Sumner's bookshelf: all en-US Thu, 17 Apr 2025 07:30:31 -0700 60 Sumner's bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg <![CDATA[Way of the Warrior Kid: From Wimpy to Warrior the Navy SEAL Way (Way of the Warrior Kid, #1)]]> 33910932
When Marc's mother tells him that his Uncle Jake is coming to stay for the whole summer, Marc can't wait. Uncle Jake is a for real, super-cool Navy SEAL. And Uncle Jake has a plan.

He's going to turn Marc into a warrior.

Becoming a warrior isn't easy. It means a lot of pull ups, sit ups, pushups, squats, swimming, eating right, and studying harder than ever before! Can Marc transform himself into a warrior before school starts in the fall - and finally stand up to the King of the Jungle himself?

The Way of the Warrior Kid is a new illustrated chapter book by #1 New York Times-bestselling author and retired Navy SEAL Jocko Willink.]]>
192 Jocko Willink Sumner 0 to-read 4.46 Way of the Warrior Kid: From Wimpy to Warrior the Navy SEAL Way (Way of the Warrior Kid, #1)
author: Jocko Willink
name: Sumner
average rating: 4.46
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rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/17
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The Snowbirds 211004155 The Last Thing He Told Me meets Fleishman Is in Trouble in this page-turning story of a couple who flee winter in the Midwest for Palm Springs, where they find their relationship at a crossroads.

Kim and Grant are at a turning point. A couple for thirty years, their "separate but together" partnership is running up against the realities of late middle age: Grant’s mother has died, the college where he taught philosophy was shuttered, and their twin girls are grown and gone. Escaping the bitter cold of a Midwestern winter for the hot desert sun of Palm Springs seems as good a solution as any to the more intractable problems they face.

When they arrive at Le Desert, a quirky condo community where everyone knows everyone’s business, Kim immediately embraces the opportunity to make new friends and explore a more adventurous side of her personality. Meanwhile, Grant struggles to find his footing in this unfamiliar landscape, leaving Kim to wonder if their relationship can survive the snowbird season. But when Grant goes missing on a hike in the Palm Springs mountains, Kim is forced to consider two terrifying outcomes: either Grant is truly lost, or this time he’s really left her.

Is it ever too late to become the person we wanted to be—and is there still time to change into someone better? The exhilarating, but often confusing transitions of midlife are pitched against the promise and glamour of Palm Springs in this tender, honest story of what it takes to commit to someone for a lifetime. With compassion and humor, Clancy explores the redemptive power of finding ourselves, and of being found.]]>
304 Christina Clancy 1250284953 Sumner 0 currently-reading 3.49 2025 The Snowbirds
author: Christina Clancy
name: Sumner
average rating: 3.49
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/16
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Number the Stars 47281 137 Lois Lowry 0440227534 Sumner 0 currently-reading 4.19 1989 Number the Stars
author: Lois Lowry
name: Sumner
average rating: 4.19
book published: 1989
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/16
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The Quiet Librarian 214175092 After the murder of her best friend, a librarian’s search for answers leads back to her own dark secrets in this sweeping novel about a woman transformed by war, family, vengeance, and love, from award-winning writer Allen Eskens.

Hana Babic is a quiet, middle-aged librarian in Minnesota whoĚýwants nothing more than to be left alone. But when a detective arrives with the news that her best friend has been murdered, Hana knows that something evil has come for her, a dark remnant of the past she and her friend had shared.

Thirty years before, Hana was someone Nura Divjak, a teenager growing up in the mountains of war-torn Bosnia—until Serbian soldiers arrived to slaughter her entire family before her eyes. The events of that day thrust Nura into the war, leading her to join a band of militia fighters, where she became not only a fierce warrior but a legend—the deadly Night Mora. But a shattering final act forced Nura to flee to the United States with a bounty on her head.

Now, someone is hunting Hana, and her friend has paid the price, leaving her eight-year-old grandson in Hana’s care. To protect the child without revealing her secret, Hana must again become the Night Mora—and hope she can find the killer before the past comes for them, too.]]>
320 Allen Eskens 0316566314 Sumner 0 to-read 4.20 2025 The Quiet Librarian
author: Allen Eskens
name: Sumner
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/15
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Passion Project 203237161
If your twenties are supposed to be the best years of your life, Bennet Taylor is failing miserably . . . with a big emphasis on the miserable. Where’s that zest she keeps hearing about? She’s a temp worker in New York City with no direction, no future, and no social life. And at the painful center of this listlessness is grief over the death of her first love.

When Bennet runs into Henry Adams just hours after standing him up for a first date, she makes an alcohol-fueled confession: She’s not ready to date. In fact, it’s been years since she felt passion for something. Not even pottery, or organized sports—not anything. Rather than leaving her to ruminate, Henry jumps at the opportunity for adventure: Bennet needs to find a passion for life, and Henry will help her find it. Every Saturday, they’ll try something new in New York City. As friends, of course.

As their “passion project� continues, the pair tackle everything from carpentry to tattooing to rappelling off skyscrapers, and Bennet feels her guarded exterior ebbing away. But as secrets surface, Bennet has to decide what she wants, and if she’s truly ready to move on. With emotional resonance and sparkling banter, Passion Project is a fun, flirty, thoughtful story of finding a spark—and igniting happiness.]]>
368 London Sperry 0143138561 Sumner 3 4.05 2025 Passion Project
author: London Sperry
name: Sumner
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2025
rating: 3
read at: 2025/04/15
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The Road to Tender Hearts 218460347 A darkly comic and warm-hearted novel about an old man on a cross-country mission to reunite with his high school crush—bringing together his adult daughter, two orphaned kids, and a cat who can predict death—from the beloved author of Rabbit Cake and Unlikely Animals

At sixty-three years old, million-dollar lottery winner PJ Halliday would be the luckiest man in Pondville, Massachusetts, if it weren’t for the tragedies of his life: the sudden death of his eldest daughter and the way his marriage fell apart after that. Since then, PJ spends both his money and his time at the bar, and he probably doesn’t have much time left—he’s had three heart attacks already.

But when PJ reads an obituary of his old romantic rival, he realizes his high school sweetheart, Michelle Cobb, is finally single again. Filled with a new enthusiasm for life, PJ decides he’s going to drive across the country to the Tender Hearts Retirement Community in Arizona to win Michelle back.

Before PJ can hit the road, tragedy strikes Pondville, leaving PJ the sudden guardian of his estranged brother’s grandchildren. Anyone else would be deterred from the planned trip, but PJ figures the orphaned kids might benefit from getting out of town. PJ also figures he can ask Sophie, his adult daughter, adrift in her 20s, to come along to babysit. And there’s one more surprise addition to the roster: Pancakes, a former nursing home therapy cat with a knack of predicting death, who recently turned up outside PJ’s home.

This could be the second chance PJ has long hoped for—a second shot at love and parenting—but does he have the strength to do both those things again? It’s very possible his heart can’t take it.]]>
384 Annie Hartnett 0593873440 Sumner 0 to-read 4.42 2025 The Road to Tender Hearts
author: Annie Hartnett
name: Sumner
average rating: 4.42
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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The Correspondent 223001257
Sybil expects her world to go on as it always has. A mother, grandmother, wife, divorcée, distinguished lawyer, she has lived a full life. But when letters from someone in her past force her to examine one of the most painful periods of her life, she realizes the letter she has been writing over the years needs to be read and that she cannot move forward until she finds it in her heart to offer forgiveness.]]>
304 Virginia Evans 0593798430 Sumner 0 to-read 4.62 2025 The Correspondent
author: Virginia Evans
name: Sumner
average rating: 4.62
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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Any Trope but You 214151426 A bestselling romance author flees to Alaska to reinvent herself and write her first murder mystery, but the rugged resort proprietor soon has her fearing she’s living in a rom-com plot instead in this earnestly spectacular debut by a stunning new voice.

Beloved romance author Margot Bradley has a dark secret: she doesn’t believe in Happily Ever Afters. Not for herself, not for her readers, and not even for her characters, for whom she secretly writes alternate endings that swap weddings and babies for divorce papers and the occasional slashed tire. When her Happily Never After document is hacked and released to the public, she finds herself canceled by her readers and dropped by her publisher.

Desperate to find a way to continue supporting her chronically ill sister, Savannah, Margot decides to trade meet-cutes for murder. The fictional kind. Probably. But when Savannah books Margot a six-week stay in a remote Alaskan resort to pen her first murder mystery, Margot finds herself running from a moose and leaping into the arms of the handsome proprietor, making her fear she’s just landed in a romance novel instead.

The last thing Dr. Forrest Wakefield ever expected was to leave his dream job as a cancer researcher to become a glorified bellhop. What he’s really doing at his family’s resort is caring for his stubborn, ailing father, and his puzzle-loving mind is slowly freezing over—until Margot shows up. But Forrest doesn’t have any room in his life for another person he could lose, especially one with a checkout date.

As long snowy nights and one unlikely trope after another draw Margot and Forrest together, they’ll each have to learn to overcome their fears and set their aside assumptions before Margot leaves—or risk becoming a Happily Never After story themselves.]]>
336 Victoria Lavine 1668079275 Sumner 0 to-read 4.11 2025 Any Trope but You
author: Victoria Lavine
name: Sumner
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/14
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Playdate 54446882 It was meant to be your daughter's first sleepover. Now it's an abduction.

Lucia Blix went home from school for a playdate with her new friend Josie. Later that evening, Lucia's mother Elisa dropped her overnight things round and kissed her little girl goodnight.

That was the last time she saw her daughter.

The next morning, when Lucia's dad arrived to pick her up, the house was empty. No furniture, no family, no Lucia.

In Playdate, Alex Dahl puts a microscope on a seemingly average, seemingly happy family plunged into a life-altering situation. Who has taken their daughter, and why?]]>
373 Alex Dahl Sumner 0 to-read 4.21 2020 Playdate
author: Alex Dahl
name: Sumner
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/13
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Tilt 214151301 Set over the course of one day, a heart-racing story about a woman facing the unimaginable, determined to find safety

Annie is nine months pregnant and shopping for a crib at IKEA when a massive earthquake hits Portland, Oregon. With no way to reach her husband, no phone or money, and a city left in chaos, she realizes there’s nothing to do but walk.

Making her way across the wreckage of Portland, Annie experiences human desperation and kindness: strangers offering help, a riot at a grocery store, and an unlikely friendship with a young mother. As she walks, Annie reflects on her struggling marriage, her disappointing career, and her anxiety about having a baby. She’s determined to change her life if she can just make it home.]]>
229 Emma Pattee 1668055473 Sumner 3 3.79 2025 Tilt
author: Emma Pattee
name: Sumner
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2025
rating: 3
read at: 2025/04/06
date added: 2025/04/06
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The Heart of Winter 211025449
Abe Winter and Ruth Warneke were never meant to be together—at least if you ask Ruth. Yet their catastrophic blind date in college evolved into a seventy-year marriage and a life on a farm on Bainbridge Island with their hens and beloved Labrador, Megs. Through the years, the Winters have fallen in and out of lockstep, and from their haunting losses and guarded secrets, a dependable partnership has been forged.

But when Ruth’s loose tooth turns out to be something much more malicious, the beautiful, reliable life they’ve created together comes to a crisis. As Ruth struggles with her crumbling independence, Abe must learn how to take care of her while their three living children question his ability to look after his wife. And once again, the couple has to reconfigure how to be there for each other.

In this bighearted and profound portrait of a marriage, Jonathan Evison explores seventy years of big moments in subtle ways, elegantly braiding the Winters� turbulent history with their present-day battles, showing us how the oddly paired college kids became parents, fell apart and back together, andgrew into the Abe and Ruth of today. Endlessly heartwarming and moving, The Heart of Winter is a reminder that true love lives in small, everyday moments.]]>
368 Jonathan Evison 059347354X Sumner 0 to-read 4.11 2025 The Heart of Winter
author: Jonathan Evison
name: Sumner
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/06
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Carnegie's Maid 34931300 From the author of The Other Einstein, the mesmerizing tale of what kind of woman could have inspired an American dynasty.

Clara Kelley is not who they think she is. She's not the experienced Irish maid who was hired to work in one of Pittsburgh's grandest households. She's a poor farmer's daughter with nowhere to go and nothing in her pockets. But the other woman with the same name has vanished, and pretending to be her just might get Clara some money to send back home.

If she can keep up the ruse, that is. Serving as a lady's maid in the household of Andrew Carnegie requires skills he doesn't have, answering to an icy mistress who rules her sons and her domain with an iron fist. What Clara does have is a resolve as strong as the steel Pittsburgh is becoming famous for, coupled with an uncanny understanding of business, and Andrew begins to rely on her. But Clara can't let her guard down, not even when Andrew becomes something more than an employer. Revealing her past might ruin her future -- and her family's.

With captivating insight and heart, Carnegie's Maid tells the story of one brilliant woman who may have spurred Andrew Carnegie's transformation from ruthless industrialist into the world's first true philanthropist..

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283 Marie Benedict 149264661X Sumner 4 3.83 2018 Carnegie's Maid
author: Marie Benedict
name: Sumner
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2018
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/31
date added: 2025/03/31
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<![CDATA[Even After Everything: The Spiritual Practice of Knowing the Risks and Loving Anyway]]> 205436012
Exquisitely told and urgently resonant, Even After Everything is a love letter to anyone who has opened their heart only to be hurt. Stephanie Duncan Smith proposes that it’s not through grit or forced resilience that you will find a way forward, but through receiving the full spectrum of our lives, just as we receive the empathy of God-with-us in every moment.

Duncan Smith’s disorientation began when she lost her first pregnancy on the winter solstice, just as the world readied to celebrate its most historic birth on Christmas. Then a new yet uncertain pregnancy unfolded parallel to the pandemic, until nearly one year to the day of her loss, she gave birth to her daughter at the peak of mortality in their city. These contradictions compelled Duncan Smith into a desperate search for steadiness, which she found in the liturgical year as a grounding force and the promise that we are seen by God in every season.

In Even After Everything, Duncan Smith traverses the church’s circle of time and reorients herself and us in the sacred story told through Advent, Epiphany, Lent, Holy Week, and Ordinary Time. She reveals the sacred year—through its endless interplay of love, loss, risk, and resurrection—as a mirror to the human experience, an anchor for turbulent times, and a womb strong enough to encompass every human care. At its heart lives the promise of God-with-us, inviting us into the spiritual practice of taking courage in the trust that we are accompanied in everything, and love will always have the last word.]]>
224 Stephanie Duncan Smith 0593727754 Sumner 0 to-read 4.33 Even After Everything: The Spiritual Practice of Knowing the Risks and Loving Anyway
author: Stephanie Duncan Smith
name: Sumner
average rating: 4.33
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date added: 2025/03/29
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Sandwich 200028726 From the beloved author of We All Want Impossible Things, a moving, hilarious story of a family summer vacation full of secrets, lunch, and learning to let go.

For the past two decades, Rocky has looked forward to her family’s yearly escape to Cape Cod. Their humble beach-town rental has been the site of sweet memories, sunny days, great meals, and messes of all kinds: emotional, marital, and—thanks to the cottage’s ancient plumbing—septic too.

This year’s vacation, with Rocky sandwiched between her half-grown kids and fully aging parents, promises to be just as delightful as summers past—except, perhaps, for Rocky’s hormonal bouts of rage and melancholy. (Hello, menopause!) Her body is changing—her life is, too. And then a chain of events sends Rocky into the past, reliving both the tenderness and sorrow of a handful of long-ago summers.

