Tag: romance

The Soulmate Equation by Christina Lauren

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‘Statistics can’t tell us what will happen, they can only tell us what might happen.’ – Christina Lauren, The Soulmate Equation

Christina Lauren’s latest published novel, The Soulmate Equation, is an exploration into love, science, and how the two intertwine. This romantic comedy is a delightful romp about what you would do if your soulmate ended up being the last person you expected them to be.

Jess is a freelance statistician. She has always loved numbers. They make sense to her when nothing else in her life does. A single mother to a young girl named Juno, Jess has managed to make life work with the help of her grandparents and her best friend Fizzy. While she finds fulfillment raising seven-year-old Juno and running stats for her clients, her love life has been basically non-existent. After yet another failed date, Jess decides she doesn’t need to find love to feel complete.

When Jess and Fizzy learn about a new matchmaking company called GeneticAlly whose chief science officer frequents the same coffee shop as them, Fizzy decides they need to discover more about what the company is actually offering. The two are invited to the company’s headquarters where they learn about the science behind GeneticAlly’s new love app. This startup claims to find your soulmate based on DNA compatibility rating thousands of  emotional and biological markers. In a desperate sad moment, Jess spits into the DNADuo kit, sends it in, and promptly forgets about it.

When a notification pings on her phone alerting her that the company has requested a meeting with her, her initial reaction is that they might want her to help running statistics. As soon as she shows up though, it’s clear that there is something else they need to discuss. Jess learns that she has 98% compatibility with another subject in the database, a number that is hard for her to believe to be true. Another item to add to her skepticism: Jess has matched with GeneticAlly’s founder and chief science officer, Dr. River Pena. River seems just as skeptical as her, but the two turn to the numbers to verify what they have been told. After all, numbers never lie.

Jess has a hard time believing that River is her soulmate, mostly because she already knows him. He is the stuck up and stubborn man who has come into the coffee house she frequents for months. How could he be her soulmate?! Genetically has a deal for her though: They will pay her to get to know River. They will expect her to go to events, do interviews, and spend one-on-one time with River. The more time the two spend with each other, the more Jess realizes why River behaves the way he does. The science doesn’t necessarily have to be at odds with the love and emotional aspect of life. River is more than she seems and so is his life’s work.

‘Destiny could also be a choice, she’d realized. To believe or not, to be vulnerable or not, to go all in or not.’ – Christina Lauren, The Soulmate Equation

This book is also available in the following formats:

The Love Hypothesis by Ali Hazelwood

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Ali Hazelwood’s debut novel The Love Hypothesis is the start to a new contemporary romance series. Hazelwood’s books all center around women in STEM and academia, which represents her life. Hazelwood is originally from Italy, then lived in Japan and Germany, and after that she moved to the US to pursue a PhD in neuroscience. She is now a professor (and author).

Olive Smith is a third-year PhD candidate at Stanford. She’s not a fan of romantic relationships – they just aren’t her thing. Science has always been there for her, so lasting romance doesn’t interest her. Slight problem though: she did have a boyfriend for a while that it turns out her best friend has a major crush on. In order to finally convince her best friend that she really doesn’t care if she dates Olive’s ex-boyfriend, Olive needs to get a new boyfriend stat. A ‘real’ boyfriend isn’t in the cards, so Olive does the next best thing: she panics and kisses the first man she sees.

Utter disaster. Well, the kiss wasn’t that bad, but the man she kissed – a whole other story. She planted her lips on Adam Carlsen, a young professor who is known throughout her department to be utterly rude and condescending, especially to the students in his labs. Forced to explain why she forced herself upon him, Olive is stunned when Dr. Carlsen agrees to keep up the pretense and be her fake boyfriend. Rumors swirl around campus, putting Adam and Olive into very awkward positions with other faculty, students, and friends.

The more they get to know each other, the more Olive thinks that this experiment may not be a bad idea. Especially when they are thrown together at a big conference and in addition to the surprise of his six-pack abs, Adam proves to be incredibly supportive when Olive’s life starts to crumble. There are bigger things at play than just biology: Olive may have to deal with the feelings that are starting to creep into their relationship.

The second book in this series, Love on the Brain, is set to be published in August 2022.

