2025 Reading Challenge Crossover Books

Book Summary

Everyone knows Cate Kay as the author of a best-selling book trilogy that turned into a box office gold film series. She’s one of the most successful authors of her generation, except that no one actually knows Cate Kay… because Cate Kay doesn’t exist. Her real identity has been a carefully guarded secret until now.

Growing up, she and her best friend Amanda shared their dreams of moving to California and becoming movie stars. But before their lives can ever really begin, a tragedy shatters those dreams. Cate has been on the run ever since, using different names to craft a new future. But now a shocking revelation will force Cate to return home. It’s the only way she’ll be a whole person again.

Book Summary

Tanner Scott’s family relocated from progressive California to conservative Utah three years ago. Life in Provo (home to BYU) is complicated enough as a half-Jewish, half-lapsed Mormon teenager, so Tanner, who was openly bisexual at his previous school, decides to go back into the closet at Provo High. Now, in his senior year, he is looking forward to attending an out-of-state college next year, where he can once again feel free to be himself.

He fully intends to coast through his final semester of high school classes until his best friend, Autumn, dares him to take a prestigious honors seminar where students draft an entire book in just four months. And his final semester plans are pushed even further off track when Tanner finds himself falling in love with Sebastian Brother, the class mentor who sold his seminar novel to a major publishing house the year before. He’s also the son of an LDS Bishop.

Book Summary

Peggy is a librarian whose twin brother is fighting on the front lines of WW2 in 1940. When she’s given the opportunity to take on a new job assisting in the war effort herself as a proofreader for the Ministry of Information and in the Publications Department, she’s thrilled to be able to play a part in ending the war and helping her brother return home safely.

However, now she reports to socialite Lady Marigold Cecily, who seems more interested in dancing than ending the war. Peggy finds solace in writing, but when the Ministry of Information publishes her inner thoughts without her knowledge, she realizes she needs Lady Marigold’s help.

Book Summary

Lara looked like a typical soccer mom in Santa Cruz, California, complete with a million-dollar home in a cul-de-sac. But one day, everything she had been hiding came tumbling down. Lara had been stealing neighbors’ credit cards in order to support her heroin addiction.

She was convicted of 32 felonies and had to quickly learn the ways of prison politics and its class system. She earns the nickname “Mama Love” from other inmates and soon rises to become the “shot caller”.

After serving her sentence, 42-year-old Lara reinvents herself again as a ghost-writer. She’s gone from stealing others’ identities for heroin to becoming others to help them right hit novels. She was successful enough to meet Oprah, the Dalai Lama, and Archbishop Desmond Tutu. Through all this, the shame of her past haunts her. She must learn to forgive before she can truly move on.

Book Summary

While much of the country was experiencing social unrest in 1919, Harlem felt different. This corner of New York was filled with Black pride, as evidenced in the music, theater, fashion, and arts. Positioned right in the heart of this renaissance is a literary editor for a preeminent Negro magazine named Jessie Redmon Fauset.

The magazine’s founder and editor, W.E.B. Du Bois, tasked Jessie with discovering promising young writers whose words could change the world. Jessie wastes no time finding 16-year-old Countee Cullen and 17-year-old Langston Hughes. She also discovers Nella Larsen, who becomes one of Jessie’s best friends.

Subscriptions soar for the already notable magazine, and every Black writer in the country is vying for the opportunity to be published in The Crisis. Jessie’s career is taking off, but her relationship with her married boss, W.E.B., threatens to jeopardize it all. At a time when she faces both overwhelming sexism and racism, Jessie will have to find a way to balance her drive and her desires if she hopes to preserve her legacy and achieve her ambitious dreams.

Book Summary

Forty-something Jane had dreams of being a writer, but feels like her whole life is in flux as her one published work only sold 500 copies. She also believes her husband of 19ish years, Dan, is cheating on her. When they go to an upscale restaurant for their anniversary, it seems like a good time to tell him she wants a divorce.

But before the second course arrives, an underground climate activist group bursts into the dining room, taking the whole restaurant hostage…but in a bumbling sort of way. Jane is shocked. Not because she’s suddenly a hostage, but because everything the activists say and do is straight from the pages of her novel. This means she knows what is going to happen next, and it’s up to her to stop it.

Book Summary

Forty-something Tess Harrow is a bestselling thriller writer, but this summer, she just wants to take a break to bond with her daughter after her recent divorce. They’ve barely settled in when an explosion rocks the cabin, and Tess finds herself pulled into a murder investigation.

