Fanning the Flames by Victoria Dahl: A short story that's part of a series of novels (you know how romance writers love their trilogies/tetralogies). It's basically just the two characters -- widowed and divorced -- coming together, but they were likeable enough that I would have enjoyed a whole novel about them.
Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs: a charming young adult contemporary fantasy about, well, peculiar children -- people with unusual abilities, like levitation and super strength -- who are hiding from the world at large. (So like a fantasy version of the X-Men.) What makes this novel different is that Riggs developed the concept and story from his collection of weird, vintage photographs, which are in the book as illustrations. The photos are so weird! But, I suppose, no weirder than some of the memes and gifs we circulate today.
The Ten Second Staircase by Christopher Fowler: the fourth in the Bureau of Peculiar Crimes. The crimes are still unusual and disturbing, Bryant and May are still unorthodox, pencil-pushing types are still trying to get the Bureau disbanded, and the whole was still enjoyable. This novel, written in 2006, is remarkably cynical about young people -- unfairly so, in my opinion, given how young people are currently leading the BLM protests and fighting for a better, more just future.
The Worst Best Man by Mia Sosa: A light contemporary romance that I wanted to like more than I did. I certainly enjoyed it, and I loved the diversity of the characters presented as no big deal, but the pseudo-hostility between the two protagonists was a little tedious and the setting (the wedding planning world) was not my thing. I'll probably check out some of Sosa's other novels.
