The Perfect Rom-Com by Melissa Ferguson

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“Putting my foot down isn’t my strong point. Being an inconvenience to someone, or even thinking about the possibility of being an inconvenience to someone, is right up there with dropping into a tank of jellyfish. Unacceptable.” ― Melissa Ferguson, The Perfect Rom-Com

Bryony Page has written a novel that she has pinned all of her hopes and dreams on. Attending her first writers conference, Bryony knows that one of these agents will accept her manuscript, sell it, and help her raise awareness (and funding) for The Bridge, her grandmother’s organization where Bryony has taught ESL full-time for the last fifteen years. Her agent meetings are utterly disastrous with the last one ending with her critiquing and correcting a famous author’s latest manuscript. This last-ditch effort to impress literary agent Jack Sterling of the legendary Foundry Literary Agency ends up working in her favor though.

Bryony is offered the job of a lifetime: writing as ghostwriter for popular rom-com novelist, Amelia Benedict. While this isn’t exactly what Bryony’s goal, she finds a way to get what she wants out of Jack. She will agree to ghostwrite, only if Jack will work to sell her own book too. The Bridge needs all the help it can get.

Flash forward and it should come as no surprise that Bryony’s work as Amelia’s ghostwriter is fantastic. Her books have made Amelia into even more of a household name. She is selling millions of copies around the world which means that Bryony is irreplaceable to the Foundry Agency. Jack and Bryony are closer than ever, which makes the line between their professional and personal relationships grow murkier and murkier. Bryony’s ultimate goal is to get her book published under her own name, something that Jack has been working on for the past two years. Or has he?

The Perfect Rom-Com was a delightful read. While this was described as a grumpy x sunshine read, I had trouble figuring out who was who, as both Bryony and Jack had their moments of sunshine and grump. If you’re looking for a friends to lovers, opposites attract, kisses-only romance, this is the book for you. The romance is more subtle than other books I have read lately, but I kept reading because of the quippy dialogue between characters. I also enjoyed the insider knowledge of traditional publishing. This slow burn, workplace romance book about books was a good palette cleanser.

“Spend a few hours with your eyes skating over pages of happiness, all while the more serious bits of your life get to rest their legs. Take a break. Laugh your heart to healing, I like to say. Now there’s a tagline. Because laughter is a part of life too, isn’t it? Something not to be dismissed as it stands side by side with more serious matters of growth and grief.”
― Melissa Ferguson, The Perfect Rom-Com

Music Genre Highlight: Latin

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In honor of National Hispanic Heritage Month, I wanted to highlight another area of our music collection, Latin music! An incredibly popular genre that continues to grow in popularity across the globe to this day. Within Latin music lies various other genres such as Salsa, Merengue, Reggaeton, Latin Jazz and so much more. Here is some of what Davenport Public Library has in our collection available for checkout!

You can also listen to Latin music on Freegal, our free music streaming service accessible through your Davenport Public Library Card. Here are some pre-made playlists from Freegal to get you started:

Any song recommendations? Leave them in the comments below! 

Under Loch and Key by Lana Ferguson

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“You are not who you are because of where you come from; you are who you are because of where you choose to go.”
― Lana Ferguson, Under Loch and Key

Keyanna ‘Key’ McKay grew up in a family of secrets. Raised by a single father reluctant to share their family history, Key has never felt like she really fit in anywhere. After her father’s death, Key leaves New York, heading to Scotland to reunite with her estranged family and to explore the world her father never spoke about. All she knows about Scotland is her estranged grandmother’s name and the childhood story of her father’s about a monster that saved his life. Determined to fulfill her father’s last wish to go home, Key finds herself on the shore of a great body of water, unknowingly putting herself in danger, and eventually being rescued by an angry, yet attractive, Scotsman. Key is then escorted to her ancestral home, where the welcome she receives from her family is mixed and she realizes that her cranky rescuer lives on her family’s land.

