Lisa’s Looking Forward To #62 – May 19th, 2020

Posted May 13, 2020 by Lisa Mandina in LLFT / 16 Comments

Once again I’ll be joining up with the Can’t Wait Wednesday posts hosted by Wishful Endings.  We’re halfway through the month, so the list is getting shorter as usual.

From my ARC list for May 19th, 2020:

Sounds fun.

Here is the blurb from Goodreads:

What If It’s Us meets To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before in this upbeat and heartfelt boy-meets-boy romance that feels like a modern twist on a ’90s rom-com! 

Everyone knows about the dare: Each week, Bryson Keller must date someone new–the first person to ask him out on Monday morning. Few think Bryson can do it. He may be the king of Fairvale Academy, but he’s never really dated before.

Until a boy asks him out, and everything changes.

Kai Sheridan didn’t expect Bryson to say yes. So when Bryson agrees to secretly go out with him, Kai is thrown for a loop. But as the days go by, he discovers there’s more to Bryson beneath the surface, and dating him begins to feel less like an act and more like the real thing. Kai knows how the story of a gay boy liking someone straight ends. With his heart on the line, he’s awkwardly trying to navigate senior year at school, at home, and in the closet, all while grappling with the fact that this “relationship” will last only five days. After all, Bryson Keller is popular, good-looking, and straight . . . right?

Kevin van Whye delivers an uplifting and poignant coming-out love story that will have readers rooting for these two teens to share their hearts with the world–and with each other.

Sound good? Add to Goodreads HERE.

This is the second in a series, but I don’t know that they have to be read in order, and this one sounds fun!

Here is the blurb from Goodreads:

Sam’s summer isn’t off to a great start. Her boyfriend, Eli, ditched her for a European backpacking trip, and now she’s a counselor at Camp Blue Springs: the summer camp her eleven-year-old self swore never to return to. Sam expects the next seven weeks to be a total disaster.

That is, until she meets Gavin, the camp’s sailing instructor, who turns her expectations upside down. Gavin may have gotten the job just for his abs. Or that smile. Or the way he fills Sam’s free time with thrilling encounters—swimming under a cascade of stars, whispering secrets over s’mores, embarking on one (very precarious) canoe ride after dark.

It’s absurd. After all, Sam loves Eli. But one totally absurd, completely off-the-wall summer may be just what Sam needs. And maybe, just maybe, it will teach her something about what she really wants. 

Sound good? Add to Goodreads HERE.

Another fun romance, set in a world that is probably going to make me very hungry as I read.

Here is the blurb from Goodreads:

Lumi Santana is a chef with a gift: she can perceive a person’s emotions by tasting their cooking. Despite being raised by a mother who taught her that dreams and true love were silly fairy tales, she puts her heart and savings into opening her own fusion restaurant in Upper Manhattan. The restaurant offers a mix of the Dominican cuisine she grew up with and other world cuisines she is inspired by.

When her eclectic venture fails, she is forced to take a position as sous chef at a staid, traditional French restaurant owned by Julien Dax, a celebrated chef known for his acid tongue as well as his brilliant smile. After he goes out of his way to bake a tart to prove her wrong in a dispute, she is so irritated by his smug attitude that she vows to herself never to taste his cooking.

But after she succumbs to the temptation and takes a bite one day and is overcome with shocking emotion, she finds herself beginning to crave his cooking and struggling to stay on task with her plan to save up and move on as soon as possible. Meanwhile, Julien’s obsessed secretary watches with gnashed teeth as they grow closer and becomes determined to get Lumi out of her way permanently.

Sound good? Add to Goodreads HERE.

Sounds like a really intense and emotional read, very relevant to our world today.

Here is the blurb from Goodreads:

A ripped-from-the-headlines novel of desperation, escape, and survival across the U.S.-Mexico border.

Pulga, Chico, and Pequeña have no false illusions about the town they’ve grown up in and the dangers that surround them. Though their families–both biological and found–create a warm community for them, threats lurk around every corner. And when those threats become all too real, the three teens know they have no choice but to run: for the border, for the hope of freedom, and for their very lives.

Crossing from Guatemala through Mexico with their eyes on the U.S. border, they follow the route of La Bestia, a system of trains that promise the hope of freedom–if they are lucky enough to survive the harrowing journey. With nothing but the bags on their backs and the desperation that courses through their very veins, Pulga, Chico, and Pequeña know that there’s no turning back, dangerous though the road ahead might be.

