Board the Alaska-bound Zuiderdam, a luxury cruise ship, alongside Harriet Chance. The 78-year-old widow has set sail using a pair of tickets purchased by her late husband, Bernard. Although he never mentioned the trip, Harriet is touched by his thoughtfulness and determined to take advantage of his last romantic gesture. Despite her children’s worry that Harriet is infirm, she sets sail alone, accompanied only by a letter from her best friend, Mildred.

Well, that letter and repeated visits from—hallucinations of?—her late husband. It seems both Mildred and Bernard have something to say.

In This Is Your Life, Harriet Chance!, author Jonathan Evison (The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving and West of Here) alternates between a cheeky narration of Harriet’s past and present. The chapters reveal Harriet at different ages and are written with unfussy candor when examining the present and recent past. When Evison portrays Harriet’s younger days, however, he employs a more hopeful, boisterous tone that underscores the exclamation point of the novel’s title. It echoes the cinematic approach of Evison’s previous work, painting a vivid picture that’s easy for a reader to immerse him or herself in.

Through carefully constructed vignettes of Harriet’s life, Evison peels away layers. What’s left is a core understanding of who Harriet is, and the layering of those events and defenses that led to her becoming that person. A book of secrets, This Is Your Life, Harriet Chance! reveals how one or two choices can dramatically alter not only the course of your life, but the lives of many others.

This article was originally published in the September 2015 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

As the stack of Jennifer Weiner bestsellers grows (14 and counting), one wonders how many more tricks she has up her sleeve. When will her books start feeling like retreads? How many times can she write about women, love and Philadelphia?

The answer, it seems, is as many times as she wants. Weiner delivers yet another fresh, funny winner in Who Do You Love, the story of Rachel Blum, who grows up with a heart defect, and Andy Landis, the biracial son of a single mom. Rachel and Andy both feel perpetually different from other kids at school, so they instantly bond when they meet as kids in the hospital, where Rachel is having yet another surgery and Andy is brought to the ER with a broken arm after falling off a hotel balcony.

Rachel lives in Florida, and Andy lives in Philadelphia. It’s several years later and totally by chance when they meet up during a youth group mission trip to Atlanta. They engage in heavy flirtation and even heavier petting, but then go their separate ways. Fate continues to bring them together and push them apart over the years, even as they go to college, find partners and careers, and, in Rachel’s case, have children. Andy becomes an Olympic runner and Rachel a social worker, both finding satisfaction in their work but not their love lives.

Who Do You Love is a little steamier than most of Weiner’s books, which is to be expected in a story about two star-crossed lovers who don’t even live in the same town til they’re in their 20s. And while it is filled with Weiner’s sparkling brand of humor, it also delves into some heavy issues: Race, poverty, adultery, the perils of fame. (Although she is famously one of the godmothers of the chick lit genre, it is not unprecedented for Weiner to explore deep themes—prescription drug abuse in All Fall Down, rape in Best Friends Forever).

Although the ending feels hurried, Who Do You Love is, ultimately, a great summer read by a storyteller who may have big sales, but hasn’t always gotten enough credit for her ability to spin tales that are heartfelt, funny and satisfying. 

Best-selling authors Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus (The Nanny Diaries) have delivered another fun and frothy read with How to Be a Grown-Up, a story in which mommy-lit meets “Sex and the City.” 

Our heroine, Rory McGovern, is living in New York with her actor husband, Blake, and their two small children. She’s a part-time magazine editor; he’s an actor struggling to land the big role that will catapult his career. When Blake loses an acting job that was sure to make him famous, he decides he needs a break from fatherhood, responsibility—and financially contributing to the family. He moves out, leaving Rory shocked and paralyzed by the potential destruction of their seemingly idyllic Manhattan life. 

Driven by a dwindling bank account, Rory takes a job at JeuneBug, a “children’s lifestyle” start-up run by two 20-something business school grads who wear shoes that cost more than a week-long vacation. Rory spends much of her day trying to decipher terminology like design vertical, branding ops and backloading appendixes, and her impossibly immature bosses make her re-entry into the working world less than smooth. 

Meanwhile, Blake seems to be slipping further away from his role as father and husband. When Rory discovers that Blake is on Tinder, she decides to play the field and finds herself juggling a group of suitors that includes her boss’ 24-year-old boyfriend. 