The local sheriff turns out to be the spitting image of the detective Tess writes about in her books, her young daughter is fascinated by dead bodies, and the neighbors are pointing their fingers at Bigfoot. Nothing about this summer is going as she had planned.

Book Summary

Evelyn Hugo lived a glamorous and scandalous life, but doesn’t like to talk about it, and has become reclusive after leaving her career. When the movie icon is finally ready to talk about her time in show business, she picks an unknown reporter to log her personal history, but why?

You’ll slowly unwrap Evelyn’s life from the 1950s – 1980s as she chronicles her past life and relationships, including the seven husbands she had along the way. As the book covers so much of her life, it moves quickly and will keep you engaged and entertained for hours.

Book Summary

If Judy Blume is one of the authors who first sparked your love of reading, then you’ll want to pick up this biography, which provides an intimate portrait of her life, her work, and her cultural impact.

It begins in the 1960s, when Judy, a mother of two living in suburban New Jersey, was searching for more purpose in her life. She began writing books that starred regular children with genuine thoughts and problems. But more than that, she used her deceptively simple tales to provide honest exploration of the growing women’s rights movement and address issues like career opportunities, bodily autonomy, and even sexual pleasure.

Blume’s bravery provoked backlash, making her the country’s most-banned author in the mid-1980s. Thankfully, her works withstood those culture wars, and she remains a beloved author among readers of all ages. Now, this biography tells the story of how she went from housewife to a groundbreaking icon.

Book Summary

Harper is a young author with one major best-seller under her belt, but now she’s in need of a career comeback. At the suggestion of her agent, she rents a house in New Canaan, Connecticut. Hiding her author identity from everyone she meets, Harper seeks to draw inspiration for a new novel about women in the suburbs.

Soon, Harper befriends her empty-nester neighbor. It’s October, and Wendy’s son just moved away for college. She’s struggling with being all alone, but not just because she misses her son. Wendy is keeping a secret of her own—her struggle with kleptomania.

Book Summary

Bestselling novelist 42-year -old Paul Sheldon finds himself in a nightmarish situation when he is rescued from a car crash by Annie Wilkes, a reclusive former nurse and his self-proclaimed “number one fan.”

Paul had just completed a new, non-romance manuscript and killed off Misery Chastain, the heroine of his famous series. But Annie, obsessed with Misery, is furious. Holding Paul captive in her remote Colorado home, she demands he write a new novel resurrecting Misery, under constant threat of violence if she disapproves of his work.

Trapped and severely injured, Paul is forced to use his wits and storytelling skills not only to appease Annie, but to survive.

Book Summary

Marilyn wasn’t just caught making out with the rabbi’s son—she was caught by the whole congregation! In hopes of saving their daughter’s reputation, her parents sent her to her great-aunt Ada for the summer. They gave her an ultimatum: spend the summer with Ada, the strict, premier matchmaker, or kiss her college plans goodbye.

Based on her mother’s description, Marilyn expects Ada to be a humorless septuagenarian. Instead, Ada is sharp and straight-talking, with platinum blonde hair, a Hermès scarf, and a Cadillac convertible.

Ada and Marilyn set off for Avalon on the Jersey Shore, where Marilyn helps to scope out eligible matches for anyone but herself. She’s learning a lot from Ada—but not exactly what her parents were hoping for. Marilyn realizes that she doesn’t have to settle, even as her father threatens to disinherit her.

Book Summary

After years of struggling to make it as a writer, James has finally sold his first book – a semi-autobiographical novel about his dysfunctional relationship with his mother. He’s shocked to find out that the editor who has purchased his book is none other than Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis.

After an embarrassing initial meeting, James and Mrs. Onassis, as she’s known around the office, form an unexpected friendship. By the time his book is finally published, his relationship with his editor has changed him as a writer and as a son.

Book Summary

When bookshop employee and aspiring writer Alex is dumped on her 30th birthday, she makes some huge life decisions…while drunk. The next morning, she decides to go all in on the plans to escape her New Zealand hometown and hop on the plane to New York City. It’s finally time to pursue her dream of writing a novel!

Determined to build a career, she focuses on crafting stories about single life in the city. Her plans take an unexpected turn when she meets Michael, her grumpy yet attractive upstairs neighbor and single father. As their paths intertwine, Michael begins featuring in her fantasies. Maybe he’s exactly the inspiration she needs to write a sexy romance novel.

