If you are looking for book recommendations to add to you list for spring, this months list has some truly wonderful books to choose from. Including a book from my favorite creators of charming small towns, Heather Webber who I’ve previously had the chance to interview about her novels, A Certain Kind of Starlight and The Lights of Sugarberry Cove. Her newest novel, The Forget-Me-Not Library is every bit as enchanting as her previous novels, and in my opinion even more so.
We have a time-traveling (of sorts) novel, You & Me and You & Me and You & Me, The Violin Maker’s Secret which is involves the story of an unusual violin by an unknown maker, finally Should Have Told You Sooner which will pull at your heartstrings long after you’ve finished it.
You & Me and You & Me and You & Me | Josie Lloyd and Emlyn Rees
Adam and Jules find themselves stuck in a rut, not only with their marriage, but with their employment prospects. Jules has always dreamed of having her own restaurant (vs her struggling catering business) and Adam missed out on making move of a lifetime by turning down his childhood best friends offer to be one of the founding a gaming empire in the states.
When Adam finds a box of old mixtapes he and Jules made when they were young and just starting to fall in love, he finds out that he can go back in time and inhabit his younger self for the length of the mixed tape. Not only that, Jules can do the same thing. While they promise to not change anything in the past, the inevitable happens, and the results are not always what they’d hoped for. Will this couple make it back to each other in the end? You’ll have to give it a read to find out!
Rating: A
“A grown-up love story that captures the beauty of not only finding your person but holding on to them. Throw in some time travel, great music, and ’90s nostalgia, and you have an unforgettable read.”—Laurie Gilmore, #1 New York Times bestselling author
Meet Adam and Jules.
Married for nearly twenty-five years and stuck in a rut, their future looks, well, boring.
Then Adam stumbles across a box of old mixtapes he and Jules made for each other when they were young and falling in love. He dusts off his vintage stereo, inserts one of the cassettes, presses “Play” …and the unbelievable happens.
With the power to travel back in time, Jules and Adam can recapture the headiness of falling in love. But they soon realize that visiting the past could be as dangerous as it is addictive, because the temptation to change just a few tiny things is irresistible.
As the consequences start to spiral out of control, can they find a way back to their messy and imperfect, yet glorious, real life? Or will they lose each other forever?
The Forget-Me-Not Library | Heather Webber
Heather Webber has created yet another magical southern town with a cast of characters that you can’t help but fall in love with, yet again. Not to mention that the books in the Forget-Me-Not Library can bring back lost memories… and the inhabitants of the town can help those who are lost find who they are truly meant to be… and the one special person that they are meant to find love with.
When Juliet Nightingale’s car breakdown on a ‘detour’ through the small town of Forget-Me-Not, she has no idea how her life is about to change, or the fact that the blue smoke coming from under the hood of car actually means something.
Meanwhile the single mom, Tallulah, isn’t sure how she feels about their new house guest (who her grandfather insists stay with them because they are meant to help her) as she tries to navigate her life as a mom of two little girls, her new job at the Forget-Me-Not Library… and the mysterious new man who arrives in town.
This is a book you won’t want to end, and a cast of characters who will stay with you long after you’ve finished the final chapter.
Rating: A+
A detour. A chance encounter. Two women who alter the pages of each other’s story.
Juliet Nightingale is lucky to be alive. Months after a freak accident involving lightning, she’s fully recovered but is left feeling that something is missing from her life. Something big. Impulsively, she decides to take a solo summer road trip, hoping that the journey will lead her down a path that will help her discover exactly what it is that she’s searching for.
Newly single mom Tallulah Byrd Mayfield is hanging by a thread after her neat, tidy world was completely undone when her husband decided that their marriage was over. In the aftermath of the breakup, she and her two daughters move in with her eighty-year-old grandfather. Tallulah starts a new job at the Forget-Me-Not Library, where old, treasured memories can be found within the books—and where Lu must learn to adapt to the many changes thrown her way.
When a road detour leads Juliet to Forget-Me-Not, Alabama, and straight into Tallulah’s life, the two women soon discover there’s magic in between the pages of where you’ve been and where you still need to go. And that happiness, even when lost, can always be found again.
