en-US Wed, 11 Sep 2024 16:15:19 -0700 60 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg 205760537 This Must Be the Place by Kelly Quindlen is a forthcoming title from Roaring Brook Press.]]> Kelly Quindlen Kelly 0 to-read 4.00
author: Kelly Quindlen
name: Kelly
average rating: 4.00
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/09/11
shelves: to-read
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]]> 201627019
The centuries-old prophecy has been fulfilled at last: the New Maiden has returned to Velle. Unfortunately, so has a malicious demi-god, whose elusive prophet is intent on converting the New Maiden’s followers. The Second Son is a vengeful, angry deity, whose psalm resonates with the disenfranchised.

With Elodie on the throne and Sabine in her own unique position of power, it should be easy enough to track down the culprit. Yet even as they're falling in love, both girls are keeping dangerous secrets from each other. While the cult of the Second Son threatens to overthrow not only the Church of the New Maiden but also Velle’s monarchy, Elodie and Sabine must navigate impossible odds to dismantle the root of his power, all while their lives hang in the balance.]]> 320 Adrienne Tooley 0316465909 Kelly 0 to-read 3.68 2024
author: Adrienne Tooley
name: Kelly
average rating: 3.68
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/07/16
shelves: to-read
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]]> 177185880
Yet over the course of the next year, while Annie looms large in their memories, all three are able to grow, to change, even to become stronger and more sure of themselves. The enduring power Annie gave to those who loved her is the power to love, and to go on without her.

Written in Quindlen’s emotionally resonant voice, and with her deep and generous understanding of people, After Annie is a story that ends with hope, a beautiful novel about how adversity can change us in profound ways.]]> 283 Anna Quindlen 0593229800 Kelly 0 to-read 3.88 2024
author: Anna Quindlen
name: Kelly
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/01/30
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 127823335 A swoon-worthy debut queer Victorian romance in which two debutantes distract themselves from having to seek husbands by setting up their widowed parents, and instead find their perfect match in each other—the lesbian Bridgerton/Parent Trap you never knew you needed!

Gwen has a brilliant beyond brilliant idea.

It’s 1857, and anxious debutante Beth has just one season to snag a wealthy husband, or she and her mother will be out on the street. But playing the blushing ingenue makes Beth’s skin crawl and she’d rather be anywhere but here.

Gwen, on the other hand, is on her fourth season and counting, with absolutely no intention of finding a husband, possibly ever. She figures she has plenty of security as the only daughter of a rakish earl, from whom she’s gotten all her flair, fun, and less-than-proper party games.

“Let’s get them together,� she says.

It doesn’t take long for Gwen to hatch her latest scheme: rather than surrender Beth to courtship, they should set up Gwen’s father and Beth’s newly widowed mother. Let them get married instead.

“It’ll be easy� she says.

There’s just…one, teeny, tiny problem. Their parents kind of seem to hate each other.

But no worries. Beth and Gwen are more than up to the challenge of a little twenty-year-old heartbreak. How hard can parent-trapping widowed ex-lovers be?

Of course, just as their plan begins to unfold, a handsome, wealthy viscount starts calling on Beth, offering up the perfect, secure marriage.

Beth’s not mature enough for this�

Now Gwen must face the prospect of sharing Beth with someone else, forever. And Beth must reckon with the fact that she’s caught feelings, hard, and they’re definitely not for her potential fiancé.

That’s the trouble with matchmaking: sometimes you accidentally fall in love with your best friend in the process.]]> 368 Emma R. Alban 006331200X Kelly 0 to-read 3.76 2024
author: Emma R. Alban
name: Kelly
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/01/03
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 195790770 An actress home for the holidays makes a bet with her former best friend-turned-online sensation.

Katie Price is known in every living room in America. A small-town Wisconsin girl who became an A-list star, she rarely makes it home, but this year is different... Little does she know it will lead her straight into the piercing blue-eyed gaze of Wil Greene.

A lot has happened in the decade since those cold Wisconsin nights when Wil and Katie drove around in Wil’s Bronco senior year. Since then, Wil's law career hasn’t taken off. Her father passed away. And what started as a personal challenge―kissing a new person twice a week, every week―has made her a growing sensation, but her life is still stuck in phase one. Through the years, the two have never left each other's thoughts and desires, but now suddenly, they are back in each others' lives. Their reconnection is instantaneous and the passion is palpable... but can it stand the test of time?

Witty, emotional, and steamy, Everyone I Kissed Since You Got Famous is an unforgettable romantic read for everyone who almost kissed their best friend. And then finally did.]]> 368 Mae Marvel 1250894689 Kelly 0 to-read 3.54 2024
author: Mae Marvel
name: Kelly
average rating: 3.54
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/01/03
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 127280315 A sapphic opposites-attract romance with Mazey Edding's signature sparkling voice!

Winning the lottery has ruined Opal Devlin's’s life. After quitting her dead-end job where she’d earned minimum wage and even less respect, she’s bombarded by people knocking at her door for a handout the second they found out her bank account was overflowing with cash. And Opal can’t seem to stop saying yes.

With her tender heart thoroughly abused, Opal decides to protect herself by any means necessary, which to her translates to putting almost all her new money to buying a failing flower farm in Asheville, North Carolina to let the flowers live out their plant destiny while she uses the cabin on the property to start her painting business.

But her plans for isolation and self-preservation go hopelessly awry when an angry (albeit gorgeous) Pepper Smith is waiting for her at her new farm. Pepper states she’s the rightful owner of Thistle and Bloom Farms, and isn’t moving out. The unlikely pair strike up an agreement of co-habitation, and butt-heads at every turn. Can these opposites both live out their dreams and plant roots? Or will their combustible arguing (and growing attraction) burn the whole place down?]]> 400 Mazey Eddings 1250847087 Kelly 0 to-read 3.68 2024
author: Mazey Eddings
name: Kelly
average rating: 3.68
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/01/03
shelves: to-read
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]]> 74882249
Anna Moss is pop music’s rising star. She’s idolized Eden Sands for most of her life—so it’s a dream come true when she’s invited to perform with her at the Grammys. Anna’s tired of being defined by her bubbly persona. She wants to be taken seriously as an artist, and a duet with Eden could be just what she needs.

As Anna and Eden rehearse, they soon realize they have more in common than their musical talents. Now they just have to decide if what is between them is a one-hit wonder or the making of a romance worthy of one of the greatest love songs of all time.]]> 313 Rachel Lacey 166250912X Kelly 0 lgbt 4.01 2023
author: Rachel Lacey
name: Kelly
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/07/03
shelves: lgbt
review:

]]> 71943304 352 Maxine Rae 1635830893 Kelly 5 arcs, lgbt
My blurb:
“A searingly beautiful look into the intimate relationship of two girls who burn with fire even as they try to stay cold. Your heart will break; it will also bloom.� ]]> 4.44 2023
author: Maxine Rae
name: Kelly
average rating: 4.44
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2023/04/10
date added: 2023/04/11
shelves: arcs, lgbt
review:
Absolutely LOVED this one.

My blurb:
“A searingly beautiful look into the intimate relationship of two girls who burn with fire even as they try to stay cold. Your heart will break; it will also bloom.�
]]> 52656911
The bride � The plus one � The best man � The wedding planner � The bridesmaid � The body

On an island off the coast of Ireland, guests gather to celebrate two people joining their lives together as one. The groom: handsome and charming, a rising television star. The bride: smart and ambitious, a magazine publisher. It’s a wedding for a magazine, or for a celebrity: the designer dress, the remote location, the luxe party favors, the boutique whiskey. The cell phone service may be spotty and the waves may be rough, but every detail has been expertly planned and will be expertly executed.

But perfection is for plans, and people are all too human. As the champagne is popped and the festivities begin, resentments and petty jealousies begin to mingle with the reminiscences and well wishes. The groomsmen begin the drinking game from their school days. The bridesmaid not-so-accidentally ruins her dress. The bride’s oldest (male) friend gives an uncomfortably caring toast.

And then someone turns up dead. Who didn’t wish the happy couple well? And perhaps more important, why?]]> 319 Lucy Foley Kelly 5 3.81 2020
author: Lucy Foley
name: Kelly
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2020
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2023/03/16
shelves:
review:

]]> 53205888 Welcome to Charon's Crossing.
The tea is hot, the scones are fresh, and the dead are just passing through.

When a reaper comes to collect Wallace from his own funeral, Wallace begins to suspect he might be dead.

And when Hugo, the owner of a peculiar tea shop, promises to help him cross over, Wallace decides he’s definitely dead.

But even in death he’s not ready to abandon the life he barely lived, so when Wallace is given one week to cross over, he sets about living a lifetime in seven days.

Hilarious, haunting, and kind, Under the Whispering Door is an uplifting story about a life spent at the office and a death spent building a home.]]> 376 T.J. Klune 1250217342 Kelly 0 currently-reading 4.10 2021
author: T.J. Klune
name: Kelly
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/02/13
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> 54404602 In the spirit of The Known World and The Underground Railroad, a profound debut about the unlikely bond between two freedmen who are brothers and the Georgia farmer whose alliance will alter their lives, and his, forever.

In the waning days of the Civil War, brothers Prentiss and Landry—freed by the Emancipation Proclamation—seek refuge on the homestead of George Walker and his wife, Isabelle. The Walkers, wracked by the loss of their only son to the war, hire the brothers to work their farm, hoping through an unexpected friendship to stanch their grief. Prentiss and Landry, meanwhile, plan to save money for the journey north and a chance to reunite with their mother, who was sold away when they were boys.

Parallel to their story runs a forbidden romance between two Confederate soldiers. The young men, recently returned from the war to the town of Old Ox, hold their trysts in the woods. But when their secret is discovered, the resulting chaos unleashes convulsive repercussions on the entire community. In the aftermath of so much turmoil, it is Isabelle who emerges as an unlikely leader, proffering a healing vision for the land and for the newly free citizens of Old Ox.

With candor and sympathy, debut novelist Nathan Harris creates an unforgettable cast of characters, depicting Georgia in the violent crucible of Reconstruction. Equal parts beauty and terror, as gripping as it is moving, The Sweetness of Water is an epic whose grandeur locates humanity and love amid the most harrowing circumstances.]]> 368 Nathan Harris 031646127X Kelly 5 Exquisite. 4.08 2021
author: Nathan Harris
name: Kelly
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2021
rating: 5
read at: 2023/02/08
date added: 2023/02/08
shelves:
review:
Exquisite.
]]> 54860573 From the author of the beloved national bestseller Migrations, a pulse-pounding new novel set in the wild Scottish Highlands.

Inti Flynn arrives in Scotland with her twin sister, Aggie, to lead a team of biologists tasked with reintroducing fourteen gray wolves into the remote Highlands. She hopes to heal not only the dying landscape, but Aggie, too, unmade by the terrible secrets that drove the sisters out of Alaska.

Inti is not the woman she once was, either, changed by the harm she’s witnessed—inflicted by humans on both the wild and each other. Yet as the wolves surprise everyone by thriving, Inti begins to let her guard down, even opening herself up to the possibility of love. But when a farmer is found dead, Inti knows where the town will lay blame. Unable to accept her wolves could be responsible, Inti makes a reckless decision to protect them. But if the wolves didn’t make the kill, then who did? And what will Inti do when the man she is falling for seems to be the prime suspect?

Propulsive and spell-binding, Charlotte McConaghy's Once There Were Wolves is the unforgettable story of a woman desperate to save the creatures she loves—if she isn’t consumed by a wild that was once her refuge.]]> 258 Charlotte McConaghy 1250244145 Kelly 0 to-read 4.07 2021
author: Charlotte McConaghy
name: Kelly
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/02/05
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 60321484 A Little Hope —a Read with Jenna Bonus Pick—comes another “heartwarming, character-driven� ( Booklist ) life-affirming novel about three individuals whose lives intersect in unforeseen ways.

Set in a close-knit suburb in the grip of winter, A Quiet Life follows three people grappling with loss and finding a tender wisdom in their grief.

Chuck Ayers used to look forward to nothing so much as his annual trip to Hilton Head with his wife, Cat—that yearly taste of relaxation they’d become accustomed to after a lifetime of working and raising two children. Now, just months after Cat’s death, Chuck finds that he can’t let go of her belongings—her favorite towel, the sketchbooks in her desk drawer—as he struggles to pack for a trip he can’t imagine taking without her.

Ella Burke delivers morning newspapers and works at a bridal shop to fill her days while she anxiously awaits news—any piece of information—about her missing daughter. Ella adjusts to life in a new apartment and answers every call on her phone, hoping her daughter will reach out.

After the sudden death of her father, Kirsten Bonato set aside her veterinary school aspirations, finding comfort in the steady routine of working at an animal shelter. But as time passes, old dreams and new romantic interests begin to surface—and Kirsten finds herself at another crossroads.

In this beautiful and profoundly moving novel, three parallel narratives converge in poignant and unexpected ways, as each character bravely presses onward, trying to recover something they have lost. Emotionally riveting and infused with hope, “the soothing tone and warm worldview of this grown-up bedtime story will be good for what ails you� ( Kirkus Reviews ).]]> 294 Ethan Joella 1982190973 Kelly 0 to-read 4.02 2022
author: Ethan Joella
name: Kelly
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/01/30
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 60652997 Wealth. Power. Murder. Magic. Alex Stern is back and the Ivy League is going straight to hell.

Find a gateway to the underworld. Steal a soul out of hell. A simple plan, except people who make this particular journey rarely come back. But Galaxy “Alex� Stern is determined to break Darlington out of purgatory―even if it costs her a future at Lethe and at Yale.

Forbidden from attempting a rescue, Alex and Dawes can’t call on the Ninth House for help, so they assemble a team of dubious allies to save the gentleman of Lethe. Together, they will have to navigate a maze of arcane texts and bizarre artifacts to uncover the societies� most closely guarded secrets, and break every rule doing it. But when faculty members begin to die off, Alex knows these aren’t just accidents. Something deadly is at work in New Haven, and if she is going to survive, she’ll have to reckon with the monsters of her past and a darkness built into the university’s very walls.

Thick with history and packed with Bardugo’s signature twists, Hell Bent brings to life an intricate world full of magic, violence, and all too real monsters.]]> 481 Leigh Bardugo 1250313104 Kelly 0 to-read 4.09 2023
author: Leigh Bardugo
name: Kelly
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/01/06
shelves: to-read
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]]> 86172
Meanwhile, Conrad Hensley, idealistic young father of two, is laid off from his job at the Croker Global Foods warehouse near Oakland and finds himself spiraling into the lower depths of the American legal system.