Book Summary

Eva is a single mother and bestselling erotica author based in Brooklyn. Her life takes an unexpected turn when she encounters Shane Hall, a reclusive, award-winning novelist, at a literary event. Unbeknownst to the public, Eva and Shane shared a passionate week-long romance as teenagers twenty years prior—a connection they’ve subtly referenced in their writings over the years.

As they reconnect over the course of seven days during a sweltering Brooklyn summer, unresolved feelings and past traumas resurface. Eva grapples with trusting Shane again, especially given the heartbreak he once caused her. Amidst their rekindled chemistry, both must confront their personal demons and decide if they can forge a future together.

Book Summary

As a thirty-seven-year-old book editor, Julia thought she had a long life ahead of her. But then the unthinkable happens, and she passes away after a cancer diagnosis. While Julie could have followed the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel, she instead had the opportunity to observe her family one final summer at their Fire Island home.

She’ll see how her novelist husband Ben and neighbor Shep navigate grieving as new widowers, along with the lives of their other friends and neighbors. You’ll also see the ways her career as a book editor impacted her life.

Book Summary

Rosie leaves her hometown in Tennessee and moves to New York City to pursue her dreams of being a writer. But things get off to a rocky start when she discovers that her arch-nemesis and ex-crush, Aiden, is in her writing workshop. Aiden may be gorgeous, but he’s also a surly and obnoxious literary writer with little patience for Rosie’s preferred romance genre.

Their constant classroom clashes prompt their professor to offer an ultimatum. If they want to stay in her class, they’ll have to co-author a manuscript that merges their opposing genres. The boundary between fiction and reality blurs as their work-in-progress provides an outlet for them to express their feelings of attraction.

When Rosie and Aiden again find themselves competing for a coveted career opportunity, their rivalry is reignited and threatens to unravel both their partnership and burgeoning romance.

Book Summary

Hazel’s romance writing career has been stalled ever since a breakup left her with writer’s block. To make matters worse, she just lost her Upper East Side apartment, and her publisher is losing patience waiting for her next manuscript.

Facing an ultimatum – turn her book in by her next deadline or she’ll lose her publishing deal – she impulsively decides to relocate to a small town in Pennsylvania, hoping it will provide just the inspiration she needs. She buys a historic house sight unseen. After a less-than-smooth arrival in town (including a run-in with the local wildlife), she discovers that the house is dilapidated and the town is also on its last legs.

On the bright side, despite his grumpy demeanor, the contractor she hires to help renovate her house provides some swoon-worthy inspiration.

Book Summary

Sawyer is a twenty-something trying to make it in New York, working as an assistant for a publishing company. She’s engaged to her college boyfriend but is extremely lonely in the summer of 1999 as her fiancé keeps working longer and longer hours…with a female coworker named Kendra.

Kendra’s boyfriend, Nick, has the same concerns about the endless hours Kendra is spending at work with Sawyer’s fiancé. After a rough first meeting between Sawyer and Nick, they form a friendship via their AOL Instant Messanger chat. Soon, they start spending every Friday afternoon exploring the city together.

Book Summary

Verity Crawford was a bestselling author of a popular series of books, but an injury has left her unable to complete the series. Her husband, Jeremy, hires struggling writer Lowen Ashleigh to complete his wife’s unfinished books. 

Lowen begins sifting through years of Verity’s notes and outlines, hoping to find enough material to work with. In the process, she uncovers Verity’s unfinished autobiography – one she doesn’t think Verity intended anyone to read. It’s filled with bone-chilling admissions – including the truth about what really happened the day Verity and Jeremy’s daughter died.

Lowen intends to keep her discovery of the autobiography manuscript secret in order to protect Jeremy. But as their relationship grows more complicated, she begins to reconsider. If Jeremy read Verity’s horrifying truths, could he continue to love his wife? And if not, would that make room for Lowen?

Book Summary

Ellen is an English professor going through a rough season of life. She’s newly divorced and not happy about it, and she’s lost her parents. It’s time for a reset, and she hopes to find some meaning by spending the summer at her parents’ Delaware beach house as she prepares it for sale. 

When her best friend, Lara, gets a cancer diagnosis, Ellen invites her to relax at the house as much as she can between chemo appointments. Supportive Lara hopes this time will let her assist Ellen in finding the best version of herself. Throughout the summer, Ellen grows with the help of Lara, a local writers’ group, and the new friends Lara meets during her treatment.

Book Summary

At 45, Lila is starting a new career as an intern at a literary agency after losing her job as a journalist. Being paid to read is her dream! Her new position is more difficult than she expects, with endless piles of query letters and some quirky co-workers.