New Release
The secret Courtesan | Kerry Chaput
Two determined women four hundred years apart. One mysterious statue. And a bombshell that could change history.
Art historian Mia is running out of time to prove her theory that the sculptor of an unearthed erotic statue was a courtesan erased from history—a scandal no one will believe. Chasing through Venice, she tracks down hidden details of Sofia, a powerful courtesan who seems to have left a trail of sex-fueled art buried across the city, but Mia’s now being followed, and even her boss might be in on the lie.
Meanwhile, in 1609, Sofia defies Venice’s unfair laws to create illicit art that could ruin her future. Her aspirations to become a great artist go up in flames when her patron’s wife steals her work and threatens her lover. Learn More…
The Violin Maker’s Secret | Evie Woods
I had even more of a vested interest going into author Evie Wood’s latest novel. Set mostly in London (and various countries in the past) we learn about a fever important violin, made my an unknown luthier (maker of stringed instruments). As the tale goes between the past a present, we learn about all of the people who have possessed the violin in the past, and how it has changed not only their lives, but those of Devlin, Walter and Gabrielle in the present.
While Devlin suspects that the violin was stolen after purchasing it from Lost and Found at Heathrow Airport, he goes to his history teacher, Walter for help. Saving the older mans life in the process. When they take the violin to Walter’s old friends shop, they find that the mans daughter, Gabrielle now owns the shop.
As they search for who made the violin, and who is truly belongs to, they find more than they bargained for.
Rating: A+
On any given day, there are thousands of items slowly gathering dust in the Lost and Found of Heathrow Airport. Unknown to anyone, hidden among the clutter, is a very special object that can change the fortunes of those who possess it – a violin of rare beauty and power.
Now, as if by chance, it has fallen into the hands of three strangers.
Baggage claim agent Devlin, retired teacher Walter, and appraiser Gabrielle have nothing in common, but can these three unlikely guardians unlock the secrets of the violin?
With heartfelt moments, unexpected connections, and a mystery that lingers long after the final page, this is Evie Woods at her very best.
Should Have Told You Sooner | Jane Ward
This is the first novel that I have read by author Jane Ward, and while it is not a murder mystery or suspense novel like my usual reading, it takes place in London and in the world of art, which will always be two big draws for me. Taking place between thirty years in the past, and the present day, this novel is told from three separate points of view. The first from an son to a mother he has never known, the second an aspiring curator, who has returned to London on a 6 month ‘secondment’ where she prepares for a exhibition at a gallery featuring aspiring young artists, and Bryn Jones, a now disenchanted artist who lost the love of his life thirty years previously, and due to arthritis may be loosing his ability to paint altogether.
Through this story of love and loss, we find redemption and the chance at second chances, making this a book that definitely deserves a place on your reading list this spring.
Rating: A
When Noel Enfield is offered a secondment at a museum in London, it’s a chance for her career aspirations to finally come to fruition—but also leads to the opening of some old wounds—in this story of art, love lost, and second chances, perfect for fans of David Nicholls and Claire Lombardo.
While studying art history at a London university, Noel Enfield falls passionately in love with aspiring artist and art school student Bryn Jones. Shortly after Bryn leaves for a five-month painting trip through Italy, Noel discovers she is pregnant. She is ecstatic and believes Bryn will be too—they have plans to marry, after all. But mishaps part the two lovers, and a desperate Noel makes a split-second choice to move forward in a way that will change not only her life but also the lives of everyone she loves.
Three decades later, when she is offered a six-month secondment to a London museum, Noel decides it’s time to prove she really has moved on from that difficult period by returning to the city where she met and lost Bryn. But rather than proving she has persevered, the move lands Noel in the thick of London’s insular art world, with only one or two degrees of separation from her past and the people she once loved. After she reconnects with an old, dear friend and learns finally what kept Bryn from returning to her all those years ago, the very underpinnings of her life are rocked to their core. Some decisions made in the past can never be put behind her, she realizes, and armed with this new understanding, she sets out on a journey to reclaim what—and who—she left behind.
Books
February REcommendations
