Every other month, our Book Club picks a different trope and we all bring a book that meets the theme. It’s a fun way to build up our TBR piles and we thought you might enjoy their recommendations too!
We got all kinds of great recommendations this month as we discussed our favourite titles that take place in lovely destinations around the world (or out of this world!). Here are our top books:
It Had To Be You by Georgia Clark
For the past twenty years, Liv and Eliot Goldenhorn have run In Love in New York, Brooklyn’s beloved wedding-planning business. When Eliot dies unexpectedly, he even more unexpectedly leaves half of the business to his younger, blonder girlfriend, Savannah. Liv and Savannah are not a match made in heaven, to say the least. But what starts as a personal and professional nightmare transforms into something even savvy, cynical Liv Goldenhorn couldn’t begin to imagine.
It Had to Be You cleverly unites Liv, Savannah, and couples as diverse and unique as New York City itself, in a joyous Love-Actually-style braided narrative. The result is a smart, modern love story that truly speaks to our times.
One Greek Summer by Kate Frost
When Harlow Sands arrives on an idyllic Greek island to work on a big budget movie, it should be the opportunity of a lifetime. But her uncertainty over the direction of her life and the high expectations of Maeve Fennimore-Bell, her domineering Hollywood producer mum, threatens to ruin her summer on beautiful Skopelos
Location manager Tyler Reed has his fair share of demons. His and Harlow’s lives have been entwined for over a decade and now forced to work together, their complicated past begins to unravel.
Harlow is desperate to break free and make her own way in the world, but with a fractured family, a long-hidden secret and a need to belong, can her happy-ever-after be found during one Greek summer?
Summer in San Sebastian by Joy Skye
Abigail’s world has disintegrated, leaving her jobless, homeless, and loveless in a remarkably brief space of time.
Where else can she lick her wounds but in Spain with her dippy Aunt May. She pulls on her big girl pants, swears off men and leaps on the opportunity she’s offered in San Sebastian. Determined to get her life back on track and find her place in the world, it finally all seems to be coming together.
Until she meets Gabe. Gorgeous, grumpy, incredibly annoying, and obviously hiding a secret, but she has to battle against the insane attraction she has for him. He’s only there for a week, after all.
When his secret spills out on National TV, can she overcome her past hurts and learn to trust again, risking her new found job and family in the process?
Paris Letters by Janice MacLeod
“How much money does it take to change your life?”
Unfulfilled at her job and unsuccessful in the dating department, Janice MacLeod doodled this question at her desk. Then she decided to make it a challenge.
Over the next few months, with a little math and a lot of determination, she saved up enough to buy two years of freedom in Europe.
But she had only been in Paris for a few days when she met a handsome butcher (with a striking resemblance to Daniel Craig)—and never went home again.
A love story in the vein of Almost French and Lunch in Paris, Paris Letters is a joyful romp through the City of Light, and an inspiring look at what can happen when we dare to create the life we want.
Aria’s Travelling Book Shop by Rebecca Raisin
Series Name: The Travelling Shops, #2
This summer will change everything!
Aria Summers knows what she wants.
A life on the road with best friend Rosie and her beloved camper-van-cum-book-shop, and definitely, definitely, no romance.
But when Aria finds herself falling – after one too many glasses of wine, from a karaoke stage – into the arms of Jonathan, a part of her comes back to life for the first time in years.
Since her beloved husband died Aria has sworn off love, unless it’s the kind you can find in the pages of a book. One love of her life is quite enough.
And so Aria tries to forget Jonathan and sets off for a summer to remember in France. But could this trip change Aria’s life forever…?
The Undomestic Goddess by Sophie Kinsella
Workaholic attorney Samantha Sweeting has just done the unthinkable. She’s made a mistake so huge, it’ll wreck any chance of a partnership.
