Behind Five Willows

June Hur

From the New York Times-bestselling author of A Crane Among Wolves comes a warm and romantic homage to Jane Austen set in historical Korea, about a reader and a writer who secretly fight against government book banning and find themselves irresistibly drawn together. As the dutiful second-eldest daughter of a poor family, society would have Haewon believe that her only hope of a decent life is to marry well. But during a time of rampant government censorship and book banning, she instead works as an illegal book transcriber in order to make a little extra money. It’s dangerous work, but she loves it―especially when she gets to transcribe the work of her favorite author, known as Black Lotus. When her older sister becomes smitten with a wealthy young gentleman, Haewon is roped into chaperoning them during their courtship. Which wouldn’t be so terrible... if it weren’t for the young man’s uptight and annoying best friend who also accompanies them. As the only son of a noble, Seojun has a lot expected of him. Wealth. Status. Respectability. Certainly not frivolous and often illicit activities such as reading fiction. But Seojun loves to do something even more scandalous: writing. He’s kept his work secret from his father and friends, but with each passing day, the pressure of being his father’s son and the dispiriting actions of the government make Seojun question the purpose of it all. The only thing keeping him going are the encouraging letters he receives from his transcriber, known only as Magpie. When his best friend falls hard for a girl of lower social status, Seojun finds himself forced to act as chaperone to the infatuated couple―along with the girl's younger sister, who is as irritating as she is judgmental. But as Haewon and Seojun spend more time together, they begin to suspect they may have judged each other too quickly...

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The Gilded Blade

Jennifer Lynn Barnes

In the stunning finale to the global phenomenon of the Inheritance Games Saga (over 6 million copies sold!), discover danger, riches, romance—and the staggering answers to long-brewing mysteries. Everyone is a player. In the grandest of games, there is everything to win—money, love, power, revenge—and even more to lose. From Texas to Prague to London and beyond, the Hawthorne family, the players from the Grandest Game, and allies old and new are drawn into a web of centuries-old secrets and mind-bending puzzles. Every clue pulls them deeper; every answer demands a price. To survive, they must unravel the mysteries that bind them together…but some truths are deadly. Discover danger, riches, romance—and the long-awaited revelations at the heart of Jennifer Lynn Barnes’s most intricate and explosive puzzle yet. All games must come to an end.

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If Books Could Kill

Kate Eberle

She thought she was in a romance. Fate threw her into a thriller. Will happily-ever-after still be on the cards when fiction and reality blur for Roxie? When Roxie makes a tongue-in-cheek wish to live out the plot of her favorite author’s next novel, she has romance in mind—namely, the sweet, safe, swoon-worthy storylines Anna Matthews is known for. It should be a dream come true when her wish is granted and she finds herself swept into a first date with a handsome stranger who seems designed to take her breath away. Except for one little hiccup: That handsome stranger tries to take her breath away. Literally. With a knife. The thing is, Roxie may be the new Anna Matthews protagonist—but this time, Anna is writing a crime thriller. Thrown into a perilous genre she’s never read, Roxie is desperate for help. So when her escape takes her straight into the path of Grant Hoffman, an anxious English professor with a convenient love of crime novels, she decides that kidnapping a grown man is a small price to pay for her own survival. Together, Roxie and Grant navigate a madcap story in which the lines between fiction and reality blur. They’ll find out if they have what it takes to make it to The End—or maybe even Happily Ever After.

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The Help

Kathryn Stockett

Three ordinary women are about to take one extraordinary step. Twenty-two-year-old Skeeter has just returned home after graduating from Ole Miss. She may have a degree, but it is 1962, Mississippi, and her mother will not be happy till Skeeter has a ring on her finger. Skeeter would normally find solace with her beloved maid Constantine, the woman who raised her, but Constantine has disappeared and no one will tell Skeeter where she has gone. Aibileen is a black maid, a wise, regal woman raising her seventeenth white child. Something has shifted inside her after the loss of her own son, who died while his bosses looked the other way. She is devoted to the little girl she looks after, though she knows both their hearts may be broken. Minny, Aibileen's best friend, is short, fat, and perhaps the sassiest woman in Mississippi. She can cook like nobody's business, but she can't mind her tongue, so she's lost yet another job. Minny finally finds a position working for someone too new to town to know her reputation. But her new boss has secrets of her own. Seemingly as different from one another as can be, these women will nonetheless come together for a clandestine project that will put them all at risk. And why? Because they are suffocating within the lines that define their town and their times. And sometimes lines are made to be crossed. In pitch-perfect voices, Kathryn Stockett creates three extraordinary women whose determination to start a movement of their own forever changes a town, and the way women, mothers, daughters, caregivers, friends, view one another. A deeply moving novel filled with poignancy, humor, and hope, The Help is a timeless and universal story about the lines we abide by, and the ones we don't. Librarian's note: An alternate cover edition can be found here

