June 2014 New Book Releases

Contributor: Allie

Okay friends, clear your calendars and skip the time you’d spend at the movie theater this summer, because there’s a plethora of cool chick lit books coming out this month.  Honestly, I do not remember being more excited about a publication month!  I want to read them all.

The Never Never Sisters by L. Allison Heller – June 3, 2014.  Heller made a big splash last year with her debut novel, The Love Wars, and this second novel is highly anticipated.  Paige Reinhardt is a marriage counselor who is able to help many couples stay together.  When her marriage starts to fall apart, Paige wonders if she can do the same for herself.  Complicating her life is the sudden reappearance of her older sister, Sloan.  Sloan has been MIA from the family for decades, after leaving home for rehab when she was sixteen.  Twenty years later, her family is still feeling the repercussions of her addiction.

Save the Date by Mary Kay Andrews – June 3, 2014.  Mary Kay Andrews in one of my favorite authors (I’ve read all her books).  Her stories are so much fun and she’s an expert at painting a picture for the reader.  You will easily (and enviously) visualize the setting of her story and her descriptions of food and beverage are worthy of Gourmet magazine.  This novel is about Cara, a florist who just landed the Savanah society wedding of the year.  Unfortunately, just before the wedding, the bride goes missing and Cara decides she must find her – and in doing so, learns to love herself.  Will her journey also lead her to find a love of her own?

The Matchmaker by Elin Hildebrand – June 10, 2014.  Hildebrand is the summertime author you must read on the beach, as all her books take place on the shores of Nantucket.  I instantly relax when I get ahold of her novels and I hope that’s the case with The Matchmaker.  I’m a tiny bit nervous because the descriptions I’ve read allude to a bittersweet ending.  Dabney Beech is a self-declared expert matchmaker, with forty-two happy couples to back up her claims.  The one person for whom she has not been able to find the perfect match is herself.  When tragedy threatens her second chance at love, she pledges to find perfect matches for everyone in her life, before time runs out.

Your Perfect Life by Liz Fenton & Lisa Steinke – June 17^th, 2014.  This is the debut novel from the writing team behind the blog, Chick Lit Is Not Dead.  The premise sounds fun – a Freaky Friday twist involving best friends who wake up in each other’s bodies the morning after their twentieth high school reunion.  Casey, the host of an entertainment news show, suddenly must deal with Rachel’s life as a stay at home mother of three, who’s been married to her high school sweetheart for twenty years.  That’s quite an adjustment for a single-woman-about-city like Casey.  Meanwhile Rachel must navigate the world of broadcasting that she gave up when she got pregnant years ago.  Will Rachel and Casey realize they have the lives they want or will one of the women be shocked by the discovery that her friend has the life she didn’t know she desired?

All Fall Down by Jennifer Weiner – June 17, 2014.  Jennifer Weiner novels are so engrossing and realistic that I’m sometimes scared to read them, because I start to obsessively empathize with her heroines.  It gets personal and her latest novel sounds like it’ll be very emotional.  Allison Weiss is a woman who appears to have it all – a stay at home mom with a successful husband, big house in the suburbs and a healthy child.  Things are not quite as they seem – her husband is distant and preoccupied, her daughter is acting out and her dad has Alzheimer’s.  Allison’s method of dealing with all the stress in her life is to take pills – an ever-increasing amount of them.  This is a heartbreaking story of addiction and Allison’s struggle to overcome her demons and find redemption.

The Glass Kitchen by Linda Frances Lee – June 17, 2014.  Portia Cuthcart always thought she’d run her grandmother’s Glass Kitchen restaurant in Texas, because it’s what she’d always wanted.  Then some unfortunate events cause Portia to flee Texas for the Upper West Side of Manhattan.  It’s there that she reconnects with her sisters and meets a young girl and her widowed father.  When a series of betrayals leads Portia to seek refuge in her sacred place, the kitchen, she must decide if family complications are worth sacrificing her dreams.  And can the power of forgiveness lead her to love?

The Stories We Tell by Pattie Callahan Henry – June 24^th, 2014.  I’m a huge fan of Pattie Callahan Henry.  I’ve read all of her books and course, I love them.  This one sounds a little different than her typical fare, as there’s a touch of mystery.  A Savannah power couple, Eve and Cooper Morrison, are involved in a serious car accident that changes the dynamics of their marriage.  Eve doesn’t remember much about the accident, but she wants answers and isn’t entirely sure she can believe what Cooper says.  In addition to the stress of the accident, the couple must deal with their rebellious daughter, Eve’s troubled sister and the underlying tension that comes to surface regarding Eve’s professional ambition.