The Lost Book of First Loves

RaeAnne Thayne, a prolific author of women’s fiction, delivers a heartfelt, emotionally moving story about how secrets revealed change the lives of two women in extraordinary ways.

Juniper “June” Connelly, based in Puget Sound (Washington State), is a 34-year-old, seemingly healthy, high-powered, intimidating career woman who expects much of herself and those who work under her employ. Just as she is about to fire her latest unpaid intern, Allison Wells, a 26-year-old recent law school graduate, June collapses from a heart attack and none other than Allison saves her life. This sets up a complex dynamic that forever links the two women—in more ways than one.

 

It seems that Allison’s career aspirations were something of a pretext. After the death of her literary icon father, a shocking secret sets Allison on a quest to wheedle her way to the internship. Her intent is to get to know June better as a DNA test formerly revealed that she and June, her boss, are actually half-sisters. But before Allison has a chance to enlighten June to the truth, the health emergency takes precedence.

 

As a result, the two likeable women forge an unlikely bond of friendship where Allison actually invites June, in need of R&R and healing, to use the "family cabin" in a small Wyoming town.  Over the course of one summer and June’s convalescence, the two women grapple with the missing pieces of their lives and new love interests as they both discover the real meaning of family.

Thayne (The December Market) delivers another tender, winning romance that’s sure to inspire hope for new beginning and second chances.

 

The Lost Book of First Loves by RaeAnne Thayne

Canary Street Press (HarperCollins/MIRA/Harlequin), $30.00 hardcover, 9781445467713, 352 pages

Publishing Date: June 3, 2025

To order this book on Bookshop.org link HERE

Learn more about RaeAnne Thayne HERE

 

Beach Vibes

An emotionally thought-provoking novel about two entangled couples who face a betrayal that tests their love and loyalty.

Susan Mallery takes a surprisingly deep dive into the complicated dynamics of family and friendship in her emotionally resonant novel, Beach Vibes.
 
Two sets of adult siblings--two women and their two brothers--anchor the story, which centers on Beth Nield, a recently divorced, 38-year-old who owns and operates Surf Sandwiches, an eatery in Malibu, Calif.
 
Workaholic Beth now lives with her 67-year-old, widowed Aunt Agatha who took in Beth and Rick, her younger brother by three years, when they were just children. Protective, self-sacrificing Beth always looked out for Rick—proudly rooting on her smart, good-looking, charmingly single brother, who is now a “big-shot surgeon.” When Beth starts to volunteer at a local food bank, she meets Jana Mead, a hard-working medical billing clerk who dreams of becoming a nurse. Jana is a single mother to a precocious four-year-old and lives with her widowed brother, Teddy, and his four children. As Beth and Jana strike up a friendship, Beth realizes that Jana is actually dating her brother, Rick. The lives of these four people intersect and overlap, and Beth starts a romance with Teddy. Problems arise, however, when a betrayal amidst the quartet raises questions surrounding love and loyalty, while also testing the bonds of family and friendship.

A welcome wave of thought-provoking dilemmas washes over what initially appears a breezy beach read. First-rate storyteller Mallery (One Big Happy Family) intimately plumbs the depths of perception and self-discovery.

Beach Vibes by Susan Mallery

Canary Street Press, $30.00 hardcover, 9781335402530, 384 pages

Publication Date: March 18, 2025

Learn more about Susan Mallery HERE

 

 

 

The Other Significant Others: Reimagining Life with Friendship at the Center

A thoroughly researched, eye-opening study of the deep value platonic friendships can hold in enriching and empowering personal lives.  

In her first book, The Other Significant Others, Rhaina Cohen, an NPR editor and producer, presents an eye-opening exploration into the many ways friendship, in various forms, can enrich and empower lives for the better. 

In 2022, Cohen attended six weddings in six months. Amidst these pandemic-deferred nuptial celebrations, where couples vowed to spend the rest of their lives together as a “we,” Cohen began to question societal expectations of love and its meaning. Was sex the essential component of a truly committed relationship? Was a person’s life somehow incomplete without a long-term romantic partner? Cohen, married, had always felt that friendships “electrified” her life. Thus, she began to examine the “we” of friendship: what draws people together on a purely platonic plane? What made some friendships endure despite the parties not formally professing a long-term commitment to each other?

