Good Reads & Views

The Trouble with Hating You (#1) by Sajni Patel 
Fiction 

What happens: Liya is a biochemical engineer married to her work. Even though she is fine being single, her parents are not. Ambushed one night at a family dinner, a blind date goes wrong with Liya escaping before dinner is served. Jay is a lawyer who would do anything for his family even if that means being set up on a blind date where the girl flees. When Liya and Jay are forced to work together, sparks fly, and they begin to not hate each other. Will Jay help Liya realize life isn’t all about work? Will Liya get Jay to loosen up his overprotectiveness? 

Why you might like it: A great read for those who love enemies to lovers. Jay and Liya have great chemistry and their banter is comical. Liya is in the STEAM field, and it was refreshing to read about a woman engineer.

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Evvie Drake Starts Over by Linda Holmes 
Fiction 

What happens: Recently widowed, Evvie Drake has decided to rent out the apartment in the back of her house to help get over her grief of losing her husband. She wasn’t expecting Major League Baseball Player Dean Tenney (a pitcher who has a bad case of the yips) to want her apartment. For this to work out, Evvie can’t talk to Dean about baseball and Dean can’t ask Evvie about her deceased husband. Of course, rules always have a way of getting broken. 

Reviewers say: “Believable, flawed characters are at the heart of this novel. At times deeply emotional yet sometimes extremely humorous. This is a satisfying crowd-pleaser” (Publishers Weekly).

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The True Love Experiment by Christina Lauren
Fiction

About the authors: Christina Lauren is the combined pen name of longtime writing partners and best friends Christina Hobbs and Lauren Billings. They have also written The Soulmate Equation and Something Wilder. 

Reviewers say: "Another winning romance from Lauren, full of big laughs, a few tears, and some seriously steamy scenes" (Kirkus Reviews).

You might also like: The Bodyguard by Katherine Center or Family Tree by Susan Wiggs.

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Yours Truly by Abby Jimenez
Fiction

What it’s about:  Abby Jimenez writes us a wonderfully relatable and real heartwarming and emotional friendship and contemporary love story. We follow along with Briana, a recently divorced trauma doctor, and Jacob, a newly hired trauma doctor with social anxiety. They start off on the wrong foot, but soon the misunderstanding between Briana and Jacob turns into a genuine friendship that blossomed through written letters to each other and eventually becomes something more. Throughout this story Jimenez addresses topics like organ donation, anxiety, depression, and love in such a way that is refreshing and real. 

Is it for you? Yours Truly is for those that want a Grey’s Anatomy episode with a happy ending. Although this is a romance story with the popular trope of fake dating, there is plenty of humor, tension and a little bit of family drama that adds to the depth of the story.

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I’ll Be Your Blue Sky by Marisa de los Santos
Fiction

What it’s about: I'll Be Your Blue Sky is the third book in the trilogy that began with Love Walked In, followed by Belong to Me. All three of them can be read as standalone books but the other two books are just as wonderful! On the weekend of her wedding, Clare meets a delightful elderly woman named Edith. After just one conversation, Edith gives Clare the resolution and guts to break off her engagement to her captivating, yet overly possessive, fiancé. Three weeks later, Clare learns that Edith has died-and has given her another gift…a huge gift!

Is it for you? Marisa de los Santos’ way with words is like no other and her gift of giving her characters such a rich, full life makes me wish I could meet them in person.

You might also like:Love Walked In by Marisa de los Santos.

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Divine Rivals by Rebecca Ross
YA Fiction

What it’s about: A fantasy romance with a setting akin to WWII-era London. The reader follows two young rival journalists who find love through magical typewriters. Iris is a young journalist who finds herself swept to the frontlines of a war between two gods in order to find her brother, a soldier at the front, and also report the truth behind the war. She soon forges a magical connection when a letter suddenly appears in response to a letter she wrote and slipped beneath her wardrobe. What soon turns into a rivals to lovers relationship ends in a beautiful and tragic romance. While the gods linger in the background the ending promises further exploration in the sequel.

Why you might like it: A strongly character-driven knowledge full of intrigue and beautiful writing. In this novel, fantasy takes more of a backseat to the romance between the two main characters, which allows for a delightful progression to their passion. Rather than a full information unload at the start, the immersion into the world and mythological themes is steady and slow, allowing you to peel back the layers of the book while the characters do the same in their relationship. 

Reviewers say: "An ardent romance and a harrowing exploration of war’s horrors and heartbreaks... with inventive worldbuilding, nuanced characterizations, and prose by turns dreamy and atmospherically tense" (Publishers Weekly).

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One True Loves by Taylor Jenkins Reid 
Fiction 

What sets it apart: Emma marries her high school sweetheart Jesse, and they live happily ever after. Well, that is until Jesse goes missing on their one-year wedding anniversary. Years later, Emma finds herself in her 30’s and falling for an old friend, Sam. The couple get engaged and start to plan their future together. All is well until Jesse is found…alive! How will Emma ever decide between her husband and her fiancé? 

Why you might like it: Taylor Jenkins Reid does an excellent job of showing the internal conflict Emma goes through when choosing between Jesse and Sam. This is a heart-wrenching read that leaves readers guessing till the end, on who is the love of Emma’s life. 

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The Dead Romantics by Ashely Poston
Fiction

What it’s about: Florence Day is a ghost writer for an older famous author. As a failed author herself, ghost writing has allowed her to do what she loves without the fear of rejection. Moving away from home after high school to New York, Florence separated herself from her family and their funeral home business. A tragedy brings Florence home and makes her confront her past and her ability to see ghosts.

Why you might like it: If you like romance with a paranormal/fantasy twist, this book is for you. Florence is a millennial so millennials will relate to her. If you enjoy eccentric characters then Florence’s family will not disappoint.

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Georgie, All Along by Kate Clayborn 
Fiction 

What it’s about: This novel is a romance story with vulnerability and growth at its heart. Georgie is a young woman who is lost. With no longer having a secure job and no idea what she wants in life, she decides to move back to her hometown in Virginia to help her best friend prepare for her new baby. With this new task she hopes everything will fall into place, until she realizes her childhood home is now occupied by a temporary roommate, Levi, a retired bad boy and local grump. In order to find direction again in her life, she consults an old “friendfic” diary from high school and begins to cross off a bucket list of items with the help, to her surprise, of Levi. Clayborn seemingly refreshes the forced proximity and sunshine/grumpy tropes by welcoming us into this duo’s world as the pair benefits from each other and the unlikely situation they find themselves in.  

Reviewers say: “This is a book for plunging into, a river of feelings with an inescapable current. Even as you are swept away, you know Clayborn’s hand is safely on the tiller, steering you expertly through the rapids” (New York Times). 

You might also like: Love in the Time of Serial Killers by Alicia Thompson or Great and Precious Things by Rebecca Yarros. 

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The Ex-Hex (#1) by Erin Sterling
Fiction

What it's about: Vivienne Jones is a witch with a broken heart. To get back at her ex (Rhys), she puts a curse on him. Nine years later, that curse has come back to haunt her, Rhys, and her town of Graves Glen, Georgia. Rhys Penhallow is a descendant of a family of witches who are in charge of protecting and recharging Graves Glen’s key lines. This is done every year during the town’s Fall Festival. Not knowing he has been hexed, Rhys has done damage to the key lines which cause a lot of things to go awry for the town. Vivienne and Rhys must put their differences aside in order to break the hex and restore the town.

Good to know: This book has been described as Hocus Pocus but with spice! A Perfect goofy/spooky book to read during October. Nominated for a Goodreads Choice Award in the Best Romance category of 2021.

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