Lachlan Greer has secrets of his own and this wily beautiful redhead who showed up out of nowhere seems determined to ruin all of his plans. After learning her name, Lachlan is even more weary. He is hunting for answers to his family’s history, but Key is a wrench in his plans that he does not need. Living on her family’s land, Lachlan and Key can’t avoid each other. Their attraction ratchets up higher and higher, despite their mutual efforts to avoid each other. It soon becomes apparent that they will have to trust each other in order to find the answers they are each looking for. Their answers rest in each other’s histories.

I picked this book up purely because of the cover, aka the man in the kilt, (plus the punny title)! Under Loch and Key ended up being an absolute delight and honestly, I’m glad I went into this book without knowing anything about it. This is a magical paranormal romance with spicy scenes that happen on page. The characters’ relationships were silly, emotional, mysterious, yet completely magical. This was also my first monster romance, which was a bit of a shock to the system, but honestly not bad. Also bonus it has two of my favorite tropes: enemies to lovers and grumpy meets sunshine. Even though this is a spicy read, the author also throws in several heartwarming themes that deal with forgiveness, family, burdens, and correcting your past mistakes in order to move on in the future. Solid four stars from me!

September’s Celebrity Book Club Picks

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Bestsellers Club is a service that automatically places you on hold for authors, celebrity picks, nonfiction picks, and fiction picks. Choose any author, celebrity pick, fiction pick, and/or nonfiction pick and The Library will put the latest title on hold for you automatically. Select as many as you want! Still have questions? Click here for a list of FAQs.

It’s a new month which means that Jenna Bush Hager and Reese Witherspoon have picked new books for their book clubs! Reminder that if you join Bestsellers Club, you can choose to have their selections automatically put on hold for you.

Jenna Bush Hager has selected Buckeye by Patrick Ryan for her September pick.

Curious what Buckeye is about? Check out the following description provided by the publisher.

One town. Two families. A secret that changes everything.

In Bonhomie, Ohio, a stolen moment of passion, sparked in the exuberant aftermath of the Allied victory in Europe, binds Cal Jenkins, a man wounded not in war but by his inability to serve in it, to Margaret Salt, a woman trying to obscure her past. Cal’s wife, Becky, has a spiritual gift: She is a seer who can conjure the dead, helping families connect with those they’ve lost. Margaret’s husband, Felix, is serving on a Navy cargo ship, out of harm’s way—until a telegram suggests that the unthinkable might have happened.

Later, as the country reconstructs in the postwar boom, a secret grows in Bonhomie—but nothing stays buried forever in a small town. Against the backdrop of some of the most transformative decades in modern America, the consequences of that long-ago encounter ripple through the next generation of both families, compelling them to reexamine who they thought they were and what the future might hold.

Sweeping yet intimate, rich with piercing observation and the warmth that comes from profound understanding of the human spirit, Buckeye captures the universal longing for love and for goodness. – Random House

This title is also available in large print.

Reese Witherspoon has selected To the Moon and Back by Eliana Ramage for her September pick.

Curious what To the Moon and Back is about? Check out the following description provided by the publisher.

In this dazzlingly powerful story of family, ambition and belonging, one young woman’s obsessive quest to become the first Cherokee astronaut irrevocably alters the fates of the people she loves most.

My mother took my sister and me, and she drove through the night to a place she felt a claim to, a place on earth she thought we might be safe. I stopped asking questions. I picked little glass pieces from my sister’s hair. I watched the moon.

Steph Harper is on the run. When she was five, her mother fled an abusive husband—with Steph and her younger sister in tow—to Cherokee Nation, where she hoped they might finally belong. In response, Steph sets her sights as far away from Oklahoma as she can get, vowing that she will let nothing get in the way of pursuing the rigorous physical and academic training she knows she will need to be accepted by NASA, and ultimately, to go to the moon.

Spanning three decades and several continents, To the Moon and Back encompasses Steph’s turbulent journey, along with the multifaceted and intertwined lives of the three women closest to her: her sister Kayla, an artist who goes on to become an Indigenous social media influencer, and whose determination to appear good takes her life to unexpected places; Steph’s college girlfriend Della Owens, who strives to reclaim her identity as an adult after being removed from her Cherokee family through a challenge to the Indian Child Welfare Act; and Hannah, Steph and Kayla’s mother, who has held up her family’s tribal history as a beacon of inspiration to her children, all the while keeping her own past a secret.