And back in Atlanta, when star Georgia Tech running back Fareek “the Canon� Fanon, a homegrown product of the city’s slums, is accused of date-raping the daughter of a pillar of the white establishment, upscale black lawyer Roger White II is asked to represent Fanon and help keep the city’s delicate racial balance from blowing sky-high.

Networks of illegal Asian immigrants crisscrossing the continent, daily life behind bars, shady real estate syndicates � Wolfe shows us contemporary America with all the verve, wit, and insight that have made him our most admired novelist. Charlie Croker’s deliverance from his tribulations provides an unforgettable denouement to the most widely awaited, hilarious and telling novel America has seen in ages � Tom Wolfe’s most outstanding achievement to date.]]> 704 Tom Wolfe 0553381334 Kelly 0 to-read 3.86 1998
author: Tom Wolfe
name: Kelly
average rating: 3.86
book published: 1998
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/11/08
shelves: to-read
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]]> 52263433
With the clues leading back to Holly’s close-knit group of friends, to their rival clique, and to the tangle of relationships that bound them all to the murdered boy, the private underworld of teenage girls turns out to be more mysterious and more dangerous than the detectives imagined.

An alternate cover edition for this ISBN can be found here.]]> 541 Tana French 0143127519 Kelly 0 to-read 3.85 2014
author: Tana French
name: Kelly
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/11/08
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 29044 559 Donna Tartt 1400031702 Kelly 5 4.16 1992
author: Donna Tartt
name: Kelly
average rating: 4.16
book published: 1992
rating: 5
read at: 2022/10/12
date added: 2022/10/18
shelves:
review:

]]> 58484197
Ruth Fitz is surrounded by activism. Her mother is a senator who frequently appears on CNN as a powerful Black voice fighting for legislative social change within the Black community. Her father, a professor of African American history, is a walking encyclopedia, spouting off random dates and events. And her beloved older sister, Virginia, is a natural activist, steadily gaining notoriety within the community and on social media. Ruth, on the other hand, would rather sit quietly reading or writing in her journal.

When her family is rocked by tragedy, Ruth stops writing. As life goes on, Ruth’s mother is presented with a political opportunity she can’t refuse. Just as Senator Fitz is more absent, Ruth begins receiving parchment letters with a seal reading WE ARE THE SCRIBES, sent by Harriet Jacobs, the author of the autobiography and 1861 American classic, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl .

Is Ruth dreaming? How has she been chosen as a “scribe� when she can barely put a sentence together? In a narrative that blends present with past, Randi Pink explores two extraordinary characters who channel their hopelessness and find their voices to make history.]]> 304 Randi Pink 1250820316 Kelly 0 to-read 4.16 2022
author: Randi Pink
name: Kelly
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/10/18
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 60093178 Award-winning author Malinda Lo returns to the Bay Area with another masterful coming-of-queer-age story, this time set against the backdrop of the first major Supreme Court decisions legalizing gay marriage. And almost sixty years after the end of Last Night at the Telegraph Club, Lo's new novel also offers a glimpse into Lily and Kath's lives since 1955.

Aria Tang West was looking forward to a summer on Martha's Vineyard with her best friends—one last round of sand and sun before college. But after a graduation party goes wrong, Aria's parents exile her to California to stay with her grandmother, artist Joan West. Aria expects boredom, but what she finds is Steph Nichols, her grandmother's gardener. Soon, Aria is second-guessing who she is and what she wants to be, and a summer that once seemed lost becomes unforgettable—for Aria, her family, and the working-class queer community Steph introduces her to. It's the kind of summer that changes a life forever.]]> 325 Malinda Lo 0525555285 Kelly 0 to-read 3.83 2022
author: Malinda Lo
name: Kelly
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/10/04
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 62039307
Avery Byrne has secrets. She's queer; she's in love with her best friend, Cass; and she's suffering from undiagnosed clinical depression. But on the morning Avery plans to jump into the river near her college campus, the world discovers there are only nine days left to an asteroid is headed for Earth, and no one can stop it.

Trying to spare her family and Cass additional pain, Avery does her best to make it through just nine more days. As time runs out and secrets slowly come to light, Avery would do anything to save the ones she loves. But most importantly, she learns to save herself. Speak her truth. Seek the support she needs. Find hope again in the tomorrows she has left.

If Tomorrow Doesn't Come is a celebration of queer love, a gripping speculative narrative, and an urgent, conversation-starting book about depression, mental health, and shame.]]> 416 Jen St. Jude 1547611367 Kelly 5 arcs, lgbt, mental-health 4.18 2023
author: Jen St. Jude
name: Kelly
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2022/09/01
date added: 2022/09/08
shelves: arcs, lgbt, mental-health
review:
A true miracle of a book. I cannot wait for the whole world to read this.
]]> 59088361 From beloved performance expert, executive coach, and coauthor of Peak Performance Steve Magness comes a radical rethinking of how we perceive toughness and what it means to achieve our high ambitions in the face of hard things.

Toughness has long been held as the key to overcoming a challenge and achieving greatness, whether it is on the sports field, at a boardroom, or at the dining room table. Yet, the prevailing model has promoted a mentality based on fear, false bravado, and hiding any sign of weakness. In other words, the old model of toughness has failed us.

Steve Magness, a performance scientist who coaches Olympic athletes, rebuilds our broken model of resilience with one grounded in the latest science and psychology. In Do Hard Things, Magness teaches us how we can work with our body - how experiencing discomfort, leaning in, paying attention, and creating space to take thoughtful action can be the true indications of cultivating inner strength. He offers four core pillars to cultivate such resilience:

Pillar 1- Ditch the Façade, Embrace Reality
Pillar 2- Listen to Your Body
Pillar 3- Respond, Instead of React
Pillar 4- Transcend Discomfort

Smart and wise all at once, Magness flips the script on what it means to be resilient. Drawing from mindfulness, military case studies, sports psychology, neuroscience, psychology, and philosophy, he provides a roadmap for navigating life's challenges and achieving high performance that makes us happier, more successful, and, ultimately, better people.]]> 320 Steve Magness 006309861X Kelly 0 to-read 3.78 2022
author: Steve Magness
name: Kelly
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/08/26
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 45047384
Linus Baker leads a quiet, solitary life. At forty, he lives in a tiny house with a devious cat and his old records. As a Case Worker at the Department in Charge Of Magical Youth, he spends his days overseeing the well-being of children in government-sanctioned orphanages.

When Linus is unexpectedly summoned by Extremely Upper Management he's given a curious and highly classified assignment: travel to Marsyas Island Orphanage, where six dangerous children reside: a gnome, a sprite, a wyvern, an unidentifiable green blob, a were-Pomeranian, and the Antichrist. Linus must set aside his fears and determine whether or not they’re likely to bring about the end of days.

But the children aren’t the only secret the island keeps. Their caretaker is the charming and enigmatic Arthur Parnassus, who will do anything to keep his wards safe. As Arthur and Linus grow closer, long-held secrets are exposed, and Linus must make a choice: destroy a home or watch the world burn.

An enchanting story, masterfully told, The House in the Cerulean Sea is about the profound experience of discovering an unlikely family in an unexpected place—and realizing that family is yours.]]> 394 T.J. Klune Kelly 5 lgbt My heart grew three sizes 4.36 2020
author: T.J. Klune
name: Kelly
average rating: 4.36
book published: 2020
rating: 5
read at: 2022/08/03
date added: 2022/08/04
shelves: lgbt
review:
My heart grew three sizes
]]> 58724914 In this sweet and funny new f/f romance from the author of Cool for the Summer, a cheerleader and the school's newest quarterback are playing to win, but might lose their hearts in the process.

Amber McCloud’s dream is to become cheer captain at the end of the year, but it’s an extra-tall order to be joyful and spirited when the quarterback of your team has been killed in a car accident. For both the team and the squad, watching Robbie get replaced by newcomer Jack Walsh is brutal. And when it turns out Jack is actually short for Jaclyn, all hell breaks loose.

The players refuse to be led by a girl, the cheerleaders are mad about the changes to their traditions, and the fact that Robbie’s been not only replaced but outshined by a QB who wears a sports bra has more than a few Atherton Alligators in a rage. Amber tries for some semblance of unity, but it quickly becomes clear that she's only got a future on the squad and with her friends if she helps them take Jack down.

Just one problem: Amber and Jack are falling for each other, and if Amber can't stand up for Jack and figure out how to get everyone to fall in line, her dream may come at the cost of her heart.

Dahlia Adler's Home Field Advantage is a sparkling romance about fighting for what - or who - you truly want.]]> 304 Dahlia Adler 1250765846 Kelly 5 to-read, arcs, lgbt I'm obsessed. 3.82 2022
author: Dahlia Adler
name: Kelly
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2022
rating: 5
read at: 2021/09/18
date added: 2022/08/01
shelves: to-read, arcs, lgbt
review:
I'm obsessed.
]]> 57693648 The debut adult novel by the bestselling and award-winning YA author Nina LaCour, following two women on a star-crossed journey toward each other

When Sara Foster runs away from home at sixteen, she leaves behind not only the losses that have shattered her world but the girl she once was, capable of trust and intimacy. Years later, in Los Angeles, she is a sought-after bartender, renowned as much for her brilliant cocktails as for the mystery that clings to her. Across the city, Emilie Dubois is in a holding pattern. In her seventh year and fifth major as an undergraduate, she yearns for the beauty and community her Creole grandparents cultivated but is unable to commit. On a whim, she takes a job arranging flowers at the glamorous restaurant Yerba Buena and embarks on an affair with the married owner.

When Sara catches sight of Emilie one morning at Yerba Buena, their connection is immediate. But the damage both women carry, and the choices they have made, pulls them apart again and again. When Sara's old life catches up to her, upending everything she thought she wanted just as Emilie has finally gained her own sense of purpose, they must decide if their love is more powerful than their pasts.

At once exquisite and expansive, astonishing in its humanity and heart, Yerba Buena is a love story for our time and a propulsive journey through the lives of two women finding their way in the world.]]> 304 Nina LaCour 1250810469 Kelly 5 lgbt Exquisite. 3.85 2022
author: Nina LaCour
name: Kelly
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2022
rating: 5
read at: 2022/07/25
date added: 2022/07/31
shelves: lgbt
review:
Exquisite.
]]> 58450290 A fiery restaurant owner falls for her enigmatic head chef in this charming, emotional romance

Amy Chambers: restaurant owner, micromanager, control freak.

Amy will do anything to revive her ailing restaurant, including hiring a former reality-show finalist with good connections and a lot to prove. But her hopes that Sophie’s skills and celebrity status would bring her restaurant back from the brink of failure are beginning to wane�

Sophie Brunet: grump in the kitchen/sunshine in the streets, took thirty years to figure out she was queer.

Sophie just wants to cook. She doesn’t want to constantly post on social media for her dead-in-the-water reality TV career, she doesn’t want to deal with Amy’s take-charge personality and she doesn’t want to think about what her attraction to her boss might mean�

Then, an opportunity: a new foodie TV show might provide the exposure they need. An uneasy truce is fine for starters, but making their dreams come true means making some personal and painful sacrifices and soon, there’s more than just the restaurant at stake.

Carina Adores is home to romantic love stories where LGBTQ+ characters find their happily-ever-afters.]]> 306 Ruby Barrett 0369720156 Kelly 0 to-read 3.75 2022
author: Ruby Barrett
name: Kelly
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/07/24
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 56935099 You won't want to leave...until you can't.

Half hidden by forest and overshadowed by threatening peaks, Le Sommet has always been a sinister place. Long plagued by troubling rumors, the former abandoned sanatorium has since been renovated into a five-star minimalist hotel.

An imposing, isolated getaway spot high up in the Swiss Alps is the last place Elin Warner wants to be. But Elin's taken time off from her job as a detective, so when her estranged brother, Isaac, and his fiancée, Laure, invite her to celebrate their engagement at the hotel, Elin really has no reason not to accept.

Arriving in the midst of a threatening storm, Elin immediately feels on edge--there's something about the hotel that makes her nervous. And when they wake the following morning to discover Laure is missing, Elin must trust her instincts if they hope to find her. With the storm closing off all access to the hotel, the longer Laure stays missing, the more the remaining guests start to panic.

Elin is under pressure to find Laure, but no one has realized yet that another woman has gone missing. And she's the only one who could have warned them just how much danger they are all in...]]> 390 Sarah Pearse 0593296672 Kelly 3 3.33 2021
author: Sarah Pearse
name: Kelly
average rating: 3.33
book published: 2021
rating: 3
read at: 2022/07/18
date added: 2022/07/18
shelves:
review:

]]> 40597810 Everyone knows DAISY JONES & THE SIX, but nobody knows the reason behind their split at the absolute height of their popularity . . . until now.

Daisy is a girl coming of age in L.A. in the late sixties, sneaking into clubs on the Sunset Strip, sleeping with rock stars, and dreaming of singing at the Whisky a Go Go. The sex and drugs are thrilling, but it’s the rock ’n� roll she loves most. By the time she’s twenty, her voice is getting noticed, and she has the kind of heedless beauty that makes people do crazy things.

Also getting noticed is The Six, a band led by the brooding Billy Dunne. On the eve of their first tour, his girlfriend Camila finds out she’s pregnant, and with the pressure of impending fatherhood and fame, Billy goes a little wild on the road.

Daisy and Billy cross paths when a producer realizes that the key to supercharged success is to put the two together. What happens next will become the stuff of legend.

The making of that legend is chronicled in this riveting and unforgettable novel, written as an oral history of one of the biggest bands of the seventies. Taylor Jenkins Reid is a talented writer who takes her work to a new level with Daisy Jones & The Six, brilliantly capturing a place and time in an utterly distinctive voice.]]> 368 Taylor Jenkins Reid 1524798622 Kelly 5 4.20 2019
author: Taylor Jenkins Reid
name: Kelly
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2019
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2022/07/10
shelves:
review:

]]> 55404546 Four famous siblings throw an epic party to celebrate the end of the summer. But over the course of twenty-four hours, their lives will change forever.

Malibu: August, 1983. It’s the day of Nina Riva’s annual end-of-summer party, and anticipation is at a fever pitch. Everyone wants to be around the famous Rivas: Nina, the talented surfer and supermodel; brothers Jay and Hud, one a championship surfer, the other a renowned photographer; and their adored baby sister, Kit. Together, the siblings are a source of fascination in Malibu and the world over—especially as the offspring of the legendary singer, Mick Riva.

