bighearted debut novel about queer yearning, indie musicians, and bushwacking a thorny path back to your first love Jamie is bad at endings, which is why she's stuck at a dead-end Baltimore newspaper job, continuing to have break-up sex with her first-ever hetero partner, and haunted by the what-ifs of her ex-girlfriend Mari—a charismatic and brilliant musician—and their former band together, the Maidenheads. Since they (and their band) broke up a decade ago, Jamie hasn't been able to sing. Then an unexpected opportunity to perform in DC with Mari's successful new band arises, and Jamie jumps at it. What begins as a return to music becomes a reckoning—with the weight of unfinished love, the voice she long buried, and her own complicated past. But as Jamie channels more of her energy into the band, other threads in her life begin to fray, and she ...

By the Bootstraps by Alexa Martin Blurb from Goodreads : A cowboy romance enthusiast discovers that everything’s bigger in Texas—even love—in this swoony novel from beloved author Alexa Martin. Fueled by a love of romance novels, Luna Starr was destined for a life with her head in the clouds. Her delusional tendencies serve her well…or at least they used to. When life throws her a curveball, she decides it’s time to turn her cowboy fantasies into reality and purchases a tiny farm in Celestial, Texas. After all, don’t all heroines try to outrun grief? Tate Jacobs hates cowboys, which is a small problem, considering his family happens to own the largest ranch in Celestial. Life might not have gone the way he wanted, but as head coach at his old high school and the town’s best (and only) handyman, he’s figured out how to stay busy and keep his head down—u...

Rachel West and the Fallen Starlet by Emma Mills Blurb from Goodreads : Celebrity gossip can cut to the quick, but when it turns deadly it’s up to an aspiring reporter and her quirky neighbors to close the case in the first of a witty and nostalgic new mystery series. Baby doll top, gladiator sandals, and fully loaded iPod at the it’s 2008 in Los Angeles, and Rachel West is a little less starry-eyed than your average ingenue. Copyediting a celeb gossip rag isn't the glossy entertainment journalism Rachel thought she would be doing but hey, it pays the bills. Some of them, anyway. Rachel’s life changes overnight after meeting Molly Byrne, a former child star and current tabloid fave for her drunken escapades and rotating cast of boyfriends, and what begins as a chance encounter in a nightclub bathroom quickly grows into a genuine friendship. When Mo...

Major Gift byTiffany Ezuma Blurb from Goodreads : The widow of a tech mogul is determined to give her wealth away—and keep one secret from the journalist tasked with telling her story. A hot new take on the billionaire romance. When Ndidi Davis’s husband unexpectedly dies, she’s left bereft—and with $2.1 billion in the bank. She channels her grief into launching a charitable foundation, but the endeavor is made more complicated by Geoffrey Campbell, an ambitious, perceptive journalist assigned to profile her philanthropic pursuit. Geoffrey’s reporting slowly uncovers Ndidi’s whole heart—and some parts of her past she’s worked hard to keep out of the public eye.   I didn't enjoy this as much as some other 831 Stories but it was still great!  It plays on something we have previously seen that has been converted from real life to fiction (th...

The Anniversary by Alex Finlay,  Narrated by Ari Fliakos and Brittany Pressley Blurb from Goodreads : Every Year He Comes For Them. On one fateful night in 1992, the lives of two seventeen-year-olds are changed and intertwined forever. Quinn Riley, a boy from the wrong side of the tracks, is arrested after he innocently tries to break up a fight but ends up nearly killing someone. Jules Delaney, high school royalty, survives an attack by the elusive and terrifying May Day Killer—a serial predator who strikes every May 1st in midwestern small towns. A year later, Jules is struggling with trauma and guilt, tormented by the Why was I spared? Quinn is newly released from juvenile detention and returns home to fresh the unsolved murder of his mother. Over the next decade, their lives are revisited on a single day each year—May 1st. As secrets unravel an...

Love Beyond Reasonable Doubt by Swati Hegde Blurb from Goodreads : In this second-chance workplace romance, two lawyers find themselves working in the same office after a steamy vacation fling a year and a half ago, from the author of Can't Help Faking in Love Naina Shetty is a proud workaholic, and she is gunning for a promotion at her law firm. No distractions will get in her way this time, not even the bad breakup that happened over a year ago. She brushed off her pain with a long vacation and a no-strings-attached fling with a handsome stranger, but now Naina is back to business. Unlucky-in-love Tejas Rajput hasn’t stopped thinking about the brown-eyed beauty he met on the beaches of Goa two summers ago. He’d been looking for a rebound to get over his ex—which is why he’d agreed to keep things strictly casual, use fake last names, and respond t...