In Steph’s certainty that only her ambition can save her, she will stretch her bonds with each of these women to the point of breaking, at once betraying their love and generosity, and forcing them to reconsider their own deepest desires in her shadow. Told through an intricately woven tapestry of narrative, To the Moon and Back is an astounding and expansive novel of mothers and daughters, love and sacrifice, alienation and heartbreak, terror and wonder. At its core, it is the story of the extraordinary lengths to which one woman will go to find space for herself. – Avid Reader Press / Simon & Schuster

Oprah has picked All the Way to the River: Love, Loss, and Liberation by Elizabeth Gilbert as her latest pick. Oprah’s Book Club has been around for years! Oprah’s book club picks are not released every month, so it may be a couple months between her releases.

Curious what All the Way to the River is about? Check below.

In 2000, Elizabeth Gilbert met Rayya. They became friends, then best friends, then inseparable. When tragedy entered their lives, the truth was finally laid bare: The two were in love. They were also a pair of addicts, on a collision course toward catastrophe.

What if your most beautiful love story turned into your biggest nightmare? What if the dear friend who taught you so much about your self-destructive tendencies became the unstable partner with whom you disastrously reenacted every one of them? And what if your most devastating heartbreak opened a pathway to your greatest awakening?

All the Way to the River is a landmark memoir that will resonate with anyone who has ever been captive to love—or to any other passion, substance, or craving—and who yearns, at long last, for liberation. – Riverhead Books

This title is also available in large print.

Join Bestsellers Club to have Oprah, Jenna, and Reese’s adult selections automatically put on hold for you!

Golf Titles

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Working in a library means we get to see what types of books are popular at any given time. When the John Deere Classic happened in July in Silvis, I noticed an increase in patrons asking for books about golf. This of course meant a list must be made of golf books! As of this writing, all of these titles are owned by the Davenport Public Library. Descriptions are provided by the publishers.

Ben Hogan’s Five Lessons: The Modern Fundamentals of Golf by Ben Hogan

Over the past sixty-five years, millions of golfers have studied Ben Hogan’s Five Lessons, making it the bestselling golf book of all time. Now, Hogan’s masterpiece has received the definitive edition it deserves.

Widely regarded as one of the greatest golfers in the history of the sport, Hogan is especially known for his mastery of the golf swing. At the start of his career, he played with a hook that threatened to ruin his game, until he dedicated himself to correcting it—and in doing so, he gained a rare and hard-fought understanding of the fundamentals. Curious fans itched for clues about his legendary technique, dubbed “the secret,” that allowed him to persevere and even return to the height of his powers after a car crash that shattered his body and almost took his life in 1949. His terse answer, “I dug it out of the dirt”—the dirt of the driving range—fueled the Hogan mystique. He went on to become one of only five players to win all four professional championships, claiming nine major championships in total.

In 1957, Hogan partnered with Herbert Warren Wind, “the dean of American golf writers” (The New York Times), and illustrator Anthony Ravielli to capture his expertise from the peak of his career in a series of lessons. Hogan believed that any golfer with average coordination can learn to break eighty. In each chapter, a different tested fundamental is explained and demonstrated with clear illustrations, as though Hogan were giving you a personal lesson with the same skill and precision that made him a legend.