In this powerful story inspired by real–and current–events, the plight at our southern border is brought to painful, poignant life.

Sound good? Add to Goodreads HERE.

I actually got a copy of this a couple months ago when I signed up for the Book of the Month Club. Didn’t realize it hadn’t officially come out yet. But I still haven’t read it either.

Here is the blurb from Goodreads:

A romance writer who no longer believes in love and a literary writer stuck in a rut engage in a summer-long challenge that may just upend everything they believe about happily ever afters.

Augustus Everett is an acclaimed author of literary fiction. January Andrews writes bestselling romance. When she pens a happily ever after, he kills off his entire cast.

They’re polar opposites.

In fact, the only thing they have in common is that for the next three months, they’re living in neighboring beach houses, broke, and bogged down with writer’s block.

Until, one hazy evening, one thing leads to another and they strike a deal designed to force them out of their creative ruts: Augustus will spend the summer writing something happy, and January will pen the next Great American Novel. She’ll take him on field trips worthy of any rom-com montage, and he’ll take her to interview surviving members of a backwoods death cult (obviously). Everyone will finish a book and no one will fall in love. Really.

Sound good? Add to Goodreads HERE.

Could be really an interesting read in our own time of a “plague”.

Here is the blurb from Goodreads:

Never leave someone behind: it’s a promise easier made than kept, especially when seventeen-year-old Pip takes the headstrong twelve-year-old Iris under her protection in the wake of an earth-shattering plague.

After an unspeakable tragedy, the duo must navigate the nearly unrecognizable remains of Spokane, facing roving slave traders, merciless gangs―and worse. Pip and Iris soon meet Fly, a stubborn and courageous older girl, and as the three grow closer and their circumstances grow more perilous, they must also grapple with their own identities in this cruel new world. Pip’s vow to never leave someone behind may have made survival more difficult for her, but this promise could also be the key to finding meaning in the ashes of what came before.

Sound good? Add to Goodreads HERE.

Love the cover, and the synopsis sounds really good as well!

Here is the blurb from Goodreads:

“Expansive, romantic, and powerful.” —Gayle Forman, #1 New York Times bestselling author of If I Stay and I Have Lost My Way 

Susannah Ramos has always loved the water. A swimmer whose early talent made her a world champion, Susannah was poised for greatness in a sport that demands so much of its young. But an inexplicable slowdown has put her dream in jeopardy, and Susannah is fighting to keep her career afloat when two important people enter her life: a new coach with a revolutionary training strategy, and a charming fellow swimmer named Harry Matthews.

As Susannah begins her long and painful climb back to the top, her friendship with Harry blossoms into passionate and supportive love. But Harry is facing challenges of his own, and even as their bond draws them closer together, other forces work to tear them apart. As she struggles to balance her needs with those of the people who matter most to her, Susannah will learn the cost—and the beauty—of trying to achieve something extraordinary.

Sound good? Add to Goodreads HERE.

Final Thoughts:

Still had seven this week, only one less than I ended up with last week. None with date changes from my list. Are any of these on your TBR, or have you already read them? If so, which do you recommend? Leave me a link to your post in your comment and I’ll be sure to return the visit!

And while you’re here, if you have time, stop by my April Wrap-Up post and enter my giveaway for either a book from my giveaway stack if you’re in the US, or a book from The Book Depository for my international followers.

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16 responses to “Lisa’s Looking Forward To #62 – May 19th, 2020

  1. I’m seeing Beach Read everywhere! It’s not something I’d usually pick up but I do want to read it. Sometimes I need something lighter to space out between my darker reads. Thanks for sharing so many great books!

    • Lisa Mandina

      I’ve seen some reviews saying it’s not as light as it sounds, so we’ll see when I pick it up how that is. Thanks for visiting!

  2. Those first two sound like such fun reads! I just finished Beach Read last week and really loved it. It had a lot more depth to it than I was expecting based on the beachy cover but it was a wonderful read, one of my favorites of the year so far actually.

    • Lisa Mandina

      That’s what I’ve been hearing that it isn’t quite as fluffy a read, but I still have it to read! Thanks for visiting!

  3. I’ve heard about Beach Read. It sounds super cute. I’m not in a contemporary reading mood now, but it’s on my list for when I am. 🙂

    Happy reading! Thanks for visiting Shell’s Stories!

    • Lisa Mandina

      Supposedly it’s more than a fluffy beach read from what I hear though. Contemporary is pretty much my mood right now, I’m the opposite of you I guess. 🙂

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