Famous in a Small Town

January 1, 2023

In this follow-up to Audrain's New York Times best-selling debut, The Push, a child loudly berated by his mother at a suburban barbeque later slips from his window and ends up in a coma, prompting Whispers in the neighborhood about what really happened. After debuting with the all-star A Proposal They Can't Refuse, Ca�a cooks up A Dish Best Served Hot, featuring a single dad who falls for his daughter's teacher but jeopardizes their relationship with actions (undertaken for familial duty) of which she disapproves (50,000-copy first printing). In mega-popular Carr's The Friendship Table, four women working together on a highly rated cooking show join forces when they discover that their youngest member has an abusive boyfriend (200,000-copy first printing). When her mother, badly injured in an accident, asks Cornelia Brown to bring her the Northern Lights, a puzzled but obliging Cornelia sorts through her mother's secret past to figure out what she means in Watch Us Shine; from New York Times best-selling de los Santos (75,000-copy first printing). In Trinity author Hall's Reproduction, a novelist abandons a book about Mary Shelley that touches on her challenging pregnancies when she confronts her own painful pregnancy and childbirth and instead turns to writing a modern Frankenstein (75,000-copy first printing). The young man who walks into the Cape Cod bookstore where unassuming Harlow Smith works isn't exactly A Little Ray of Sunshine--he's the child she secretly birthed and gave up for adoption 17 years previously; from the New York Times best-selling Higgins. With the death of her husband, popular food blogger Hollis Shaw decides to heal by engaging in something called The Five-Star Weekend, which entails inviting a best friend from each stage of her life to a special gathering--in this case, on mega-best-selling author Hilderbrand's beloved Nantucket (750,000-copy first printing). Moderately contented Heather is surprised to find herself gobsmacked when a former flame finds new love, and friends Daphne and Tori have their own troubles, but in Mallery's latest, will The Happiness Plan of each woman work? In Monaghan's Same Time Next Summer, following the LibraryReads pick Nora Goes Off Script, Sam is hunting for a wedding venue near her family's Long Island beach house when she encounters Wyatt, the love of her life until he broke her heart at age 17. Following the LJ-starred The Messy Lives of Book People, also a LibraryReads pick, Patrick's The Little Italian Hotel features relationship expert Ginny Splinter, who's sideswiped when husband Adrian asks for a divorce and recovers by taking four strangers to Italy on the vacation she had originally planned with Aidan in the (75,000-copy paperback and 10,000-copy hardcover first printing). In Pride and Piazza's You Were Always Mine, a Black woman named Cinnamon is grateful to be leading a secure, quiet life when she causes an uproar by keeping a white baby she finds abandoned in the park by teenage Daisy, whose grandparents threaten to take custody. In this latest from the beloved Shipman, daring Mary Jackson is Famous in a Small Town in Michigan for her 65-year-old record in the annual cherry pit-spitting contest until modest schoolteacher Becky, determined to shatter her shell, lands in town and breaks the record (100,000-copy paperback and 10,000-copy hardcover first printing). When her parents die in an accident when she is 23, Cosima Saverio inherits their fabulous Palazzo and haute couture Italian leather brand, but she's all work until...

July 14, 2023
Mary Jackson, proud proprietor of Cherry Mary's Very Cherry General Store (and post office), is known throughout her small Michigan town for setting the cherry spitting record sixty-five years ago, notoriety that isn't ensuring a future for the store her mother and grandmother built. Becky Thatcher, tired of her job as an assistant principal in St. Louis (yes, fine, go ahead and make Tom Sawyer jokes), isn't sure what she wants anymore, but she knows she wants . . . something more. When she heads north on vacation and lands in Mary's store, both Becky and Mary have a sense that the visions they've had all their lives were of one another. Could each be the other's missing piece? Shipman, pen name of author Wade Rouse, salutes multigenerational friendships, strong women, and his beloved grandmothers in this novel of friendship and fulfilling one's own destiny. A strong sense of place and characters with a history needing reconciling with a future make Famous in a Small Town a delightful summer read for those wanting a little magic in their lives. Put in the beach bag of your fans of Ruth Hogan, Elizabeth Berg, Fredrik Backman, and Clare Pooley.

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