Recommendations based on "Taken for English"

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.

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.

Wonderfully warm and utterly compelling from the author of HENS REUNITEDMaddie's getting it from all sides. Her bitchy new boss at the radio station humiliates her live on air about her figure, her glamour-puss mum keeps dropping not-so-subtle hints that Maddie should lose weight and her kids are embarrassed to be seen with her after the disastrous Mums' race at their school sports day. Something's got to change... Maddie joins the local weight-watching group expecting more humiliation but instead finds two unlikely allies - bitter divorcee Lauren who, despite running a dating agency, has signed off romance for ever and shy Jess, the beautician, who's desperate to fit into a size 10 wedding dress for her Big Day.

Cleo Arendse: You know how almost every movie set in Italy seems to be about a woman who travels to Tuscany and is swept off her feet by a charming, gorgeous but arrogant aristocrat? Well, that’s not this story. Luca Fioravanti: Challenge accepted. British Banker Cleo Arendse is nothing like the women lawyer Luca Fioravanti is used to – both because she’s only in Tuscany to oversee his family vineyard’s business and because she’s impervious to the charm that has never failed him before now. But Luca has never shied from a challenge, and when circumstances arise that allow him to step in as Cleo’s knight in shining armour, he leaps...right into a fake marriage! The romance may be a ruse but the passion burning between Luca and Cleo is very, very real, and as the ‘honeymoon’ glow envelops the pair, all bets are off...

The summer bestseller from the immensely popular Lindsey Kelk Tess Brookes has always been a Girl with a Plan. But when the Plan goes belly up, she's forced to reconsider. After accidently answering her flatmate Vanessa's phone, she decides that since being Tess isn't going so well, she might try being Vanessa. With nothing left to lose, she accepts Vanessa's photography assignment to Hawaii - she used to be an amateur snapper, how hard can it be? Right? But Tess is soon in big trouble. And the gorgeous journalist on the shoot with her, who is making it very clear he'd like to get into her pants, is an egotistical monster. Far from home and in someone else's shoes, Tess must decide whether to fight on through, or 'fess up and run...

Emily knows she's going to be a great writer. She also knows that she and her childhood sweetheart, Teddy Kent, will conquer the world together. But when Teddy leaves home to pursue his goal to become an artist at the School of Design in Montreal, Emily's world collapses. With Teddy gone, Emily agrees to marry a man she doesn't love ... as she tries to banish all thoughts of Teddy. In her heart, Emily must search for what being a writer really means....

The forecast calls for a first crush after Stevie makes a wish for something new and daring in this authentic, funny Sisters Club adventure. As the middle sister in a family with three girls, Stevie Reel doesn’t know much about boys, and that’s always been just fine with her. But lately, things have been changing: kids at school are starting to pair up, and Owen, the new boy in her Earth Science class, seems to have his sights set on Stevie. The trouble is, Stevie doesn’t want a boyfriend- she’s not even sure she’s ready to have a boy friend. And her sisters, who know exactly where they stand on the issue of boys, are no help: drama queen Alex is busy trying to orchestrate a perfect, Romeo-and-Juliet-style first kiss from her heartthrob, Scott Towel (er, Howell), while Joey can’t understand why anyone would like a boy better than a frog anyway. If only figuring out boys were as easy as predicting the weather!

When Sam is no longer needed as an au pair, she's left with no job and no place to live. Being the world's worst waitress, she also loses a new job at a local restaurant. The Flirts, a band which includes her boyfriend Pres, offer her a place in their house. Sam's not sure how that will work out, but it looks like her only way to stay on Sunset Island.

“A story beautifully told, with richly drawn characters that will...make you want to laugh and cry”* from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Book of Lost Friends and Before We Were Yours.All her life, Epiphany Salerno has been tossed like a dandelion seed on the wind. Now, at sixteen, she must move to the low-rent side of Blue Sky Hill and work where she's not wanted: in an upscale home on The Hill.J. Norman Alvord's daughter has hired a teenager to stay with him in the afternoons. Widowed and suffering from heart trouble, Norman wants to be left alone. But in Epie's presence, Norman discovers a mystery. Deep in his mind lie memories of another house, another life, and a woman who saved him.As summer comes to Blue Sky Hill, two residents from different worlds will journey through a turbulent past, and find that with an unexpected road trip through sleepy Southern towns comes life-changing friendship...and clues to a family secret hidden for a lifetime.Winner of the 2012 Carol Award for Women's Fiction from the American Christian Fiction Writers

As graduation day approaches, eighteen-year-old Virginia Simpson is more than ready to head off to college, reunite with her childhood sweetheart, and finally be allowed to embrace the freedom of adulthood. But when a family crisis forces her to abandon her carefully laid plans, Virginia learns the deeper meaning of "growing into adulthood."