Top Titles of 2019

Welcome to 2020! I love recapping my yearly favorites, and for 2019 I have twelve must-read books for you. Happy Reading! 

I Owe You One – Sophie Kinsella

Fixie Farr has always lived by her father’s motto: “Family first.” And since her dad passed away, leaving his charming housewares store in the hands of his wife and children, Fixie spends all her time picking up the slack from her siblings instead of striking out on her own. The way Fixie sees it, if she doesn’t take care of her father’s legacy, who will?

It’s simply not in Fixie’s nature to say no to people. So when a handsome stranger in a coffee shop asks her to watch his laptop for a moment, she not only agrees—she ends up saving it from certain disaster. To thank Fixie for her quick thinking, the computer’s owner, Sebastian, an investment manager, scribbles an IOU on a coffee sleeve and attaches his business card. Fixie laughs it off—she’d never actually claim an IOU from a stranger. Would she?

But then Fixie’s childhood crush, Ryan, comes back into her life, and his lack of a profession pushes all of Fixie’s buttons. As always, she wants nothing for herself—but she’d love Seb to give Ryan a job. No sooner has Seb agreed than the tables are turned once more and a new series of IOUs between Seb and Fixie—from small favors to life-changing moments—ensues. Soon Fixie, Ms. Fixit for everyone else, is torn between her family and the life she really wants. Does she have the courage to take a stand? Will she finally grab the life, and love, she really wants?

My Review: https://chicklitplus.com/bookreview-i-owe-you-one-by-sophie-kinsella/

Amazon: https://amzn.to/36tJq2M

The Queen of Hearts – Kimmery Martin

Zadie Anson and Emma Colley have been best friends since their early twenties, when they first began navigating serious romantic relationships amid the intensity of medical school. Now they’re happily married wives and mothers with successful careers–Zadie as a pediatric cardiologist and Emma as a trauma surgeon. Their lives in Charlotte, North Carolina, are chaotic but fulfilling, until the return of a former colleague unearths a secret one of them has been harboring for years.

As chief resident, Nick Xenokostas was the center of Zadie’s life–both professionally and personally–throughout a tragic chain of events during her third year of medical school that she has long since put behind her. Nick’s unexpected reappearance at a time of new professional crisis shocks both women into a deeper look at the difficult choices they made at the beginning of their careers. As it becomes evident that Emma must have known more than she revealed about circumstances that nearly derailed both their lives, Zadie starts to question everything she thought she knew about her closest friend.

My Review: https://chicklitplus.com/bookreview-the-queen-of-hearts-by-kimmery-martin/

Amazon: https://amzn.to/37yOpz1

If I Can Make It Here – Jamie Rose

Is it too late for coffee or too early for wine? That’s a question Madeline Burke has come to ask herself all too often. She needs a change, and a big one at that.
Coming into her late 20s, she finally finds the courage to pull herself out of a boring 9-to-5 life in Texas and launch the exciting new career she’s always dreamed about. Thanks to a little chutzpah and some quick thinking, she has landed an internship working in film publicity in New York City. It’s her favorite city in the world, concrete jungle where dreams are made…or crushed. The prospect is both exciting and intimidating for a woman with an ambitious work ethic and a pesky anxiety problem. What could possibly go wrong?
As Madeline goes behind the velvet ropes of movie premieres and celebrity press tours, she finds out what really happens after the cameras flash. Navigating her way through splashy scandals, inflated egos, romantic entanglements, and impossible office demands has her catching her breath behind one too many bathroom stall doors.
The hectic and fast-paced reality that is her new life has her questioning whether or not she has what it takes to stick it out. She decides it is up to her and her alone to make it in New York City.
As the saying goes, if you can make it there, you can make it anywhere…right?

My Review: https://chicklitplus.com/bookreview-if-i-can-make-it-here-by-jamie-rose/

Amazon: https://amzn.to/36nvG9B

Park Avenue Summer – Renee Rosen

New York City is filled with opportunities for single girls like Alice Weiss, who leaves her small Midwestern town to chase her big-city dreams and unexpectedly lands a job working for the first female editor in chief of Cosmopolitan magazine, Helen Gurley Brown.

For Alice, who wants to be a photographer, it seems like the perfect foot in the door, but nothing could have prepared her for the world she enters. Editors and writers resign on the spot, refusing to work for the woman who wrote the scandalous bestseller Sex and the Single Girl, and confidential memos, article ideas, and cover designs keep finding their way into the wrong hands. When someone tries to pull Alice into a scheme to sabotage her boss, she is more determined than ever to help Helen succeed.
 