Now expanded with a new introduction by Lee Trevino, essays about Hogan and the book’s legacy, unpublished photos of the publicity-shy Hogan, and more, this definitive edition offers greater context and fresh insight into an icon of the game. – Avid Reader Press / Simon & Schuster

Golf: Stroke by Stroke by Brian A. Crowell

Learn the game and perfect your technique with this guide to golf for beginners

Golf is a popular hobby sport, but if you’ve never picked up a club before, it’s hard to know where to begin. Geared for the absolute beginner, Golf Stroke by Stroke is a comprehensive guide that covers everything you need to head to the golf course with confidence. From the clubhouse to the green, golf pro Brian Cowell will introduce you to each stage of the game and teach you how to swing a club through a series of simple lessons with full-color photos and baby-step-by-baby-step instructions. In addition, you’ll get:

  • Guidance on choosing the best clubs, balls, and gear for your needs
  • Helpful golf pro advice on common mistakes and how to avoid them
  • Dozens of practice drills and “Picture This!” images to remind players of swing technique
  • Detailed information on golf rules, lingo, and etiquette, including keeping score and calculating handicaps

-DK

Playing from the Rough: A Personal Journey Through America’s 100 Greatest Golf Courses by Jimmie James

When he set out to play each of Golf Digest’s America’s100 greatest golf courses in one year, Jimmie James knew he was attempting the impossible. But then again, he’d spent his entire life defying the odds.

James was born invisible. His birth certificate, long since filed away in some clerk’s office in East Texas, recorded facts about him that were deemed most relevant in the late 1950s: “colored” and “illegitimate.” His great-great-grandmother was enslaved, and his early life was confided by the privation and segregation of the late Jim Crow-era South.

Four decades later—having put himself through an HBCU and determinedly risen through the executive ranks at ExxonMobil—he embarked on his journey to play the 100 greatest golf courses in the United States. In a single year. From the first tee at Augusta National, the distance between the world he grew up in and the world of extreme privilege to which he’d now managed to gain access was impossible to ignore. – Simon & Schuster

Seven Days in Augusta: Behind the Scenes at the Masters by Mark Cannizzaro

A celebration of what makes the Masters singular and iconic
The Masters is unquestionably the crown jewel of golf’s major tournaments, not only for the transcendent performances it has inspired over the years, but for the incomparable sights and sounds of Augusta National and its environs, each distinct element contributing to the storied, rarefied atmosphere which draws tens of thousands to Georgia each spring.

Seven Days in Augusta spans everything from the par-3 contest, to Amen Corner, to Butler Cabin. Mark Cannizzaro goes behind the scenes of the exclusive competition, covering wide-ranging topics including green jacket rituals, tales from The Crow’s Nest atop the clubhouse, the extreme lengths some fans have gone to acquire tickets, and what goes on outside the gates during Masters week. Also featuring some of the most memorable and dramatic moments from the tournament’s history, this is an essential, expansive look at golf’s favorite event. – Triumph Books

So Help Me Golf: Why We Love the Game by Rick Reilly

Beloved bestselling author and golf aficionado Rick Reilly channels his insatiable curiosity, trademark sense of humor, and vast knowledge of the game in a treasure trove of original pieces about what the game has meant to him and to others.

This is the book Rick Reilly has been writing in the back of his head since he fell in love with the game of golf at eleven years old. He unpacks and explores all of the wonderful, maddening, heart-melting, heart-breaking, cool, and captivating things about golf that make the game so utterly addictive. We meet the PGA Tour player who robbed banks by night to pay his motel bills, the golf club maker who takes weekly psychedelic trips, and the caddy who kept his loop even after an 11-year prison stint. We learn how a man on his third heart nearly won the U.S. Open, how a Vietnam POW saved his life playing 18 holes a day in his tiny cell, and about the course that’s absolutely free.

Reilly mines all of the game’s quirky traditions—from the shot of bourbon you take before you tee off at Peyton Manning’s course, to the way the starter at St. Andrews announces to your group (and the hundreds of tourists watching), “You’re on the first tee, gentlemen.” He means that quite literally: St. Andrews has the first tee ever invented. We’ll visit the eighteen most unforgettable holes around the world (Reilly has played them all), including the hole in Indonesia where the biggest hazard is monkeys, the one in the Caribbean that’s underwater, and the one in South Africa that requires a shot over a pit of alligators; not to mention Reilly’s attempt to play the most mini-golf holes in one day.

