What if your child didn’t return to you after playing hide and seek?

A journalist from the city, a “career woman” and feminist, travels to the unnerving Black Swan Farm to write story about Mia Wright, a trad wife living in an eerie, haunting town in PA.

If you need to be transported to the past and scenic Cornwall, you NEED to read Scandal of the Summer and fall in love with a quirky heiress, Lady Ruby, and a con-artist/pirate with a heart of gold, Malcolm Archer.

Something about September by Julia McKay is the small-town, cozy fall second-chance romance. This novel is set in an adorable town full of friendships, community, apple orchards and autumn décor, called Bramley Hollow in Canada

If you’ve ever struggled with being chronically online but wanting to be more present and strive to bring small moments of joy and hope into your daily life, I think these poems will help you do that AND you will likely smile, giggle, cringe, and relate to many of the poems, too. 

A second-chance romance set at the Renaissance Faire, part of a well-loved series, Caitlin is back home living with her mom, in a small town in Maryland. She is volunteering as a lady-in-waiting at the Ren Faire, when she comes face-to-face with her first love, Alex.

A dark psychological portrait of a toxic friendship that turns into a faux mother-daughter relationship, set in the expat community of San Miguel, Mexico.

After two strangers swap phones on a plane by accident, they get to know each other through chatting and sharing information until a hint of romance blooms, but then a misunderstanding prevents them from meeting until years later. In the Arctic!

I fell in love with The Good Parts by Evann Normandin, and I won’t be surprised if it ends up in my top 10 best books I’ve read this year. This novel is fueled by true love, bittersweet feelings, and nostalgia.

If you are a fan of the romantic tension in Jurassic Park or The X-Files, I bet you will love the smoldering, slow-burn romance in Fossil Feud as the hot summer days in Montana on a paleontology dig get even hotter when two rival paleontologists finally decide to team up and uncover a fossil fraud.

Nine Lives stands out in the thriller genre for its unique premise. I have never read another book involving a cat-collar camera that reveals WAY TOO MUCH information, more than the main character should know (both logistically and legally)!

Let’s Not Go Overboard Here is the debut novel by Erica Hendry, a mystery with a hint of romance and a hilarious writing voice that is so millennial-coded

A Study in Sparkling is a romance set in Australia, with a he-falls-first, friends-to-lovers storyline. Fiona is a newly single mom and Satoshi is the handsome, accomplished owner of her favorite wine bar/bookshop. Book 2 in the Love Notes series, a follow-up to An Academic Affair.

Do you like stories about heists, long cons, or con artists? Were you obsessed with that Netflix TV series about Anna Delvey or Lucky by Marissa Stapley? Then you NEED to check out THE LONG CON!

At a luxurious resort in Vermont, Maggie, a florist and workaholic, falls into a vacation fling with former-boy-band member Jake and has to decide if their fun times will tranlate into a real-world relationship.

With Three Reasons for Revenge, Dervla McTiernan has written a riveting psychological thriller/police procedural set in Australia that will have readers and fans of Jane Harper and Tana French throwing their plans out the window to keep reading.

With Meet Me at the Seaside Cottages, author Jenny Colgan has written another feel-good story set in Scotland with big-hearted characters, small-town life, and vivid descriptions of Northern Scotland, from beaches to the turquoise sea to bluebells in the forest, at the “end of the world.”

Three sisters, one beach house reunion, and lots of love and family drama. Pack this one in your beach bag!

Undercover journalist Isobel is investigating the story of a missing woman as she pretends to be a patient at an isolated, eerie in-patient program for women in the woods of Sweden, at a clinic led by a charismatic, unethical psychologist.

If you want to read a book in search of a feeling, not just in search of the plot, then Nymph by Sofia Montrone just might be the perfect literary fiction novel to end this long, sad-girl summer.