Island Books

I know I said last week that female protagonists of a certain age were few and far between in fiction. And it’s true they are, but sometimes the universe decides your reading life is going have a few serendipitous book pairings. When I started listening to the audiobook of This Time Tomorrow, it was not because of the age of the main character. It was because Emily Henry blurbed the book and I love Emily Henry. And there’s time travel. So I decided to give it a whirl.

Our heroine, Alice Stern, is turning forty. She’d like a washer/dryer in her apartment and for her dad not to be terminally ill. Her job is fine, her boyfriend is decent, and her life is going along without much particular direction. But when Alice wakes up the day after her 40th birthday she finds herself in her old bedroom and her 16-year-old body. It’s the morning of her 16th birthday, her dad is relatively young and healthy and Alice has the disorienting chance to live this day over again, with the benefit of knowing what the future holds. Or so she thinks.

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For a person who reads her fair share of YA where teenage protagonists are a given, and when heroines of a certain age in adult fiction are rare, it was refreshing to come across a central character turning 40, single by choice, and who is fairly happy with her life. And there’s the added bonus that her name is Laurie (close enough to my own version) and she’s settled in Seattle.

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If you wander back to the Teen section of our store, you’ll see my recommendation cards fluttering from many of the spines. I’m game for nearly every genre except psychological thrillers (sorry, scaredy-cat over here). I’ve never read a book set in Detroit and my knowledge of hip-hop music is slim to none, so when I picked up Love Radio I was curious, and then delighted to be given a window into that world. Being billed as “Hitch meets The Sun is also a Star,” this debut novel from Ebony LaDelle is perfection.

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