Reilly expounds on all the great figures in the game, from Phil Mickelson to Bobby Jones to the simple reason Jack Nicklaus is better than Tiger Woods. He explains why we should stop hating Bryson DeChambeau unless we hate genius, the greatest upset in women’s golf history, and why Ernie Els throws away every ball that makes a birdie. Plus all the Greg Norman stories Reilly has never been able to tell before, and the great fun of being Jim Nantz. Connecting it all will be the story of Reilly’s own personal journey through the game, especially as it connects to his tumultuous relationship with his father, and how the two eventually reconciled through golf. This is Reilly’s valentine to golf, a cornucopia of stories that no golfer will want to be without. – Grand Central Publishing

A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder by Holly Jackson

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“What’s wrong with me? … I might seem like the ideal student: homework always in early, every extra credit and extra curricular I can get my hands on, the good girl and the high achiever. But I realized something just now: it’s not ambition, not entirely. It’s fear. Because I don’t know who I am when I’m not working, when I’m not focused on or totally consumed by a task. Who am I between the projects and the assignments, when there’s nothing to do? I haven’t found her yet and it scares me. Maybe that’s why, for my senior capstone project this year, I decided to solve a murder.”
― Holly Jackson, A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder

Every community has a story that haunts the residents. The town of Fairview is not exception to this. Five years ago, popular high school senior Andie Bell went missing and her boyfriend, Sal Singh, was accused of her murder. Not long after Andie went missing, Sal killed himself, leaving the community bereft with questions and her family without a body. It was all anyone could talk about for years. Now five years later, senior Pippa Fitz-Amobi has decided to reopen the Andie Bell case as her senior capstone project. Pip believes that Sal was innocent and that the only way to find the real killer is to do her own investigation. This means digging for answers to a case that everyone else believes is closed. With the help of Sal’s younger brother, Pip reexamines this closed case. It doesn’t take long before Pip ruffles someone’s feathers enough that they start threatening her. This case takes a dangerous turn for all those involved.

A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder is the first book in the series of the same name by Holly Jackson. This series debut was intriguing from the start. Pip is smart and driven to solve this case, sometimes to the detriment of her own safety. Each character in this story is well-developed, while the plot wasn’t too predictable. The plot twists were unexpected. I also enjoyed that the author was able to weave in multiple storylines without it becoming too convoluted and confusing. All in all, a great read for both teens and adults.

Good Girl’s Guide to Murder series

  1. A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder (2019)
  2. Good Girl, Bad Blood (2020)
  3. As Good as Dead (2021)

Interested in this book? A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder is the October See YA Book Club pick (it was also made into a series on Netflix!). We will be discussing this book on Wednesday, October 1st at 6:30pm at our Eastern Avenue branch. For more information about future See YA book picks, visit our website.

See YA Book Club

Join our adult book club with a teen book twist. See why so many teen books are being turned into movies and are taking over the best seller lists.

Registration is not required. Books are available on a first-come, first-serve basis at the Eastern Avenue library. We meet the first Wednesday of the month at Eastern at 6:30pm. Stop by the service desk for more information.

October 1 – A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder by Holly Jackson

November 5 – Rez Ball by Byron Graves

December 3 – Uglies by Scott Westerfeld

New Horror Novels

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What genre do you seldom read? For me, it’s horror! While checking the new shelves this month, I found quite a few new titles that caught my eyes in the new horror section. Below are four new horror titles that I wanted to share with you all. As of this writing, all of these titles are owned by the Davenport Public Library. Descriptions are provided by the publishers.

Cold Eternity by S.A. Barnes

Halley is on the run from an interplanetary political scandal that has put a huge target on her back. She heads for what seems like the perfect place to lay low: a gigantic space barge storing the cryogenically frozen bodies of Earth’s most fortunate citizens from more than a century ago…

The cryo program, created by trillionaire tech genius Zale Winfeld, is long defunct, and the AI hologram “hosts,” ghoulishly created in the likeness of Winfeld’s three adult children, are glitchy. The ship feels like a crypt, and the isolation gets to Halley almost immediately. She starts to see figures crawling in the hallways, and there’s a constant scraping, slithering, and rattling echoing in the vents.

