Romance

I know the secret identity of Lady Whistledown! Do you? Are you a Bridgerton fan wanting something to do until season 2 of the wildly popular show (based on the books by Julia Quinn) begins on Netflix? Hopefully, some of these fun reads can help get you through until the return of Bridgerton! Enjoy!

A lady's formula for love by Elizabeth Everett

What is a lady's formula for love? Bring together one brilliant noblewoman and an enigmatic bodyguard. Mix in a measure of danger and attraction. Heat over the warmth of humor and friendship, and the result is more than simple chemistry--it's elemental. Lady Violet Hughes is keeping secrets. First, she founded London's first social club for ladies to provide sanctuary for England's most brilliant female scientists. Second, she is using her genius on a clandestine mission for the Crown. But the biggest secret of all? Her feelings for protection officer Arthur Kneland. The most guarded of men, Kneland learned the hard way to put duty first. But the more time spent in the company of Violet and the eccentric club members, the more his best intentions go up in flames. Literally. When a shadowy threat infiltrates Violet's laboratories, endangering her life and her work, scientist and bodyguard will find all their theories put to the test--and learn that the most important discoveries are those of the hear.

This year's Together We Read selection is the romance novel Love Lettering by Kate Clayborn. Described as a quirky love story between a talented calligrapher and a Wall Street mathematician who discovers a secret message in her work. Join e-Book readers across the U.S. reading this book at the same time and enjoy some warmth and laughter this winter. This title will be available on OverDrive without any waitlists or holds from February 10th-24th.

This Valentine's day, celebrate all kinds of love with these enchanting reads. Not into romance? We have something for you, too!

Black and POC Love Stories

Also available in: e-book | e-audiobook

Danika Brown knows what she wants: professional success, academic renown, and an occasional roll in the hay to relieve all that career-driven tension. But romance? Been there, done that, burned the T-shirt. Romantic partners, whatever their gender, are a distraction at best and a drain at worst. So Dani asks the universe for the perfect friend-with-benefits--someone who knows the score and knows their way around the bedroom. 

When big, brooding security guard Zafir Ansari rescues Dani from a workplace fire drill gone wrong, it's an obvious sign: PhD student Dani and former rugby player Zaf are destined to sleep together. But before she can explain that fact to him, a video of the heroic rescue goes viral. Suddenly, half the internet is shipping #DrRugbae--and Zaf is begging Dani to play along. Turns out his sports charity for kids could really use the publicity. Lying to help children? Who on earth would refuse? 

Masterpiece (aka Masterpiece Theatre, Masterpiece Mystery) turns 50 this year. Celebrate with our wide collection of Masterpiece movies and series, located in the TV section, and books throughout Fiction and Nonfiction. Cheers!

The official Downton Abbey cookbook by Annie (Food historian) Gray

The Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards are the "Oscars" of the comics world. Check below to access eBook or borrow print copies of many award nominees. Visit the San Diego Comic-Con site for the complete list of nominees

Best Continuing Series

New this month in the Large Print collection are a variety of romance, mystery, and thriller titles. A few are featured below, with additional new titles available in the Large Print collection at the Library.

Sunset beach [large print] by 1954- Mary Kay Andrews
Also available in: print | audiobook

Pull up a lounge chair and have a cocktail at Sunset Beach - it comes with a twist. Drue Campbell's life is adrift. Out of a job and down on her luck, life doesn't seem to be getting any better when her estranged father, Brice Campbell, a flamboyant personal injury attorney, shows up at her mother's funeral after a twenty-year absence. Worse, he's remarried - to Drue's eighth grade frenemy, Wendy, now his office manager. And they're offering her a job. It seems like the job from hell, but the offer is sweetened by the news of her inheritance - her grandparents' beach bungalow in the sleepy town of Sunset Beach, a charming but storm-damaged eyesore now surrounded by waterfront McMansions. With no other prospects, Drue begrudgingly joins the firm, spendingher days screening out the grifters whose phone calls flood the law office. Working with Wendy is no picnic either. But when a suspicious death at an exclusive beach resort nearby exposes possible corruption at her father's firm, she goes from unwilling cubicle rat to unwitting investigator, and is drawn into a case that may - or may not - involve her father. With an office romance building, a decades-old missing persons case re-opened, and a cottage in rehab, one thing is for sure at Sunset Beach: there's a storm on the horizon. 

Queen bee : a novel by Dorothea Benton Frank
Also available in: print | audiobook

Beekeeper Holly McNee Kensen quietly lives in a world of her own on Sullivans Island, tending her hives and working at the local island library. Holly calls her mother The Queen Bee because she's a demanding hulk of a woman. Her mother, a devoted hypochondriac, might be unaware that she's quite ill but that doesn't stop her from tormenting Holly. To escape the drama, Holly's sister Leslie married and moved away, wanting little to do with island life. Holly's escape is to submerge herself in the lives of the two young boys next door and their widowed father, Archie.

