Recommendations based on "Starburst Effect"

From the New York Times bestselling author of On Mystic Lake comes a powerful novel of love, loss, and the magic of friendship. . . .In the turbulent summer of 1974, Kate Mularkey has accepted her place at the bottom of the eighth-grade social food chain. Then, to her amazement, the “coolest girl in the world” moves in across the street and wants to be her friend. Tully Hart seems to have it all---beauty, brains, ambition. On the surface they are as opposite as two people can be: Kate, doomed to be forever uncool, with a loving family who mortifies her at every turn. Tully, steeped in glamour and mystery, but with a secret that is destroying her. They make a pact to be best friends forever; by summer’s end they’ve become TullyandKate. Inseparable.So begins Kristin Hannah’s magnificent new novel. Spanning more than three decades and playing out across the ever-changing face of the Pacific Northwest, Firefly Lane is the poignant, powerful story of two women and the friendship that becomes the bulkhead of their lives.From the beginning, Tully is desperate to prove her worth to the world. Abandoned by her mother at an early age, she longs to be loved unconditionally. In the glittering, big-hair era of the eighties, she looks to men to fill the void in her soul. But in the buttoned-down nineties, it is television news that captivates her. She will follow her own blind ambition to New York and around the globe, finding fame and success . . . and loneliness.Kate knows early on that her life will be nothing special. Throughout college, she pretends to be driven by a need for success, but all she really wants is to fall in love and have children and live an ordinary life. In her own quiet way, Kate is as driven as Tully. What she doesn’t know is how being a wife and mother will change her . . . how she’ll lose sight of who she once was, and what she once wanted. And how much she’ll envy her famous best friend. . . .For thirty years, Tully and Kate buoy each other through life, weathering the storms of friendship---jealousy, anger, hurt, resentment. They think they’ve survived it all until a single act of betrayal tears them apart . . . and puts their courage and friendship to the ultimate test.Firefly Lane is for anyone who ever drank Boone’s Farm apple wine while listening to Abba or Fleetwood Mac. More than a coming-of-age novel, it’s the story of a generation of women who were both blessed and cursed by choices. It’s about promises and secrets and betrayals. And ultimately, about the one person who really, truly knows you---and knows what has the power to hurt you . . . and heal you. Firefly Lane is a story you’ll never forget . . . one you’ll want to pass on to your best friend.

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo and Daisy Jones & The Six comes an epic new novel set against the backdrop of the 1980s space shuttle program and the extraordinary lengths we go to live and love beyond our limits. Joan Goodwin has been obsessed with the stars for as long as she can remember. Thoughtful and reserved, Joan is content with her life as a professor of physics and astronomy at Rice University and as aunt to her precocious niece, Frances. That is, until she comes across an advertisement seeking the first women scientists to join NASA’s Space Shuttle Program. Suddenly, Joan burns to be one of the few people to go to space. Selected from a pool of thousands of applicants in the summer of 1980, Joan begins training at Houston’s Johnson Space Center, alongside an exceptional group of fellow candidates: Top Gun pilots Hank Redmond and John Griffin, who are kind and easy-going even when the stakes are highest; mission specialist Lydia Danes, who has worked too hard to play nice; warm-hearted Donna Fitzgerald, who is navigating her own secrets; and Vanessa Ford, the magnetic and mysterious aeronautical engineer, who can fix any engine and fly any plane. As the new astronauts become unlikely friends and prepare for their first flights, Joan finds a passion and a love she never imagined. In this new light, Joan begins to question everything she thinks she knows about her place in the observable universe. Then, in December of 1984, on mission STS-LR9, everything changes in an instant. Fast-paced, thrilling, and emotional, Atmosphere is Taylor Jenkins Reid at her best: transporting readers to iconic times and places, with complex protagonists, telling a passionate and soaring story about the transformative power of love, this time among the stars.

Ten-year-old Sunny Williams is resilient—she knows this because it’s what her beloved grandma, Nanna, always tells her. So when Nanna is put into a care home after her memory loss issues get worse and social workers intend to put Sunny and her seven-year-old brother, Miles, into a foster home, she takes charge and hatches a plan for them to avoid getting split up. Luckily, Sunny also realizes Nanna has left her a message in the form of their favorite story. With the help of their guide (and temporary guardian), Mr. Darrious Evens, and her best friend, Folake, Sunny embarks on a quest to collect the three magical ingredients that are sure to cure Nanna’s dementia and help them find their way home again. Mr. Evens also happens to be the choir director, and he encourages Sunny, with her beautiful singing voice, to perform in front of the school, even though Nanna isn’t there to cheer her on. Sunny’s quest to fix her nanna will lead her to understand herself and what’s important—and that home can be any place you feel loved.