It’s not long before Halley realizes she may have gotten herself trapped in an even more dangerous situation than the one she was running from…. – Tor Nightfire

Senseless by Ronald Malfi

What do you see…?

When the mutilated body of a young woman is discovered in the desert on the outskirts of Los Angeles, the detective assigned to the case can’t deny the similarities between this murder and one that occurred a year prior. Media outlets are quick to surmise this is the work of a budding serial killer, but Detective Bill Renney is struggling with an altogether different scenario: a secret that keeps him tethered to the husband of the first victim.

What do you hear…?

Maureen Park, newly engaged to Hollywood producer Greg Dawson, finds her engagement party crashed by the arrival of Landon, Greg’s son. A darkly unsettling young man, Landon invades Maureen’s new existence, and the longer he stays, the more convinced she becomes that he may have something to do with the recent murder in the high desert.

What do you feel…?

Toby Kampen, the self-proclaimed Human Fly, begins an obsession over a woman who is unlike anyone he has ever met. A woman with rattlesnake teeth and a penchant for biting. A woman who has trapped him in her spell. A woman who may or may not be completely human.

In Ronald Malfi’s brand-new thriller, these three storylines converge to create a tapestry of deceit, distrust, and unapologetic horror. A brand-new novel of dark suspense set in the City of Angels, as only “horror’s Faulkner” can tell it. – Titan Books

The Staircase in the Woods by Chuck Wendig

Five high school friends are bonded by an oath to protect one another no matter what.

Then, on a camping trip in the middle of the forest, they find something extraordinary: a mysterious staircase to nowhere.

One friend walks up—and never comes back down. Then the staircase disappears.

Twenty years later, the staircase has reappeared. Now the group returns to find the lost boy—and what lies beyond the staircase in the woods. . . . – Del Rey

When the Wolf Comes Home by Nat Cassidy

One night, Jess, a struggling actress, finds a five-year-old runaway hiding in the bushes outside her apartment. After a violent, bloody encounter with the boy’s father, she and the boy find themselves running for their lives.

As they attempt to evade the boy’s increasingly desperate father, Jess slowly comes to a horrifying understanding of the butchery that follows them—the boy can turn his every fear into reality.

And when the wolf finally comes home, no one will be spared. – Tor Nightfire

Music Genre Highlight: Classical

- Paige Leave a comment

In honor of Classical Music Month, I wanted to highlight this sometimes overlooked, but essential genre within our collection, classical! Oftentimes Mozart, Bach, and Beethoven are the first many think of when hearing the term ‘classical music’, but the genre expands to various other composers and artists, even to this day. Here is a portion of what Davenport Public Library has to offer, both old and new! 

If you’re more into streaming music, we also have Freegal, a streaming service accessible through your Davenport Library Card. I made a playlist to get you started, you can access it here.

Want to learn more about classical music or the world of classical music? We have books available for checkout as well!

When’s your favorite time to listen to classical music? For me, it’s when I’m either reading or crafting. Let us know your answer in the comments!

Children’s Books about Moving Away

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If you’re looking for children’s books about saying goodbye, moving house, or change, I have gathered a list of picture books published in 2024 and 2025 that deal with these topics. These books can help with managing the anxiety and stress of leaving the familiar for something new. As of this writing, all of these titles are owned by the Davenport Public Library. Descriptions are provided by the publishers.

Anything by Rebecca Stead, illustrated by Gracey Zhang

What’s more powerful than a secret wish? A wish you say out loud.

Anything paints a tender picture of a father and daughter moving into a new home. Dad brings a birthday cake for the new apartment to celebrate their new beginning and tells his daughter she can wish for anything (or, more precisely, ‘three Anythings’). Over the course of the day, she wishes for some of her favorite things, including a rainbow and ‘the biggest slice of pizza in the whole world.”

