Stacking the Shelves #55!

Stacking The Shelves is a meme hosted by Tynga’s Reviews and ReadingReality all about sharing the books you are adding to your shelves, may it be physical or virtual. This means you can include books you buy in physical store or online, books you borrow from friends or the library, review books, gifts, and of course ebooks! And audiobooks. Don’t forget audiobooks!

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And….there goes my 80% NetGalley ratio! But, all these look so good, I couldn’t resist.

NetGalley:

This just looked good!

Synopsis: New from the NUMBER ONE bestselling author of The Note.
As friends and family gather for the funeral of charming and charismatic Seb Cooper, three women sit in the congregation, mourning his loss.

First there is Clair, Seb’s wife and partner of twenty years, and mother of his two children. Furious at Seb for dying and leaving their children without a father, Clair isn’t sure of her place, and has been left baffled and bemused by the conflicting stories of Seb’s last days.

Then there’s Desiree, the woman Seb left Clair for. Heartbroken, self-conscious, and wondering if she made a mistake coming today.

And the third and noisiest mourner of all is Noemie – Seb’s lover and the last woman to see him alive.

Three women who loved Seb in their own different ways.

Three women whose lives have now changed forever.

But only one woman knows what really happened at the end…and only one truly had his heart….

Bestseller Zoe Folbigg returns with a utterly compelling and page-turning tale of love, betrayal, family and unlikely friendships. Perfect for fans of Liane Moriarty, Celeste Ng and JoJo Moyes.

I don’t read many thrillers, but I’ve seen so many good reviews for this author.

Synopsis: Get ready for a thrilling, addictive novel about marriage, betrayal, and the secrets that push us to the edge.

There’s a cottage on a cliff. Gabe and Pippa’s dream home in a sleepy coastal town. But their perfect house hides something sinister. The tall cliffs have become a popular spot for people to end their lives. Night after night Gabe comes to their rescue, literally talking them off the ledge. Until he doesn’t.

When Pippa discovers Gabe knew the victim, the questions spiral… Did the victim jump? Was she pushed?

And would Gabe, the love of Pippa’s life, her soulmate . . . lie? As the perfect facade of their marriage begins to crack, the deepest and darkest secrets begin to unravel.

I think it was Cindy @ Cindy’s Book Corner that raved about Pepper Basham, so when I saw her new book on NetGalley, I decided to request it. And I love that this is a bookish book!

Synopsis: “Dear Izzy—I feel certain there’s a book-loving man living relatively nearby waiting to speak bookish to you ’til death do you part. You just haven’t met yet.”

Izzy Edgewood is a wannabe bookstore owner, quote queen, and Lord of the Rings nerd who has been waiting for Prince Charming to sweep her off her sneakered feet. But it’s hard to meet people when you spend more time with fictional humans than real ones. Which is why her pragmatist cousin Josephine decides to take Izzy’s future into her own meddling hands and create an online dating profile for the hopeful romantic.

To Izzy’s shock (and suspicion), Josie’s plan works. Soon, she’s dialoguing with a Hobbit-loving man named Brodie who lives in a small town an ocean away from her home in the Blue Ridge Mountains. But is their shared love of books, family, and correspondence enough to overcome Izzy’s fear of flying and the literal distance between them? And is a long-distance relationship even worth considering when a local author has been frequenting the library where she works and is proving to be a perfectly fine gentleman?

In this epistolary novel from award-winning author Pepper Basham, bookish dreams and happily-ever-afters collide to create a beautiful sort of magic that’s even better than fiction.

More Princess Diaries??? Yes please!

Synopsis: Mia Thermopolis knows just what to do in a crisis: Rule.

During the Covid-19 pandemic, a section of the diary of Princess Mia Thermopolis of Genovia fell into the hands of Meg Cabot, the Princess’s royal biographer.

As reported in media outlets such as Entertainment Weekly, The Mary Sue, Refinery 29, Bustle, and more, from March until June of 2020, sixteen entries of the princess’s diary were leaked onto Ms. Cabot’s blog, to the delight of over a million fans.