 

Cohen presents stories from her own life--along with other historical and contemporary case studies--that deconstruct diverse friendships of all stripes. These include people of varying ages, races, genders, marital states, sexual orientations, and religions. She delves into co-parenting friends; shared homeowners; friends who serve as executors of estates; and even those who act as primary caregivers, helping to shoulder the demands and burdens imposed by illness and debilitating medical treatments.

 

Cohen’s well-researched, appealingly structured narrative stretches modern assumptions of love, making the case that a life bonded by friendship can hold limitless potential for a more fulfilling, deeply meaningful existence.

 

The Other Significant Others: Reimagining Life with Friendship at the Center by Rhaina Cohen

St. Martin’s Press (Macmillan), $29.00 hardcover, 9781250280916, 320 pages

Publishing Date: February 13, 2024

To order this book on INDIEBOUND/Bookshop.Org, link HERE

 

NOTE: This review is a reprint and is being posted with the permission of Shelf Awareness. To read this review as originally published on Shelf Awareness (February 23, 2024), link HERE 

Sugar and Salt

A compassionate, moving story about two chefs from different worlds who join forces in business and love—their relationship tested by the past.

 

Lingering difficulties from the past simmer throughout Sugar and Salt, a compassionately poignant novel of domestic fiction by author Susan Wiggs.

 

Through a staggered timeline, Wiggs (The Lost and Found Bookshop) builds a romance between two characters who come from vastly different backgrounds: Margot Salton of Texas traveled a long, hard road to become an award-winning chef. As a teenager, she forged her own way in the world after her single mother--a talented cook--died. Tough, street smart and self-reliant, Margot was taken in--mentored--by a kind, hardworking African American couple, owners of an authentic Texas barbecue restaurant until a second tragedy upended Margot’s life. Determined to cut her losses and start anew, budding barbecue master Margot changes her identity and sets off, leaving Texas behind and winding up in San Francisco, Calif., where she meets Jerome Sugar, an African American baker who learned everything he knows from his warm, self-made grandmother, Ida. The single father of two operates Ida’s well-established, popular bakery, ‘Sugar.’ When Margot and Jerome work out a deal to share kitchen space, and she opens her own restaurant next door called ‘Salt,’ the two form a professional bond that leads to romance. However, when complications from Margot’s former Texas life resurface, the couple’s relationship is tested. Can love in the present survive far reaching tentacles from a sordid past?   

 

Hot-button issues from real life events inspired Wiggs to write this complex, thought-provoking novel that depicts how the power of friendship and love can overcome heart-wrenching challenges.

 

Sugar and Salt: A Novel by Susan Wiggs

William Morrow Books/Harper Collins, $27.99 hardcover, 9780062914224, 368 pages

Publication Date: July 25, 2022

To order this book on INDIEBOUND, link HERE

 NOTE: This review is a reprint and is being posted with the permission of Shelf Awareness. To read this review on Shelf Awareness: Reader's Edition (July 29, 2022), link HERE

The Patron Saint of Second Chances

A small, diminishing village in Italy--facing financial ruin; threatened with having the entire water supply cut-off--faces a hilarious revitalization by the prospect of an upcoming film shoot.

Community loyalty and the power of taking pride in one’s hometown--doing anything to save it--is the central theme of the very funny debut novel, The Patron Saint of Second Chances by Christine Simon.

Prometto, Italy (fictional) has 212 occupants, and one resident, Signor Giovannino Speranza, believes he has the power to change things—or at least he hopes so. Speranza is of the old school and traditional values. He is a 62-year-old husband, father and grandfather—a vacuum cleaner salesman-repairman disillusioned with young people always on their phones and social media and eagerly determined to leave town. He regularly turns to the saints to guide him and dispel his disappointments and arguments with God. Having always taken pride in Prometto, he’s become something of the local mayor.

Now that the town, in dire financial straits--the budget doesn’t have enough funds to restore the plumbing system and faces having the water turned off, forcing residents to relocate--desperate Speranza concocts a story about how Dante Rinaldi, a heartthrob movie star, is planning to film his next blockbuster near Prometto. The invented news takes off and injects a hopeful jolt of enthusiasm that rallies the town and beyond, including young people and even the local parish priest, while boosting tourism and local businesses in the process. But what will happen when Dante Rinaldi doesn’t descend on Prometto with a film crew and news gets out about the ruse Speranza has crafted?