But she keeps some of her wishes inside. Because what she really wants is to go back home to their old apartment, with its big blue bathtub and space in the closet for hide-and-seek. When she finally admits this last wish, her dad takes her on a journey, and by the book’s final pages, she is home . . .in every way that matters. – Chronicle Books

A Book of Maps for You by Lourdes Heuer, illustrated by Maxwell Eaton III

What if you moved into a new house and found a secret guidebook? Look inside buildings and search for surprises in this enthralling, interactive book of maps.

In A Book of Maps for You, a young cartographer leaves a one-of-a-kind gift behind for the kid moving into his old house. He’s drawn and annotated maps of all the neighborhood places of interest—no playground, reading nook, or chicken coop left uncharted.

During a big move, a child can feel a lot of pressure to be excited for the future, to open their heart to the place they’re headed. But the roads they’ve been down hundreds of times, the familiar faces, and the house where they know every noisy pipe and leaky faucet all deserve care, too.

A Book of Maps for You honors the homes we leave behind and the ones we haven’t met yet, reminding us that they may just be two sides of the same coin. Lourdes Heuer’s attentive text speaks volumes in each word, and Maxwell Eaton III’s signature detail-rich illustrations call for re-reads to drink in and explore every page. – Neal Porter Books

Being Home by Traci Sorell, illustrated by Michaela Goade

Today is a day of excitement—it’s time to move! As a young Cherokee girl says goodbye to the swing, the house, and the city she’s called home her whole life, she readies herself for the upcoming road trip. While her mother drives, the girl draws the changing landscape outside her window. She looks forward to the end of the journey, where she’ll eat the feast her family has prepared, play in the creek with her cousins, and settle into the new rhythm of home.

With warm, expressive artwork and spare, lyrical prose, the story of a young girl’s move toward rather than away from home unfolds. – Kokila

Home is a Wish written and illustrated Julia Kuo

A deeply moving, gorgeously illustrated picture book about leaving home and finding a new place to fit in, for anyone dealing with a move, to another town or to a new country.

Sometimes we leave home in the mornings, in the evenings, or for much longer. But we always come back.

Home becomes a wish when we move, when the new place isn’t the same. Everything might be different: the sounds, the smell, the people, the weather.

But home isn’t just a place. We carry home in our hearts, and it can grow and change as we do in our lives. With time, new faces become friends, and what is different becomes familiar.

Home can be a wish that comes true.

Like Evelyn Del Rey Is Moving Away and The Day You Begin, this beautiful exploration of what it’s like to deal with a big change is personal, emotionally resonant, and relatable. With page after lovely page of captivating art, New York Times bestselling illustrator Julia Kuo has created a lasting story about how time, patience, and an open heart can help someone feel at home anywhere in the world. – Roaring Book Press

A Moving Story by Beth Ferry and Tom Lichtenheld, pictures by Tom Booth

A sweet and uplifting story about trying, failing, and never-ending kindness.

With the utmost care, brothers and professional movers Tiny and Pete will move anything anywhere because they know that nothing is too small or too light to wrap up tight and treat just right. But during their biggest move yet, a young panda’s pet turtle goes missing and even the brothers’ efforts might not be enough to save the day.

Full of fun word play and humor, this hopeful and empowering story is sure to move readers to feel big feelings and, most importantly, laugh. Perfect for fans of Ryan T. Higgins and Jory John. – HarperCollins

Space for Everyone by Seina Wedlick, illustrated by Camilla Sucre

This lyrical and heartwarming picture book follows a Nigerian girl who worries about her family’s upcoming move. But she soon realizes that no matter where they go, there will always be room at their kitchen table for her community to gather around.

When Zainab runs down the stairs in the morning, she knows what she’ll find: Papa cooking at the stove, Mama pouring tea, and then everyone gathering around the family table. Neighbors stop by, and there’s plenty of room for them, too. There are so many beloved rituals that happen at the table: homework and crafts, aunties coming to plait hair, and festive gatherings with neighbors and relatives. But soon boxes start piling up around the house, and Zainab worries about the move—will the rituals feel the same in her new home?

