How You Get The Girl (Nashville Love #3)

How You Get the Girl by Anita Kelly is the third book in the Nashville Love queer romance series. 

Julie Parker coaches the girls' basketball team at Nashville High. When she is told a new girl is joining the team she is prepared to help her fit in. When that girl's aunt walks into the gym, however, she is shocked. Her all-time favorite WNBA, Elle Cochrane, is taking care of her niece. 

Elle has not been on a basketball court since she left the WNBA with an injury. She left that part of her life behind. She is not sure how she will feel even watching her niece practice. 

Anita Kelly has written a hot, queer romance series tied to characters in New Orleans. I have loved all three books, but this one is my favorite. Read it today!

Kelly, Anita. (2024). How You Get the Girl. New York: Forever Books.

The Fiancée Farce

The Fiancée Farce by Alexandria Bellefleur is a lesbian romance with an unusual start. 

Tansy Adams is tired of going to family get togethers about her step-cousin's upcoming wedding to the worst man in the world. To get out of a dinner she makes up a date. When asked with whom, Tansy says Gemma. Gemma West is a woman she has never met, but is the cover model on a book she was looking at during the call.

Months later, at the cousin's wedding, Gemma walks into the room. Of course Tansy's step-sister says something to Tansy. But Tansy never dreams that not only will Gemma go along with her lie, she will up the stakes.

Bellefleur has written a sweet, hot romance about a bookstore manager and a publishing heiress. A really fun read.

Bellefleur, Alexandria. (2023). The Fiancée Farce. New York: Avon.

Looking for a Sign

Looking for a Sign by Susie Dumond is a romance set in New Orleans.

Gray has just moved to New Orleans. She is starting over after a divorce and her best friend Cherry lives there. With all of the changes in her life, Gray is taking her Cherry advice and seeing an astrologer.

As her Saturn's Return is due - a time thought of as when we assess the next phase in our lives (every 29 years) - she is going on a date with someone of each sign to see which she may be compatible with. Her goal is to find someone who wants to start a family.

Dumond has written a fun lesbian romp through New Orleans. 

Drmond, Susie. (2024). Looking for a Sign. New York: Dial Press.

Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress

Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie is a classic novel set in the Chinese Cultural Revolution. 

Two sons of doctors have been sent to the countryside to be re-educated in this novel of Mao's China.

This is a beautiful telling of being sent to the mountains to unlearn what was seen as Western ideas. Luo and Ma play tricks on the villagers, do manual labor, live in a barn, and meet a seamstress who distracts them from the situation they find themselves in.

As a bonus, the audiobook is read by D.B. Wong.

Sijie, Dai. (2001). Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress. New York: Knopf.

Sandwich

Sandwich by Catherine Newman is a beautiful look at a hard time in life - being part of the sandwich generation between aging parents and newly adult children. 

Rocky and Nick are spending a week on Cape Cod with their adult children and Rocky's aging parents. This is a tradition of two decades, each in the same rental house. 

If you have not yet had the pleasure to read a Catherine Newman adult book (she is also a children's book author) - NOW is a good time. She writes about the parts of life that many books gloss over. You will laugh out loud and you will sob at some point. 

Sandwich is a story about love and family. It is relatable even if you don't have children, but I imagine even more impactful if you do. Go buy this book today. Once you read it a few times, you can gift it to a loved one.

Newman, Catherine. (2024). Sandwich. New York: Harper.

Margo Zimmerman Gets the Girl

Margo Zimmerman Gets the Girl by Brianna Shrum and Sara Waxelbaum is a YA queer romance and a fun read. 

Margo Zimmerman is gay, but she didn’t know until now. An overachiever at heart, Margo is determined to ace her newly discovered gayness. All she needs is the right tutor.
 
Abbie Sokoloff has her own gayness down to a science. But a flunking grade in US History is threatening her acceptance to her dream school. All she needs is the right tutor.
 
Margo agrees to help Abbie get her history grade up in exchange for “Queer 101” lessons. But as they spend more and more time together, Margo realizes she doesn’t want just any girl—she wants the girl. [fantastic fiction]

This is a great YA romance filled with humor. Read it.