In these entries, titled The Coronavirus Princess Diaries, the princess recorded her most heartfelt emotions while dealing with her husband’s quarantine after exposure to the virus; her personal (and political) battles while imposing health restrictions on her small European nation; life during lockdown (even in as idyllic a location as a palace on the Riviera); and of course, dealing with her demanding royal family, especially her grandmother.

Since then, readers have been clamoring for more chapters of Mia’s coronavirus diary . . . and here they are at last: The Quarantine Princess Diaries include not only the previously released entries (now edited and updated with new content), but dozens more entirely original, never-before-seen entries, including the princess’s worries over her husband’s possible affair with an ex (now a world-renowned geneticist); a showdown between Mia and Grandmère over the latter’s intended nuptials; the eventual development and distribution of a groundbreaking intranasal vaccine for every citizen in Genovia; and, as always, a royally happy ending.

After all we’ve been through, what could be more comforting for any lover of royal romance than snuggling up with a brand new installment of the diary of Mia Thermopolis, the princess who started it all?

I’ve enjoyed the first two books in Jill Shalvis’s Sunrise Cove series, so I’m excited to get to this one!

Synopsis: New York Times bestselling author Jill Shalvis returns to Sunrise Cove with a heartwarming tale of three people who are bought together when they’re bequeathed an old Wild West inn that has the potential to pull their lives apart, but instead turns into the gift of a lifetime.

When Alice receives a call about an unexpected windfall, she’s stunned to learn the gift is a falling-apart-at-the-seams old Wild West B&B she once considered home—and she’s inherited it along with two strangers. Except they weren’t always strangers. Once upon a time, they were friends. One is her ex-BFF Lauren. The other is Knox, the only guy to ever break her heart, all while never even knowing she existed.

It turns out their lives are unknowingly entangled because they once separately helped the same woman without expecting anything in return. Years later, Alice, Lauren, and Knox are broken in their own way, with their own history—and secrets— causing them to start out on the wrong foot with each other. But according to the will, they must renovate and be partners in the inn for one year or else lose their inheritance.

Stuck together, they make a list of rules to keep the peace—rules that end up doing the opposite, but by some miracle they find what they didn’t even know they were looking for—acceptance, true friendship, and in a case (or two!), true love.

I liked the blurb on this one and the cover.

Synopsis: Advika Srinivasan never thought she’d be someone’s fourth wife, let alone the new wife of Julian Zelding, one of Hollywood’s most renowned film producers—a gripping tale of marriage, ambition, and power from the author of GMA Book Club pick Dava Shastri’s Last Day. 

At age 26, Advika Srinivasan considers herself a failed screenwriter. To pay the bills and keep her mind off of the recent death of her twin sister, she’s taken to bartending A-list events, including the 2015 Governors Ball, the official afterparty of the Oscars. There, in a cinematic dream come true, she meets the legendary Julian Zelding—a film producer as handsome as Paul Newman and ten times as powerful—fresh off his fifth best picture win. Despite their 41-year age difference, Advika falls helplessly under his spell, and their evening flirtation ignites into a whirlwind courtship and elopement. Advika is enthralled by Julian’s charm and luxurious lifestyle, but while Julian loves to talk about his famous friends and achievements, he smoothly changes the subject whenever his previous relationships come up. Then, a month into their marriage, Julian’s first wife—the famous actress Evie Lockhart—dies, and a tabloid reports a shocking stipulation in her will. A single film reel and $1,000,000 will be bequeathed to “Julian’s latest child bride” on one condition: Advika must divorce him first.

Shaken out of her love fog and still-simmering grief over the loss of her sister—and uneasy about Julian’s sudden, inexplicable urge to start a family—Advika decides to investigate him through the eyes and experiences of his exes. From reading his first wife’s biography, to listening to his second wife’s confessional albums, to watching his third wife’s Real Housewives-esque reality show, Advika starts to realize how little she knows about her husband. Realizing she rushed into the marriage for all the wrong reasons, Advika uses the info gleaned from the lives of her husband’s exes to concoct a plan to extricate herself from Julian once and for all.

