August Recommended Reads

Infidelity Rules: A Menu For Disaster, The Perils of Loving Food, Wine, and Married Men, Joelle Babula

“Infidelity Rules is a delicious escape. The complexities of love and wine pair for an emotional journey alongside characters navigating broken hearts and moral dilemmas.” -Audrey Ingram, author of The River Runs South

QUINN DAVIS shatters the norm.

She’s successful in the traditionally male-dominated wine world. She’ll do anything for a hunk of swoon-worthy cheese. And she only dates married men, a practice designed to evade love and protect her battered heart. But even as a mistress, Quinn has rules. No meddling in happy marriages. No men with young kids. No falling in love. And absolutely, unequivocally, no gigantic panties on a date. She prefers her men the way she likes her food and wine – enticing, intoxicating and utterly delicious.

Enter MARCUS: Hollywood hot, absurdly charming, and determined to rock Quinn’s world. He encompasses everything Quinn wants in a fling – simplicity, passion and the mind-blowing infatuation that comes with a new crush. She lusts after him more than she does the most moan-worthy food and wine pairing. When she unexpectedly falls hard for this man with a complicated past, her carefully curated world unravels. Now she must confront her romantic demons, her mistress status, and learn what it means to sacrifice for another. Faced with the punishing choice of relinquishing a love she never dreamed possible or destroying a family, Quinn must decide what’s worth keeping and what she must let go. Wine and cheese? Never. A man she loves? Perhaps.

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CLOSE CALL, Elise Hart Kipness

In a hard-hitting thriller from the author of Lights Out and Dangerous Play, reporter Kate Green courts danger once again when the famous subject of her next story is kidnapped during the US Open.

With a hard-won Emmy now gracing her mantel, sports reporter and former Olympian Kate Green turns her energy to the action unfolding in Flushing Meadows. Working on a feature for her weekly TV show, she spotlights two of today’s biggest female tennis stars: the sunny up-and-comer and the brash veteran. But the project goes sideways when one turns up missing.

Following an interview with Kate, one player receives a sinister text with a disturbing photo of the other woman, bound and gagged. Kate calls on her estranged father, an NYPD detective, for help in launching a search. Although wary he’s hiding something, she’s not sure where else to turn.

Their investigation leads to the victim’s hometown—and a growing list of suspects. The kidnapper threatens to spill secrets that could destroy lives. Tangled up in a deadly web of deceit, Kate races to connect the dots and find the missing player…before it’s too late.

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HARVESTING HISTORY WHILE FARMING THE FLATS, Muriel Murch

Blending the themes of family, farming, and filmmaking, Harvesting History follows Muriel Murch’s journey from Los Angeles to West Marin, where she and her husband, filmmaker Walter Murch, settle on a farm. Here, their life intertwines with a changing community, organic farming, and the Bay Area’s burgeoning independent film scene, including interactions with key figures from the independent film movement, including George Lucas and Francis Ford Coppola, close friends and collaborators of Walter.

Murch reflects on the cycles of nature, community resilience, and a simpler, sustainable way of life, contrasting it with the fast pace of Hollywood and urban development. The book is a poetic tribute to both the land and the bonds formed through shared values of preservation and creativity.

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One Bad Mother: A Mother’s Search for Meaning in the Police Academy, Megan Williams

After her six-year-old daughter puts a hammer through a wall, Megan Williams decides to abandon a career as an academic and become a police officer. 

It’s not lost on her that she may have applied to the Police Academy to escape the realities of mothering twins born via IVF at twenty-nine weeks. As the twins grow and test her endlessly, she feels she is failing. She needs a win.

During a grueling application process, Megan measures herself against the other candidates and confronts the normative notions of what it is to be a good mother. The paralyzing fear that she is a bad mother looms large in her head, as does the real possibility that she might not make the cut at the Academy. With its intertwined narratives of police recruitment and motherhood, the memoir provides an unflinching journalistic view of big-city law enforcement, set atop a personal journey during which Megan learns gratitude and makes peace with a motherhood far different from the dream sold to her by our culture.

