Recommendations based on "Fast Women"

Everyone in Shaker Heights was talking about it that summer: how Isabelle, the last of the Richardson children, had finally gone around the bend and burned the house down.In Shaker Heights, a placid, progressive suburb of Cleveland, everything is meticulously planned - from the layout of the winding roads, to the colours of the houses, to the successful lives its residents will go on to lead. And no one embodies this spirit more than Elena Richardson, whose guiding principle is playing by the rules.Enter Mia Warren - an enigmatic artist and single mother- who arrives in this idyllic bubble with her teenage daughter Pearl, and rents a house from the Richardsons. Soon Mia and Pearl become more than just tenants: all four Richardson children are drawn to the mother-daughter pair. But Mia carries with her a mysterious past, and a disregard for the rules that threatens to upend this carefully ordered community.When old family friends attempt to adopt a Chinese-American baby, a custody battle erupts that dramatically divides the town - and puts Mia and Elena on opposing sides. Suspicious of Mia and her motives, Elena is determined to uncover the secrets in Mia's past. But her obsession will come at an unexpected and devastating cost . . .

"Think of the White Gloves like the Junior League-by way of Skull and Bones?"Reluctant debutante Sawyer Taft joined Southern high society for one reason and one reason alone: to identify and locate her biological father. But the answers Sawyer found during her debutante year only left her with more questions and one potentially life-ruining secret. When her cousin Lily ropes her into pledging a mysterious, elite, and all-female secret society called the White Gloves, Sawyer soon discovers that someone in the group's ranks may have the answers she's looking for. Things are looking up... until Sawyer and the White Gloves make a disturbing discover near the family's summer home--and uncover a twisted secret, decades in the making.No one is quite who they seem to be.

From the author of Here One Moment and The Husband’s Secret comes the #1 New York Times bestselling novel about the dangerous little lies we tell ourselves just to survive.THE INSPIRATION FOR THE AWARD-WINNING HBO® SERIES STARRING REESE WITHERSPOON, NICOLE KIDMAN, SHAILENE WOODLEY, LAURA DERN, ZOË KRAVITZ, AND MERYL STREEP—AVAILABLE TO STREAM ON MAX®A murder...A tragic accident...Or just parents behaving badly? What’s indisputable is that someone is dead.Madeline is a force to be reckoned with. She’s funny, biting, and passionate; she remembers everything and forgives no one. Celeste is the kind of beautiful woman who makes the world stop and stare but she is paying a price for the illusion of perfection. New to town, single mom Jane is so young that another mother mistakes her for a nanny. She comes with a mysterious past and a sadness beyond her years. These three women are at different crossroads, but they will all wind up in the same shocking place.Big Little Lies is a brilliant take on ex-husbands and second wives, mothers and daughters, schoolyard scandal, and the little lies that can turn lethal.

#1 New York Times bestselling author Nora Roberts exposes a proud family’s deadly secrets in this passionate tale of two Napa Valley rivals...PR executive Sophia Giambelli loves her job and has never worried about competition. For three generations, her family’s wines have been world-renowned for their quality. But things are about to change at Villa Giambelli. Tereza, the matriarch, has announced a merger with the MacMillan family’s winery—and Sophia will be assuming a new role.As a savvy businesswoman, Sophia knows she must be prepared for anything...but she isn’t prepared for Tyler MacMillan. They’ve been ordered to work together very closely, to facilitate the merger. Sophia must teach Ty the finer points of marketing—and Ty, in turn, shows her how to get down and dirty, to use the sun, rain, and earth to coax the sweetest grapes from the vineyard.As they toil together, both in and out of the fields, Sophia is torn between a powerful attraction and a professional rivalry. At the end of the season, the course of the company’s future—and the legacy of the villa—may take an entirely new direction. And when acts of sabotage threaten both the family business and the family itself, Sophia’s quest will be not only for dominance, but also for survival.

