This charming romance flips the Notting Hill script—Gabe Parker is the hunky Hollywood star, while Chani Horowitz is the every-day girl—and adds an extra dash of social-media-celeb-obsession fun.

Chani writes a profile of Gabe Parker, the Hollywood himbo who’s trying to nab the role of the new James Bond. Chani’s profile goes viral and is so intimate and engaging, readers are left wondering—did they or didn’t they? When Gabe runs off literally the next day and marries the hottest Hollywood starlet, most assume they didn’t.

Plagued by the success of the profile—and its assumption that all she can write are puff pieces—Chani is hesitant to write about Gabe ten years later…after his fall from Hollywood’s grace due to his divorce and several rehab stints. Yet it seems like the original chemistry is still alive. Now did they or didn’t they becomes will they or won’t they?

I really enjoyed this romance. It takes a familiar trope and shakes things up, focusing on Chani and Gabe’s individual growth, which we see as it switches between the past and present. Chani can at times seem too timid, yet the seeds of that discontent become clearer later in the story. Sussman’s writing is funny, heartfelt, and perfectly in tune with the gloss of celebrity culture and the humanity that can be found beneath the glitz. Pick this one up, you won’t regret it!

I was completely charmed by this sweet, funny romance! Hallmarkish-romance-screenwriter Nora Hamilton has been burned…by a good-for-nothing ex-husband who up and leaves her and their two kids when she dares suggest he actually work and help with the family bills. She channels her anger and pain into the best script of her life—one that gets her a movie deal, including a three-day film shoot at her house. Little does she expect to become enamored by Leo Vance—the Hollywood heartthrob who, nursing some emotional baggage of his own, decides to stay at her house for a few weeks. While there he, surprisingly, fits in quite well with her ordered yet quiet family life. Still, he IS a product of Hollywood…will their romance be able to survive outside their homey oasis?

A great mix of romantic fantasy and real-life touches (schlepping kids to activities, planning dinners, dealing with money woes, etc.), this book is a great summer read and a wonderful addition to the romance genre. Monaghan’s writing is pitch-perfect: wonderfully descriptive and smoothly conversational. And who can resist the addition of cute kids? This one’s a keeper.

An intimate exploration of grief and loss, this novel drew me in from the beginning and kept me interested throughout. Young Sally Holt is enamored of her older sister Kathy, particularly Kathy's obsession with Billy Barnes, a local boy. After a horrible accident takes Kathy from her, Sally must deal with grief and the normal struggles of coming-of-age. This intimate story explores Sally's specific grief and common themes of loss. The forever connection she shares with Billy is a strong storyline, too.

Sally is a fully fleshed out character who comes to life within the pages. I loved how this novel explores loss, but also presents it as a very specific experience to this one girl. At first I felt that Sally's romance with Billy was a little too convenient, but Espach did a wonderful job rooting it in reality and the connection of shared trauma. At times the parental characters seemed like caricatures, but that might have been because Sally was so distinctly drawn. This one kept me thinking about it long after I was done reading. An immersive, engaging book!

Inspired by an Idaho road marker author Zhang saw about five Chinese immigrants lynched in the late 1800s, this novel is a propulsive feat of historical fiction.

Daiyu is a young Chinese girl whose parents are taken by the government. Her grandmother disguises her as a boy and sends her away from certain death. Daiyu finds refuge in a bustling town, but her temporary reprieve is extinguished when she's kidnapped and sent to the American West. Here, she endures not only harrowing struggles to survive, but also racist atrocities fueled by The Chinese Expulsion Act.

This isn't an easy book it read. Daiyu's struggles, at times, seem particularly unrelenting, yet it's a credit to Zhang's prose that the moments of levity, joy, and love feel as vivid as the pain and tragedy. Daiyu's connection with her namesake imbued the book with a mystical tone that was also engaging.

While hard to read in many parts, this is an engrossing book that kept me riveted. A powerful debut!

Yasmin Ghorami is a doctor living in London who's engaged to her colleague Joe. While planning her wedding, she must navigate the differences in culture between her Indian family and his white one (especially his feminist mother). She must also work to find her own identity amidst a structured life of familial expectation and a family teeming with secrets.

Yasmin is complex--she's a mix of frustrating and commendable characteristics, which make her especially real. The people in her orbit--Joe, Joe's feminist mother Harriet, her parents, her brother and colleagues--are also vividly rendered. This engaging novel offers sharp social commentary, while also presenting a complex female character whose struggle to find her voice and true self is all too real.

With a deft and comedic hand, Ali explores themes of sex, marriage, love, racism, and identity--and the result is this funny, fresh, and engaging contemporary novel.

What an ingenious idea for a whodunit! Take most of the heroes and heroines from Jane Austen's books and force them together during a house party at Emma and Knightley's house. Next, add Wickham, make him as smarmy and slimy as ever, and have someone murder him. Add to this mystery, a romance plotline between next-gen Austen characters John Darcy and Juliet Tilney, and get ready for Austen fans to squee. I mean, any super-fan of Austen (like myself) should totally eat this up, right? I'm sad to say I didn't, and I'm still wondering why.

There are a ton of characters in this novel, and to see the "after" of the various Austen marriages is lovely, yet it's too overstuffed to truly make an impact. The plotting is a bit all over the place, too. Add to that the idea that any of my favorite characters would murder a person--even someone as odious as Wickham--and I didn't really want the mystery to be solved. I also think that with everyone together at once, the individual Austen characters and couples lost the charm they had in their own novels.

I will say, author Gray does a wonderful job getting their personalities in line with Austen's work. Yet, there are so many characters, each hero and heroine really doesn't get much time to shine. The resolution of the mystery was OK, yet I still expected more from this clever idea. I'm upset I didn't connect with the novel as much as I had hoped to.