The only person not looking forward to the party of the year is Nina herself, who never wanted to be the center of attention, and who has also just been very publicly abandoned by her pro tennis player husband. Oh, and maybe Hud—because it is long past time to confess something to the brother from whom he’s been inseparable since birth.

Jay, on the other hand, is counting the minutes until nightfall, when the girl he can’t stop thinking about promised she’ll be there.

And Kit has a couple secrets of her own—including a guest she invited without consulting anyone.

By midnight the party will be completely out of control. By morning, the Riva mansion will have gone up in flames. But before that first spark in the early hours before dawn, the alcohol will flow, the music will play, and the loves and secrets that shaped this family’s generations will all come bubbling to the surface.

Malibu Rising is a story about one unforgettable night in the life of a family: the night they each have to choose what they will keep from the people who made them... and what they will leave behind.]]> 369 Taylor Jenkins Reid 1524798657 Kelly 5 4.02 2021
author: Taylor Jenkins Reid
name: Kelly
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2021
rating: 5
read at: 2022/06/25
date added: 2022/07/06
shelves:
review:
forever obsessed. I re-read the last third because I loved it so very much.
]]> 57967847 A bewitching debut by S. Isabelle, perfect for fans of Maggie Stiefvater, Zoraida CĂłrdova, and Leigh Bardugo!

THE HAUNTING SEASON IS HERE AND THE WOLVES ARE AWAKE.

Haelsford, Florida is a hellmouth. Or at least, that’s what Logan, a baby witch struggling to control her powers, thinks as she arrives to the witchtown to begin the new school year at Mesmortes Coven Academy. She is immediately taken under the wing of the infamous Red Three. Iris is a deathwitch who wants nothing more than to break the town’s curse; Jailah is one of the most powerful witches at the academy but her thirst for power may lead her down a dark path; and Thalia, the talented greenwitch, is on the run from her religious family and a past that still haunts her.

Fear and prejudice still fuel the uneasy truce between humans and witches who are forced to work together when the Haunting Season begins and Wolves rise from the swamp to feed. With this approaching, two Hammersmitt boys prepare to make their first sacrifices to the witches in exchange for protection. But as they become involved with the Mesmortes witches� plan to end the Wolves� reign of terror once and for all, old dangers lie in wait.

The cost to break the curse may be greater than any witch or human could ever know.]]> 384 S. Isabelle 1338758969 Kelly 0 to-read 3.55 2022
author: S. Isabelle
name: Kelly
average rating: 3.55
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/06/28
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 58842731 A debut novel about a queer Mexican American girl navigating Catholic school, while falling in love and learning to celebrate her true self.

Sixteen-year-old Yamilet Flores prefers to be known for her killer eyeliner, not for being one of the only Mexican kids at her new, mostly white, very rich Catholic school. But at least here no one knows she's gay, and Yami intends to keep it that way.

After being outed by her crush and ex-best friend before transferring to Slayton Catholic, Yami has new priorities: keep her brother out of trouble, make her mom proud, and, most importantly, don't fall in love. Granted, she's never been great at any of those things, but that's a problem for Future Yami.

The thing is, it's hard to fake being straight when Bo, the only openly queer girl at school, is so annoyingly perfect. And smart. And talented. And cute. So cute. Either way, Yami isn't going to make the same mistake again. If word got back to her mom, she could face a lot worse than rejection. So she'll have to start asking, WWSGD: What would a straight girl do?]]> 385 Sonora Reyes 006306023X Kelly 0 to-read 4.27 2022
author: Sonora Reyes
name: Kelly
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/05/25
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 59808315
But when Beck and her sister Riley arrive in Backravel, Arizona it’s clear that there’s something off about the town. There are no cars, no cemeteries, no churches. The town is a mix of dilapidated military structures and new, shiny buildings, all overseen by the town’s gleaming treatment center high on a plateau. No one seems to remember when they got there, and the only people who seem to know more than they’re letting on is the town’s enigmatic leader and his daughter, Avery.

As the sisters search for answers about their mother, Beck and Avery become more drawn together, and their unexpected connection brings up emotions Beck has buried since her mother’s death. Beck is desperate to hold onto the way things used to be, and when she starts losing herself in Backravel and its connection to her mother, will there be a way for Beck to pull herself out?

In her sophomore novel Courtney Gould draws readers into the haunting town of Backravel and explores grief, the weight of not letting go of the past, first love, and the bonds between sisters, mothers and daughters.]]> 352 Courtney Gould 1250825792 Kelly 0 to-read 3.58 2023
author: Courtney Gould
name: Kelly
average rating: 3.58
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/05/23
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 61029366 Uma comédia romântica LGBTQIA+ para os fãs de Becky Albertalli e Casey McQuiston

Scottie Zajac tem amigos maravilhosos, uma carreira promissora no basquete da escola e o apoio da família. Mas perdeu Tally, sua ex-namorada, que se mudou para a cidade vizinha em busca de mais visibilidade no esporte e a deixou com um buraco no peito. Para completar, o time de Scottie perde de lavada no jogo pré-temporada para a equipe de Tally, que não parece disposta a manter uma relação amigável.

Quando Scottie sente que as coisas não podem piorar, um acidente faz com que ela mande para a oficina o carro da última pessoa com quem ela gostaria de se meter: Irene Abraham, a popular e linda capitã das líderes de torcida, responsável por uma das piores experiências da vida de Scottie. Agora, a garota terá que dar carona para sua inimiga... por semanas.

No entanto, com tanta atenção sobre ela, Scottie acaba vendo nisso uma oportunidade. É a chance perfeita de fazer ciúmes em Tally e ainda conquistar popularidade na escola ―e torcida para o time feminino de basquete. Ela então arrisca tudo ao sugerir a Irene um acordo: dinheiro para consertar o carro em troca de um namoro falso. Para sua surpresa, Irene aceita a proposta e agora as duas são namoradas aos olhos de todos e inimigas na realidade ―mas a linha entre ódio e amor pode ser muito tênue.]]> 270 Kelly Quindlen 6559870782 Kelly 0 to-read 3.95 2021
author: Kelly Quindlen
name: Kelly
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/05/19
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 58678517 In this clarion call to pick up a pen and find yourself from "one of our most astute chroniclers of modern life" (The New York Times Book Review), #1 New York Times bestselling author Anna Quindlen shows us how anyone can write, and why everyone should.

What really matters in life? What truly lasts in our hearts and minds? Where can we find community, history, humanity? In this lyrical new book, the answer is clear: through writing. This is a book for what Quindlen calls "civilians," those who want to use the written word to become more human, more themselves.

Write for Your Life argues that there has never been a more important time to stop and record what we are thinking and feeling. Using examples from past, present, and future--from Anne Frank to Toni Morrison, from love letters written after World War II to journal reflections from nurses and doctors today--Write for Your Life vividly illuminates the ways in which writing connects us to ourselves and to those we cherish. Drawing on her personal experiences not just as a writer but as a mother and daughter, Quindlen makes the case that recording our daily lives in writing is essential.

When we write we not only look, we see; we not only react but reflect. Writing gives you something to hold onto in a changing world. "To write the present," Quindlen says, "is to believe in the future."]]> 240 Anna Quindlen 0593229835 Kelly 0 3.90 2022
author: Anna Quindlen
name: Kelly
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/05/17
shelves:
review:

]]> 58328329


Ěý Ěý Ěý ĚýĚý]]> 208 Allison Raskin 1523513225 Kelly 1 3.94
author: Allison Raskin
name: Kelly
average rating: 3.94
book published:
rating: 1
read at: 2022/05/15
date added: 2022/05/17
shelves: anxiety, mental-health, audiobooks
review:

]]> 58437812 She’s All That meets What If It’s Us in this swoon-worthy hate-to-love YA romantic comedy from #1 New York Times bestselling coauthor of Five Feet Apart Rachael Lippincott and debut writer Alyson Derrick.

Alex Blackwood is a little bit headstrong, with a dash of chaos and a whole lot of flirt. She knows how to get the girl. Keeping her on the other hand…not so much. Molly Parker has everything in her life totally in control, except for her complete awkwardness with just about anyone besides her mom. She knows she’s in love with the impossibly cool Cora Myers. She just…hasn’t actually talked to her yet.

Alex and Molly don’t belong on the same planet, let alone the same college campus. But when Alex, fresh off a bad (but hopefully not permanent) breakup, discovers Molly’s hidden crush as their paths cross the night before classes start, they realize they might have a common interest after all. Because maybe if Alex volunteers to help Molly learn how to get her dream girl to fall for her, she can prove to her ex that she’s not a selfish flirt. That she’s ready for an actual commitment. And while Alex is the last person Molly would ever think she could trust, she can’t deny Alex knows what she’s doing with girls, unlike her.

As the two embark on their five-step plans to get their girls to fall for them, though, they both begin to wonder if maybe they’re the ones falling…for each other.]]> 384 Rachael Lippincott 1534493794 Kelly 0 lgbt 4.09 2022
author: Rachael Lippincott
name: Kelly
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at: 2022/04/30
date added: 2022/05/03
shelves: lgbt
review:

]]> 51918871
Beloved author Elizabeth Gilbert returns to fiction with a unique love story set in the New York City theater world during the 1940s. Told from the perspective of an older woman as she looks back on her youth with both pleasure and regret (but mostly pleasure), City of Girls explores themes of female sexuality and promiscuity, as well as the idiosyncrasies of true love.

In 1940, nineteen-year-old Vivian Morris has just been kicked out of Vassar College, owing to her lackluster freshman-year performance. Her affluent parents send her to Manhattan to live with her Aunt Peg, who owns a flamboyant, crumbling midtown theater called the Lily Playhouse. There Vivian is introduced to an entire cosmos of unconventional and charismatic characters, from the fun-chasing showgirls to a sexy male actor, a grand-dame actress, a lady-killer writer, and no-nonsense stage manager. But when Vivian makes a personal mistake that results in professional scandal, it turns her new world upside down in ways that it will take her years to fully understand. Ultimately, though, it leads her to a new understanding of the kind of life she craves - and the kind of freedom it takes to pursue it. It will also lead to the love of her life, a love that stands out from all the rest.

Now ninety-five years old and telling her story at last, Vivian recalls how the events of those years altered the course of her life - and the gusto and autonomy with which she approached it. "At some point in a woman's life, she just gets tired of being ashamed all the time," she muses. "After that, she is free to become whoever she truly is." Written with a powerful wisdom about human desire and connection, City of Girls is a love story like no other.]]> 470 Elizabeth Gilbert 1594634742 Kelly 0 to-read 4.01 2019
author: Elizabeth Gilbert
name: Kelly
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/05/01
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 21104828 June 1933, and sixteen-year-old Alice Edevane is preparing for her family's Midsummer Eve party at their country home, Loeanneth. But by the time midnight strikes and fireworks light up the night skies, the Edevane family will have suffered a loss so great that they leave Loeanneth forever.

A missing child...
Seventy years later, after a particularly troubling case, Detective Sadie Sparrow retreats to her beloved grandfather's cottage in Cornwall. Once there, she stumbles upon an abandoned house, and learns the story of a baby boy who disappeared without a trace.

An unsolved mystery...
Meanwhile, in her elegant Hampstead home, the formidable Alice Edevane, now an old lady, leads a life as neatly plotted as the bestselling detective novels she writes. Until a young police detective starts asking questions about her family's past, seeking to resurrect the complex tangle of secrets Alice has spent her life trying to escape...]]> 495 Kate Morton Kelly 0 4.04 2015
author: Kate Morton
name: Kelly
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at: 2022/04/20
date added: 2022/04/27
shelves:
review:

]]> 57185348 Lauren Groff returns with her exhilarating first new novel since the groundbreaking Fates and Furies.

Cast out of the royal court by Eleanor of Aquitaine, deemed too coarse and rough-hewn for marriage or courtly life, 17-year-old Marie de France is sent to England to be the new prioress of an impoverished abbey, its nuns on the brink of starvation and beset by disease.

At first taken aback by the severity of her new life, Marie finds focus and love in collective life with her singular and mercurial sisters. In this crucible, Marie steadily supplants her desire for family, for her homeland, for the passions of her youth with something new to her: devotion to her sisters, and a conviction in her own divine visions. Marie, born the last in a long line of women warriors and crusaders, is determined to chart a bold new course for the women she now leads and protects. But in a world that is shifting and corroding in frightening ways, one that can never reconcile itself with her existence, will the sheer force of Marie's vision be bulwark enough?

Equally alive to the sacred and the profane, Matrix gathers currents of violence, sensuality, and religious ecstasy in a mesmerizing portrait of consuming passion, aberrant faith, and a woman that history moves both through and around. Lauren Groff's new novel, her first since Fates and Furies, is a defiant and timely exploration of the raw power of female creativity in a corrupted world.
]]> 260 Lauren Groff 1594634491 Kelly 5 Sublime. 3.64 2021
author: Lauren Groff
name: Kelly
average rating: 3.64
book published: 2021
rating: 5
read at: 2022/04/05
date added: 2022/04/06
shelves:
review:
Sublime.
]]> 57730503 Fans of Casey McQuiston and Alexandria Bellefleur will adore this queer romcom that combines everything people love about Hallmark-style holiday romances with laugh-out-loud humor and a sweet and steamy love story between two women.

With her career as a Los Angeles event planner imploding after a tabloid blowup, Morgan Ross isn’t headed home for the holidays so much as in strategic retreat. Breathtaking mountain vistas, quirky townsfolk, and charming small businesses aside, her hometown of Fern Falls is built of one heartbreak on top of another . . .

Take her one-time best friend turned crush, Rachel Reed. The memory of their perfect, doomed first kiss is still fresh as new-fallen snow. Way fresher than the freezing mud Morgan ends up sprawled in on her very first day back, only to be hauled out via Rachel’s sexy new lumberjane muscles acquired from running her family tree farm.

When Morgan discovers that the Reeds� struggling tree farm is the only thing standing between Fern Falls and corporate greed destroying the whole town’s livelihood, she decides she can put heartbreak aside to save the farm by planning her best fundraiser yet. She has all the inspiration for a spectacular event: delicious vanilla lattes, acoustic guitars under majestic pines, a cozy barn surrounded by brilliant stars. But she and Rachel will ABSOLUTELY NOT have a heartwarming holiday happy ending. That would be as unprofessional as it is unlikely. Right?