The provocative and hilarious summer read that will have book lovers cheering and everyone talking! Kirsten Miller, author of The Change, brings us a bracing, wildly entertaining satire about a small Southern town, a pitched battle over banned books, and a little lending library that changes everything.Beverly Underwood and her arch enemy, Lula Dean, live in the tiny town of Troy, Georgia, where they were born and raised. Now Beverly is on the school board, and Lula has become a local celebrity by embarking on mission to rid the public libraries of all inappropriate books—none of which she’s actually read. To replace the “pornographic” books she’s challenged at the local public library, Lula starts her own lending library in front of her home: a cute wooden hutch with glass doors and neat rows of the worthy literature that she’s sure the town’s readers need.But Beverly’s daughter Lindsay sneaks in by night and secretly fills Lula Dean’s little free library with banned books wrapped in “wholesome” dust jackets. The Girl’s Guide to the Revolution is wrapped in the cover of The Southern Belle’s Guide to Etiquette. A jacket that belongs to Our Confederate Heroes ends up on Beloved. One by one, neighbors who borrow books from Lula Dean’s library find their lives changed in unexpected ways. Finally, one of Lula Dean’s enemies discovers the library and decides to turn the tables on her, just as Lula and Beverly are running against each other to replace the town’s disgraced mayor.That’s when all the townspeople who’ve been borrowing from Lula’s library begin to reveal themselves. It’s a diverse and surprising bunch—including the local postman, the prom queen, housewives, a farmer, and the former DA—all of whom have been changed by what they’ve read. When Lindsay is forced to own up to what she’s done, the showdown that’s been brewing between Beverly and Lula will roil the whole town...and change it forever.

"The best book of the summer." -- InStyle"I LOVED this novel....If you have ever sung along to a hit on the radio, in any decade, then you will devour Mary Jane at 45 rpm." —Nick HornbyAlmost Famous meets Daisy Jones & The Six in this "delightful" (New York Times Book Review) novel about a fourteen-year-old girl’s coming of age in 1970s Baltimore, caught between her straight-laced family and the progressive family she nannies for—who happen to be secretly hiding a famous rock star and his movie star wife for the summer.In 1970s Baltimore, fourteen-year-old Mary Jane loves cooking with her mother, singing in her church choir, and enjoying her family’s subscription to the Broadway Showtunes of the Month record club. Shy, quiet, and bookish, she’s glad when she lands a summer job as a nanny for the daughter of a local doctor. A respectable job, Mary Jane’s mother says. In a respectable house.The house may look respectable on the outside, but inside it’s a literal and figurative mess: clutter on every surface, Impeachment: Now More Than Ever bumper stickers on the doors, cereal and takeout for dinner. And even more troublesome (were Mary Jane’s mother to know, which she does not): the doctor is a psychiatrist who has cleared his summer for one important job—helping a famous rock star dry out. A week after Mary Jane starts, the rock star and his movie star wife move in.Over the course of the summer, Mary Jane introduces her new household to crisply ironed clothes and a family dinner schedule, and has a front-row seat to a liberal world of sex, drugs, and rock and roll (not to mention group therapy). Caught between the lifestyle she’s always known and the future she’s only just realized is possible, Mary Jane will arrive at September with a new idea about what she wants out of life, and what kind of person she’s going to be.

“Girl Next Door is everything I love. Complex characters, a prickly love interest, secrets, yearning, questionable decisions, and that glorious HEA. A tender, funny, sexy novel.” — Ashley Herring Blake, author of Delilah Green Doesn't CareIn this charming debut rom-com, a young freelancer returns to her suburban hometown to uncover why her childhood next door neighbor’s bestselling book appears to be an epic love story about the two of them.When MC Calloway’s best friend Joe, an editor at the notorious gossip website Jawbreaker, calls her in for an emergency meeting, MC is unprepared for how frantic he is. But when he shows her a copy of Girl Next Door, the steamy, bestselling rom-com taking the literary world by storm, written under a pen name, points to one of the women on the front cover, and says, “that's you,” its MC who begins to panic.Joe is convinced that the author is Nora Pike, MC's prickly, childhood next-door neighbor, and their former high school classmate – and MC knows he’s right, since the book describes actual events that happened their senior year, down to the tiniest details. But in the book, the characters based on MC and Nora are desperately in love, rather than the awkward acquaintances MC remembers being in real life.Joe begs MC to go home undercover and get the scoop on Nora. That’s the last thing MC wants to do, especially for an assignment that seems morally dubious at best, but she reluctantly agrees, knowing Joe is desperate to break a big story. Crashing in her childhood home with her older brother Conrad (now married to MC's secret high school crush, Gabby), MC begins untangling truth from fiction, trying to get close to Nora, who is just as hot and prickly as ever – and now suspicious of MC to boot. But the more involved she gets with Nora, the more it becomes clear they’re both hiding secrets . . . and MC realizes she might be in over her head.Perfect for readers of Delilah Green Doesn't Care and Book Lovers, Girl Next Door is a delicious debut brimming with romance, humor, and heart.

