Books to Read in September 2018

Note: I've read only SOME of these books. The others have been highly recommended to me in 2018 to read.

1. See Me by Nicholas Sparks

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A powerful love story fueled with taut suspense, about an instant connection between two people who are both trying to escape the past, from #1 New York Times bestselling author Nicholas Sparks.


See me just as I see you . . .

Colin Hancock is giving his second chance his best shot. With a history of violence and bad decisions behind him and the threat of prison dogging his every step, he's determined to walk a straight line. To Colin, that means applying himself single-mindedly toward his teaching degree and avoiding everything that proved destructive in his earlier life. Reminding himself daily of his hard-earned lessons, the last thing he is looking for is a serious relationship.

Maria Sanchez, the hardworking daughter of Mexican immigrants, is the picture of conventional success. With a degree from Duke Law School and a job at a prestigious firm in Wilmington, she is a dark-haired beauty with a seemingly flawless professional track record. And yet Maria has a traumatic history of her own, one that compelled her to return to her hometown and left her questioning so much of what she once believed.

A chance encounter on a rain-swept road will alter the course of both Colin and Maria's lives, challenging deeply held assumptions about each other and ultimately, themselves. As love unexpectedly takes hold between them, they dare to envision what a future together could possibly look like . . . until menacing reminders of events in Maria's past begin to surface.

As a series of threatening incidents wreaks chaos in Maria's life, Maria and Colin will be tested in increasingly terrifying ways. Will demons from their past destroy the tenuous relationship they've begun to build, or will their love protect them, even in the darkest hour?

Rich in emotion and fueled with suspense, SEE ME reminds us that love is sometimes forged in the crises that threaten to shatter us . . . and that those who see us for who we truly are may not always be the ones easiest to recognize.

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2. Resisting Darkness by Amy L. Gale

How can you destroy the world’s monsters when you’re in love with one?

Supernatural hunter, Dex Jager, will stop at nothing to find the vampire brood that captured his sister, and take them down one by one. After a motorcycle accident lands him in the small town of Whispering Pines, he finds himself in the middle of a murder investigation and partnered with Cora Fisher, the beautiful town coroner. As Dex and Cora grow closer and secrets surface, Dex is faced with the toughest decision of his life. How can you resist the darkness when it’s the one thing you love?

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3. Once and For All by Sara Dessen

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From  Sarah Dessen, the beloved New York Times bestselling author of SAINT ANYTHING and JUST LISTEN, comes a new novel set in the world of wedding planning!

Is it really better to have loved and lost?  Louna's summer job is to help brides plan their perfect day, even though she stopped believing in happily-ever-after when her first love ended tragically.  But charming girl-magnet Ambrose isn't about to be discouraged now that he's met the one he really  wants.  Maybe Louna's second chance is standing right in front of her.

 Sarah Dessen’s many fans will adore this latest novel, a richly satisfying, enormously entertaining story with humor, romance, and an ending that is so much more than happily-ever-after.

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3. All Your Perfects by Colleen Hoover

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The #1 New York Times bestselling author of It Ends with Us—whose writing is “emotionally wrenching and utterly original” (Sara Shepard, New York Times bestselling author of the Pretty Little Liars series)—delivers a tour de force novel about a troubled marriage and the one old forgotten promise that might be able to save it.

Quinn and Graham’s perfect love is threatened by their imperfect marriage. The memories, mistakes, and secrets that they have built up over the years are now tearing them apart. The one thing that could save them might also be the very thing that pushes their marriage beyond the point of repair.

All Your Perfects is a profound novel about a damaged couple whose potential future hinges on promises made in the past. This is a heartbreaking page-turner that asks: Can a resounding love with a perfect beginning survive a lifetime between two imperfect people?

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4. Girl, Wash Your Face by Rachel Hollis

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#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

Do you ever suspect that everyone else has life figured out and you don’t have a clue? If so, Rachel Hollis has something to tell you: that’s a lie.

As the founder of the lifestyle website TheChicSite.com and CEO of her own media company, Rachel Hollis developed an immense online community by sharing tips for better living while fearlessly revealing the messiness of her own life. Now, in this challenging and inspiring new book, Rachel exposes the twenty lies and misconceptions that too often hold us back from living joyfully and productively, lies we’ve told ourselves so often we don’t even hear them anymore.

With painful honesty and fearless humor, Rachel unpacks and examines the falsehoods that once left her feeling overwhelmed and unworthy, and reveals the specific practical strategies that helped her move past them. In the process, she encourages, entertains, and even kicks a little butt, all to convince you to do whatever it takes to get real and become the joyous, confident woman you were meant to be.

With unflinching faith and rock-hard tenacity, Girl, Wash Your Face shows you how to live with passion and hustle--and how to give yourself grace without giving up.

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5. To All the Boys I've Loved Before by Jenny Han

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To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before is now a major motion picture streaming on Netflix!

Lara Jean’s love life gets complicated in this New York Times bestselling “lovely, lighthearted romance” (School Library Journal) from the bestselling author of The Summer I Turned Pretty series.

What if all the crushes you ever had found out how you felt about them…all at once?

Sixteen-year-old Lara Jean Song keeps her love letters in a hatbox her mother gave her. They aren’t love letters that anyone else wrote for her; these are ones she’s written. One for every boy she’s ever loved—five in all. When she writes, she pours out her heart and soul and says all the things she would never say in real life, because her letters are for her eyes only. Until the day her secret letters are mailed, and suddenly, Lara Jean’s love life goes from imaginary to out of control.

