Happy Tuesday, star bits! This past weekend, I read the cutest upcoming picture book. It’s called A Pinecone! by Helen Yoon and it’s so freaking adorable. If you love to give picture books as gifts — or get them for yourself — mark it down now! It’s out September 10th. (Which isn’t really all that far, if you remember that it’s practically June already — whaaat?) Now, moving back to today’s releases, I have some great books for the beginning of beach weather. There’s a 1990s NYC summer romance, a YA Shakespeare-inspired romantic comedy, and a heart-tugging story of sisters from one of France’s most beloved contemporary novelists.
As for other new releases, at the top of my list of today’s books that I want to get my hands on are The Second Coming by Garth Risk Hallberg, A Little Kissing Between Friends by Chencia C. Higgins, and The Book-Makers: A History of the Book in Eighteen Lives by Adam Smyth. You can hear about more of the fabulous books coming out today on this week’s episode of All the Books! Patricia and I talked about books we are excited about that are out this week, including My Favorite Thing Is Monsters Vol. 2, Ninetails: Nine Tales, and Dreadful.
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Summer Fridays by Suzanne Rindell
This is a dazzling summer romance novel about two people who discover they might be right for each other…but they’re already involved with the wrong people. Sawyer is a publishing assistant in New York City. She was looking forward to spending a romantic summer with her new fiancé, Charles. But he tells her he has to work a lot more hours over the summer — with his attractive coworker Kendra — and she’ll be on her own. Then Sawyer is contacted by Kendra’s boyfriend Nick, who wants to discuss Charles and Kendra spending so much time together. Their original meeting doesn’t go well, but over the next several weeks, Sawyer and Nick spend many “summer Fridays” together and discover they challenge, support, and make each other better in ways their current partners do not. As the end of the summer approaches, they’ll have to decide if their summer friendship is meant to be a loving romance, or if they should go their separate ways. It’s a charming story of the excitement of young love, hot summers, and sparking chemistry.
Backlist bump: The Other Typist by Suzanne Rindell
Twelfth Knight by Alexene Farol Follmuth
Another fun novel of budding young love is this YA novel from Alexene Farol Follmouth (who also writes under the name Olivia Blake.) Viola is pretty cranky about everything in her life at the moment. Her friend tells her she needs to be more likable, her tabletop game campaign fails, and as the vice president of her class, the ineffective president, Jack, is making her life harder. Her only joy is playing an MMORPG* called Twelfth Knight, even if she has to pretend to be a boy to keep from getting harassed. When she discovers that Jack plays Twelfth Knight too, it leads to a friendship between their characters in the game. But what will happen when Jack finds out that Viola is really, well, Viola? And does she want to get involved with someone who infuriates her IRL? It’s a cute take on Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, about hidden identities and love, but also a great story about authenticity. (*massively multiplayer online role-playing game)
Backlist bump: Didn’t See That Coming by Jesse Q. Sutanto
A Good Life by Virginie Grimaldi, Hildegarde Serle (translator)
And last but not least, this tearjerker from “The Marian Keyes of France.” Emma and Agathe are sisters, with Emma as practical and cautious as Agathe is wild and spontaneous. Despite their differences, they grew up very close, united by a tragedy that destroyed their happy childhood. But at the start of the novel, we know they haven’t really spoken in five years. When their beloved grandmother dies, Agathe suggests they spend one last week at Mima’s house before it’s put on the market. To Agathe’s surprise, Emma accepts. Even Emma is surprised she said yes. She’s not sure they can get along for a week. Over the course of the novel, written in both Agathe and Emma’s voices of the past and present, readers learn about their childhood and the thing that drove them apart, and watch as they try and figure out a way to move forward. It’s a tender, heartbreaking story of family, mental illness, and trauma, but a surprisingly funny one too. It will have you wiping away the tears with your beach towel. (Don’t get sand in your eyes!)
Backlist bump: How to Find Love in the Little Things by Virginie Grimaldi, Adriana Hunter (translator)
This week, I am reading Old Soul by Susan Barker and The Theatrical Adventures of Edward Gorey: Rare Drawings, Scripts, and Stories by Carol Verburg. For viewing, along with the NBA conference finals, I watched the season finales of Elsbeth and The Jinx. The first is silly, but I like it because Carrie Preston is always great, and the second is absolutely bananapants. It’s just…wow. The song stuck in my head this week is “Pink Moon” by Nick Drake. And here is your weekly cat picture: Farrokh has the biggest kitty oven mitts.
That’s all for this week! I appreciate you more than I can say, friends. Thank you for joining me each Tuesday as I rave about books! I am wishing you all a wonderful rest of your week, whatever situation you find yourself in now. And yay, books! See you next week! – XO, Liberty
“Now there are some things we all know, but we don’t take’m out and look at’m very often. We all know that something is eternal. And it ain’t houses and it ain’t names, and it ain’t earth, and it ain’t even the stars…everybody knows in their bones that something is eternal, and that something has to do with human beings. All the greatest people ever lived have been telling us that for five thousand years and yet you’d be surprised how people are always losing hold of it. There’s something way down deep that’s eternal about every human being.” —Thornton Wilder, Our Town
