Class Mom by Laurie Gelman (2017)

Picked this up off a cart at the library purely for the cover and the spine, which basically says "Ass Mom." (lol!)

Jen, formerly band groupie with two children, one of whom may or may not have been fathered by Michael Hutchence, is married with a five-year-old son and has been recruited as Max's class mom. She sends snarky emails to the parents, gets involved in kindergarten parent politics, and deals with the emotions of being an aging 'cool girl.' 

So readable, so delightful. Even though she's a well-off white woman without a job--which is a very tiring genre--I still liked it. Here's an example of the cuteness: She calls her husband's home gym "Ron's Gym and Tan." Anyhoo. Cute.

Update: Apparently, there are two more in this series. Who knew? Now I do!

Roomies by Christina Lauren (2017)

Romantic comedy about a woman who is obsessed with a busker at her subway station who gets attacked one day and is saved by him. In order to try to repay the debt, she gets him an audition with her uncle's Broadway show. It's a match made in heaven until they discover he is in America illegally, as he overstayed his visa. Enter a marriage of convenience. 

Funny but a bit deeper than your average chick lit, and I LOVED the Broadway setting portrayed pretty realistically. Very endearing.

Force of Nature by Jane Harper (2018)

Five women and five men go out into the Australian bushland on a corporate adventure team-building retreat, but only four of the women return. 

A couple of detectives with a vested interest in the missing woman join the search and investigation. Everyone has something to hide and what happened to the missing woman is complicated on a Who Shot Mr. Burns level (basically everybody). Very readable and enjoyable, though.

And apparently, it's the second in a series that starts with Dry and features investigator Aaron Falk. So I'll be requesting that one now!

The Singing Bone by Beth Hahn (2016)

A convicted killer's imminent parole forces a woman to confront the nightmarish past she's spent twenty years escaping.

Alice is a professor in present-day 1999, but when she was a teenager in 1979, she and her friends got involved with a mysterious group headed by the charismatic Jack Wyck. Things ended badly and most of the people involved with Wyck are either in jail or dead. A documentary filmmaker is trying to get in touch with her and other survivors to make a film about the situation and things begin stirring again. 

Very atmospheric, and the story skillfully moves between the time settings. Creepy and good.

Meet Me at Beachcomber Bay by Jill Mansell (2017)

I always adore Jill Mansell and sometimes you just need to read a book about charming people falling in love, despite a few hiccups, in a beautiful British location. 

Let's see: There's a girl with a weird name, who has a contentious relationship with her stepsister, who meets a man on a plane, but loses contact, then he shows up as her stepsister's boyfriend but there's still attraction. So girl with weird name pretends to be dating her boss. who has his own hopeless (seeming!) love affair, PLUS a whole thing with his birth mom. Everything turns out beautifully, sigh.

CLEMENCY! The name is Clemency. Well, yeah.

The Grip of It by Jac Jemc (2017)

Julie and James have recently bought a beautiful old home in the suburbs for an amazing price. But there's a few mysterious things they discover about the house--a strange sound they can't identify, mysterious secret compartments, their very unfriendly neighbor. And then things get even worse. 

Jemc does a beautiful job of establishing a truly creepy atmosphere and ramping things up without taking things too far. Very vivid and compelling. Also, this is one of the best horror covers ever. Matches the story perfectly! 

Best Day Ever by Kaira Rouda (2017)

A very simple story: a married couple is driving to a romantic weekend getaway to a lake house. And yet ... As they drive, tension between them mounts and we learn they're both harboring secrets. 

Deliciously readable with beautifully unfolding tension and yes, a fascinatingly unreliable narrator. (I'm using ALL my adjectives on this one.)

Warm Bodies - Isaac Marion (2011)

I picked up this zombie romantic comedy purely because they made a movie of it and the trailer looked cute. By the way, isn't that cover great?

This is a very endearing zombie romantic comedy--yes, zombie romantic comedy--that tells the story of R, a zombie wandering around in a zombie vs. survivalist humans world. The story is told from R's point of view, and there are many laugh out loud moments. When he eats the brain of a young human and falls for his girlfriend Julie, it gets a bit more serious.

But throughout, it still has lovely touches of humor. Marion does a beautiful job of getting inside R's head and still showing what he looks and sounds like from the outside. It's thoughtful and philosophical about the end of the world in a way that most zombie, post-apocalyptic novels don't bother with--certainly not zombie movies anyway. R, Julie and her friend Nora are very endearing characters as are the complex leaders of the humans.

Really a great book and rather gentle and sweet for a book about zombies.

My Best Friend's Exorcism by Grady Hendrix (2016)

In 1988, Abby and Gretchen are in high school and are best friends. After a experiment with LSD after which Gretchen goes missing for an evening, Gretchen comes back and seems very different and very wrong. Abby tries to figure out what is wrong with her friend, and tries to get help from family, friends and other grownups, to no avail. 

