Recommendations based on "If You Only Knew"

The Rachel Incident is an all-consuming love story. But it's not the one you're expecting. It's unconventional and messy. It's young and foolish. It's about losing and finding yourself. But it is always about love.When Rachel falls in love with her married professor, Dr Byrne, her best friend James helps her devise a plan to seduce him. But what begins as a harmless crush soon pushes their friendship to its limits. Over the course of a year they will find their lives ever more entwined with the Byrnes' and be faced with impossible choices and a lie that can't be taken back...

Trent Dalton, Australia's best-loved writer, goes out into the world and asks a simple, direct 'Can you please tell me a love story?'A blind man yearns to see the face of his wife of thirty years. A divorced mother has a secret love affair with a travelling priest. A widower miraculously finds a three-minute video recorded by his wife before she died. A tree lopper's heart falls in a forest. A working mum contemplates taking the photographs of her late husband down from the fridge. A girl writes her last letter to the man she loves, then sets it on fire. An ageing gigolo regrets the one that got away. A palliative care nurse helps a dying woman converse with the angel at the end of her bed. A renowned 100-year-old scientist ponders the one great earthly puzzle he was never able to 'What is love?'Endless stories. Human stories. Love stories.Inspired by a personal moment of profound love and generosity, bestselling author – and one of Australia's finest journalists – Trent Dalton spent two months in 2021 pounding city pavements, speaking to Australians from all walks of life and asking them one simple and direct 'Can you please tell me a love story?' For two straight weeks he sat at a desk with a sky-blue 1960s Olivetti typewriter, on the bustling corner of Adelaide and Albert streets, Brisbane, with a sign saying, 'Sentimental writer collecting love stories. Do you have one to share?'The result is Love Stories – a warm, wise, poignant, funny and moving book about love in all its guises, including stories, observations and reflections on lovers in parks; people in cemeteries, hospital wards, pubs and bingo halls; and newlyweds walking out of registry offices. There will be stories of people falling into love, falling out of love, and never letting go of the loved ones in their hearts. And woven through it all will be remembrances of Trent's own special moments, and of the people whose love stories have made him the man and writer he is today.A heartfelt, deep, funny, wise and tingly tribute to the greatest thing we will never understand and the only thing we will ever really love.

From the author of the phenomenal bestseller The Keeper of Stories, comes the next uplifting story of how the most unexpected friendships are forged in the most unlikely of places . . .Jo Sorsby knows she is hiding from her past when she steps in to look after her uncle’s stationery shop. Glimpsing the lives of her customers between the warm wooden shelves, as they scribble notes with fountain pens and browse colourful notebooks, distracts her from the life she has left behind.Yet far from home, Jo feels adrift . . .When she meets Ruth, a vicar running from a secret, and Malcolm, a septuagenarian struggling to write his first book, she realises that she isn’t alone.It’s the beginning of a friendship that can transform Jo’s life . . . if only she can let them in.

Shortlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction!"Brilliantly faceted and extremely funny. . . . While I was reading it, I was making a list of all the people I wanted to send it to, until I realized that I wanted to send it to everyone I know." — Ann PatchettThe internationally bestselling sensation, a compulsively readable novel—spiky, sharp, intriguingly dark, and tender—that Emma Straub has named one of her favorite books of the yearMartha Friel just turned forty. Once, she worked at Vogue and planned to write a novel. Now, she creates internet content. She used to live in a pied-à-terre in Paris. Now she lives in a gated community in Oxford, the only person she knows without a PhD, a baby or both, in a house she hates but cannot bear to leave. But she must leave, now that her husband Patrick—the kind who cooks, throws her birthday parties, who loves her and has only ever wanted her to be happy—has just moved out.Because there’s something wrong with Martha, and has been for a long time. When she was seventeen, a little bomb went off in her brain and she was never the same. But countless doctors, endless therapy, every kind of drug later, she still doesn’t know what’s wrong, why she spends days unable to get out of bed or alienates both strangers and her loved ones with casually cruel remarks.And she has nowhere to go except her childhood home: a bohemian (dilapidated) townhouse in a romantic (rundown) part of London—to live with her mother, a minorly important sculptor (and major drinker) and her father, a famous poet (though unpublished) and try to survive without the devoted, potty-mouthed sister who made all the chaos bearable back then, and is now too busy or too fed up to deal with her.But maybe, by starting over, Martha will get to write a better ending for herself—and she’ll find out that she’s not quite finished after all.