It's one precious week: everything is in balance; everything is in flux. And when Rocky comes face to face with her family’s history and future, she is forced to accept that she can no longer hide her secrets from the people she loves.]]>
240 Catherine Newman 0063345161 Sumner 4 3.55 2024 Sandwich
author: Catherine Newman
name: Sumner
average rating: 3.55
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/29
date added: 2025/03/29
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<![CDATA[Be Ready When the Luck Happens]]> 209192698 In her long-awaited memoir, Ina Garten—aka the Barefoot Contessa, author of thirteen bestselling cookbooks, beloved Food Network personality, Instagram sensation, and cultural icon—shares her personal story with readers hungry for a seat at her table.Ěý

Here, for the first time, Ina Garten presents an intimate, entertaining, and inspiring account of her remarkable journey. Ina’s gift is to make everything look easy, yet all her accomplishments have been the result of hard work, audacious choices, and exquisite attention to detail. In her unmistakable voice (no one tells a story like Ina), she brings her past and her process to life in a high-spirited and no-holds-barred memoir that chronicles decades of personal challenges, adventures (and misadventures) and unexpected career twists, all delivered with her signature combination of playfulness and purpose.

From a difficult childhood to meeting the love of her life, Jeffrey, and marrying him while still in college, from a boring bureaucratic job in Washington, D.C., to answering an ad for a specialty food store in the Hamptons, from the owner of one Barefoot Contessa shop to author of bestselling cookbooks and celebrated television host, Ina has blazed her own trail and, in the meantime, taught millions of people how to cook and entertain. Now, she invites them to come closer to experience her story in vivid detail and to share the important life lessons she learned along the way: do what you love because if you love it you’ll be really good at it, swing for the fences, and always Be Ready When the Luck Happens.]]>
320 Ina Garten 0593799895 Sumner 0 4.25 2024 Be Ready When the Luck Happens
author: Ina Garten
name: Sumner
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at: 2025/03/26
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<![CDATA[Eat to Beat Disease: The New Science of How Your Body Can Heal Itself]]> 40697523
Forget everything you think you know about your body and food, and discover the new science of how the body heals itself. Learn how to identify the strategies and the dosages for using food to transform your resilience and health in EAT TO BEAT DISEASE.

We have radically underestimated our body's power to transform and restore our health. Pioneering physician scientist, Dr. William Li, empowers readers by showing them the evidence behind over 200 health-boosting foods that can starve cancer, reduce your risk of dementia, and beat dozens of avoidable diseases. EAT TO BEAT DISEASE isn't about what foods to avoid, but rather is a life-changing guide to the hundreds of healing foods to add to your meals that support the body's defense systems, including:


Plums
Cinnamon
Jasmine tea
Red wine and beer
Black Beans
San Marzano tomatoes
Olive oil
Pacific oysters
Cheeses like Jarlsberg, Camembert and cheddar
Sourdough bread

The book's plan shows you how to integrate the foods you already love into any diet or health plan to activate your body's health defense systems-Angiogenesis, Regeneration, Microbiome, DNA Protection, and Immunity-to fight cancer, diabetes, cardiovascular, neurodegenerative, and autoimmune diseases, and other debilitating conditions.

Both informative and practical, EAT TO BEAT DISEASE explains the science of healing and prevention, the strategies for using food to actively transform health, and points the science of well-being and disease prevention in an exhilarating new direction.
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496 William W. Li 1538714620 Sumner 0 to-read 3.97 2019 Eat to Beat Disease: The New Science of How Your Body Can Heal Itself
author: William W. Li
name: Sumner
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/21
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Broken Country 214151202 “The farmer is dead. He is dead, and all anyone wants to know is who killed him.�

Beth and her gentle, kind husband Frank are happily married, but their relationship relies on the past staying buried. But when Beth’s brother-in-law shoots a dog going after their sheep, Beth doesn’t realize that the gunshot will alter the course of their lives. For the dog belonged to none other than Gabriel Wolfe, the man Beth loved as a teenager—the man who broke her heart years ago. Gabriel has returned to the village with his young son Leo, a boy who reminds Beth very much of her own son, who died in a tragic accident.

As Beth is pulled back into Gabriel’s life, tensions around the village rise and dangerous secrets and jealousies from the past resurface, this time with deadly consequences. Beth is forced to make a choice between the woman she once was, and the woman she has become.

A sweeping love story with the pace and twists of a thriller, Broken Country is a novel of simmering passion, impossible choices, and explosive consequences that toggles between the past and present to explore the far-reaching legacy of first love.]]>
320 Clare Leslie Hall 166807818X Sumner 5 4.43 2025 Broken Country
author: Clare Leslie Hall
name: Sumner
average rating: 4.43
book published: 2025
rating: 5
read at: 2025/03/21
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Saltwater 215362444 336 Katy Hays 0593875559 Sumner 0 to-read 3.65 2025 Saltwater
author: Katy Hays
name: Sumner
average rating: 3.65
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/20
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The Tortoise's Tale: A Novel 224004860 A century of American history unfolds through the eyes of a giant tortoise with a heightened awareness for live music, the location of edible flowers, and the nuances of human behavior in this spellbinding debut novel.

Snatched from her ancestral lands, a giant tortoise finds herself in an exclusive estate in southern California where she becomes an astute observer of societal change. Her journey is one of discovery, as she learns to embrace the music of jazz and the warmth of human connection.

The tortoise’s story is enriched by her bond with Takeo, the estate’s gardener, who sees her as a being with thoughts and feelings, not just a creature to be observed. The tortoise’s mind and heart are further expanded by Lucy, a young girl who names the tortoise Magic and shares a friendship that transcends species. Together, they witness the estate’s transformation into a haven for industry titans, politicians, and rock stars, each leaving their mark on the world and on Magic’s heart.

The tortoise embraces her role as a muse with gusto and witnesses how diverse human harmonies and the mighty winds of social change both uplift people and tear them apart. Over the course of her lifetime, the estate changes ownership, bringing raucous Hollywood parties, and animals both familiar and unexpected. There are also threats, as the estate’s idyll is not immune to the ravages of a damaged planet. Through each era, the tortoise remains a refreshingly honest, humble, and endearing narrator whose unique vantage point illuminates the transcendent power of compassion, the unexpected connections that shape how we see ourselves and each other, and the wide-reaching effects of choice�or the lack thereof.

The Tortoise’s Tale is a whimsical yet profound exploration of humanity’s entangled journey, a call to recognize the interconnectedness of all life, and the potential for healing. Kendra Coulter’s debut novel is a moving portrait of resilience and hope, perfect for fans of Shelby Van Pelt’s Remarkably Bright Creatures.]]>
256 Kendra Coulter 1668068621 Sumner 0 to-read 5.00 The Tortoise's Tale: A Novel
author: Kendra Coulter
name: Sumner
average rating: 5.00
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Summer Fridays 198137999
Summer 1999: Twentysomething Sawyer is striving to make it in New York. Between her assistant job in publishing, her secret dreams of becoming a writer, and her upcoming wedding to her college boyfriend, her is plate full. Only one problem: She is facing an incredibly lonely summer as her fiancé has been spending longer and longer hours at work . . . with an all-too-close female colleague, Kendra.

When Kendra’s boyfriend, Nick, invites Sawyer to meet up and compare notes about their suspicions, the meeting goes awry. She finds Nick cocky and cynical, and he finds her stuck in her own head. But then Nick seeks out Sawyer online to apologize, and a friendship develops.

Soon, Sawyer’s lonely summer takes an unexpected turn. She and Nick begin an unofficial ritual—exploring New York City together every summer Friday. From hot dogs on the Staten Island Ferry and Sea Breezes in a muggy East Village bar to swimming at Coney Island, Sawyer feels seen by Nick in a way that surprises her. He pushes her to be braver. To ask for what she wants. Meanwhile, Sawyer draws Nick out of his hard shell, revealing a surprisingly vulnerable side. They both begin living for their Friday afternoons together.

But what happens when the summer is over?]]>
432 Suzanne Rindell 0593473914 Sumner 4 3.94 2024 Summer Fridays
author: Suzanne Rindell
name: Sumner
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/18
date added: 2025/03/18
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One Good Thing 214268979 From the New York Times�bestselling author of We Were the Lucky Ones, an unforgettable story of hardship and hope, courage and resilience, that follows one young woman’s journey through war-torn Italy

1940, Emilia Romagna. Lili and Esti have been best friends since meeting at the University of Ferrara; when Esti’s son Theo is born, they become as close as sisters. There is a war being fought across borders, and in Italy, Mussolini’s Racial Laws have deemed Lili and Esti descendants of an â€inferiorâ€� Jewish race, but life somehow goes on—until Germany invades northern Italy, and the friends find themselves in occupied territory

Esti, older and fiercely self-assured, convinces Lili to flee first to a villa in the countryside to help hide a group of young war orphans, then to a convent in Florence, where they pose as nuns and forge false identification papers for the Underground. When disaster strikes at the convent, a critically wounded Esti asks Lili to take a much bigger step: To go on the run with Theo. Protect him while Esti can’t.

Terrified to travel on her own, Lili sets out on an epic journey south toward Allied territory, through Nazi-occupied villages and bombed-out cities, doing everything she can to keep Theo safe.

A remarkable tale of friendship, motherhood, and survival,One Good Thing is a tender reminder that love for another person, even amidst darkness and uncertainty, can be reason to keep going.]]>
432 Georgia Hunter 1984880934 Sumner 0 to-read 4.27 2025 One Good Thing
author: Georgia Hunter
name: Sumner
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/16
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<![CDATA[How to Lose a Lord in Ten Days]]> 202942192 From the Sunday Times bestselling author of A Lady’s Guide to Fortune-Hunting comes a delicious new Regency romance�

Rich, handsome, and titled Lord Ashford, has every lady in England longing for his hand in marriage.

Everyone, that is, except Miss Lydia Hanworth � the only young woman Ashford wishes to marry.

Pressured into accepting Ashford’s proposal, Lydia has just ten days to free herself from her obligations before the engagement is publicly announced� what can go wrong?]]>
384 Sophie Irwin 0008696748 Sumner 0 to-read 4.43 2025 How to Lose a Lord in Ten Days
author: Sophie Irwin
name: Sumner
average rating: 4.43
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/14
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What Happens in Amsterdam 217245608 Falling in love with your husband is anything but convenient in this steamy romance from the New York Times bestselling author of Business or Pleasure.

Dani Dorfman has somehow made it to her thirties without knowing what she wants to do with her life. So when an office romance ends poorly and gets her fired, she applies for a job in Amsterdam, idly dreaming of escaping the mess she’s created, but never imagining she'll actually get it.

Except she does. By the end of her first week in Amsterdam, she’s never felt more adrift or alone. Then she crashes her bike into her high school ex-boyfriend—and suddenly life is blooming with new opportunities.

Wouter van Leeuwen was a Dutch exchange student Dani’s family hosted, a forbidden love that ended in a painful breakup. Years later, there’s still sizzling chemistry between them, and okay, maybe a little animosity. More importantly, Wouter needs to be married to inherit a gorgeous family home on a canal—and when Dani's job falls apart, she needs a visa.ĚýAs the marriage of convenience pushes them together in unexpected ways, Dani must decide whether her new life is yet another mistake—or if it's worth taking a risk on a second chance.]]>
384 Rachel Lynn Solomon 0593548558 Sumner 0 to-read 4.10 2025 What Happens in Amsterdam
author: Rachel Lynn Solomon
name: Sumner
average rating: 4.10
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Wild Side (Rose Hill, #3) 217271595
But when my nephew’s guardianship is contested, I decide I’ll do whatever it takes to keep him in Rose Hill. Even if it means marrying the enemy.

Rhys Dupris.

A man who is secretive, broody, and completely infuriating. A man whose work takes him away for weeks on end and brings him back covered in mysterious bruises—ones he won’t talk about. In fact, we barely talk at all.

Which would be fine, except when he’s not talking, he’s staring. And the way he looks at me is borderline indecent.

The tension between us has always been palpable. But living under the same roof is a dangerous temptation.

I swore I would never forgive him. But that was before I knew the man behind the mask. The one who’s fierce and protective. The one who’s gentle and patient. The one who shows up for us when we need him most.

He’s not at all who I thought he was.

And that makes hating my husband so much harder� and loving him just a little too easy.]]>
464 Elsie Silver 1464237522 Sumner 0 to-read 4.16 2025 Wild Side (Rose Hill, #3)
author: Elsie Silver
name: Sumner
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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Summer in the City 216406487 From #1ĚýNew York TimesĚýbestselling author Alex Aster comes her adult debut novelĚýSummer in the City—a swoony, fast-paced rom-com set in New York City in which a screenwriter and a sexy tech CEO go from lovers to enemies and back to lovers againâ€�

Twenty-seven-year-old screenwriter Elle has the chance of a lifetime to write a big-budget movie set in New York City. The only problem? She’s had writer’s block for months, and her screenplay is due at the end of the summer.Ěý

In a desperate attempt at inspiration, Elle ends up back in the city she swore she would never return to, in an apartment she could never afford (floor-to-ceiling windows, skyline views, and a new coffee shop to haunt included). It’s the perfect place to write her screenplay…until she realizes her new neighbor is tech “Billionaire Bachelorâ€� Parker Warren, her stairwell hookup from two years ago. It’s been a lovers-to-enemies situation ever since.Ěý

When seeing him again turns into a full night of hate-fueled writing, Elle realizes her enemy/twisted muse might just be the key to finishing her screenplay... if she can stand being around her polar opposite. She writes anonymously, and he’s on the cover of every business magazine. He frequents fancy red carpeted events, and she doesn’t like leaving her emotional support five block radius.Ěý

One summer. One wall apart. He needs to fake a buzzy relationship during his company’s precarious acquisition. She needs to write a movie around a list of NYC locations. Both need a break from their unrelenting schedules, and a chance to rediscover the skyscraper glimmering, pizza crusted, sunlit charms of the city.ĚýĚý

Summers always end, and so will this agreement. It’s all pretend. Promise.Ěý

Until it isn’t.]]>
300 Alex Aster 0063411687 Sumner 0 to-read 3.93 2025 Summer in the City
author: Alex Aster
name: Sumner
average rating: 3.93
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The Queens of Crime 211003830 The Mystery of Mrs. Christie returns with a thrilling story of Christie’s legendary rival Dorothy Sayers, the race to solve a murder, and the power of friendship among women.

London, 1930. The five greatest women crime writers have banded together to form a secret society with a single goal: to show they are no longer willing to be treated as second-class citizens by their male counterparts in the legendary Detection Club. Led by the formidable Dorothy L. Sayers, the group includes Agatha Christie, Ngaio Marsh, Margery Allingham and Baroness Emma Orczy. They call themselves the Queens of Crime. Their plan? Solve an actual murder, that of a young woman found strangled in a park in France who may have connections leading to the highest levels of the British establishment.

May Daniels, a young English nurse on an excursion to France with her friend, seemed to vanish into thin air as they prepared to board a ferry home. Months later, her body is found in the nearby woods. The murder has all the hallmarks of a locked room mystery for which these authors are famous: how did her killer manage to sneak her body out of a crowded train station without anyone noticing? If, as the police believe, the cause of death is manual strangulation, why is there is an extraordinary amount of blood at the crime scene? What is the meaning of a heartbreaking secret letter seeming to implicate an unnamed paramour? Determined to solve the highly publicized murder, the Queens of Crime embark on their own investigation, discovering they’re stronger together. But soon the killer targets Dorothy Sayers herself, threatening to expose a dark secret in her past that she would do anything to keep hidden.