Then, an aspiring author drops dead in the waiting room. Lila has an unexpected new task of uncovering a murderer after she finds a series of threatening letters. What is really going on at this thriving literary agency?

Book Summary

Claude is the youngest son in a family with five brothers. And he firmly knows that when he grows up, he wants to be a girl. His parents see his sincerity and opt to move out of their smaller town to Seattle, where they expect people to be more accepting of others. However, despite being okay with Claude being whoever he is, they don’t want themselves or Claude to be targeted as weird. In their new city, Claude is Poppy. The entire family keeps the secret until everything explodes one day.

Book Summary

Kelsey is a workaholic junior editor who dreams of being a writer. But she’s thriving in her comfort zone of helping other people tell stories. After an accident, she meets an older woman, Georgina, in the hospital. As Georgina faces her life regrets, Kelsey begins to consider her own list of “things I’ll do someday.” She wonders what would happen if she started saying “yes” to everything that is normally a no.

Kelsey convinces Georgina to join her on a Summer of Yes, whether this means an impractical convertible, dinner with strangers, or Kelsey’s surprise visit to Georgina’s son and ex-husband.

Book Summary

Despite Lanie’s successful career as a romance editor and a big promotion on the horizon, she has a difficult task to ensure her step up to editorial director. She must get the publisher’s biggest author, Noa Callaway, to turn in their manuscript, which is already 4 months late. That job seems impossible since no one even knows who Noa Callaway is. There is an NDA in place, no photos, and people don’t even know Noa’s gender. 

Because of the secrecy of Noa’s identity, part of the book is written in epistolary format via emails. That also makes it a slow-burn book, especially in the first half before the romance kicks in. 

Book Summary

Literature professor Elsy loves to lose herself in a fictional happily ever after. She feels safest in the world of romance novels because those men never leave you at the altar.

When her car breaks down on her way to her annual book club retreat, she finds herself stranded in a quaint small town straight out of a book. Literally. Somehow, she seems to have ended up in Eloraton, the fictional town from her favorite romance series. Everything is perfect – from the candy store to the local bar and the afternoon rain.

The author passed away before finishing his last story in the Eloraton series, and Elsy is beginning to think it’s up to her to write the final happy ending. The only problem is the town’s grumpy bookstore owner. He’s the one character that Elsy doesn’t recognize from the series, and it seems that he doesn’t want Elsy to finish the book.

Book Summary

Renowned author J. R. Alastor has hired a former aspiring writer, Mila, to host a writing retreat at his private manor off the coast of Maine. She’s quickly on board because she’s upset at one of the six thriller authors on the guest list and welcomes the chance to confront them.

The retreat includes a week of games, driven by trope-filled riddles. But, when a real murder occurs, the authors find themselves entangled in a deadly plot that mirrors the suspenseful narratives they create, blurring the lines between their fictional works and reality.

Book Summary

Nora has decided she is done. Done with the way her life is going. In a moment of darkness, the 35-year-old attempts suicide, but she finds herself in the Midnight Library between life and death. The shelves go on and on, and inside each book is a life that she could have lived, had she made just one different choice somewhere along the way – from following dreams to pursuing different careers to undoing old breakups.

Each time she opens a book, she finds herself living that alternate life, and she is faced with the decision of whether she wants to permanently exchange her life for a new one. As she visits these alternate realities, she’ll have to decide not only which life she wants, but also what makes life worth living in the first place.

Book Summary

When Zoe moved to Los Angeles three years ago to pursue her writing career, she fell for Zach, an aspiring actor. He ended up ghosting her before he became famous. Sadly, like her relationship, her debut novel (a thriller) failed, and now she’s turning thirty and works at a flower shop.

When she makes a floral delivery one day, Zach answers the door. It’s instantly like they were never apart. When they quietly start dating again, her writer’s block disappears, and she hopes Zach can inspire her second novel like he did her first.

Instead, a photo of the couple is leaked and goes viral. This propels her original novel to success, and now everyone knows her name. Unfortunately, this includes a mysterious stalker obsessed with Zach…who begins reenacting violent events from Zoe’s book.

Book Summary

January Scaller is the ward of wealthy Mr. Locke. She lives in his sprawling mansion filled with artifacts and curiosities. Everything in the mansion is carefully maintained despite being largely ignored and utterly out of place.

Among the treasures, January finds a strange book. Within its pages, she discovers a tale of secret doors as well as love, adventure, and danger. With each turn of the pages, January discovers a story that seems to be increasingly entwined with her own.