“Full of swoony steam, heartfelt charm, and laugh-out-loud moments, In the Event of Love is exactly the slow-burn, second-chance, friends-to-lovers romance I was craving. Treat yourself to the beautiful magic of Courtney Kae’s writing!� �Ali Hazelwood, New York Times bestselling author of The Love Hypothesis]]> 320 Courtney Kae 1496738950 Kelly 0 lgbt 3.55 2022
author: Courtney Kae
name: Kelly
average rating: 3.55
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at: 2022/04/02
date added: 2022/04/05
shelves: lgbt
review:
I need the Hallmark adaptation of this story ASAP
]]> 58446227 NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER - The award-winning, best-selling author of Station Eleven and The Glass Hotel returns with a novel of art, time travel, love, and plague that takes the reader from Vancouver Island in 1912 to a dark colony on the moon five hundred years later, unfurling a story of humanity across centuries and space.

One of the Best Books of the Year: The New York Times, NPR, GoodReads

"One of [Mandel's] finest novels and one of her most satisfying forays into the arena of speculative fiction yet." --The New York Times

Edwin St. Andrew is eighteen years old when he crosses the Atlantic by steamship, exiled from polite society following an ill-conceived diatribe at a dinner party. He enters the forest, spellbound by the beauty of the Canadian wilderness, and suddenly hears the notes of a violin echoing in an airship terminal--an experience that shocks him to his core.

Two centuries later a famous writer named Olive Llewellyn is on a book tour. She's traveling all over Earth, but her home is the second moon colony, a place of white stone, spired towers, and artificial beauty. Within the text of Olive's best-selling pandemic novel lies a strange passage: a man plays his violin for change in the echoing corridor of an airship terminal as the trees of a forest rise around him.

When Gaspery-Jacques Roberts, a detective in the black-skied Night City, is hired to investigate an anomaly in the North American wilderness, he uncovers a series of lives upended: The exiled son of an earl driven to madness, a writer trapped far from home as a pandemic ravages Earth, and a childhood friend from the Night City who, like Gaspery himself, has glimpsed the chance to do something extraordinary that will disrupt the timeline of the universe.

A virtuoso performance that is as human and tender as it is intellectually playful, Sea of Tranquility is a novel of time travel and metaphysics that precisely captures the reality of our current moment.]]> 259 Emily St. John Mandel 0593321448 Kelly 0 to-read 4.04 2022
author: Emily St. John Mandel
name: Kelly
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/04/05
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 52268640
Summer 1995: Ten-year-old Joan, her mother, and her younger sister flee her father’s explosive temper and seek refuge at her mother’s ancestral home in Memphis. This is not the first time violence has altered the course of the family’s trajectory. Half a century earlier, Joan’s grandfather built this majestic house in the historic Black neighborhood of Douglass—only to be lynched days after becoming the first Black detective in the city. Joan tries to settle into her new life, but family secrets cast a longer shadow than any of them expected.

As she grows up, Joan finds relief in her artwork, painting portraits of the community in Memphis. One of her subjects is their enigmatic neighbor Miss Dawn, who claims to know something about curses, and whose stories about the past help Joan see how her passion, imagination, and relentless hope are, in fact, the continuation of a long matrilineal tradition. Joan begins to understand that her mother, her mother’s mother, and the mothers before them persevered, made impossible choices, and put their dreams on hold so that her life would not have to be defined by loss and anger—that the sole instrument she needs for healing is her paintbrush.

Unfolding over seventy years through a chorus of unforgettable voices that move back and forth in time, Memphis paints an indelible portrait of inheritance, celebrating the full complexity of what we pass down, in a family and as a country: brutality and justice, faith and forgiveness, sacrifice and love.]]> 272 Tara M. Stringfellow 0593230485 Kelly 0 to-read 4.05 2022
author: Tara M. Stringfellow
name: Kelly
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/04/05
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 52698124 Kacen Callender meets Becky Albertalli in a deliciously geeky best friends-to lovers romance from award-winning author Julian Winters!

School’s out, senior year is over, and Isaac Martin is ready to kick off summer. His last before heading off to college in the fall where he won’t have his best friend, Diego. Where—despite his social anxiety—he’ll be left to make friends on his own. Knowing his time with Diego is limited, Isaac enacts a foolproof plan: snatch up a pair of badges for the epic comic convention, Legends Con, and attend his first ever Teen Pride. Just him and Diego. The way it should be. But when an unexpected run-in with Davi—Isaac’s old crush—distracts him the day tickets go on sale, suddenly he’s two badges short of a perfect summer. Even worse, now he’s left making it up to Diego by hanging with him and his gamer buddies. Decidedly NOT part of the original plan. It’s not all bad, though. Some of Diego’s friends turn out to be pretty cool, and when things with Davi start heating up, Isaac is almost able to forget about his Legends Con blunder. Almost. Because then Diego finds out what really happened that day with Davi, and their friendship lands on thin ice. Isaac assumes he’s upset about missing the convention, but could Diego have other reasons for avoiding Isaac?]]> 396 Julian Winters 0593206479 Kelly 0 lgbt 3.85 2022
author: Julian Winters
name: Kelly
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at: 2022/03/21
date added: 2022/03/22
shelves: lgbt
review:

]]> 57693674
Caleb Horowitz is twenty-seven, and his wildest dreams are about to come true. His manuscript has caught the attention of the literary agent, who offers him fame, fortune, and a taste of the literary life. He can’t wait for his book to be shopped around to every editor in New York, except one: Avi Dietsch, a college rival and the novel’s “inspiration.� When Avi gets his hands on it, he sees nothing but theft—and opportunity. Caleb is forced to make a Faustian bargain, one that tests his theories of success, ambition, and the limits of art.

Andrew Lipstein’s Last Resort is the razor-edged account of a young man's headlong journey into authenticity. As Caleb fights to right his mistakes and reclaim his name, he must burn every bridge, confront his own desire, and finally see his work from the perspective of those locked inside.]]> 304 Andrew Lipstein 0374602700 Kelly 0 3.42 2022
author: Andrew Lipstein
name: Kelly
average rating: 3.42
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at: 2022/03/05
date added: 2022/03/19
shelves:
review:

]]> 51182650 A captivating and utterly original fairy tale about a girl cursed to be poisonous to the touch, and who discovers what power might lie in such a curse...

There was and there was not, as all stories begin, a princess cursed to be poisonous to the touch. But for Soraya, who has lived her life hidden away, apart from her family, safe only in her gardens, it’s not just a story.

As the day of her twin brother’s wedding approaches, Soraya must decide if she’s willing to step outside of the shadows for the first time. Below in the dungeon is a demon who holds knowledge that she craves, the answer to her freedom. And above is a young man who isn’t afraid of her, whose eyes linger not with fear, but with an understanding of who she is beneath the poison.

Soraya thought she knew her place in the world, but when her choices lead to consequences she never imagined, she begins to question who she is and who she is becoming...human or demon. Princess or monster.]]> 322 Melissa Bashardoust 1250196140 Kelly 0 lgbt 3.66 2020
author: Melissa Bashardoust
name: Kelly
average rating: 3.66
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at: 2022/03/18
date added: 2022/03/19
shelves: lgbt
review:

]]> 55923615
There are plenty of words Jonah Collins could use to describe Dylan Ramírez. “Arrogant,� “spoiled,� and “golden boy� to name a few. Likewise, Dylan thinks he has Jonah accurately labeled as an attention-seeking asshat who never shuts his filthy mouth. Their friends are convinced Jonah’s and Dylan’s disdain for one another is just thinly veiled lust—a rumor that surges like wildfire when the two wake up in one bed after homecoming. Mutually horrified, Dylan and Jonah agree to use the faux pas to their advantage by fake dating. If they can stay convincing long enough to end their “relationship� in a massive staged fight, they can prove their incompatibility to their friends once and for all. But the more time they spend together, the more their plan begins to fall apart—and the closer they come to seeing each other clearly for the first time.]]> 352 Amanda Woody 0593403096 Kelly 0 to-read 4.22 2023
author: Amanda Woody
name: Kelly
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/03/18
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 58800142 An interior designer learns to rebuild her love life from the ground up with zero blueprints in this new romantic comedy by Ashley Herring Blake, author of Delilah Green Doesn't Care.

For Astrid Parker, failure is unacceptable. Ever since she broke up with her fiancé a year ago, she’s been focused on her career—her friends might say she’s obsessed, but she’s just driven. When Pru Everwood asks her to be the designer for the Everwood Inn’s renovation that will be broadcasted on a popular home improvement show, Innside America, Astrid knows this is the answer to everything that is wrong with her life. It’ll be the perfect distraction from her failed love life, and her perpetually displeased mother might finally give her nod of approval.

However, Astrid never planned on Jordan Everwood, Pru’s granddaughter and lead carpenter for the inn’s renovation, who despises every modern design decision Astrid makes. Jordan is determined to preserve the history of her family’s inn, particularly as the rest of her life is in shambles. When that determination turns into a little light sabotage, ruffling Astrid’s perfect little feathers, the showrunners ask them to play up the tension. But somewhere along the way, their dislike for each other turns into something quite different, and Astrid must decide what success truly means. Is she going to pursue the life that she’s expected to lead, or the one she wants?]]> 400 Ashley Herring Blake Kelly 0 to-read 4.03 2022
author: Ashley Herring Blake
name: Kelly
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/03/07
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 54756850
Delilah Green swore she would never go back to Bright Falls—nothing is there for her but memories of a lonely childhood where she was little more than a burden to her cold and distant stepfamily. Her life is in New York, with her photography career finally gaining steam and her bed never empty. Sure, it’s a different woman every night, but that’s just fine with her.
Ěý
When Delilah’s estranged stepsister, Astrid, pressures her into photographing her wedding with a guilt trip and a five-figure check, Delilah finds herself back in the godforsaken town that she used to call home. She plans to breeze in and out, but then she sees Claire Sutherland, one of Astrid’s stuck-up besties, and decides that maybe there’s some fun (and a little retribution) to be had in Bright Falls, after all.
Ěý
Having raised her eleven-year-old daughter mostly on her own while dealing with her unreliable ex and running a bookstore, Claire Sutherland depends upon a life without surprises. And Delilah Green is an unwelcome surprise…at first. Though they’ve known each other for years, they don’t really know each other—so Claire is unsettled when Delilah figures out exactly what buttons to push. When they’re forced together during a gauntlet of wedding preparations—including a plot to save Astrid from her horrible fiancé—Claire isn’t sure she has the strength to resist Delilah’s charms. Even worse, she’s starting to think she doesn’t want to...]]> 375 Ashley Herring Blake 0593336402 Kelly 5 lgbt 4.06 2022
author: Ashley Herring Blake
name: Kelly
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2022
rating: 5
read at: 2022/03/07
date added: 2022/03/07
shelves: lgbt
review:
goodness gracious, this book!!!
]]> 58079450 FollowingĚýWritten in the StarsĚýandĚýHang the Moon, national bestselling author Alexandria Bellefleur pens another steamy queer rom-com about former best friends who might be each other's second chance at loveâ€�

Margot Cooper doesn’t do relationships. She tried and it blew up in her face, so she’ll stick with casual hookups,Ěýthank you very much. But now her entire crew has foundĚý"the one"Ěýand she’s beginning toĚýfeel like a fifth wheel. And then fate (the heartless bitch) intervenes. While touring a wedding venue with her engaged friends, Margot comes face-to-face with Olivia Grant—her childhood friend, her first love, her firstâ€� well, everything. It’s been ten years, but the moment they lock eyes, Margot’s cold, dead heart thumps in her chest.

Olivia must be hallucinating. In the decade since she last saw Margot, her life hasn’t gone exactly as planned. At almost thirty, she’s been married... and divorced. However, a wedding planner job in Seattle means a fresh start and a chance to follow her dreams. Never in a million years did she expect her important new client’s Best Woman would be the one that got away.

When a series of unfortunate events leaves Olivia without a place to stay, Margot offers up her spare room because she’s a Very Good Person.ĚýObviously. It has nothing to do with the fact that Olivia is as beautiful as ever and the sparks between them still make Margot tingle. As they spend time in close quarters, Margot starts to question her no-strings stance. Olivia is everything she’s ever wanted, but Margot let her in once and it ended in disaster. Will history repeat itself or should she count her lucky stars that she gets a second chance with her first love?Ěý]]> 384 Alexandria Bellefleur 0063000881 Kelly 0 lgbt 3.95 2022
author: Alexandria Bellefleur
name: Kelly
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at: 2022/02/26
date added: 2022/02/26
shelves: lgbt
review:

]]> 58214328 A searing memoir of reckoning and healing by acclaimed journalist Stephanie Foo, investigating the little-understood science behind complex PTSD and how it has shaped her life.

"Every cell in my body is filled with the code of generations of trauma, of death, of birth, of migration, of history that I cannot understand. . . . I want to have words for what my bones know."

By age thirty, Stephanie Foo was successful on paper: She had her dream job as an award-winning radio producer at This American Life and a loving boyfriend. But behind her office door, she was having panic attacks and sobbing at her desk every morning. After years of questioning what was wrong with herself, she was diagnosed with complex PTSD—a condition that occurs when trauma happens continuously, over the course of years.

Both of Foo's parents abandoned her when she was a teenager, after years of physical and verbal abuse and neglect. She thought she'd moved on, but her new diagnosis illuminated the way her past continued to threaten her health, relationships, and career. She found limited resources to help her, so Foo set out to heal herself, and to map her experiences onto the scarce literature about C-PTSD.

In this deeply personal and thoroughly researched account, Foo interviews scientists and psychologists and tries a variety of innovative therapies. She returns to her hometown of San Jose, California, to investigate the effects of immigrant trauma on the community, and she uncovers family secrets in the country of her birth, Malaysia, to learn how trauma can be inherited through generations. Ultimately, she discovers that you don't move on from trauma—but you can learn to move with it.

Powerful, enlightening, and hopeful, What My Bones Know is a brave narrative that reckons with the hold of the past over the present, the mind over the body—and examines one woman's ability to reclaim agency from her trauma.]]> 352 Stephanie Foo 0593238109 Kelly 0 to-read 4.50 2022
author: Stephanie Foo
name: Kelly
average rating: 4.50
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/02/23
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 43263680
Still searching for answers to this herself, Alex arrives in New Haven tasked by her mysterious benefactors with monitoring the activities of Yale’s secret societies. These eight windowless “tombs� are well-known to be haunts of the future rich and powerful, from high-ranking politicos to Wall Street and Hollywood’s biggest players. But their occult activities are revealed to be more sinister and more extraordinary than any paranoid imagination might conceive.]]> 461 Leigh Bardugo 1250313074 Kelly 5 4.00 2019
author: Leigh Bardugo
name: Kelly
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2019
rating: 5
read at: 2022/02/03
date added: 2022/02/04
shelves:
review:

]]> 56777619
Seventeen-year-old Avery Anderson is convinced her senior year is ruined when she's uprooted from her life in DC and forced into the hostile home of her terminally ill grandmother, Mama Letty. The tension between Avery’s mom and Mama Letty makes for a frosty arrival and unearths past drama they refuse to talk about. Every time Avery tries to look deeper, she’s turned away, leaving her desperate to learn the secrets that split her family in two.