While pressure mounts at the magazine, Alice struggles not to lose sight of her own dreams as she’s swept up into a glamorous world of five-star dinners, lavish parties, and men who are certainly no good. Because if Helen Gurley Brown has taught her anything, it’s that a woman can demand to have it all.

My Review: http://chicklitplus.com/bookreview-park-avenue-summer-by-renee-rosen/

Amazon: https://amzn.to/2QNpe5j

Mrs. Everything – Jennifer Weiner

Do we change or does the world change us?

Jo and Bethie Kaufman were born into a world full of promise.

Growing up in 1950s Detroit, they live in a perfect “Dick and Jane” house, where their roles in the family are clearly defined. Jo is the tomboy, the bookish rebel with a passion to make the world more fair; Bethie is the pretty, feminine good girl, a would-be star who enjoys the power her beauty confers and dreams of a traditional life.

But the truth ends up looking different from what the girls imagined. Jo and Bethie survive traumas and tragedies. As their lives unfold against the background of free love and Vietnam, Woodstock and women’s lib, Bethie becomes an adventure-loving wild child who dives headlong into the counterculture and is up for anything (except settling down). Meanwhile, Jo becomes a proper young mother in Connecticut, a witness to the changing world instead of a participant. Neither woman inhabits the world she dreams of, nor has a life that feels authentic or brings her joy. Is it too late for the women to finally stake a claim on happily ever after?

In her most ambitious novel yet, Jennifer Weiner tells a story of two sisters who, with their different dreams and different paths, offer answers to the question: How should a woman be in the world?

My Review: http://chicklitplus.com/bookreview-mrs-everything-by-jennifer-weiner/

Amazon: https://amzn.to/2txvNRd

The Good Sister – Gillian McAllister

Martha and Becky Blackwater are more than sisters–they’re each other’s lifelines. When Martha finds herself struggling to balance early motherhood and her growing business, Becky steps in to babysit her niece, Layla, without a second thought, bringing the two women closer than ever. But then the unthinkable happens, and Becky is charged with murder. 

Nine months later, Becky is on trial and maintains her innocence–and so does Martha. Unable to shake the feeling that her sister couldn’t possibly be guilty, Martha sets out to uncover exactly what happened that night, and how things could have gone so wrong. As the trial progresses, fault lines between the sisters begin to show–revealing cracks deep in their relationship and threatening the family each has worked so hard to build. With incredible empathy and resounding emotional heft, The Good Sister is a powerhouse of a novel that will lead readers to question everything they know about motherhood, family, and the price of forgiveness.

My Review: http://chicklitplus.com/bookreview-the-good-sister-by-gillian-mcallister/

Amazon: https://amzn.to/2ucMAtb

Breathe In Cash Out – Madeleine Henry

Allegra Cobb’s resume: Straight-A Princeton grad, second-year analyst at a top-tier bank, one-time American Yoga National Competition Champion. Allegra Cobb’s reality: Spends twenty-four hours a day changing the colors on bar charts, overusing the word “team,” and daydreaming about quitting the minute her year-end bonus hits her account. She has no interest in the cutthroat banking world—she’s going to launch her very own yoga practice.

But her plan isn’t quite as perfect as the beachfront yoga pictures she double-taps on Instagram. On top of the 100 emails an hour and coworkers already suspicious of her escape plan, Allegra’s hard-driving single father has always expected fiercely high achievement above all else. That his daughter works on Wall Street means everything to him. Still, she marches on, taking it day by extremely caffeinated day.

But after (1) unknowingly sleeping with the man now leading her banking cohort on one of their biggest deals to date and (2) meeting the #blessed yoga guru who might just be her ticket to the life she’s always wanted, it really hits her: her happy-ever-after will be harder to manifest than she thought.

Fast-paced, laugh-out-loud funny, and totally irresistible, this is the story of a fearless young woman determined to center herself in the life she truly wants.

My Review: http://chicklitplus.com/bookreview-breathe-in-cash-out-by-madeleine-henry/

Amazon: https://amzn.to/2QqsTXL

Life and Other Inconvenience – Kristan Higgins

Emma London never thought she had anything in common with her grandmother Genevieve London. The regal old woman came from wealthy and bluest-blood New England stock, but that didn’t protect her from life’s cruelest blows: the disappearance of Genevieve’s young son, followed by the premature death of her husband. But Genevieve rose from those ashes of grief and built a fashion empire that was respected the world over, even when it meant neglecting her other son.