This looked like something different.

Synopsis: A dazzling stranger changes the lives of two very different people in this gripping novel from the acclaimed author of The Best Kind of People. Does it matter if she isn’t who she says she is?

Another book that just looked like something I would enjoy.

Synopsis: A second try at love becomes more than one woman bargained for in this delightfully funny and romantic new novel from the author of The Rehearsals.

Can one little lie lead to a big second chance?

Layla’s chaotic life transformed when she met Ian Barnett. Ambitious, committed, and thoughtful, Ian has been everything she’d dreamed of, and she knows he’d say the same of her. So when he breaks up with her out of the blue, Layla is stunned. What went wrong?

But then, Layla gets a call from the local hospital. Ian’s had a biking accident. He’s okay, but he needs someone—his someone—to get him home safely. As it becomes clear Ian doesn’t remember he ended things, it also becomes clear that the accident has given him a new outlook on life . . . and Layla a second chance to get things right. 

That is, until Ian’s younger brother comes to town. Matt is restless, unpredictable, and threatens to upset the careful balance Layla and Ian have rebuilt. As things get more complicated both at home and at work, Layla realizes she might lose her chance at real love—and real happiness—if she doesn’t come clean about the stories she’s been telling: to Ian, to Matt, to her family, and most importantly, to herself.

I enjoyed her previous book The Sweetheart Deal, so I’m really looking forward to this next book in the series. And I love that fall cover with a cat on it!

Synopsis: Juliet Montgomery absolutely loves her small town of Blossom Glen, Indiana, and everyone loves her. Except for the fact that she’s a couples counselor who suffered a very public breakup that no one can forget. And now her boss asks her to take a step back…which is exactly when the town’s good-lookin’ and unusually gruff mayor offers her an unexpected job.

Jack Monroe absolutely loves being the mayor of his small town. Except when he actually has to talk to people. Can’t he just fix the community problems in peace? Like right now, he’s mediating the silliest dispute two neighbors could possibly have. When the town sweetheart steps up and solves everyone’s problems in five minutes flat, Jack realizes what this town really needs…is a therapist.

Juliet is able to soothe anyone—other than the surly mayor, it seems. But there’s a reason they say opposites attract, because all of their verbal sparring leads to some serious attraction. Only, just like with fireworks, the view might appear beautiful—but she’s already had one public explosion that’s nearly ruined everything…how can she risk her heart again?

I got an invitation to read/review this. Although it’s not my usual genre(s), it looks good and I thought I’d give it a try.

Synopsis: Amateur detective Mallory Viridian’s talent for solving murders ruined her life on Earth and drove her to live on an alien space station, but her problems still follow her in this witty, self-aware novel that puts a speculative spin on murder mysteries, from the Hugo-nominated author of Six Wakes.

From idyllic small towns to claustrophobic urban landscapes, Mallory Viridian is constantly embroiled in murder cases that only she has the insight to solve. But outside of a classic mystery novel, being surrounded by death doesn’t make you a charming amateur detective, it makes you a suspect and a social pariah. So when Mallory gets the opportunity to take refuge on a sentient space station, she thinks she has the solution. Surely the murders will stop if her only company is alien beings. At first her new existence is peacefully quiet…and markedly devoid of homicide.

But when the station agrees to allow additional human guests, Mallory knows the break from her peculiar reality is over. After the first Earth shuttle arrives, and aliens and humans alike begin to die, the station is thrown into peril. Stuck smack-dab in the middle of an extraterrestrial whodunit, and wondering how in the world this keeps happening to her anyway, Mallory has to solve the crime—and fast—or the list of victims could grow to include everyone on board….

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That’s all I have for this week. Have you read any of these books? What’s on your list to read? Comment below!