From the wildly popular bestselling author of The Keeper of Lost Things—an uplifting, slightly magical story about how it’s never too late to find out who you really are."Ruth Hogan is the queen of uplifting fiction and Madame Burova reminds us why. The writing crackles with humor and warmth. I can't imagine a better book in which to lose yourself at the moment. Stunning, immersive and absolutely wonderful." --Annie Lyons, author of The Brilliant Life of Eudora HoneysettMadame Burova—beloved Tarot reader, palmist, and clairvoyant—is retiring and leaving her booth on the Brighton seafront.After inheriting her mother’s fortune-telling business as a young woman, Imelda Burova has spent her life on the Brighton pier practicing her trade. She and her trusty pack of Tarot cards have seen the lovers and the liars, the angels and the devils, the dreamers and the fools. Now, after a lifetime of keeping other people’s secrets, Madam Burova is ready to have a little piece of life for herself. But she still has one last thing to do—to fulfill a promise made in the 1970s, when she and her girlfriends were carefree, with their whole lives still before them.In London, it is time for another woman to make a fresh start. Billie has lost her university job, her marriage, and her place in the world when a sudden and unlikely discovery leaves her very identity in question. Determined to find answers, she must follow a trail…which leads to Brighton, the pier, and directly to Madame Burova’s door.In a story spanning over fifty years, Ruth Hogan has conjured a magical world of 1970s holiday camps and seaside entertainers, eccentrics, heroes and villains, the lost and the found. Young people will make careless choices which echo down the years….but it’s never too late to put things right.

‘A superb writer…the Irish Jojo Moyes’ Irish ExaminerThe simple fact of the matter is that Iris loves life. Maybe she’s forgotten that. Sometimes that happens, doesn’t it? To the best of us?All I have to do is remind her of that one simple fact.When Iris Armstrong goes missing, her best friend Terry, wife, mother and all-round worrier, is convinced something bad has happened.And when she finds her glamorous, feisty friend, she’s right: Iris is setting out on a journey that she plans to make her last.The only way for Terry to stop Iris is to join her, on a road trip that will take her, Iris and Terry’s confused father Eugene onto a ferry, across the Irish sea and into an adventure that will change all of their lives.Somehow what should be the worst six days of Terry’s life turn into the best.

New York Times BestsellerThe beloved actress and star of One Tree Hill, White Collar, and Lethal Weapon, Hilarie Burton Morgan, tells the story of leaving Hollywood for a radically different kind of life in upstate New York with her husband Jeffrey Dean Morgan—a celebration of community, family, and the value of hard work in small town America.While Hilarie Burton Morgan's hectic lifestyle as an actress in New York and Los Angeles gave her a comfortable life, it did not fulfill her spiritually or emotionally. After the birth of their first son, she and her husband Jeffrey Dean Morgan, the star of The Walking Dead, decided to make a major change: they bought a working farm in Rhinebeck, New York, and began a new chapter in their lives.The Rural Diaries chronicles her inspiring story of farm life: chopping wood, making dandelion wine, building chicken coops. Burton looks back at her transition from urban to country living—discovering how to manage a farm while raising her son and making friends with her new neighbors. She mixes charming stories of learning to raise alpacas and buying and revitalizing the town’s beloved candy store, Samuel’s Sweet Shop, with raw observations on the ups and downs of marriage and her struggles with secondary infertility. Burton also includes delicious recipes that can be made with fresh ingredients at home, as well as home renovation and gardening tips.Burton’s charisma, wide eyed attitude, and fortitude—both internal and physical—propels this moving story of transformation and self-discovery. The Rural Diaries honors the values and lifestyle of small-town America and offers inspiration for anyone longing to embark on their own unconventional journey.

