Some books don’t begin when you open them.   They begin much earlier— in the quiet fears you carry about love, in the endings you never got to choose, in the stories you were forced to leave unfinished.   The Things We Leave Unfinished met me exactly there.   I picked this book up with assumptions. I’ll admit that upfront. I thought I was walking into a glossy, trope-heavy romance—something indulgent, dramatic, maybe even forgettable. Instead, Rebecca Yarros quietly dismantle

There are days that taste like heartbreak — metallic and cold — and there are days that smell of rain-soaked second chances. The Do-Over by Lynn Painter lives somewhere between the two, looping endlessly in that bittersweet space where pain and hope take turns holding your heart.   I still remember my first Lynn Painter read — Better Than the Movies — a warm, quirky rom-com that made me believe in the healing power of laughter. Painter has that uncanny gift: she writes teen s