Therese Beharrie's One Day to Fall - I loved this story of two somewhat cranky people who run into each other at the hospital and have to deal with altered family relationships and figuring out their new place and if they even have time to think smoochie thoughts at each other.
Caitlin Crews' A Baby to Bind His Bride - For those familiar with the Presents line, this is bonkers in the way of Presents in that a woman shows up at a commune to discover her husband who was presumed dead in the hopes of being like, cool, cool, please take your awful family back and I'll be on my way. And then of course she ends up pregnant and they have to figure basically everything out. There is some imprisonment, because Presents dudes are terribly controlling. I felt the groveling balance made up for it, but YMMV.
Olivia Dade's Teach Me - We read this for romance book group, and it was everything I had hoped for. Full disclosure, I am friends with Dade. This book about two teachers of a certain age navigating a shifting school year, divorce (more recent for him), and what it might mean if they fell in love was just delightful. My angst meter is very broken. But to me this felt low angst, there were career concerns, and of course, can I trust happy concerns, but this demonstration of mature people falling in love was a delight.
Claire Kann's If it Makes You Happy - I loved this Gilmore Girls-esque story of a young Black woman going to visit her grandmother for the summer, and ending up in a summer royalty situation where her ungirlfriend and her possible crush compete for her attention. Warning: Her grandmother and others do participate in some fatphobic behavior. She handles it well, but it is tough.
Aminah Mae Safi's Tell Me How You Really Feel - Breaking the alphabet because to me this paired so well with the Claire Kann book. Also Gilmore Girls-esque, but if what you really wanted was Rory and Paris to be a enemies to girlfriends style couple. Sana keeps firing the lead in her movie, so her film club advisor forces her to cast Rachel.
Justin A. Reynolds' The Opposite of Always - I listened to this book on audio so it took me perhaps longer than it should've to figure out what was happening. But it is essentially a longer term Groundhog Day, so he has longer to figure out if the tweaks to this run through have been more or less successful.
Ruby Lang's Playing House - I adored this story of two New York urban planners finding each other at various open houses and then discovering that maybe there is something there. Sure, come for the real estate nerdery, but stay for the moment where a mom tells her kid in front of the siblings that they were right.
Tara Pammi's An Innocent to Tame the Italian - This is also a Presents, and also bonkers. She hacks his system, he locates her and basically is like so now I need you to both patch my security and be my fake fiancee. And off they go.
Daniel H. Pink's When - A number of people recommended Pink to me. This one looked at the way we've designed timing and how that does and doesn't work for many people. I did the audio and found some useful tidbits.
Becca Syme's Dear Writer You Need to Quit - Syme and I met when we both worked on a contest together, and I've admired her posts on how knowing yourself can lead you to better sort through the conflicting productivity advice out there. She in this book, and in the Quitcast podcast focus on writers, but I think a lot of this advice works for other folks to.
Olivia Waite's The Lady's Guide to Celestial Mechanics - This book did everything I had hoped for when Waite first announced a story with an embroiderer and an astonomer. The ideas about who gets to be at the table, why it always looks like the women there are just listening, and what it means to face publicity.