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A PLACE FOR US, Patricia Grayhall

For fans of Taylor Jenkins Reid and Harper Bliss, a thrilling tale of two women who find each other irresistible but struggle for a second chance for love, redemption, and sanctuary when the world is against them.

Jo, a driven environmental attorney based in Washington, DC, and Lauren, a spirited young woman from Britain on a journey of self-discovery, find themselves in a serendipitous encounter at a lively London pub in 1981. Their brief yet profound connection generates a whirlwind of emotions, but the vast ocean, Jo’s career aspirations, and immigration hurdles thwart their burgeoning romance.

Fast forward twenty-two years, and both Jo and Lauren are unhappy in their current relationships. Fate intervenes when Lauren and her partner travel from Europe to visit Jo in her San Francisco home. The reunion is electric, rekindling a storm of emotions that neither can suppress, despite their efforts to honor their existing commitments.

Amid the majestic backdrops of Yosemite National Park and the Pacific Northwest, old passions can’t be denied, leading to dramatic confrontations and painful revelations. Jo and Lauren finally realize they must admit the truth: they are irresistibly drawn to each other. But there is no country in which they can legally live together.

A Place for Us is a poignant narrative of profound emotional depth. Will this second chance lead to happiness, or will the same forces that once drove them apart prevail again?

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EVERY PRECIOUS AND FRAGILE THING, Barbara Davis

A mother and daughter try desperately to reconcile just as a decades-old secret threatens to shatter their relationship forever in this powerful story from the bestselling author of The Echo of Old Books.

For social worker Mallory Ward, working with at-risk youth is a calling. But when one of her clients is tragically killed, she finds herself at a crossroads. Despite long-held resentments toward her distant mother, Mallory retreats to her childhood home on the Rhode Island coast to contemplate her future. Instead, she’s confronted by her past, not only in the renewed tensions with her mother but in the unexpected appearance of a familiar face―and the wrenching losses that drove her away a decade ago.

Helen Ward’s home is filled with precious keepsakes from her patients, a testament to decades spent caring for the terminally ill. Her work has always come first, though, leaving little time to connect with her daughter. Over the years, the rift between them has become a chasm, so when Mallory appears unannounced, Helen sees it as an opportunity to repair their broken relationship.

But hidden among Helen’s mementos are the keys to her past…and a terrible secret that threatens to destroy the fragile new trust between them forever.

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MY TWIN IN BUDAPEST, Kim Cano

An uplifting women’s fiction novel full of romance, intrigue, and a vacation that shapes destiny.

After being dumped by her fiancé, heartbroken Morgan spends time with her best friend, Amanda, hoping to forget her troubles. While looking through old family photographs together, Morgan notices a picture of Amanda’s grandmother, Veronika. The woman looks just like her. Suddenly, meeting her becomes important. The only problem is that she lives overseas.

On a trip to Budapest, Morgan meets Veronika, who is now eighty years old. As the two women get to know each other, Veronika shares a secret with Morgan about a tragic romance that ended under mysterious circumstances. Discovering what happened becomes Morgan’s obsession. Veronika’s happiness is her number one goal. Morgan thinks that if she can fix Veronika’s life, there may be hope for her own.

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PLAYBACK, Carla Malden

Witty, touching, and insightful, Playback revisits the 17-year-old Mari Caldwell of Shine Until Tomorrow, now 34, to tell the story of a woman obsessed with the past who must risk the future to learn to live in the present

“Once upon a time there was a summer.”

That’s the way the bedtime story starts, the one Mari Caldwell tells her little girl. It’s also her secret story of waking up one day in San Francisco, 1967, having time-traveled to the tie-dyed Summer of Love.

But she was seventeen then. Now, at 34, where Mari once saw 60’s idealism, she now sees only disillusionment. Newly divorced and stuck in a settled-for career, Mari’s failed at giving her child the perfect family she’d envisioned. That weird weekend in the sixties— the rock band she crashed with, the musician she loved, the hit song he wrote for her— lives in the way-back of her mind. Did it even happen? She’s not so sure… Until it happens again.