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Ready Player One

Ernest Cline

IN THE YEAR 2044, reality is an ugly place. The only time teenage Wade Watts really feels alive is when he's jacked into the virtual utopia known as the OASIS. Wade's devoted his life to studying the puzzles hidden within this world's digital confines, puzzles that are based on their creator's obsession with the pop culture of decades past and that promise massive power and fortune to whoever can unlock them. But when Wade stumbles upon the first clue, he finds himself beset by players willing to kill to take this ultimate prize. The race is on, and if Wade's going to survive, he'll have to win—and confront the real world he's always been so desperate to escape.

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The Kiss Quotient

Helen Hoang

Stella Lane thinks math is the only thing that unites the universe. She comes up with algorithms to predict customer purchases--a job that has given her more money than she knows what to do with, and way less experience in the dating department than the average thirty-year-old. It doesn't help that Stella has Asperger's and French kissing reminds her of a shark getting its teeth cleaned by pilot fish. Her conclusion: she needs lots of practice--with a professional. Which is why she hires escort Michael Phan. The Vietnamese and Swedish stunner can't afford to turn down Stella's offer, and agrees to help her check off all the boxes on her lesson plan--from foreplay to more-than-missionary position... Before long, Stella not only learns to appreciate his kisses, but crave all of the other things he's making her feel. Their no-nonsense partnership starts making a strange kind of sense. And the pattern that emerges will convince Stella that love is the best kind of logic... A heartwarming and refreshing debut novel that proves one thing: there's not enough data in the world to predict what will make your heart tick.

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Compulsively Yours

Allison Raskin

The Proposal meets The Unhoneymooners in Allison Raskin’s charming new rom com. With her signature warmth and frank conversation about romance and mental health, COMPULSIVELY YOURS offers a fresh spin on fake dating and friends to lovers tropes, set on a gorgeous beach in Mexico. Libi Newman doesn’t date. Relationship and Harm OCD make it tough for Libi to date without doubts, so she prefers to flit between hook-ups instead, knowing that she can’t sabotage a relationship if it’s not serious. It’s not ideal, but grieving her mother’s recent passing, Libi can only deal with so many emotions at once. That’s what OCD support group is for anyway. Nate Keller has harbored a crush on Libi since she joined the group. While he’s there to discuss his Contamination OCD, he can’t help but be fascinated by Libi's history…and her adorably chatty nature. But they’re just friends, and Nate’s okay with that. Really. When Libi's summoned to the Newman family timeshare in Mexico for her grandparents’ anniversary, it’s not all margaritas and suntans. Not only has her father started dating a new woman, her least-favorite cousin also has a boyfriend to introduce to the family—shockingly, it’s Libi’s ex, who she might still be in love with… Not wanting her to stomach the reunion alone, Nate tags along for emotional support. What begins as an innocent promise of friends helping each other quickly turns into a fake-dating scheme. And Nate’s playing the fake boyfriend role too well. As the lies stack up, Libi has to keep up with her own ping-ponging emotions: are the romantic sunset strolls coloring her perspective… or is she actually wanting to date Nate for real?

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The Pirate Queen

Ariel Lawhon

Grace O'Malley was born to be at sea. Raised alongside her brother by their father, chief of the name of clan O'Malley, Grace learns early that her dreams of the open water are not compatible with the life she's expected to lead as the daughter of a noble family. And when her father marries her to the wrong man, a neighbouring chief named Donhal, Grace's world shifts for the worse. Undaunted, Grace raises a family without abandoning her passion, aiding her hot-tempered husband in his campaigns against rival tribes. Eventually ousted from her husband's land in the wake of his death, Grace returns to her childhood home and begins her career as a pirate in earnest, claiming new territories and finding deeper love, only to see her livelihood threatened by English incursions into Ireland, and her family endangered in an attempt to check her power. Tenderly observed and fiercely written, Ariel Lawhon's gripping latest novel channels the natural beauty of sixteenth-century Ireland alongside the brutality of the period as seen through the eyes of an unforgettable heroine and defender of her people, who truly earned the title 'the Pirate Queen of Ireland.' A thrilling historical adventure inspired by the life of Grace O'Malley, an infamous Irish sea captain and folk heroine who risked everything to protect her people against the powerful Elizabethan regime