McLaughlin and Kraus have given us late 30-somethings a little summertime indulgence. As The Nanny Diaries did for readers in their 20s, How to Be a Grown-Up hits the midlife sweet spot. 

This article was originally published in the August 2015 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Nature tells us that a mother can’t part with her children. Like a lioness with her cubs, a mother is supposed do anything and sacrifice anything to protect her kids. But what about a mother who feels out of her depth? A mother who believes that the only way she can protect her children is by abandoning them? 

These are the themes Vanessa Diffenbaugh explored in her book club-friendly debut, The Language of Flowers, and they’re the same themes we see again in her new novel, We Never Asked for Wings. This time, we meet Letty, a woman who became a mother as a teenager and never really grew up—in fact, she regressed—as she handed responsibility for her children to her mother, a tactic that seemed to work until her mother and father left for their childhood home in Mexico. Letty is left with two children she barely knows, let alone knows how to mother.

The clearest character for much of the novel is Alex, Letty’s teenage son. He’s abandoned with his younger sister, Luna, and seemingly doomed to repeat his mother’s mistakes. He’s grown up in poverty with a brilliant scientific mind and no way to exercise the experiments he dreams up. He’s without a father, without resources, and when his grandfather leaves the country, he’s left without his only connection to the qualities he values in himself.

Initially, Letty’s methods for dealing with her situation and reconnecting with Alex are pretty abysmal. She leaves her children to their own devices. Her decisions don’t get better immediately, either, as she bonds with her children through bribery and bad choices. But Diffenbaugh doesn’t wait for us to process our shock at this behavior—she, and her protagonist, move on. We see everyone in this family striving to be better, and we root for them.

Diffenbaugh takes big political questions about child protective services, poverty and immigration and weaves them through the story of one multigenerational family. The question is, can Letty and her parents undo the damage they’ve spent a lifetime building, or are some mistakes too big to come back from? 

This article was originally published in the August 2015 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Attention vacationers: Award-winning author Dean Bakopoulos (Please Don’t Come Back from the Moon) has served up a sultry story that fits perfectly in your carry-on.

“There was another life I might have had, but I am having this one.” The epigraph of Summerlong—a quote from Kazuo Ishiguru—is a fitting opening for this story of a disenchanted couple. 

It all begins when Don Lowry, father of two, goes on an evening jog and collides with Amelia Benitez-Cooper, better known as ABC. For reasons he can’t seem to verbalize, Don spends an evening with a very sexy and emotionally unstable ABC, smoking pot and napping on a hammock. Meanwhile, his wife, Claire, meets Charlie Gulliver, a sometime actor and son of an esteemed professor at the local college. The two spend the evening in a pool, and come dangerously close to introducing infidelity into the Lowrys’ already rocky marriage. 

As the steamy Iowa summer continues, the Lowrys’ relationship deteriorates. This is where Bakopoulos strays from a typical suburban love triangle (or is it a square?). This isn’t just a story of people enjoying a free-love bacchanal; Summerlong also explores the consequences and heartbreak of testing the limits of relationships.

This article was originally published in the July 2015 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Brenda Bowen’s Enchanted August opens with two women spotting a battered index card on a bulletin board promising a summer of spring water, blueberries and sea glass on Little Lost Island, Maine. If this sounds familiar, it may be because of the similarity to the opening of Enchanted April, Elizabeth von Arnim’s beloved 1922 novel of four women whose lives are transformed by a summer in an Italian castle. Bowen has refashioned the classic, relocating the action but keeping the character names and the spirit of lives reinvented by new surroundings.

As in Enchanted April, the summer vacation house hosts a group of initially mismatched, unhappy people. Lottie Wilkes and Rose Arbuthnot are stressed by the pressures of city life and feel estranged from their distracted husbands. Caroline Dester is a beautiful actress trying to sort out her stalled career. In Bowen’s most clever twist, the character of Beverly Fisher is an old man. Back in New York, cottage owner Robert hopes that this year the rental will bring him true love at last. After a rough start, the island begins to work its magic. 

Though both novels move swiftly toward a neat resolution, Enchanted August never quite reaches the depth of the original, perhaps because women’s lives were so much more restricted in the 1920s. Nevertheless, Bowen, who has worked as a children’s publisher and author, has created a charming and witty update with a setting that could not be more appealing—from the woodland fairy houses and twin turrets in the island cottage to the rocky beaches and all-day lobster bakes. Enchanted August reminds us that sometimes it just takes a change of scenery to reveal that love is right in front of us. 

