It’s that time, once again, patrons, when our library’s genre devotees share with you their favorite romance selections for the month.  Especially with the days grow shorter and the skies bleaker, romances feel more and more like the perfect antidote to these increasingly stressful days.   So here are some of our favorites to brighten your days, and make your heart sing!

Bridget:

Confucius Jane by Katie Lynch

This book crossed my path wholly by happenstance, but swiftly became one of those books that makes you want to tap the shoulder of random strangers and tell them they look grumpy and should read this book.  Katie Lynch has a real gift for creating atmosphere and capturing the utter inanities and oddities that make families real and whole, and tells this story with genuine empathy and insight that makes it as touching as it is quirky and fun.

Jane Morrow has taken an extended leave from college and is helping out at her uncle’s fortune cookie factory, writing out words of inspiration and hope for all the people who walk by her window–but she can’t seem to dream up any insight for her own dead-end life.  She’s surrounded by family, and supported by the close-knit community in her Chinatown home, but nevertheless, she knows something big is missing.

…That is, until she sets eyes on Sutton St. James, who hides out most days in the noodle shop across the street from Jane’s apartment.  Sutton is torn between her professional dreams of conducting stem cell research and her personal ties to her father–a former surgeon general who is dead-set against stem cell work of any kind.  Confused and feeling increasingly lost, Sutton finds a home-away-from-home in the noodle shop.  And when Jane and her incredibly precocious cousin come charging into her life, Sutton and Jane both begin to realize just what they have both needed–but will Sutton’s powerful connections threaten the family that Jane and Sutton dream of making together?

Though this is definitely a love story, there are lots of different kinds of love here–the romantic kind, the familial kind, the kind that holds you down and the kind that can set you free.  Jane’s journey with Sutton is definitely not like any I’ve read before, but that is a marvelous thing.  It’s past time that we had stories that feature such diverse characters and identities, but Katie Lynch’s work definitely goes a long way to making up for lost time.

Kelley:

When a Scot Ties the Knot by Tessa Dare

When painfully shy Madeline Gracechurch invents a conveniently absent Scottish beau in order to avoid the cutthroat marriage market of London society, she never expects that years later the man of her imaginings will turn up on the doorstep of her newly inherited castle.  The latest in Tessa Dare’s Castles Ever After series brings together a hero with a life overshadowed by abandonment, and a heroine so trapped in a web of self-protective lies that she will go to almost any length to avoid the revelation of the truth. But will she marry Captain Logan MacKenzie, a complete stranger, just to keep up appearances? And if she does will she find love?

With When a Scot Ties the Knot, Tessa Dare delivers a romance that is just as sweet as it is passionate. It’s easy to care about the story’s vulnerable main characters, and the ways in which they strengthen each other are equal parts charming, funny and heart-warming. This is a romance novel, so it’s almost a given to expect a happy ending, but the real treat of Tessa Dare’s latest is that it’s a feel-good story all-around. From cover to cover, When a Scot Ties the Knot is a delight to read, so grab a cup of tea, park yourself in your most comfortable chair, and don’t plan to get up until the last page is turned. I’ll just say, “You’re welcome” now because you’ll want to thank me for this enthusiastic recommendation later.