In the new house, the family table still feels cozy to sit around. And soon, old neighbors and new friends stop by, and everyone is welcome at the table. Meg Medina’s Evelyn Del Ray is Moving Away meets Peter H. Reynolds’s Our Table in this heartwarming story about how difficult it is to move, but how connecting with community makes everything better. – Random House Studio

A Terrible Place for a Nest by Sara Levine, illustrated by Erika Meza

Juno and his mom have just moved into a new home, and he hates everything about it – the new school, his new classmates, his new room.

Just outside his window, Juno notices a family of mourning doves have started a nest atop the fence, and they seem to be struggling to make it work, too. Sure enough, Juno concludes this new place is a terrible place to build a nest.

But, as winter turns to spring and the doves grow, so does Juno. And while this new place may be scary and sometimes lonely, they will all make it work, together.

Lyrical and hopeful, A Terrible Place for a Nest is a tender and uplifting tale about facing new experiences with empathy and courage. – Roaring Book Press

Welcome Home, Esmerelda by Daniela Ramirez, illustrated by Maribel Lechuga

From a military family, Esmerelda discovers that home is where she’s always welcomed—thanks to music, dance, and the big, unconditional love from her extended family.

An ideal picture book for kindergarteners and 1st graders who are moving, need reassurances during a transition, and could use the reminder that home is family.

Papa’s job in the military has taken Esmerelda and her family all over the world—and yet she’s never lived in the United States. Now she and her family are moving to San Antonio, Texas.

Although many of her extended family members live there, Esmerelda is unsure it’ll feel like home. Even more, she’s unsure she will fit in. Gradually, music and her sweet abuela spark bravery and the realization that home is not always a place—it’s familia.

Heartwarming and hopeful, Welcome Home, Esmerelda will provide reassurance to any kid that while moving and change are difficult, you have the support of loved ones to help you through it. – Charlesbridge

That Time I Got Drunk and Saved a Demon by Kimberly Lemming

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“Cin, I can barely breathe when you are not near. If anything were to happen to you, if you left me to be alone again, these memories of you would kill me.”
― Kimberly Lemming, That Time I Got Drunk and Saved a Demon

I checked out That Time I Got Drunk and Saved a Demon by Kimberly Lemming purely because of what the cover looked like. This book reminded me of the classic romance novel covers – think Fabio shirtless with his long hair blowing in the wind (highly recommend you look this up for *research* purposes). I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I enjoyed this read! That Time I Got Drunk and Saved a Demon is the first book the Mead Mishaps series by Kimberly Lemming.

Cinnamon lives a quiet life as a spice trader. Having taken over part of her family’s spice farm, all Cinnamon wants to do is get a cat, expand her business, and actively avoid any adventuring. Stumbling her way home from a town party late one night, Cinnamon bumps into a demon that she decides, in her wine-drunk state, to save. Coming to her senses, Cinnamon runs to her parents’ house for safety. Upon awaking the next morning, she is shocked to see that the demon is still around and that he needs her help. Fallon, the demon, is on a mission to kill an evil witch that has been enslaving demons for centuries. Why should Cinnamon care? Well it turns out this evil witch also has her hands in the operations of her town and basically the entire country. Shocked, Cinnamon has no choice to go along with Fallon in their attempt to kill off the witch and rescue the enslaved demon. It doesn’t hurt matters that Fallon is easy on eyes and just so happens to keep burning off his shirt.

This was an adorably hilarious and steamy read. The spicy scenes take place on page, so be prepared if you decide to give this a read. I found myself laughing out loud in places because Cinnamon is quite funny. Fallon is intense, but his intensity helped balance out Cinnamon’s quirkiness. Their relationship started slow, but things got steamy once they decided to be serious. If you’re looking for a blend of romance, humor, and adventure, dive into this series debut!

Mead Mishaps series

  1. That Time I Got Drunk and Saved a Demon (2021)
  2. That Time I Got Drunk and Yeeted a Love Potion at a Werewolf (2023)
  3. That Time I Got Drunk and Saved a Human (2023)

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