Shrum, Brianna and Sara Waxelbaum (2023). Margo Zimmerman Gets the Girl. New York: Inkyard Press.

Bitch: On the Female of the Species

Bitch: On the Female of the Species by Lucy Cooke is an update to Darwin's Victorian view for biology across species.

Cooke, a well-known science writer spent two years interviewing biologists in many, many fields across the fauna of our planet. Building on some of these scientists, Cooke has created an overview of the errors of Charles Darwin - looking at the male of the species as the only factor while also ignoring any animals who did not fit his view of the sexes.

Fans of Mary Roach and Bill Bryson who love animals will adore this book. Cooke presents science for the lay reader with care and humor. 

Read this book if you live on the planet Earth.

Cooke, Lucy. (2023). Bitch: On the Female of the Species. New York; Basic Books.

The No-Girlfriend Rule

The No-Girlfriend Rule by Christen Randall is a YA coming of age novel set around a Dungeons & Dragons-like game.

Hollis is looking for a place to play S&S. Her boyfriend plays with his friends - and it is all they talk about. But the group has a no girlfriend rule. 

After trying a random game at a gaming store, Hollis is worried that there is no place for her at the game. On her way out, she sees a flyer looking for girls and queers to create a new game.

As Hollis gets to know the other player she learns more about who she wants to be. 

Randall has written a sweet coming of age YA queer, geek girl romance about learning to like yourself the way you are - and finding your group of people.

Randall, Christen. (2024). The No-Girlfriend Rule. New York: Pushkin.

Love and Other Disasters (Nashville Love #1)

 

Love and Other Disasters by Anita Kelly is the first book in their Nashville Love romance series. 

Chef's Special cooking show is filming its eighth season. Contestants come from all over the country to participate.

Dahlia Woodson has not been cooking for long. It is something she has been exploring for the last two years, since her divorce. She loves to cook. Also, the hundred thousand dollar prize would get her out of debt and give her a chance to figure out what to do next. 

London Parker has been cooking for years. Their twin, Julie, has encouraged them along the way. If they win, they are going to open an LGBTQ nonprofit in Nashville. But the first set is coming out as nonbinary to the camera.

Kelly's books are both sweet and super hot. Their characters are well written and fleshed out. She is quickly becoming one of my favorite queen authors.

Kelly, Anita. (2022). Love & Other Disasters. New York: Forever Books.

The Gods Below (Hollow Covenant #1)

The Gods Below by Andrea Stewart is the first book in her Hollow Covenant fantasy series. 

After the world was shattered, a man went down to the realm of the gods near the center of the planet. Most gods ignored him, but Kluehnn made a deal. He would restore the kingdoms to lush, plentiful lands. But he would also change the people to be better for the planet.

Harara and Rasha are sisters. They are on their own since their mother and grandmother died. Hakara dives for fish and abalone to eat and sell. Rasha is only nine. But the restoration is coming soon - a wall of darkness that will transform some people into altered. Others will disappear forever. 

In the next kingdom of Langzu the land is dying. The people hold onto their ways. The rich hording wealth and the rest just trying to survive. 

Told from different points of view, Stewart introduces us to her world. This is GREAT fantasy book. Put it on your reading list and wait impatiently with me for the next book!

Stewart, Andrea. (2024). The Gods Below. New York: Orbit.

Arsenic and Adobo (Tita Rosie's Kitchen Mystery #1)

Arsenic and Adobo by Mia P. Manansala is the first book in her Tita Rosie's Kitchen culinary cozy mystery series.

When Lila Macapagal moves back home to recover from a horrible breakup, her life seems to be following all the typical rom-com tropes. She's tasked with saving her Tita Rosie's failing restaurant, and she has to deal with a group of matchmaking aunties who shower her with love and judgment. But when a notoriously nasty food critic (who happens to be her ex-boyfriend) drops dead moments after a confrontation with Lila, her life quickly swerves from a Nora Ephron romp to an Agatha Christie case.