Playback rewinds Mari’s life as she makes a second visit to Haight-Ashbury in 1967, now autumn. The band, Mari’s rival, and her first love all see the 17-year-old girl they met in June. But inside, adult Mari faces both tender and devastating choices. What if, regardless of how the times have a-changed, love changes everything after all? What if it even changes her?

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LORD FREDERICK’S RETURN, Catherine Kullmann

An older hero, an enigmatic heroine and a delightfully outspoken four-year-old. Throw scandal into the mix for a gripping and tender Regency love story

August 1816. Lord Frederick Danlow returns to England after spending 18 years in India. He plans to make a home for himself and his motherless, four-year-old daughter, Ruperta. Unsure where to start, he accepts an invitation to stay at Ponsonby Place, home of Colonel Jack Ponsonby who made his fortune in India, and his daughter Susannah, the mistress of the household.

Soon Frederick finds himself in need of a governess—and a wife? The more time he spends with Susannah, the more his admiration of her deepens. Is she the woman with whom he will share his life?

He is resolved to court her, but then his younger brother Henry engulfs his family in an appalling scandal that could prevent any lady from agreeing to a connection with it. Now Frederick must support his family during this ordeal.

But what of Susannah? What will she say when she hears of the scandal? Should he, dare he offer her his heart and his hand?

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TINY VICES, Linda Dahl

For fans of Anne Tyler and Jojo Moyes, a tartly compassionate and contemporary tale of sibling love and conflict, marital challenges, and what personal fulfillment looks like—or doesn’t—in middle age.

Mid-life: Its obligations and demands, its petty foibles and evasions. And sometimes, its crises. Dreams are deferred, shortcomings rationalized. Like favorite old clothes, petty misdemeanors may feel comfortable, but they’re not a good look.

The Talley siblings are planning a family beach vacation—all four of them together for the first time in years. They suspect it will be their last. And God knows they all need a vacation. But wait, is it really such a good idea? Corina, with her recently diagnosed Alzheimer’s, can hardly manage to get through a day without a debacle. Pete is a just-barely-walking catalog of medical calamities stemming from his longtime addictions. Becca is reeling from her teenage son’s latest misadventure. And then there is Kathy, the eldest. After firmly avoiding going back to Rincón Bay, the beach town just a few hours south of the Arizona–Mexico border that has haunted her since a college spring break trip three decades ago, she’s determined to go back and face her ghosts—though she might be better off facing the fact that her marriage is in serious trouble.

When the Talley siblings and their entourage (two spouses, added on at the last minute, and Corina’s Mexican housekeeper/caregiver) finally land in Rincón Bay, they all encounter unexpected consequences from the wounds inflicted by careless loving—but maybe, too, the seeds of healing and hope.

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Adventures on Land and Sea: Searching for Culinary Pleasures in Provence and along the Cote d’Azur (Savoring the Olde Ways Series, Book 4), Carole Bumpus

Fans of Peter Mayle and Janine Marsh will enjoy this exploration of medieval villages, cultures, and recipes of France’s Provence. This travelogue is Book 4 in the author’s best-selling series, which has won the IPPY gold medal for Best Culinary Travel Series.

Join Carole Bumpus, her husband, Winston, and their friends in Book Four of Savoring the Olde Ways, her culinary-travel series. Following in the footsteps of writer Peter Mayle, Bumpus is on a quest to find the real Provençe. On three separate excursions—from Nice to Nîmes, Moustiers to Marseilles, and San Tropez to San Remy—and while sailing along the Côte d’Azur, she invites you to join her in uncovering the mysteries of Provençe. Are they hidden within their myths, festivals, or traditions? Is it possible they’re veiled in the sheer beauty of the land and sea? Could they be concealed in Roman arenas in Arles, Orange, or Glanum? Or, perhaps, within the ancient methods of traditional cooking or winemaking? Maybe they are hidden in plain sight among the locals who open their hearts, their bistros, and homes to strangers.

Yes, you may find it in chefs while cooking in ancient kitchens, in the smile of the shy barmaid who speaks no English, in the giggle of the Pizza Wagon baby, in the agreeable village baker, or in the patient waiter and harbor master—but you will most especially experience it through friends who fling open their doors to share their families’ recipes. Traveling alongside Bumpus, that is where you’ll discover the real Provençe.

