Women's Fiction

Leanne and Nichole are unlikely friends and confidants. When Leanne learns that her son Jake is cheating on his wife Nichole, she is sorely disappointed to find her son following in his father's footsteps. Sean, Leanne's husband has been cheating on her for years and up to this point she has just accepted and ignored his infidelity. After telling Nichole of Jake's indiscretion she admires the way Nichole instantly refuses to accept Jake's behavior and immediately moves to dissolve their marriage. Leanne draws courage from Nichole and leaves her cheating husband of thirty years. The two women

If you love dogs (and I sincerely hope you do), you'll love this heart warming story of a woman finding her place in the world and a dog finding a home. Gina Bellamy suddenly finds herself trying to figure it all out on her own after her recent divorce. As she struggles to find herself in all the clutter of life she decides to keep only one hundred essential things. Little does she know, she will find that Buzz, a neglected and anxious greyhound, fits perfectly in her new life and happy moments.

More on Lucy Dillon:

I have read all three books by Lucy Dillon that Johnson County

In 1931, Lily Dane is dragged along to a college football game by her best friend Budgie Byrne, where Lily instantly becomes smitten with Nick Greenwald. Despite the fact that Budgie is generally the popular one, Nick quickly falls for Lily as well. There is one major stumbling block to their happily-ever-after, however--Nick is Jewish, and while Budgie warns Lily that this will be unacceptable to their high society friends and family, Lily refuses to believe it. She concedes that her mother might be a problem, but Lily is convinced that even she can eventually be brought around. It is

I’m not sure Ellison’s family drama with its slow reveal shouldn’t be called A Series of Significant Indiscretions, as there are so many. Both past and present. The true title, A Small Indiscretion, leads a reader to believe that our protagonist, Annie Black’s happiness is at risk by the revelation of a past mistake. But really, she and her family might have overcome any part of her past, if only she will behave as the adult she’s grown into instead of the nineteen year old self she fled from twenty years ago.

When we first meet Annie she is a young, single American working in a London

Before the success of the young adult novels Eleanor and Park and Fangirl, Rainbow Rowell debuted with the adult fiction novel Attachments.

Set at the end of 1999 with Y2K pending, Attachments tells the story of three newspaper employees, Lincoln, Jennifer and Beth. Lincoln is a night systems security officer, whose main duty is to monitor employee emails for potentially inappropriate or prurient activity. Jennifer and Beth are best friends whose emails get flagged to Lincoln on a regular basis. Amused by their snarky and clever non-work related conversations, Lincoln decides not to report their staff email abuse, and instead continues to read their personal email exchanges.

From our librarian Stefanie: Recently I was trying to describe the joy that I felt while reading the sinfully fun novel Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan to a coworker. It was the most deliciously romantic family gossip trilogy and, with two young children in the house and my daytime work duties, I gobbled them up in a mere 3 weeks! I like to call juicy love stories with a side of wit and elegance like this Clever Candy Lit. They are a rare breed of well-written novel that manages to capture your attention like a great adventure story, grab your heart like the sweetest romance, poke at your

     You know, sometimes you just need some escapist fantasy about self-discovery in women.  McKinley's seventeen-year-old girl Lissar was just the ticket for me last night. Deesrkin is a beautiful, haunting, and sometimes painful coming-of-age story that ends with a message of hope.  The first half of the fantasy fiction is really about the traumatic aftermath of a violent assault and rape by the heroine's own father.  These dark themes are handled appropriately, realistically, and with great compassion but they do make for some hard reading in the gateway fantasy.   

     If you have any

Die Again is the 11th title in the Rizzoli and Isles series by Tess Gerritsen. This mystery features a dual story line that takes place in Africa and in Boston, Massachusetts. The mysteries are not simultaneous in their execution, although they are presented to the reader in alternating segments. Eventually, of course, the mystery of what occurred in Africa ties into and becomes part of the Boston murder. But figuring that out and tying them together proves to be tricky. 

Georgia Ford runs away from problems in her own life and goes straight to her place of comfort: home. Unfortunately for Georgia, with her parents heading in different directions, her brothers not on speaking terms, and the uncertain future of the family vineyard, life at home is not what she was expecting. Georgia finds that among all her family's issues, she is still unable to escape her own.

This novel is all about the complexity of life's interruptions and how they affect relationships. I was hooked by the end of the first chapter when I found out why people out for a drink were staring

Eligible is a retelling of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. Set in modern day, the five Bennet sisters are all back at home after Mr. Bennet has health issues--though some of the sisters have never left. CrossFit, reality shows, fertility treatments, and dating make for some humorous situations. I found the plot enjoyable, funny, and sometimes refreshingly real when dealing with more serious situations. Unfortunately, I did not like our main character, Liz, very much. Liz is important as the glue that hold the Bennets together, but her modern-day past was a bit disappointing for me

The Waverley family, Claire and Sydney, both have the gift of helpful magic. They live in the charming town of Bascom, North Carolina where it’s autumn and as temperatures fall, everyone and everything grows restless and problems flourish.