Inspired by a true story in Sayers� own life, New York Times bestselling author Marie Benedict brings to life the lengths to which five talented women writers will go to be taken seriously in the male-dominated world of letters as they unpuzzle a mystery torn from the pages of their own novels.]]>
310 Marie Benedict 1250280753 Sumner 5 3.83 2025 The Queens of Crime
author: Marie Benedict
name: Sumner
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2025
rating: 5
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Her Hidden Genius 58108269 From the New York Times bestselling author of The Mystery of Mrs. Christie and co-author of The Personal Librarian.

Rosalind Franklin has always been an outsider―brilliant, but different. Whether working at the laboratory she adored in Paris or toiling at a university in London, she feels closest to the science, those unchanging laws of physics and chemistry that guide her experiments. When she is assigned to work on DNA, she believes she can unearth its secrets.

Rosalind knows if she just takes one more X-ray picture―one more after thousands―she can unlock the building blocks of life. Never again will she have to listen to her colleagues complain about her, especially Maurice Wilkins who'd rather conspire about genetics with James Watson and Francis Crick than work alongside her.

Then it finally happens―the double helix structure of DNA reveals itself to her with perfect clarity. But what unfolds next, Rosalind could have never predicted.

Marie Benedict's powerful new novel shines a light on a woman who sacrificed her life to discover the nature of our very DNA, a woman whose world-changing contributions were hidden by the men around her but whose relentless drive advanced our understanding of humankind.]]>
284 Marie Benedict 1728229391 Sumner 0 to-read 3.84 2022 Her Hidden Genius
author: Marie Benedict
name: Sumner
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2022
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Lady Clementine 45007887 From Marie Benedict, the New York Times bestselling author of The Only Woman in the Room, comes an incredible novel that focuses on one of the people who had the most influence during World War I and World War II: Clementine Churchill.

In 1909, Clementine Churchill steps off a train with her new husband, Winston. An angry woman emerges from the crowd to attack, shoving him in the direction of an oncoming train. Just before he stumbles, Clementine grabs him by his suit jacket. This will not be the last time Clementine Churchill saves her husband.

Lady Clementine is the ferocious story of the brilliant and ambitious woman beside Winston Churchill, the story of a partner who did not flinch through the sweeping darkness of war, and who would not surrender either to expectations or to enemies.]]>
322 Marie Benedict 1492666904 Sumner 0 to-read 3.69 2020 Lady Clementine
author: Marie Benedict
name: Sumner
average rating: 3.69
book published: 2020
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The First Ladies 63024287
The daughter of formerly enslaved parents, Mary McLeod Bethune refuses to back down as white supremacists attempt to thwart her work. She marches on as an activist and an educator, and as her reputation grows she becomes a celebrity, revered by titans of business and recognized by U.S. Presidents. Eleanor Roosevelt herself is awestruck and eager to make her acquaintance. Initially drawn together because of their shared belief in women’s rights and the power of education, Mary and Eleanor become fast friends confiding their secrets, hopes and dreams—and holding each other’s hands through tragedy and triumph.
Ěý
When Franklin Delano Roosevelt is elected president, the two women begin to collaborate more closely, particularly as Eleanor moves toward her own agenda separate from FDR, a consequence of the devastating discovery of her husband’s secret love affair. Eleanor becomes a controversial First Lady for her outspokenness, particularly onĚýcivil rights. And when she receives threats because of her strong ties to Mary, it only fuels the women’s desire to fight together for justice and equality.
Ěý
ThisĚýis the story of two different, yet equally formidable, passionate, and committed women, and the way in whichĚýtheir singular friendshipĚýhelped form the foundation for the modern civil rights movement.]]>
389 Marie Benedict 0593440285 Sumner 0 to-read 3.96 2023 The First Ladies
author: Marie Benedict
name: Sumner
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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The Other Einstein 28389305 A vivid and mesmerizing novel about the extraordinary woman who married and worked with one of the greatest scientists in history, written by New York Times bestselling author Marie Benedict!

In the tradition of The Paris Wife and Mrs. Poe, The Other Einstein offers us a window into a brilliant, fascinating woman whose light was lost in Einstein's enormous shadow. It is the story of Einstein's wife, a brilliant physicist in her own right, whose contribution to the special theory of relativity is hotly debated and may have been inspired by her own profound and very personal insight.

Mitza Maric has always been a little different from other girls. Most twenty-year-olds are wives by now, not studying physics at an elite Zurich university with only male students trying to outdo her clever calculations. But Mitza is smart enough to know that, for her, math is an easier path than marriage. And then fellow student Albert Einstein takes an interest in her, and the world turns sideways. Theirs becomes a partnership of the mind and of the heart, but there might not be room for more than one genius in a marriage.]]>
304 Marie Benedict 1492637254 Sumner 0 to-read 3.80 2016 The Other Einstein
author: Marie Benedict
name: Sumner
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2016
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The Only Woman in the Room 39971465
But she kept a secret more shocking than her heritage or her marriage: she was a scientist. And she had an idea that might help the country fight the Nazis and revolutionize modern communication...if anyone would listen to her.

A novel based on the true story of the glamour icon and scientist whose groundbreaking invention revolutionized modern communication.]]>
312 Marie Benedict 1492666866 Sumner 0 to-read 3.75 2019 The Only Woman in the Room
author: Marie Benedict
name: Sumner
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2019
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Open When... 219644499 Feeling overwhelmed? Open when� stress takes over.
Facing self-doubt? Open when� imposter syndrome strikes.
Lost your direction? Open when� you need fresh motivation.

This is the book for life's twists and turns, when being human starts to get complicated.

A must-have companion to Dr Julie's international bestseller Why Has Nobody Told Me This Before?, which taught us the skills to strengthen our future mental health, Open When... is the book to turn to when you find yourself in the eye of the storm.

Within this book are a series of Open When style letters from Dr Julie to help navigate the moments of overwhelm, confusion or self-doubt that we all face when life gets messy.

Offering calm, clarity and a laser focus on the best way forward, each personal letter is followed by real-time tools that will help you re-frame the situation and decide on your next move.

Every chapter covers a new scenario; universal problems that each of us will likely face at some point. So, whether you’re experiencing:

� Stress
� Pressure to perform
� Dealing with difficult people
� Trying to fit in
� Making big decisions
� Arguments with your partner
� Big emotions causing anxiety

Open When... brings the words you need to hear to get back on the front foot, feeling ready to take on everything life throws your way.]]>
380 Julie Smith 0241664047 Sumner 0 to-read 4.02 2024 Open When...
author: Julie Smith
name: Sumner
average rating: 4.02
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Time of the Child 201608156
Doctor Jack Troy was born and raised in Faha, but his responsibilities for the sick and his care for the dying mean he has always been set apart from the town. His eldest daughter, Ronnie, has grown up in her father's shadow, and remains there, having missed one chance at love � and passed up another offer of marriage from an unsuitable man.

But in the Advent season of 1962, as the town readies itself for Christmas, Ronnie and Doctor Troy's lives are turned upside down when a baby is left in their care. As the winter passes, father and daughter's lives, the understanding of their family, and their role in their community are changed forever.

Set over the course of one December in the same village as Williams' beloved This Is Happiness, Time of the Child is a tender return to Faha for readers who know its charms, and a heartwarming welcome to new readers entering for the very first time.]]>
304 Niall Williams 1639734201 Sumner 0 to-read 4.16 2024 Time of the Child
author: Niall Williams
name: Sumner
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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The Sunflower House 203579150 Family secrets come to light as a young woman fights to save herself, and others, in a Nazi-run baby factory—a real-life Handmaid's Tale—during World War II.

In a sleepy German village, Allina Strauss’s life seems idyllic: she works at her uncle’s bookshop, makes strudel with her aunt, and spends weekends with her friends and fiancé. But it's 1939, Adolf Hitler is Chancellor, and Allina’s family hides a terrifying secret—her birth mother was Jewish, making her a Mischling.

One fateful night after losing everyone she loves, Allina is forced into service as a nurse at a state-run baby factory called Hochland Home. There, she becomes both witness and participant to the horrors of Heinrich Himmler’s ruthless eugenics program.

The Sunflower House is a meticulously-researched debut historical novel that uncovers the notorious Lebensborn Program of Nazi Germany. Women of “pure� blood stayed in Lebensborn homes for the sole purpose of perpetuating the Aryan population, giving birth to thousands of babies who were adopted out to “good� Nazi families. Allina must keep her Jewish identity a secret in order to survive, but when she discovers the neglect occurring within the home, she’s determined not only to save herself, but also the children in her care.

A tale of one woman’s determination to resist and survive, The Sunflower House is also a love story. When Allina meets Karl, a high-ranking SS officer with secrets of his own, the two must decide how much they are willing to share with each other—and how much they can stand to risk as they join forces to save as many children as they can. The threads of this poignant and heartrending novel weave a tale of loss and love, friendship and betrayal, and the secrets we bury in order to save ourselves.]]>
336 Adriana Allegri 1250326524 Sumner 0 to-read 4.37 2024 The Sunflower House
author: Adriana Allegri
name: Sumner
average rating: 4.37
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The Perfect Rom-Com 216052747 She's written dozens of smash hit novels as a ghostwriter. Too bad no one knows it.

Aspiring author Bryony Page attends her first writers conference bursting with optimism and ready to sell her manuscript with long-shot dreams of raising awareness for The Bridge, her grandmother's financially-struggling organization where she teaches ESL full-time. But after a disastrous pitching session, she stumbles into correcting another author's work in a last-ditch attempt to make a good impression with the agent. And she, as it turns out, is spot on.

No one is more surprised than Bryony when the agent offers her the opportunity to be a ghostwriter for Amelia Benedict, popular rom-com novelist. Bryony agrees on one she'll write books for this vain, demanding woman just as long as Jack Sterling, literary agent of the legendary Foundry Literary Agency, works to sell her own book too.

What nobody predicted, however, was that Bryony's books would turn Amelia Benedict into the Amelia Benedict, household name and bestselling author with millions of copies sold around the world.

And just like that, the Foundry Agency can't let her go.

But on a personal note, Jack is realizing he can't either.]]>
304 Melissa Ferguson 0840716885 Sumner 0 to-read 3.73 2025 The Perfect Rom-Com
author: Melissa Ferguson
name: Sumner
average rating: 3.73
book published: 2025
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<![CDATA[Is She Really Going Out with Him?]]> 208894884
Columnist Anna Appleby has left her love life behind after a painful divorce. Who needs a man when she has two kids, a cat, and uncontested control of the TV remote? Besides, she’d rather be single than subject herself to the hell of online dating. But her office rival is vying for her column, and no column means no stable source of income. In a desperate attempt to keep her job, Anna finds herself pitching a unique angle: seven dates, all found offline, chosen by her children.

From awkward encounters to unexpected connections, Anna gamely begins to put herself out there, asking out waiters, the mailman, and even her celebrity crush. But when a romantic connection appears where she least expected it, will she be brave enough to take another chance on love?]]>
368 Sophie Cousens 0593718909 Sumner 0 to-read 4.11 2024 Is She Really Going Out with Him?
author: Sophie Cousens
name: Sumner
average rating: 4.11
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We Rip the World Apart 203751775
When 24-year-old Kareela discovers she's pregnant with a child she isn't sure she wants, her struggle to understand her place in the world as a person who is half-Black, half-white—yet feels neither—is amplified.

Her mother, Evelyn, fled to Canada with her husband and their first-born child during the politically charged Jamaican exodus in the 1980s, only to realize they'd come to a place where Black men are viewed with suspicion—a constant and pernicious reality Evelyn watches her husband and son navigate daily.

Years later, in the aftermath of her son's murder by the police, Evelyn's mother-in-law, Violet, moves in, offering young Kareela a link to the Jamaican heritage she had never fully known. Despite Violet's efforts to help them through their grief, the traumas they carry grow into a web of secrets that threatens the very family they all hold so dear.

In the present day, Kareela, prompted by fear and uncertainty about the new life she carries, must come to terms with the mysteries surrounding her family's past and the need to make sense of both her identity and her future.

Weaving the women's stories across multiple timelines, We Rip the World Apart reveals the ways that simple choices, made in the heat of the moment and with the best of intentions, can have deep and lasting repercussions—especially when people stay silent.]]>
464 Charlene Carr 1728270448 Sumner 0 to-read 4.11 2025 We Rip the World Apart
author: Charlene Carr
name: Sumner
average rating: 4.11
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Wild Dark Shore 211004089
Dominic Salt and his three children are caretakers of Shearwater, a tiny island not far from Antarctica. Home to the world’s largest seed bank, Shearwater was once full of researchers. But with sea levels rising, the Salts are now its final inhabitants, packing up the seeds before they are transported to safer ground. Despite the wild beauty of life here, isolation has taken its toll on the Salts. Raff, eighteen and suffering his first heartbreak, can only find relief at his punching bag; Fen, seventeen, has started spending her nights on the beach among the seals; nine-year-old Orly, obsessed with botany, fears the loss of his beloved natural world; and Dominic can’t stop turning back toward the past, and the loss that drove the family to Shearwater in the first place.

Then, during the worst storm the island has ever seen, a woman washes up on shore. As the Salts nurse the woman, Rowan, back to life, their suspicion gives way to affection, and they finally begin to feel like a family again. Rowan, long accustomed to protecting her heart, begins to fall for the Salts, too. But Rowan isn’t telling the whole truth about why she set out for Shearwater. And when she discovers the sabotaged radios and a freshly dug grave, she realizes Dominic is keeping his own dark secrets. As the storms on Shearwater gather force, the characters must decide if they can trust each other enough to protect the precious seeds in their care before it’s too late—and if they can finally put the tragedies of the past behind them to create something new, together.]]>
303 Charlotte McConaghy 1250827957 Sumner 5 4.30 2025 Wild Dark Shore
author: Charlotte McConaghy
name: Sumner
average rating: 4.30
book published: 2025
rating: 5
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By Any Other Name 203337138 From the New York Times bestselling co-author of Mad Honey comes an “inspiring� (Elle) novel about two women, centuries apart—one of whom is the real author of Shakespeare’s plays—who are both forced to hide behind another name.

Young playwright Melina Green has just written a new work inspired by the life of her Elizabethan ancestor Emilia Bassano. But seeing it performed is unlikely, in a theater world where the playing field isn’t level for women. As Melina wonders if she dares risk failure again, her best friend takes the decision out of her hands and submits the play to a festival under a male pseudonym.

In 1581, young Emilia Bassano is a ward of English aristocrats. Her lessons on languages, history, and writing have endowed her with a sharp wit and a gift for storytelling, but like most women of her day, she is allowed no voice of her own. Forced to become a mistress to the Lord Chamberlain, who oversees all theatre productions in England, Emilia sees firsthand how the words of playwrights can move an audience. She begins to form a plan to secretly bring a play of her own to the stage—by paying an actor named William Shakespeare to front her work.

Told in intertwining timelines, By Any Other Name, a sweeping tale of ambition, courage, and desire centers two women who are determined to create something beautiful despite the prejudices they face. Should a writer do whatever it takes to see her story live on . . . no matter the cost? This remarkable novel, rooted in primary historical sources, ensures the name Emilia Bassano will no longer be forgotten.]]>
528 Jodi Picoult 0593497228 Sumner 0 to-read 4.12 2024 By Any Other Name
author: Jodi Picoult
name: Sumner
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2024
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date added: 2025/03/06
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Red Clay 215003781
In 1943, when a frail old white woman shows up in Red Clay, Alabama, at the home of a Black former slave—on the morning following his funeral—his family hardly knows what to expect after she utters the words “� a lifetime ago, my family owned yours.� Adelaide Parker has a story to tell—one of ambition, betrayal, violence, and redemption—that shaped both the fate of her family and that of the late Felix H. Parker.

