Digging Up Love

"This is one of my favorite books that I brought into Powell’s. I checked out a copy from my public library and asked our book-buying team to bring it in. From the way that it’s been selling, I’m not the only one who enjoyed watching the romance between a baker and a paleontologist develop. I actually found myself giggling along to their banter, which felt fresh and new. It won me over immediately. Oh, and that grand gesture that Quentin did for Alisha at the end? I died…happily. But of course! Jasmine Guillory came out with Drunk on Love , and I have read and bought her entire backlist, so she’s always worth a buy. I did really enjoy Love on the Brain by Ali Hazelwood, although I have heard that it’s a lot like her first one, which is fine by me—if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Emily Henry’s Book Lovers came out, and fans and my colleagues swarmed the shelves to get her newest title. Kwana Jackson, the author of the Real Men Knit series, officially introduced readers to Lucas Strong, one of the men who took over a knitting shop after his adoptive mother passed, in Knot Again . There are truly so many books, and so little time. Oh, yes, let me tell you about them! I mean, from my list alone, Delilah Green Doesn’t Care and Digging Up Love are both debuts. But others include Set On You by Amy Lea, which I hand-sold a lot of this summer. It’s so good, and you have to read it for the bathtub scene alone. The second book in that series, Exes & O’s , comes out in January, and I am very excited to read it. Fixer Upper by Lauren Forsythe is an unique romance novel where the premise is that Aly and her friends will ‘fix up’ (change for the better) your man for you. It’s all fun and games until Aly is tasked with fixing up her former best friend, who she was in love with and has resentment towards. I adored it. Finally, I’ll talk your ear off about Lease on Love by Falon Ballard, which has really great mental health representation, and talks frankly about how healing from trauma isn’t linear. Now that the year is almost over, I want to include some 2023 books in this list. I’m looking forward to A Guide to Being Just Friends by Sophie Sullivan; Not Here to Stay Friends by Kaitlyn Hill (Bachelor fans, this one’s for you!); The Neighbor Favor by Kristina Forest (also with You’ve Got Mail vibes); Reggie and Delilah’s Year of Falling by Elise Bryant, which is a young adult book, but I will literally read anything that Bryant writes; and last but certainly not least, Behind the Scenes by Karelia Stetz-Waters, who is a local Portland author. My coworker and I talked to her about how we loved her first book, Satisfaction Guaranteed for so long that she included Powell’s in her acknowledgments for her newest book. She’s probably thanking the company as a whole, but I like to think that it was meant for the two of us especially. Part of our best books of 2022 series."