This was lovely. I'd intended to read Oliver's poetry and/or essays for over a decade, but never knew where to start.

Margot is a famous romance writer, but after several bad experiences with men, she’s started “screaming into her pillow” by writing alternate endings to each of her books in a secret file called Happily Never After.

Elliott is in Omaha for a stem cell transplant. The night before her surgery, her best friend encourages her to get out and live a little. In so doing, she meets Jamie. He’s been stood up on a date and they immediately hit it off. He takes her to the baking lesson he’s booked for the night and they spend hours laughing and talking.

Cassie loves a genre-bender and Charlotte McConaghy has delivered. Why am I writing in the third-person right now? I’m not sure, but I think it has to do with excitement level.

Sarah Lindgate fell off the cliffs of Capri on a family vacation in 1992. Since then the Lindgate family has continued to vacation there and her now 33-year-old daughter, Helen, wrestles with feeling trapped in her very controlled life.

Janeway Sharp is at a college party when she gets the news: her father has died. In the wake of his death and the middle of her grief, Jane sees other news break of a woman murdered in a nearby Florida town.

Since her best friend died of cancer six months ago, Lenny has been taking temporary nanny jobs–a weekend here or there because that’s the limit to how long she can “hold it together.”

A slim volume of encouragement, Take What You Need, combines some of the concepts in Kolber’s other works (Try Softer and Strong Like Water) into a short, poetic, and reflective read.

Tilda is fifty-two years old when she suddenly realizes her little finger is missing. Well, it isn’t missing, but it isn’t… visible? At a visit to the doctor she’s diagnosed with invisibility, a disorder that is common among women her age, but rarely discussed. What follows is a magical realist story of Tilda’s journey to rediscover herself.

This was deep and heavy. It took a significant amount of brain power to follow and I think I would have absorbed it better in print than on audio, but this was the only format my library had available. The narration was also a bit monotone, so that did not help.

I’m usually a bit slow with reading audiobooks. I don’t have a lot of uninterrupted time to listen, but I made time for this one. I couldn’t look away. The narration is superb and this memoir is shared with such heart and earnestness.

This book was so much fun. It had some twists and turns with clues along the way. I try to be along for the ride with this type of book, but I couldn’t help but make some predictions. I wasn’t completely caught off guard by the ending, but I was surprised enough that I’m eagerly awaiting the second book in the series.

A revisit to the classic, Little Women, had been an intention for far too long.

While historical fiction isn’t usually my top choice of genre, I was intrigued by this one’s description and setting.

Jeff opens this book up by explaining that storytelling in other cultures is less linear and interconnected than Westerners like to imagine. What follows is a memoir of his experience at Princeton Theological Seminary, particularly with The Farminary Project where theology and farming meet.

Meghan Davis has done it again, making unsuspecting victims of her readers, fooling us with a campy vampire cover and description, and punching us in the gut with the full spectrum of human emotion.

This was an interesting take on a second-chance. While I wouldn't categorize it as strictly romance, more contemporary fiction, it centers on Charlie and Vivian now in their sixties, who were married forty years ago.

This was a cute rom-com set in a small town with lots of interconnected characters. I didn't read the first story in the "Rock Bottom Love" series, but I enjoyed the story of Jillian and Levi reconnecting after years apart.

This book was like a fever dream at times. It was quirky and weird and often delightful.

For any and all of us who find ourselves wanting to cut and run when life gets hard, when things don't go our way, or we are in a space of discomfort, Here by Lydia Sohn is for us.