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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This program is read by the author.

“Today it hit me when he hit me, blood shaking in my brain. Maybe there wasn’t a savior coming. Maybe it was up to me to save me.”

Recruited into the fundamentalist Quiverfull movement as a young wife, Tia Levings learned that being a good Christian meant following a list of additional life principles—a series of secret, special rules to obey. Being a godly and submissive wife in Christian Patriarchy included strict discipline, isolation, and an alternative lifestyle that appeared wholesome to outsiders. Women were to be silent, “keepers of the home.”

Tia knew that to their neighbors her family was strange, but she also couldn’t risk exposing their secret lifestyle to police, doctors, teachers, or anyone outside of their church. Christians were called in scripture to be “in the world, not of it.” So, she hid in plain sight as years of abuse and pain followed. When Tia realized she was the only one who could protect her children from becoming the next generation of patriarchal men and submissive women, she began to resist and question how they lived. But in the patriarchy, a woman with opinions is in danger, and eventually, Tia faced an urgent and extreme choice: stay and face dire consequences, or flee with her children.

Told in a beautiful, honest, and sometimes harrowing voice, A Well-Trained Wife is an unforgettable and timely memoir about a woman’s race to save herself and her family and details the ways that extreme views can manifest in a marriage.

I’d taken a pass on this until I read the wonderful review by Mary @ Sophril Reads. By that time, the library queue for the audiobook was a bit lengthy so it will be awhile.

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There are two sides to every love story—and every breakup. Get ready for an emotional roller coaster of family, marriage, and divorce that will have you both laughing and crying, from the bestselling author of Before We Were Strangers.

After twenty-two years together, Danielle and Alex are getting a divorce. Once fiercely in love, they can barely stand the sound of each other’s voice. Instead of shuttling the kids between two broken homes, Alex and Dani decide to share a nesting apartment while swapping days with their two teenage boys at the family home.

In the apartment, Dani and Alex, on their own, begin to reflect on the last two decades—why they fell in love and why the marriage fell, spectacularly, apart. With the newfound space and time, they are given a chance to rediscover their autonomous selves again. They both get back in the dating pool. Dani finds major success at work as a showrunner on her own TV project, while Alex faces the challenges of a new relationship.

Still, they find that they just can’t stay away from each other, and somehow, the distance allows them to remember (for the first time in years) what each used to love about the other. When a family crisis draws them back into each other’s orbit, Dani and Alex are once again put to the test, which leads to a dramatic conclusion that will have listeners weeping.

I hadn’t heard of this until I read the review by Larry @ Get Booked With Larry. It’s on my Libro.fm & Audible wishlists.

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Summer in the Scottish Highlands is a gorgeous, moving summer romance about finding joy in the small things and learning what really matters in life.

Thirty-year-old Paige Dougall’s life is a mess. Only a year ago, she was smashing all of her life goals – handsome husband, high-flying job, cute kid. But in just under 12 months, everything has gone wrong. Nursing a broken heart, single-mother Paige returns to Kindness Cottage, her childhood home nestled in a picture-perfect Scottish village, to try and get her life together.

Despite the backdrop of rolling hills and lavender-scented air, Paige struggles to settle into her summer at Kindness Cottage. She’s too wrapped up in her own worries to embrace her beautiful surroundings. That is until Johnny Becker, the infuriatingly cheerful chef, with his twinkling eyes and dimpled smile, steps onto the scene and provides Paige with some much-needed distraction….

Johnny challenges Paige to step outside her comfort zone and focus on the things that really matter. From food-tasting, to puppy-training, to mountain-climbing, in every moment she spends with Johnny, Paige finds herself remembering how to live again…will she be able to love again, too?

Thanks to a Bookouture alert, I got the ebook for free and then added the audiobook to my Audible wishlist.

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Inspired by Jane Austen’s Emma, this joyful Christmas romp tells the story of a woman who can’t stop trying to help everyone around her find their happily-ever-after—even when her help leads to disaster.

Frankie Lane knows what’s best for just about everyone but herself. Her divorced sister, Stef, who is too young to give up on love; her shy employee, Elinor; and her daughter, Natalie, who works in Frankie’s shop, Holiday Happiness, and really needs to start her own business selling the delectable chocolates she makes at home; even her best friend, Viola, who is trying to renovate her old Victorian. Frankie knows she could help all of them, if they’d just let her—and if all of her help didn’t end in utter disaster.

Then there’s Mitch Howard, the owner of the local hardware store. They’ve been friends ever since Frankie opened her store, nine years earlier. He got her through the nightmare when she lost her husband in a freak accident, and he’s her favorite shoulder to cry on. He’s been divorced for years, and it’s such a waste of man! Mitch is the fittest, finest man Frankie knows. He’s easygoing, wise and kindhearted. Mitch needs someone. And she’s determined to help him find that someone—whether he likes it or not.

I hadn’t heard of this until Jodie @ That Happy Reader featured it in her Can’t Wait Wednesday post. It’s a library audiobook hopeful.

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Is love on the small screen better than the real thing?

A young divorcée finds herself in the ideal world of her favorite 2000s teen soap in this “gleefully nostalgic and completely fresh”* romance from the author of This Spells Love.