This book is also available in the following format:

Love Hypothesis series

  1. The Love Hypothesis
  2. Love on the Brain (will be published in August 2022)

 

A Phở Love Story by Loan Le

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Loan Le’s debut novel, A Phở Love Story, reads a bit like a happy ending Romeo & Juliet (in fact that story is mentioned many times by the characters throughout this book).

Bảo Nguyen and Linh Mai are high school seniors who work at their families’ Vietnamese restaurants. Sounds perfect, right? Oh so wrong. It turns out that their familes are in a years’ long feud even though their restaurants are across the street from each other.

Bảo is average and not that interesting – his words. He goes to school and isn’t particularly amazing at anything in general. He is reliable, his grades average, and he isn’t quite sure what he wants to do with his future.

Linh loves art. She desperately wants to have a career in it. For as long as she can remember, Linh has been an artist. The only issue is that her parents do not believe that art is a stable enough career choice. Her parents rely on her to help them with their restaurant almost every day, so on top of her school work and her art projects, Linh spends hours at the restaurant.

Even though the Mai and Nguyen’s restaurants are across the street from each other, the two families do not interact. In fact they are incredibly competitive. When one does a contest, so does the other. Rumors swirl about each respective restaurant. The feud between the two families seems very complicated to Bảo and Linh, but their parents won’t discuss why it exists.

One day, a chance encounter between Linh and Bảo results in sparks. They find themselves working close together and despite their family history and their initial desire to steer clear of each other, there is an undenable attraction. The more they get to know each other, the more they wonder why it took so long for them to meet and become friends. The tensions between their parents has the power to destroy their budding relationship. Bảo and Linh will have to decide what they want and how far they are willing to go for love and answers.

This book is also available in the following format:

Under the Whispering Door by TJ Klune

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“Everyone loses their way at some point, and it’s not just because of their mistakes or the decisions they make. It’s because they’re horribly, wonderfully human. And the one thing I’ve learned about being human is that we can’t do this alone. When we’re lost, we need help to try to find our way again.” – T.J. Klune, Under the Whispering Door

Under the Whispering Door was an incredibly powerful read that had me feeling a wide variety of emotions. (If you haven’t read The House in the Cerulean Sea by Klune, you should do that too – check out Anna’s blog to learn more about it). Klune sprinkled so many profound nuggets of wisdoms throughout this book that I still find myself thinking about it days after finishing.

Wallace Price is troubled. He spends his entire life at the office trying to understand why people behave the way they do. As a lawyer, Wallace craves order. His life changes when he wakes up at his own funeral. When a woman approaches him and says that she is a reaper come to collect him, he is confused and outraged. First of all, he can’t be dead. Secondly, there is only a handful of people at his funeral. Utterly ridiculous.

The reaper takes him to Charon’s Crossing, a slightly irregular tea shop. It sits on the outskirts of a small village off the beaten path that runs through the mountainous woods. Hugo, the owner, is there to help Wallace in any way he can. He works as a ferryman who helps souls cross over.

The more time Wallace spends time at the tea shop talking with Hugo and the others, the more Wallace thinks he might actually be dead. He isn’t ready to abandon his life just yet though. He didn’t actually live his life to the fullest. Wallace spent his time alive at work, but he spends his time dead really living: joking with the others at the tea shop, manifesting new clothing, and noticing the stars with Hugo. Just as Wallace settles into a comfortable rhythm however, the all-powerful Manager descends upon Charon’s Crossing with a deadline that will change them all forever.

This book is available in the following formats:

Love and Other Disasters by Anita Kelly

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An inclusive romance for fans of reality cooking shows, Love and Other Disasters follows recent divorcée Dahlia and non-binary London as they compete on a show called Chef’s Special, and find themselves falling in love along the way. Delicious, steamy, thoughtful, and trailblazing, it’s vital reading for romance lovers.

London Parker is nervous enough about being out as non-binary on national TV, and about which competitors refuse to respect their pronouns, without their unexpected attraction to the messy woman at the station in front of them. Dahlia Woodson, meanwhile, is struggling to figure out who she is after getting divorced from her high school sweetheart and quitting her unfulfilling job. She was hoping to win the prize money and maybe make a few friends, but is caught completely by surprise when her very cute competitor becomes something more. Now it’s down to both of them to figure out what they can be to each other, especially when the competition brings glaring scrutiny to their budding relationship.

