Love by the Book by Jessica George

Love by the Book by Jessica George
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Thank you to St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for providing me with an advanced copy of this book in exchange for my honest review!
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Remy is lucky. Her debut novel, based on her three best friends, became an instant bestseller when it was released, and her agent and publisher are clamoring for a follow-up. But just as Remy’s creative inspiration seems to leave her, so too do her friends: one moves to New York, one gets pregnant, and one gets back together with her (awful) boyfriend. After an ill-advised one-night stand complicates matters further, Remy is left deeply alone—and unable to find her next book idea.

Simone is successful. A Kindergarten teacher with a passion for kids, and a well-paying side hustle that affords her all the material comforts she desires, she doesn't have time for a robust social life. All Simone needs is her close-knit family—but after the true nature of her work is revealed, they cut her off, and she realizes for the first time just how isolated she is.

When Simone and Remy bump into each other (literally) in a bookstore, it isn’t exactly soulmates at first sight. Simone is guarded and prickly, Remy is insecure and heartbroken, and each woman is harboring a secret. And yet they might just be the missing piece the other has been searching for—if only they can let each other in.

Can Simone help Remy make one of the most important decisions of her life—and can Remy help Simone recover all that she’s lost? In Jessica George’s heartwarming, funny, and soulful second novel, she explores the restorative nature of female friendship and the life-changing power of platonic love.
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I missed out on Jessica George's first novel Maame (but I will certainly be remedying that!), so I was going into this novel blind. However, the description of it - exploring "the restorative nature of female friendship and the life-changing power of platonic love" - spoke so deeply to me because I have not been in a romantic relationship for many years. However, I am not someone who lives without love in her life. Those of us who live outside of romantic relationships sometimes are a forgotten demographic in popular fiction storytelling, so the thought of reading a novel not centered around this was interesting to me.

I immediately loved Remy, both her light parts and her dark parts. George writes her as such a well-rounded character, and we are able to see her for all her positive attributes, but she is never presented as perfect. In fact, throughout, I felt a low level of tension? anxiety? due to some of her actions and what their outcome might be, which is one of the elements of the book that had me grabbing every spare moment I had to read "just one more chapter." Simone, once she is introduced into the main plot and we get know her, is fascinating, in that she is so much more than she seems to be, and witnessing the way she and Remy dance around each other as they settle into their relationship is so real. The last third of the book flew by faster than I wanted it to, as I didn't want to say goodbye to these women who had come to feel like friends. However, I can say that I loved how we left those friends, and I will definitely read whatever comes next from Jessica George.

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The Name Game by Beth O'Leary

The Name Game by Beth O'Leary
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Thank you to Berkley and NetGalley for providing me with an advanced copy of this book in exchange for my honest review!
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Charlie couldn’t be happier to take the job of farm-shop manager on the remote, wild Isle of Ormer. She’s grieving, a little lost, and in desperate need of a fresh start.

Jones has come out of a difficult breakup and is looking forward to some peace away from the noise of his city life. Moving to Ormer couldn’t have come at a better time.

But when Charlie Jones and, ahem, Charlie Jones both turn up at Ormer’s one and only farm shop, claiming to have been offered the role of manager, everyone is baffled. How could this have happened? And just who is the real Charlie Jones?
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I think it was between The Switch and The Road Trip that I decided that I would be reading every book that Beth O'Leary wrote for the rest of her career and that I hoped that career would be good and long. First of all, her characters are always so enjoyable. Getting to know them through the pages of her books is always a fun time. The banter between her MMC and FMC in all of her novels have always been delightful to read. She does forced proximity so well, but it is always with a little bit of a surprising take, not in a repetitive or predictable way that makes it seem to be too trope-y. And the portions of this book that are made up of an epistolary format are woven seamlessly into the other more narrative timelines that eventually come together to bring us a twisty surprise (I did not know quite how she was going to pull everything together at the end, but I loved where we ended up!). There are some serious topics that are tackled in this one, including grief and early stages of recovery from alcoholism, and they are handled with sensitivity. I think the fact that I started and finished in one day speaks for itself!

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The Me I Used to Be by Kristan Higgins

The Me I Used to Be by Kristan Higgins
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Thank you to NetGalley and Lake Union Publishing for providing me with an advanced copy of this book in exchange for my honest review!
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Back in senior year, Audrey, Micah, Jasmine, and Beck were the Core Four: the lucky one, the beautiful one, the smart one, the sporty one. They had color-coded dreams, inside jokes, and a lifelong friendship they thought would last forever. But graduation night ended in a tragic accident, followed by the kind of silence that stretches for decades.

Now, they’ve returned for their reunion, each carrying a life that looks nothing like the glossy future they imagined. There are stalled careers, complicated marriages, outspoken adult children, and secrets that never fit into holiday cards. For one of them, a diagnosis of early-onset dementia turns the weekend into a ticking clock.