Passion, redemption, and a battered suitcase full of secrets- the New York Times-bestselling author of A Hundred Summersreturns with another engrossing tale. Manhattan, 1964. Vivian Schuyler, newly graduated from Bryn Mawr College, has recently defied the privilege of her storied old Fifth Avenue family to do the unthinkable for a budding Kennedy-era socialite- break into the Mad Menworld of razor-stylish Metropolitanmagazine. But when she receives a bulky overseas parcel in the mail, the unexpected contents draw her inexorably back into her family's past, and the hushed-over crime passionnelof an aunt she never knew, whose existence has been wiped from the record of history. Berlin, 1914. Violet Schuyler Grant endures her marriage to the philandering and decades-older scientist Dr. Walter Grant for one reason- for all his faults, he provides the necessary support to her liminal position as a young American female physicist in prewar Germany. The arrival of Dr. Grant's magnetic former student at the beginning of Europe's fateful summer interrupts this delicate détente. Lionel Richardson, a captain in the British Army, challenges Violet to escape her husband's perverse hold, and as the world edges into war and Lionel's shocking true motives become evident, Violet is tempted to take the ultimate step to set herself free and seek a life of her own conviction with a man whose cause is as audacious as her own. As the iridescent and fractured Vivian digs deeper into her aunt's past and the mystery of her ultimate fate, Violet's story of determination and desire unfolds, shedding light on the darkness of her years abroad . . . and teaching Vivian to reach forward with grace for the ambitious future - - and the love - - she wants most. Praise for A Hundred Summers 'This year's big beach read . . . Elegant, old-fashioned delayed-gratification seaside romance with a flavour of Daphne du Maurier.' Kirkus Reviews 'Summer of 1930- A scandalous love triangle and a famous hurricane converge in a New England beach community. Add in a betrayal between friends, a marriage for money, and a Yankee pitcher, and it's a perfect storm.' Good Housekeeping 'A Hundred Summersdelivers swoons and intrigue against the backdrop of the 1938 New England hurricane. . . . Williams evokes the era effortlessly and delights in ripping the rug out from under the reader just when the riddles seem easiest to solve. Filled with delicious scandals, catty socialites, and true love, this beach read deserves pride of place in every vacationer's tote bag.' Shelf Awareness 'Williams' sweeping saga of betrayal, sacrifice, and redemption trenchantly examines the often duplicitous nature of female friendships and family friendships.' Booklist 'Smart, delicious writing . . . Williams adds a signature touch of historic drama.' Library Journal 'Novels as masterfully done as A Hundred Summerscome along only about that often. Beatriz Williams delivers an intricately woven tale of friendship, betrayal, old families, and closely guarded secrets. It is what every beach book should aspire to be - smart and engrossing.' Elin Hilderbrand, author of Beautiful Day

The Perfect Neighbor by Nora Roberts released on Dec 25, 2001 is available now for purchase.

Candy Apple books . . . just for you. Sweet. Fresh. Fun. Take a bite! Jenna Sampson, perfectly normal seventh grader and editor of the school newspaper, is mortified. Her parents are opening a super-embarrassing juice bar at the mall. Jenna has to work there . . . and wear a ridiculous uniform. She's pretty sure her life can't get worse, until she finds out that the school paper might shut down. But the gossip Jenna overhears from the juice bar is totally newsworthy, which gives her a great idea. A gossip column could be a huge hit and save the paper --- or cause a ton of trouble!