The Happy Housewife (Samantha Sherman Book 1)by Kate Cooch

Samantha ‘Sam’ Sherman is a thirty something stay-at-home Mom without any problems. She loves her smart husband, her sweet daughter, and her career choice. One day, in the process of helping a friend, she is drawn into the investigation of two murders. Suddenly, her steady world begins to sway. Insecurities from years ago return, her husband is annoyed at her involvement in the case, and then there is the acerbic detective with dark curly hair and green eyes who seems to be everywhere. Sam is miserable and stressed out and well, slightly exhilarated. Imperfection can be a deadly draw.

“The Happy Housewife” is a suburban murder mystery with an unexplained explosion, a bloody fire poker, and a touch of romance. One ordinary woman is snatched from her seemingly ideal life and forced to confront a mistake from her past in order to solve two murders.

July, July: A Novelby Tim O’Brien

A “perceptive, affectionate, and often very funny” novel about old college friends at a thirty-year reunion, by the author of The Things They Carried (Boston Herald).

From a National Book Award winner who’s been called “the best American writer of his generation” (San Francisco Examiner), July, July tells the story of ten old friends who attended Darton Hall College together back in 1969, and now reunite for a summer weekend of dancing, drinking, flirting, reminiscing–and regretting.

The three decades since graduation have brought marriage and divorce, children and careers, hopes deferred and replaced. This witty, heart-rending novel about men and women who came into adulthood at a moment when American ideals and innocence began to fade, a New York Times Notable Book, is “deeply satisfying” (O, the Oprah Magazine) and “almost impossible to put down” (Austin American-Statesman).

“A symphony of American life.” –All Things Considered, NPR

Let Me Inby Ali Parker

He said I couldn’t do it, but he was wrong.

An old professor at UCLA promised me that I would make nothing of myself, so I made sure I did.

To the tune of billions. I’m only a little cocky about it.

Yachts, parties, and one-night events pretty much spell out my life.

And all of it works well until I run into a beauty I can’t get out of my head.

But we’re keeping it friendly and casual until we aren’t.

There’s just one problem. Her old man hates me.

And for good reason. He was my UCLA professor.

He’s dead set against me becoming anything important to his little girl, but the old man’s got it all backward.

I’m not looking to make an example out of our passion or prove a point.

This isn’t about hit it and quit it.

His daughter is mine, and he might kick me out, but she’s letting me all the way in.

This is book 1 in a 3 book series. You will have to read books 2 and 3 to complete the story.

Living in Cleveland With the Ghost of Joseph Stalinby Marc Sercomb

It’s the summer of 1953. Calvin Jefferson Coolidge is thirteen years old when the ghost of Joseph Stalin appears to him in his Aunt Evelyn’s cluttered Cleveland attic and wants to dictate his memoirs to him.
“I want to tell my side of the story,” Uncle Joe tells him. “They’re giving me one year to set the record straight, so we need to get started right away.”
Calvin’s life is falling apart at the seams. He’s a misfit and loner whose only friends are famous dead people. He loves polka music and Westerns and sometimes wonders what it would be like to kiss a girl. His con man father is in Florida looking for his bipolar runaway mother. His cousin Buck is abducted and experimented on by aliens. The lady next door wants to coach him in the ways of love. His pastor thinks he’s headed straight for Hell. His English teacher thinks he’s a savant. The school psychologist wants to have him committed. His shrink thinks he’s just plain nuts. Sometimes, Calvin believes it too.
Everybody’s trying to figure out what makes Calvin tick in this quirky, fast-paced metaphysical romp through the heart and soul of 1950’s America.