As the dust jacket says, "Is their friendship powerful enough to beat the devil?" Filled with pop culture references that will delight readers of a certain age (my age, btw), this is also a great horror novel and a great novel about friendship. It's an unexpected combination that works beautifully. 

Surprisingly insightful into the minds of teenage girls and all the trials and tribulations of friendship and of being a teen. It also has a yearbook design motif (probably used since Hendrix's Horrorstor used the IKEA catalog so effectively), which is a bit superfluous in this novel. Nonetheless, Hendrix powerfully captures just how powerless you are when you're a teen.

I adored this:

"Abby Rivers and Gretchen Lang were best friends, on and off, for seventy-five years, and there aren't many people who can say that. They weren't perfect. They didn't always get along. They screwed up. They acted like assholes. They fought, they fell out, they patched things up, they drove each other crazy, and they didn't make it to Halley's Comet. But they tried."

Aw!

Any Duchess Will Do - Tessa Dare (2013)

Utterly fantastic romance about a serving girl who is chosen by a Duke and his mother to prove she can train a duchess.

The Duke promises her $1,000 if she fails utterly, which she plans to use to open her own circulating library. Of naughty books!

Love it all!

Safer by Sean Doolittle (2009)

Pretty awesome thriller novel set in a small midwestern college town.

Paul Callaway and his wife Sara have just moved into a neighborhood on a small cul-de-sac. The neighbors are extremely friendly and welcome Paul into their vigilant neighborhood watch. Paul tries to fit in with the neighbors until one day, the neighborhood watch sets its sights on him.

Wonderfully told--the story starts at the end and is unfolded bit by bit in a completely compelling, suspenseful way.

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.

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. 

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.

The Knockoff by Lucy Sykes and Jo Piazza (2015)

I love few things more than a dishy novel about the world of magazine publishing. It brings me back to my chick lit days! 

Imogen Tate returns from a medical leave of absence to her job as editor-in-chief at Glossy magazine, and her former assistant (Eve) is now running the social media arm of the magazine. Imogen doesn't know Twitter from Tumblr, so conflict and drama and delicious behind the scenes ensues. 

Pretty darn fun.

Happily Ever After by Elizabeth Maxwell (2014)

I love a book that leaps off the shelf at me at the library and asks me to take it home. This book was misshelved while I was looking for something else and it leapt into my hand. 

Sadie Fuller is a single mother, and a romance novelist who writes erotica under a pseudonym. Meanwhile, she's raising her daughter, dealing with her gay ex-husband, and dodging the PTA. When she runs into her newest romantic lead at Target, things get interesting. But not in the way that you might think. 

It's a fabulously original unexpected story with rich, realistic characters in a magical situation. So much quiet, dry humor. I love a scene when her ex forbids her to do something, then they pause to laugh hysterically at the thought of him forbidding her to do anything. 

Funny, realistic and delightful. I love a book where I'm not even done with it and I'm already looking for more work by the author. A total hidden gem, ala Tuscany for Beginners or Nancy's Theory of Style. Adorable.

You by Caroline Kepnes (2014)

Well-written thriller about a bookstore clerk who stalks, romances and stalks an attractive female customer. The stakes are high, and the perspective is really interesting. Although I normally loathe book written in the second person--to "you"--writing this narrative to the stalkee works beautifully and is very chilling. 

It's fascinating to read a stalkerish tale that takes place in the contemporary social media landscape. It's a deeply complex and yet very readable story. 

To say more would be spoilery.

The Killer Next Door by Alex Marwood (2014)

The tagline: "How well do you know your neighbours?"

The novel takes place in an apartment building in South London. The tenants, all a bit down on their luck, have a variety of problems, but one of them holds one very nasty secret: he/she is a serial killer. 

Marwood keeps the tension and the suspense at a high level throughout the whole book, even after the killer is unveiled halfway through. The characters are strong, the plot is well done. Quite a bit of suspense, and it dips into horror as well. It's also wonderfully rich in its London setting, and features a fantastic ending.

See also The Wicked Girls. Equally gripping (if a little fat-shaming.)

Movie Star: A Novel by Lizzie Pepper by Hilary Liftin (2015)

If you've ever been even mildly intrigued by the Tom Cruise/Katie Holmes marriage/fiasco and the world of Hollywood and Scientology, you'll love this novel.

It's a marvelously dishy roman a clef fictional memoir by "Lizzie Pepper", a young actress who marries a megastar actor who is involved with a powerful Hollywood church/cult. Sound familiar? 

It's wonderfully Inside Hollywood not only in the Scientology scandal aspect but as how superstardom really works. It's a fascinating look at how the whole process works and a great slant on an often-speculated about, complicated relationship. Fun and SO dishy.