Love is in the air for my last library haul of 2023

Another year is heading to a close yet the promise of better things to come is still strong enough to keep me looking for one last batch of books at my local library before the holiday season hits hard.

I don’t know why exactly but for some reason, the romance section just called out to me loud and clear this time around. Sure, I enjoy this genre quite a bit but everywhere I looked at the library last week, certain titles seemed to sparkle a bit brighter.

One of those was Emily Henry’s  Happy Place, which just won the Goodreads Choice Awards for Best Romance (a subjective selection, I know). The residence of the title is a summer home where Harriet and her former college friends gather once a year, with a few add-on companions, to relax and reconnect.

This year, however, Harriet has some bad news to share as she has broken up with her fiancé Wyn, also part of their group, over six months ago. She was hoping to tell her best gal pals Sabrina and Cleo on what was to be a ladies only get together but Wyn has arrived before her and it appears that their mutual friends have something to share as well.

As it happens, the house is being sold (due to a divorce settlement in Sabrina’s family) so this is the last time any of them can get together here. In addition, Sabrina is now marrying her longtime boyfriend Parth in a week and wants all of them to attend, sort of a final goodbye celebration.

Not wanting to dampen the spirits of their good friends during this time, Harriet and Wyn agree to pretend that their relationship is still on for now. However, the longer they playact their romance, the more it might not just be for show.

So far, this story is pretty entertaining, kind of a more sophisticated take on a romantic sitcom plot line (yes, I mean that in a good way!). While this book received mixed reviews from readers earlier this year, I’m willing to stay tuned into it for awhile:

I paired that up with Something Wild & Wonderful by Anita Kelly. The story is set on the Pacific Coast Trail where Alexei is doing a solo hike in order to clear his head about what’s next for him in life.

While there, he keeps running into Ben, who is getting over a string of bad decisions in his love life and not looking to make any more.

Yet as the two of them constantly find themselves meeting up again and again, it just makes sense to team up and hike together. Will this be the start of a great friendship or perhaps something much more?

I read Kelly’s first novel, Love and Other Disasters(a Book of the Month Club pick, actually) and it was a lovely read so I am very glad to have found this one readily available. This is one of those “grumpy meets sunshine “ kind of romances that I have no doubt will bring more of the latter than the former in the love department:

To set up a perfect trio of page turning, I decided to try an author that’s new to me with Part of Your World by Abby Jimenez.

Alexis is an ER doctor whose family would prefer that she follow tradition by becoming a highly paid top surgeon instead.

Daniel is the mayor of a small town as well as a carpenter who is expected to live up to his family’s legacy as well. When Alexis winds up needing help getting her car out of a ditch, it’s Daniel who happens to be on hand and the two of them seem to fit like puzzle pieces, despite their very different settings in life.

Can Alexis and  Daniel find a way to make their own mark on the world with each other or was this chance encounter merely a chance and nothing more?

I’ve heard good things about this writer and was pleasantly surprised to learn that she’s also a baker who won an episode of Cupcake Wars! That is so cool, some truly real icing on the creative cake there:

Well, this set of lovelorn tales ought to tide me over until my next library visit in the upcoming new year. I suppose it’s really not surprising that love was in the air for this bookish trip as a library can be one of the most loving places in any community, for books and people alike. May we all embrace our library kid selves, both now and in the years to come: