Saturdays at the Café

 

Saturdays at the Café is a weekly feature hosted here to talk about and discuss the books I’ve discovered during the past week, added to my shelf and am excited about reading. They may be new/scheduled releases I’ve seen on NetGalley, at the library, or from publishers or they may be older titles my friends have reviewed and shared on Goodreads or blogs.

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Back in high school, everybody thought Shiloh and Cary would end up together . . . everybody but Shiloh and Cary.

They were just friends. Best friends. Allies. They spent entire summers sitting on Shiloh’s porch steps, dreaming about the future. They were both going to get out of north Omaha—Shiloh would go to college and become an actress, and Cary would join the Navy. They promised each other that their friendship would never change.

Well, Shiloh did go to college, and Cary did join the Navy. And yet, somehow, everything changed.

Now Shiloh’s thirty-three, and it’s been fourteen years since she talked to Cary. She’s been married and divorced. She has two kids. And she’s back living in the same house she grew up in. Her life is nothing like she planned.

When she’s invited to an old friend’s wedding, all Shiloh can think about is whether Cary will be there—and whether she hopes he will be. Would Cary even want to talk to her? After everything?

The answer is yes. And yes. And yes.

Slow Dance is the story of two kids who fell in love before they knew enough about love to recognize it. Two friends who lost everything. Two adults who just feel lost.

It’s the story of Shiloh and Cary, who everyone thought would end up together, trying to find their way back to the start.

One of my Instagram friends pointed me towards this book and I was still thinking about it when it was selected by Reese’s Book Club for August. I accepted it for audio review.

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In Kat Tang’s exciting and resonant debut, a “Rental Stranger”—a companion hired under various guises—walks the line between personal and professional in surprising new ways.

Would you hire someone to be the best man at your wedding? Your stand-in brother? Your husband?

In an age where online ratings are all-powerful, Five-Star Stranger follows the adventures of a top-rated man on the Rental Stranger app—a place where users can hire a pretend fiancé, a wingman, or an extra mourner for a funeral. Referred to only as Stranger, the narrator navigates New York City under the guise of characters he plays, always maintaining a professional distance from his clients.

But, when a nosy patron threatens to upend his long-term role as father to a young girl, Stranger begins to reckon with his attachment to his pretend daughter, her mother, and his own fraught past. Now, he must confront the boundaries he has drawn and explore the legacy of abandonment that shaped his life.

Five-Star Stranger is a strikingly vivid novel about the commodification of relationships in a gig economy, isolation in a hyperconnected world, and the risk of asking for what we want from those who cannot give. This is the story of a man who finds out who he is by being anyone but himself.

I hadn’t heard of this until it was offered for audio review. Drawn to the concept of the story, I quickly accepted.

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White Lotus meets Kevin Wilson in this whip-smart social satire about a man who finds himself trapped on an island resort after the sun literally explodes, and suddenly must choose whether to save himself from the chaos, or help the fellow guests make it off the island alive…

Vacation Checklist: Pack swim trunks. Apply sunscreen. Survive the apocalypse?

Professional underachiever Dan Foster is finally taking a vacation. Sure, his life has been average at best, and yeah, he’s never quite lived up to his potential. But after a few Miller Lites in paradise with his girlfriend, Mara, things are starting to look up.

Then the sun explodes.

With the island resort suddenly plunged into darkness (he really should’ve sprung for the travel insurance), Dan’s holiday goes from bad to worse when elite guests stage a coup and commandeer supplies. As temperatures drop and class tensions rise, revolution begins to brew on the island, and Dan accidentally becomes a beacon of hope for the surviving vacationers. But when one six-person plane is discovered that could get them back to the mainland, Dan realizes he has a choice to make.

Does he escape the island with Mara? Or does he stay and fight to become the most unlikely hero of the end of the world?

A trusted Goodreads friend reeled me in with her review and I got the audiobook from NetGalley for review.

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In this spicy workplace romance, a hotheaded celebrity chef finds himself drawn to his inexperienced new hire. But when her bubbly attitude collides with his sharp edges, can they handle the heat, or will their love be a recipe for disaster?

Alexander Chen is one of the most talented chefs to ever grace the culinary world of French haute cuisine. He rules his kitchen with an iron fist and fiery temper, so it’s no secret that if you can’t handle the heat, he’ll gladly toss you out with the trash. As one of the first Chinese-American chefs to claw his way to the top, he has a lot to prove and a massive chip on his shoulder.

But he wasn’t always like this. Eden Monroe, his newly hired sous chef—who may or may not have (definitely) embellished a lot on her resumé to land herself the job—knew him back when he still went by his real name, Shang. He used to be sweet and helpful and definitely not the second coming of the devil himself.

Eden won’t say anything, though, no matter how hot her curiosity burns. Especially if it could cost her this job, which she needs if she has any hope of hiring a private detective to find something she lost long ago.

All she has to do is fly under the radar. It’s just a shame that she and her new boss butt heads more often than they fulfill orders. But what happens when things finally boil over, and they discover the feelings between them are spicier than they ever imagined?

Offered for audio review, I quickly accepted as there are so many elements I love all packaged into this story.

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From master of the mystery genre and bestselling author Adam Mitzner comes The Brothers Kenney, a murder mystery that pushes one family to the breaking point.

Former track star Sean Kenney used to be on top of the world, but that was a very long time ago. Now he’s been estranged from his loved ones for the past two years—until the unthinkable calls him home.

While struggling to make sense of the devastating death that has shaken the Kenney family to its core, Sean grasps at the opportunity to seek forgiveness for his past mistakes—from his family and himself—while clinging to the belief that if he can discover what really happened that day, he might somehow be redeemed.

Both a family saga and a thrilling mystery, The Brothers Kenney searches for forgiveness and the meaning of home as assiduously as it does the identity of a killer.

I loved the author’ s last book, Love Betrayal Murder, and this one sounds just as intriguing. I accepted for audio review.

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“Short story fans might just discover their new favorite author in this arresting collection, a must-have.”―Library Journal (starred review)

What happens when you are forced to let go of the things you love the most? What are you left with?

In her stunning debut short story collection, The Goodbye Process, Mary Jones uses her distinctive voice to examine the painful and sometimes surreal ways we say goodbye.

The stories―which range from tender and heartbreaking to unsettling and darkly funny―will push you out of your comfort zone and ignite intense emotions surrounding love and loss. A woman camps out on the porch of an ex-lover who has barricaded himself inside the house; a preteen girl caught shoplifting finds herself in grave danger; a Los Angeles real estate agent falls for a woman who helps him detach from years of dramatic plastic surgery; a man hires a professional mourner to ensure his wife’s funeral is a success. Again and again, Jones’s characters find themselves facing the ends of things: relationships, health, and innocence.

Arresting, original, and beautifully rendered, this story collection packs a punch, just the way grief does―knocking us off our feet.

I love short story collections and this one grabbed me immediately when offered for audio review.

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What books did YOU add to your shelves this week?