Claire runs Waverley’s Candies out of her kitchen, making handcrafted confections. Business is so good she can’t keep up with demand on her own. When someone offers to buy the business, Claire is stuck in a quandary.

Sydney owns a successful hair salon and knows what hairstyle will look best on anyone. But she’s reluctant to fire a new hire who isn’t

Glory O'Brien is graduating high school with no idea of where her life is going to go, because she's afraid she'll follow in her mother's steps and commit suicide. One night, Glory drinks a petrified bat and begins to see things--horrible visions of a future in which America is torn in two, and women's rights are shattered to bits. As Glory races to record her visions, she ends up uncovering secrets of her family's past and finding her own (albeit twisted) purpose.

This book destroyed me in the best possible way. A.S. King is a brilliant author and she manages to weave minor characters into

Vampires in Saint Louis? Yes, and they need help. Guilty Pleasures is the first of the Laurell K. Hamilton’s wildly popular Vampire Hunter stories. Anita Blake is a necromancer, with an affinity for the dead in all their guises, but that doesn’t mean she wants to work for them. When the Master Vampire of Saint Louis sends sexy Jean Paul to procure Anita’s help her main response is, “I don’t date vampires. I kill them.”

I thoroughly enjoyed meeting Anita Blake. In this narrative told entirely from her point of view, Anita comes across as a sharp, strong woman with a biting sense of humor and

I loved this book! Clare is a recent college graduate engaged to be married but is starting to have second thoughts. The weekend of her wedding, Clare has several chance encounters with a stranger named Edith, an elderly woman who happens to be staying at Clare's wedding venue. Clare's conversations with Edith change the trajectory of Clare's life. Without giving away any plot details, the book alternates between Clare's present and Edith's past. As Clare searches to uncover the mystery of Edith's past, she learns more about herself and what's important in life. 

I'll Be Your Blue Sky is

This short novel takes place over the course of one night and opens with a death.  Nina is calling her husband, Phillip, for dinner and when he doesn’t answer, she immediately senses what has happened.  She decides to keep his body overnight - to spend a final night with her husband of 42 years.  She holds an all-night vigil by his side and reminisces about their life together.  As she is trying to sort her emotions, the memories of their life together return like flashbacks. The purposefully fragmented and non-linear writing style skips back and forth between different decades and the many

It's September 1939 and as Hitler invades Poland with his sight set on France, the paths of Caroline, Kasia and Herta are set on a course that will change their lives forever. Socialite Caroline Ferriday lives in New York City and volunteers at the French Consulate, helping French nationals visiting the United States. She also organizes aide for French orphanages. Kasia Kuzmerick is a Polish teenager who sees her way of life disappearing with the occupation of Hitler and she works as a courier for the resistance movement in Poland. Meanwhile, German physician, Herta Oberheuser, frustrated at

Miller’s Valley is a coming of age novel about Mimi Miller, a girl growing up in the 1960s in rural Pennsylvania. Mimi and her family live on the same farm their family has lived on contentedly for generations. But things in Miller's Valley are beginning to change. Mimi’s dad is a farmer, but he’s really the fix-it man for the entire town. Mimi’s mom is a nurse who still manages to be around to raise Mimi and her two brothers. Mimi’s aunt, Ruth, also lives in a little house on their farm. In fact, she hasn’t left the inside of her house for many years. Over the years, their valley has been

My Name Is Lucy Barton by Pulitzer Prize winner Elizabeth Strout is a novel to be read slowly and savored for its richness of story. At less than 200 pages, it is a novel with a simple plot: a woman, Lucy, is in the hospital for a prolonged stay, and her mother is visiting her. Lucy has been estranged from her mother since her marriage. She is grateful for her mother's presence, while at the same time she wants more than her mother is capable of giving her. In other words, the novel is rich in family dynamics and the complexities of the human heart.

What we as readers learn over the course

The science fiction aspect to this book is both obvious and subtle. The major plot point of the book is pure science fiction - parallel universes. The main character, Patricia Cowen, experiences two separate lives, stemming from a decision she makes shortly after college.

Once we reach the divergent paths, the chapters alternate between the two realities. From there, the story is pretty straightforward domestic fiction – the daily trials, tribulations, and joys of the main character.

What I found fascinating was how world events differed between these two lifelines. It makes me wonder

A quick read with a poignant message, Our Souls at Night is a moving story of two elderly neighbors who find themselves lonely after both their spouses have gone, one by choice and one by death. In an act of bravery, Addie visits her longtime neighbor, Louis, and propositions him to be her sleeping partner. Addie has no hidden agenda or sordid intent; just a desire to sleep next to another person again. Taking her up on her offer, Louis and Addie get to know each other all while sharing their nights together. A wrench is thrown into their arrangement when Addie’s six-year-old grandson needs to

Camille Claudel is a woman most women cannot stand – she’s arrogant, loud-mouthed and pretentious. She always has an opinion, the right one, and she’s never afraid to share it. If you think these characteristics annoying and rude in today’s society, imagine its late 19th century Paris where men rule society and women are just prizes on their arms. Predictably, Claudel doesn’t win friends in Heather Webb’s Rodin’s Lover, a fictionalized account of the real-life affair of Claudel and Auguste Rodin.