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Unraveling the Knots: A Sister’s Relentless Fight for Justice in the Murder of Rebecca Zahau, Mary Zahau-Loehner

Convinced that Rebecca Zahau’s death was not a suicide, her sister vowed to unravel the truth—no matter the cost.

Unraveling the Knots is the gripping true story of Rebecca Zahau, a vibrant woman whose tragic death in 2011 ignited her family’s relentless pursuit of justice. After Rebecca was found hanged at her millionaire boyfriend’s mansion, authorities quickly labeled her death a suicide, a conclusion her grieving sister, Mary, vehemently refused to accept.

Over the next decade, Mary embarked on a crusade for the truth. Undeterred by setbacks and the immense pressure from the powerful Shacknai family, she meticulously investigated the case, uncovering shocking evidence of a botched investigation and undeniable proof that her sister was murdered.

This is a poignant and unflinching account of a sister’s unwavering love, a family’s fight against injustice, and the enduring impact of a life tragically cut short. With court transcripts, autopsy reports, never-before-seen photos, and more, Mary shares Rebecca’s inspiring story in unprecedented detail, from her days as a young girl in Burma to her last moments in Southern California. As Mary considers her sister’s devastating death, along with a shocking diagnosis of her own, she must confront her grief and the fleeting nature of life. Unraveling the Knots is a testament to the strength of the human spirit and the enduring power of truth.

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PAIN KILLERS: A YEAR IN AN ER, Rachel Callaghan

“A delightful medical drama that’s infused with gallows humor.” –Kirkus Reviews

A nurse with a secret. A doctor with baggage. A hospital full of stories no chart could capture. A found family created by the crazy quilt of an emergency room’s hectic year.

Written by a former ER physician, Pain Killers is a sly, comic medical novel capturing the spirit of an emergency room in all its bureaucratic mess, profound tragedy, and gallows humor. The story is revealed in quick, addictive bites through the ephemera of true-to-life physicians’ notes, witty off-the-record logbook entries, posted ads for cars and puppies, and threats against lunch thieves. It’s an unusual love story that doesn’t end with a kiss—it begins with one.

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OUT OF THE CRASH, Susan Poole

After a fatal hit-and-run devastates their close-knit community, author Caroline Beasley and high school senior Ethan Shawver find themselves at a crossroads as their lives intertwine in unexpected ways. Both are left reeling as they try to make sense of the tragedy that has irrevocably changed their lives. Caroline struggles with the dark implications of her son’s role in the crash, feeling the weight of guilt and despair. Meanwhile, Ethan grapples with the sudden loss of his mother and stumbles upon a disturbing family secret that threatens to upend everything he believes. As they each search for truth and healing, they must confront their deepest fears and regrets to find a way forward.

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Fine, I’m a Terrible Person, Lisa F. Rosenberg

This funny mother-daughter caper story stars 73-year-old, overweight former beauty, Aurora, who is a perpetually broke, eccentric divorcee living in the wealthy enclave of Marin County. When Aurora discovers her father’s widow has died, she decides to drive to Los Angeles to see if this means money for her.

Enter Aurora’s high-strung and estranged daughter, 43-year-old Leyla, who spends her days keeping up with the other Marin uber-moms, manically pursuing perfection. When she overhears a conversation and suspects her husband is embarking on an affair, she decides to sneak into a Cannabis business conference he is attending, also in LA, to spy on him.

Aurora and Leyla’s separate quests simultaneously intersect and enmesh in Los Angeles over the course of a weekend provoking hijinks and chaos, and yes, even some healing.

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The Mango Murders: A Key West Food Critic Mystery, Lucy Burdette

The turquoise waters of Key West are stained with pink in this explosive 15th installment of the Key West Food Critic mysteries from USA Today bestselling author Lucy Burdette.

Food critic Hayley Snow’s employer, Key Zest, is throwing the event of the season, a lavish cocktail party catered by Janet Snow, Hayley’s mother. As Hayley boards the luxurious cruise, she anticipates a smooth sailing soirée filled with shimmering cocktails, mouthwatering mango-infused delicacies, and new supporters for the e-zine. But as the boat sets sail, the festivities take a tragic turn when an explosion rocks the vessel, plunging the party guests into chaos.