Book Summary

Years ago, there was a murder in Room 622 of the Hôtel de Verbier, a luxury resort in the Swiss Alps. The murder was never solved.

Now, years later, a famous Swiss writer named Joël Dicker has arrived at the same hotel. He’s getting over a bad breakup, mourning the death of his longtime publisher, and he needs to begin his next novel. But before he knows it, he finds himself investigating the old cold case. Playing Watson to his Sherlock is the beautiful aspiring novelist in the room next door.

Book Summary

Revisit the glittering Jazz age with this atmospheric novel that reimagines The Great Gatsby from the perspective of three alternating female voices. When Jay Gatsby was found shot dead in his swimming pool in August of 1922, and a local mechanic was found dead in the woods nearby, the police viewed it as an open-and-shut case of murder/suicide. 

But then a diamond hairpin is found in the bushes around the pool, and three women suddenly become suspects – Daisy Buchanan, who once thought she’d marry Gatsby; Jordan Baker, who has a secret that could derail both her golf career and her friendship with Daisy; and Catherine McCoy, a suffragette who’s fighting for women’s rights and to protect her own sister from a terrible marriage.

This is a tale of money and power, marriage and friendship, love and desire, and ultimately murder.

Book Summary

Twenty-seven-year-old Ayesha lives with her boisterous Muslim family in Toronto and dreams of being a poet. For now, however, she needs her teaching job in order to pay off her debts to her wealthy uncle.

She’s lonely, and it doesn’t help that her family is constantly reminding her that her younger cousin has received closet to one hundred marriage proposals. Nonetheless, she doesn’t want an arranged marriage. Then she meets Khalid, who is the opposite of everything she thinks she’s looking for. Despite being handsome and smart, he’s also conservative, judgmental, and dresses like he’s straight out of the seventh century.

When a surprise engagement is announced between her cousin and Khalid, Ayesha is forced to confont her irritating attraction to him. Things are further complicated when she hears some unsettling new gossip about his family.

Book Summary

Funke had a happy childhood growing up in Nigeria with her art teacher mother, and professor father. But following a tragedy, she’s sent to England – a place she only knows from her mother’s stories. The much-lauded estate she’s heard so much about is now dilapidated, and both the weather and the food leave a lot to be desired.

The only member of her mother’s family that doesn’t act cold and distant is her free-spirited cousin, Liv. Filled with warmth and kindness, Liv helps Funke heal. As the two girls grow into women, they become close friends and Funke feels fiercely protective of Liv until another tragedy tears them apart.

In the shadow of their shared family history, each woman will struggle to find her way forward. Set in Lagos, Nigeria, and Somerset, England, over the course of two decades, the cousins – separated by country, misunderstanding, and ambition – will have to determine whether a family’s generational wrongs can ever be righted.

Book Summary

Twenty-three-year-old Jane is new to town. Working as a broke dog-walker in a fancy, gated neighborhood in Birmingham, Alabama, she can hide her real identity while lifting tchotchkes and jewelry right out from under the bored housewives who employ her without them even noticing.

But then she meets the most mysterious resident in Thornfield Estates. Eddie recently lost his wife, Bea, who drowned in a boating accident with her best friend. Jane doesn’t just see a grieving widower; she sees an opportunity. Eddie is rich and handsome and could offer her the protection she’s yearned for.

As Jane and Eddie begin to fall for one another, Jane feels increasingly haunted by the legacy of Bea. How can she live up to Eddie’s first wife with her rags-to-riches origin story and the wildly successful southern lifestyle brand that she built? And how long will Jane be able to hide her real identity?

This suspenseful novel is a twist on the Gothic classic Jane Eyre, which flips the script and shifts the power dynamic.

Book Summary

For 23 years, Emma has led a comfortable life on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. However, when she plays matchmaker for her sister, Margo, it results in a wedding, and Margo relocates downtown. Simultaneously, Emma’s friends seem to be traveling constantly, leaving her feeling bored and alone as her final year of graduate school looms.

Fortunately, she finds a potential new friend in Nadine, a newcomer to the city from Ohio. Emma is thrilled to give Nadine an NYC-style makeover as their friendship blossoms. Meanwhile, her childhood friend and neighbor, George Knightly, continues to dampen her spirits with his lectures on adulthood. Little does she know, this renewed attention from Knightly is because he can’t seem to get her off his mind.

Book Summary

The Hours is a modern retelling of Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway that incorporates Woolf as one of three characters in an overlapping story.