Claudel is born into a well-off but working-class family who spend their summers in Villeneuve

Still Alice is a very moving book that captures the heartbreak and suffering of someone diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer's disease. We often hear about older people dealing with this dreaded disease but it also affects a surprising number of younger people. Genova captures the great loss felt by a young Harvard professor and mother as she faces the detrimental impacts of the disease. Alice’s story is powerfully written, engaging, and fast paced, although it takes place over two years. It's very emotional and I identified with all the characters on some level. Recommended for book club

In the vein of Laura Moriarity’s The Rest of Her Life or Chris Bojhalian’s The Buffalo Soldier, Hilderbrand puts normal, everyday people under a microscope after throwing a terrible tragedy at them.

In Summerland, twins Hobby and Penny Alistair are shining stars at Nantucket High School. But on graduation night of their junior year they are involved in a car accident that leaves Penny dead and Hobby in a coma for seven days. Character portrayals are authentic with each family of the four students in the car getting their share of scrutiny. The town also has a voice and a collective reaction

The Atomic Weight of Love is an outstanding debut novel. Meridian Wallace puts her dreams of a Masters and PhD. on hold and follows her husband, Alden Whetstone, to Los Alamos, New Mexico where he helps develop the atomic bomb. Meridian’s unfinished scholarly work in ornithology leads her to question her life with Alden, who becomes more interested in his work and must lead a rather secretive life. Clay Griffin, a Vietnam veteran, changes the course of Meridian’s life when he teaches her the value of an equal relationship and following her own path. Meridian’s growing interest in women’s

The Atonement Child had me in its grips from the beginning and held me until the last word. The story centers around three women from the same family. Dynah Carey, a college student at a Christian university; her mother Hannah; and her grandmother, Eve. Dynah becomes pregnant through a rape and must decide if she will keep or terminate the pregnancy. As the novel progresses, each woman tells her unique story around the charged topic of abortion. This is the first Christian fiction that I have read, and I was a little unprepared for the emphasis on Christian doctrines of faith. However

Growing up, Vinnie Warren Bump longed to see the world, but her parents were concerned that the world would be cruel to Vinnie who was only 32 inches tall. Determined to make a name for herself, Vinnie signed a contract with Colonel Wood who promised to make her a singing sensation. Instead, Vinnie was exhibited as one of his “oddities” on a shabby showboat on the Mississippi River. Vinnie returned home humiliated. She reached out to P. T. Barnum who agreed to hire her to sing at his American Museum. Thus began a long, mutually respectful friendship. Barnum introduced Vinnie to General Tom

Pamela Morsi used to write wonderful Americana romances in the 90s, and I’m glad to see that her humor and poignant understanding of human behavior is still very much in evidence with her shift to contemporaries. The Bikini Car Wash feels a lot like her older historicals because of the small town setting and the ensemble cast. There have never been a ton of authors that wrote good Americana or Frontier Western romances, but Morsi is one of the best because of the way she portrays small town life with a realistic and sympathetic hand. Her characters are always drawn with lots of affectionate

In The Book of Heaven, Patricia Storace creates the mythology of an alternate universe, but one the reader recognizes, as if through a veil, from its allusions to Greek legends and Old Testament stories. It is different from anything I’ve read and therefore hard to describe. Although the sections hinge on central themes, such as of the oppression of women and the nature of God and of love, they can be read in isolation. Each section presents the tale of a different woman, eulogized in the stars themselves in this world Storace creates. Her writing is contemplative; reading it is a meditation

The Boston Girl is a classic tale of a first generation American woman in the early 1900s trying to start a better life. Addie Baum, an ambitious and likeable Jewish woman now in her eighties, tells the story of her youth to her twenty-two year old granddaughter. Her misadventures in a world unimaginable to her family are touching and amusing, though a little too familiar. At its core, this is a historically based coming of age novel intended for adults about the search for knowledge, love and self.

I rate this book a seven out of ten mostly due to its predictability. I had high

Welcome to Blessings, Georgia!

If you head over to The Curl Up and Dye, Ruby, Vest, and Vera will freshen up your 'do while you catch up on the latest gossip. Did you hear about LilyAnn Bronte? It looks like she's ready to move on after the loss of her fiance. Is it possible the newcomer to town, T.J. Lachlan has sparked her interest? Or, has she finally noticed the boy next door, Mike Dalton?

The Curl Up & Dye is a Southern romance. While generally a sweet romance about a woman rediscovering herself, there are a few instances of violence that are a little unexpected. If you enjoy your