From the bestselling author Kelly Quindlen comes a whip-smart, heart-squeezing YA rom-com about saving a gay bar, falling for the enemy, and building the kind of community you never thought you’d have.

When eighteen-year-old Louisa Wade inherits a gay bar from her late great-uncle, she figures there’s been some kind of mistake. There’s no way Uncle George—football legend and hometown hero of Rustin, Alabama—could have secretly owned a queer bar… right?

But The Frisky Cricket is real, and so is the messy legacy Uncle George left behind—including his grumpy ex-partner, Hatch, who wants nothing more than to sell the bar. Louisa may have zero business experience, but she’s determined to keep it open for the vibrant queer community that calls it home.

As the summer heats up, Louisa’s crusade puts her on a collision course with Aubrey Calhoun: the pretty, popular, and sharp-tongued daughter of Rustin University’s newly crowned football coach. The girls start off on the wrong foot, but a tentative truce leads to late nights, shared secrets, and a growing spark.

But things threaten to sputter out when Coach Calhoun sets his sights on The Frisky Cricket, scheming to replace it with a new athletic facility—celebrating Uncle George’s football career while erasing his queerness. Now Louisa must decide if she can fight for Uncle George’s legacy without losing sight of herself in the process.

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The story of a horse and the woman who loves her—a lively first novel of not-daughters and non-mothers; animals and animal bodies; and how we find freedom, care, and community in unexpected places.

For a long time, a woman lives with her husband and their dog. She teaches an online class about children’s books and plods away at a book of her own. Then the dog dies, and a doctor’s visit reveals that she isn’t able to have children, even if she wanted to.

When an opportunity to lease a mare part-time comes her way, it seems like the ideal arrangement and the fulfillment of a childhood wish—perhaps even something to fill the emptiness, diagnosable and otherwise, that she has begun to feel. She has no problem sharing; she shares a garden with the children next door and chores with her husband. The horse will be something to care for, just two days a week, without getting in too deep.

But as she takes up riding lessons, faces mounting medical bills, and walks and brushes and dreams of the horse, her affection starts to become all-consuming. Time spent with the mare casts a light on the rest of her responsibilities and relationships, ultimately forcing her to confront what it means to love a being who does not belong to her. With tender humor and insight, Emily Haworth-Booth’s Mare radiates life and feeling—and introduces an irresistible literary voice.

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A stunning and uplifting contemporary YA about a young teen who explores her queerness and navigates her grief through an unlikely friendship with her deceased father’s boyfriend.

When her mother refuses entry to a stranger named Richard at her father’s funeral, 17-year-old Mira Howard doesn’t understand why. But snooping through her father’s things reveals that Richard was her father’s boyfriend—a boyfriend she never knew about. In fact, Mira never even knew for sure that her dad was gay. Hoping to feel more connected to her late father, Mira reaches out to Richard without telling her mom, who is still angry from the divorce. As Mira and Richard become closer, Mira gains more and more insight into the side of her father that she never got to see.

Grieving that she never got to connect with her dad about their shared queerness, Mira asks that Richard teach her “how to be queer” while she navigates a new crush on her co-worker, which brings her out of her diary and into the real world.

But as Mira grows more confident in herself, she finds it hard to keep her relationship with Richard a secret, questioning why her family never talked about her father’s sexuality in the first place. Soon Mira has to decide if she wants to keep the peace or honor her father’s memory by being her truest self.

The post In Between Days first appeared on Shelves Bookstore.

Can the Matchmaker Find True Love?

Emma-Jane (EJ) Bennett and Jordan Knight are longtime best friends who codesigned the immensely successful dating app, Dream Match. Success starts to go to EJ’s head when she gets caught up in the famous and money-hungry social circles and starts dating the son of a TV mogul.

But Jordan’s feelings have grown from friendship to more. He determines to protect her by exposing Eric Churchill for the two-timer he is, finally agreeing to attend a function with her at the Sydney Opera House. But his best intentions go awry when EJ is embarrassed and runs for the security of home, small-town roots, and The Silver Teapot Café, feeling like Jane Austen’s chastised Emma—only without her Mr. Knightley.

This is book 2 in The Silver Teapot series.

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Two generations of a Muslim Indian family grapple with what parts of life we control and what we must humbly accept in pursuit of the American dream.

In suburban Miami, sixty-year-old Sakeena—co-owner of a Dunkin’ franchise along with her husband, Ramzan—has nine months to live unless she consents to an organ transplant. Thirty years ago, at Ramzan’s behest, she left her beloved Rawalpindi, India, for the United States. In the years that followed, she compromised her belief in naseeb, the Muslim notion of destiny, and acquiesced to fertility treatments. This time, she is adamant that she should live as intended—without medical intervention. As her health deteriorates, Ramzan desperately seeks to reunite their grown children with the hope of convincing Sakeena to extend her life.

But there are complications. Eldest daughter Fareen is consumed by an important business deal that, if successful, will land her a highly desired (and lucrative) promotion. Meanwhile, youngest son Adnan is living abroad and unable to return to the States due to his own unscrupulous business practices, a pattern stretching back to his adolescence. If they have any hope of saving their mother’s life, the siblings must take extraordinary action to wrestle with their life choices, actions that reveal the always-present tension between ambition and fate.