As you read, you’ll travel between Woolf in 1920s London, a mother in 1940s suburban LA trying to fit in time to read Mrs. Dalloway, and Clarissa Vaughan in 1990s Manhattan. Each character struggles to reconcile hope and despair in this moving novel.

Book Summary

Life is tough for single-mom Birdie in her small Alaskan town where she brings her daughter with her to work at a roadside lodge. She’s getting by, but she misses the happier days of her youth when she roamed free in the wilds of nature.

Arthur is known as a recluse. Although he typically only appears in town during the change of the seasons, he brings Birdie’s daughter Emaleen back to safety when she gets lost in the woods. Even though most people avoid Arthur, Birdie finds herself falling for him and the wild land he inhabits.

Despite the warnings from those who car about them, Birdie decides that she and Emaleen will move into Arthur’s isolated mountain cabin. She envisions an idyllic, simple life off the grid, far from roads, telephones, and electricity. But she’ll soon discover that Arthur is something much more mysterious and dangerous than she ever imagined.

Book Summary

Feyre’s once wealthy family now lives in poverty and the 19-year-old hunts in the woods to provide for her family. One day she ventures deeper into the woods than normal and kills a wolf that she suspects might be a faerie in disguise. The following day, she’s confronted by a terrifying creature who demand retribution and drags her off to a treacherous magical land that she knows about only from legends.

In order to save her own life, Feyre agrees to live out the rest of her days in Prythian. As time goes on, her once icy feelings toward her captor, Tamlin, turn into a fiery passion. But something is not right in the faerie lands. An ancient, wicked shadow is looming, and Feyre must find a way to stop it, otherwise Tamlin – and the faerie world – will be doomed forever.

Book Summary

Catalina “Cat” Capuleta is an ambitious singer living in San Antonio. When she is given the opportunity to join superstar heartthrob Patricio Galán on his seven-week Mariachi concert tour, she knows it’s the chance of a lifetime. Patricio might be a superstar heartthrob, but he also turns out to be demanding and arrogant. He challenges Cat at every turn, but she’s determined to make him feel he’s met his match.

Cat is also determined not to fall for him because her one and only goal is her own success so she can make her family proud. But when the duo hit the road, the chemistry is undeniable – even the audiences can feel it.

Book Summary

Dee settled in Kansas to attend graduate school and live with her Uncle Henry and Aunt Em after her globe-trotting mother passed away. However, now she needs a quick escape after a humiliating public breakup with a faculty member, which felt like a tornado ripped apart her life. The Trinity College writing program is just the fresh start she needs!

In Ireland, she meets three new companions – seemingly brainless (but charming and hot) Sam Clery, heartless Tim Woodman, and fiercely loyal Reeti Kaur. With her new friends and the incredible women mentoring her in the writing program, Dee experiences a year of opportunities and changes. With everyone’s help, she’s ready to face her fears and apply all the lessons she has learned along the way.

Book Summary

This YA fiction set on Long Island in the Roaring Twenties is a jazz age retelling of Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing. After getting kicked out of boarding school, 17-year-old Beatrice goes to her uncle’s estate on Long Island, where her cousin runs a struggling speakeasy in the basement. Told from multiple points of view, this is the story of six teenagers whose lives intertwine during a summer of romantic misunderstandings and dangerous deals.

Described as “hilariously clever and utterly charming,” this YA novel set in the 1920s is filled with quick and hilarious banter that will keep readers of all ages turning the pages.

Book Summary

Alice Island bookstore owner A.J. Fikry is having a terrible year. His wife has died, the store isn’t making enough sales, and his beloved book of Poe poems has been stolen. As a result, he’s cranky and pushing those around him away more than ever. Luckily he has a few people that look past his curmudgeonly attitude. 

His depression reaches the point that he no longer enjoys books. But, sometimes, life gives you second chances in unexpected ways. For A.J., it’s a small, but heavy, mysterious package that arrives at his shop. As he begins to see the world around him in a new way, those around him can see him in a new way, too.

Book Summary

In this 273-page non-fiction read, you’ll armchair travel to visit independent bookstores and their proprietors on six different continents.

From a tiny shop on a bike to a bookshop on a boat, you’ll fall in love with the quirky stores and their owners. Throughout the pages, you’ll also find lovely bookish quotes, interviews, and trivia.

Book Summary

Looking for an eerie mystery that’s perfect for book lovers? This highly-rated debut novel follows a bookshop employee named Lydia, who ends up investigating the suicide of one of her bookshop regulars.