But there are gaps in her knowledge, and she’s come to Red Clay seeking answers from a family with whom she shares a name and a history that neither knows in full. In an epic saga that takes us from Red Clay to Paris, to the Côte d’Azur and New Orleans, human frailties are pushed to their limits as secrets are exposed and the line between good and evil becomes ever more difficult to discern. Red Clay is a tale that deftly lays bare the ugliness of slavery, the uncertainty of the final months of the Civil War, the optimism of Reconstruction, and the pain and frustration of Jim Crow.

With a vivid sense of place and a cast of memorable characters, Charles B. Fancher draws upon his own family history to weave a riveting tale of triumph over adversity, set against a backdrop of societal change and racial animus that reverberates in contemporary America. Through seasons of joy and unspeakable pain, Fancher delivers rich moments as allies become enemies, and enemies—to their great surprise—find new respect for each other.]]>
336 Charles B. Fancher Sumner 0 to-read 4.45 Red Clay
author: Charles B. Fancher
name: Sumner
average rating: 4.45
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A Map to Paradise 214986213 1956, Malibu, Something is not right on Paradise Circle.

With her name on the Hollywood blacklist and her life on hold, starlet Melanie Cole has little choice in company. There is her next-door neighbor, Elwood, but the screenwriter’s agoraphobia allows for just short chats through open windows. He’s her sole confidante, though, as she and her housekeeper, Eva, an immigrant from war-torn Europe, rarely make conversation.

Then one early morning Melanie and Eva spot Elwood’s sister-in-law and caretaker, June, digging in his beloved rose garden. After that they don’t see Elwood at all anymore. Where could a man who never leaves the house possibly have gone?

As they try to find out if something has happened to him, unexpected secrets are revealed among all three women, leading to an alliance that seems the only way for any of them to hold on to what they can still call their own. But it’s a fragile pact and one little spark could send it all up in smoke…]]>
352 Susan Meissner 0593332865 Sumner 0 to-read 3.68 2025 A Map to Paradise
author: Susan Meissner
name: Sumner
average rating: 3.68
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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The Story She Left Behind 214151359 Inspired by a true literary mystery, New York Times bestselling author of the mesmerizing The Secret Book of Flora Lea returns with the sweeping story of a legendary book, a lost mother, and a daughter’s search for them both.

In 1927, eight-year-old Clara Harrington’s magical childhood shatters when her mother, renowned author, Bronwyn Newcastle Fordham, disappears off the coast of South Carolina. Bronwyn stunned the world with a book written in an invented language that became a national sensation when she was just twelve years old. Her departure leaves behind not only a devoted husband and heartbroken daughter, but also the hope of ever translating the sequel to her landmark work. As the headlines focus on the missing author, Clara yearns for something far deeper and more her beautiful mother.

By 1952, Clara is an illustrator raising her own daughter, Wynnie. When a stranger named Charlie Jameson contacts her from London claiming to have discovered a handwritten dictionary of her mother’s lost language. Clara is skeptical. Compelled by the tragedy of her mother’s vanishing, she crosses the Atlantic with Wynnie only to arrive during one of London’s most deadly natural disasters—the Great Smog. With asthmatic Wynnie in peril, they escape the city with Charlie and find refuge in the Jameson’s family retreat nestled in the Lake District. It is there that Clara must find the courage to uncover the truth about her mother and the story she left behind.

Told in Patti Callahan Henry’s lyrical, enchanting prose, The Story She Left Behind is a captivating novel of mystery and family legacy that captures the profound longing for a mother and the evergreen allure of secrets.]]>
352 Patti Callahan Henry 1668011875 Sumner 0 to-read 4.21 2025 The Story She Left Behind
author: Patti Callahan Henry
name: Sumner
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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The Seven O'Clock Club 228060319 Four strangers are brought together to participate in an experimental treatment designed to heal broken hearts in this surprising and heartfelt debut novel from author Amelia Ireland.

In a perfectly ordinary building, four strangers who couldn't be more different meet for the first time. Their skepticism of this new kind of grief therapy—and the unnervingly perceptive group leader—means they're all wary, but as the weeks go by, they find themselves returning again and again, pulled to work toward healing, even if it means first facing the pain head-on.

A sharp-tongued lawyer who has no intention of letting down her walls, a fragile young woman looking for a place to belong, a musician at the top of his game who's one drink away from losing it all, and an interior designer facing the crumbling of her picture-perfect life—this unlikely group slowly opens up, not only to the possibility of a happier future but to friendship, change, and even romance.

When a shocking revelation reveals the real reason they were chosen for this group, it shakes the very foundation of what they thought they knew. What began as a journey designed to heal turns out to be a much greater test of friendship, strength, and love as they realize happiness is just outside the door...if they're brave enough to seek it.]]>
368 Amelia Ireland Sumner 0 to-read 4.67 2025 The Seven O'Clock Club
author: Amelia Ireland
name: Sumner
average rating: 4.67
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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Back After This 198563641 From the New York Times bestselling author of Evvie Drake Starts Over and Flying Solo, a podcast producer agrees to host a new series about modern dating—but will the show jeopardize her chance at finding real love?

Cecily Foster loves to make podcasts. She fiercely protects her colleagues, dearly adores her friends, and never misses dinner with her sister. But after a disastrous relationship with a colleague who stole her heart and her ideas, she’s put romantic love on hold.

When the boss who’s disappointed her again and again finally offers her the chance to host her own show, she wants to be thrilled. But there’s a catch—actually, two catches. First, the show will be about Cecily’s dating life. And second, she has to follow the guidance of influencer and newly minted relationship coach Eliza Cassidy, whose relentlessly upbeat attitude seems ready-made for social media, not real life.

Cecily would rather do anything other than put her singledom on display (ugh) or take advice from the internet (UGH). But when her boss hints that doing the show is the only way to protect a friend’s job, she realizes she has no choice.

To make matters more complicated, once she’s committed to twenty blind dates of Eliza’s choosing, Cecily finds herself unable to stop thinking about Will, a photographer she helped to rescue a very big and very lovable lost dog. Even though there are sparks between the two, Will’s own path is uncertain, and Eliza’s skeptical comments about Cecily’s decision-making aren’t helping. On the one hand, Will seems great. But on the other hand . . . don’t they all?

As Cecily struggles to balance the life she truly desires and the one Eliza wants to create for her, she finds herself at a crossroads. Can Cecily sort through all the advice and find a way to do what she loves without losing herself in the process?]]>
320 Linda Holmes 059359925X Sumner 3 3.80 2025 Back After This
author: Linda Holmes
name: Sumner
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2025
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/05
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The Fall Risk 223199392 Two good neighbors make the best of a bad Valentine’s Day in a funny and improbably romantic short story by the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Just for the Summer.

It’s Valentine’s Day weekend, and Charlotte and Seth are not looking for romance. Armed with emotional-support bear spray, Charlotte is in self-imposed isolation and on guard from men. Having a stalker can do that to a person’s nerves. Just across the hall and giving off woodsy vibes is Seth, a recently divorced arborist. As in today recently. Heights, he’s fine with. Trust? Not so much. But when disaster traps them one flight up and no way down, an outrageously precarious predicament forces a tree-loving guy and a rattled girl next door to embrace their captivity. Soon their defenses are breaking away. Considering how close they both are to the edge, Charlotte and Seth could be in danger of falling—in love.]]>
82 Abby Jimenez 1662529082 Sumner 0 to-read 4.12 2025 The Fall Risk
author: Abby Jimenez
name: Sumner
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/02
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The Lost Passenger 213870086 An immersive historical drama about a young mother who starts a new life with her son in New York after faking their deaths on the °Őľ±łŮ˛ą˛Ôľ±ł¦â€”the U.S. debut of an acclaimed British novelist.

Sometimes it takes a disaster to change your life.

Marrying above your social class can come with unexpected consequences, as Elinor Coombes discovers when she is swept into a fairy-tale marriage with the son of an aristocratic English family. She soon realizes that it was the appeal of her father’s hard-earned wealth rather than her pretty face that attracted her new husband and his family. Curtailed by rigid social rules that include being allowed to see her nanny-raised infant son for only moments each day, Elinor resigns herself to a lonely future. So a present from her father—tickets for the maiden voyage of a luxurious new ship called the °Őľ±łŮ˛ą˛Ôľ±ł¦â€�offers a welcome escape from the cold, controlling atmosphere of her husband’s ancestral home, and some precious time with her little son, Teddy.

When the ship goes down, Elinor grasps the opportunity to take Teddy and start a new life—but only if they can disappear completely, listed among the dead. Penniless and using another woman’s name, she must learn to survive in New York City, a brash new world that couldn’t be more different from her own, and to keep their secret safe. But alas, it's not safe—she's been spotted by another survivor who's eager to profit from his discovery.

An absorbing historical drama set between the old world of the oppressive English aristocracy and the new world of opportunity and freedom, The Lost Passenger is a grippingly dramatic story about starting over in a brand-new world, triumphing over adversity, and finding hope in the face of great loss.]]>
384 Frances Quinn 0593973038 Sumner 0 to-read 4.21 2025 The Lost Passenger
author: Frances Quinn
name: Sumner
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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Summer Romance 198563734
There aren’t enough labeled glass containers to contain the mess that is Ali Morris’s life. Her mom died two years ago, then her husband left, and she hasn’t worn pants with a zipper in longer than she cares to remember. She’s a professional organizer whose pantry is a disgrace.

No one is more surprised than Ali when the first time she takes off her wedding ring and puts on pants with hardware—overalls count, right?—she meets someone. Or rather, her dog claims a man for her in the same way he claimed his favorite of her three children: by peeing on him. Ethan smiles at Ali like her pants are just right—like he likes what he sees. The last thing Ali needs is to make her life messier, but there’s no harm in a little Summer Romance. Is there?]]>
321 Annabel Monaghan 0593714083 Sumner 4 4.01 2024 Summer Romance
author: Annabel Monaghan
name: Sumner
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/01
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<![CDATA[Raising Resilience: How to Help Our Children Thrive in Times of Uncertainty]]> 150351823 USA TODAY NATIONAL BESTSELLER
Foreword by Amy Schumer

Child development expert and author of How Toddlers Thrive, Dr. Tovah Klein gives parents the confidence they need to help children and teens build resilience and flourish in an unpredictable world.

Whether it’s national or global events affecting our sense of safety or stressors in our day-to-day lives, we are constantly confronted with situations that threaten the wellbeing of our children. Thankfully, there is good news that has not yet been reflected in the headlines: we can mitigate the effect of such rampant uncertainty by guiding our children to manage adversity and make them more resilient. The key is parental involvement.

Raising Resilience is a lifeline for every family contending with life’s many stresses and traumas—from the most commonplace to the most devastating—including peer conflicts, divorce, family tensions, death, moving, academic struggles, and larger personal and national events. Through her years of experience and ongoing research, developmental psychologist Dr. Tovah Klein offers parents and caregivers five specific resources that children can develop, enabling them to face adversity, adjust, and thrive where they might otherwise falter or fall under pressure.

Dr. Klein has devoted her professional life to helping children flourish by supporting them to build the inner tools to deal with devastating events and everyday stressors. Using clinical data and building on evidence-based interventions to offset and heal from traumatic events, she shares a five-point plan with actionable strategies, illustrative stories, and conversation prompts so parents can guide their children to become resourceful, adaptive, and able to grow and flourish now and into the future.

Wise and hopeful, this essential guide empowers parents and caregivers with practical guidance for instilling in their children the emotional intelligence, cognitive flexibility, and social know-how they need to manage life’s challenges and create a lasting capacity for meaningful, happy lives. Accessible, compassionate, and authoritative, Raising Resilience is a timely resource that shows parents how they can confidently build strong relationships with their children and raise them to be motivated, self-assured, and kind—all of which are qualities desperately needed in our ever-changing world.
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256 Tovah P. Klein 0063286564 Sumner 5 4.20 Raising Resilience: How to Help Our Children Thrive in Times of Uncertainty
author: Tovah P. Klein
name: Sumner
average rating: 4.20
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rating: 5
read at: 2025/02/23
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One Golden Summer 217245639
I never anticipated Charlie Florek.

Good things happen at the lake. That’s what Alice’s grandmother says, and it’s true. Alice spent just one summer at a cottage with Nan when she was seventeen—it’s where she took that photo, the one of three grinning teenagers in a yellow speedboat, the image that changed her life.

Now Alice lives behind a lens. As a photographer, she’s most comfortable on the sidelines, letting other people shine. Lately though, she’s been itching for something more, and when Nan falls and breaks her hip, Alice comes up with a plan for them both: another summer in that magical place, Barry’s Bay. But as soon as they settle in, their peace is disrupted by the roar of a familiar yellow boat, and the man driving it.

Charlie Florek was nineteen when Alice took his photo from afar. Now he’s all grown up—a shameless flirt, who manages to make Nan laugh and Alice long to be seventeen again, when life was simpler, when taking pictures was just for fun. Sun-slanted days and warm nights out on the lake with Charlie are a balm for Alice’s soul, but when she looks up and sees his piercing green gaze directly on her, she begins to worry for her heart.

Because Alice sees people—that’s why she is so good at what she does—but she’s never met someone who looks and sees her right back.]]>
400 Carley Fortune 0593638913 Sumner 0 to-read 4.50 2025 One Golden Summer
author: Carley Fortune
name: Sumner
average rating: 4.50
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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We Would Never 214151513 A riveting literary page-turner that explores the extremes to which a family will go to protect their own—for fans of Miranda Cowley Heller and Laura Dave.

No one is more surprised than Hailey Gelman when she comes under suspicion for the murder of her soon-to-be ex-husband Jonah. Hailey—nicknamed Sunshine by her mother for her bright outlook and ever-present smile—is the peacemaker who has always tried to do what her family expects of her.

The months leading up to Jonah’s death have been fraught, including a bitter separation and a messy custody battle over their young daughter, Maya. When Hailey files a motion to relocate to Florida so she can be near her family, the divorce begins to escalate, drawing in all the members of Hailey’s family, who are determined to help her however they can.

Most invested is Sherry, Hailey’s mother who wants nothing more than to be close to her family. Then there’s Nate, Hailey’s devoted and protective older brother, as well as the patriarch, Solomon, who is keeping a secret of his own that threatens the stability and security Sherry has worked so hard to maintain. As the divorce spirals dangerously out of control, they are all forced to consider just how far they will go for each other.

Part gripping mystery, part compassionate family drama, We Would Never explores what people are capable of when they feel cornered, and how, in the absence of forgiveness, love and hate can intertwine and turn deadly.]]>
368 Tova Mirvis 1668061627 Sumner 3 3.43 2025 We Would Never
author: Tova Mirvis
name: Sumner
average rating: 3.43
book published: 2025
rating: 3
read at: 2025/02/15
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<![CDATA[Mindful Parenting: Simple and Powerful Solutions for Raising Creative, Engaged, Happy Kids in Today’s Hectic World]]> 17910356
Rooted in the science of the brain, and integrating cognitive neuroscience and child development, Mindful Parenting is a unique program that speaks directly to today’s busy families who make up what Dr. Race calls "Generation Stress."ĚýResearch has shown that mindfulness practices stimulate the prefrontal cortex of the brain. Regular stimulation of this part of the brain helps us feel happier, healthier, calmer, less anxious, less stressed, andĚýmakes it easier for us to concentrate and think clearly—the very behavior we are hoping our children will display.