When Emma’s own mother died, her father abandoned her on his mother’s doorstep. Genevieve took Emma in and reluctantly raised her–until Emma got pregnant her senior year of high school. Genevieve kicked her out with nothing but the clothes on her back…but Emma took with her the most important London possession: the strength not just to survive but to thrive. And indeed, Emma has built a wonderful life for herself and her teenage daughter, Riley.

So what is Emma to do when Genevieve does the one thing Emma never expected of her and, after not speaking to her for nearly two decades, calls and asks for help?

My Review: http://chicklitplus.com/bookreview-life-and-other-inconveniences-by-kristan-higgins/

Amazon: https://amzn.to/2Fld9yF

Smart Women Finish Rich – David Bach

With over ONE MILLION copies sold – Smart Women Finish Rich is one of the most popular financial books for women ever written. A perennial bestseller for over two decades, now Bach returns with a completely updated, expanded and revised edition, Smart Women Finish Rich, to address the new financial concerns and opportunities for today’s women.

Whether you are just getting started in your investment life, looking to manage your money yourself, or work closely with a financial advisor, this book is your proven roadmap to the life you want and deserve.

With Smart Women Finish Rich, you will feel like you are being coached personally by one of America’s favorite and most trusted financial experts. The Smart Women Finish Rich program has helped millions of women for over twenty years gain confidence, clarity and control over their financial well-being–it has been passed from generations to generation — and it now can help you.

My Review: http://chicklitplus.com/bookreview-smart-women-finish-rich-by-david-bach/

Amazon: https://amzn.to/2rSV7kp

Versions of Her – Andrea Lochen

On the surface, Melanie Kingstad-Keyes’s life is the picture of success. She’s a tenure track professor at a prestigious university and has a perfect husband. But a recent miscarriage has left her reeling and her marriage tenuous. Selling her family’s Lake Indigo summer home, which she hasn’t visited in fifteen years, feels like the perfect distraction from her problems. Now, she only needs to persuade her younger sister, Kelsey, to go along with her plan.

Stuck in a dead-end job, Kelsey Kingstad bounces from one doomed relationship to the next as she struggles to jumpstart her adult life. Carrying the guilt of her mother’s untimely death, Kelsey is reluctant to let go of the Victorian house filled with memories of her mom and their childhood.

When the sisters find a mysterious hidden door, Melanie and Kelsey discover that they can directly view their mother’s younger years and learn all the secrets she never shared with them. Delving into her memories is fun at first, but Melanie and Kelsey quickly uncover difficult truths, throwing their own life choices into question and making them wonder if they ever truly knew their mother. Visiting the past may help them find closure, but the cost could be steeper than they realize.

My Review: http://chicklitplus.com/bookreview-versions-of-her-by-andrea-lochen/

Amazon: https://amzn.to/2rWOg9E

The Passengers  – John Marrs

Just as self-driving cars become the trusted, safer norm, eight people find themselves in this terrifying situation, including a faded TV star, a pregnant young woman, an abused wife fleeing her husband, an illegal immigrant, a husband and wife, and a suicidal man.
 
From cameras hidden in their cars, their panic is broadcast to millions of people around the world. But the public will show their true colors when they are asked, “Which of these people should we save?…And who should we kill first?”

My Review: https://chicklitplus.com/bookreview-the-passengers-by-john-marrs/

Amazon: https://amzn.to/36ldBZS

Thirty-Life Crisis by Lisa Schwartz

Lisa Schwartz’s stories and musings are all about watching her friends adult like pros, while she tries to understand why she doesn’t want or can’t seem to find all the things they have for herself. Like a big sister who’s already seen it all, Lisa will take readers through her own life experiences to say that one thing we all need to hear: you are so not alone. Unabashed and unfiltered, Schwartz’s voice and candor will appeal to anyone in their thirties who just can’t deal with the never-ending Facebook feed of friends’ engagement photos and baby pictures, the trials of figuring out where their passion meets their career, and everything in between.So, if you’ve ever had to figure out…

• Parenting Your Parents (Yikes)
• Gender Reveal Parties (It’s an actual thing.)
• Discovering That Your Boyfriend Likes Boys (Surprise!)
• Online Shopping Away Your Anxiety (Don’t)
• or Gender Reveal Parties (Seriously. It’s an actual thing.)

This book is your new best friend.

My Review: https://chicklitplus.com/bookreview-thirty-life-crisis-by-lisa-schwartz/

Amazon: https://amzn.to/35mBajB