This article was originally published in the July 2015 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

After 15 years and 18 books, best-selling author Meg Cabot rewards loyal readers with what they’ve been waiting for—the wedding of Princess Mia Thermopolis of Genovia and Michael Moscovitz in her latest novel, Royal Wedding.

The momentous occasion is marked in true Cabot fashion with twists and turns fans won’t see coming. Mia has grown, evolved and matured over the course of the series in the same way the readers have.

We pick back up with Princess Mia five years after her college graduation, in New York City, where she runs a teen community center, attends royal obligations and still finds time to see Michael. However, Princess Mia’s life is turned on its head by a series of surprises from Michael, her father and a well-meaning 12-year-old. Some of these surprises are joyous and others are challenging, but Princess Mia finds a way to handle all obstacles with the class and spunk that she has demonstrated throughout the series.

Cabot’s ending to this delightful tale of a nerdy high school student’s journey to becoming a princess is completely satisfying, and Royal Wedding is sure to please fans who have been with Princess Mia from the beginning. Princess Mia’s journey may have ended with this novel, but her sass, intelligence and loving nature will linger with readers for years to come.

“The secret, they say, is to not regret—but that, I have found, is impossible. The most one can hope for is to forget.” Wylie Rose subsists on memories. They are his food, his religion, his constant focus. Not just any memories—only ones of Cesca Bonet, a beautiful young girl he first encounters at age 10. Daughter of the affluent Bonet family, Cesca spent her summers at the family home in East Hampton, where she and Wylie briefly met during a round of childhood games with her siblings. Wylie, shy and introverted, was immediately enamored with Cesca’s magnetic charm and fearless nature. To him, she was perfect, even at such a young age.

Years pass before Wylie crosses paths with the Bonet family again. Throughout his adolescence, he romanticizes the idea of a life with Cesca, hoping for an opportunity to see her. It isn’t until Cesca’s grandfather’s 80th birthday party that his opportunity arrives. After brooding over every possible scenario, 16-year-old Wylie spots college-aged Cesca at the party, even more luminous and sensual than he remembered. However, Cesca barely looks in his direction, providing an opportunity for him to bond with her younger brother, Aurelio, a free-spirited painter. The two boys bond share an interest in art, and Aurelio agrees to foster Wylie’s artistic ambitions. As the night continues, Cesca finally acknowledges Wylie, entertained by his innocence and youthful modesty. Sparks quickly ignite, leading to a night of unexpected passion that will change their lives forever.

From Paris to Barcelona to New York, Girl in the Moonlight takes the reader on a whirlwind journey through the complicated lives of Wylie, Cesca and the Bonet family. Much like author Charles Dubow’s first novel, Indiscretion, the setting feels very Gatsby-que, full of summer parties and depictions of New York social life. Narrated by protagonist Wylie, the story does not offer one big climax, but instead small explosions throughout, keeping the reader guessing from chapter to chapter. Dubow’s second novel is a passionate story that explores the capacity of love—and its unyielding ability to control us.

Screenwriter and author Lisa Lutz is well known for her zany mystery series starring Izzy Spellman, private eye. Here she jumps into mainstream women’s fiction with How to Start a Fire, an engaging portrait of female friendship spanning two decades. In 1993, when all three are students at UC Santa Cruz, freshman roommates Kate and Anna find George passed out on the lawn outside the party they had all attended. The three young women quickly become friends during their undergraduate years and beyond, the bonds between them tightening and loosening over the years.

Anna comes from a wealthy Boston family—her father preoccupied with business, her mother with shopping and keeping up appearances. Kate’s parents died when she was 8, and she was raised by her very traditional Czech grandfather. Her highest ambition is to eventually take over the family diner, where she has worked since she was 12. George, the gorgeous, athletic basketball player, is the outdoorsy type, working toward a forestry degree.

Just before graduation, Kate’s grandfather dies, sending her into a downward spiral of “retirement,” which consists mainly of watching TV for 12 hours at a stretch. At about the same time, George finds out her parents are divorcing due to her father’s infidelities. And Anna, who takes a fifth year to get a chemistry minor to bolster her med school applications, develops a serious drinking problem—leading to an episode involving all three women which will haunt them for at least the next 15 years.