Dr. Race provides:An explanation of the way the brain works and why parents and kids today are more stressed, anxious, and angry than ever beforePractical solutions to the problem: Things parents can do to change brain patterns and create a more relaxed and happier home
"Brain Coolers": Quick tips that can be usedĚýin the momentĚýto help families relax, recharge, and create happiness (such as "The Three Breath Hug")


Mindful Parenting understands the realities of raising a family in our fast paced and often-frenetic world and provides hundreds of easy-to-implement solutions, both for parents and their children, to help them manage stress, create peace, and live happier lives.
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274 Kristen Race 1250020328 Sumner 0 to-read 3.91 2013 Mindful Parenting: Simple and Powerful Solutions for Raising Creative, Engaged, Happy Kids in Today’s Hectic World
author: Kristen Race
name: Sumner
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2013
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/11
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<![CDATA[Better Than the Movies (Better Than the Movies, #1)]]> 55710822 In this rom-com about rom-coms, in the spirit of Kasie West and Jenn Bennett, a hopeless romantic teen attempts to secure a happily-ever-after moment with her forever crush, but finds herself reluctantly drawn to the boy next door.

Perpetual daydreamer Liz Buxbaum gave her heart to Michael a long time ago. But her cool, aloof forever crush never really saw her before he moved away. Now that he’s back in town, Liz will do whatever it takes to get on his radar - and maybe snag him as a prom date - even befriend Wes Bennet.

The annoyingly attractive next-door neighbor might seem like a prime candidate for romantic-comedy fantasies, but Wes has only been a pain in Liz’s butt since they were kids. Pranks involving frogs and decapitated lawn gnomes do not a potential boyfriend make. Yet, somehow, Wes and Michael are hitting it off, which means Wes is Liz’s in.

But as Liz and Wes scheme to get Liz noticed by Michael so she can have her magical prom moment, she’s shocked to discover that she likes being around Wes. And as they continue to grow closer, she must reexamine everything she thought she knew about love - and rethink her own ideas of what happily ever after should look like.]]>
356 Lynn Painter 1534467629 Sumner 4 4.28 2021 Better Than the Movies (Better Than the Movies, #1)
author: Lynn Painter
name: Sumner
average rating: 4.28
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/09
date added: 2025/02/09
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The Briar Club 181110045 A haunting and powerful story of female friendships and secrets in a Washington, D.C. boardinghouse during the McCarthy era.

Washington, D.C., 1950. Everyone keeps to themselves at Briarwood House, a down-at-the-heels all-female boardinghouse in the heart of the nation’s capital, where secrets hide behind white picket fences. But when the lovely, mysterious widow Grace March moves into the attic, she draws her oddball collection of neighbors into unlikely friendship: poised English beauty Fliss whose facade of perfect wife and mother covers gaping inner wounds; police officer’s daughter Nora, who is entangled with a shadowy gangster; frustrated baseball star Bea, whose career has ended along with the women’s baseball league of WWII; and poisonous, gung-ho Arlene, who has thrown herself into McCarthy’s Red Scare.

Grace’s weekly attic-room dinner parties and window-brewed sun tea become a healing balm on all their lives, but she hides a terrible secret of her own. When a shocking act of violence tears apart the house, the Briar Club women must decide once and for all: Who is the true enemy in their midst?]]>
432 Kate Quinn 0063244748 Sumner 4 4.26 2024 The Briar Club
author: Kate Quinn
name: Sumner
average rating: 4.26
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/05
date added: 2025/02/05
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Project Hail Mary 54493401
Except that right now, he doesn’t know that. He can’t even remember his own name, let alone the nature of his assignment or how to complete it.

All he knows is that he’s been asleep for a very, very long time. And he’s just been awakened to find himself millions of miles from home, with nothing but two corpses for company.

His crewmates dead, his memories fuzzily returning, Ryland realizes that an impossible task now confronts him. Hurtling through space on this tiny ship, it’s up to him to puzzle out an impossible scientific mystery—and conquer an extinction-level threat to our species.

And with the clock ticking down and the nearest human being light-years away, he’s got to do it all alone.

Or does he?]]>
476 Andy Weir 0593135202 Sumner 0 to-read 4.49 2021 Project Hail Mary
author: Andy Weir
name: Sumner
average rating: 4.49
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/01
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A Sea of Unspoken Things 207677131 A woman investigates her brother's mysterious death while coming to terms with her own haunting past in this atmospheric novel from the New York Times bestselling author of The Unmaking of June Farrow

The only thing James and Johnny Golden have ever had is each other. For as long as she can remember, James’sĚýdeep connection with her twin brother,ĚýJohnny,Ěýhas gone beyond intuition—she can feel what he feels.ĚýSo, when Johnny is killed in a tragic accident, James knows before her phone even rings that her brother is gone and that she’s alone—truly alone—for the first time in her life.Ěý

When James arrives in the rural town of Hawthorne, California to settleĚýher brother’sĚýaffairs,Ěýshe’sĚýforced to rehash the ominous past she and Johnny shared and finally face Micah, the only person who knows about it. He’s also the only man she’s ever loved.Ěý

But James soon discovers that the strange connection she had with Johnny isn’t quite gone, and the more she immerses herself into his world, the more questions she has about the brother she thought she knew. Johnny was keeping secrets, and he’s not the only one. What she uncovers will push her to unravel what happened in the days before Johnny’s death, but in the end, she’ll have to decide which truths should come to light, and which should stay buried forever.]]>
288 Adrienne Young 0593598709 Sumner 3 3.71 2025 A Sea of Unspoken Things
author: Adrienne Young
name: Sumner
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2025
rating: 3
read at: 2025/01/27
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<![CDATA[A Lady's Guide to Fortune-Hunting (A Lady's Guide, #1)]]> 59656358 Follows the adventures of an entirely unconventional heroine who throws herself into the London Season to find a wealthy husband. But the last thing she expects is to find love...

Kitty Talbot needs a fortune. Or rather, she needs a husband who has a fortune. Left with her father’s massive debts, she has only twelve weeks to save her family from ruin.

Kitty has never been one to back down from a challenge, so she leaves home and heads toward the most dangerous battleground in all of England: the London season.

Kitty may be neither accomplished nor especially genteel—but she is utterly single-minded; imbued with cunning and ingenuity, she knows that risk is just part of the game.

The only thing she doesn’t anticipate is Lord Radcliffe. The worldly Radcliffe sees Kitty for the mercenary fortune-hunter that she really is and is determined to scotch her plans at all costs, until their parrying takes a completely different turn...

This is a frothy pleasure, full of brilliant repartee and enticing wit—one that readers will find an irresistible delight.

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325 Sophie Irwin 0593491343 Sumner 5 3.91 2022 A Lady's Guide to Fortune-Hunting (A Lady's Guide, #1)
author: Sophie Irwin
name: Sumner
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2022
rating: 5
read at: 2025/01/23
date added: 2025/01/23
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History of Wolves 30183198
And then the young Gardner family moves in across the lake and Madeline finds herself welcomed into their home as a babysitter for their little boy, Paul. It seems that her life finally has purpose but with this new sense of belonging she is also drawn into secrets she doesn’t understand. Over the course of a few days, Madeline makes a set of choices that reverberate throughout her life. As she struggles to find a way out of the sequestered world into which she was born, Madeline confronts the life-and-death consequences of the things people do—and fail to do—for the people they love]]>
288 Emily Fridlund 0802125875 Sumner 0 to-read 3.39 2017 History of Wolves
author: Emily Fridlund
name: Sumner
average rating: 3.39
book published: 2017
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/23
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The Favorites 211399784 To the world, they were a scandal. To each other, an obsession.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER � An epic love story set in the sparkling, savage sphere of elite figure skating, starring a woman determined to carve her own path on and off the ice

“P˛ą°ůłŮ Wuthering Heights and part Daisy Jones & The Six, this novel is as brilliantly choreographed as a gold medal performance and will keep you guessing until its last page.”—Jodi Picoult, New York Times bestselling author of By Any Other Name

She might not have a famous name, funding, or her family’s support, but Katarina Shaw has always known that she was destined to become an Olympic skater. When she meets Heath Rocha, a lonely kid stuck in the foster care system, their instant connection makes them a formidable duo on the ice. Clinging to skating—and each other—to escape their turbulent lives, Kat and Heath go from childhood sweethearts to champion ice dancers, captivating the world with their scorching chemistry, rebellious style, and roller-coaster relationship.

Until a shocking incident at the Olympic Games brings their partnership to a sudden end.

As the ten-year anniversary of their final skate approaches, an unauthorized documentary reignites the public obsession with Shaw and Rocha, claiming to uncover the “real story� through interviews with their closest friends and fiercest rivals. Kat wants nothing to do with the documentary, but she can’t stand the thought of someone else defining her legacy. So, after a decade of silence, she’s telling her story: from the childhood tragedies that created her all-consuming bond with Heath to the clash of desires that tore them apart. Sensational rumors have haunted their every step for years, but the truth may be even more shocking than the headlines.]]>
448 Layne Fargo 0593732049 Sumner 3 4.18 2025 The Favorites
author: Layne Fargo
name: Sumner
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2025
rating: 3
read at: 2025/01/21
date added: 2025/01/21
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The Stolen Queen 211025454 From New York Times bestselling author Fiona Davis, an utterly addictive new novel that will transport you from New York City’s most glamorous party to the labyrinth streets of Cairo and back.

Egypt, 1936: When anthropology student Charlotte Cross is offered a coveted spot on an archaeological dig in Egypt’s Valley of the Kings, she leaps at the opportunity. But after an unbearable tragedy strikes, Charlotte knows her future will never be the same.

New York City, 1978: Eighteen-year-old Annie Jenkins is thrilled when she lands an opportunity to work for iconic former Vogue fashion editor Diana Vreeland, who’s in the midst of organizing the famous Met Gala, hosted at the museum and known across the city as the “party of the year.� Though Annie soon realizes she’ll have her work cut out for her, scrambling to meet Diana’s capricious demands and exacting standards.

Meanwhile, Charlotte, now leading a quiet life as the associate curator of the Met’s celebrated Department of Egyptian Art, wants little to do with the upcoming gala. She’s consumed with her research on Hathorkare—a rare female pharaoh dismissed by most other Egyptologists as unimportant.

That is, until the night of the gala. When one of the Egyptian art collection’s most valuable artifacts goes missing . . . and there are signs Hathorkare’s legendary curse might be reawakening.

As Annie and Charlotte team up to search for the missing antiquity, a desperate hunch leads the unlikely duo to one place Charlotte swore she’d never return: Egypt. But if they’re to have any hope of finding the artifact, Charlotte will need to confront the demons of her past—which may mean leading them both directly into danger.]]>
352 Fiona Davis 0593474279 Sumner 4 3.93 2025 The Stolen Queen
author: Fiona Davis
name: Sumner
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2025
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/17
date added: 2025/01/17
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It's a Love Story 218153839 USA Today bestselling author of Nora Goes Off Script, a novel about a former adolescent TV punchline who has left her awkwardness in the rearview mirror thanks to a fake-it-till-you-make-it mantra that has her on the cusp of success, until she tells a lie that sets her on a crash-course with her past, spending a week in Long Island with the last man she thinks might make her believe in love.

Rules for a love story: There are none. It’s all a lie.

Jane Jackson knows that true love is a lie. Laughter is the only truth—you can’t fake a belly laugh. Jane should know, she spent her adolescence as "Poor Janey Jakes," the barbecue-sauce-in-her-braces punchline on America's fifth-favorite sitcom. Now she’s a Creative Executive at Clearwater Studios and she’s living by a new mantra: Fake it till you make it.

Except, she might have faked it too far. Desperate to get her first project greenlit and riled up by pompous cinematographer and one-time crush Dan Finnegan, she opened her mouth and a big fat fib fell out. She claimed that Jack Quinlan, hottest popstar of the moment, has promised to write an original song for the soundtrack. Jack may have been her first kiss—and greatest source of shame—but she hasn’t spoken to him in twenty years.

Now, Jane must turn to the last man she’d ever want to owe: Dan Finnegan. Because Jack is playing a festival in Dan’s hometown on Long Island, and Dan has an in. A week in close quarters with Dan while facing down her past is Jane's idea of hell, but Dan just might surprise her. While covering up her lie, can they find something true?]]>
368 Annabel Monaghan 0593714105 Sumner 0 to-read 4.31 2025 It's a Love Story
author: Annabel Monaghan
name: Sumner
average rating: 4.31
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[Masterminds and Wingmen: Helping Our Boys Cope with Schoolyard Power, Locker-Room Tests, Girlfriends, and the New Rules of Boy World]]> 17262151 Ěý
Do you constantly struggle to pull information from your son, student, or athlete, only to encounter mumbling or evasive assurances such as “It’s nothingâ€� or “I’m good?”Ě� Do you sense that the boy you care about is being bullied, but that he’ll do anything to avoid your “help?”ĚýĚ� Have you repeatedly reminded him that schoolwork and chores come before video games only to spy him reaching for the controller as soon as you leave the room? Have you watched with frustration as your boy flounders with girls?
Ěý
Welcome to Boy World. It’s a place where asking for help or showing emotional pain often feels impossible. Where sports and video games can mean everything, but working hard in school frequently earns ridicule from “the guys� even as they ask to copy assignments. Where “masterminds� dominate and friends ruthlessly insult each other but can never object when someone steps over the line. Where hiding problems from adults is the ironclad rule because their involvement only makes situations worse. Boy world is governed by social hierarchies and a powerful set of unwritten rules that have huge implications for your boy’s relationships, his interactions with you, and the man he’ll become. If you want what’s best for him, you need to know what these rules are and how to work with them effectively.
Ěý
What you’ll find in Masterminds and Wingmen is critically important for every parent â€� or anyone who cares about boys â€� to know. Collaborating with a large team of middle- and high-school-age editors, Rosalind Wiseman has created an unprecedented guide to the life your boy is actually experiencing â€� his on-the-ground reality.Ěý Not only does Wiseman challenge you to examine your assumptions, she offers innovative coping strategies aimed at helping your boy develop a positive, authentic, and strong sense of self.]]>
384 Rosalind Wiseman 0307986659 Sumner 0 to-read 3.93 2013 Masterminds and Wingmen: Helping Our Boys Cope with Schoolyard Power, Locker-Room Tests, Girlfriends, and the New Rules of Boy World
author: Rosalind Wiseman
name: Sumner
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2013
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/16
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<![CDATA[Queen Bees and Wannabes: Helping Your Daughter Survive Cliques, Gossip, Boyfriends, and Other Realities of Adolescence]]> 434051 PARENTS CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE IN GIRL WORLD

Do you feel as though your adolescent daughter exists in a different world, speaking a different language and living by different laws? She does.

