Book recommendations

Del has had a crush on Kiera Westing ever since their kindergarten class. When Kiera volunteers for a heart-changing opportunity at their church, Del's right behind her. Though he quickly realizes he's inadvertently signed up for a Purity Pledge. Lamar Giles shines a brilliant light on the consequences of societal pressure and toxic masculinity and explores the complexity of what it means to be a "real man."

Natasha: I'm a girl who believes in science and facts. Not fate. Not dreams that will never come true. I'm definitely not that kind of girl who meets a cute boy on a crowded New York street and falls in love with him. Not when my family is twelve hours away from being deported to Jamaica. Daniel: I've always been the good son, the good student, living up to my parents' high expectations. Never the poet. Or the dreamer. But something about Natasha makes me think that fate has something much more extraordinary in store -- for both of us.

Maddie and Theo have two things in common: 1. Alexa is their best friend 2. They hate each other. After an "oops, we made a mistake" night together, neither one can stop thinking about the other. Two people this different can't possibly have a connection other than the purely physical, right?

Despised and feared by her sprawling family, Victoria Hastings Harrison Greene refuses to go quietly from her long life without revealing the secrets she's held locked away for more than fifty years—the same secrets consistent with the rumors her grandchildren whisper behind her back during family gatherings.

When the Sharpe sisters were young, they walked the silent streets of English suburbia on the lookout for signs of lives they might lead if fortune favored them. Forty years later, little has changed for Beatrice and Miriam. Arm in arm, they wander London's austere avenues. As middle age settles upon the Sharpe sisters, regret over chances not taken casts a shadow over their contended existence. As each woman awakens to the urgency of her loneliness, illness threatens to sever them both from the one happiness they have grown to count on: each other.

Independent and spirited Bathsheba Everdene has come to Weatherbury to take up her position as a farmer on the largest estate in the area. Her confident presence draws three very different suitors: the gentleman-farmer Boldwood, the soldier-seducer Sergeant Troy and the devoted shepherd Gabriel Oak. Each, in contrasting ways, unsettles her decisions and complicates her life, and when tragedy ensues, the stability of the whole community is threatened.

Stella Grant likes to be in control -- even though her totally out-of-control lungs have sent her in and out of the hospital most of her life. At this point, what Stella needs to control most is her distance from anyone or anything that might pass along an infection and jeopardize the possibility of a lung transplant. Six feet apart. No exceptions. The only thing Will Newman wants to be in control of is getting out of this hospital. In one week he'll turn eighteen, and then he'll be able to unplug himself from all these machines and actually go see the world. Will's exactly what Stella needs to stay away from. But suddenly six feet doesn't feel like safety. It feels like punishment.

Jerusalem, 1959. Shmuel Ash, a biblical scholar, is adrift in his young life when he finds work as a caregiver for a brilliant but cantankerous old man named Gershom Wald. There is, however, a third, mysterious presence in his new home. Atalia Abarbanel, the daughter of a deceased Zionist leader, a beautiful woman in her forties, entrances young Shmuel even as she keeps him at a distance. Piece by piece, the old Jerusalem stone house, haunted by tragic history and now home to the three misfits and their intricate relationship, reveals its secrets.

Annette Granger has had her fair share of heartbreak: widowed at twenty, Annette didn’t think it possible to love again.

Throwing herself into her work, Annette never let herself get to close to anyone else. Though as her career flourishes, she can’t help feeling something is missing in her personal life. But when the handsome Pieter Van Ness walks into her shop, everything changes.

Delaney Phillips, a divorced mom, works for her longtime best friend Wyatt Andrews at Cabins in the Pines. Wyatt inherited the rustic resort from his father, and both he and Delaney have made countless happy memories there. After a highway bypass leaves it a little too off the beaten path, they’ll do just about anything to keep it open.

After a decade spent living with her aunt in London, nineteen-year-old Margaret Hale returns home to her beloved village of Helstone only to discover that her pastor father has had a crisis of faith and is moving the family to the North of England. In the industrial town of Milton, Margaret is horrified by the dirty air, the shocking poverty, and the pervasive mistreatment of the working class.

"Sense and Sensibility" portrays the life and loves of two starkly different sisters: Elinor and Marianne Dashwood. The elder Elinor is the epitome of prudence, discretion, and self-control, while Marianne embodies emotion, openness, and enthusiasm. This contrast results in their attraction to men of vastly different characters -- and sparks family and societal dramas that are played out around their contrasting romances. Secrets, betrayals, and confessions soon complicate the story, whose goal is nothing less than the achievement of perfect happiness.

Guero moved away from La Zavala, Texas, which is filled with gangs, including the HCP (Hispanics Causing Panic), to a safer side of town with his parents. The typical teen hangs out with his two closest friends, Angel and Smiley, all over town, including at the La Plaza mall in his old neighborhood. Guero's ex-girlfriend Llorona has a history of depression and almost died by suicide at school. The romantic tension between them is evident to everyone, which causes trouble for Guero when Llorona's new boyfriend comes around.