I cherished this book for its accurate and heartwarming portrayal of living life as a non-binary person, as well as the nods to famous cooking competitions like the Great British Baking Show. All the characters are distinct and unique, as are their respective journeys. This is a book that knows there are no easy happily-ever-afters, especially because everyone has a different path to walk. The emphasis of the story is on the importance of doing the work of introspection and communication to create the life you want for yourself. I think many people will relate to Dahlia’s predicament of feeling like a disappointment or that she’s not where she ought to be in life, while also enjoying watching the romantic comedy unfold.

There’s also thoughtful message of how unpleasant or unfair it can be to be in the spotlight and have very personal issues be treated as entertainment. In an important narrative choice, the book itself never explicitly misgenders London or gives voice to the ignorant or hateful comments they receive on social media, while acknowledging that those things do happen; in this way it stays both accurate and respectful, and offers an example of how to use language to avoid doing harm. And of course, there’s lots of descriptions of delicious food, which both soothes the soul and whets the appetite!

If you’re looking for a book about love, cooking, fame, and the joys and frustrations of being different, this is the perfect cozy read for you.

Romance Reads: Kiss Quotient series by Helen Hoang

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Helen Hoang is a New York Times bestselling author of the Kiss Quotient series: The Kiss Quotient, The Bride Test, and The Heart Principle. While these books are considered a series, they are loosely connected and do not require you to read the previous books in order to understand the later books. These books are also steamy romance reads. Helen has been obsessed with romance books since eighth grade. She currently lives in San Diego with her family.

What drew me to Helen Hoang’s novels is her relationship with Autism Spectrum Disorder. In 2016, Helen was diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder, specifically what was previously known as Asperger’s syndrome. In each of her books, at least one of the main characters is diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder. Helen’s knowledge of this disorder is clearly present when she writes each of those characters and how they interact with the world.

The Kiss Quotient is the first book in this series. Stella Lane loves math. She believes that math is the only thing that makes the universe make sense. In her job, Stella comes up with algorithms to predict customer purchases. Her job gives her more money than she knows what to do with, but unfortunately doesn’t help her at all in the dating department. You see, Stella has Asperger’s syndrome. She doesn’t necessarily want to date, but recognizes that she needs practice. She is wealthy and successful, but one-on-one interactions with people are awkward for her.

Wanting to get more practice, Stella decides to hire a professional, escort Michael Phan. She wants Michael to teach her how to be a good girlfriend and comes up with a detailed lesson plan of what she wants to learn. Michael has mounting bills and a hard rule that he doesn’t take repeat customers. When Stella presents him with an unconventional proposal, he decides that he can’t turn her down. What starts as a no-nonsense partnership starts changing when they fall into a pattern. Michael and Stella spend more time together, learning more about each other as they work through Stella’s list. Stella starts to grow on Michael, while Stella learns that love isn’t something that can be quantified.

These titles are also available in large print, as OverDrive eBooks, and as OverDrive eAudiobooks. Visit our catalog to find those other formats!

Kiss Quotient Series

  1. The Kiss Quotient (2018)
  2. The Bride Test (2019)
  3. The Heart Principle (2021)

In a Holidaze by Christina Lauren

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Funny, inspirational, steamy, and warm-hearted, In a Holidaze contains the spirit of a Hallmark Christmas movie mixed with the wry humor of Groundhog Day. I was pleasantly surprised by its originality, heart, and sincere message about growing up and making authentic choices.

Maelyn Jones is feeling stuck – stuck in her dead-end job, stuck in her mom’s house, stuck in an unspoken, unrequited crush on Andrew Hollis. She was counting on Christmas to lift her spirits with her family and their friends’ cherished traditions, but not only did she drunkenly make out with the wrong Hollis brother, she just found out the Hollis’ parents are selling the cabin they’ve been gathering at for her whole life. In a desperate anxious spiral, she begs the universe to show her what will make her happy – which plunges her into a time loop reliving Christmas over and over. Clearly there’s something she’s meant to do, if she can only figure it out… She sets out to save the cabin (and herself) only to find herself falling in love along the way.

For me, this book was a delightful holiday interlude packed with not only humor and hijinks but also heartfelt insights into what it means to be happy and grown up. I loved that this book steered away from tropes like the standard love triangle – deep down, Mae knows exactly what she wants and doesn’t really waste time figuring it out. Her family was also a shining part of the book: endlessly supportive, well-drawn and diverse. That’s another trope avoided: Mae doesn’t have to go it alone, because her Uncle Benny quickly believes her about the time loop and tries to help her figure it out. Moreover, I think it’s important in these days of chosen family that the extended family group gathered at the Hollis cabin isn’t related biologically, but was formed through friendship.

