On the brink of death, a man comes to terms with the life he lived versus the one he never pursued in an emotionally rich novel of parallel lives, redemption, and finding purpose.
On the eve of his sixtieth birthday, mechanic Rusty Wilson takes a bullet to save the patrons of a small-town Colorado diner—and awakens to a strange realm between life and death.
However, he finds that this limbo is not the end. There are still choices to be made and a lifetime to review. Paths open for a man who believes the life he did live was one of disappointments, grief, and devastating family estrangements. Given a chance to experience an alternate reality, Rusty is visited by figures from his past and present, sees what could have been if he had pursued a woman he loved from afar, and confronts a family secret that shaped everything. Now it’s Rusty’s choice: accept the imperfect existence he knew, or the what-if that could still be his.
At the heart of this poignant exploration of mortality, memory, and second chances is the profoundly simple question: What makes a life truly meaningful?
Against the sunlit backdrop of Italy, five expats discover each other—and rediscover themselves—in a charmingly funny and poignant novel by the author of An Unfinished Story and A Spanish Sunrise.
Tucked away on a cobblestone street in enchanting Bologna, Italy, is the only English bookstore in the city. It’s owned by prickly Sandy Cooke, who keeps love, and even romantic fiction, at a distance. Her employee, timid and hopelessly optimistic Moira, dreams of transforming the struggling shop into a vibrant community hub. Against the odds, one Bolognese summer, it becomes a haven for fellow expats at their own crossroads.
Bianca is a psychotherapist escaping both a breakdown and withering reviews of her new self-help book. On her heels is her father, George, wrestling with retirement—and regrets. He’s had a few, but the light of his life has always been his daughter. Then there’s Harold, a young and awkward barista from Denver recovering from his first belly-flopping high dive into love. Maybe it’s time for reinvention.
At the only English bookstore in Bologna, paths converge for five damaged souls who discover that healing doesn’t require much—just honest connection and an open heart.
At an isolated research station in Antarctica, biologist Laurel Salter washes dishes for a living ten hours a day, six days a week. She tells no one why she left her career, or why her marriage ended.
But even in this remote outpost, Laurel can't outrun her past. When a strange light appears across the ice and draws a group of physicists to McMurdo, her former husband, Eli, won't be far behind.
Laurel is captivated by the Arc: its surreal glow; the way it seems almost alive. And though Eli is reluctant to test her wildest theory, Laurel is convinced that the Arc leads down a rabbit hole and into a world they can barely imagine. Can she persuade him to risk everything to fix the burden that hangs between them - to turn back the clock and live their story a second time?
And this time, live it differently.
Once read, never forgotten, Under Story is a genre-defying exploration of the promise of this life, what might lie beyond it, and how far we would go for more time with the people we love.
The Day Our Lives Collided by Laura Pearson
How do you know when you’ve met your soulmate?
It’s the first day of term, and the lives of three new university students are about to collide. They’re going to introduce each other to more friends too. People who will be in their lives forever.
They’re young when the weddings start. Tash and Adam seem destined for each other, only 22 but with a baby already on the way. Even when a chance remark from Adam’s best man about their other friend, Hayden, puts everything at risk.
By the time the second wedding comes around, everything’s changed. And even more by the third…
Because it turns out, our soulmates aren’t always who we think they’ll be. And life has a funny way of switching things around. Just when you least expect it.
Tell Two Friends by Ann Garvin
A wickedly funny and empowering thriller about women, the manipulators who underestimate them, and keeping your dignity while saving the day by the author of I Thought You Said This Would Work.
Jane Baye is a regular person, good at a lot of things, but identifying the serial killer right in front of her isn’t one of them.
In 1990, college senior Jane wrote to an incarcerated woman because it seemed like a nice thing to do. Thirty-six years later, that felon, actually a man, has moved in next door. He’s watching her every move, with a decades-long plan for Jane that a nice person like her would never see coming.
Especially because Jane is wrapped up in her own problems: a small-town golden boy with talk of forever and a diabolical history of cheating. When she exposes her ex, the entire town of Wonder Lake turns against her.
It’s no wonder she doesn’t see what’s coming on the night of the Norwegian heritage festival.
But woe to those who mistake Jane for a pushover. When celebration becomes a fight for survival, the very qualities that make her ordinary become the weapons she’ll bet everything on.
The Library of Lost Stories by Eloise Williams
It’s Christmas 1976, Noni and her dad have no money left and the bailiffs are getting ready to take away their home. Noni thinks that fixing the mobile library might be the thing to bring a spark back to her dad’s eyes and get him back to work. But the library van is stuck on Mrs Williams’ driveway and, according to the stories, she’s probably a witch.
