My mom likes to tell me about how I would try to plan 3 birthday parties for myself when I was a kid, one for immediate family, one for extended family, and one for friends. My desire for parties fizzled as I hit the teen years and my discomfort of standing there while people sing "Happy Birthday" continues. However, for my 40th, I wanted a celebration, I wanted, I'd say a gathering over a party, and I wanted to go out. I turned 40, 14 days after we went on lockdown in 2020...
September 9 ranks #1 as the most common day in America for birthdays. According to an article on rd.com (Reader's Digest), 9 out of 10 of the most frequent birth dates fall between September 9th through September 20th.
"Marie-Claire has just made the shocking discovery that her boyfriend and business partner is cheating on her. Reeling, she leaves Toronto for Ireland just in time to celebrate her great-aunt Reverend Mother Brigid's eightieth birthday. It's a long-awaited reunion for her family, bringing her mother Keelin and grandmother Imelda-who have never quite gotten along-together as well. Then all hell breaks loose. Bitter, jealous Imelda makes a startling revelation at the party that forces them all to confront their pasts and face the truths that have shaped their lives. With four fierce, opinionated women in one family, will they ever be able to find common ground and move forward?"--Provided by publisher.
Since the day Filomena Fontana cast a curse upon her sister more than two hundred years ago, not one second-born Fontana daughter has found lasting love. Some, like second-born Emilia, the happily single baker at her grandfather's Brooklyn deli, claim it's an odd coincidence. Others, like her sexy, desperate-for-love cousin Lucy, insist it's a true hex. But both are bewildered when their great-aunt calls with an astounding proposition: If they accompany her to her homeland of Italy, Aunt Poppy vows she'll meet the love of her life on the steps of the Ravello Cathedral on her eightieth birthday, and break the Fontana Second-Daughter Curse once and for all.
"Siblings Perry, Jake, and Phoebe Goodwin were raised on the shore of a beautiful Connecticut lake in a close-knit family. The eldest of the family, forty-two-year-old Perry has long craved order as surely as his charismatic younger brother, Jake, has avoided it. Phoebe, their baby sister, courts both. As adults, the Goodwin siblings could not be more different. Perry is as married to his career in New York as a risk analyst as Phoebe is to her college sweetheart, but both have returned to Connecticut to raise their young families. Charismatic Jake, however, has a wanderlust that leaves him unable to settle in one place. The three have not spent much time together . . . until this summer. On the afternoon of their grandmother's ninety-seventh birthday party, the siblings reunite at the lake house where Jake stuns the family with a stranger on his arm and an announcement. Olivia Cossette, daughter of a French chef, does not share the traditional Goodwin New England upbringing or sense of family. What she does share is parenthood, as the single mother of a little girl who does not speak. While the Goodwin family struggle to welcome the newcomers over the course of the summer, a series of bad choices made by each family member finally unravels, leaving them all to question just what truly makes a family. Can one fateful moment on a July afternoon undo a lifetime of good intentions? Only one thing is for certain -- this extraordinary summer has irrevocably changed the Goodwin family and all that remains is the uncertain future."-- Provided by publisher.
"The first new novel in four years from the beloved superstar author of Sarah's Key, a heartbreaking and uplifting story of family secrets and devastating disaster, in the tradition of THE NEST. The Rain Watcher is a powerful family drama set in Paris as the Malegarde family gathers to celebrate the father's 70th birthday. Their hidden fears and secrets are slowly unraveled as the City of Light undergoes a stunning natural disaster. Seen through the eyes of charismatic photographer Linden Malegarde, the youngest son, all members of the family will have to fight to keep their unity against tragic circumstances. In this profound and intense novel of love and redemption, De Rosnay demonstrates all of her writer's skills both as an incredible storyteller but also as a soul seeker"-- Provided by publisher.
Ellie de Florent-Stinson is celebrating her fortieth birthday with a grand celebration in her fabulous house in Palm Springs. At forty, it appears Ellie has everything she ever wanted: a handsome husband; an accomplished, college-age stepdaughter; a beautiful ten-year-old girl; two adorable and rambunctious six-year-old twin boys; lush, well-appointed homes in Los Angeles, Park City, and Palm Springs; a thriving career as a well-known fashion designer of casual women's wear; and a glamorous circle of friends. Except everything is not quite as perfect as it looks on the outside--Ellie is keeping many secrets. This isn't the first birthday celebration that hasn't gone as planned. There's a certain sixteenth birthday that she's tried hard to forget. But hiding the skeletons of her past comes at a cost, and all of Ellie's secrets come to light on the night of her fabulous birthday party in the desert--where everyone who matters in her life shows up, invited or not. Old and new, friends and frenemies, stepdaughters and business partners, ex-wives and ex-husbands congregate, and the glittering facade of her life crumbles in one eventful night. Beautifully paced and full of surprises, The Birthday Girl is an enthralling tale of a life lived in shadow, and its unavoidable consequences.-- Publisher's description.