With the cops treating her like she's the one and only suspect, and the shady landlord looking to finally kick the Macapagal family out and resell the storefront, Lila's left with no choice but to conduct her own investigation. Armed with the nosy auntie network, her barista best bud, and her trusted Dachshund, Longanisa, Lila takes on this tasty, twisted case and soon finds her own neck on the chopping block… [fantastic fiction]

Manansala, Mia P. (2021). Arsenic and Adobo. New York: Berkeley Prime Crime.

The Future of Another Timeline

The Future of Another Timeline by Annalee Newitz is a queer, feminist, punk time travel novel. 

1992 - Beth is at a Riotgrrl concert with her friends when a decision they make creates a new path in the timeline. 

2022 - Beth is part of a group of time travelers who are hoping to make small changes in the past to ensure body autonomy for women in all timelines. 

1892 - In the White City as Chicago's World's Fair is about to open the battle for the future in on. Trends started by Comstock and his followers could take away women's rights for the whole of the future.

Newitz is a science fiction genius. They take stories to places few others would think of. Due to the current political climate in the US this is not an easy book to read right now, but maybe corrections are coming here too.

Newitz, Annalee. (2019). The Future of Another Timeline. New York: Tor.

The City in the Middle of the Night

The City in the Middle of the Night by Charlie Jane Anders

January is a dying planet - divided between a permanently frozen darkness on one side, and blazing endless sunshine on the other. Humanity clings to life, spread across two archaic cities built in the sliver of habitable dusk. 

But life inside the cities is just as dangerous as the wastelands outside. Sophie, a student and reluctant revolutionary, is supposed to be dead, after being exiled into the night. 

Saved only by forming an unusual bond with the enigmatic beasts who roam the ice, Sophie vows to stay hidden from the world, hoping she can heal. But fate has other plans - and 

Sophie's ensuing odyssey and the ragtag family she finds will change the entire world. [from fantastic fiction]

Anders is a talented writer who takes stories places other authors don't even think of. Her science fiction is amazing and will leave you thinking of the characters long after you finish reading. 

Anders, Charlie Jane. (2019). The City in the Middle of the Night. New York: Tor.

Something Wild & Wonderful (Nashville Love #2)

Something Wild & Wonderful by Anita Kelly, from her Nashville Love romance series, takes place over about a thousand miles of the Pacific Coast Trail. 

Ben is hiking the PCT for two reasons. First, his dad always took in hiking and bird watching. And second, his parents have disowned since he came out to them as gay. His goal is to use the solitude to think about what he wants to do next - likely involving moving away from southern Washington where his parents live. 

Alexi is hiking the PCT as a challenge and a celebration. He just completed nursing school and wants to do this before he dives in to work. He is also grieving a loved one he recently lost. 

Ben and Alexi meet when Ben stops a hiker from stepping on a rattlesnake. When the group meets up again at one of the popular towns along side the trail, Alexi asks Ben if he can hike with him for a while. 

Kelly has written a wonderful queer romance series set around a group of friends from Nashville. These books are sweet, hot and fun.

Kelly, Anita. (2023). Something Wild &Wonderful. New York: Forever books.

Hello Beautiful

Hello Beautiful by Ann Napolitano is centered around the four Padavano sisters in the Pilsen neighborhood of Chicago. 

William Waters grew up in a house without love. His parents barely looked at him. The only time he had any happiness was when he was playing basketball. When William earns a scholarship, he chooses a school away from his parents. He meets Julia Padavano during his freshman year.

Julia comes with her family. The four sisters are inseparable. As William become part of the Padavano circle, he has his first experiences of a loving family. The house is always full of love and chaos.

Napolitano writes characters whom you would want in your own life. Her stories will stay with you for long after you have stayed up all night to finish her books. 

Napolitano, Ann. (2023). Hello Beautiful. New York: The Dial Press.  

Lessons in Chemistry

Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus is one of the most delightful books I have read this year. 

Elizabeth Zott is a chemist. In the early 1960s there are not many women who have braved the gauntlet required to get an advanced degree. Now she works at the Hastings Research Institute. And Hastings is where she meets Calvin Evans - a man who sees her like no one else has. 

Filled with amazing characters and laugh-out-loud scenes, but also containing the realities of the time, the struggle to be taken seriously and one of the best dogs ever written. 

Read this book. I have listened to the audiobook and am now reading it - back to back. 