Simon’s fun, clever story offers a hilarious literary escape. Readers will smile and laugh out loud at her well-drawn cast of quirky characters, those who long--and will do anything--to be a part of the film and its production. The plot snowballs, twisting in madcap ways with turns as sharp as the narrow roads that wind their way through the lovable charm of Prometto.  

The Patron Saint of Second Chances: A Novel by Christine Simon

Atria Book, $27.00 hardcover, 978-1982188771, 360 pages

Publication Date: April 12, 2022

To order this book on INDIEBOUND, link HERE 

Beware the Mermaids

 

This exciting, emotionally charged story follows an acrimoniously divorcing couple who compete in a high-stakes boat race.

Carrie Talick's exciting first novel, Beware the Mermaids, opens with a scene that packs a wallop. Nancy Hadley, a native Californian who came from modest beginnings to become a wealthy housewife, lives in Hermosa Beach. Nancy--a lifelong sailor, thanks to a doting Finnish grandfather who instilled in her an instinct and love for the sea--cheerfully escorts a charity league on a tour of the Bucephalus, a 38-foot racing yacht owned by Nancy and her husband, Roger. As the group boards the well-appointed sailing vessel, Nancy catches scheming, philandering Roger in a compromising position with none other than Nancy's cunning, devious nemesis, a woman who hailed from the East Coast and clawed her way into "the upper echelons of society."

 

What follows is the start of an acrimonious divorce between Nancy and Roger. The Bucephalus, which both refuse to relinquish, becomes the obstacle in finalizing the legalities of their split. Locked in a grueling tug-of-war, determined Nancy gears up for a fight. She moves out of their lavish home, buys a boat of her own to live on and rallies the support of her tight-knit circle of girlfriends, intent on teaching them how to sail. When Nancy suggests that she and Roger, via competing vessels and crews, both enter the Border Dash Race, which sails from Newport Harbor to Ensenada, Mexico--winner take all--the stage is set for high-stakes fun and drama.

 

Fans of women's fiction will eagerly climb aboard Talik's smart, sassy, suspenseful story that sails through choppy waters and shifting tides of betrayal, friendship and new romance.

 

Beware the Mermaids by Carrie Talick

Alcove Press, $16.99 paperback, 9781643858241, 352 pages

Publication Date: August 10, 2021

To order this book on INDIEBOUND, link HERE

NOTE: This review is a reprint and is being posted with the permission of Shelf Awareness. To read this review on Shelf Awareness: Reader's Edition (August 31, 2021), link HERE

When We Were Young

A moving, life-affirming story about two male friends who reunite and unravel old secrets and resentments while taking a long hike.

British novelist Richard Roper has the uncanny ability to embroil quirky characters in heart-wrenching situations, rendering their predicaments into immensely appealing fiction. In How Not to Die Alone (retitled and reissued as Something to Live For), a grief-stricken man grappled with his sad lot in life. In Roper's second novel, When We Were Young, he again mines the theme of how breaking the shackles of the past can lead to transcendence. 

As teenagers, Theo and Joel--would-be writers--were best friends until a life-changing accident drove a wedge between them. Now, estranged for more than 10 years, the two men lead separate lives. Hard-driving Joel, from a sordid family background, is a successful TV writer who harbors secrets. Floundering, lovesick and bitter Theo is barely scraping by, living in a backyard shed at his parents' house. Things take a turn when Joel crashes Theo's 30th birthday party, hoping to reconnect with his long-lost friend and to convince him to make good on a promise made in their youth: to hike all 184 miles of the Thames Path, from Gloucestershire to south east London. As the two set out on the long, arduous journey, they wind through episodic memories of the past--what united and divided them. What will it take for them to bury the hatchet and make peace? 

Roper delivers an enormously moving and surprising story about the rarely documented bond of male friendship, focusing on the lengths some must travel in order truly to forgive and sacrifice for another. 

When We Were Young: A Novel by Richard Roper

G. P. Putnam’s Sons, $26.00 Hardcover, 9780525539919, 352 pages

Publication Date: July 20, 2021

To order this book on INDIEBOUND, link HERE

 

NOTE: This review is a reprint and is being posted with the permission of Shelf Awareness. To read this review on Shelf Awareness: Reader's Edition (July 27, 2021), link HERE

The Summer of No Attachments

In this gentle, feel-good romance, a small-town veterinarian and her dedicated assistant fall in love with two brothers.

