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I read my first ever Marisa De Los Santos novel earlier this year (Love Walked In) and it was a beautiful read. I really, really enjoyed it and I’m eagerly waiting for some time to read its sequel (Belong To Me). Marisa is back with a new stand-alone novel on October 4th with Falling Together and I must admit, that cover is so beautiful! The blue is just delightful. Here’s what it’s about:

What if saying hello to an old friend meant saying good-bye to life as you know it?

It’s been six years since Pen Calloway watched her best friends walk out of her life. And through the birth of her daughter, the death of her father, and the vicissitudes of single motherhood, she has never stopped missing them.

Pen, Cat, and Will met on their first day of college and formed what seemed like a magical and lifelong bond, only to see their friendship break apart amid the realities of adulthood. When, after years of silence, Cat—the bewitching, charismatic center of their group—e-mails Pen and Will with an urgent request to meet at their college reunion, they can’t refuse. But instead of a happy reconciliation, what awaits is a collision of past and present that sends Pen and Will, with Pen’s five-year-old daughter and Cat’s hostile husband in tow, on a journey across the world.

With her trademark wit, vivid prose, and gift for creating authentic, captivating characters, Marisa de los Santos returns with an emotionally resonant novel about our deepest human connections. As Pen and Will struggle to uncover the truth about Cat, they find more than they bargained for: startling truths about who they were before and who they are now. They must confront the reasons their friendship fell apart and discover how—and if—it can ever fall back together.

We all know that Sophie Kinsella is back next year. Can I get a “Yaaaaaaaaaaay”? It’s a stand-alone (no Shopaholic LA… yet!) and it’s called I’ve Got Your Number. It’s out on both sides of the Atlantic in February, releasing in America on February 14th 2012. We have the synopsis and it sounds AWESOME. I can’t wait to read it. Really, I can’t. I mean, is it February yet? Here’s the synopsis:

Kinsella returns with her strongest stand-alone since Remember Me?, with a heroine who brings a whole new level of wit, intelligence, and romance to the social network. Poppy is thrilled: she is marrying the man of her dreams—Magnus Tavish. Never mind that his family of footnote obsessed academics looks down their nose at the fact that she is a physical therapist with no real academic credentials. Still, Magnus has bestowed up on her the huge family emerald engagement ring. But…an alarm goes off at the hotel where Poppy’s girlfriends are all passing the ring around during a celebratory tea, and in the ensuing melee the ring vanishes! Then Poppy’s cell phone gets swiped by a bicyclist, and her only means of immediate communication disappears. She is distraught—until she sees another phone, tossed away in the hotel bin. Instant relief… she emails the new number to all her friends, but then the phone rings, and a strange mans’ voice demands, “Excuse me, who is this? Why are you answering this number?” Thus ensues the best, warmest, and funniest Kinsella yet as Poppy, tied to a stranger by cell, text, and email upends his life and her own in ways neither could have ever imagined.

I love Anna McPartlin. I read Pack Up The Moon last year and it blew me away and then I read her new novel The One I Love and it was just as amazing. So I’m so incredibly pleased that Anna’s new book The Space Between Us is out at the end of this month in Ireland and online (and in the UK in 2012, but that’s another post and another cover!). It looks amazing and it sounds even better! Here’s the synopsis:

If you knew you’d leave this world so soon, would you do it all differently? Tick, tock . . . Workaholic Eve Hayes is burnt out and lonely. At the age of thirty-eight, she’s afraid she has allowed the chance of a real and worthwhile life pass her by. Lilly Donovan got married too young and over the years she’s become a prisoner and slave in her own home. Eve survives a horrific car accident only to be reunited with her old friend, Lily. A long time ago these two women were inseparable but the events of one terrible night ended their friendship abruptly. Now, eighteen years later, they have a chance to confront the past and reclaim their friendship. But Eve’s brother Clooney is Lily’s old flame and his presence threatens her already difficult home life. And Lily’s husband, the looming omnipresent Dr Declan Donovan can only be kept in the dark for so long . . . All the while something is whispering into Eve’s ear . . . tick, tock . . .