In the days that follow, Hayley learns that a local culinary entrepreneur died in the explosion and it was no accident–someone on board had a deadly agenda. With the tropical city of Key West as her backdrop, Hayley navigates a web of secrets and lies. Her investigation takes her from the shadowy corners of island politics to fierce competition between high-end event caterers and personal vendettas.

With the clock ticking and the stakes higher than ever, Hayley must rely on her keen intuition to unmask a cunning culprit before they strike again.

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COLD WAR IN A HOT KITCHEN, Margaret Ann Spence

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TWICE THE FAMILY, A Memoir of Love, Loss, and Sisterhood, Julie Ryan McGue

Growing up as an adoptee and identical twin, Julie McGue will take you on her journey for identity and individuality, searching for answers through tragedy and adversity.

“A heartfelt exploration of connection, community, and the unbreakable bond between sisters . . . Her journey beautifully reminds us of the strength we find within ourselves as we seek to uncover where we truly belong.”— Simone Knego, author of The Extraordinary UnOrdinary You

In this coming-of-age memoir, set in Chicago’s western suburbs between the 1960s and ’80s, adopted twins Julie and Jenny provide their parents with an instant family. Their sisterly bond holds tight as the two strive for identity, individuality, and belonging. But as Julie’s parents continue adding children to the family, some painful and tragic experiences test family values, parental relationships, and sibling bonds.

Faced with these hurdles, Julie questions everything—who she is, how she fits in, her adoption circumstances, her faith, and her idea of family. But the life her parents have constructed is not one she wants for herself—and as she matures, she recognizes how the experiences that formed her have provided her a road map for the person and mother she wants to be.

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THE MARRIAGE DEBT, Christina Consolino

Sex is never just about sex.

From the outside, Nika Stewart’s life looks perfect: two loving kids, a fulfilling job as an elementary-school librarian, and a wonderful second marriage to Ethan, her sexy husband. The only problem? She doesn’t want to have sex with him.

Maybe it’s the harrowing hot flashes and formidable fatigue, or maybe it’s trying to juggle a weed-junkie dad, an onerous stepsister, and the avalanche of responsibilities that have left sex just another chore to cross off the to-do list.

When an honest conversation with her best friend leaves Nika worried her aversion to sex might drive Ethan away, she begrudgingly agrees to see a sex therapist. But as the sessions go on, Nika discovers that talking about sex with a therapist isn’t the same as facing the problem with her husband and that sex with Ethan might not be the only problem after all.

Filled with humor, candor, and at least one pair of role-playing chaps, The Marriage Debt examines the hard truths about sex that overbooked women face in their forties, as well as the joys still to come once a woman knows who she is and how to ask for what she wants.

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The Year of Dating Myself: How My Solo Tour Healed More Than Just My Heartbreak, Abby Rosmarin

Fans of Eat, Pray, Love and Wild will love this heartwarming memoir in which the main character is her own hero.

Abby knew her pattern all too well: get her heart broken, swear off dating, find a man “worth” breaking that vow for . . . Rinse. Repeat. However, after leaving a particularly traumatic relationship, Abby realized that something had to change if she wanted to kick the pattern. One night while purchasing a solo concert ticket, an epiphany was born: she needed a year in which she was her own dating interest. One full year to give herself the care and consideration that she once gave to romantic partners. A year to treat herself the way she wished a partner would. A year where she stepped outside of her comfort zone and broke free from codependency.

The Year of Dating Myself: How My Solo Tour Healed More Than Just My Heartbreak is a testament to the resiliency of the human spirit and the capacity to heal after heartbreak. What started out as a way to refocus her priorities quickly developed into something far bigger than she could’ve ever predicted. The year became a chance to reconnect with her ailing mother, get answers to her biggest genetic fear, remember the power of friendship, and realize all the inner strength that she had all along.

She once spent years waiting for her fairytale prince to come and save her. In this story, the princess saves herself.

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Tags: featured, women writers

Category: Contemporary Women Writers