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.