Sunny Side Up by Katie Sturino

 

Sunny Greene at first glance, has it all. Recently divorced, her PR firm is wildly successful even though she’s only 35, she lives in her dream neighborhood of Chelsea in NYC, and she has two devoted rescue dogs. And since her divorce, where all her ex’s friends stayed on his side of the table, she’s met two other divorcees as devoted to the good life as she is.

But Sunny isn’t finished with men! On the contrary, she signs up for all the dating apps and is determined to find a plus-one for her brother’s wedding in six months.

Before that, her new friends convince her to join them in the Bahamas for a “divorcation” where they will lie on the beach and drink fruity drinks and relax.

Which send Sunny to Bergdorf’s to find a new swimsuit. But Sunny is 5’11 and 275 pounds and…

You get the picture. Rather than depression, Sunny chooses change, and not in the form of a diet. She will provide swimsuits that are stylish and comfortable for women her size! Sunny’s dating escapades, her business acumen and the ticking time clock to the wedding make for a fast paced and energetic read, coupled with plenty of sensitivity and emotion.

Sunny Side Up was released on June 24, 2025, by Celadon books. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the advanced copy!

The Love Fix by Jill Shalvis

Lexi Clark’s life hasn’t been easy, but with despite all the setbacks, she’s carved a place for herself in New Yorks fine object appraisal business. She loves her boss, professionally and personally. When valuable objects go missing though, her firm, and the boss, throw her under the bus without evidence. She’s summarily fired.

 

At the same time, her stepsister in Sunrise Cove, an idyllic Lake Tahoe community, need her to come home to deal with the remains of their mother’s estate. Sunrise Cove is the site of the neglect and abuse that Lexi underwent as a child. Her “nemesis,” has moved in next door to help his elderly grandfather, and Lexi realizes just how much unfinished business she has.

Beautiful setting, charming and complicated characters and oh so satisfying HEA’s are Shalvis’ many lovely books, and they don’t disappoint in The Love Fix, which was released June 24, 2025, by Avon and Harper Voyager. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the advanced readers copy.

An Irish Summer by Alexandra Paige

 

Chelsea has the perfect life. She loves her hometown, Boston, where her best friend and family are. She loves her job as event coordinator for a charming Bread and Breakfast known as O’Shea’s, her first job out of college. She loves the subsidized apartment she gets as part of her job. She looks forward to the future, where she imagines herself buying the O’Shea’s out.

Until the day they tell her they’ve sold, and she has one month to vacate.

Chelsea feels betrayed, and when she can’t find another job quickly, her choices, to move back home with her parents, or to accept the O’Shea’s offer of a summer at their sister hostel in Galway, Ireland. It’s the last thing Chelsea wants, other than moving back home.

The book then takes the reader on a fabulous adventure in beautiful Ireland, along with lovely people and a gorgeous tour guide!  It’s a perfect summer read for those of us who love to get to know new places in the world. An Irish Summer will be released July 1, 2025. Thanks to Avon and Harper Voyager and NetGalley for the early release copy.

All the Men I've Loved Again by Christine Pride

Cora Belle arrives at college almost like a new hatchling. Having attended an excellent high school, where she was the only black girl, and growing up the cherished daughter of her charming professor dad, Cora is ready for life to begin. With very few glitches, she meets her roommates/sisters for life, as well as the man of her dreams right away.

But all fairy tales have problems, and Cora and the dream man hit a major snag, her beloved father is rushed to the hospital, and while trying to recover from all that, she meets HIM. The rest of the book focuses on these major relationships: the roommates, the first and second loves, and the father/daughter evolution. Spanning her 20s and 30s lets Cora learn and grow and finally decide what is important to her. More a coming into herself than coming of age, Cora has a lot of hard work to do.

The only problem I had with the book was the imbalance of material with the two love interests. Lincoln started out as the rags to riches perfect man, then fell into cliché. Aaron was more interesting, artistic as opposed to Lincolns need to succeed, and each was perfect for Cora in their own time. But the time spent on the two in the novel was about 80% Lincoln, 20% Aaron. It worked though.

 

Christine Pride captures the dilemma of a young woman struggling to please herself instead of just a man, to follow a career she loves instead of what is expected and to care for the family she’s pieced together with love.

Thanks to NetGalley and Atria for the advanced copy. All The Men I’ve Loved Again releases on July 8, 2025.

Under the Stars by Beatriz Williams

 

Told from the voices of three women over nearly a three-hundred-year period, Under the Stars is the story of Winthrop Island, where shipwrecks are the legacy and where the rich and famous retreat for summers, or more, to recover from their hectic lives.

Peppered with excerpts from accounts of the sinking of the Steamship Atlantic in 1846, this story is a story of recovery. Audrey Fisher has been summoned to her famous actress mother’s companion as she dries out enough to act in an important, to her, role. She’s an alcoholic, and Audrey is her only child, and their relationship is as rocky as the New England coast. She’s also a professional chef whose husband has betrayed her professionally and personally.

Audrey merely has to survive on the island where she was born, and then she can deliver her mother to Hollywood, and get on with her life.

Only, there are complications. People who turn up dead. Beloved, estranged, father’s whose dive bar is in dire need of fresh life. And then there are the men.

It’s a wonderful, can’t put down, read, perfect for summer reading on the Cape or any other body of water you choose. You are going to want to swim with these characters!

Under the Stars will be released July 29 by Random House Publishing Group/Ballantine. Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for a great kick off for Summer 2025.

The Sandy Page Bookshop by Hannah McKinnon

 

Leah Powell has it all…a great job in publishing, a wealthy fiancé and a Victorian Brownstone in the Back Bay. But when her passion project she’s devoted her professional career to turns out to be stolen, she loses her job. Then the fiancé drops the bomb, and if that wasn’t enough, her sister, still out on Cape Cod, a year rounder, is in a near fatal accident.

So, Leah leaves Boston to move back in with her father. There are so many wonderful relationships developed in this book that I wouldn’t be doing justice to single out any particular one. Yes, it’s a romance novel, with many of the expected tropes, but it is also a complicated look at starting over mid-career and reclaiming a meaningful past.

The Sandy Page Bookshop will be released on July 22, 2025, by Atria/Emily Bestler books. Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the chance to read this wonderful book early!

Universality by Natasha Brown

 

This was an interesting novel, told from multiple viewpoints and different locations, primarily concerning a Pandemic era rave at a farm in West Yorkshire. As these things do, the party got out of control, a gold bar bludgeoning and the disappearance of the gold afterward, in the hands of a thirty-year-old man whose spend lockdown caretaking the farm. The author tells us early in the book that the missing gold bar is a connecting node—between an amoral banker, an iconoclastic columnist and a radical anarchist movement.

She spends the rest of the book illustrating that statement, creatively mixing the desire for wealth with the need to survive professionally in a time when no one knew what the next day would bring. Brown is a gifted writer. Like many readers, I’m a bit weary of the pandemic, having lived through it not only personally, but through the words of many authors. I get that, but I think this would have landed better with me had I had a few more years distance.

Universality was released on March 4, 2025, by Random House. Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the review copy.