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6. Billionaire Unchallenged by J.S. Scott

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What happens when you're instantly drawn and inexplicably attracted to a man you haven't really met?

Me? Well, I left a party like my butt was on fire when it happened to me. Arrogant, wealthy and physically perfect men were nothing but trouble, even if I was mesmerized by a man with all of those attributes.

Unfortunately, we met again--in person this time-- when I literally collided with Carter Lawson in the flesh several days later, and discovered he was a man I just couldn't stay away from, no matter how much I tried. He felt the same attraction, and was determined to make it impossible for me not to see him.

My body craved him, and as I got to know the real man behind the jaded billionaire, womanizer facade, I was surprised to discover that I actually liked him.

He's the quintessential alpha male that I normally hate, but there's something I see in him that nobody else does, a pain I recognize in his glacier-like eyes--because I'm just like him. Both of us are frauds

I want to crack him like an egg, and see what's inside, but there's no way I want him to do the same thing to me.

On the surface, I'm a successful supermodel with a great career.

Inside, I'm someone else, a woman that nobody sees--until Carter slowly breaks through my defensive walls as well as he satisfies my body, starting to open wounds that have never really healed.

But there's only so much I can let Carter see. Revealing everything could ruin my entire life and the career I'd worked so hard to build.

So why was it so hard to lie to Carter like I'd been doing with everyone else my entire life?

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7. Milk and Honey by Rupi Kaur

#1 New York Times bestseller Milk and Honey is a collection of poetry and prose about survival. About the experience of violence, abuse, love, loss, and femininity.

The book is divided into four chapters, and each chapter serves a different purpose. Deals with a different pain. Heals a different heartache. Milk and Honey takes readers through a journey of the most bitter moments in life and finds sweetness in them because there is sweetness everywhere if you are just willing to look.

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8. Into the Water by Paula Hawkins

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An addictive new novel of psychological suspense from the author of #1 New York Times bestseller and global phenomenon The Girl on the Train.

“Hawkins is at the forefront of a group of female authors--think Gillian Flynn and Megan Abbott--who have reinvigorated the literary suspense novel by tapping a rich vein of psychological menace and social unease… there’s a certain solace to a dark escape, in the promise of submerged truths coming to light.” --Vogue

A single mother turns up dead at the bottom of the river that runs through town. Earlier in the summer, a vulnerable teenage girl met the same fate. They are not the first women lost to these dark waters, but their deaths disturb the river and its history, dredging up secrets long submerged.
 
Left behind is a lonely fifteen-year-old girl. Parentless and friendless, she now finds herself in the care of her mother's sister, a fearful stranger who has been dragged back to the place she deliberately ran from—a place to which she vowed she'd never return.
 
With the same propulsive writing and acute understanding of human instincts that captivated millions of readers around the world in her explosive debut thriller, The Girl on the Train, Paula Hawkins delivers an urgent, twisting, deeply satisfying read that hinges on the deceptiveness of emotion and memory, as well as the devastating ways that the past can reach a long arm into the present.
 
Beware a calm surface—you never know what lies beneath.

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9. The Magnolia Story by Chip and Joanna Gaines

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Are you ready to see your fixer upper?

These famous words are now synonymous with the dynamic husband-and-wife team Chip and Joanna Gaines, stars of HGTV’s Fixer Upper. As this question fills the airwaves with anticipation, their legions of fans continue to multiply and ask a different series of questions, like--Who are these people?What’s the secret to their success? And is Chip actually that funny in real life? By renovating homes in Waco, Texas, and changing lives in such a winsome and engaging way, Chip and Joanna have become more than just the stars of Fixer Upper, they have become America’s new best friends.

The Magnolia Story is the first book from Chip and Joanna, offering their fans a detailed look at their life together. From the very first renovation project they ever tackled together, to the project that nearly cost them everything; from the childhood memories that shaped them, to the twists and turns that led them to the life they share on the farm today.

They both attended Baylor University in Waco. However, their paths did not cross until Chip checked his car into the local Firestone tire shop where Joanna worked behind the counter. Even back then Chip was a serial entrepreneur who, among other things, ran a lawn care company, sold fireworks, and flipped houses. Soon they were married and living in their first fixer upper. Four children and countless renovations later, Joanna garners the attention of a television producer who notices her work on a blog one day.

In The Magnolia Story fans will finally get to join the Gaines behind the scenes and discover:

• The time Chip ran to the grocery store and forgot to take their new, sleeping baby
• Joanna’s agonizing decision to close her dream business to focus on raising their children
• When Chip buys a houseboat, sight-unseen, and it turns out to be a leaky wreck
• Joanna’s breakthrough moment of discovering the secret to creating a beautiful home
• Harrowing stories of the financial ups and downs as an entrepreneurial couple
• Memories and photos from Chip and Jo’s wedding
• The significance of the word magnolia and why it permeates everything they do
• The way the couple pays the popularity of Fixer Upper forward, sharing the success with others, and bolstering the city of Waco along the way

And yet there is still one lingering question for fans of the show: Is Chip really that funny? “Oh yeah,” says Joanna. “He was, and still is, my first fixer upper.”