As Lydia delves into his past, she also uncovers a buried memory from her own violent childhood. This twisty crime thriller with a very creative puzzle element that will keep readers guessing.

Book Summary

When Valentia was a teenager, her mother, Eloise, abandoned her and her father to start a new life in London. Now in her 30s, Val is a librarian and recently divorced. As she reevaluates her life, she realizes that the lack of closure with her mother is still nagging at her. But in a bittersweet twist of fate, Val learns that her mother has passed away before they’ve had a chance to reconcile.

Val is surprised to discover that Eloise left her a Primrose Hill apartment and the deed to a bookshop that Val never knew her mom owned. Determined to piece together a better understanding of Eloise’s life, Val decides to leave Seattle for a fresh start in London. It doesn’t take long for her to fall in love with the pastel-colored flat in a cozy neighborhood, not to mention the quaint bookstore. Unfortunately, she soon learns that The Book Garden is in financial trouble.

Told from a dual-timeline perspective, this book explores Valentia’s new life in London, as well as her mother’s past and what happened when she left her daughter behind.

Book Summary

With WWII war closing in on their city, Jacques’ wife is forced into hiding. Desperate to hold onto something, Jacques focuses all of his effort on saving his beloved bookshop. But when a woman and her child show up at his door one night begging for refuge, he can’t say no.

In present-day Paris, Juliette and her husband are supposed to be on a romantic getaway, but instead, she quickly discovers how far they’ve grown apart. When she comes across an abandoned bookshop with a for-sale sign in the window, she thinks it might just be the new adventure she’s craving. But the bookstore hides a lot more than meets the eye.

Book Summary

Joy’s French husband has passed away, and she has no idea why he has left a valuable painting to a woman named Robyn on the western coast of Ireland. So, she decides to deliver the painting in person.

When she arrives in Ballycove, she finds that Robyn runs a chaotic and unprofitable bookshop and desperately needs assistance. Joy soon becomes entangled not only in the bookshop but also in the town. All the while, she’s still trying to discover the secrets behind her late husband’s painting.

Book Summary

Mercy and her twin-sister Lizzie are the new proprietors of an antique bookshop in the tiny Irish village of Shamrock Cove. However, their new venture takes a dark turn when Mercy finds their neighbor dying on his doorstep. Worse, he accuses her of murder before he dies, and several people hear him!

She has to quickly investigate to try and clear her name. As she looks through the victim’s old books, she finds that the local pub landlord, the kindly cook, and a neighborly knitter all had a reason to want the man dead. But, when Mercy’s top suspect also dies and leaves behind a threatening note typed on paper from Mercy’s new bookstore, things get even more complicated.

Book Summary

Set in post-war London, Bloomsbury Girls focuses on an old-fashioned bookstore that has been run by men for a hundred years. However, by 1950, the world is changing in many ways. 

Three of the shop girls, Vivien, Grace, and Evie, have their own big dreams that are intersected by fascinating interactions with famous literary figures. As they work in the shop, they plot out a future bigger than 1950 society generally allows.

Book Summary

Childhood friends Rachel & Henry grew apart when Rachel moved, and Henry didn’t respond to a confession of her love that she left behind for him in a book.

Now, Rachel has moved back and is struggling with the death of her sister. She gets a job at the bookshop owned by Henry’s family, and is closed off to him as she still feels rejected. What she didn’t know is that Henry’s life is also going through a rough patch – his girlfriend broke up with him, and the bookshop is slipping away as his family breaks apart.

But as Rachel & Henry work together, they begin exchanging letters through the pages of books in the store. Can they find new hope in each other?

Book Summary

Jude is twenty-nine and just graduated, so she can finally be public about her relationship with philosophy professor, Mack. She’s looking forward to their upcoming dream holiday to run a tiny bookshop in the harbor village of Clove Lore.

Two weeks before the non-refundable trip, Jude sees Mack kissing someone else. Luckily, there’s no better place to heal a broken heart than a bookshop. Jude takes the trip and expects to have some peace alone at the store, but finds another vacationing shopkeeper, Elliot, who seems to be hiding something.

Book Summary

By day, Kitty is a single woman who owns a bookstore in Denver with her best friend, Frieda. In 1962, it was unconventional for a woman of her age to be an unmarried business owner, but she enjoyed having complete control over her day-to-day life without a husband to answer to. However, there was a man in her life once that she might have considered marrying—a doctor named Kevin.

But at night, Kitty leads an alternate life in her dreams. In this dream reality, Kitty goes by Katharyn, and the year is 1963. She’s married to the love of her life, a man named Lars. Together they live in an elegant Denver home and have triplets.