Going into utter meltdown, she walks out of her London office, gets on a train, and ends up in the middle of nowhere. Asking for directions at a big, beautiful house, she’s mistaken for an interviewee and finds herself being offered a job as housekeeper. Her employers have no idea they’ve hired a lawyer–and Samantha has no idea how to work the oven. She can’t sew on a button, bake a potato, or get the #@%# ironing board to open. How she takes a deep breath and begins to cope–and finds love–is a story as delicious as the bread she learns to bake.
But will her old life ever catch up with her? And if it does…will she want it back?
On A Night Like This by Lindsey Kelk
Within days of wishing she could change her life, Fran Cooper is acting assistant to a celebrity, on a yacht in the Mediterranean, and en route to a tiny Italian island and the glittering Crystal Ball, along with the world’s rich and famous.
When she – quite literally – bumps into a handsome American called Evan, a man able to keep his cool in the face of chaos, the magic really begins.
Evan makes her a promise: no last names, no life stories, just one unforgettable night. Yet Evan belongs at the Crystal Ball and Fran is a gatecrasher. They may be soulmates, but their homes are an ocean apart, and their lives a world apart. They’ll never meet again – unless, on a night like this, everything can change forever…
The Summer Job by Lizzy Dent
What if you could be someone else? Just for the summer…
Birdy has made a mistake. Everyone imagines running away from their life at some point. But Birdy has actually done it. And the life she’s run into is her best friend Heather’s. The only problem is, she hasn’t told Heather.
The summer job at the highland Scottish hotel that her world class wine-expert friend ditched turns out to be a lot more than Birdy bargained for. Can she survive a summer pretending to be her best friend? And can Birdy stop herself from falling for the first man she’s ever actually liked, but who thinks she’s someone else?
One good friend’s very bad decision is at the heart of this laugh-out-loud love story and unexpected tale of a woman finally finding herself in the strangest of places.
Under The Tuscan Sun by Frances Mayes
Frances Mayes entered a wondrous new world when she began restoring an abandoned villa in the spectacular Tuscan countryside. There were unexpected treasures at every turn: faded frescos beneath the whitewash in her dining room, a vineyard under wildly overgrown brambles in the garden, and, in the nearby hill towns, vibrant markets and delightful people. In Under the Tuscan Sun, she brings the lyrical voice of a poet, the eye of a seasoned traveler, and the discerning palate of a cook and food writer to invite readers to explore the pleasures of Italian life and to feast at her table.
Rosaline Palmer Takes the Cake by Alexis Hall
Following the recipe is the key to a successful bake. Rosaline Palmer has always lived by those rules—well, except for when she dropped out of college to raise her daughter, Amelie. Now, with a paycheck as useful as greaseproof paper and a house crumbling faster than biscuits in tea, she’s teetering on the edge of financial disaster. But where there’s a whisk there’s a way . . . and Rosaline has just landed a spot on the nation’s most beloved baking show.
Winning the prize money would give her daughter the life she deserves—and Rosaline is determined to stick to the instructions. However, more than collapsing trifles stand between Rosaline and sweet, sweet victory. Suave, well-educated, and parent-approved Alain Pope knows all the right moves to sweep her off her feet, but it’s shy electrician Harry Dobson who makes Rosaline question her long-held beliefs—about herself, her family, and her desires.
Rosaline fears falling for Harry is a guaranteed recipe for disaster. Yet as the competition—and the ovens—heat up, Rosaline starts to realize the most delicious bakes come from the heart.
Shadow of a Century by Jane Grainger
A journalist in modern New York stumbles across a story from a century earlier when the streets of Dublin were ablaze as men and women fought valiantly for liberation from the British Empire. This is the story of three women.
Mary Doyle was reared by nuns and knows nothing of her parents, except that they were a source of shame. Arriving to Dublin in 1913 at just eighteen years old, she is resigned to facing a lifetime of domestic service. Instead, however, her eyes are opened to the political and social turmoil of a fledgling nation struggling for independence. Suddenly, all that was once inevitable is no longer a certainty as she is embroiled in the very heart of the Easter Rising.