As in The Somerset Girls, animal rescue is central to The Summer of No Attachments, Lori Foster's tender-hearted romance set again in Sunset, a small community in rural Kentucky. This installment focuses on Ivey Anders, a veterinarian who recently called it quits with her beau. Ivey is assisted at the vet clinic by Hope Mage, a good friend and dedicated worker who has sworn off men because of a disturbing incident that occurred several years before.

Ivey and Hope tend to an abandoned dog with a broken leg and soon discover the dog is pregnant. After the birth of the pups, Hope looks into renting a new apartment in town, roping in Ivey to offer her opinion of the place. There, Ivey meets the landlord, Corbin Meyer, a single businessman. Corbin has just learned he's father to a troubled 10-year-old boy, Justin. The child was dumped into Corbin's life by Justin's drug- and alcohol-addicted mother.

When the boy meets Ivey, the two instantly hit it off, discovering they share a love of animals and horror movies. Their connection bonds them--and Ivey and Corbin. As father and son get to know and fall in love with romantically reluctant Ivey, Hope meets Corbin's brother, Lang, who is smitten with Hope, but finds he must walk on eggshells in order to woo her wounded heart.

Foster's feel-good, small-town romance weaves in well-plotted story threads and complications that expose how scars from the past, if healed, can unlock more hopeful, brighter futures. 

 

The Summer of No Attachments by Lori Foster

HQN: Harlequin, $16.99 paperback, 9781335459893, 336 pages

Publication Date: June 22, 2021

To order this book on INDIEBOUND, link HERE

 

NOTE: This review is a reprint and is being posted with the permission of Shelf Awareness. To read this review on Shelf Awareness: Reader's Edition (June 22, 2021), link HERE 

The Wonder Boy of Whistle Stop

Fannie Flagg delivers feel-good fun, revisiting stories about a small Alabama town--focusing on a beloved local--from her popular 1987 novel.

Fannie Flagg's enduring Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Café was published in 1987 (and made into a movie in 1992). The heartwarming novel explored the friendship between a disillusioned, middle-aged housewife and Ninny Threadgoode, an elderly woman living out her days in a nursing home. Ninny had astonishing tales to tell about a bustling railroad cafe in a small Alabama town east of Birmingham in the 1930s.

 

Flagg's long-awaited sequel focuses on Buddy Threadgoode, Jr., son of the late Ruth Jamison, who once ran the Whistle Stop Cafe with Imogene "Idgie" Threadgoode, an adventurous, rebellious tomboy. Through a patchwork quilt of scenes, Bud's history unfolds from the 1930s: how he managed life with a missing arm, an injury incurred in a train accident when he was six years old, and became a veterinarian; how Aunt Idgie became Bud's best friend and cheerleader, even after she sold the café and moved to Florida; how Bud fell in love with and married his childhood sweetheart, and they raised a daughter, Ruthie, a woman with her own story to tell.

 

As in Fried Green Tomatoes, Flagg infuses short chapter vignettes with cozy snippets of gossip about Whistle Stop townsfolk--memorable characters from the first book--who left town and set down roots elsewhere. Bud--now in his 80s, retired and widowed--looks back lovingly and longingly at his Whistle Stop days. The story blossoms in vintage Flagg style--folksy and feel-good. An abundance of Southern charm will delight both readers eager to journey back to beloved Whistle Stop and also those wanting to visit for the very first time.

The Wonder Boy of Whistle Stop: A Novel by Fannie Flagg

Random House, $28.00 Hardcover, 9780593133842, 304 pages

Publication Date: October 20, 2020

To order this book on INDIEBOUND, link HERE

NOTE: This review is a reprint and is being posted with the permission of Shelf Awareness. To read this review on Shelf Awareness: Reader's Edition (October 27, 2020), link HERE

Friends: Voices on the Gift of Companionship

Pleased to have an essay featured in a new anthology: FRIENDS: VOICES ON THE GIFT OF COMPANIONSHIP (edited by Amy Lou Jenkins). This moving compilation of 24 stories examines the meaning of both having and being a friend. 

My essay, "Little Black Marks," conveys the story of a life-changing friendship that grew out of a fondness for storytelling and a love of the written word...the power of putting letters on a page and having those letters give meaning and form to life and living. 