A brand new romance set in Dream Harbor from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Pumpkin Spice Café and The Strawberry Patch Pancake House!

Four best friends, one lucky bracelet, and an utterly charming new middle-grade series!Caitlin would stay at summer camp forever if she could. Her new best friends in the world, Hannah, Mia, and Libby are there. And at home? Everything's different: Her dad is worried he might be losing his job; her mom is repainting the whole house and making the kids volunteer at a soup kitchen; and Caitlin is starting sixth grade at a new school, where none of the girls are as fun or friendly as her Cabin 7 BFFs. But Caitlin has a good-luck charm -- or a good-luck charm bracelet anyway. The Cabin 7 girls bought it together, and Caitlin is taking the first turn wearing it. She's sure it will help turn her luck around . . . but when?

"F***ing outstanding."--Roxane Gay, New York Times bestselling authorJuliet Milagros Palante is a self-proclaimed closeted Puerto Rican baby dyke from the Bronx. Only, she's not so closeted anymore. Not after coming out to her family the night before flying to Portland, Oregon, to intern with her favorite feminist writer--what's sure to be a life-changing experience. And when Juliet's coming out crashes and burns, she's not sure her mom will ever speak to her again.But Juliet has a plan--sort of. Her internship with legendary author Harlowe Brisbane, the ultimate authority on feminism, women's bodies, and other gay-sounding stuff, is sure to help her figure out this whole "Puerto Rican lesbian" thing. Except Harlowe's white. And not from the Bronx. And she definitely doesn't have all the answers . . .In a summer bursting with queer brown dance parties, a sexy fling with a motorcycling librarian, and intense explorations of race and identity, Juliet learns what it means to come out--to the world, to her family, to herself.

Three women. One family curse. The summer of a lifetime. For generations, no second-born daughter in the Fontana family has married. Lucy desperately wants to find love, but for her cousin Emilia, their family curse is a blessing in disguise. But then their Great Aunt Poppy declares she'll reunite with her long-lost love on her eightieth birthday - and break the curse once and for all. And so the three women embark on a journey to Tuscany to fulfil Poppy's last wish. But the secrets they uncover there could change their family forever... *Published in the US as The Star-Crossed Sisters of Tuscany* A gorgeous story about love, family, and finding yourself in the unlikeliest of places, for fans of The Spanish Promise by Karen Swan and The Dressmaker's Gift by Fiona Valpy.

Olivia Jefferson has always been a good little automaton. At least, that's what her best friend Angela had always told her. She was a dutiful daughter, straight A student, and a devoted friend. 
But when Angela dies at seventeen of terminal brain cancer, Olivia's automaton life gets turned upside down. She made a promise that she would finish Angela's bucket list for her.
 But number one is to go on the scariest ride at the County Fair, Hell's Hurricane, and number two is to go on a Grand Adventure. Both seem impossible. 
So when a pretty, blue eyed carnie boy offers her a place on the carnival for the summer, she couldn't possibly go, right? Deciding to abandon her well planned future, Olivia follows the carnival along the bottom States, from Florida to LA. What she learns as she works her way through Angela's bucket list will make her reexamine her dreams, her beliefs and make her really question: Who is Olivia Jefferson?

An orphaned boy finds his security in God after his aunt, who has raised him, marries and moves away.

The movie has wrapped, but the drama is just getting started... Katharine Firestone finally has everything she's ever wanted - new house, new car, new status as a Hollywood A-lister. And yet, she's never felt more isolated. As the movie premiere creeps closer, Kat spends her days playing an infatuated co-star for the press tour cameras, and her nights wondering what the hell she's going to do to fix the mess she's made out of her personal life. One broken girl. Two heart-stopping men. One impossible decision. Torn between the heartbreaker she tried to avoid and the man she never saw coming, Kat will be forced to answer the ultimate question: Do we get a say when it comes to choosing our soulmate? Love. Lust. Passion. Paparazzi. The road to fame and fortune is never easy. And, in the City of Angels, the only place they guarantee a happily-ever-after is in the movies... THE SOMEDAY GIRL is a tangled contemporary love story about a girl learning to love - her friends, her career, her soulmate, and, most of all, herself. It is the second installment of THE GIRL DUET, concluding the angsty, addictive storyline that began in THE MONDAY GIRL. Each installment is approximately 95,000 words. Recommended for readers ages 17+ due to strong language, sexual situations, drug use, and other mature elements.