“The Notebook” Book Discussion and Cherry Coke Chocolate Cupcakes Recipe

Noah is an elderly man in a nursing home, his hands crippled by arthritis, who still, every morning, picks up a notebook, and carries it with him to his wife’s room, where he will tell her their story, hoping her Alzheimer’s won’t stop her from remembering them, even just for a little while. He makes…

Christmas at Little Beach Street Bakery by Jenny Colgan

Polly and her adorable puffin Neal now live in the lighthouse on the Scottish island of Polbearne with her boyfriend Huckle, the beekeeper. In the mornings, she wakes early and goes down to the cold bakery and starts up the oven for fresh bread and pastries the locals will devour. Christmas is no exception, with…

The Light in Summer by Mary McNear

Billy Harper is a single mother and the head librarian in the town of Butternut Lake. Merely trying to survive the onset of her son’s adolescence, Billy frequently copes by talking to her labrador, Murphy, on the back porch, with a glass of wine and a Jane Austen novel. Her son Luke has never met…

The Little Beach Street Bakery by Jenny Colgan

Little Beach Street Bakery by Jenny Colgan is the perfect retreat for anyone who’s ever worked their hardest and failed anyway. Polly and her former boyfriend Chris did everything they could to keep his graphic design business alive, and Polly is exhausted, from working so hard to save the business, and to uplift a a…

The Bookshop on the Corner by Jenny Colgan

Nina was just let go from her job as a librarian in the city, where they want young college grads who know more about marketing than finding the perfect book for readers, as Nina does. So she purchases a decrepit white van from man in a tiny town in Scotland, and discovers that the landscape…

The Sea House by Elisabeth Gifford

On the shores of Scotland is a sea house where two tales unravel. Ruth, who is renovating the house, and hiding from her past and found another: mermaid bones buried beneath the floorboards. Ruth’s mother drowned when her daughter was very young, leaving her orphaned. In an attempt to find a piece of her family…