Archives de catégorie : Women’s Fiction

THE OTHER SIDE OF NOW de Paige Harbison

For fans of Rebecca Serle and Taylor Jenkins Reid, this is a hilarious and heartfelt novel about past dreams, “what-ifs,” and how loves and lives are never truly lost.

THE OTHER SIDE OF NOW
by Paige Harbison
St. Martin’s Press, June 2025

Lana Lord has everything she ever wanted: a leading role on a hit TV show, a gorgeous house in L.A., and a relationship with Hollywood’s latest heartthrob. But not everything is as it seems: her perfect relationship is maybe (definitely) a PR stunt, and underneath the layers of makeup and hairspray, her happiness is as fake as her stage name—her real name is Meg Bryan, but obviously she couldn’t use that in auditions. Following a breakdown at her thirtieth birthday party, she books an impromptu trip where she knows the grass is greener: Ireland. Specifically, the quaint little village where she and her best friend Aimee always dreamt of moving—a dream that fell apart when an accident claimed Aimee’s life a decade ago.

When Meg arrives, the cozy Irish cottage she Airbnb’d couldn’t be more perfect if she decorated it herself. And the people in town are so nice, treating her not as a stranger, but a friend. Except for the (extremely handsome) bartender giving her the cold shoulder. Meg writes it all off as déjà vu until she looks in the mirror. Her hair is no longer bleached within an inch of its life, her skin has a few natural fine lines, and her nose looks like… well, her old nose. Her real nose.

As Meg scrambles to figure out whether she’s dreaming or losing it completely, her phone reveals hundreds of pictures of her life in this little town: with an adorable dog she doesn’t know; with the bartender who might be her (ex?) boyfriend; and at a retail job unrelated to acting. Piecing together this life that is clearly hers but completely unfamiliar, Meg’s best guess is that she somehow made a quantum slide into an alternate version of her life. But the most shocking realization of all? In this life, her best friend Aimee is alive, well, and living nearby…but wants nothing to do with Meg.

Despite her bewilderment, Meg is clear-eyed about one thing: this is a once-in-a-lifetime chance to reconnect with her friend and repair what she broke, and she finagles an opportunity to act in the play Aimee is writing and directing. The script has uncanny parallels to the life they shared as pure-hearted theater kids with big dreams. As the project unfolds, Meg realizes that events as she remembers them may not be the only truth, and that an impossible choice looms before her.

With a great commercial hook, themes of friendship, grief, and deciding what you really want out of life, THE OTHER SIDE OF NOW will have a wide appeal.

Paige Harbison is the author of three YA novels, the first of which was published in 2011 when she was just nineteen years old. More recently, she’s worked on several celebrity projects as ghostwriter. THE OTHER SIDE OF NOW is her adult debut. A woman of many talents, she’s also a beautiful artist (check out the pet portraits on her website) and has a very funny, clever social media presence (a few of her TikToks have gone viral). She lives in L.A. with her boyfriend and their dog Tarot.

THE LOST LETTERS FROM MARTHA’S VINEYARD de Michael Callahan

A tantalizing novel of two women bound by blood but divided by a long-buried secret, and the island that holds the key to the fateful summer that changed everything forever.

THE LOST LETTERS FROM MARTHA’S VINEYARD
by Michael Callahan
Mariner, May 2024
(via Dystel Goderich & Bourret)

In 1959, Hollywood ingenue Mercy Welles seems to have the world at her feet. Far removed from her Nebraska roots, she has crafted herself into a glamorous Oscar-nominated actress engaged to an up-and-coming director. Until she shockingly vanishes without a trace, just as her career is taking off.

Almost sixty years later, Kit O’Neill, a junior television producer in Manhattan, is packing up her recently deceased grandmother’s attic only to discover a long-lost box of souvenirs that reveal that the grandmother who raised her and her sister was, in fact, the mysterious Mercy Welles.

Putting her investigative skills to use, Kit is determined to solve the riddle of her grandmother’s missing life, and the trail eventually leads to Martha’s Vineyard.