Last year saw the release of a short story collection called The Book Lovers’ Appreciation Society and this year Orion have teamed up with more authors to bring The Best Little Book Club In Town which was released at the beginning of the month. I love the sound of it, and I really enjoy reading short stories. Authors contributing to this book includes Katie Fforde, Sophie Kinsella, Jodi Picoult and more. Here’s the synopsis:

Irresistible short stories from some of the top names in fiction writing today. A chance meeting with a handsome Italian stranger… The Christmas list - with a difference A yummy mummy picks up the wrong bag, with surprising consequences The woman who wanted a life change, but got rather more than she bargained for The ex-wife who could provide her ex-husband with an alibi for murder A mother’s instincts and a daughter’ love life A woman drawn to the mysterious house on the hill… Here are stories of love, passion, mystery and hope - and the discovery that some of the more surprising things in life are often the most important… From Kate Mosse to Jodi Picoult, this is the must-have collection of the year.

We brought you news of Ali Harris’s debut novel a little while ago, but now we have a cover to accompany it. Miracle on Regent Street is due out on 13th October 2011 - a little over a month away! - and it’s one both Chloe and I can’t wait to read. It sounds brilliant and I love that the cover isn’t your typical Christmas affair. The blue will really pop on the shelves. Here’s the synopsis:

Dreams can come true - it could happen to you…For the past two years, Evie Taylor has lived an invisible existence in London, a city she hoped would bring sparkle to her life. But all that is about to change. For winter has brought a flurry of snow and unexpected possibilities. Hidden away in the basement of Hardy’s - once London’s most elegant department store - Evie manages the stockroom of a shop whose glory days have long since passed. When Evie overhears that Hardy’s is at risk of being sold, she secretly hatches a plan. If she can reverse the store’s fortunes by December 26th - three weeks away - and transform it into a magical destination once again, she might just be able to save it. But she’s going to need every ounce of talent and determination she has. In fact, she’s going to need a miracle.

Last year I read - and loved - Julie Cohen’s debut novel as a “proper” Headline author (she wrote for the Little Black Dress imprint previously) Getting Away With It so I was ridiculously excited to see news on Julie’s next novel The Summer of Living Dangerously on Amazon. It’s out in hardback on 10th November 2011 (and in paperback early 2012) (what a strange time to release a “Summer” novel) and I can’t wait to read it. I love the cover, it’s different to Getting Away With It’s cover but I still like it. Here’s the synopsis:

A gorgeously warm, funny and heartbreaking story about facing up to your past and finding out what - and who - you really want… Alice Woodstock has her life under control. She’s successful and she’s happy - as long as she continues to ignore the hurt from her past. But when said past walks back into her life in the shape of Leo - the man she married too young, ran away to Paris with and who ultimately broke her heart - Alice is desperate for an escape route. She finds the perfect thing - a new job as a tour guide in a Regency stately home. But as she immerses herself in acting out the stories of the house, Alice begins to see parallels with her own life, forcing her to confront her feelings about what she wants and, finally, live in the real world.

Earlier this year I read and enjoyed Susan Wiggs’s first “Lakeshore” novel Summer at Willow Lake so I was inordinately pleased to see the second novel in the “Lakeshore” series, The Winter Lodge was going to be released over in the UK on 21st October 2011. I love the Winter-y cover and I can’t wait to read Jenny’s story! Here’s the synopsis:

On the longest night of the year, Jenny Majesky loses everything in a devastating house fire. But among the ashes she finds an unusual treasure hidden amid her grandfather’s belongings, one that starts her on a search for the truth, and on a path toward a life that she never imagined. The Winter Lodge, a remote cabin owned by her half sister on the shores of Willow Lake, becomes a safe refuge for Jenny, where she and local police chief Rourke McKnight try to sort out the mysteries revealed by the fire. But when a blizzard traps them together, Jenny, accustomed to the safe predictability of running the family bakery, suddenly doesn’t feel so secure. For even as Rourke shelters her from the storm outside, she knows her heart is at risk. Now, following her dreams might mean walking away from her one chance at love.

Leah brought us the news a while ago on American Weekends that Karyn Bosnak’s novel ‘What’s Your Number?’ (previously published as Twenty Times A Lady) was being made into a movie, and as such, a film version of the book is being released here in the UK. It’s due out on 15th September and I think it sounds like a really funny read, and the movie looks like it’s going to be great too!

Everybody’s got a number. In fact, everyone has a few numbers. There’s the one we tell our friends, the one we tell our boyfriends, and the one, if absolutely pushed, that we tell our parents. But only we know what our true number is. Well, I was getting a little self-conscious about my number. So I decided that twenty would be my limit. No more. Not ever.

Delilah Darling wakes up one morning to realise that she has, without meaning to, hit the Big Twenty and she still hasn’t found The One.

She has only one option - to go on the ultimate road trip back to the beginning and revisit all those past lovers. Could she have missed the Love of Her Life without realising it?