Across one unforgettable weekend, the Core Four must decide if their past can still change their future together.
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I have been a huge fan of Kristan Higgins's books since back in the Gideon's Cove and Blue Heron days, and she has long been one of my auto-buy authors. Therefore, when given the chance to read her newest novel months before its publication date, I jumped at the chance and placed my entire TBR list off to the side so I could devour it this afternoon. Higgins was once an author who gave us swoon-worthy men and strong FMCs in her series contemporary romances (always with the important canine sidekick thrown in), and they were always fun to read. However, over the last decade or so, her novels have become fuller and deeper, and while they are still romances at their core (and those canine companions are still a part of every story), they have a complexity that was not evident in those earlier stories.

The tone of Higgins' latest offering reminds me a little bit of her 2021 title PACK UP THE MOON, possibly because I recently reread it in audiobook form, in that it has as a central theme a scary medical diagnosis and revolves around its effects on a family/found family (one of my favorite tropes) group. Told through multiple timelines and multiple viewpoints, it traces the story of four friends as they experience first a tragedy in high school, then it's ramifications throughout their early adulthoods, and finally a resolution that is unlike anything they ever could have expected. This grabbed me from the first chapter, and I read it straight through in a very satisfying binge reading session, which is actually the way I read most of Higgins's books, now that I think of it. I am so thrilled that this author has a new book being launched out into the world, and I hope there will be many more where this one came from.

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Once and Again by Rebecca Serle

Once and Again by Rebecca Serle
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Thank you to Atria Books and NetGalley for providing me with an advanced copy of this book in exchange for my honest review!
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The women of the Novak family were each born with a gift: they can, just once, turn back time.

Lauren has known since she was fifteen that her mother Marcella saved Lauren’s father from a deadly car accident. Dave is alive and happy, and out on the Malibu waves. But ever since, Marcella, her power spent, has lived in fear of what she won’t be able to reverse. Her own mother, Sylvia, is her polar opposite: a free-spirited iconoclast with a glamorous past she only hints at. Lauren has spent her life between these two role models—and waiting for her own catastrophe to strike.

Then one summer, Lauren’s husband takes a job in New York and she moves back to Broad Beach Road, back into her childhood home on the shores of Malibu. Lauren looks forward to surfing with her dad again and perhaps repairing an unspoken fracture in her relationship with her mother. What she doesn’t expect is for the boy next to door to return home as well: Stone, Lauren’s first love, who broke her heart nearly a decade before.

As Lauren falls into familiar patterns, with her family and, more dangerously, Stone, she finds herself thinking about all the choices, large and small, that have brought her to this moment. And wondering, finally, if one of them should be undone.
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First of all, it's important to know that I am of the opinion that Rebecca Serle can do no wrong. I have never failed to read a book of hers that did not fully entertain me, sometimes ripping my heart out (In Five Years), other times leaving me with a feeling of just straight up satisfaction (Expiration Dates). Therefore, when I was given the opportunity to read one of my most anticipated releases of 2026, I jumped at the chance. While this new offering of Serle's did not leap to the top of my top five list of her works, it was still a solid novel with her trademark light magical realism element and the kind of characters who are easy to come to care for and an engaging storyline that kept me entertained from the first to last page. There were a few unexpected surprises thrown in that kept the plot from becoming predictable, and the HEA that I was expecting to find at the end of the book was different from the one I got. I loved that because it meant that all the assumptions I was making that I "knew where this was going" were wrong, and that is the mark of a good novel, in my opinion. Those who are already fans of Serle's will enjoy this one, and if you like authors like Ashley Poston and Kristy Greenwood, this should appeal to you as well.

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Two Kinds of Stranger by Steve Cavanagh

Two Kinds of Stranger by Steve Cavanagh
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Thank you to Atria Books via NetGalley for providing me with an advanced copy of this book in exchange for my honest review!
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One offers a helping hand. The other is your worst nightmare...

Social media influencer, Elly Parker, had the perfect life, that is until she discovered her husband had been having an affair with her best friend.

But as hurt, betrayed, unmoored as Elly is, she has made it her mission to help others in need. Even strangers.

When Elly meets a man on the steps to the subway platform, crutches in one hand and a yellow suitcase by his feet, she can’t help but feel sorry for him.

Just as he planned.

This small act of kindness sets off a change of events more terrifying than anything she ever could imagine.

To survive, Elly will need to convince the world what happened to her was real. She needs a lawyer who can bend the rules to find the truth. Eddie Flynn and his team must find the stranger with the yellow suitcase. But little do they know this cunning killer is a master manipulator and is always one step ahead.
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One thing to know about me - I am always up for an Eddie Flynn book. Therefore, when an invitation to read Steve Cavanagh's latest of Flynn's adventures as a former con man turned lawyer showed up in my mailbox, I was a quick, "Yes, please!" and downloaded that thing immediately. Just as was the case with every other book of Steve Cavanagh's I have read (a quick count tells me that is eight...does that make me a superfan?), I was thoroughly entertained. There is something about the way that this author writes that grabs me from page one and keeps me fully engaged until the very last page.