Mercy retreats to the island nursing a broken heart, only to be drawn to the roguish Ren Sewards, who is not just the simple oysterman he appears to be but a scion of one of the island’s wealthy founding families. With her attraction to Ren quickly growing, Mercy soon finds herself entangled in the intrigues of the tightly knit community—and the secrets of the Sewards

Alternating between Mercy and Kit’s timelines, including excerpts from letters Mercy wrote the summer she disappeared, THE LOST LETTERS FROM MARTHA’S VINEYARD unfurls into a heart-stopping story of love, betrayal, and even murder.

A Publishers Marketplace 2024 Highly Anticipated Buzz Book

“Compelling and evocative, THE LOST LETTERS FROM MARTHA’S VINEYARD is a page turner of the highest order. Michael Callahan’s novel does what few books do; it glued me to my seat. It is a great mystery with great insight into the secrets everybody keeps. » — Michael Connelly, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Resurrection Walk

“I was completely captivated by Michael Callahan’s THE LOST LETTERS FROM MARTHA’S VINEYARD. It’s a history mystery you won’t be able to put down, with strong female characters and plenty of secrets. Plus, it takes you behind the scenes in vintage Hollywood and Martha’s Vineyard. A perfect beach read!” — Lisa Scottoline, #1 bestselling author of Loyalty and The Truth About the Devlins

“Michael Callahan’s THE LOST LETTERS FROM MARTHA’S VINEYARD grabs from the first line and doesn’t let go until the last. This delicious mystery will be a particular treat for fans (guilty!) of vintage Hollywood and Nancy Drew.” — Louis Bayard, author of The Pale Blue Eye and The Wildes

« Callahan skillfully blends notes of mystery and romance in this layered story of family secrets. Readers will have a hard time putting it down. » — Publishers Weekly

“Callahan blends mid-century Hollywood glamour and family secrets in this fast-paced, dual-period novel. He captures the historical era in colorful detail, and both women are determined, appealing characters who struggle with their personal and professional lives. Readers who enjoy Beatriz Williams and Crystal Smith Paul will be enthralled.” — Booklist

« A breezy, atmospheric novel dripping with secrets… smooth and suspenseful—and hard to stop reading once you’ve begun. » — Kirkus Reviews

Michael Callahan is the author of the critically acclaimed novels Searching for Grace Kelly and The Night She Won Miss America, as well as a coffee-table history of the famed Musso & Frank Grill restaurant in Hollywood. A contributing editor at Vanity Fair, his work has been published in Esquire, Town & Country, and the New York Times, among others. He lives in Los Angeles.

IN A THOUSAND DIFFERENT WAYS de Cecelia Ahern

The International Bestselling author returns with a powerful story about a young woman who can see—and subsequently experience—the emotions of everyone around her, and her own struggle to discover her true colors.

IN A THOUSAND DIFFERENT WAYS
by Cecelia Ahern
HarperCollins UK, April 2023
(via Park & Fine Literary and Media)

Gold is the colour of innocence, green stands for stability, and blue represents sadness. As a child, Alice discovers that she can see other people’s emotions and moods in colours emanating from their bodies. These auras reveal whether someone is telling the truth or lying; happy or secretly close to tears; or filled with rage. Alice sees the best in people but she also sees the worst. She sees a thousand different emotions and knows exactly what everyone around her is feeling. But it’s the dark thoughts. The sadness and the rage that she can’t get out of her head.
Awash in a sea of other people’s emotions, Alice struggles to surround herself with the colours of happiness. At first, nature and the outdoors are her only opportunity to experience some peace. But as she strikes out on her own, a wise neighbor who recognizes Alice’s gift teaches her how to cope with the daily flood of feelings, preparing her for an encounter with a man seemingly without colours. Alice, who once sought to mute the vivid colours around her, finally embraces all the shimmering facets of life for herself.
Emotional and wise, colourful and tender, IN A THOUSAND DIFFERENT WAYS celebrates the joys of being together and the infinite colours of life and love.