Garmus, Bonnie. (2022). Lessons in Chemistry. New York: Doubleday. 

Zeitoun

Zeitoun by Dave Eggers is the true story of one family's experiences in and around Hurricane Katrina.

Nola residents Kathy and Abdulrahman Zeitoun own and run a construction and painting company. They are known as good neighbors and loving parts of Syrian Muslim community. 

When the news starts talking of a storm headed toward New Orleans, Kathy decides to take the children to a relative's house farther inland. Zeitoun stays to watch the house and be available for their customers' needs. 

After weathering the storm with some leaks, water starts slowly flooding in. Zeitoun moves everything he can upstairs to keep it dry. He takes a used canoe out of the garage and ties it to the from porch. 

After the flooding, Zeitoun uses his canoe to search for people who need help. He finds one of their buildings that still have phone services and keeps in touch with Kathy. 

Then random police from all over the country arrive, volunteering to "protect the city" from looters. Zeitoun, his building tenant, an acquaintance from their mosque, and a stranger are all arrested. Having identification showing that be belongs has no effect. 

What follows is one of the failures of FEMA and law enforcement. Read this book. It is important to see what really goes on in times of chaos. 

Eggers, Dave. (2009). Zeitoun. New York: McSweeny's Books.

Patience is a Subtle Thief

Patience is a Subtle Thief by Abi Ishola-Ayodeji

Hope and circumstance define a young woman’s life in this heartbreaking tale of lost innocence, set in politically volatile 1990s Nigeria, from an exciting and fresh voice in global literature. 

For as long as she can remember, Patience Adewale, the eldest daughter of Chief Kolade Adewale, has been waiting for confirmation that she is loved, that there is a place where she truly belongs. Patience lives a sheltered life within the secure walls of the family’s mansion in Ibadan, but finds no comfort from her distant father and stepmother Modupe. Her only ally is her younger sister, yet even Margaret’s love and support cannot overcome Patience’s insecurity and uncertainty.

More than anything, Patience wants to know why her father and uncle banished her mother from their compound years ago—and whether her mother is even alive. Determined to discover the truth, Patience embarks on a desperate search to find her mother. Answers begin to surface when she moves to Lagos for university and unexpectedly reconnects with her cousin Kash.

Kash and his friend Emeka are petty thieves with an opportunity to make a big score. To pull it off they need help—and enlist Patience and Emeka’s straight-arrow brother, Chike, to become partners in their scheme. The thieves’ plan is to quit after this job. But unforeseen events lead to unexpected consequences—and demand a price from Patience that may be too steep to pay.

Suspenseful and evoking the subtleties of Nigerian life in an fresh and unexpected way, Patience Is a Subtle Thief is a heart-wrenching story of one young woman’s precarious journey to adulthood, and the risks and sacrifices it takes to follow her heart.

[from Harper Collins]

Ishola-Ayodeji, Abi. (2022). Patience is a Subtle Thief. New York: Harper Collins.

The Ends of the World: Volcanic Apocalypses, Lethal Oceans, and Our Earth's Past Mass Extinctions

The Ends of the World: Volcanic Apocalypses, Lethal Oceans, and Our Earth's Past Mass Extinctions by Peter Brannen tells the history of our planet from the End-Ordovician to the present, exploring the causes of the five mass extinctions that have occurred on Earth.

This book is a fascinating look at the life on our planet from the beginning. With each extinction event, different species developed or sometimes grew exponentially in size. From single celled organisms to life in the oceans and on land, to the dinosaurs to humans, this is a great books. Both filled with information and easy to read. 

If you live on this planet, this book is for you. 

Brannen, Peter. (2017). The Ends of the World: Volcanic Apocalypses, Lethal Oceans, and Our Earth's Past Mass Extinctions. New York: Ecco.

Behind You is the Sea

Behind You is the Sea by Susan Muaddi Darraj is an collection of connected short stories about Palestinian Americans who live in Baltimore. Darraj is a beautiful writer.

From Harper Collins:

An exciting debut novel that gives voice to the diverse residents of a Palestinian American community in Baltimore—from young activists in conflict with their traditional parents to the poor who clean for the rich—lives which intersect across divides of class, generation, and religion.

