Monroe Free Library

"Imogen Finch has just been through her seventeenth breakup. She saw it coming, so she's not as crushed as she might be, but with all seventeen of her exes leaving her for other partners, she's come to believe a prediction her well-intentioned and possibly clairvoyant mother made over twenty years ago: that Imogen would never come first at anything or to anyone. Is her love life failing due to a magical curse? Insufficient effort? Poor timing or personality...

"Mia used to be fun. She was the class clown; a member of the mile high club; the mom who made her sons giggle with her bad British accent and well-placed tickles. But three years after the death of her husband, there's no time for that. She's the only parent they have. Now, her memoir is out and she has to promote it. But how to sell herself when her heart is still broken? And so her three best friends--Chelsea, Rachel and George--organize her book...

"At age fifty-five, Meg's life is too filled with loss for her to remember what magic feels like. All she has left is a yard brimming with plants that are wilting in the scorching Iowa summer--and a bone-deep feeling that she's through with living. Meg has something else too: a bottle of mysterious pills, given to her years ago by an empathetic doctor. He promised that they would offer her dying mother a quick, painless end in exactly twenty days....

"For fans of Nicholas Sparks, Mitch Albom, Charles Martin, and Richard Paul Evans, Before I Go is at once a tender love story with a twist, a profound portrait of life after loss, and an uplifting exploration of the numinous connections that give our lives meaning. The Notebook meets The Shac k in this poignant tale about how the people we love stay with us forever...in sometimes surprising ways. A year after her husband's plane crashed into the Pacific...

What if you just walked by the love of your life, but didn't even know it? Tess is in Florence on vacation before starting university in London. Gus is on holiday with his parents after a tragedy shattered their lives seven months ago, and is planning for medical school in London. Chance brings these eighteen-year-olds together for a brief moment-- and then sets them apart. But it's only the first of many times their paths will crisscross as time...

"Human beings are full of contradictions." Twenty-five-year-old Takako takes up residence for a few months in her uncle Satoru's second-hand bookshop in Jimbicho, Tokyo in the wake of her breakup with her cad of a boyfriend/ coworker and her subsequent resignation. Depressed and unemployed, Takako is glad for the room above the Morisaki Bookshop to hide from the rest of the world even though she doesn't quite enjoy reading. Surrounded by towering...

"Izzy Lane never thought of herself as a liar. In fact, she's always played by the rules. She's an excellent mother, has loyal friends, and a rich career as a school counselor. Fresh from a new divorce, however, Izzy feels like she needs a little fun. Sowhen, on a whim, she starts a blog it seems like a rather benign indulgence. But as her online quips begin to gain traction, Izzy makes a slip. Somehow a new boyfriend winds his way into the picture....

"Jessica Chamberlain, newly separated and living with her two sons in a small Iowa town, can't believe that a tragedy in another state could have anything to do with her. But when her phone rings one quiet morning, her world is shattered. As she tries to pick up the pieces and make sense of what went wrong, Jess begins to realize that a tragic death is just the beginning. Soon she is caught in a web of lies and half-truths--and she's horrified to...

After her husband loses his job and abandons their family, Rory McGovern returns to the workforce for two fresh out of school twenty-somethings.

Violet Baumgartner has opened her annual holiday letter the same way for the past three decades. And this year she's going to throw her husband, Ed, a truly perfect retirement party, one worthy of memorializing in her upcoming letter. But the event becomes a disaster when, in front of two hundred guests, Violet learns her daughter Cerise has been keeping a shocking secret from her, shattering Violet's carefully constructed world. -- adapted from back...