Livia's fortieth birthday party is supposed to be the wedding celebration she never had, but family secrets threaten to ruin the big day.
On the verge of her fortieth birthday and shaken by a recent miscarriage, Emily inherits an abandoned summer camp in Massachusetts. She and her husband move onto the property and make grand plans to revitalize the land. But they soon discover that their inheritance includes an unexpected guest. On a walk through the old campgrounds she once frequented as a girl, Emily finds, living undetected in one of the cabins, a magnetic twenty-two-year-old named Stella. As the two women begin spending time together--talking and drinking, swimming in the lake, watching seductive French films through long afternoons--Emily finds herself playing at performing various roles relative to Stella: friend, mother, lover. Each encounter they share promises to bring Emily a little closer to an understanding of her own identity, but it also puts her marriage and future at risk. How much does she really know about Stella? Why is Stella here, and what does she want, and what might she take with her, if and when she leaves? Taking place over a single summer in a landscape that refuses to be tamed, The Summer Demands is a beautiful, quietly startling exploration of the sting of seduction, of unspoken female rage, and of how desire and ambition shift over time.
"Mary Dixie Carter's The Photographer is a slyly observed, suspenseful story of envy and obsession, told in the mesmerizing, irresistible voice of a character who will make you doubt that seeing is ever believing. Delta Dawn comes from humble beginnings, but in her work as a photographer for the children's parties of New York's elite she is used to moving, unnoticed, through their luxurious homes. As she observes their seemingly perfect lives, she adds to this veneer by transforming the images of their crying children, stiff hugs and unsmiling faces-editing the images to make sure the parents see the party they want. The party they may later, looking at the pictures, believe really happened that way. When Delta is hired to take pictures of Natalie Straub's 11th birthday, she finds herself wishing she wasn't behind the lens. She would fit so well in the pictures with the Straub family, wouldn't she, in their gorgeous home, their elegant life? This time editing the pictures isn't enough. Delta begins by babysitting for Natalie, befriending her mother Amelia, finding chances to listen to her father Fritz; soon she's bathing in the master bathtub, drinking their expensive wine, and eyeing the beautifully finished-and currently occupied-garden apartment in their townhouse. It seems like she can never get close enough. Until Delta discovers the one thing Amelia Straub wants most is also the perfect way for Delta to become permanently a part of the picture"--. Provided by publisher.
ERIC: There was the day we were born. There was the minute Morgan and I decided we were best friends for life. The years where we stuck by each other's side--as Morgan's mom died, as he moved across town, as I joined the football team, as my parents started fighting. But sometimes I worry that Morgan and I won't be best friends forever. That there'll be a day, a minute, a second, where it all falls apart and there's no turning back the clock.
MORGAN: I know that every birthday should feel like a new beginning, but I'm trapped in this mixed-up body, in this wrong life, in Nowheresville, Tennessee, on repeat. With a dad who cares about his football team more than me, a mom I miss more than anything, and a best friend who can never know my biggest secret. Maybe one day I'll be ready to become the person I am inside. To become her. To tell the world. To tell Eric. But when?
Six years of birthdays reveal Eric and Morgan's destiny as they come together, drift apart, fall in love, and discover who they're meant to be--and if they're meant to be together. From the award-winning author of If I Was Your Girl, Meredith Russo, comes a heart-wrenching and universal story of identity, first love, and fate.
Harlem teenager Nala is looking forward to a summer of movies and ice cream until she falls in love with the very woke Tye and pretends to be a social activist.
Nala Robertson reluctantly agrees to attend an open mic night for her cousin-sister-friend Imani's birthday. Tye Brown, the MC is perfect, except-- he is an activist and is spending the summer putting on events for the community when Nala would rather watch movies and try out the new seasonal flavors at the local creamery. In order to impress Tye, Nala tells a few tiny lies to have enough in common with him. As they spend more time together, some of those lies get harder to keep up. As Nala falls deeper into keeping up her lies and into love, she'll learn all the ways love is hard, and how self-love is revolutionary. -- adapted from jacket
.png)
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.