Funny and touching, Behind You Is the Sea brings us into the homes and lives of three main families—the Baladis, the Salamehs, and the Ammars—Palestinian immigrants who’ve all found a different welcome in America.

Their various fates and struggles cause their community dynamic to sizzle and sometimes explode: The wealthy Ammar family employs young Maysoon Baladi, whose own family struggles financially, to clean up after their spoiled teenagers. Meanwhile, Marcus Salameh confronts his father in an effort to protect his younger sister for “dishonoring” their name. Only a trip to Palestine, where Marcus experiences an unexpected and dramatic transformation, can bridge this seemingly unbridgeable divide between the two generations.

Behind You Is the Sea faces stereotypes about Palestinian culture head-on and, shifting perspectives to weave a complex social fabric replete with weddings, funerals, broken hearts, and devastating secrets.

Darraj, Susan Muaddi. (2024). Behind You is the Sea. New York: Harpervia.

Daughter of the Merciful Deep

Daughter of the Merciful Deep by Leslye Penelope is the author's second book that deals with a hard subject in our history beautifully. 

Jane Edwards lives in Awenasa, a Black town in the South. Awenasa is along a river that is to be dammed, which will cause the town to be underwater by winter. 

Government officials come to town and interview home owners, offering a small amount of money to relocate. Many in the town rent from the town's founder who set up the town as a haven for formerly enslaved folks and their families. 

Jane, who has not spoken since she was about ten years old,  spots a stranger - a man who looks exactly like her sister's former boyfriend who was lynched in their old town. 

Can he be the key to saving Awenasa? Or is he a ghost from the past come to collect what she owes him?

Leslye Penelope is a brilliant storyteller. She weaves magical realism into historically accurate portrayals Black American's lives in our history. If you live in the States, read her books.

Penelope, Leslye. (2024). Daughter of the Merciful Deep. New York: Redhook.

City of Laughter

 

City of Laughter by Temim Fruchter is a family saga through four generations of women.

A rich and riveting debut spanning four generations of Eastern European Jewish women bound by blood, half-hidden secrets and the fantastical visitation of a shapeshifting stranger over the course of 100 years.

City of Laughter follows a young queer woman stuck in a thicket of generational secrets back to her family's origins, where ancestral clues begin to reveal a lineage both haunted and shaped by desire.

Ropshitz, Poland, was once known as the City of Laughter. As this story opens, an 18th-century badchan, a holy jester whose job is to make wedding guests laugh, receives a visitation from a mysterious stranger - bringing the laughter the people of Ropshitz desperately need, and triggering a sequence of events that will reverberate across the coming century.

In the present day, Shiva Margolin, recovering from the heartbreak of her first big queer love and grieving the death of her beloved father, struggles to connect with her guarded mother, who spends most of her time at the local funeral home. A student of Jewish folklore, Shiva seizes an opportunity to visit Poland, hoping her family's mysteries will make more sense if she walks in the footsteps of her great-grandmother, Mira, about whom no one speaks.

What she finds will make her question not only her past and her future, but also her present. Electric and sharply intimate, City of Laughter zigzags between our universe and a tapestry of real and invented Jewish folklore, asking how far we can travel from the stories that have raised us without leaving them behind. [from fantastic fiction]

Fruchter, Temim. (2024). City of Laughter. New York: Grove Press.

A Death in Cornwall (Gabriel Allon #24)

A Death in Cornwall by Daniel Silva is the 24th book in the Gabriel Allon series - following the life of an art restorer and now-retired Mossad agent. 

Art restorer and legendary spy Gabriel Allon has slipped quietly into London to attend a reception at the Courtauld Gallery celebrating the return of a stolen self-portrait by Vincent van Gogh. But when an old friend from the Devon and Cornwall Police seeks his help with a baffling murder investigation, he finds himself pursuing a powerful and dangerous new adversary.

This is my favorite thriller/mystery/espionage series. Gabriel Allon is a great character. Daniel Silva is an amazing writer. If you like books, check out this series.

Silva, Daniel. (2024). A Death in Cornwall. New York: Harper.