Lutz gives the reader sporadic glimpses into their lives over that time frame, as they come together, drift apart and repeat the process over moves, marriages, adventures, tragedies and professional pitfalls. With wit and a gift for capturing the repartee between siblings and old friends, Lutz brings us a memorable and ultimately uplifting saga of three strong, unique women.

This article was originally published in the May 2015 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

The Jane Austen we know is delicious enough on her own, but Austen filtered through the mind of Scottish author Alexander McCall Smith (The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency) could be the best of both possible worlds.

Smith’s Emma: A Modern Retelling is the latest installment in “The Austen Project,” which drafted six contemporary authors to retell Austen’s complete works. Here, he co-opts Austen’s titular heroine and introduces her to a modern setting, complete with the same plot turns and many of the same characters present in one form or another. Certainly unmistakable is Emma, Austen’s heroine, a born controller who believes (with unshakable certainty in both books) that other people’s happiness can be arranged for them and that she is just the one to do it. In his version, Smith adds a greater understanding of how Emma gained her certitude about her own ability to make her friends' decisions on their own behalf.

Smith assumes some of Austen’s tone here, and his fans might miss his singular voice. Still, the plot is surefire (and tested), and somewhere along the way, the reader embraces the concept in its own right.  This rewarding read is a fascinating pastiche of two of the most enjoyable writers in the British tradition.

This article was originally published in the April 2015 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

When she married Prince William back in 2011, Kate Middleton didn’t just capture the heart of a future king—she also ensnared the imaginations of women worldwide. Will and Kate’s royal romance has been meticulously documented by the press and even been the subject of a Lifetime movie. Now it serves as the inspiration for the first adult novel by Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan, the duo behind the snarky celebrity-fashion blog, Go Fug Yourself, and authors of two young adult novels (Messy and Spoiled).

In The Royal We, Cocks and Morgan blend fact and fiction to put their own spin on the “unlikely princess” motif: Rebecca Porter isn’t just a brash, carefree commoner, she’s an American to boot! But when a semester abroad at Oxford lands her down the hall from Prince Nicholas, heir to the British throne, an unlikely friendship develops and the sparks soon fly.

It’s a tricky business basing a novel on a pairing whose romantic ups and downs are already so well known, but Cocks and Morgan have managed to do so with charm and wit. Bex and Nick’s relationship does sometimes too closely mirror that of their real-world counterparts; however there are enough creative twists thrown in to keep things fresh. In particular, the pragmatism is unexpected—The Royal We pulls back the veil on the fantasy of what it really means for a regular person to be part of the royal family, and it doesn’t skim over the sacrifice required to reach a happy ending. Readers should prepare to lose their hearts to The Royal We, a loving satire that is scandalously funny and wonderfully romantic.

This article was originally published in the April 2015 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

For readers who befriended the magical and sometimes maddening Waverly women in Sarah Addison Allen’s charming debut, Garden Spells, the arrival of First Frost is certain to take the chill out of the bleakest winter day.

The New York Times best-selling author’s latest novel brings readers back to bucolic Bascom, North Carolina. While at first glance it appears that Claire and Sydney Waverly have finally shed their precarious past and are enjoying of happy marriages and healthy children, the arrival of autumn finds the sisters feeling anxious.

Immersed in her new confectionery business, Claire has become a nationally renowned  entrepreneur. Yet, like many women, she is discovering that her success is tempered by guilt and worry that she is abandoning her family and its mystical legacy.

Sydney is also struggling to balance her longing for another baby with raising a headstrong teenager, Bay. To make things worse, Bay is involved with none other than the son of the very man who rejected Sydney in high school. As mother and daughter spar, a mysterious specter of a man observes from a distance, plotting and watching as the Waverly women face personal challenges that threaten to destroy their family harmony.

Of course, true to Allen’s penchant for personification, the myriad other “characters” in First Frost are not human, but the splendours of nature—including the sisters’ singular apple tree. As Allen writes:  “On the day the tree bloomed in the fall, when its white apple blossoms fell and covered the ground like snow, it was tradition for the Waverleys to gather in the garden like survivors of some great catastrophe, hugging one another, laughing as they touched faces and arms, making sure they were all okay, grateful to have gotten through it.”

Without spoiling this delicious novel’s tasty ending, it is certain that Allen has served up another sweet treat for her loyal readers, who will likely hold out hope for a Waverly family trilogy.