While tempers flare in her avoidant family, Avery finds friendship in unexpected places: in Simone Cole, her captivating next-door neighbor, and Jade Oliver, daughter of the town’s most prominent family—whose mother’s murder remains unsolved.

As the three girls grow closer—Avery and Simone’s friendship blossoming into romance—the sharp-edged opinions of their small southern town begin to hint at something insidious underneath. The racist history of Bardell, Georgia is rooted in Avery’s family in ways she can’t even imagine. With Mama Letty's health dwindling every day, Avery must decide if digging for the truth is worth toppling the delicate relationships she's built in Bardell—or if some things are better left buried.]]> 257 Jas Hammonds Kelly 5 arcs, lgbt Incredible. 4.43 2022
author: Jas Hammonds
name: Kelly
average rating: 4.43
book published: 2022
rating: 5
read at: 2022/01/25
date added: 2022/01/25
shelves: arcs, lgbt
review:
Incredible.
]]> 53141419 Courtney Gould’s thrilling debut The Dead and the Dark is about the things that lurk in dark corners, the parts of you that can’t remain hidden, and about finding home in places―and people―you didn’t expect.

The Dark has been waiting for far too long, and it won't stay hidden any longer.

Something is wrong in Snakebite, Oregon. Teenagers are disappearing, some turning up dead, the weather isn’t normal, and all fingers seem to point to TV’s most popular ghost hunters who have just returned to town. Logan Ortiz-Woodley, daughter of TV's ParaSpectors, has never been to Snakebite before, but the moment she and her dads arrive, she starts to get the feeling that there's more secrets buried here than they originally let on.

Ashley Barton’s boyfriend was the first teen to go missing, and she’s felt his presence ever since. But now that the Ortiz-Woodleys are in town, his ghost is following her and the only person Ashley can trust is the mysterious Logan. When Ashley and Logan team up to figure out who—or what—is haunting Snakebite, their investigation reveals truths about the town, their families, and themselves that neither of them are ready for. As the danger intensifies, they realize that their growing feelings for each other could be a light in the darkness.]]> 368 Courtney Gould 1250762014 Kelly 5 lgbt 3.93 2021
author: Courtney Gould
name: Kelly
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2021
rating: 5
read at: 2022/01/14
date added: 2022/01/14
shelves: lgbt
review:

]]> 59808269 Something To Talk About comes a sharp and sexy rom-com about a college senior who accidentally hooks up with her best friend’s mom.

When Cassie Klein goes to an off-campus bar to escape her school’s Family Weekend, she isn’t looking for a hookup—it just happens. Buying a drink for a stranger turns into what should be an uncomplicated, amazing one-night stand. But then the next morning rolls around and her friend drags her along to meet her mom—the hot, older woman Cassie slept with.

Erin Bennett came to Family Weekend to get closer to her daughter, not have a one-night stand with a college senior. In her defense, she hadn’t known Cassie was a student when they'd met. To make things worse, Erin’s daughter brings Cassie to breakfast the next morning. And despite Erin's better judgement—how could sleeping with your daughter’s friend be anything but bad?—she and Cassie get along in the day just as well as they did last night.

What should have been a one-time fling quickly proves impossible to ignore, and soon Cassie and Erin are sneaking around. Worst of all, they start to realize they have something real. But is being honest about the love between them worth the cost?]]> 352 Meryl Wilsner 1250841003 Kelly 0 to-read 3.91 2022
author: Meryl Wilsner
name: Kelly
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/01/12
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 58468990 From the New York Times bestselling author of The Guest List comes a new locked room mystery, set in a Paris apartment building in which every resident has something to hide�

Jess needs a fresh start. She’s broke and alone, and she’s just left her job under less than ideal circumstances. Her half-brother Ben didn’t sound thrilled when she asked if she could crash with him for a bit, but he didn’t say no, and surely everything will look better from Paris. Only when she shows up � to find a very nice apartment, could Ben really have afforded this? � he’s not there.

The longer Ben stays missing, the more Jess starts to dig into her brother’s situation, and the more questions she has. Ben’s neighbors are an eclectic bunch, and not particularly friendly. Jess may have come to Paris to escape her past, but it’s starting to look like it’s Ben’s future that’s in question.

The socialite � The nice guy � The alcoholic � The girl on the verge � The concierge

Everyone’s a neighbor. Everyone’s a suspect. And everyone knows something they’re not telling.]]> 360 Lucy Foley 0063003058 Kelly 0 to-read 3.62 2022
author: Lucy Foley
name: Kelly
average rating: 3.62
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/01/04
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 55276620
We all think we know the South. Even those who have never lived there can rattle off a list of signifiers: the Civil War, Gone with the Wind, the Ku Klux Klan, plantations, football, Jim Crow, slavery. But the idiosyncrasies, dispositions, and habits of the region are stranger and more complex than much of the country tends to acknowledge. In South to America, Imani Perry shows that the meaning of American is inextricably linked with the South, and that our understanding of its history and culture is the key to understanding the nation as a whole.

This is the story of a Black woman and native Alabaman returning to the region she has always called home and considering it with fresh eyes. Her journey is full of detours, deep dives, and surprising encounters with places and people. She renders Southerners from all walks of life with sensitivity and honesty, sharing her thoughts about a troubling history and the ritual humiliations and joys that characterize so much of Southern life.

Weaving together stories of immigrant communities, contemporary artists, exploitative opportunists, enslaved peoples, unsung heroes, her own ancestors, and her lived experiences, Imani Perry crafts a tapestry unlike any other. With uncommon insight and breathtaking clarity, South to America offers an assertion that if we want to build a more humane future for the United States, we must center our concern below the Mason-Dixon Line.]]> 410 Imani Perry 0062977407 Kelly 0 to-read 3.96 2022
author: Imani Perry
name: Kelly
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/01/04
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 54860447 A queer YA #MeToo reimagining of Thelma & Louise with the aesthetic of Riverdale, for fans of Mindy McGinnis, Courtney Summers, and Rory Power.

When Trixie picks up her best friend Lux for their weekend getaway, she’s looking to escape for a little while, to forget the despair of being trapped in their dead-end Rust Belt town and the daunting responsibility of caring for her ailing mother. The girls are packing light: a supply of Diet Coke for Lux and her �89 Canon to help her frame the world in a sunnier light; half a pack of cigarettes for Trixie that she doesn’t really smoke, and a knife—one she’s just hanging on to for a friend—that she’s never used before.

But a single night of violence derails their trip and will forever change the course of the girls� lives, as they go from ordinary high schoolers to wanted fugitives. Trying to stay ahead of the cops and a hellscape of media attention, the girls grapple with an unforgiving landscape, rapidly diminishing supplies, and disastrous decisions at every turn. As they are transformed by the media into the face of a #MeToo movement they didn’t ask to lead and the road before them begins to run out, Trixie and Lux realize that they can only rely on each other, and that the love they find together is the one thing that truly makes them free.

In rushing, powerful prose Julia Lynn Rubin takes readers on “a blistering, unapologetic thrill ride� (Emma Berquis) that will leave them haunted and reeling. Trouble Girls is “a powerful, beautifully-written gut punch� (Sophie Gonzales).]]> 272 Julia Lynn Rubin 125075724X Kelly 0 arcs, lgbt 3.32 2021
author: Julia Lynn Rubin
name: Kelly
average rating: 3.32
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at: 2021/12/28
date added: 2021/12/30
shelves: arcs, lgbt
review:

]]> 55100346
But when Aideen stumbles on her nemesis, overachiever Meabh Kowalski, in the midst of a full-blown meltdown, she sees a problem that—unlike her own disaster of a life—seems refreshingly easy to solve. Meabh is desperate to escape her crushing pile of extracurriculars. Aideen volunteers to help. By pushing Meabh down the stairs.

Problem? Solved. Meabh’s sprained ankle is the perfect excuse to ditch her overwhelming schedule. But when another student learns about their little scheme and brings Aideen another “client� who needs her “help,� it kicks off a semester of traded favors, ill-advised hijinks, and an unexpected chance at love. Fixing other people’s problems won’t fix her own, but it might be the push she needs to start.]]> 368 Ciara Smyth 0062957147 Kelly 5 lgbt 4.11 2021
author: Ciara Smyth
name: Kelly
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2021
rating: 5
read at: 2021/12/25
date added: 2021/12/30
shelves: lgbt
review:
Perfect for fans of Sex Education. Aideen is one of the most standout YA protags I've seen.
]]> 43289181 The Gods of Tango, a revolutionary new novel about five wildly different women who, in the midst of the Uruguayan dictatorship, find one another as lovers, friends, and ultimately, family.

In 1977 Uruguay, a military government crushed political dissent with ruthless force. In this environment, where the everyday rights of people are under attack, homosexuality is a dangerous transgression to be punished. And yet Romina, Flaca, Anita "La Venus," Paz, and Malena--five cantoras, women who "sing"--somehow, miraculously, find one another. Together, they discover an isolated, nearly uninhabited cape, Cabo Polonio, which they claim as their secret sanctuary. Over the next thirty-five years, their lives move back and forth between Cabo Polonio and Montevideo, the city they call home, as they return, sometimes together, sometimes in pairs, with lovers in tow, or alone. And throughout, again and again, the women will be tested--by their families, lovers, society, and one another--as they fight to live authentic lives.

A genre-defining novel and De Robertis's masterpiece, Cantoras is a breathtaking portrait of queer love, community, forgotten history, and the strength of the human spirit. At once timeless and groundbreaking, Cantoras is a tale about the fire in all our souls and those who make it burn.]]> 312 Carolina De Robertis 0525521690 Kelly 5 lgbt 4.38 2019
author: Carolina De Robertis
name: Kelly
average rating: 4.38
book published: 2019
rating: 5
read at: 2021/12/28
date added: 2021/12/30
shelves: lgbt
review:
One of my new favorites of all time. Absolute magic.
]]> 49204960 In Perfect on Paper: a bisexual girl who gives anonymous love advice to her classmates is hired by the hot guy to help him get his ex back.

Her advice, spot on. Her love life, way off.

Darcy Phillips:
� Can give you the solution to any of your relationship woes―for a fee.
� Uses her power for good. Most of the time.
� Really cannot stand Alexander Brougham.
� Has maybe not the best judgement when it comes to her best friend, Brooke…who is in love with someone else.
� Does not appreciate being blackmailed.

However, when Brougham catches her in the act of collecting letters from locker 89―out of which she’s been running her questionably legal, anonymous relationship advice service―that’s exactly what happens. In exchange for keeping her secret, Darcy begrudgingly agrees to become his personal dating coach―at a generous hourly rate, at least. The goal? To help him win his ex-girlfriend back.

Darcy has a good reason to keep her identity secret. If word gets out that she’s behind the locker, some things she's not proud of will come to light, and there’s a good chance Brooke will never speak to her again.

Okay, so all she has to do is help an entitled, bratty, (annoyingly hot) guy win over a girl who’s already fallen for him once? What could go wrong?]]> 304 Sophie Gonzales 1250769787 Kelly 0 lgbt 3.96 2021
author: Sophie Gonzales
name: Kelly
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at: 2021/12/10
date added: 2021/12/15
shelves: lgbt
review:
A beautiful reflection on bisexual invisibility and the anxiety that comes with fitting into the queer community. Sophie's humor is on full display throughout. A gem of a book!
]]> 56139267 In this voice-driven young adult debut by Andrea Mosqueda, Maggie Gonzalez needs a date to her sister's quinceañera - and fast.

Growing up in Texas’s Rio Grande Valley, Maggie Gonzalez has always been a little messy, but she’s okay with that. After all, she has a great family, a goofy group of friends, a rocky romantic history, and dreams of being a music photographer. Tasked with picking an escort for her little sister’s quinceañera, Maggie has to face the truth: that her feelings about her friends—and her future—aren’t as simple as she’d once believed.

As Maggie’s search for the perfect escort continues, she’s forced to confront new (and old) feelings for three of her friends: Amanda, her best friend and first-ever crush; Matthew, her ex-boyfriend twice-over who refuses to stop flirting with her, and Dani, the new girl who has romantic baggage of her own. On top of this romantic disaster, she can’t stop thinking about the uncertainty of her own plans for the future and what that means for the people she loves.

As the weeks wind down and the boundaries between friendship and love become hazy, Maggie finds herself more and more confused with each photo. When her tried-and-true medium causes more chaos than calm, Maggie needs to figure out how to avoid certain disaster—or be brave enough to dive right into it.]]> 352 Andrea Mosqueda Kelly 0 lgbt, arcs 3.77 2022
author: Andrea Mosqueda
name: Kelly
average rating: 3.77
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/12/05
shelves: lgbt, arcs
review:
Reading this now for blurb purposes. RTC. I can already say it's the love letter to the Rio Grande Valley I never knew I needed.
]]> 50485649 Six friends.
One college reunion.
One unsolved murder.

A college reunion turns dark and deadly in this chilling and propulsive suspense novel about six friends, one unsolved murder, and the dark secrets they’ve been hiding from each other—and themselves—for a decade.

Ten years after graduation, Jessica Miller has planned her triumphant return to southern, elite Duquette University, down to the envious whispers that are sure to follow in her wake. Everyone is going to see the girl she wants them to see—confident, beautiful, indifferent—not the girl she was when she left campus, back when Heather’s murder fractured everything, including the tight bond linking the six friends she’d been closest to since freshman year. Ten years ago, everything fell apart, including the dreams she worked for her whole life—and her relationship with the one person she wasn’t supposed to love.

But not everyone is ready to move on. Not everyone left Duquette ten years ago, and not everyone can let Heather’s murder go unsolved. Someone is determined to trap the real killer, to make the guilty pay. When the six friends are reunited, they will be forced to confront what happened that night—and the years� worth of secrets each of them would do anything to keep hidden.