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The Kiss Quotient

Helen Hoang

Stella Lane thinks math is the only thing that unites the universe. She comes up with algorithms to predict customer purchases--a job that has given her more money than she knows what to do with, and way less experience in the dating department than the average thirty-year-old. It doesn't help that Stella has Asperger's and French kissing reminds her of a shark getting its teeth cleaned by pilot fish. Her conclusion: she needs lots of practice--with a professional. Which is why she hires escort Michael Phan. The Vietnamese and Swedish stunner can't afford to turn down Stella's offer, and agrees to help her check off all the boxes on her lesson plan--from foreplay to more-than-missionary position... Before long, Stella not only learns to appreciate his kisses, but crave all of the other things he's making her feel. Their no-nonsense partnership starts making a strange kind of sense. And the pattern that emerges will convince Stella that love is the best kind of logic... A heartwarming and refreshing debut novel that proves one thing: there's not enough data in the world to predict what will make your heart tick.

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Lovelight Farms

B.K. Borison

Two best friends fake date to reach their holiday happily ever after in this first romantic comedy in the Lovelight series. A pasture of dead trees. A hostile takeover of the Santa barn by a family of raccoons. And shipments that have mysteriously gone missing. Lovelight Farms is not the magical winter wonderland of Stella Bloom’s dreams. In an effort to save the Christmas tree farm she’s loved since she was a kid, Stella enters a contest with Instagram-famous influencer Evelyn St. James. With the added publicity and the $100,000 cash prize, Stella might just be able to save the farm from its financial woes. There’s just one problem. To make the farm seem like a romantic destination for the holidays, she lied on her application and said she owns Lovelight Farms with her boyfriend. Only…there is no boyfriend. Enter best friend Luka Peters. He just stopped by for some hot chocolate and somehow got a farm and a serious girlfriend in the process. But fake dating his best friend might be the best Christmas present he’s ever received.

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Romantic Hero

Kirsty Greenwood

The next laugh-out-loud and joyous romcom from the author of The Love of My Afterlife. Available to pre-order now!Romance authors adore Kirsty ‘This book has it all. Humor, heart, and a heroine I was desperately rooting for. Kirsty Greenwood has a new fan!’ Colleen Hoover‘Quirky and romantic and oh so gorgeously memorable – I only wish I’d written it first! I lost a whole day to it and I don’t regret a second’ Josie Silver‘A gorgeously addictive romp of a romantic comedy, with added magic. I adored it’ Clare Pooley‘How To Lose a Guy in Ten Days meets Ghost … Original and romantic – I loved it’ Sophie Cousens‘An utterly charming romcom that is as hilarious as it is poignant. Reading this book is like receiving a big hug from a dear friend’ Carley Fortune‘A romantic, tender and hilarious page-turner. Every page will bring you joy’ Cathy Bramley‘Kirsty writes like a witty dream. She’s the real deal.’ Mhairi McFarlane‘Reading it is like hanging out with your funniest and cleverest best friend – I never wanted it to end’ Isabelle BroomThe Love of My Afterlife is my dream book and I can’t wait for everyone on the planet to read and love it as much as me’ Lucy Vine‘One of the most life-affirming books I’ve read’ Cressida McLaughlin‘So smart and so joyous’ Lia Louis‘Kirsty Greenwood is the funniest, freshest romcom writer in the genre’ Cesca Major‘Funny, joyful, uplifting, page-turning and unpredictable. This will undoubtedly be one of the biggest books of 2024’ Becky Hunter‘I'm going to be telling every person in my life to read this book’ Alicia Thompson‘A truly dreamy love story. I adored every page’ Uzma Jalaluddin

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A Cup of Silver Linings (Dove Pond #2)

Karen Hawkins

Ava Dove—the sixth of the seven famed Dove sisters and owner of Ava Dove’s Landscaping and Specialty Teas—is frantic. Just as her new tearoom is about to open, her herbal teas have gone haywire. Suddenly, her sleep-inducing tea is startling her clients awake with vivid dreams, her romance-kindling tea is causing people to blurt out their darkest secrets, and her anti-anxiety tea is making them spend hours staring into mirrors. Ava is desperate for a remedy, but her search leads her into dangerous territory, as she is forced to face a dark secret she’s been hiding for over a decade. Meanwhile, successful architect Ellen Foster has arrived in Dove Pond to attend the funeral of her estranged daughter, Julie. Grieving deeply, Ellen is determined to fix up her daughter’s ramshackle house, sell it, and then sweep her sixteen-year-old granddaughter, Kristen, off to a saner, calmer life. But Kristen has other plans. Desperate to stay with her friends in Dove Pond, she sets off on a quest she’s avoided her whole life—to find her absent father in the hopes of winning her freedom from the grandmother she barely knows. Together, Ava, Kristen, and Ellen embark on a reluctant but magical journey of healing, friendship, and family.