This groundbreaking book takes you inside the secret world of girls� friendships, translating and decoding them, so parents can better understand and help their daughters navigate through these crucial years. Rosalind Wiseman has spent more than a decade listening to thousands of girls talk about the powerful role cliques play in shaping what they wear and say, how they feel about school, how they respond to boys, and how they feel about themselves. In this candid and insightful book, Wiseman

� Queen Bees, Wannabes, Targets, Torn Bystanders, and how to tell what role your daughter plays and help her be herself
� Girls� power plays, from birthday invitations to cafeteria seating arrangements and illicit parties, and how to handle them
� Good popularity and bad how cliques bear on every situation
� Hip Parents, Best-Friend Parents, Pushover Parents, and examine your own parenting style, “Check Your Baggage,� and identify how your own background and biases affect how you relate to your daughter
� Related movies, books, websites, and a carefully annotated resources section provides opportunities to follow up on your own and with your daughter

Enlivened with the voices of dozens of girls and parents and a welcome sense of humor, Queen Bees and Wannabes is compelling reading for parents and daughters alike. A conversation piece and a reference guide, it offers the tools you need to help your daughter feel empowered and make smarter choices.]]>
336 Rosalind Wiseman 1400047927 Sumner 0 to-read 3.78 2002 Queen Bees and Wannabes: Helping Your Daughter Survive Cliques, Gossip, Boyfriends, and Other Realities of Adolescence
author: Rosalind Wiseman
name: Sumner
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2002
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/16
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<![CDATA[The Love Elixir of Augusta Stern]]> 203579107 It's never too late for new beginnings.

On the cusp of turning eighty, newly retired pharmacist Augusta Stern is adrift. When she relocates to Rallentando Springs—an active senior community in southern Florida—she unexpectedly crosses paths with Irving Rivkin, the delivery boy from her father’s old pharmacy—and the man who broke her heart sixty years earlier.

As a teenager growing up in 1920’s Brooklyn, Augusta’s role model was her father, Solomon Stern, the trusted owner of the local pharmacy and the neighborhood expert on every ailment. But when Augusta’s mother dies and Great Aunt Esther moves in, Augusta can’t help but be drawn to Esther’s curious methods. As a healer herself, Esther offers Solomon’s customers her own advice—unconventional remedies ranging from homemade chicken soup to a mysterious array of powders and potions.

As Augusta prepares for pharmacy college, she is torn between loyalty to her father and fascination with her great aunt, all while navigating a budding but complicated relationship with Irving. Desperate for clarity, she impulsively uses Esther’s most potent elixir with disastrous consequences. Disillusioned and alone, Augusta vows to reject Esther’s enchantments forever.

Sixty years later, confronted with Irving, Augusta is still haunted by the mistakes of her past. What happened all those years ago and how did her plan go so spectacularly wrong? Did Irving ever truly love her or was he simply playing a part? And can Augusta reclaim the magic of her youth before it’s too late?]]>
320 Lynda Cohen Loigman 1250278104 Sumner 4 4.07 2024 The Love Elixir of Augusta Stern
author: Lynda Cohen Loigman
name: Sumner
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/10
date added: 2025/01/10
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Statistically Speaking 210296788
On paper, Gemma's life is just like any other successful, single thirty-something. Her students adore her. She lives in a cute beach-side cottage next door to the world's sweetest neighbor, Margie. And she's definitely caught the eye of Karim, the resident hot PE teacher at her school. But every day of her life she can't get one thing out of her mind: the baby she gave up for adoption when Gemma was just sixteen years old.

This is the year that Baby—the only name Gemma has for her little girl—will turn eighteen. And it might be the year she actually meets her daughter face-to-face.]]>
336 Debbie Johnson 1400248043 Sumner 0 to-read 3.92 2022 Statistically Speaking
author: Debbie Johnson
name: Sumner
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/08
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The Answer Is No 219876684 In a hilarious short story from New York Times bestselling author Fredrik Backman, the absurdities of modern life cause one man’s solitary world to spin suddenly, and comically, out of control.

Lucas knows the perfect night entails just three things: video games, wine, and pad thai. Peanuts are a must! Other people? Not so much. Why complicate things when he’s happy alone?

Then one day the apartment board, a vexing trio of authority, rings his doorbell. And Lucas’s solitude takes a startling hike. They demand to see his frying pan. Someone left one next to the recycling room overnight, and instead of removing the errant object, as Lucas suggests, they insist on finding the guilty party. But their plan backfires. Colossally.

Told in Fredrik Backman’s singular witty style with sharply drawn characters and relatable antics, The Answer Is No is a laugh-out-loud portrait of a man struggling to keep to himself in a world that won’t leave him alone.]]>
68 Fredrik Backman 1662526520 Sumner 0 to-read 3.94 2024 The Answer Is No
author: Fredrik Backman
name: Sumner
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/05
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Sylvia's Second Act 177192328
When sixty-three-year-old Sylvia finds her husband in bed with the floozy of their Boca retirement community, she’s shocked and furious . . . at first. By the time her head stops spinning, Sylvia realizes that actually, this isn’t what she wants anymore anyway.

So she enlists her best friend, the glamorous older widow Evie, to join her in setting up a new life in Manhattan. Sylvia’s ex-husband may have lost her life savings, but Sylvia and Evie are scrappy and determined, unopposed to pawning jewelry and roughing it in tiny apartments. And before long, Sylvia signs on to revive her decades-old wedding planning business with a former professional rival. Sylvia has a lot to prove, and beneath it all, she can’t help but Will she ever be able to get back into the dating game?

Sylvia doesn't want to be twenty-five or thirty again. Her age gives her wisdom, experience, and perspective. A career, sex, fun, and a new romance—her entire second act is stretched out in front of her, beckoning to her. It’s her time, and watch out, world, Sylvia is coming!]]>
352 Hillary Yablon 0593493613 Sumner 4 3.93 2024 Sylvia's Second Act
author: Hillary Yablon
name: Sumner
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/02
date added: 2025/01/02
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<![CDATA[Will the Circle Be Unbroken?: A Memoir of Learning to Believe You’re Gonna Be Okay]]> 50903653 272 Sean Dietrich 0310355753 Sumner 0 to-read 4.47 2020 Will the Circle Be Unbroken?: A Memoir of Learning to Believe You’re Gonna Be Okay
author: Sean Dietrich
name: Sumner
average rating: 4.47
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/02
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<![CDATA[One Day I'll Grow Up and Be a Beautiful Woman: A Mother's Story]]> 203956653 A fiery, heartbreaking, riveting memoir that follows one New Hampshire family over three years, unspooling a story of gender identity, class, trans youth, and a child caught in the riptide of America’s culture wars

Abi Maxwell grew up in rural New Hampshire, one of eight kids in a poor town abutting a wealthier lakeside village. As a young couple, Maxwell and her husband planned not to have kids, but when Maxwell became pregnant, she knew she wanted to raise her child near the mountains and lake of her youth. When her six-year-old, who was known to the world as a boy, asks to wear pink sneakers, asks to be a witch for Halloween, and asks to wear a girl’s dance costume, Abi worries about how their small community will react. But when that child changes her name, grows her hair long, and announces that she is a girl, a firestorm engulfs the family.

Weaving together the story of her youth, marked by long afternoons skiing the mountains, a cottage on the lake, and a proud gay brother, but also by neglect and bullying that pushed her brother to the brink, Abi Maxwell contends with the rural America where she was raised and, years later, where she is now raising her daughter, as lawmakers nationwide push to erase the very existence of trans youth. Intimate and stirring, this book is essential reading for this moment in our history.]]>
320 Abi Maxwell 0593535847 Sumner 0 to-read 4.42 2024 One Day I'll Grow Up and Be a Beautiful Woman: A Mother's Story
author: Abi Maxwell
name: Sumner
average rating: 4.42
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/02
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The Bright Years 214152211 One family. Four generations. A secret son. A devastating addiction. A Texas family is met with losses and surprises of inheritance, but they’re unable to shake the pull back toward each other in this big-hearted family saga perfect for readers of Mary Beth Keane and Claire Lombardo.

Ryan and Lillian Bright are deeply in love, recently married, and now parents to a baby girl, Georgette. But Lillian has a son she hasn’t told Ryan about, and Ryan has an alcohol addiction he hasn’t told Lillian about, so Georgette comes of age watching their marriage rise and fall.

When a shocking blow scatters their fragile trio, Georgette tries to distance herself from reminders of her parents. Years later, Lillian’s son comes searching for his birth family, so Georgette must return to her roots, unearth her family’s history, and decide whether she can open up to love for them—or herself—while there’s still time.

Told from three intimate points of view, The Bright Years is a tender, true-to-life novel that explores the impact of each generation in a family torn apart by tragedy but, over time, restored by the power of grace and love.]]>
288 Sarah Damoff 1668061449 Sumner 0 to-read 4.49 2025 The Bright Years
author: Sarah Damoff
name: Sumner
average rating: 4.49
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/29
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We All Live Here 213243915 The #1 New York Times bestselling author, whose books so many love, brings us a fresh, contemporary story of a woman and her unruly blended family

Lila Kennedy has a lot on her plate. A broken marriage, two wayward daughters, a house that is falling apart, and an elderly stepfather who seems to have quietly moved in. Her career is in freefall and her love life is . . . complicated. So when her real dad—a man she has barely seen since he ran off to Hollywood thirty-five years ago—suddenly appears on her doorstep, it feels like the final straw. But it turns out even the family you thought you could never forgive might have something to teach about love, and what it actually means to be family.]]>
450 Jojo Moyes 1984879324 Sumner 0 to-read 3.88 2025 We All Live Here
author: Jojo Moyes
name: Sumner
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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Onyx Storm (The Empyrean, #3) 209439446
Now Violet must journey beyond the failing Aretian wards to seek allies from unfamiliar lands to stand with Navarre. The trip will test every bit of her wit, luck, and strength, but she will do anything to save what she loves—her dragons, her family, her home, and him.

Even if it means keeping a secret so big, it could destroy everything. They need an army. They need power. They need magic. And they need the one thing only Violet can find—the truth. But a storm is coming...and not everyone can survive its wrath.]]>
527 Rebecca Yarros 1649374186 Sumner 0 to-read 4.18 2025 Onyx Storm (The Empyrean, #3)
author: Rebecca Yarros
name: Sumner
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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Flirting Lessons 216247471 The exciting new contemporary romance—and her first to feature a queer romance—by New York Times bestselling author Jasmine Guillory

Avery Jensen is almost thirty, fresh off a breakup, and she’s tired of always being so uptight and well-behaved. She wants to get a hobby, date around (especially other women), flirt with everyone she sees, all the fun stuff normal people do in their twenties. One Avery doesn't know how to do any of that. She doesn't have a lot of dating experience, with men or women, and despite being self-assured at work, she doesn't have a lot of confidence when it comes to romance.

Enter Taylor Cameron,ĚýNapa Valley's biggest flirt and champion heartbreaker. Taylor just broke up with her most recent girlfriend, and her best friend bet her that she can't make it until Labor Day without sleeping with someone. (Two whole months? Without sex? Taylor?!?!) So, she offers to give Avery flirting lessons. It will keep her busy, stop her from texting people she shouldn't. And it might distract her from how inadequate she feels compared to her friends, who all seem much more settled and adult than Taylor.

At first, Avery is stiff and nervous, but Taylor is patient and encouraging, and soon, Avery looks forward to their weekly lessons. She tells herself it's because the lessons are fun, not because she kind of might have a little bit of a crush on Taylor. Taylor doesn't even try to deny that she's intrigued by Avery, but she's still got a bet to win. With Taylor’s help, Avery is finally doing what she wants to flirting with lots of women, making friends, having fun! But after a while, it becomes impossible for Avery and Taylor to ignore their attraction to one another, despite them both insisting to themselves and everyone else that it isn't serious. When Taylor is forced to confront her feelings for Avery, she doesn't know what to do, how to deal with it, and most importantly, if she's already ruined the best thing she's ever had.]]>
416 Jasmine Guillory 0593100913 Sumner 0 to-read 3.58 2025 Flirting Lessons
author: Jasmine Guillory
name: Sumner
average rating: 3.58
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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Say You'll Remember Me 217182552 From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Just for the Summer comes a new playful yet deeply emotional contemporary romance.

There might be no such a thing as a perfect guy, but Xavier Rush comes disastrously close. A gorgeous veterinarian giving Greek god vibes—all while cuddling a tiny kitten? Immediately yes. That is until Xavier opens his mouth and proves that even sculpted gods can say the absolute wrong thing. Like, really wrong. Of course, there’s nothing Samantha loves more than proving an asshole wrong�

. . . unless, of course, he can admit he made a mistake. But after one incredible and seemingly endless date—possibly the best in living history—Samantha is forced to admit the truth, that her family is in crisis and any kind of relationship would be impossible. Samantha begs Xavier to forget her. To remember their night together as a perfect moment, as crushing as that may be.

Only no amount of distance or time is nearly enough to forget that something between them. And the only thing better than one single perfect memory is to make a life—and even a love—worth remembering.]]>
368 Abby Jimenez 1538759195 Sumner 0 to-read 4.20 2025 Say You'll Remember Me
author: Abby Jimenez
name: Sumner
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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Don't Let Him In 220160814 Three women are connected by one man in this kaleidoscopic thriller.

Restauranteur Paddy Swann was the life of the party until the day a man pushed him in the path of an oncoming train, leaving his twenty-something daughter Ash and wife Nina devastated. Shortly after Paddy’s funeral, the two women receive a surprise in the mail: a note and package from Nick Ratcliffe, an old friend of Paddy’s, and a nondescript lighter that once belonged to him decades ago. This unexpected gift draws Nick and Nina closer together—much to Ash’s dismay.

Martha is a small-town florist with dreams of expansion. She lives with her second husband Al, her baby, and two sons from her prior marriage. But they never seem to have any money, and with his constant traveling for work, she feels like a single parent—especially when an emergency makes her realize something needs to change.

But Nick and Al may not be who they say they are, leading these three women on a shocking collision course, wishing they had heeded a warning: Don’t let him in.]]>
368 Lisa Jewell 1668033879 Sumner 0 to-read 4.00 2025 Don't Let Him In
author: Lisa Jewell
name: Sumner
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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King of Ashes 219833252 Award-winning, New York Times bestselling author S. A. Cosby returns with King of Ashes, a Godfather-inspired Southern crime epic and dazzling family drama.

When eldest son Roman Carruthers is summoned home after his father’s car accident, he finds his younger brother, Dante, in debt to dangerous criminals and his sister, Neveah, exhausted from holding the family—and the family business—together. Neveah and their father, who run the Carruthers Crematorium in the run-down central Virginia town of Jefferson Run, see death up close every day. But mortality draws even closer when it becomes clear that the crash that landed their father in a coma was no accident and Dante’s recklessness has placed them all in real danger.

Roman, a financial whiz with a head for numbers and a talent for making his clients rich, has some money to help buy his brother out of trouble. But in his work with wannabe tough guys, he’s forgotten that there are real gangsters out there. As his bargaining chips go up in smoke, Roman realizes that he has only one thing left to offer to save his himself, and his own particular set of skills.

Roman begins his work for the criminals while Neveah tries to uncover the long-ago mystery of what happened to their mother, who disappeared when they were teenagers. But Roman is far less of a pushover than the gangsters realize. He is willing to do anything to save his family. Anything.

Because everything burns.]]>
352 S.A. Cosby 1250832063 Sumner 0 to-read 4.35 2025 King of Ashes
author: S.A. Cosby
name: Sumner
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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This Book Will Bury Me 213570821 From the bestselling author of In My Dreams I Hold a Knife and Midnight is the Darkest Hour comes a chilling, compulsive story of five amateur sleuths, whose hunt for an elusive killer catapults them into danger as the world watches.

It's the most famous crime in modern history. But only she knows the true story.

After the unexpected death of her father, college student Jane Sharp longs for a distraction from her grief. She becomes obsessed with true crime, befriending armchair detectives who teach her how to hunt killers from afar. In this morbid internet underground, Jane finds friendship, purpose, and even glory...