Cecelia Ahern was born and grew up in Dublin. Her novels have been translated into thirty-five languages and have sold more than twenty-five million copies in over fifty countries. Two of her books (PS, I Love You and Love, Rosie) have been adapted as films and she has created several TV series. She and her books have won numerous awards, including the Irish Book Award for Popular Fiction for The Year I Met You. She lives in Dublin with her family.

THE AUTHOR’S GUIDE TO MURDER de Karen White, Beatriz Williams, et Lauren Willig

Knives Out meets Murder, She Wrote meets #MeToo in this witty locked room mystery and literary satire by New York Times bestselling team of novelists: Karen White, Lauren Willig and Beatriz Williams.

THE AUTHOR’S GUIDE TO MURDER
by Karen White, Beatriz Williams, and Lauren Willig
William Morrow, November 2024
(via Writers House)

There’s been a sensational murder at historic Castle Kinloch, a gothic fantasy of a grey granite on a remote island in the Highlands of Scotland. Literary superstar Brett Saffron Presley has been found dead–under bizarre circumstances–in the castle tower’s book-lined study. Years ago, Presley purchased the castle as a showpiece for his brand and to lure paying guests with a taste for writerly glamour. Now it seems, the castle has done him in…or, possibly, one of the castle’s guests has. Detective Chief Inspector Euan McIntosh, a local with no love for this literary American show-off (or Americans in general), finds himself with the unenviable task of extracting statements from three American lady novelists.

The prime suspects are Kat de Noir, a slinky, sexy erotica writer; Cassie Pringle, a Southern mom of six juggling multiple cozy mystery series; and Emma Endicott, a New England blue blood and author of critically acclaimed historical fiction. The women claim to be best friends writing a book together: a historical novel about the castle’s lurid past and its debauched laird, who himself ended up creatively murdered. But the authors’ stories about how they know Brett Saffron Presley don’t quite line up, and the detective is getting increasingly suspicious.

Why did the authors really come to Castle Kinloch? Is the murder of the long-ago laird somehow connected with the playboy author’s unfortunate demise? And what really happened the night the of the great Kinloch ceilidh, when Brett Saffron Presley skipped the folk dancing for a rendezvous with death?

A crafty locked-room mystery, a pointed satire about the literary world, and a tale of unexpected friendship and romance–this novel has it all, as only three bestselling authors can tell it!

“A trio of historical fiction icons” (Chicago Tribune), Team W is comprised of bestselling authors Karen White, Beatriz Williams, and Lauren Willig. They have written four novels together, with their most recent collaboration being the New York Times bestseller The Lost Summers of Newport, for which rights were sold in Hungary to XXI Szazad.

LOVE, ME de Jessica Saunders

Fans of Taylor Jenkins Reid, Emily Henry, and Emily Griffin will fall in love with this woman’s fiction debut.

LOVE, ME
by Jessica Saunders
Union Square & Co., January 2024
(via Sterling Lord Literistic)

“Love, Me.” It’s how Jack always signed his letters to Rachel. She hadn’t thought about that in years…

This is the story of Rachel Miller, a lawyer and mother of two who’s just as comfortable in the courtroom as she is on the sidelines of the soccer field. Rachel’s life is unexpectedly thrust into the spotlight when photographs and letters of her and her high school boyfriend, the famous actor Jack Bellow, are published in a tabloid. Rachel’s life is upended as this newfound attention calls into question her relationship with her husband, her career, and even her superstar ex. 

LOVE, ME takes readers on a journey through key moments in Rachel’s life: falling in love for the first time and having her heart broken; meeting her future husband and creating a life with him; and navigating the celebrity gossip circuit and her equally gossipy suburban frenemies. Betrayed by someone she trusted and reunited with the man she tried so hard to forget, Rachel has to ask herself, “How did I get here? And where am I going?” 

A pitch-perfect exploration of modern married life, Jessica Saunders’s deliciously readable novel embraces the truth that some old flames can’t be snuffed out, no matter how many years go by.

Jessica Saunders is a lawyer and writer living in the suburbs of New York City.