Arizona: Insignificant Events in the Life of a Cactus by Dusti Bowling
Forgive me the pun, but what an utterly disarming book this is! I absolutely loved Aven Green, a girl born with no arms and an extra helping of humor. When she and her parents move to Arizona to run the decrepit Stagecoach Pass theme park, Aven has to navigate a whole new school without the friends she grew up with, friends who knew her—and her differences—well. This book could have been a study of the challenges of what it is to be someone without arms. Instead, it’s a study in what it is to be someone with a big heart.
Chicago, Illinois: First Star I See Tonight by Susan Elizabeth Phillips
Susan Elizabeth Phillips has a killer tag line of, "Because Life is Better with Happily Ever Afters." For sure! She never fails to deliver on the humor--or the heat. Take one former Chicago Stars football player, now a nightclub owner, and add in a fledgling private investigator, and you've got some windy city romance and laughs. Her new book in this series is coming out in June of 2021, When the Stars Collide. These can be read as stand-alone.
Oregon: Past Presence by Nicole Bross
Shout out to my fellow Literary Wanderlust author, Nicole Bross. Past Presence has a great premise. Audrey can see flashes of someone’s past lives whenever she touches them. Her aunt leaves her an historic inn in Oregon and Audrey travels there ready to sell the inn as soon as possible and return to her life as a somewhat itenerant historian. Soon, though, residents of the small town begin dying in exactly the same manner they died in previous lives Audrey had glimpsed. The people in town are all connected in a single event they shared in their previous lives. Audrey is pulled both into the mystery of how this can be and the romance she begins with Kellen, the bartender at the inn. I loved the setting for this book, the characters, the supernatural element, and the mystery.