Brought to life by prose that captures the spirit of contemporary Miami as effortlessly as it conveys the challenges of running a Dunkin’ franchise, Abundance is a beautiful, moving read from an exciting new American voice.

Story Locale: Miami, FL; India

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A deeply moving contemporary story about family and foster care from a two-time Christy Award-winning author.

When her newborn son, Providence, is taken by CPS, eighteen-year-old Bri Marshall is determined to do whatever’s necessary to get him back-with or without Providence’s father. But hurdles like no job, car, or family support complicate the process. Bri never expected to sink this low. What will it take to hold her baby in her arms again?

Thirty-nine-year-old Laura Gambler, facing the big 4-0, is managing new challenges with her own children when she’s asked to take in baby Providence. She could never have imagined the chain of events that agreeing to foster would set in motion-or the carefully buried pain from her past it would drag back to the surface.

Both women wrestle with doubts about the future and their ability to parent Providence, even as their love for him grows stronger every day. As their lives become irrevocably intertwined, the two very different women face the same impossible question: Who is the best mother for Providence?

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A breathtaking debut novel about survival, hope, and second chances in an Asian American community in Massachusetts, when a false missile alert throws the residents’ lives into chaos.

On an otherwise unremarkable morning, the residents of a small town in Massachusetts all receive the same alert: BALLISTIC MISSILE THREAT INBOUND. SEEK IMMEDIATE SHELTER. THIS IS NOT A DRILL.

Confronted with the options of fight or flight, planning or panicking, the people of Beckitt are stripped to their basest instincts and revealed as their truest selves. Russ squeezes his family into the bathtub, leaving his own survival in question; Nina sends an unforgivable text to her daughter; Milly confesses her unrequited love; and David hits the gas, speeding away from his wife and child.

Then the second message comes in: FALSE ALARM. PLEASE DISREGARD. ALL CLEAR. First comes relief, then comes the reckoning, as each person is forced to face the unforeseen aftermath of decisions they thought might be their last.

Vincent Yu’s searing debut follows this eclectic cast of characters over a period of many years, suggesting that the conflicts the missile exacerbated were simmering under the surface long before, and proving the ripple effects of the false alarm will be felt for years to come.

An urgent, fiercely heartfelt exploration of relationships in all forms, Seek Immediate Shelter explores the balance between love and loyalty, betrayal and forgiveness. What choices would you make if you thought your life were on the line? And if you survive, can you ever redeem yourself?

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Joshua Donnelly has lived a careful, orderly life in the old house on Church Street, as his mama taught him. Then, on the coldest night of the year, a newborn baby appears in his care with no explanation and no instructions. Only a prayer answered in the most unexpected way.

Heather Thomas arrives in Peculiar carrying her own heartbreak, running from mistakes she cannot undo. When her path crosses Josh’s, the two form a fragile, improbable unit built on kindness, faith, and more hope than sense.

As gossip swirls, authorities ask questions, and the town watches closely, Josh and Heather must decide whether to trust coincidence or believe some gifts are heaven-sent.

A Most Peculiar Providence is a tender small-town novel about grace, second chances, and the quiet miracles that arrive when love opens the door.

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An electrifying first novel from “a fresh new voice in fiction” (Emma Cline, New York Times bestselling author of The Guest), the story of two women circling one another—working side-by-side, sleeping with the same man, inching toward friendship—until an unplanned pregnancy reveals the true nature of their connection.

Jules has been divorced from her ex-husband Leon for five years, but she still works with him at Gunk, the grotty student nightclub he owns in central Brighton. She spends her nights serving shots and watching, from behind the bar, as Leon flirts with students on the dancefloor. In the early hours of the morning, she trudges home to sleep alone. But then Leon hires eighteen-year-old Nim to work the bar with Jules—Nim, with her shaved head and steady pour, her disarming sweetness and sudden distance—and Jules finds herself jolted awake. When Nim discovers she’s pregnant, Jules agrees to help. As the months pass, and the relationship between the two women grows increasingly intimate and perplexing, it emerges that Nim has her own unexpected gifts to give.

Now, alone in her small flat, Jules is holding a baby, just twenty-four-hours old, who still smells of Nim. But no one knows where Nim is, or if she’s coming back. What could the future—for Jules, Nim, and this unnamed baby—possibly look like?

Raw, surprising, tender and wise, Gunk is an exhilarating debut novel exploring love and desire, safety and destruction, chaos and control— and family in all its forms.

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Love covers a multitude of sins… but sometimes it needs a well-timed push.

Between three teens on the brink of independence and triplets who never sleep past dawn, Dana and Josie already have their hands full. But when two grumpy, love-averse coworkers make their lives even messier, the frazzled moms step in with a little matchmaking to turn their nightmare colleagues into each other’s blessing.

What could go wrong?

As family drama unfolds and a village of volunteers descends upon a women’s shelter, the well-meaning meddling turns into mishap. Soon Dana and Josie discover that love in all its forms isn’t something you can manage, organize, or fix, no matter how hard you try.

With humor, heart, and a cast of characters you’ll want to invite over for coffee, The Frazzled Moms Play Matchmaker is a mom-com about motherhood, friendship, and the surprising ways love shows up when you least expect it.

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