Recommendations based on "Really Good, Actually"

“This is one of my coziest reads of the last year, and I find myself thinking about its enchanted setting all the time.” - Emily Henry, #1 New York Times bestselling authorA warm and uplifting novel about an isolated witch whose opportunity to embrace a quirky new family—and a new love—changes the course of her life.As one of the few witches in Britain, Mika Moon knows she has to hide her magic, keep her head down, and stay away from other witches so their powers don’t mingle and draw attention. And as an orphan who lost her parents at a young age and was raised by strangers, she’s used to being alone and she follows the rules...with one exception: an online account, where she posts videos "pretending" to be a witch. She thinks no one will take it seriously.But someone does. An unexpected message arrives, begging her to travel to the remote and mysterious Nowhere House to teach three young witches how to control their magic. It breaks all of the rules, but Mika goes anyway, and is immediately tangled up in the lives and secrets of not only her three charges, but also an absent archaeologist, a retired actor, two long-suffering caretakers, and…Jamie. The handsome and prickly librarian of Nowhere House would do anything to protect the children, and as far as he’s concerned, a stranger like Mika is a threat. An irritatingly appealing threat.As Mika begins to find her place at Nowhere House, the thought of belonging somewhere begins to feel like a real possibility. But magic isn't the only danger in the world, and when peril comes knocking at their door, Mika will need to decide whether to risk everything to protect a found family she didn’t know she was looking for....

AN INSTANT #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER!Named a Most Anticipated book of 2024 by TIME ∙ The New York Times ∙ Goodreads ∙ Entertainment Weekly ∙ Today ∙ Paste ∙ SheReads ∙ BookPage ∙ Woman's World ∙ The Nerd Daily and more!A shimmering, joyful new novel about a pair of opposites with the wrong thing in common, from #1 New York Times bestselling author Emily Henry.Daphne always loved the way her fiancé Peter told their story. How they met (on a blustery day), fell in love (over an errant hat), and moved back to his lakeside hometown to begin their life together. He really was good at telling it…right up until the moment he realized he was actually in love with his childhood best friend Petra.Which is how Daphne begins her new story: Stranded in beautiful Waning Bay, Michigan, without friends or family but with a dream job as a children’s librarian (that barely pays the bills), and proposing to be roommates with the only person who could possibly understand her predicament: Petra’s ex, Miles Nowak.Scruffy and chaotic—with a penchant for taking solace in the sounds of heart break love ballads—Miles is exactly the opposite of practical, buttoned up Daphne, whose coworkers know so little about her they have a running bet that she’s either FBI or in witness protection. The roommates mainly avoid one another, until one day, while drowning their sorrows, they form a tenuous friendship and a plan. If said plan also involves posting deliberately misleading photos of their summer adventures together, well, who could blame them?But it’s all just for show, of course, because there’s no way Daphne would actually start her new chapter by falling in love with her ex-fiancé’s new fiancée’s ex…right?

A special hardcover edition of Beach Read

NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALISTSHORT-LISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER PRIZEBrace yourself for the most astonishing, challenging, upsetting, and profoundly moving book in many a season. An epic about love and friendship in the twenty-first century that goes into some of the darkest places fiction has ever traveled and yet somehow improbably breaks through into the light. Truly an amazement—and a great gift for its readers.When four classmates from a small Massachusetts college move to New York to make their way, they're broke, adrift, and buoyed only by their friendship and ambition. There is kind, handsome Willem, an aspiring actor; JB, a quick-witted, sometimes cruel Brooklyn-born painter seeking entry to the art world; Malcolm, a frustrated architect at a prominent firm; and withdrawn, brilliant, enigmatic Jude, who serves as their center of gravity. Over the decades, their relationships deepen and darken, tinged by addiction, success, and pride. Yet their greatest challenge, each comes to realize, is Jude himself, by midlife a terrifyingly talented litigator yet an increasingly broken man, his mind and body scarred by an unspeakable childhood, and haunted by what he fears is a degree of trauma that he’ll not only be unable to overcome—but that will define his life forever.In rich and resplendent prose, Yanagihara has fashioned a tragic and transcendent hymn to brotherly love, a masterful depiction of heartbreak, and a dark examination of the tyranny of memory and the limits of human endurance.

Yellowface by R. F. Kuang

A young woman is kept in a cage underground with thirty-nine other females, guarded by armed men who never speak; her crimes unremembered...if indeed there were crimes.The youngest of forty--a child with no name and no past--she survives for some purpose long forgotten in a world ravaged and wasted. In this reality where intimacy is forbidden--in the unrelenting sameness of the artificial days and nights--she knows nothing of books and time, of needs and feelings.Then everything changes...and nothing changes.A young woman who has never known men--a child who knows of no history before the bars and restraints--must now reinvent herself, piece by piece, in a place she has never been...and in the face of the most challenging and terrifying of unknowns: freedom. A young woman is kept in a cage underground with thirty-nine other females, guarded by armed men who never speak; her crimes unremembered...if indeed there were crimes.The youngest of forty--a child with no name and no past--she survives for some purpose long forgotten in a world ravaged and wasted. In this reality where intimacy is forbidden--in the unrelenting sameness of the artificial days and nights--she knows nothing of books and time, of needs and feelings.Then everything changes...and nothing changes.A young woman who has never known men--a child who knows of no history before the bars and restraints--must now reinvent herself, piece by piece, in a place she has never been...and in the face of the most challenging and terrifying of unknowns: freedom.

