In search of some new recommendations for reading material? These are just a few of my favorite authors and books. Most are romance novels, although a couple are literary fiction. These are my keeper books that I read over and over. Even though everyone has their own perspective on what makes a great book, these authors are well worth the time if you're not yet familiar with their work. Enjoy!

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Outlander by Diana Gabaldon

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Click on the cover for the Amazon link
​You get it all when you pick up Gabaldon's Outlander novels: romance, adventure, time travel, war, heartbreak, and humor. There's a whopping eight books so far in this series. Although I've read them all, the first is my absolute favorite. The latter books tend to meander a bit, and Jamie and Claire become less the main characters and more part of a large ensemble cast, but these books are well worth your time. And as an added bonus, it's also been adapted as a series on STARZ, which has proven to be an excellent companion piece for the books. Voyager, Book 3, concluded airing in December 2017.

​Match Me If You Can by Susan Elizabeth Phillips

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Click on the cover for the Amazon link
​I've read all of Susan Elizabeth Phillips' novels. They're all unique and sweet and funny, but Match Me If You Can is probably my favorite. I can never resist a quirky heroine with bad hair and the arrogant hero who falls for her. A great contemporary romance read!

Just One of the Guys by Kristan Higgins

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​Every Kristan Higgins novel is my favorite at the time that I'm reading it, but if forced to pick just one, Just One of the Guys would have to be it. This is one of her earlier books when she wrote her novels in the first person from the heroine's perspective. Later novels switched over to the third person and gave a little more insight into the hero's perspective, but Higgins manages to make both styles resonate with the reader. She writes hilarious stories about everyday women and the good-hearted men who love them. Oh, and there's always a great cast of secondary characters that get you snort-laughing!

​A Dog's Purpose by W. Bruce Cameron

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As a dog lover, and especially as an avid adorer of Golden Retrievers (my first dog was a Golden), A Dog's Purpose has to be the loveliest tale ever told of the bond between a dog and its human. Highly recommended. Be prepared to cry copiously and laugh uproariously!

​These is My Words: The Diary of Sarah Agnes Prine 1881-1901 by Nancy E. Turner

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Full disclosure, folks: This is not a romance novel but historical fiction. Translation? Be prepared to cry at the end, and not those cleansing, happy tears that result from a HEA. There's a lot of death and tragedy in this book, and the death of one of the main characters in particular punches its way through my brain every time I glance at the cover. And yet any book that has such a strong emotional impact a decade and a half after reading it is an amazing tale, tragedies and all. More than anything, this is a tale of one woman's resilience and her quest for self-improvement in the harsh Arizona frontier. Be prepared to have your guts scooped out and served on a platter.

Love in the Afternoon by Lisa Kleypas

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You'll never go wrong with a Lisa Kleypas novel. Her historicals are always filled with unique characters, and the Hathaway siblings are some of the best. Love in the Afternoon is about the quirkiest Hathaway, Beatrix, devotee of sick animals and Mother Nature. Christopher is the hero, a formerly superficial man turned inside-out from his experiences in the Crimean War. An exchange of love letters in the beginning paired with a case of mistaken identity make for a wonderful read. They misunderstand each other, support each other, and love each other, flaws and all, and not necessarily in that order. Highly recommended!