Noni needs the help of Becca, Gareth, Clare and stray dog Jones to get the job done. But can Noni learn to trust her new friends and get the van started before she loses her home?
An unforgettable, heartwarming novel and the perfect Christmas gift.
Heartbreak for the Irish Midwife by Seana Tinley
Belfast, 1939.
When World War Two is declared, Maisie Canavan is working as a newly-qualified midwife in Belfast's Royal Maternity Hospital, helping women and babies across the community - no matter what their families' background is. She's just moved back home from London after having her heart broken, but focusing on helping new life enter the world is enough to distract her thoughts, and she's determined not to let herself fall for someone again.
But as she works more and more with Dr Alex Lowe, Maisie is pulled in by his kind grey eyes and gentle heart. Maisie and Alex find themselves drawn together - but they come from opposite sides of the Irish political divide, and the world around them isn't ready to accept love between a Catholic and a Protestant. They have no choice but to keep their feelings a secret . . .
As bombs begin to rain on Belfast, and she sees Alex risking his life to care for the whole community, Maisie can't help but wonder why two people in love should be kept apart.
Can she find the strength to go against her own community for love - or will the dangers of war mean her heart is broken for a second time . . .
Until the Last Day by Cynthia Ellingsen
The fate of two strangers becomes part of the heartbreaking history of a celebrated painting in a novel of suspense and forbidden love by the bestselling author of The Lost Letters of Aisling.
The historic art gallery Hatterfield House symbolizes hope for cancer survivor Hannah Caddell. Like the art she painstakingly restores, Hannah needs to be brought back to life herself. Everything is upended when she and a new client, Lucas Henry, are held hostage by gunmen in search of a world-renowned painting from the Cuban Missile Crisis that, decades ago, captured both dread and beauty in a time of cataclysmic fears.
In 1961, Maryann Linnegan can’t see beyond her narrow future as a traditional wife and Florida socialite. Then she falls unexpectedly, deeply in love with Elio, a construction worker and Cuban immigrant. Their forbidden love couldn’t possibly survive beneath the weight of expectations. But when the Cuban Missile Crisis threatens to end the world as they know it, will they choose each other in spite of it all?
Past and present converge as Hannah and Lucas find a startling connection between the painting and the long-ago love story. As the mystery reveals itself, Hannah wonders who she can trust and what she must risk to protect a profound work of art—and to make it out alive.
The Golden Hours by Louisa Young
Continuing the story of one of the most beloved families in British literature, The Golden Hours is the brilliant new novel in Elizabeth Jane Howard’s iconic Cazalet Chronicles written by her niece, the bestselling author Louisa Young.
Our lives have changed so much . . .
It’s December 1962, and the Cazalet family are gathering to celebrate Christmas. With the family’s beloved Home Place long sold, Polly and Gerald have offered up their rambling stately pile, Fakenham Hall in Norfolk, to parents, siblings, cousins and children.
The old guard – brothers Hugh, Edward, Rupert and their sister Rachel – look on as the England they knew and understood fades from view. Cousins Polly, Louise and Clary, all now on the brink of turning forty, are struggling to balance the demands of midlife with their personal desires – however secret. And then there are the young – a new generation growing up in a society on the cusp of real change.
In this spellbinding novel, familiar faces reappear, newcomers are introduced, and the legacy of the Cazalets carries on into the Swinging Sixties.
Beneath David's Throne: Michal's Story by Melissa Alfredson
THEY CALL JERUSALEM DAVID'S TRIUMPH.
Michal calls it her cage.
Once a princess of Israel and the woman who helped secure King David's crown, Michal now lives as a discarded queen in the palace her husband built upon the ruins of her father's dynasty. Childless and increasingly sidelined as new wives and their sons rise around her, she clings to the fragile power her name still commands.
But when the house of David fractures under rival claims and hidden betrayals, Michal is drawn into the deadly politics of succession as she fights to protect the young princess Tamar, the one soul in the palace she cannot abandon.
As prophecy closes in around David's throne and old wounds refuse to stay buried, Michal must confront the legacy of her father, the silence of the husband she once loved, and the God whose purposes she cannot escape.
Darkly lyrical and psychologically charged, Beneath David's Throne is a work of literary historical fiction steeped in the court intrigue and dynastic politics of ancient Israel. For readers of The Red Tent and The Marriage Portrait, this first novel in the Beneath David's Throne saga reclaims Michal, daughter of Saul—the forgotten woman who stood closest to David's throne.
History remembered her as barren. This is the story it left out.
(Header photo courtesy of Joe Caonie/Unsplash)
(all opinions are my own)