Three Estranged Siblings Return To Their Family Home In New York After Their Beloved Sister's Death In This Unforgettable Story Of Grief, Identity, And The Complexities Of Family, From The Acclaimed Author Of Cleopatra And Frankenstein. The Three Blue Sisters Are Exceptional - And Exceptionally Different. Avery, The Eldest And A Recovering Heroin Addict Turned Strait-laced Lawyer, Lives With Her Wife In London; Bonnie, A Former Boxer, Works As A Bouncer In Los Angeles Following A Devastating Defeat; And Lucky, The Youngest, Models In Paris While Trying To Outrun Her Hard-partying Ways. They Also Had A Fourth Sister, Nicky, Whose Unexpected Death Left Avery, Bonnie, And Lucky Reeling. A Year Later, As They Each Navigate Grief, Addiction, And Ambition, They Find They Must Return To New York To Stop The Sale Of The Apartment They Were Raised In. But Coming Home Is Never As Easy As It Seems. As The Sisters Reckon With The Disappointments Of Their Childhood And The Loss Of The Only Person Who Held Them Together, They Realize That The Greatest Secrets They've Been Keeping Might Not Have Been From Each Other, But From Themselves. Imbued With Coco Mellors's Signature Combination Of Humor And Heart, Blue Sisters Is A Story Of What It Takes To Keep Living After Loss - And, Ultimately, To Fall In Love With Life Again-- Provided By Publisher.

Laurie Gilmore’s global bestselling novel The Pumpkin Spice Cafe in a gorgeous deluxe hardcover edition featuring:🍂 Character-art cover design🍁 Foiled jacket🍂 Stunning original sprayed edges🍁 Brand new designed endpapers🍂 Foiled pumpkin-print boardWinner of the TikTok Shop Book of the Year 2024, Sunday Times and USA Today bestseller.As seen on Good Morning America!🍂🍁🍂🍂🍁🍂🍂🍁🍂‘Gives off the same level of endorphins as taking a sip of an actual pumpkin spice latte… all the makings of a top tier Hallmark movie that happens to include a nice dash of spice’―People‘With a name this cute and a cover this autumnal, how could I not cozy up with my blanket and relax with this adoring book?’―New York Post🍂🍁🍂🍂🍁🍂🍂🍁🍂When Jeanie’s aunt gifts her the beloved Pumpkin Spice Café in the small town of Dream Harbor, Jeanie jumps at the chance for a fresh start away from her very dull desk job.Logan is a local farmer who avoids Dream Harbor’s gossip at all costs. But Jeanie’s arrival disrupts Logan’s routine and he wants nothing to do with the irritatingly upbeat new girl, except that he finds himself inexplicably drawn to her.Will Jeanie’s happy-go-lucky attitude win over the grumpy-but-gorgeous Logan, or has this city girl found the one person in town who won’t fall for her charm, or her pumpkin spice lattes…The Pumpkin Spice Café is a cozy romantic novel with a grumpy x sunshine dynamic, a small-town setting and a HEA guaranteed!Tropes: Grumpy x Sunshine Small town Found family SpicyReaders have fallen for Dream Harbor, will you?'This is everything I love! Cozy small town romance, fall vibes, coffee house vibes, and grumpy x sunshine trope that was done perfectly!’ ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐‘Wonderful story with tears, laughter, mysteries, uncertainty and happiness’ ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐‘Compelling, cozy and delightful narrative’ ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐‘A charming small town romance with sizzling chemistry and plenty of spice’ ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐‘I LOVED THIS SO BAD. The vibes of the small town were immaculate, the cast of people around Jeanie and Logan amazing, the story soooo heartwarming’ ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐'Ooohh I adored this! Fall setting, small town, coffee shop, grumpy sunshine!’ ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐'This book makes my heart happy!’ ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐'As a lover of fall and small town romance, this book was the perfect kind of romance for me’ ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐'This was a gorgeous cinnamon spiced huge mug of psl and cozy jumpers and autumn leaves sort of a book’ ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Greta liked knowing people's secrets. That wasn't a problem. Until she met Big Swiss.Big Swiss. That's Greta's nickname for her - she is tall, and she is from Switzerland. Greta can see her now: dressed top to toe in white, that adorable gap between her two front teeth, her penetrating blue eyes. She's a head-turner: including the heads of infants and dogs.Well that's how Greta imagines seeing her; they haven't actually ever met in person. Nor has Greta actually ever been to Switzerland.Greta and Big Swiss are not in the same room, or even the same building. Greta is miles away, sitting at a desk in her own house, wearing only headphones, fingerless gloves, a kimono, and legwarmers, transcribing this disembodied voice.What Greta doesn't know is that she's about to bump into Big Swiss in the local dog park. A new - and not entirely honest - relationship is going to be born.A relationship that will transform both of their lives. . .'Big Swiss is a dark party; a hilarious romp through new age pop psychology, romantic obsession, sapphic acrobatics, dogs, and the desire to end it all . . .

Katabasis, noun, Ancient Greek. The story of a hero's descent to the underworld. Two academic rivals from Cambridge must travel to hell to rescue the soul of their advisor. Getting there was easy. Surviving it - and each other - is another thing entirely. 2025's most unexpected love story is going to be hell in the new novel by Sunday Times Numb[Bokinfo].