Scarlett O’Hara has overcome many hurdles to get where she is today, not least her name. A successful political analyst, on a reputable New York broadsheet, her seemingly perfect existence goes up in a blaze of media headlines when she makes one catastrophic error of judgement. As she tries to rebuild her life from the wreckage, she has no option but to start at the very beginning again.
Eileen Chiarello is ninety-three years old and she has a story that will draw her back to Ireland, the land her parents fought for and loved so passionately. A chance meeting with Scarlett gives her the opportunity to fulfil a promise she feared she never could.
Shadow of a Century is the story of three women, whose stories are inextricably linked over the span of a century.
A Kiss on Kaidava S.J. Sanders
Series Name: The Mate Index, #4
Cara has been looking forward to her happily ever after. With no living family, it is all she has wanted for years and she thought she found it with the love of her life, Ben. When Ben has to go away on a business trip to Kaidava, her fantasies of a perfect life and the image of the man she was to marry quickly begin to unravel when Ben comms confessing that he fell in love with a local Kadesh female. To get the man she wants back Cara will do anything, even break Earth laws by illegally leaving the planet and teaming up with an unscrupulous Kadesh male to get him back.
Lerix has had it with romance. Disgusted with the whole concept, he left his homeworld as a youth on a presumed mating quest to find his mate. After revolutions of getting by as a bodyguard supplemented with thievery, he is eager to return back home. The only catch is that he has to find a temporary stand in mate to get him back on Kaidava. When his plans fall through, he happily finds himself in the company of a female human also eager to make her way planet-side, to chase after a male of all things. He makes her a bargain, pose as his mate and he will help her get him back.
Traveling through Kaidava as they hunt for Ben, they also find themselves the hunted when the jewels Lerix stole from his previous client puts an elite guard and assassins on their trail. To make matters worse, as time passes in her company, Lerix becomes more certain that Cara is his mate.
Hot British Boyfriend by Kristy Boyce
After a horrifying public rejection by her crush, Ellie Nichols does what any girl would do: she flees the country. To be more precise, she joins her high school’s study abroad trip to England. While most of her classmates are there to take honors courses and pad their college applications, Ellie is on a quest to rebuild her reputation and self-confidence. And nothing is more of a confidence booster than getting a hot British boyfriend.
When Ellie meets Will, a gorgeous and charming Brit, she vows to avoid making the same mistakes as she did with the last guy she liked. Which is why she strikes up a bargain with Dev, an overachieving classmate who she’s never clicked with, but who does seem to know a lot about the things Will is interested in—if he helps her win over her crush, then she’ll help him win over his.
But even as Ellie embarks on a whirlwind romance, one that takes her on adventures to some of England’s most beautiful places, she still needs to figure out if this is actually the answer to all her problems…and whether the perfect boyfriend is actually the perfect boy for her.
Float Plan by Trish Doller
Since the loss of her fiancé, Anna has been shipwrecked by grief—until a reminder goes off about a trip they were supposed to take together. Impulsively, Anna goes to sea in their sailboat, intending to complete the voyage alone.
But after a treacherous night’s sail, she realizes she can’t do it by herself and hires Keane, a professional sailor, to help. Much like Anna, Keane is struggling with a very different future than the one he had planned. As romance rises with the tide, they discover that it’s never too late to chart a new course.
In Trish Doller’s unforgettable Float Plan, starting over doesn’t mean letting go of your past, it means making room for your future.
The Tourist Attraction by Sarah Morgenthaler
Series Name: Moose Springs, Alaska #1
When Graham Barnett named his diner The Tourist Trap, he meant it as a joke. Now he’s stuck slinging reindeer dogs to an endless string of resort visitors who couldn’t interest him less. Not even the sweet, enthusiastic tourist in the corner who blushes every time he looks her way…
Two weeks in Alaska isn’t just the top item on Zoey Caldwell’s bucket list. It’s the whole bucket. One look at the mountain town of Moose Springs and she’s smitten. But when an act of kindness brings Zoey into Graham’s world, she may just find there’s more to the man than meets the eye…and more to love in Moose Springs than just the Alaskan wilderness.