From the New York Times bestselling author of The Giver of Stars and the forthcoming Someone Else's Shoes, a novel about a lost girl and her horse, the enduring strength of friendship, and how even the smallest choices can change everythingWhen Sarah’s grandfather gives her a beautiful horse named Boo—hoping that one day she’ll follow in his footsteps to join an elite French riding school, away from their gritty London neighborhood—she quietly trains in city’s parks and alleys. But then her grandfather falls ill, and Sarah must juggle horsemanship with school and hospital visits.Natasha, a young lawyer, is reeling after her failed marriage: her professional judgment is being questioned, her new boyfriend is a let-down, and she’s forced to share her house with her charismatic ex-husband. Yet when the willful fourteen-year-old Sarah lands in her path, Natasha decides to take the girl under her wing.But Sarah is keeping a secret—a secret that will change the lives of everyone involved forever.

"Wreck is a delight. What an absolute joy to be reunited with Rocky and her family, the characters we all fell in love with in Sandwich. Newman's prose is laugh-out-loud funny. It's also profound. I couldn't stop reading, even though I didn't want it to end."--J. Courtney Sullivan, New York Times bestselling author of The Cliffs "Wreck is the kind of book that pulls up a chair, pours the wine, and dives deep--equal parts hilarious, sharp, and achingly sincere. I didn't just read it--I felt known by it. A luminous, laugh-out-loud triumph."--Alison Espach, New York Times bestselling author of The Wedding People The acclaimed bestselling author of Sandwich is back with a wonderful novel, full of laughter and heart, about marriage, family, and what happens when life doesn't go as planned. If you loved Rocky and her family on vacation on Cape Cod, wait until you join them at home two years later. (And if this is your first meeting with this crew, get ready to laugh and cry--and relate.) Rocky, still anxious, nostalgic, and funny, is living in Western Massachusetts with her husband Nick and their daughter Willa, who's back home after college. Their son, Jamie, has taken a new job in New York, and Mort, Rocky's widowed father, has moved in. It all couldn't be more ridiculously normal . . . until Rocky finds herself obsessed with a local accident that only tangentially affects them--and with a medical condition that, she hopes, won't affect them at all. With her signature wit and wisdom, Catherine Newman explores the hidden rules of family, the heavy weight of uncertainty, and the gnarly fact that people--no matter how much you love them--are not always exactly who you want them to be.

This summer, escape to the Seaside Cottages in the Scottish isles with this delightful mother-daughter story about second chances in love, life, and home renovations, by New York Times bestselling author Jenny Colgan. EVERYONE IS SEARCHING FOR THEIR PERFECT HOUSE. BUT HOME IS REALLY WHERE THE HEART IS... Janey Carter has a lot to be grateful for--a home by the sea in the Scottish isles, a job that she loves, two kids who have successfully launched, and a network of kind and supportive friends. But since her husband left, her confidence has taken a nosedive. And then, out of the blue, her thirty-year-old daughter Essie announces she's moving back home. Janey loves Essie dearly, but she was never the easiest to live with, and Janie has been enjoying the empty nest life. Yes, Essie Carter has just lost her job, can't afford her rent in Edinburgh, and her boyfriend isn't ready to commit. She hates to admit defeat and isn't wild about moving back to the remote island community where she was raised. But maybe the sea air will clear her head? No sooner is Essie back under her mother's roof than an unusual opportunity pops up: the shabby and unloved Seaside Cottages next door come up for sale. Janey has some experience renovating the island's famous stone fisherman's cottages, Essie needs something to do, and they could both use a little Air B&B income to warm their pockets. Mother and daughter slowly bond over the shared challenge, which delivers some much-needed revelations for Essie, and offers Janey a surprise second chance at love as well. "If I could live in a Jenny Colgan novel, I'd be happy forever." -- bestselling author Jill Mansell