This life is everything that she once thought she wanted, and at first, Kitty enjoys her nightly visits to this alternate reality. But soon, Kitty begins to find Katharyn’s life irresistible. As the lines between her real life and her dream life begin to blur, she wonders if she can choose the life she wants – and if so, at what cost?

Book Summary

University student Rachel works at a bookstore, where she meets James, who quickly becomes her new BFF and roommate. The duo runs the streets of Cork, striving for a Bohemian lifestyle but also sharply aware of a looming financial collapse.

When Rachel falls for her married professor, Dr. Fred Byrne, she plots to seduce him after a reading at her bookstore. However, Fred has other desires that launch a series of secrets and compromises that intertwine the fates of James, Rachel, Fred, and Fred’s glamorous, well-connected wife.

Book Summary

When her estranged mother passed away, Stella received a one-way ticket and a note reading, “Go to Paris.” While she is much more comfortable living within her strict routines, her boss encourages her to go on the trip.

In Paris, Stella continues to live as cautiously and frugally as she does at home until she stumbles upon a Dior dress in a vintage store. When the shopkeeper insists that it was meant for Stella, she impulsively purchases the dress and it launches a new outlook on life.

When Stella meets Jules, an octogenarian art collector, he takes her under his wing and shows her the best of the literary, art, and culinary worlds of 1980s Paris.

Book Summary

Emily is a librarian on Martha’s Vineyard, but her desire for a more adventurous life leads her to Ireland. Her favorite author, Siobhan Riordan, has offered her a job helping her write the long-awaiting final novel in her series.

Things would be great if it wasn’t for Siobhan’s grumpy son, Kieran, who runs her bookstore. Tensions escalated with Kieran after Siobhan’s health declined. How can Emily help fulfill Siobhan’s desire to see her final book completed with Kieran?

Book Summary

In 1996, Hanna, a rare-book expert, is offered the job of a lifetime working on the conservation of the famed Sarajevo Haggadah, one of the earliest Jewish manuscripts ever illuminated with illustrations. The priceless book was rescued during the Bosnian War.
When Hanna discovers a series of tiny artifacts in the book’s ancient binding—an insect wing fragment, wine stains, salt crystals, a white hair—she begins to unlock the book’s mysteries.

Inspired by a true story, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Geraldine Brooks has created a novel of sweeping historical grandeur. In Bosnia during WWII, a Muslim risks his life to protect the book from the German army. In turn-of-the-century Vienna, the book has become a pawn in the struggle against the city’s rising anti-Semitism. In inquisition-era Venice, a Catholic priest saves the book from being burned. In Barcelona in 1492, the scribe who wrote the text sees his family destroyed by the agonies of enforced exile. And in Seville in 1480, the reason for the Haggadah’s extraordinary illuminations is finally disclosed.

WARNING: This book includes a scene of graphic rape.

Book Summary

Kit is the head librarian in the town of Riverton, New Hampshire, but for her, the library is more than just a job. It is a place of peace. When she’s there, no one expects her to talk about the calamitous events that have recently turned her settled, suburban life completely upside down. Instead, she can submerge herself in books and forget about her real-life problems for a while.

Kit’s quiet sanctuary changes suddenly, however, when a 15-year-old named Sunny is assigned community service at the library for the whole summer. Sunny was arrested for shoplifting a dictionary, and the judge threw the book at her, quite literally. Sunny is bright, curious, and eager to connect with someone other than the off-the-grid hippie parents who school her at home. She’s determined to coax Kit out of her self-imposed isolation.

Then there’s Rusty. He’s a Wall Street high-flyer who has recently crashed down to Earth. In this small town library, this unlikely trio is drawn together, along with a cast of other quirky regulars. They will be forced to examine how their lives have unraveled, but they’ll also help knit them together again.

Book Summary

When Zoe moved to Los Angeles three years ago to pursue her writing career, she fell for Zach, an aspiring actor. He ended up ghosting her before he became famous. Sadly, like her relationship, her debut novel (a thriller) failed, and now she’s turning thirty and works at a flower shop.

When she makes a floral delivery one day, Zach answers the door. It’s instantly like they were never apart. When they quietly start dating again, her writer’s block disappears, and she hopes Zach can inspire her second novel like he did her first.

Instead, a photo of the couple is leaked and goes viral. This propels her original novel to success, and now everyone knows her name. Unfortunately, this includes a mysterious stalker obsessed with Zach…who begins reenacting violent events from Zoe’s book.