In this new offering (as usual, published first in the UK and then the following year here in the US), we get to enjoy another twisty, gripping courtroom thriller that takes place both inside of and outside of the courtroom. Flynn's usual cast of partners lend their special magic to the storyline, and the accused is someone who is easy to root for, as it is obvious from the beginning that she has been wrongfully accused. And the bad guy in this story? The level of uneasiness I felt just thinking about someone like him being out in the world was just over the top. He was a bone-chillingly cold level of evil. And because I know Cavanagh's style, as I was reaching the end of the book and it seemed like things were being tied up nicely, I knew that there were perhaps more twists to be had, and I was not disappointed.

Best of all, in the author's note, he said that we can expect more books in this series, so I know that this had not been the last I have seen of Eddie Flynn. This was an excellent way for me to spend my day, and I read the entire book in one sitting because I could not put it down!

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Saoirse by Charleen Hurtubise

Saoirse by Charleen Hurtubise
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Thank you to Celadon Books, via NetGalley, for providing me with an advanced copy of this book in exchange for my honest review!
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In Michigan, Sarah’s childhood was defined by fear and silence. As a teenager, she saw a chance to escape and took it. Now, in 1999, she is an artist living on the rugged coast of Donegal, Ireland, where she is known as Saoirse (pronounced Sear-sha)—a name that sounds like the sea and means freedom in the language of her adopted country. And free is precisely how she is finally beginning to feel. Her partner and two beloved daughters are regular subjects of her paintings, and together they have made the safe home she always longed for. But Saoirse's secrets haunt her. No one must learn of the identity she has stolen in order to survive; they cannot know of the dangers that she crossed an ocean to escape.

When her artwork wins unexpected acclaim at a Dublin exhibition, the spotlight of fame threatens to unravel the careful lies that hold her world together. Journalists and admirers begin to ask questions about the mysterious artist from Donegal, and she fears the unwanted publicity will expose all that she has done.

Saoirse is an evocative, suspenseful exploration of the intimate relationship between art and life and the lies we tell ourselves in the name of reinvention.
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Charleen Hurtubise's US debut is a stunning novel that traces the life of a memorable FMC from her adolescence through her early adult years, as she escapes a traumatic past and the fear that defined her childhood. Unfortunately, the past can't stay buried forever, and her work as a talented artist, work that has been instrumental in her movement toward healing, might be just the thing that has this past coming back to haunt her.

This book was what I would describe as compulsively readable. It was a one-sitting read for me, and I am not sure I would have been happy if I had to set it aside and come back to it later. This is one I would have stayed up late in the night to finish...but luckily I had an afternoon free, so I didn't have to do that. The pacing of the narrative was perfect, and the characters within it were so well-developed that they came alive in my mind. I found myself feeling so protective of Saoirse as she made every decision, not all of them good ones, in an attempt to protect her little world from blowing up because of her past. While not a suspense novel, there were some twists that made it suspenseful, and I would recommend this book to anyone who loves to read books set in Ireland, coming of age novels, or stories of found family and how you can build community in unexpected places.

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Where the Wildflowers Grow by Terah Shelton Harris

Where the Wildflowers Grow by Terah Shelton Harris
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Thank you to Sourcebooks Landmark and NetGalley for providing me with an advanced copy of this book in exchange for my honest review!
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Leigh is the last of the Wildes. She knows this because she watched them all die.

Grief never truly fades and even as the tragedy haunts her, Leigh carries on, because survival is in her blood. So, when the transport bus taking her to prison careens off the road, killing everyone onboard except her, she does what's in her nature. She survives.

While searching for a place to hide, Leigh stumbles upon an unexpected sanctuary: a flower farm in rural Alabama tucked away from the world. What Leigh doesn't expect is the found family there who have built something from the wreckage of their own lives. Especially Jackson, the farm's owner, who sees through Leigh's defenses, offers her small moments of tenderness, encourages her to face her own tragedies. Slowly, Leigh finds peace with the hard pace and soft nature of the farm, taking comfort in the life blooming around her. Maybe she's not beyond redemption, not too broken for something good. And maybe, just maybe, Leigh starts to heal.

But the past isn't so easily buried.

No matter how far she runs, the truth of who she is and the ghosts of the Wildes follow. And when those secrets catch up to her, threatening everything she's come to love, Leigh will have to truly face what she can survive.
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If a book is about found family, I am almost sure to love it. And that is certainly true of this newest offering from Terah Shelton Harris. I was grabbed by this beautful story immediately, as our brave, resilient FMC sets off to heal from generations of trauma and her own personal grief and tragedy. Unfortunately, she has the added wrinkle that she is on the run from the law. As Leigh's story unfolds throughout the book, she is introduced to a whole cast of characters who I could not help but fall in love with, as their stories were richly told, and they became an integral part of Leigh's journey. All of this set against the backdrop of a rural Alabama flower farm makes for a rich and layered piece of fiction that is partly a love story but mostly a story of the survival of the human spirit and what happens when you take a chance on people and let them in.

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