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The Friendship Fling

Georgia Stone

In this delightfully charming and heartfelt debut love story, two lonely and wildly different strangers embark on a short-term friendship over one London summer—only to discover they may be something more by the time the season ends. No one would ever call Ava Monroe a people person, which isn’t ideal for a barista in a busy London coffee shop. She’s sarcastic, blunt, and cynical, and her relationships are strictly no strings attached. With her best friend Josie soon leaving for a year, Ava knows she’ll be all alone unless she shakes up her routine. But she can’t risk bringing chance back into her carefully controlled life. Then insufferably cheerful, country-hopping, undeniably gorgeous Finn O’Callaghan rolls into her coffee shop with a horrifying proposal —a strictly friends-only summer fling. Finn needs a local to help him complete his London bucket list, and Ava needs to reassure Josie she won’t be on her own. And it’s only for a few months. To Ava’s surprise, their mismatched friendship of convenience becomes oddly tolerable, and as they work their way through Finn’s list and around the sun-drenched city, from rooftops and floating bars to nights at the museum, their adventures—and Finn’s company—start to feel . . . nice. Incredibly, terrifyingly, dangerously nice. Still, rules are rules—Ava has good reasons for them—and as the days get shorter, Finn’s departure gets closer. Because that’s the thing about it always ends. Right?

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Romantic Hero

Kirsty Greenwood

The next laugh-out-loud and joyous romcom from the author of The Love of My Afterlife. Available to pre-order now!Romance authors adore Kirsty ‘This book has it all. Humor, heart, and a heroine I was desperately rooting for. Kirsty Greenwood has a new fan!’ Colleen Hoover‘Quirky and romantic and oh so gorgeously memorable – I only wish I’d written it first! I lost a whole day to it and I don’t regret a second’ Josie Silver‘A gorgeously addictive romp of a romantic comedy, with added magic. I adored it’ Clare Pooley‘How To Lose a Guy in Ten Days meets Ghost … Original and romantic – I loved it’ Sophie Cousens‘An utterly charming romcom that is as hilarious as it is poignant. Reading this book is like receiving a big hug from a dear friend’ Carley Fortune‘A romantic, tender and hilarious page-turner. Every page will bring you joy’ Cathy Bramley‘Kirsty writes like a witty dream. She’s the real deal.’ Mhairi McFarlane‘Reading it is like hanging out with your funniest and cleverest best friend – I never wanted it to end’ Isabelle BroomThe Love of My Afterlife is my dream book and I can’t wait for everyone on the planet to read and love it as much as me’ Lucy Vine‘One of the most life-affirming books I’ve read’ Cressida McLaughlin‘So smart and so joyous’ Lia Louis‘Kirsty Greenwood is the funniest, freshest romcom writer in the genre’ Cesca Major‘Funny, joyful, uplifting, page-turning and unpredictable. This will undoubtedly be one of the biggest books of 2024’ Becky Hunter‘I'm going to be telling every person in my life to read this book’ Alicia Thompson‘A truly dreamy love story. I adored every page’ Uzma Jalaluddin

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Love Your Life

Sophie Kinsella

An utterly delightful novel about a woman who ditches her dating app for a writer's retreat in Italy--only to find that real love comes with its own filters Call Ava romantic, but she thinks love should be found in the real world, not on apps that filter men by height, job, or astrological sign. She believes in feelings, not algorithms. So after a recent breakup and dating app debacle, she decides to put love on hold and escapes to a remote writers' retreat in coastal Italy. She's determined to finish writing the novel she's been fantasizing about, even though it means leaving her close-knit group of friends and her precious dog, Harold, behind. At the retreat, she's not allowed to use her real name or reveal any personal information. When the neighboring martial arts retreat is canceled and a few of its attendees join their small writing community, Ava, now going by "Aria," meets "Dutch," a man who seems too good to be true. The two embark on a baggage-free, whirlwind love affair, cliff-jumping into gem-colored Mediterranean waters and exploring the splendor of the Italian coast. Things seem to be perfect for Aria and Dutch. But then their real identities--Ava and Matt--must return to London. As their fantasy starts to fade, they discover just how different their personal worlds are. From food choices to annoying habits to sauna etiquette . . . are they compatible in anything? And then there's the prickly situation with Matt's ex-girlfriend, who isn't too eager to let him go. As one mishap follows another, it seems while they love each other, they just can't love each other's lives. Can they reconcile their differences to find one life together?

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