These supportive family dynamics and her parents’ easy willingness to treat Mae as an adult make the book as a whole a breath of fresh air, especially when paired with the message that life’s too short to live in a way that’s not true to yourself and what you really want. The author also keeps the book well-paced and doesn’t get bogged down in too many repeated days, focusing instead on how quickly things can change and go in unexpected directions. As a result, the exploration of the time travel and higher powers behind it can seem light and sketched-in, but the character development and thankfully inevitable happy ending makes up for it.

If you need a restful read or a holiday book to add to your TBR list, definitely try In a Holidaze for good-spirited time traveling fun.

Something New: Tales From a Makeshift Bride by Lucy Knisley

- Mary Perez Leave a comment

Lucy Knisley gives an honest take on the wedding planning process with her graphic novel, Something New: Tales from a Makeshift Bride. As a bride to be myself, I was intrigued to see how Knisley described the year leading up to her wedding. Planning a wedding can feel stressful, exciting, nerve racking, and sometimes impossible to do. Knisley uses her graphic novel skills to lay it all out for all of those who may be entering the whirlwind of wedding planning.

Knisley begins her novel with some background of how she and her husband, John met and ended  up engaged. They met while Knisley was completing art school and as their relationship developed, they realized they wanted different things in life. After being apart for a few years with meeting each other in between, John randomly popped the question and Knisley said yes.

Throughout her memoir, Knisley goes into detail about her wedding planning process. She emphasizes to the reader that a traditional wedding isn’t for everybody (and if you like traditional, that’s okay!) For example, Knisley’s mother lives in a rural area and built a barn for their ceremony and reception. Knisley also created her own decorations and table settings to express her creative side. She did the traditional things like shopping for the perfect dress with her friends and family, arguing with her mother about the type of music for the reception, and staying up late to finish guest lists with her fiancé. Alongside Knisley illustrations, she added photographs from her year of wedding planning.

At the end of the day, Something New: Tales from a Makeshift Bride lets the reader into her own private world of wedding planning. It made me feel a little less anxious about my own planning endeavors.

This was my first graphic novel by Knisley. I enjoyed her honest and confessional writing style. Her other graphic novels follow this style as well. Here are a few we own at the library worth taking a look at: Relish, Kid Gloves, and Displacement.

 

 

Best Sellers Club December Authors: Elin Hilderbrand and Jayne Ann Krentz

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Want the hottest new release from your favorite author? Want to stay current with a celebrity book club? Love nonfiction? You should join the Best Sellers Club. Choose any author, celebrity pick, and/or nonfiction pick and the Davenport Public Library will put the latest title on hold for you automatically. Select as many as you want! If you still have questions, please check out our list of FAQs.

New month means new highlighted authors from the Best Sellers Club! December’s authors are Elin Hilderbrand for fiction and Jayne Ann Krentz for romance.

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Our December fiction author is Elin Hilderbrand. Hilderbrand is a graduate of The Johns Hopkins University and the Iowa Writers Workshop. Her first novels were published by St. Martin’s Press and then she subsequently moved to Little, Brown, and Company.  All of her novel’s are set on or near to Nantucket Island, where she lives. She likes to draw inspiration from her local surroundings by drawing on what she knows. Hilderbrand’s novels focus on romance and friendships along the beaches of Nantucket.

Hilderbrand’s newest novel is Golden Girl, published on June 1, 2021.

Curious what this book is about? Check out the following description provided by the publisher:

In this #1 bestselling page-turner a Nantucket novelist has one final summer to protect her secrets while her loved ones on earth learn to live without their golden girl.

On a perfect June day, Vivian Howe, author of thirteen beach novels and mother of three nearly grown children, is killed in a hit-and-run car accident while jogging near her home on Nantucket. She ascends to the Beyond where she’s assigned to a Person named Martha, who allows Vivi to watch what happens below for one last summer. Vivi also is granted three “nudges” to change the outcome of events on earth, and with her daughter Willa on her third miscarriage, Carson partying until all hours, and Leo currently “off again” with his high-maintenance girlfriend, she’ll have to think carefully where to use them.

From the Beyond, Vivi watches “The Chief” Ed Kapenash investigate her death, but her greatest worry is her final book, which contains a secret from her own youth that could be disastrous for her reputation. But when hidden truths come to light, Vivi’s family will have to sort out their past and present mistakes—with or without a nudge of help from above—while Vivi finally lets them g row without her.

With all of Elin’s trademark beach scenes, mouth-watering meals, and picture-perfect homes, plus a heartfelt message—the people we lose never really leave us—Golden Girl is a beach book unlike any other.

This book is also available in the following formats:

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Our December romance author is Jayne Ann Krentz. Krentz is the author of fifty New Tork Times bestsellers. She writes under three different pen names, but only the books written under the name Jayne Ann Krentz are available through the Best Sellers club. Under her married name, Jayne Ann Krentz, she writes contemporary romantic suspense. Under the name Amanda Quick, she writes novels of historical romantic suspense. Her final name, Jayne Castle, is used for futuristic/paranormal romantic suspense. Before she began writing full time, Krentz worked as a librarian in both academic and corporate libraries.

Krentz’s latest book is Lightning in a Mirror, the third book in the Fogg Lake series. This book will be published on January 18th, 2022.

Curious what this book is about? Below is a description provided by the publisher.

Lightning in a Mirror is the final installment in the chilling Fogg Lake trilogy by New York Times bestselling author Jayne Ann Krentz.

Olivia LeClair’s experiment with speed dating is not going well. First there was the nasty encounter with the date from hell who tried to murder her and now the mysterious Harlan Rancourt—long believed dead—sits down at her table and tells her she’s the only one who can help him locate the legendary Vortex lab.

This is not what Olivia had in mind when she signed up for the Four Event Success Guaranteed package offered by the dating agency. She doesn’t have much choice, though, because her psychic investigation firm works for the mysterious Foundation and Victor Arganbright, the director, is adamant that she assist Harlan. There’s just one problem—no one knows Harlan’s real agenda. His father once ran the Foundation like a mob organization, and Harlan was destined to be his heir. There’s a real possibility Harlan has returned to claim his inheritance.

For now, however, it’s a case of the enemy of my enemy is my friend because others are after the secrets of the long-lost lab. Unfortunately for Olivia, the one thing friend and foe have in common is that everyone is convinced she is the key. Her unique psychic talent is required to defuse the ticking time bomb that is Vortex.

Neither trusts the other but Olivia and Harlan soon realize they must work together to survive and unlock the Bluestone Project’s most dangerous secrets before more innocent people die.

This book is also available in the following format:

The Heartbreak Bakery by A.R. Capetta

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Genderqueer and genderfluid representation abound in this utopic LGBTQ read about the magical power of food to divide or unite people and communities, a book which doubles as a love letter to Austin’s LGBTQ scene.

In A.R. Capetta’s The Heartbreak Bakery, Syd (no pronouns, please, just Syd) is a baker finishing high school while working full time at The Proud Muffin, an invaluable community space/cafe. Syd also just got dumped, ending a relationship that had spanned both middle and high school. To cope, Syd does the only possible thing: baking. But when Syd’s Unexpected Brownies hit the cafe floor, something strange happens: every couple that has one breaks up. Messily and immediately. Including the owners of The Proud Muffin. Racked with guilt and fear of losing a great workplace and second home, Syd resolves to find the perfect recipe to fix each shattered relationship. And who better to help than Harley, friendly cafe delivery person – check the pronoun pin on Harley’s bag to find the day’s pronouns. As they chase down each customer and make magical bakes, Syd and Harley grow closer. But is new love and magical baking enough to save The Proud Muffin?

If you’ve seen my YouTube videos for the library, you know I am an unskilled but enthusiastic baker – so you won’t be surprised that I loved Syd’s detailed, helpful recipes that were included in the text. I also loved Syd’s determined, “I can fix this” attitude, and the descriptions of Syd’s “fashion recipes” as Syd tries to express a vague sense of gender through creative outfits. The book as a whole does a good job at showing the rich spectrum of gender and sexuality in a vibrant, hopeful queer community. There’s also some thoughtful examinations of how relationships grow, break and heal, and the bakes that accompany each feeling make the story a treat for all senses. Best of all, despite the serious topics it digs into, the tone of the book is gentle and kind, hopeful of the best outcomes for everyone.

If you like stories of new love, healing after heartbreak, learning lessons about growing up, and – most importantly – food, this is the book for you.