So when news of the shocking deaths of three college girls in Delphine, Idaho takes the world by storm, and sleuths everywhere race to solve the crimes, Jane and her friends are determined to beat them. But the case turns out to be stranger than anyone expected. Details don't add up, the police are cagey, and there seems to be more media hype and internet theorizing than actual evidence. When Jane and her sleuths take a step closer, they find that every answer only begs more questions. Something's not adding up, and they begin to suspect their killer may be smarter and more prolific than any they've faced before. Placing themselves in the center of the story starts to feel more and more like walking into a trap...

Told one year after the astounding events that concluded the case and left the world reeling, when Jane has finally decided to break her silence about what really happened, she tells the true story of the Delphine Massacres. And what she has to confess will shock even the most seasoned true crime fans...


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480 Ashley Winstead 1728270006 Sumner 0 to-read 3.72 2025 This Book Will Bury Me
author: Ashley Winstead
name: Sumner
average rating: 3.72
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/29
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Famous Last Words 212421066
From the author of Reese’s Book Club Pick and New York Times bestseller Wrong Place Wrong Time comes an addictive thriller about a new mother’s world upended when her husband commits a terrifying crime. How well does she truly know the man she loves? And what danger does she face if her entire life has been built on a lie?

It is June 21st, the longest day of the year, and new mother Camilla’s life is about to change forever. After months of maternity leave, she will drop her infant daughter off at daycare for the first time and return to her job as a literary agent. Finally. But, when she wakes, her husband Luke isn’t there, and in his place is a cryptic note.

Then it starts. Breaking news: there's a hostage situation developing in London. The police arrive, and tell her Luke is involved. But he isn't a hostage. Her husband—doting father, eternal optimist—is the gunman.

What she does next is crucial. Because only she knows what the note he left behind that morning says...

Famous Last Words is the story of a crime, a marriage, and more secrets than Camilla ever could have imagined. This novel cements Gillian McAllister’s reputation as “the best at putting her characters in impossible situations and making her readers not only contemplate but feel what it would be like to find themselves in those situations.� (Emily Henry)]]>
336 Gillian McAllister 0063338424 Sumner 0 to-read 3.72 2025 Famous Last Words
author: Gillian McAllister
name: Sumner
average rating: 3.72
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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Beautiful Ugly 211004123 The million-copy bestselling Queen of Twists Alice Feeney returns with a gripping and deliciously dark thriller about marriage. . .
. . . and revenge.

Author Grady Green is having the worst best day of his life.

Grady calls his wife to share some exciting news as she is driving home. He hears Abby slam on the brakes, get out of the car, then nothing. When he eventually finds her car by the cliff edge the headlights are on, the driver door is open, her phone is still there. . . but his wife has disappeared.

A year later, Grady is still overcome with grief and desperate to know what happened to Abby. He can’t sleep, and he can’t write, so he travels to a tiny Scottish island to try to get his life back on track. Then he sees the impossible � a woman who looks exactly like his missing wife.

Wives think their husbands will change but they don’t.
Husbands think their wives won’t change but they do.
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306 Alice Feeney 125033778X Sumner 0 to-read 3.64 2025 Beautiful Ugly
author: Alice Feeney
name: Sumner
average rating: 3.64
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/29
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My Friends 217163697 #1ĚýNew York TimesĚýbestselling author Fredrik Backman returns with an unforgettably funny, deeply moving tale of four teenagers whose friendship creates a bond so powerful that it changes a stranger’s life twenty-five years later.

Most people don’t even notice them—three tiny figures sitting at the end of a long pier in the corner of one of the most famous paintings in the world. Most people think it’s just a depiction of the sea. But Louisa, an artist herself, knows otherwise and she is determined to find out the story of these three enigmatic figures.

Twenty-five years earlier, in a distant town, a group of teenagers find refuge from their difficult home lives by spending their days laughing and telling stories out on a pier. There’s Joar, who never backs down from a fight; quiet and bookish Ted who is mourning his father; Ali, the daughter of a man who never stays in one place for long; and finally, there’s the artist, a boy who hoards sleeping pills and shuns attention, but who possesses an extraordinary gift that might be his ticket to a better life. These four lost souls find in each other a reason to get up each morning, a reason to dream.

Out of that summer emerges a transcendent work of art, a painting that will unexpectedly be put into eighteen-year-old Louisa’s care. As she struggles to decide what to do with this bequest, she embarks on a surprise-filled cross-country journey to learn the story of how the painting came to be. The closer she gets to the painting’s birthplace, the more she feels compelled to unleash her own artistic spirit, but happy endings don’t always take the form we expect in this fresh testament to the transformative power of friendship and art.]]>
448 Fredrik Backman 1982112824 Sumner 0 to-read 4.59 2025 My Friends
author: Fredrik Backman
name: Sumner
average rating: 4.59
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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The Booklover's Library 207909446
In Nottingham, England, widow Emma Taylor finds herself in desperate need of a job to provide for herself and her beloved daughter, Olivia. But with the legal restrictions prohibiting widows with children from most employment opportunities, she’s left with only one option: persuading the manageress at Boots� Booklover’s Library to take a chance on her.

When the threat of war becomes a reality, Olivia must be evacuated to the countryside. In her daughter’s absence, Emma seeks solace in the unlikely friendships she forms with her neighbors and coworkers, as well as the recommendations she provides to the library’s quirky regulars. But the job doesn’t come without its difficulties. Books are mysteriously misshelved and disappearing, and her work forces her to confront the memories of her late father and the bookstore they once owned together before a terrible accident.

As the Blitz intensifies in Nottingham and Emma fights to reunite with her daughter, she must learn to depend on her community and the power of literature more than ever to find hope in the darkest of times.]]>
416 Madeline Martin 1335015132 Sumner 0 to-read 3.84 2024 The Booklover's Library
author: Madeline Martin
name: Sumner
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/28
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<![CDATA[How the Light Gets In (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, #9)]]> 17167084
When Gamache receives a message from Myrna Landers, in the village of Three Pines, he welcomes the chance to get away from the city for a few hours. Myrna's longtime friend, who was due to spend Christmas in the village, has failed to arrive. When Chief Inspector Gamache presses for information, Myrna is reluctant to reveal her friend's name. Mystified, Gamache soon discovers the missing woman was once one of the most famous people not just in North America but in the world, and now goes unrecognized by virtually everyone except the mad, brilliant poet Ruth Zardo.

As events come to a head at the Sûreté, Gamache is drawn ever deeper into the world of Three Pines. Increasingly, he is not only investigating the disappearance of Myrna's friend but also seeking a safe place for himself and his still-loyal colleagues—if such a refuge exists amid mounting danger. Is there peace to be found even in Three Pines, and at what cost to Gamache and the people he holds dear?]]>
405 Louise Penny 0312655479 Sumner 4 4.43 2013 How the Light Gets In (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, #9)
author: Louise Penny
name: Sumner
average rating: 4.43
book published: 2013
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/27
date added: 2024/12/27
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<![CDATA[The Anthropocene Reviewed: Essays on a Human-Centered Planet]]> 55145261 A deeply moving and mind-expanding collection of personal essays in the first ever work of non-fiction from #1 internationally bestselling author John Green

The Anthropocene is the current geological age, in which human activity has profoundly shaped the planet and its biodiversity. In this remarkable symphony of essays adapted and expanded from his ground-breaking, critically acclaimed podcast, John Green reviews different facets of the human-centered planet - from the QWERTY keyboard and Halley's Comet to Penguins of Madagascar - on a five-star scale.

Complex and rich with detail, the Anthropocene's reviews have been praised as 'observations that double as exercises in memoiristic empathy', with over 10 million lifetime downloads. John Green's gift for storytelling shines throughout this artfully curated collection about the shared human experience; it includes beloved essays along with six all-new pieces exclusive to the book.]]>
304 John Green 0525555218 Sumner 0 to-read 4.37 2021 The Anthropocene Reviewed: Essays on a Human-Centered Planet
author: John Green
name: Sumner
average rating: 4.37
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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Told You So 219579614
This time, for the first time since his arrest, Lee decides to answer it.

As the clock ticks down, Lee recounts his life, set against the rolling hills of the Kentucky countryside. After an early life of trouble, he ventures to work in the coal mines, where an unforeseen accident leads him to the love of his life, Delilah Novak. From there comes a sweeping love story that unfolds beneath a sky of hope, where love and sacrifice create a bond stronger than time itself. Years pass, and when Lee finds himself ensnared in the tendrils of a religious cult, he’s forced to confront how far he will go to protect those that he loves.

In this gripping narrative that weaves between past and present, Lee reveals the complexities of his character and the choices that ultimately sealed his fate. With each revelation, the truth behind his crime comes to light, challenging readers to confront the blurred lines between love, loyalty, and desperation. With a relatable cast and an ending you won’t see coming, Told You So is a tale about allowing ourselves to be loved, even when we think we don’t deserve it, and no matter the cost.]]>
311 Sarah Asermily Sumner 0 to-read 4.61 Told You So
author: Sarah Asermily
name: Sumner
average rating: 4.61
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date added: 2024/12/23
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Good Dirt 213618132 The daughter of an affluent Black family pieces together the connection between a childhood tragedy and a beloved heirloom in this moving novel from the New York Times bestselling author of Black Cake, a Read with Jenna Book Club Pick

When ten-year-old Ebby Freeman heard the gunshot, time stopped. And when she saw her brother, Baz, lying on the floor surrounded by the shattered pieces of a centuries-old jar, life as Ebby knew it shattered as well.

The crime was never solved—and because the Freemans were one of the only Black families in a particularly well-to-do enclave of New England—the case has had an enduring, voyeuristic pull for the public. The last thing the Freemans want is another media frenzy splashing their family across the papers, but when Ebby's high profile romance falls apart without any explanation, that's exactly what they get.

So Ebby flees to France, only for her past to follow her there. And as she tries to process what's happened, she begins to think about the other loss her family suffered on that day eighteen years ago—the stoneware jar that had been in their family for generations, brought North by an enslaved ancestor. But little does she know that the handcrafted piece of pottery held more than just her family's history—it might also hold the key to unlocking her own future.

In this sweeping, evocative novel, Charmaine Wilkerson brings to life a multi-generational epic that examines how the past informs our present.]]>
368 Charmaine Wilkerson 0593358368 Sumner 0 to-read 4.06 2025 Good Dirt
author: Charmaine Wilkerson
name: Sumner
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/21
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<![CDATA[Restoring Our Girls: How Real Conversations Shape Our Daughters' Lives, Help Them with Teen Challenges, and Remind Them That They Matter]]> 220462632
#1 New Release in Teen Health, and in Parenting Girls

Help your teenage girl prepare to face the world. So many girls are facing challenges every day, with the next generation seeing more skyrocketing diagnoses of depression and anxiety than ever before. While we might not be able to stop every trial that comes their way, we can still help our daughters persevere with strong self-confidence in themselves. Restoring Our Girls is an empowering book for girls ages 12-25 and their parents to use when facing tough situations in today’s world. With professional insight on society’s impact on young womanhood and ways to recognize and process it, you can help your child use their mental and emotional skills to achieve the fulfilling life they deserve.

Become the role model that she needs. Teenage mental health can feel isolating for both you and your teenager. Oftentimes, they will feel uncomfortable bringing up serious struggles to you for fear of being unseen or rejected. That is why author Cathy Cassani Adams is here on how to engage in uplifting communication through compassion and a willingness to learn. Using her methods for meaningful listening and action, your daughter will see how being genuine can open so many doors to true happiness.

Each chapter inside Restoring Our Girls covers all the complexities your teenager will face, including:

A Guide for Navigating Real Conversations: Learn how to engage in meaningful conversations with your daughter while minimizing conflict
Insights from Our Girls: Discover what your daughters wish we understood better
The Power of Prioritizing Your Relationship: Understand how focusing on connection can ease challenges and ensure a healthy and trusting relationship now and as they grow

So if you’re looking for books for parents and their daughters like Fourteen Talks by Age Fourteen, The Emotional Lives of Teenagers, or The Sleep-Deprived Teen, you’ll love Restoring Our Girls.]]>
224 Cathy Cassani Adams 1684816831 Sumner 0 to-read 4.12 Restoring Our Girls: How Real Conversations Shape Our Daughters' Lives, Help Them with Teen Challenges, and Remind Them That They Matter
author: Cathy Cassani Adams
name: Sumner
average rating: 4.12
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date added: 2024/12/20
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This Motherless Land 199531828 READ WITH JENNA BOOK CLUB PICK AS FEATURED ON TODAY

From the acclaimed author of Wahala, a “vibrant� (Charmaine Wilkerson) decolonial retelling of Mansfield Park: Jane Austen meets The Vanishing Half

Quiet Funke is happy in Nigeria. She loves her art teacher mother, her professor father, and even her annoying little brother (most of the time). But when tragedy strikes, she’s sent to England, a place she knows only from her mother’s stories. To her dismay, she finds the much-lauded estate dilapidated, the food tasteless, the weather grey. Worse still, her mother’s family are cold and distant. With one exception: her cousin Liv.

Free-spirited Liv has always wanted to break free of her joyless family. She becomes fiercely protective of her little cousin, and her warmth and kindness give Funke a place to heal. The two girls grow into adulthood the closest of friends.

But the choices their mothers made haunt Funke and Liv and when a second tragedy occurs their friendship is torn apart. Against the long shadow of their shared family history, each woman will struggle to chart a path forward, separated by country, misunderstanding, and ambition.

Moving between Somerset and Lagos over the course of two decades, This Motherless Land is a sweeping examination of identity, culture, race, and love that asks how we find belonging and whether a family’s generational wrongs can be righted.]]>
352 Nikki May 0063084295 Sumner 0 to-read 4.22 2024 This Motherless Land
author: Nikki May
name: Sumner
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/19
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<![CDATA[How Does That Make You Feel, Magda Eklund?]]> 200229948
Most days, Magda is fine. She has her routines. She has her anxious therapy patients, who depend on her to cure their bad habits. She has her longtime colleagues, whose playful bickering she mediates. She’s mourning the recent loss of her best friend, Sara, but has brokered a tentative truce with Sara’s prickly widower as she helps him sort through the last of Sara’s possessions. She’sĚýfine.

But in going through Sara’s old journal, Magda discovers her friend’s last plans for a road trip they would take together in celebration of Magda’s upcoming seventieth birthday. So, with Sara’s urn in tow, Magda decides to hit the road, crossing the country andĚýencountering a cast of memorable characters—including her sister, from whom she’s been keeping secrets. Along the way she stumbles upon a jazz funeral in New Orleans and a hilarious women’s retreat meant to “unleash one’s divine feminine energyâ€� in Texas, and meets a woman who challenges her conceptions of herself—and the hidden truths about her friendship with Sara.

As the trip shakes up her careful routines, Magda finally faces longings she locked away years ago and confronts questions about her sexuality and identity she thought she had long put to rest. And as she soon learns, it’s never too late to start your next journey.]]>
256 Anna Montague 0063353644 Sumner 0 to-read 3.07 2024 How Does That Make You Feel, Magda Eklund?
author: Anna Montague
name: Sumner
average rating: 3.07
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/17
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What Happened to the McCrays? 195391623 From New York Times bestselling author Tracey Lange, a poignant story about the resilience of family, the importance of community, and the magic of middle school hockey

When Kyle McCray gets word his father has suffered a debilitating stroke, he returns to his hometown of Potsdam, New York, where he doesn’t expect a warm welcome. Kyle left suddenly two and a half years ago, abandoning people who depended on him: his father, his employees, his friends—not to mention Casey, his wife of sixteen years and a beloved teacher in town. He plans to lie low and help his dad recuperate until he can leave again, especially after Casey makes it clear she wants him gone.

