Built by Jay Crownover (2016)

I read this entire book in one night. It was delicious. 

Zeb Fuller is a contractor who's spent a bit of time locked up, and sports tattoos, a beard and unruly hair. Also, mossy green eyes. Sayer Cole is a lawyer who recently discovered a half-brother (who happens to be Zeb's good friend). When Zeb finds out he has a son, Sayer gets involved in helping him get custody of the boy and keep him out of the foster system. AND, despite the fact that she's incredibly cautious about feelings due to her emotionally abusive father, they are drawn to one another. 

Even though this book is billed as "New Adult", this feels like a truly adult (as in grown-up people with grown-up lives) romance. And it is FILLED with rich characters who have their own stories (in Crownover's sprawling catalogue.) Sexy and romantic, while being realistic and touching. SO thumbs up.

Available by Matteson Perry (2016)

Subtitled: A Memoir of Heartbreak, Hookups, Love and Brunch, this is a pretty adorable memoir of one guy's dating adventures in L.A., complete with regular brunch with his guy friends.

Perry is a Moth storyteller, and his book is pretty funny. I like that it doesn't pretend to be anything more than it is. It doesn't pretend to be the last word in insight into relationships, but it does give pretty interesting insight into dating.

A few quotes I loved:

 "Even buying condoms for the first time terrified me. I worried that Porcelain baby Matteson would go into the store and say, "One box of sexual condoms, please," and the clerk would laugh. "Oh no, I can't sell you those. Not only are you too young to have sex, but I can tell you're also not cool enough." (p. 24)  

Perry on his first time:

"In real life, we couldn't even get started. I'd thought it would be kind of like two magnets, that once our equipment got close enough they'd automatically pull together. Nope. I was thrusting blindly, as if I were playing an easy-looking carnival game that is actually impossible. And neither of us knew we could use our hands down there. I guess we thought sex had the same rules as soccer." (p. 27) 

And something I identify with:

"Approximately 80% of my advice is unsolicited." (p. 191)

If You Only Knew by Kristan Higgins (2015)

Marvelous romance novel, which could be classified as a regular novel.

The novel is about two sisters: Rachel and Jenny. Jenny is divorced, still good friends with her ex and moving to upstate New York to open her bridal design store. Rachel is married to Adam and has three adorable toddler triplet girls. However, the course of divorce and marriage never runs smooth. 

The beauty in this novel is in the rich characters and relationships, from the one-upping in unhappiness that their widowed mother delights in, the secret about their father only Jenny knows, and Jenny's new handsome super. 

Rich and realistic and touching and hard and sweet all at once.

A Head Full of Ghosts by Paul Tremblay (2015)

Terrifically spooky novel about a family that appears on a reality television show about their daughter's possession.

The story starts out with the younger sister of the afflicted girl telling her story to a journalist and remembering the events. What Tremblay does so well is capture the viewpoint of an 8-year-old girl who is genuinely unsure about what is happening in her house. 

Spooky and yet endearing; genuinely suspenseful and creepy. 

Love by the Morning Star by Laura L. Sullivan (2014)

I LOVED this book. It's a young adult novel that doesn't feel like a young adult novel and it is perfectly lovely.

Love by the Morning Star would make a gorgeous screwball comedy of the 1930s or a perfect musical. Two young women come to a country house in England (think Downton Abbey) for two very different reasons and accidentally end up in each other's spots. 

Anna Morgan is sent by her Nazi sympathizer father to work as a kitchen maid and spy on the liberal Lord Liripip. Hannah Morgenstern, a half-Jewish daughter of a distant relation to the Liripips, is sent away from Berlin and her family's cabaret after Kristallnacht. Hannah, intended for above stairs ends up as the kitchen maid, and vice versa. And of course, there is a handsome heir who both girls fall for. 

Beautifully written, this is one of those books that where the plot propels me but I want to slow down and really appreciate the writing. And did I mention Hannah's compatriot and new coworker Waltrud/Traudl? Every character is beautifully written and the humor is sophisticated and a bit naughty. Perfectly gorgeous.