Told in racing dual timelines, with a dark campus setting and a darker look at friendship, love, obsession, and ambition, In My Dreams I Hold A Knife is an addictive, propulsive read you won’t be able to put down.]]> 345 Ashley Winstead 172822988X Kelly 5 3.79 2021
author: Ashley Winstead
name: Kelly
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2021
rating: 5
read at: 2021/11/25
date added: 2021/11/30
shelves:
review:

]]> 57518631 From award-winning author Rachel Lacey comes a playful romance about a Manhattan bookstore owner and a reclusive author who love to hate—and hate to love—each other.

Books are Rosie Taft’s life. And ever since she took over her mother’s beloved Manhattan bookstore, they’ve become her home too. The only thing missing is her own real-life romance like the ones she loves to read about, and Rosie has an idea of who she might like to sweep her off her feet. She’s struck up a flirty online friendship with lesbian romance author Brie, and what could be more romantic than falling in love with her favorite author?

Jane Breslin works hard to keep her professional and personal lives neatly separated. By day, she works for the family property development business. By night, she puts her steamier side on paper under her pen name: Brie. Jane hasn’t had much luck with her own love life, but her online connection with a loyal reader makes Jane wonder if she could be the one.

When Rosie learns that her bookstore’s lease has been terminated by Jane’s family’s business, romance moves to the back burner. Even though they’re at odds, there’s no denying the sparks that fly every time they’re together. When their online identities are revealed, will Jane be able to write her way to a happy ending, or is Rosie’s heart a closed book?]]> 331 Rachel Lacey 1542033543 Kelly 0 to-read 3.65 2021
author: Rachel Lacey
name: Kelly
average rating: 3.65
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/11/30
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 56347314
Tough-minded, vulnerable, and brave, Jocelyn Nicole Johnson’s precisely imagined debut explores burdened inheritances and extraordinary pursuits of belonging. Set in the near future, the eponymous novella, “My Monticello,� tells of a diverse group of Charlottesville neighbors fleeing violent white supremacists. Led by Da’Naisha, a young Black descendant of Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings, they seek refuge in Jefferson’s historic plantation home in a desperate attempt to outlive the long-foretold racial and environmental unravelling within the nation.

In “Control Negro,� hailed by Roxane Gay as “one hell of story,� a university professor devotes himself to the study of racism and the development of ACMs (average American Caucasian males) by clinically observing his own son from birth in order to “painstakingly mark the route of this Black child too, one whom I could prove was so strikingly decent and true that America could not find fault in him unless we as a nation had projected it there.� Johnson’s characters all seek out home as a place and an internal state, whether in the form of a Nigerian widower who immigrates to a meager existence in the city of Alexandria, finding himself adrift; a young mixed-race woman who adopts a new tongue and name to escape the landscapes of rural Virginia and her family; or a single mother who seeks salvation through “Buying a House Ahead of the Apocalypse.�

United by these characters� relentless struggles against reality and fate, My Monticello is a formidable book that bears witness to this country’s legacies and announces the arrival of a wildly original new voice in American fiction.]]> 224 Jocelyn Nicole Johnson 1250807158 Kelly 0 to-read 3.90 2021
author: Jocelyn Nicole Johnson
name: Kelly
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/11/18
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 55348105
Attempted vehicular manslaughter was not part of Shani’s plan. She was supposed to be focusing on her month-long paleoichthyology internship. She was going to spend all her time thinking about dead fish and not at all about how she was unceremoniously dumped days before winter break.

It could be going better.

But when a dog-walking gig puts her back in May’s path, the fossils she’s meant to be diligently studying are pushed to the side—along with the breakup. Then they’re snowed in together on Christmas Eve. As things start to feel more serious, though, Shani’s hurt over her ex-girlfriend’s rejection comes rushing back. Is she ready to try a committed relationship again, or is she okay with this just being a passing winter fling?]]> 384 Jake Maia Arlow Kelly 5 arcs, lgbt "Funny, sincere, and real, with a poignancy that sneaks up on you. Arlow is one of the freshest new voices in young adult fiction. Her gift for perceptive humor will have you excavating your own heart in no time." ]]> 3.78 2022
author: Jake Maia Arlow
name: Kelly
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2022
rating: 5
read at: 2021/11/14
date added: 2021/11/17
shelves: arcs, lgbt
review:
I LOVED THIS BOOK!!! Here's the blurb I've given:
"Funny, sincere, and real, with a poignancy that sneaks up on you. Arlow is one of the freshest new voices in young adult fiction. Her gift for perceptive humor will have you excavating your own heart in no time."
]]> 58408167 “Part of getting to know yourself is to unknow yourself � to let go of the limiting stories you’ve told yourself about who you are so that you can live your life, and not the stories you’ve been telling yourself about your life.� - Lori Gottlieb, New York Times bestselling author of Maybe You Should Talk to Someone

When Maybe You Should Talk to Someone was released into the world, it became an instant New York Times bestseller and international phenomenon, with readers across the globe finding their truth in the powerful stories Lori Gottlieb shared from inside her therapy room. As millions highlighted and underlined page after page, a movement took shape and they asked for more: Can you take these lessons and create for us a guide as transformative as the book itself?

Lori decided to do just that. In this empowering, one-of-a kind workbook, Lori offers a step-by-step process for becoming the author of your own life by giving it a thorough edit. Using eye-opening concepts, thought-provoking exercises, compelling writing prompts, and real examples from the beloved patients in the original book, Lori has created an easy-to-follow guide through the journey of becoming our own editors, examining aspects of our narratives that hold us back, and discovering the ways in which changing our stories can change our lives.

An experience, a meditation, and a practical toolkit combined into one, Maybe You Should Talk to Someone: The Workbook is the companion readers have been asking for: a revolutionary method for understanding which stories to keep and which to revise so that we can create our own personal masterpieces. By the end of this “unknowing,� you will be surprised, inspired, and most of all, liberated.]]> 120 Lori Gottlieb 1683734351 Kelly 0 to-read 4.38 2021
author: Lori Gottlieb
name: Kelly
average rating: 4.38
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/10/26
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 57109107 The bestselling author of A Gentleman in Moscow and Rules of Civility and master of absorbing, sophisticated fiction returns with a stylish and propulsive novel set in 1950s America

In June, 1954, eighteen-year-old Emmett Watson is driven home to Nebraska by the warden of the work farm where he has just served a year for involuntary manslaughter. His mother long gone, his father recently deceased, and the family farm foreclosed upon by the bank, Emmett’s intention is to pick up his eight-year-old brother and head west where they can start their lives anew. But when the warden drives away, Emmett discovers that two friends from the work farm have hidden themselves in the trunk of the warden’s car. Together, they have hatched an altogether different plan for Emmett’s future.

Spanning just ten days and told from multiple points of view, Towles’s third novel will satisfy fans of his multi-layered literary styling while providing them an array of new and richly imagined settings, characters, and themes.]]> 576 Amor Towles 0735222355 Kelly 0 to-read 4.18 2021
author: Amor Towles
name: Kelly
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/10/05
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 45184410 From the bestselling authors of I'm Not Dying with You Tonight comes a compelling YA novel about the choices teens make.

Two high school cheerleaders face the ultimate test when an act of solidarity spurs chaos. With a rocky start to senior year, lifelong friends Eleanor and Chanel have a lot on their mind. Eleanor is still in physical therapy months after a serious concussion from a failed cheer attempt. Chanel's putting tremendous pressure on herself to get into the best colleges and starts making questionable decisions. But they have each other's backs just as always.

Eleanor's new relationship with star quarterback Three may be causing a rift between the best friends. When the cheer squad decides to take a knee at the season's first football game, what seemed like a positive show of solidarity suddenly becomes the reason for a larger fallout between the girls.

Grappling with the weight of the school's actions as well as their own problems, can the girls rely on the friendship they've always shared?

A bittersweet, sometime humorous, but always compelling look at issues of friendship, privilege, sports, and race.]]> 272 Kimberly Jones 1492678929 Kelly 0 arcs, mental-health 3.51 2021
author: Kimberly Jones
name: Kelly
average rating: 3.51
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at: 2021/10/01
date added: 2021/10/05
shelves: arcs, mental-health
review:

]]> 56382342
When eleven-year-old Cornelius Vanderbilt began to work on his father’s small boat ferrying supplies in New York Harbor at the beginning of the nineteenth century, no one could have imagined that one day he would, through ruthlessness, cunning, and a pathological desire for money, build two empires—one in shipping and another in railroads—that would make him the richest man in America. His staggering fortune was fought over by his heirs after his death in 1877, sowing familial discord that would never fully heal. Though his son Billy doubled the money left by “the Commodore,� subsequent generations competed to find new and ever more extraordinary ways of spending it. By 2018, when the last Vanderbilt was forced out of The Breakers—the seventy-room summer estate in Newport, Rhode Island, that Cornelius’s grandson and namesake had built—the family would have been unrecognizable to the tycoon who started it all.

Now, the Commodore’s great-great-great-grandson Anderson Cooper, joins with historian Katherine Howe to explore the story of his legendary family and their outsized influence. Cooper and Howe breathe life into the ancestors who built the family’s empire, basked in the Commodore’s wealth, hosted lavish galas, and became synonymous with unfettered American capitalism and high society. Moving from the hardscrabble wharves of old Manhattan to the lavish drawing rooms of Gilded Age Fifth Avenue, from the ornate summer palaces of Newport to the courts of Europe, and all the way to modern-day New York, Cooper and Howe wryly recount the triumphs and tragedies of an American dynasty unlike any other.

Written with a unique insider’s viewpoint, this is a rollicking, quintessentially American history as remarkable as the family it so vividly captures.]]> 317 Anderson Cooper 0062964615 Kelly 0 to-read 3.74 2021
author: Anderson Cooper
name: Kelly
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/10/03
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 56980548 Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe, two boys in a border town fell in love. Now, they must discover what it means to stay in love and build a relationship in a world that seems to challenge their very existence.

Ari has spent all of high school burying who he really is, staying silent and invisible. He expected his senior year to be the same. But something in him cracked open when he fell in love with Dante, and he can’t go back. Suddenly he finds himself reaching out to new friends, standing up to bullies of all kinds, and making his voice heard. And, always, there is Dante, dreamy, witty Dante, who can get on Ari’s nerves and fill him with desire all at once.

The boys are determined to forge a path for themselves in a world that doesn’t understand them. But when Ari is faced with a shocking loss, he’ll have to fight like never before to create a life that is truthfully, joyfully his own.

The highly anticipated sequel to the critically acclaimed, multiple award-winning novel Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe is an achingly romantic, tender tale sure to captivate fans of Adam Silvera and Mary H.K. Choi.]]> 516 Benjamin Alire Sáenz 153449619X Kelly 0 to-read 4.11 2021
author: Benjamin Alire Sáenz
name: Kelly
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/09/28
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 58756420 From the New York Times bestselling author of One Last Stop and Red, White & Royal Blue comes a debut YA romantic comedy about chasing down what you want, only to find what you need...

Chloe Green is so close to winning. After her moms moved her from SoCal to Alabama for high school, she’s spent the past four years dodging gossipy classmates and a puritanical administration at Willowgrove Christian Academy. The thing that’s kept her going: winning valedictorian. Her only rival: prom queen Shara Wheeler, the principal’s perfect progeny.

But a month before graduation, Shara kisses Chloe and vanishes.

On a furious hunt for answers, Chloe discovers she’s not the only one Shara kissed. There’s also Smith, Shara’s longtime quarterback sweetheart, and Rory, Shara’s bad boy neighbor with a crush. The three have nothing in common except Shara and the annoyingly cryptic notes she left behind, but together they must untangle Shara’s trail of clues and find her. It’ll be worth it, if Chloe can drag Shara back before graduation to beat her fair-and-square.

Thrown into an unlikely alliance, chasing a ghost through parties, break-ins, puzzles, and secrets revealed on monogrammed stationery, Chloe starts to suspect there might be more to this small town than she thought. And maybe—probably not, but maybe—more to Shara, too.

Fierce, funny, and frank, Casey McQuiston's I Kissed Shara Wheeler is about breaking the rules, getting messy, and finding love in unexpected places.]]> 356 Casey McQuiston 1250244455 Kelly 0 to-read 3.86 2022
author: Casey McQuiston
name: Kelly
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/09/22
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 55817142 Romance, revenge, and reality TV. The new queer YA rom-com from Sophie Gonzales, bestselling author of Only Mostly Devastated.

Eighteen-year-old Maya dumped her cheating ex-boyfriend Jordy two years ago. So, when she receives a call to participate in Second Chance Romance - a reality show in which the now-famous Jordy re-dates his ex-girlfriends - she isn't interested . . . until she realizes she can use this opportunity to exact her revenge. If she can make it to the final spot on the show, she can reject Jordy in front of the nation, and publicly break his heart.

Maya's fellow contestants include Skye, the beautiful, charismatic girl Jordy cheated on Maya with. Skye charms the socks off everyone she meets, except for Maya, who knows that underneath all the sparkle, she's the girl who dated her boyfriend while he was still her boyfriend.

The reality show is a challenging environment. Amidst backstabbing, bickering, and having to see Jordy again, Maya finds herself becoming friends with Skye. Together, they come up with a plan for the ultimate revenge on Jordy.

But as she spends more time with Jordy and Skye, Maya is torn. Is Jordy a good guy who made a mistake? Is there more than friendship between her and Skye? As the season finale approaches, can Maya execute her plan, or will she go off-script?]]> 372 Sophie Gonzales 144496464X Kelly 5 arcs, lgbt 3.84 2022
author: Sophie Gonzales
name: Kelly
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2022
rating: 5
read at: 2021/09/10
date added: 2021/09/20
shelves: arcs, lgbt
review:

]]> 58437788
Music runs in Sofi’s blood.

Her father is a Musik, one of only five musicians in the country licensed to compose and perform original songs. In the kingdom of Aell, where winter is endless and magic is accessible to all, there are strict anti-magic laws ensuring music remains the last untouched art.

Sofi has spent her entire life training to inherit her father’s title. But on the day of the auditions, she is presented with unexpected competition in the form of Lara, a girl who has never before played the lute. Yet somehow, to Sofi’s horror, Lara puts on a performance that thoroughly enchants the judges.

Almost like magic.

The same day Lara wins the title of Musik, Sofi’s father dies, and a grieving Sofi sets out to prove Lara is using illegal magic in her performances. But the more time she spends with Lara, the more Sofi begins to doubt everything she knows about her family, her music, and the girl she thought was her enemy.