The longer he’s home, the more Kyle understands the impact his departure has had on the people he left behind. When he’s presented with an opportunity for redemption as the coach of the floundering middle school hockey team, he begins to find compassion in unexpected places. Kyle even considers staying in Potsdam, but that’s only possible if he and Casey can come to some kind of peace with each other.

Full of love and hope, What Happened to the McCrays? takes an intimate look at both sides of a failed marriage and two people who must finally confront the awful pain of their past or risk being consumed by it.]]>
352 Tracey Lange 1250328438 Sumner 0 to-read 4.10 2025 What Happened to the McCrays?
author: Tracey Lange
name: Sumner
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/17
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<![CDATA[The Most Wonderful Crime of the Year]]> 199531989 Knives Out gets a rom-com twist in this rivals-to-lovers Christmas romance-mystery from New York Times bestselling author Ally Carter

The bridge is out. The phones are down. And the most famous mystery writer in the world just disappeared out of a locked room three days before Christmas.

Meet Maggie Chase and Ethan Wyatt:
She’s the new Queen of the Cozy Mystery.
He’s Mr. Big-Time Thriller Guy.

She hates his guts.

He thinks her name is Marcie (no matter how many times she’s told him otherwise.)

But when they both accept a cryptic invitation to attend a Christmas house party at the English estate of a reclusive fan, neither is expecting their host to be the most powerful author in the world: Eleanor Ashley, the Duchess of Death herself.

That night, the weather turns, and the next morning Eleanor is gone.

She vanished from a locked room, and Maggie has to wonder: Is Eleanor in danger? Or is it all some kind of test? Is Ethan the competition? Or is he the only person in that snowbound mansion she can trust?

As the snow gets deeper and the stakes get higher, every clue will bring Maggie and Ethan closer to the truth—and each other. Because, this Christmas, these two rivals are going to have to become allies (and maybe more) if they have any hope of saving Eleanor.

Assuming they don’t kill each other first.]]>
293 Ally Carter 0063276682 Sumner 4 3.92 2024 The Most Wonderful Crime of the Year
author: Ally Carter
name: Sumner
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/17
date added: 2024/12/17
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The Christmas Guest 83814905 An American art student in London is invited to join a classmate for the holidays at Starvewood Hall, her family's Cotswold manor house. But behind the holly and pine boughs, secrets are about to unravel, revealing this seemingly charming English village's grim history.

Ashley Smith, an American art student in London for her junior year, was planning on spending Christmas alone, but a last-minute invitation from fellow student Emma Chapman brings her to Starvewood Hall, country residence of the Chapman family. The Cotswold manor house, festooned in pine boughs and crammed with guests for Christmas week, is a dream come true for Ashley. She is mesmerized by the cozy, firelit house, the large family, and the charming village of Clevemoor, but also by Adam Chapman, Emma's aloof and handsome brother.

But Adam is being investigated by the local police over the recent brutal slaying of a girl from the village, and there is a mysterious stranger who haunts the woodland path between Starvewood Hall and the local pub. Ashley begins to wonder what kind of story she is actually inhabiting. Is she in a grand romance? A gothic tale? Or has she wandered into something far more sinister and terrifying than she'd ever imagined?

Over thirty years later the events of that horrific week are revisited, along with a diary from that time. What began in a small English village in 1989 reaches its ghostly conclusion in modern-day New York, many Christmas seasons later.]]>
96 Peter Swanson 0063297450 Sumner 2 3.58 2023 The Christmas Guest
author: Peter Swanson
name: Sumner
average rating: 3.58
book published: 2023
rating: 2
read at: 2024/12/11
date added: 2024/12/11
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<![CDATA[Wild Things: The Art of Nurturing Boys]]> 5893865 368 Stephen James 1414322275 Sumner 0 to-read 4.26 2009 Wild Things: The Art of Nurturing Boys
author: Stephen James
name: Sumner
average rating: 4.26
book published: 2009
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/10
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<![CDATA[The Opt-Out Family: How to Give Your Kids What Technology Can't]]> 201335331
We've all heard the mind-boggling statistics about technology and social media use. The numbers don't lie; our obsession with smartphones and social media is slowly eroding the very essence of our homes and families. We see it. We feel it. We know it.

So what do weĚýdoĚýabout it?

Spoiler Forget parental control apps, time limits, or reward charts. This revolutionary path takes us into the heart of the beast the social media algorithm. Former social media influencer and trailblazer Erin Loechner has seen the perks and pitfalls of social media usage, and she knows how to hack the strategies of tech wizards and platform experts so you can borrow their billion-dollar playbook to engage your family in meaningful ways away from screens.

The Opt-Out FamilyĚýis packed with eye-opening research and startling insights, as well as practical encouragement and creative ideas to transform your family's relationship with today's ever-evolving technology. As a result, you

Experience more quality time with your children that doesn't revolve around screensCreate healthy habits as a family that will set your children up for success in the futureDiscover what your kids actually need from you, and learn how to delight and engage them better than a device canAnd, ultimately, establish true and lasting influence within your own four walls--and far beyondThe Opt-Out FamilyĚýunlocks a world where genuine connections flourish and technology takes a backseat. It's time to reclaim your home and build a tech-free family culture that's stronger than your Wi-Fi signal.]]>
320 Erin Loechner 0310345693 Sumner 0 to-read 4.33 The Opt-Out Family: How to Give Your Kids What Technology Can't
author: Erin Loechner
name: Sumner
average rating: 4.33
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Love, Holly 78299277
Sometimes it takes a stranger to bring you back to yourself.

Ever since a car accident tore her family apart, Holly has been part of a lonely-hearts holiday letter–writing club. Each December, she writes to a stranger who is also spending Christmas alone, and receives a letter from another lonely person in return.Ěý

Usually, the letters go unanswered. That’s the point—the letters are anonymous, and the senders write whatever is in their heart. But this year, the letter Holly receives is different; not only is the letter full of a grief she knows all too well, but its writer, Emma, mentions a place that Holly has visited. When she realizes that she might actually be able to find the letter’s author, Holly becomes determined to reunite Emma with the estranged grandson, Jack, with whom Emma is desperate to reconnect.

When Holly finally tracks him down, she remembers that she’s met Jack once before . . . and the connection was electric. The spark between the two of them is still there—until a misunderstanding risks their burgeoning romance and his strained relationship with Emma, too. But Holly is determined; if she can fix Emma’s family, she might also be able to fix her own. Though as it turns out, Holly might have less time to put things right than she thought.]]>
370 Emily Stone 0593722116 Sumner 3 holidays 3.85 2023 Love, Holly
author: Emily Stone
name: Sumner
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2024/12/10
date added: 2024/12/10
shelves: holidays
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The Turtle House 158649877
Both women are at a turning point: Mineko, long widowed, moved in with her son and daughter-in-law after a suspicious fire destroyed the Cope family ranch house, while Lia, an architect with a promising career in Austin, has unexpectedly returned under circumstances she refuses to explain. Though Lia never felt especially close to her grandmother, the two grow close sharing late-night conversations. Mineko tells stories of her early life in Japan, of the war that changed everything, and of her two great a man named Akio Sato and an abandoned Japanese country estate they called the Turtle House, where their relationship took root.

As Mineko reveals more of her early life—tales of innocent swimming lessons that blossom into something more, a friendship nurtured across oceans, totems saved and hidden, the heartbreak of love lost too soon—Lia comes to understand the depth of her grandmother’s pain and sacrifice and sees her Texas family in a new light. She also recognizes that it’s she who needs to come clean—about the budding career she abandoned and the mysterious man who keeps calling. When Mineko’s adult children decide, against her wishes, to move her into an assisted living community, she and Lia devise a plan to bring a beloved lost place to life, one that they hope will offer the safety and sense of belonging they both need, no matter the cost. A story of intergenerational friendship, family, coming of age, identity, and love, The Turtle House illuminates the hidden lives we lead, the secrets we hold close, and what it truly means to find home again when it feels lost forever.]]>
304 Amanda Churchill 0063290510 Sumner 0 to-read 3.98 2024 The Turtle House
author: Amanda Churchill
name: Sumner
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/02
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One Last Gift 60323954 When a young woman finds herself lost and at a crossroads, one last gift from her brother just might give her another chance at life and at love in this epic holiday romance from the author of Always, in December

Sometimes the best gifts in life are the ones you don't expect.

Cassie and Tom lost their parents at a young age and relied on each other--as well as a community of friends--to get through it. Especially Tom's best friend, Sam, who always made sure Tom and Cassie were surrounded with love. But now, twenty years later, Cassie has lost Tom as well. And in a way, she's also lost Sam; over the years they've drifted apart, and now the man she always had a crush on is someone she doesn't even recognize anymore.

She's never felt more alone.

Then she finds an envelope with her name on it, written in Tom's terrible handwriting, and she knows immediately what it is. It's the first clue in the Christmas scavenger hunt Tom made for her every year; he'd promised her for months that this year's would be the grandest one yet. At first, she's too scared to open it--what if she can't figure out the clues without his help? Or what if she does figure them all out, and her last connection to Tom is gone?

Tom's clues set Cassie on a heart-wrenching and beautiful journey that will change her life--if she lets them. And as she travels from London to the Welsh mountains to the French countryside, she reconnects with old friends, rekindles a lost love, and most importantly, rediscovers herself. But once she's solved the final clue, will she be brave enough to accept the gift her brother has given her--and the love it's led her to?]]>
400 Emily Stone 0593598342 Sumner 0 to-read 3.72 2022 One Last Gift
author: Emily Stone
name: Sumner
average rating: 3.72
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/01
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PS: I Hate You 209455843
Sure, Dom was Josh’s life-long best friend. He’s also the infuriating man who broke Maddie’s heart back when she was naïve enough to give it to him. But since Dom insists on following the rules and Josh didn’t leave much room for Maddie to argue the matter, they embark together on a farewell trip that spans thousands of miles, exploring new places and revisiting their complicated history along the way.

After a snowstorm leads to a shared bed, Maddie starts to wonder if her brother might be matchmaking from the grave. But when grief also reopens old wounds between them, Maddie will need more than Josh’s ghostly guidance to trust Dom again.]]>
432 Lauren Connolly Sumner 4 4.07 2024 PS: I Hate You
author: Lauren Connolly
name: Sumner
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/01
date added: 2024/12/01
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Homeseeking 211025407 Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780593712993.

An epic and intimate tale of one couple across sixty years as world events pull them together and apart, illuminating the Chinese diaspora and exploring what it means to find home far from your homeland.

A single choice can define an entire life.

Haiwen is buying bananas at a 99 Ranch Market in Los Angeles when he looks up and sees Suchi, his Suchi, for the first time in sixty years. To recently widowed Haiwen it feels like a second chance, but Suchi has only survived by refusing to look back.

Suchi was seven when she first met Haiwen in their Shanghai neighborhood, drawn by the sound of his violin. Their childhood friendship blossomed into soul-deep love, but when Haiwen secretly enlisted in the Nationalist army in 1947 to save his brother from the draft, she was left with just his violin and a note: Forgive me.

Homeseeking follows the separated lovers through six decades of tumultuous Chinese history as war, famine, and opportunity take them separately to the song halls of Hong Kong, the military encampments of Taiwan, the bustling streets of New York, and sunny California, telling Haiwen’s story from the present to the past while tracing Suchi’s from her childhood to the present, meeting in the crucible of their lives. Throughout, Haiwen holds his memories close while Suchi forces herself to look only forward, neither losing sight of the home they hold in their hearts.

At once epic and intimate, Homeseeking is a story of family, sacrifice, and loyalty, and of the power of love to endure beyond distance, beyond time.]]>
512 Karissa Chen Sumner 0 to-read 4.25 2025 Homeseeking
author: Karissa Chen
name: Sumner
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/11/27
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The Martha Rules 837606
Now, for the first time, Martha Stewart shares her business knowledge and advice in this handbook for success. Tapping into her years of experience in building a thriving business, Martha will help readers identify their own entrepreneurial voice and channel their skills and passions into a successful business venture. Her advice and insight is applicable to anyone who is about to start or expand a venture of any size, whether it is a business or philanthropic endeavor, but also to individuals who want to apply the entrepreneurial spirit to a job or corporation to increase innovation and maintain a competitive edge.

Featuring Martha's top principles for success, as well as stories and anecdotes from her own experiences, Martha's Rules is sure to appeal to business readers, fans, and anyone who admires her for her style, taste, and great advice―and who have great business ideas of their own!]]>
205 Martha Stewart 1594864705 Sumner 0 to-read 3.71 The Martha Rules
author: Martha Stewart
name: Sumner
average rating: 3.71
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/11/25
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The Family Game 60417443 A rich, eccentric family. A time-honored tradition. Or a lethal game of survival? One woman finds out what it really takes to join the 1% in this riveting psychological thriller from the New York Times bestselling author of Something in the Water, Mr. Nobody, and The Disappearing Act.

Harry is a novelist on the brink of stardom; Edward, her husband-to-be, is seemingly perfect. In love and freshly engaged, their bliss is interrupted by the reemergence of the Holbecks, Edward's eminent family and the embodiment of American old money. For years, they've dominated headlines and pulled society's strings, and Edward left them all behind to forge his own path. But there are eyes and ears everywhere. It was only a matter of time before they were pulled back in . . .

After all, even though he's long severed ties with his family, Edward is set to inherit it all. Harriet is drawn to the glamour and sophistication of the Holbecks, who seem to welcome her with open arms, but everything changes when she meets Robert, the inescapably magnetic head of the family. At their first meeting, Robert slips Harry a cassette tape, revealing a shocking confession which sets the inevitable game in motion.

What is it about Harry that made him give her that tape? A thing that has the power to destroy everything? As she ramps up her quest for the truth, she must endure the Holbecks' savage Christmas traditions all the while knowing that losing this game could be deadly.]]>
319 Catherine Steadman 0593158067 Sumner 0 to-read 3.83 2022 The Family Game
author: Catherine Steadman
name: Sumner
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/11/25
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Great Big Beautiful Life 218559595 Two writers compete for the chance to tell the larger-than-life story of a woman with more than a couple of plot twists up her sleeve in this dazzling and sweeping new novel from Emily Henry.

Alice Scott is an eternal optimist still dreaming of her big writing break. Hayden Anderson is a Pulitzer-prize winning human thundercloud. And they’re both on balmy Little Crescent Island for the same reason: To write the biography of a woman no one has seen in years--or at least to meet with the octogenarian who claims to be the Margaret Ives. Tragic heiress, former tabloid princess, and daughter of one of the most storied (and scandalous) families of the 20th Century.

When Margaret invites them both for a one-month trial period, after which she’ll choose the person who’ll tell her story, there are three things keeping Alice’s head in the game.

One: Alice genuinely likes people, which means people usually like Alice—and she has a whole month to win the legendary woman over.

Two: She’s ready for this job and the chance to impress her perennially unimpressed family with a Serious Publication

Three: Hayden Anderson, who should have no reason to be concerned about losing this book, is glowering at her in a shaken-to-the core way that suggests he sees her as competition.

But the problem is, Margaret is only giving each of them pieces of her story. Pieces they can’t swap to put together because of an ironclad NDA and an inconvenient yearning pulsing between them every time they’re in the same room.

And it’s becoming abundantly clear that their story—just like the tale Margaret’s spinning—could be a mystery, tragedy, or love ballad…depending on who’s telling it.]]>
384 Emily Henry 059344129X Sumner 0 to-read 4.22 2025 Great Big Beautiful Life
author: Emily Henry
name: Sumner
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/11/24
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