The Next Best Thing by Kristan Higgins (2010)

Check out the cover, with its head-cut-off couple, bare feet, mixing bowl and sunshine. Okay, now look past it. Although it seems like a light and charming mass-market contemporary romance, it's a bit more serious and a bit more strongly written than first appears.

Lucy, widowed at a very young age, and enjoying a friend-with-benefits with her brother-in-law, decides she needs to try to find love and marriage again. Who doesn't she consider? That brother-in-law. Meanwhile, the Greek chorus of her also-widowed mother and aunts (the Black Widows) provide running commentary.

This is a wonderfully thoughtful romance with complex characters dealing with issues of grief and forgiveness. The Black Widows add even more humor and charm to the story. Believeable, realistic and charming, this made me want to check out more Kristan Higgins.

Belzhar by Meg Wolitzer (2014)

Terrible name for a pretty good teen novel.

After losing her boyfriend and being unable to get over the grief, Jam is sent to The Wooden Barn, a therapeutic boarding schoool in Vermont. She gets placed in a Special Topics in English class where she and a few other students study Sylvia Plath intensely. Their unusual teacher gives them each journals to write in, and that writing takes them to very unusual places.

Surprising, suspenseful, and very thoughtful about issues of grief, guilt and blame. But a wildly undescriptive and misleading title.

Extraordinary Means by Robyn Schneider (2015)

With a tagline that reads, "Life goes on until it doesn't," it sounds like this book is going to be another Fault in Our Stars. But it's really quite good. (Full disclosure: I haven't read Fault, but as I haven't liked any of John Green's books, I'm not planning on doing so. I think he's a completely charming person, nonetheless.)

Lane is seventeen, and is just moving into Latham House, a sanitorium for total drug-resistant tuberculosis afflicted teens. It's an interesting and unusual scenario, and really treats the disease seriously--this is no incurable movie disease. 

He meets Sadie and falls for her and her quirky group of friends. Sisman gets teen humor perfectly right--the near constant sarcasm, teasing and jokes (and it's actually funny) and yet the book is poignant without the slightest trace of treacle. Fabulous.

The Geek Girl and the Scandalous Earl by Gina Lamm (2013)

Don't let the cheesy cover and title fool you. This is an adorable time travel novel about gamer/geek girl Jamie who gets sucked through an antique bureau 200 years into the past.

She pops into the world of the Earl of Dunnington, who is far more imperious that would appear on this hilarious cover. In fact, there's more than a little of Richard Armitage's John Thornton from North and South in him. They keep mentioning Colin Firth, but he's far more Armitage. 

This romance novel is cute and funny. Lamm blends the two times together quite well and has some pretty good characterization. And don't forget the smoking-hot love scenes. So good that I immediately requested every Gina Lamm book in our collection.

Dear Enemy by Jean Webster (1915)

The sequel to Jean Webster's wildly charming Daddy Long-Legs.

Judy and Jervie have run off and gotten married. Sallie McBride has graduated from college and looking for a job. Judy and Jervie arrange to have her take over the management of the John Grier Home. As Sallie works to make a better orphanage and implement all of her wonderful ideas, she has the grumpy and change-averse Scottish doctor Doctor MacRae to content and spar with.

I loved it as a child, and it still holds up as quite charming. I particularly like Sallie McBride's fix-it, control-enthusiast character. (Because she is VERY FAMILIAR to me.)

However, I think I've figured out why this book is so hard to find and isn't readily in print. There are some pretty hard words about feeble-mindedness and genetics and wiping out the feeble-minded which are pretty shocking to a contemporary reader.

Dumplin' by Julie Murphy (2015)

Willowdean (aka "Dumplin'") Dickson has always had an excellent body image, despite her beauty queen mother's endeavors to help her lose weight.

She's happy and well-adjusted, at least until she gets a job at the local fast-food restaurant and meets Bo, the hot and mysterious cook. She starts to lose her self-confidence and sets out to take it back by entering the legendary local beauty pageant, along with a motley crew of characters.

This young adult novel has endearing, realistic characters and is terribly sweet and funny. Charming, romantic and again, funny as heck.