As Sofi works to reclaim her rightful place as a Musik, she is forced to face the dark secrets of her past and the magic she was trained to avoid—all while trying not to fall for the girl who stole her future.]]> 416 Adrienne Tooley 1534484361 Kelly 5 lgbt, quarantine2020, arcs 4.03 2022
author: Adrienne Tooley
name: Kelly
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2022
rating: 5
read at: 2020/09/21
date added: 2021/09/11
shelves: lgbt, quarantine2020, arcs
review:
July 2020 - I read a draft of this book and LOVED it. I can't stop thinking about it. I can't wait to see how Adrienne polishes it even further. The world is already SO developed and Sofi and Lara are both stamped on my heart.
]]> 51840467 A revolutionary guide to friendship and self-care for those who feel alone

When it comes to adult friendships, we’re woefully inept: We barely manage to show up for our own commitments, let alone maintain our relationships. What’s more, we’re living in an uncharted social landscape with new conventions on how to relate—one where actual phone calls are reserved for Mom (if anyone), “dropping in� is unheard-of, and “flaking out� is routine.

The Art of Showing Up offers a roadmap through this morass to true connection with your friends, your family, and yourself. Author Rachel Wilkerson Miller teaches that “showing up� means connecting with others in a way that makes them feel seen and supported. And that begins with showing up for yourself: recognizing your needs, understanding your physical and mental health, and practicing self-compassion. Only then can you better support other people; witness their joy, pain, and true selves; validate their experiences; and help ease their burden.

When “showing up� for others, it’s not the grandest gesture that matters most—it’s how close you come to meeting your loved ones where they really are.]]> 304 Rachel Wilkerson Miller Kelly 0 to-read 3.84 2020
author: Rachel Wilkerson Miller
name: Kelly
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/07/28
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 45046567
Arthur Parnassus is the master of the orphanage. He would do anything to keep the children safe, even if it means the world will burn. And his secrets will come to light.

The House in the Cerulean Sea is an enchanting love story, masterfully told, about the profound experience of discovering an unlikely family in an unexpected place—and realizing that family is yours.]]> 398 T.J. Klune 1250217288 Kelly 0 to-read 4.42 2020
author: T.J. Klune
name: Kelly
average rating: 4.42
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/07/10
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 55926761 Six critically acclaimed, bestselling, and award-winning authors bring the glowing warmth and electricity of Black teen love to this interlinked novel of charming, hilarious, and heartwarming stories that shine a bright light through the dark.

A summer heatwave blankets New York City in darkness. But as the city is thrown into confusion, a different kind of electricity sparks�

A first meeting.Ěý

Long-time friends.Ěý

Bitter exes.Ěý

And maybe the beginning of something new.

When the lights go out, people reveal hidden truths. Love blossoms, friendship transforms, and new possibilities take flight.

Beloved authors—Dhonielle Clayton, Tiffany D. Jackson, Nic Stone, Angie Thomas, Ashley Woodfolk, and Nicola Yoon—celebrate the beauty of six couples and the unforgettable magic that can be found on a sweltering starry night in the city.]]> 256 Dhonielle Clayton 0063088096 Kelly 0 to-read 3.89 2021
author: Dhonielle Clayton
name: Kelly
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/06/22
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 43383506 SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2020 EDNA STAEBLER AWARD FOR CREATIVE NON-FICTION
NATIONAL BESTSELLER
2020 LAMBDA LITERARY AWARD WINNER
ONE OF BOOK RIOT'S 100 MOST INFLUENTIAL QUEER BOOKS OF ALL TIME

How do you find yourself when the world tells you that you don't exist?

Samra Habib has spent most of their life searching for the safety to be themself. As an Ahmadi Muslim growing up in Pakistan, they faced regular threats from Islamic extremists who believed the small, dynamic sect to be blasphemous. From their parents, they internalized the lesson that revealing their identity could put them in grave danger.

When their family came to Canada as refugees, Samra encountered a whole new host of bullies, racism, the threat of poverty, and an arranged marriage. Backed into a corner, their need for a safe space--in which to grow and nurture their creative, feminist spirit--became dire. The men in Samra's life wanted to police them, the women in their life had only shown them the example of pious obedience, and their body was a problem to be solved.

So begins an exploration of faith, art, love, and queer sexuality, a journey that takes them to the far reaches of the globe to uncover a truth that was within them all along. A triumphant memoir of forgiveness and family, both chosen and not, We Have Always Been Here is a rallying cry for anyone who has ever felt out of place and a testament to the power of fearlessly inhabiting one's truest self.]]> 220 Samra Habib 0735235015 Kelly 0 to-read 4.16 2019
author: Samra Habib
name: Kelly
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/05/12
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 25490360
]]> 60 Byung-Chul Han 0804795096 Kelly 0 to-read 3.87 2010
author: Byung-Chul Han
name: Kelly
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2010
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/05/12
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 55467800 From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Big Summer comes another timely and deliciously twisty novel of intrigue, secrets, and the transformative power of female friendship, set on beautiful Cape Cod.

Daisy Shoemaker can’t sleep. With a thriving cooking business, full schedule of volunteer work, and a beautiful home in the Philadelphia suburbs, she should be content. But her teenage daughter can be a handful; her husband can be distant, her work can feel trivial, and she has lots of acquaintances, but no real friends. Still, Daisy knows she’s got it good. So why is she up all night?

While Daisy tries to identify the root of her dissatisfaction, she’s also receiving misdirected emails meant for a woman named Diana Starling, whose email address is just one punctuation mark away from her own. While Daisy’s driving carpools, Diana is chairing meetings. While Daisy’s making dinner, Diana’s making plans to reorganize corporations. Diana’s glamorous, sophisticated, single-lady life is miles away from Daisy’s simpler existence. When an apology leads to an invitation, the two women meet and become friends. But, as they get closer, we learn that their connection was not completely accidental. Who IS this other woman, and what does she want with Daisy?

From the manicured Main Line of Philadelphia to the wild landscape of the Outer Cape, written with Jennifer Weiner’s signature wit and sharp observations, THAT SUMMER is a story about surviving our pasts, confronting our futures, and the sustaining bonds of friendship.]]> 422 Jennifer Weiner 1501133543 Kelly 0 to-read 3.67 2021
author: Jennifer Weiner
name: Kelly
average rating: 3.67
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/05/11
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 55198928 In this YA contemporary queer romance from the author of Hot Dog Girl , an openly gay track star falls for a closeted, bisexual teen beauty queen with a penchant for fixing up old cars.

Morgan, an elite track athlete, is forced to transfer high schools late in her senior year after it turns out being queer is against her private Catholic school's code of conduct. There, she meets Ruby, who has two hobbies: tinkering with her baby blue 1970 Ford Torino and competing in local beauty pageants, the latter to live out the dreams of her overbearing mother. The two are drawn to each other and can't deny their growing feelings. But while Morgan--out and proud, and determined to have a fresh start--doesn't want to have to keep their budding relationship a secret, Ruby isn't ready to come out yet. With each girl on a different path toward living her truth, can they go the distance together?]]> 324 Jennifer Dugan 0593112539 Kelly 0 to-read 3.78 2021
author: Jennifer Dugan
name: Kelly
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/05/11
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 55276629
That was before she met the perfect girl. Willow is gorgeous, glamorous, and…heartbroken? And when she enlists Nozomi to pose as her new girlfriend to make her ex jealous, Nozomi is a willing volunteer.

Because Nozomi has a master plan of her own: one to show Willow she’s better than a stand-in, and turn their fauxmance into something real. But as the lies pile up, it’s not long before Nozomi’s schemes take a turn toward disaster…and maybe a chance at love she didn’t plan for.]]> 352 Misa Sugiura 006299123X Kelly 0 to-read 3.42 2021
author: Misa Sugiura
name: Kelly
average rating: 3.42
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/05/11
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 55540735 A trans boy enters a throw-down battle for the title of Homecoming King with the boy he dumped last summer in ZR Ellor's contemporary YA debut.

Jeremy Harkiss, cheer captain and student body president, won’t let coming out as a transgender boy ruin his senior year. Instead of bowing to the bigots and an outdated school administration, Jeremy decides to make some noise—and how better than by challenging his all-star ex-boyfriend Lukas for the title of Homecoming King?

Lukas Rivers, football star and head of the Homecoming Committee, is just trying to find order in his life after his older brother’s funeral and the loss of his long-term girlfriend—who turned out to be a boy. But when Jeremy threatens to break his heart and steal his crown, Lukas kickstarts a plot to sabotage Jeremy’s campaign.

When both boys take their rivalry too far, the dance is on the verge of being canceled. To save Homecoming, they’ll have to face the hurt they’re both hiding—and the lingering butterflies they can’t deny.]]> 380 Z.R. Ellor 1250625122 Kelly 0 to-read 3.22 2021
author: Z.R. Ellor
name: Kelly
average rating: 3.22
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/05/07
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 53331577 Inspired by the true World War II history of the few bookshops to survive the Blitz, The Last Bookshop in London is a timeless story of wartime loss, love and the enduring power of literature.

August 1939: London prepares for war as Hitler’s forces sweep across Europe. Grace Bennett has always dreamed of moving to the city, but the bunkers and blackout curtains that she finds on her arrival were not what she expected. And she certainly never imagined she’d wind up working at Primrose Hill, a dusty old bookshop nestled in the heart of London.

Through blackouts and air raids as the Blitz intensifies, Grace discovers the power of storytelling to unite her community in ways she never dreamed—a force that triumphs over even the darkest nights of the war.]]> 325 Madeline Martin 133528480X Kelly 0 to-read 4.07 2021
author: Madeline Martin
name: Kelly
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/05/06
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 49757149
Their parents are all clear on one point—not going is not an option. This could be the opportunity to get back into Grandmother's good graces. But when the cousins arrive on the island, it's immediately clear that she has different plans for them. And the longer they stay, the more they realize how mysterious—and dark—their family's past is.

The entire Story family has secrets. Whatever pulled them apart years ago isn't over—and this summer, the cousins will learn everything.]]> 337 Karen M. McManus 0525708014 Kelly 0 3.76 2020
author: Karen M. McManus
name: Kelly
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at: 2021/04/18
date added: 2021/04/21
shelves:
review:

]]> 52515987 High school nemeses fall in love in this queer YA rom com perfect for fans of Becky Albertalli and Casey McQuiston.

After losing spectacularly to her ex-girlfriend in their first game since their break up, Scottie Zajac gets into a fender bender with the worst possible person: her nemesis, the incredibly beautiful and incredibly mean Irene Abraham. Things only get worse when their nosey, do-gooder moms get involved and the girls are forced to carpool together until Irene’s car gets out of the shop.

Their bumpy start the only gets bumpier the more time they spend together. But when an opportunity presents itself for Scottie to get back at her toxic ex (and climb her school’s social ladder at the same time), she bribes Irene into playing along. Hijinks, heartbreak, and gay fake-dating scheme for the ages. From author Kelly Quindlen comes a new laugh-out-loud romp through the ups and downs of teen romance.]]> 295 Kelly Quindlen 1250209153 Kelly 0 lgbt
The virtual launch party will take place on Instagram Live (@kellyquindlen) on Wednesday, April 21, at 7 pm EST.]]> 4.02 2021
author: Kelly Quindlen
name: Kelly
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/04/15
shelves: lgbt
review:
This book releases next week and I couldn't be more excited. Telling Scottie & Irene's story was the most fun I've ever had writing a book. I was inspired by the classic teen romcoms of the 80s, 90s, and 00s and I tried to honor their tone - but with a sapphic twist :) I hope folks enjoy the read.

The virtual launch party will take place on Instagram Live (@kellyquindlen) on Wednesday, April 21, at 7 pm EST.
]]> 53317496 Coming home dredges up deeply buried secrets...

Kieran Elliott's life changed forever on the day a reckless mistake led to devastating consequences.

The guilt that still haunts him resurfaces during a visit with his young family to the small coastal community he once called home.

Kieran's parents are struggling in a town where fortunes are forged by the sea. Between them all is his absent brother, Finn.

When a body is discovered on the beach, long-held secrets threaten to emerge. A sunken wreck, a missing girl, and questions that have never washed away...]]> 374 Jane Harper 1250232422 Kelly 0 to-read 3.64 2020
author: Jane Harper
name: Kelly
average rating: 3.64
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/04/06
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 56095220 Judith Braverman, a teenager living in an Orthodox Jewish community in the GFS, is not only a talented artist accomplished in the ancient craft of papercutting, she also has the gift of seeing into peoples� souls—and can tell instantly if someone is good or evil.
Jeffrey Schwartz has no love for religion or conformity and yearns to escape to the freedom of the UPR. When he’s accepted into an experimental pen pal program and paired with Dani Fine, an openly queer girl in the UPR, he hopes that he can finally find a way out.
As danger mounts and their alarm grows, Judith embeds a secret code in her papercuts so that she and Jeffrey can tell Dani what’s happening to Jews in the GFS without raising suspicions from the government. When the three arrange a quick, clandestine meeting, Jeffrey is finally faced with the choice to flee or to stay and resist. And Judith is reeling from a pull toward Dani that is unlike anything she has ever felt before.

Genre: Young Adult
Editor: Katherine V. Forrest
Cover Designer: Kayla Mancuso]]> 212 Cindy Rizzo 1642472476 Kelly 0 lgbt, arcs 4.05 2021
author: Cindy Rizzo
name: Kelly
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at: 2021/04/06
date added: 2021/04/06
shelves: lgbt, arcs
review:

]]> 55780561 Four young Black sisters come of age during the American Civil War in So Many Beginnings, a warm and powerful YA remix of the classic novel Little Women by national bestselling author Bethany C. Morrow.

North Carolina, 1863. As the American Civil War rages on, the Freedmen's Colony of Roanoke Island is blossoming, a haven for the recently emancipated. Black people have begun building a community of their own, a refuge from the shadow of the old life. It is where the March family has finally been able to safely put down roots with four young daughters:

Meg, a teacher who longs to find love and start a family of her own.

Jo, a writer whose words are too powerful to be contained.

Beth, a talented seamstress searching for a higher purpose.

Amy, a dancer eager to explore life outside her family's home.

As the four March sisters come into their own as independent young women, they will face first love, health struggles, heartbreak, and new horizons. But they will face it all together.]]> 304 Bethany C. Morrow 1250761212 Kelly 0 to-read 3.89 2021
author: Bethany C. Morrow
name: Kelly
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/04/02
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 49291330 A sweet and funny debut novel about falling for someone when you least expect it . . . and finding out that real life romance is better than anything on screen.