As the dedication of the anthology reads, some gifts of friendship endure for "a day, for a season or last a lifetime." But stories...they're forever!

This tender, inspirational anthology would make a great gift for a friend you cherish or to read with your book club. 

Friends: Voices on the Gift of Companionship edited by Amy Lou Jenkins

Jack Walker Press, $14.99 Paperback, 9781945378089, 238 pages

Publication Date: October 14, 2020

To order this book via INDIEBOUND, link HERE

To order this book via Amazon, link HERE

To order this book via Barnes and Noble, link HERE

Ellie and the Harpmaker

A harp causes two lonely Brits, stalled by fate and the choices they've made in life, to forge a deep, life-changing friendship.

Ellie and the Harpmaker is a lyrically written, delightfully charming story about two strangers--lost souls--drifting through their lives, until a harp brings them together.

Ellie Jacobs is a lonely housewife living in Exmoor, England. She is married to Clive, a pragmatic, domineering man who goes to work every day and is obsessed with football and finance. One day, on a walk through the West English countryside, while reflecting upon the first anniversary of her beloved father's death, Ellie stumbles upon a place she's never seen before: the Harp Barn. There, she meets Dan Hollis, the "Exmoor Harpmaker." Dan takes utmost pride in his work. He also feels the experiences of life very deeply, but exhibits a limited range of expression.

When Ellie shares the special significance of the day with Dan--and how learning to play the harp is actually on her things to accomplish "before-forty list"--Dan kindly offers Ellie a gift: a harp beautifully carved out of red-gold cherrywood. Ellie is overwhelmed and thrilled by Dan's generosity, but her joy is dashed when she returns home and Clive demands she return the harp. Clive's will and Dan's will ultimately pull Ellie in opposite directions. This calls into question her beliefs about herself and her marriage, while also raising inquiries into the many mysteries of Dan's life.

By telling the story from two intimate points of view, debut novelist Hazel Prior allows readers to discover startling truths right along with her well-drawn characters. This approach heightens the narrative tension and allows this beautiful, tender story about the harmonious meaning of true friendship and love to reverberate with many unexpected surprises.

Ellie and the Harpmaker by Hazel Prior

Berkley, $26.99 Hardcover, 9781984803788, 336 pages 

Publication Date: August 6, 2019

To order this book on INDIEBOUND, link HERE

NOTE: This review is a reprint and is being posted with the permission of Shelf Awareness. To read this review on Shelf Awareness: Reader's Edition (August 6, 2019), link HERE

The Helpline

A 30-something numbers wiz uncovers surprising truths about herself, her small Australian town and the people in it.

When Germaine Johnson loses her job as a senior mathematician at an insurance company, the 30-year-old Australian numbers wiz and sudoku aficionado's life is upended. Data points, algorithms and variables are how Germaine--with a very high opinion of herself and her abilities--navigates the world. She may be mathematically brilliant, but her social skills are dismal. This makes her virtually unemployable, until her cousin Kimberly offers a lead on a job at a council office in the city of Deepdene. The facility manages the senior citizens helpline, a phone-in service for older residents who need advice, or are lonely and need someone to talk to.

Perceptive, painfully exacting and over-achieving, Germaine soon catches the attention of Deepdene's mayor, who asks her to deal with a parking problem plaguing the senior center and an adjacent golf club. The task brings Germaine in contact with Don Thomas, who owns the club. She instantly recognizes good-looking Don as Alan Cosgrove, the 2006 national sudoku champion. Alan was once a very positive influence--from afar--in Germaine's life. "Sort of like the father I never had," admits Germaine, who is instantly starstruck and smitten. But why has Alan changed his name? Why is he managing a golf club? And is there really a parking problem, or is something else actually going on in town?

These questions form the basis of The Helpline, a clever and moving—often madcap--journey through the realities of everyday life, local politics and power plays. Debut Australian novelist Katherine Collette delivers a hilarious story that is sure to charm readers.

The Helpline: A Novel by Katherine Collette

Atria Books, $26.00 Hardcover, 9781982111335, 304 pages 

Publication Date: July 23, 2019

To order this book on INDIEBOUND, link HERE

NOTE: This review is a reprint and is being posted with the permission of Shelf Awareness. To read this review on Shelf Awareness: Reader's Edition (July 23, 2019), link HERE