Her world is upended when the more flamboyant Leslie returns and both sisters, polar opposites, fixate on what's happening in their neighbor's home. Is Archie really in love with that awful ice queen of a woman? If Archie marries her, what will become of his little boys? Restless Leslie is desperate for validation after her imploded marriage, squandering her favors on any and all takers. Their mother ups her game in an uproarious and theatrical downward spiral. Scandalized Holly is talking to her honey bees a mile a minute, as though they'll give her a solution to all the chaos. Maybe they will.

Queen Bee is a classic Lowcountry Tale--warm, wise and hilarious, it roars with humanity and a dropperful of whodunit added for good measure by an unseen hand.

What do cozy mystery books and romance books have in common? An affinity for silly titles such as:

Mulch Ado About Murder

Chili Con Corpses

How to Flirt with a Naked Werewolf

So I Married a Sorcerer

We've created a Battle of the Bad Books. Vote for your favorite "bad" mystery or romance title each week and watch how the bracket is narrowed to the ultimate winner. Check out the display and related books available for check-out at CPL.

Love is hard...but reading about it isn't! These romantic titles are sweet, charming, and easy to dive into. 

Camp by Lev AC Rosen

At Camp Outland, a camp for LGBTQIA teens, sixteen-year-old Randall "Del" Kapplehoff's plan to have Hudson Aaronson-Lim fall in love with him succeeds, but both are hiding their true selves.

Dating Makes Perfect by Pintip Dunn

The Tech sisters don't date in high school. Not because they're not asked. Not because they're not interested. Not even because no one can pronounce their long, Thai last name--hence the shortened, awkward moniker. But simply because they're not allowed. Until now..

Bad Art Night: Valentines

Vintage clown valentine

 

Bad Art Night is back, just in time for Valentine's Day! Forget Hallmark. This year, present your sweetie with a homemade token of your love instead. We'll provide the supplies and you create an ugly valentine. Join us for this freestyle crafting event on Thursday, February 7, 2019 6:30-8:00 pm - absolutely no skill required!  

Participants will have 45 minutes to create something dreadful. Then, each valentine will be displayed, and light refreshments served, while participants vote for their favorite valentine. The winner will be recognized as the Best Bad Artist of Love and receive a trophy. Space is limited, so reserve your spot now. Good luck!  

 

This program is for 18+.  

Upcoming sessions

There are no upcoming sessions available.

Comanche Captive by D. Laszlo Conhaim

Scott Renald is an Indian agent searching for white captives. Laura Little is a former captive seeking her Comanche-born son. They meet unexpectedly on the high plains. Touched by her story, Renald leads Laura's search while hostile tribesmen pursue them. Word of their predicament reaches Fort Sill, and agents are dispatched to grab her and recall him. Meanwhile, the army prepares for war with the Comanche. Circumstances propel all into a heart-wrenching and bloody conflict of competing loyalties and surprising discoveries against the scorched backdrop of the Staked Plain.

Also available in: print

"Be kind and have faith." Ella Troyer strives to abide by her mother's final words, although life in the small Amish town of Echo Creek isn't always easy. Her new stepmother, Linda, treats her coldly, and her two stepsisters, Drusilla and Anna, delight in gossip and laziness. After her father's death, Ella's stepsisters are free to attend youth singings while Ella stays at home to manage the household chores, rarely seeing another soul. Until one day, while running an errand, she has a chance meeting with a young Amish man from a nearby town. Drusilla and Anna are full of admiration for charming, affluent newcomer Johannes Wagler, and Linda hopes to ensnare him as a husband for one of her girls-- while keeping Ella out of the way. As for Hannes, he longs to catch another glimpse of the mysterious young woman who can sing so sweetly and bake the most delicious pie he's ever sampled. Now, with a little help from some unlikely sources, Ella dares to hope she might find her heart's dearest wishes-- for love, family, and a home of her own-- coming true at last.

Also available in: print

A poignant, evocative, and wonderfully gossipy account of the two sisters who represented style and class above all else--Jackie Kennedy Onassis and Lee Radziwill--from the authors of Furious Love.

When sixty-four-year-old Jackie Kennedy Onassis died in her Fifth Avenue apartment, her younger sister Lee wept inconsolably. Then Jackie's thirty-eight-page will was read. Lee discovered that substantial cash bequests were left to family members, friends, and employees--but nothing to her. "I have made no provision in this my Will for my sister, Lee B. Radziwill, for whom I have great affection, because I have already done so during my lifetime," read Jackie's final testament. Drawing on the authors' candid interviews with Lee Radziwill, The Fabulous Bouvier Sisters explores their complicated relationship, placing them at the center of twentieth-century fashion, design, and style.

In life, Jackie and Lee were alike in so many ways. Both women had a keen eye for beauty--in fashion, design, painting, music, dance, sculpture, poetry--and both were talented artists. Both loved pre-revolutionary Russian culture, and the blinding sunlight, calm seas, and ancient olive groves of Greece. Both loved the siren call of the Atlantic, sharing sweet, early memories of swimming with the rakish father they adored, Jack Vernou Bouvier, at his East Hampton retreat. But Jackie was her father's favorite, and Lee, her mother's. One would grow to become the most iconic woman of her time, while the other lived in her shadow. As they grew up, the two sisters developed an extremely close relationship threaded with rivalry, jealousy, and competition. Yet it was probably the most important relationship of their lives.

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