Emma is a die-hard romantic. She loves a meet-cute Netflix movie, her pet, Lady Catulet, and dreaming up the Gay Rom Com of her heart for the film festival competition she and her friends are entering. If only they’d listen to her ideas. . .

Sophia is pragmatic. She’s big into boycotts, namely 1) relationships, 2) teen boys and their BO (reason #2347683 she’s a lesbian), and 3) Emma’s nauseating ideas. Forget starry-eyed romance, Sophia knows what will win: an artistic film with a message.

Cue the drama. The movie is doomed before they even start shooting . . . until a real-life plot twist unfolds behind the camera when Emma and Sophia start seeing each other through a different lens. Suddenly their rivalry is starting to feel like an actual rom-com.]]> 320 Auriane Desombre 0593179765 Kelly 0 lgbt
-sapphic rivals to lovers
-"friends playing matchmaker" trope
-MC coming out scene that made me laugh bc it was so awkward & endearing
-the sights, sounds, smells of NYC in the summer

What more do you need??
]]> 3.40 2021
author: Auriane Desombre
name: Kelly
average rating: 3.40
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at: 2021/03/29
date added: 2021/03/29
shelves: lgbt
review:
This book has...

-sapphic rivals to lovers
-"friends playing matchmaker" trope
-MC coming out scene that made me laugh bc it was so awkward & endearing
-the sights, sounds, smells of NYC in the summer

What more do you need??

]]> 55386253
Revenge doesn’t wait for permission.

Growing up poor in rural Georgia, Bree Cabbat was warned by her single mother that the world was a dark and scary place. Bree rejected her mother’s fearful outlook, and life has proved her right. Having married into a family with wealth, power, and connections, Bree now has all a woman could ever dream of: a loving lawyer husband, two talented teenage daughters, a new baby boy, a gorgeous home, and every opportunity in the world.

Until the day she awakens and sees a witch peering into her bedroom window—an old gray-haired woman dressed all in black who vanishes as quickly as she appears. It must be a play of the early morning light or the remnant of a waking dream, Bree tells herself, shaking off the bad feeling that overcomes her.

Later that day though, she spies the old woman again, in the parking lot of her daugh­ters� private school . . . just minutes before Bree’s infant son, asleep in his car seat only a few feet away, vanishes. It happened so quickly—Bree looked away only for a second. There is a note left in his place, warning her that she is being is being watched; if she wants her baby back, she must not call the police or deviate in any way from the instructions that will follow.

The mysterious woman makes contact, and Bree learns she, too, is a mother. Why would another mother do this? What does she want? And why has she targeted Bree? Of course Bree will pay anything, do anything. It’s her child.

To get her baby back, Bree must complete one small—but critical—task. It seems harmless enough, but her action comes with a devastating price, making her complicit in a tangled web of tragedy and shocking secrets that could destroy everything she loves. It is the beginning of an odyssey that will lead Bree to dangerous places, explosive confrontations, and chilling truths.

Bree will do whatever it takes to protect her family—but what if the cost tears their world apart?]]> 336 Joshilyn Jackson Kelly 0 to-read 4.01 2021
author: Joshilyn Jackson
name: Kelly
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/03/27
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 39715234
Libby is the oldest childĚýof six, going on seven, in a family that adheres to the "quiverfull" lifestyle: strict evangelical Christians who believe that they should have as many children as God allows because children are like arrows in the quiver of "God's righteous warriors." Like the other families who adhere to this philosophy, Libby's family regards the father as the "Christian patriarch" and leader and the mother as the "helpmeet" who gives birth to, cares for, and homeschools the children.

Meanwhile, Zo is the gender fluid offspring of Libby's new neighbors who have moved to the country from Knoxville in hopes of living a slower-paced, more natural life.

Zo and hir family are as far to the left ideologically as Libby's family is to the right, and yet Libby and Zo, who are the same age, feel a connection that leads them to friendship—a friendship that seems doomed from the start because of their families' differences.Ěý

Through deft storytelling, built upon extraordinary character development, author Watts offers a close examination of the contemporary compartmentalization of social interactions, and forms a story that resonates far beyond its pages.]]> 324 Julia Watts Kelly 0 to-read 4.15 2018
author: Julia Watts
name: Kelly
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/03/23
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 54860241
Briseis has a gift: she can grow plants from tiny seeds to rich blooms with a single touch.

When Briseis's aunt dies and wills her a dilapidated estate in rural New York, Bri and her parents decide to leave Brooklyn behind for the summer. Hopefully there, surrounded by plants and flowers, Bri will finally learn to control her gift. But their new home is sinister in ways they could never have imagined--it comes with a specific set of instructions, an old-school apothecary, and a walled garden filled with the deadliest botanicals in the world that can only be entered by those who share Bri's unique family lineage.

When strangers begin to arrive on their doorstep, asking for tinctures and elixirs, Bri learns she has a surprising talent for creating them. One of the visitors is Marie, a mysterious young woman who Bri befriends, only to find that Marie is keeping dark secrets about the history of the estate and its surrounding community. There is more to Bri's sudden inheritance than she could have imagined, and she is determined to uncover it . . . until a nefarious group comes after her in search of a rare and dangerous immortality elixir. Up against a centuries-old curse and the deadliest plant on earth, Bri must harness her gift to protect herself and her family.

From the bestselling author of Cinderella Is Dead comes another inspiring and deeply compelling story about a young woman with the power to conquer the dark forces descending around her.]]> 384 Kalynn Bayron 1547603909 Kelly 0 to-read 4.10 2021
author: Kalynn Bayron
name: Kelly
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/03/22
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 52623750 Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780593189481.

An intimate, revelatory book exploring the ways we can care for and repair ourselves when life knocks us down.

Sometimes you slip through the cracks: unforeseen circumstances like an abrupt illness, the death of a loved one, a break up, or a job loss can derail a life. These periods of dislocation can be lonely and unexpected. For May, her husband fell ill, her son stopped attending school, and her own medical issues led her to leave a demanding job. Wintering explores how she not only endured this painful time, but embraced the singular opportunities it offered.

A moving personal narrative shot through with lessons from literature, mythology, and the natural world, May’s story offers instruction on the transformative power of rest and retreat. Illumination emerges from many sources: solstice celebrations and dormice hibernation, C.S. Lewis and Sylvia Plath, swimming in icy waters and sailing arctic seas.

Ultimately Wintering invites us to change how we relate to our own fallow times. May models an active acceptance of sadness and finds nourishment in deep retreat, joy in the hushed beauty of winter, and encouragement in understanding life as cyclical, not linear. A secular mystic, May forms a guiding philosophy for transforming the hardships that arise before the ushering in of a new season.]]> 241 Katherine May Kelly 5 3.82 2020
author: Katherine May
name: Kelly
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2020
rating: 5
read at: 2021/03/11
date added: 2021/03/11
shelves:
review:

]]> 56607325
Kieran Elliott's life changed forever on the day a reckless mistake led to devastating consequences.

The guilt that still haunts him resurfaces during a visit with his young family to the small coastal community he once called home.

Kieran's parents are struggling in a town where fortunes are forged by the sea. Between them all is his absent brother, Finn.

When a body is discovered on the beach, long-held secrets threaten to emerge. A sunken wreck, a missing girl, and questions that have never washed away...]]> 372 Jane Harper Kelly 0 to-read 3.67 2020
author: Jane Harper
name: Kelly
average rating: 3.67
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/03/04
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 37486222
In April 1942, Lale Sokolov, a Slovakian Jew, is forcibly transported to the concentration camps at Auschwitz-Birkenau. When his captors discover that he speaks several languages, he is put to work as a Tätowierer (the German word for tattooist), tasked with permanently marking his fellow prisoners.

Imprisoned for over two and a half years, Lale witnesses horrific atrocities and barbarism—but also incredible acts of bravery and compassion. Risking his own life, he uses his privileged position to exchange jewels and money from murdered Jews for food to keep his fellow prisoners alive.

One day in July 1942, Lale, prisoner 32407, comforts a trembling young woman waiting in line to have the number 34902 tattooed onto her arm. Her name is Gita, and in that first encounter, Lale vows to somehow survive the camp and marry her.

A vivid, harrowing, and ultimately hopeful re-creation of Lale Sokolov's experiences as the man who tattooed the arms of thousands of prisoners with what would become one of the most potent symbols of the Holocaust, The Tattooist of Auschwitz is also a testament to the endurance of love and humanity under the darkest possible conditions.]]> 262 Heather Morris 0062797158 Kelly 0 to-read 4.26 2018
author: Heather Morris
name: Kelly
average rating: 4.26
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/03/03
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 54304189 In this debut fantasy, a witch cursed to never love meets a girl hiding her own dangerous magic, and the two strike a dangerous bargain to save their queendom.

Tamsin is the most powerful witch of her generation. But after committing the worst magical sin, she’s exiled by the ruling Coven and cursed with the inability to love. The only way she can get those feelings back—even for just a little while—is to steal love from others.

Wren is a source—a rare kind of person who is made of magic, despite being unable to use it herself. Sources are required to train with the Coven as soon as they discover their abilities, but Wren—the only caretaker to her ailing father—has spent her life hiding her secret.

When a magical plague ravages the queendom, Wren’s father falls victim. To save him, Wren proposes a bargain: if Tamsin will help her catch the dark witch responsible for creating the plague, then Wren will give Tamsin her love for her father.

Of course, love bargains are a tricky thing, and these two have a long, perilous journey ahead of them—that is, if they don't kill each other first..]]> 368 Adrienne Tooley 1534453857 Kelly 5 lgbt, arcs 3.69 2021
author: Adrienne Tooley
name: Kelly
average rating: 3.69
book published: 2021
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2021/02/18
shelves: lgbt, arcs
review:
Tamsin and Wren are my daughters forever. I have been lucky enough to read this book in several iterations as Adrienne brought it to life. It is charming and whimsical and sparkling with romantic tension. The characters are real, endearing, flawed, and believable. If you are hoping this is the sapphic witchy book of your dreams, then good news: It is.
]]> 173666 For many of us, feelings of deficiency are right around the corner. It doesn’t take much--just hearing of someone else’s accomplishments, being criticized, getting into an argument, making a mistake at work--to make us feel that we are not okay. Beginning to understand how our lives have become ensnared in this trance of unworthiness is our first step toward reconnecting with who we really are and what it means to live fully.
--from Radical Acceptance

Radical Acceptance

“Believing that something is wrong with us is a deep and tenacious suffering,� says Tara Brach at the start of this illuminating book. This suffering emerges in crippling self-judgments and conflicts in our relationships, in addictions and perfectionism, in loneliness and overwork--all the forces that keep our lives constricted and unfulfilled. Radical Acceptance offers a path to freedom, including the day-to-day practical guidance developed over Dr. Brach’s twenty years of work with therapy clients and Buddhist students.

Writing with great warmth and clarity, Tara Brach brings her teachings alive through personal stories and case histories, fresh interpretations of Buddhist tales, and guided meditations. Step by step, she leads us to trust our innate goodness, showing how we can develop the balance of clear-sightedness and compassion that is the essence of Radical Acceptance. Radical Acceptance does not mean self-indulgence or passivity. Instead it empowers genuine change: healing fear and shame and helping to build loving, authentic relationships. When we stop being at war with ourselves, we are free to live fully every precious moment of our lives.


From the Hardcover edition.]]> 333 Tara Brach Kelly 0 audiobooks, mental-health 4.15 2000
author: Tara Brach
name: Kelly
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2000
rating: 0
read at: 2021/02/17
date added: 2021/02/17
shelves: audiobooks, mental-health
review:

]]> 12548774 272 John Townsend 0310330491 Kelly 0 mental-health, audiobooks 4.34 2011
author: John Townsend
name: Kelly
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2011
rating: 0
read at: 2021/02/16
date added: 2021/02/16
shelves: mental-health, audiobooks
review:

]]> 54860443
But then, there’s this gorgeous girl on the train.

Jane. Dazzling, charming, mysterious, impossible Jane. Jane with her rough edges and swoopy hair and soft smile, showing up in a leather jacket to save August’s day when she needed it most. August’s subway crush becomes the best part of her day, but pretty soon, she discovers there’s one big problem: Jane doesn’t just look like an old school punk rocker. She’s literally displaced in time from the 1970s, and August is going to have to use everything she tried to leave in her own past to help her. Maybe it’s time to start believing in some things, after all.

Casey McQuiston’s One Last Stop is a magical, sexy, big-hearted romance where the impossible becomes possible as August does everything in her power to save the girl lost in time.]]> 418 Casey McQuiston 1250244498 Kelly 0 to-read 3.89 2021
author: Casey McQuiston
name: Kelly
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/02/14
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 49610220 A seductive thief

Lady’s maid Molly Wilkins is done with thieving—and cheating and stabbing and all the rest of it. She’s determined to keep her hands to herself, so she really shouldn’t be tempted to seduce her employer’s prim and proper companion, Alice. But how can she resist when Alice can’t seem to keep her eyes off Molly?

Finds her own heart

For the first time in her life, Alice Stapleton has absolutely nothing to do. The only thing that seems to occupy her thoughts is a lady’s maid with a sharp tongue and a beautiful mouth. Her determination to know Molly’s secrets has her behaving in ways she never imagined as she begins to fall for the impertinent woman.

Has been stolen

When an unwelcome specter from Alice’s past shows up unexpectedly at a house party, Molly volunteers to help the only way she knows how: with a little bit of mischief.]]> 107 Cat Sebastian 0062951041 Kelly 0 to-read 3.64 2019
author: Cat Sebastian
name: Kelly
average rating: 3.64
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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date added: 2021/02/12
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 46025515
Catherine St Day looks forward to a quiet widowhood once her late husband’s scientific legacy is fulfilled. She expected to hand off the translation and wash her hands of the project—instead, she is intrigued by the young woman who turns up at her door, begging to be allowed to do the work, and she agrees to let Lucy stay. But as Catherine finds herself longing for Lucy, everything she believes about herself and her life is tested.

While Lucy spends her days interpreting the complicated French text, she spends her nights falling in love with the alluring Catherine. But sabotage and old wounds threaten to sever the threads that bind them. Can Lucy and Catherine find the strength to stay together or are they doomed to be star-crossed lovers?]]> 322 Olivia Waite 0062931792 Kelly 0 to-read 4.00 2019
author: Olivia Waite
name: Kelly
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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date added: 2021/02/12
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>