Newly divorced on the eve of her thirtieth birthday, Brynn is sick of heartbreak. She thought she had found her happy ending, but now she’s living with a roommate, Josh, to afford her mortgage, and she’s trying to adjust to her new single life. At least she’s got Carson’s Cove to binge, her beloved 2000s teenage soap. The show ended unexpectantly on a cliffhanger after five seasons, and the two main characters, Sloan and Spencer, never got to declare their love for each other. The show is still perfect in Brynn’s eyes; despite all the drama that goes down, things always have a way of working out in Carson’s Cove . . . unlike her own life.

So when a birthday cake surprisingly shows up on her and Josh’s doorstep, Brynn makes a wish for the one thing she’s always wanted (but has failed to achieve herself): a happily-ever-after.

The next morning, she doesn’t wake up in her apartment. She’s in Carson’s Cove . . . and Josh is there too. Everyone seems to know them, except they’re not Brynn and Josh; they’re Sloan, the sweetheart of Carson’s Cove, and Fletch, the town’s bad boy. And to get home, they have to make Brynn’s wish come true by ensuring Sloan and Spencer, the hometown heartthrob, end up together at last. But as they spend more time together, Brynn and Josh realize that Carson’s Cove might not be as perfect as seen on television . . . especially when they start developing feelings for each other in a plot twist no one has expected. Will they stick to the script, or will real love change the story forever?

Another wonderful review by Larry @ Get Booked with Larry that got my attention. I’m first in line for the audiobook at my library.

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A gripping story of motherhood and motherloss and the brutal, mighty things women do to keep themselves and each other alive, MADWOMAN marks the arrival of a major fiction talent.

The world is not made for mothers.
Yet mothers made the world…

Clove has gone to extremes to keep her past a secret. Thanks to her lies, she’s landed the life of her dreams, complete with a safe husband and two adoring children who will never know the terror that was routine in her own childhood. If her buried anxiety threatens to breach the surface, Clove (if that is really her name) focuses on finding the right supplement, the right gratitude meditation. 

But when she receives a letter from a women’s prison in California, her past comes screeching into the present, entangling her in a dangerous game with memory and the people she thought she had outrun. As we race between her precarious present-day life in Portland, Oregon and her childhood in a Waikiki high-rise with her mother and father, Clove is forced to finally unravel the defining day of her life. How did she survive that day, and what will it take to end the cycle of violence? Will the truth undo her, or could it ultimately save her?

A trusted Goodreads friend put this on my radar so when it showed up at my library, I grabbed the audiobook.

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Three estranged siblings return to their family home in New York after their beloved sister’s death in this unforgettable story of grief, identity, and the complexities of family.

The three Blue sisters are exceptional—and exceptionally different. Avery, the eldest and a recovering heroin addict turned strait-laced lawyer, lives with her wife in London; Bonnie, a former boxer, works as a bouncer in Los Angeles following a devastating defeat; and Lucky, the youngest, models in Paris while trying to outrun her hard-partying ways. They also had a fourth sister, Nicky, whose unexpected death left Avery, Bonnie, and Lucky reeling. A year later, as they each navigate grief, addiction, and ambition, they find they must return to New York to stop the sale of the apartment they were raised in.

But coming home is never as easy as it seems. As the sisters reckon with the disappointments of their childhood and the loss of the only person who held them together, they realize the greatest secrets they’ve been keeping might not have been from each other, but from themselves.

I hadn’t heard of this until it was selected by the Read With Jenna book club for September. My library came through with the audiobook.

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The remarkable next novel from Matt Haig, the author of #1 New York Times bestseller The Midnight Library, with more than nine million copies sold worldwide

“What looks like magic is simply a part of life we don’t understand yet…”

When retired math teacher Grace Winters is left a run-down house on a Mediterranean island by a long-lost friend, curiosity gets the better of her. She arrives in Ibiza with a one-way ticket, no guidebook and no plan.

Among the rugged hills and golden beaches of the island, Grace searches for answers about her friend’s life, and how it ended. What she uncovers is stranger than she could have dreamed. But to dive into this impossible truth, Grace must first come to terms with her past.

Filled with wonder and wild adventure, thisis a story of hope and the life-changing power of a new beginning.

Though reviews are mixed, I decided to take a chance when the audiobook showed up at my library.  

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“We’re so excited to have you here in our home.” My boyfriend’s mother smiles at me a little too wide. His father’s eyes are hard at the edges. It’s like they’re hiding something. But of course, I already know that…

The mother: Stay-at-home mother Marta lives in her successful husband’s shadow, overlooked by him ever since her darling son Owen went to medical school. She’s not about to let the beautiful Gina take Owen away from her. Marta will play nice, get Gina to trust her. And then she has a plan of her own.

The son: Owen is already certain he wants to marry Gina. She’s perfect. They just have to get through this weekend and then he’ll propose. Sure, his mom can be overprotective. But Owen knows why. He knows what she’s hiding.

The girlfriend: Ever since purposefully running into Dr Owen Whitlock at the hospital, Gina has been playing the doting girlfriend. She didn’t mean to fall for Owen’s charms for real… Now she’s finally meeting his parents at their sprawling, secluded home. Gina knows all about the terrible secrets this family is covering up. And she’ll do anything to make sure they never find out who she really is.

By the end of the weekend, the Whitlock’s beautiful house will have burned to the ground. And someone won’t make it out alive…

Fans of The Housemaid, The Girl in Seat 2A and The Perfect Marriage will be totally hooked.

Thanks to a Bookouture alert, I got this for $.99 and then added the audiobook to my Audible wishlist.

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What books did YOU add to your shelves this week?