How You Get the Girl

"You know, I like most sports a lot. Not enough to, say, follow them all the time or tell you the names of players, but enough to sit down and watch a game. So I was excited to get my hands on Kelly’s newest sport-based, sapphic romance because my coworker Antonoa read it and told me that she cried. I love crying at anything and everything in a romance book, so I happily dove in. This is the book I credit for making me realize that I was queer. Julie—the sister of a main character in Something Wild and Wonderful , the second book in this interconnected series; notice that I read a lot of those—is really going through it in the book because she has never dated anyone before and she’s trying to figure out her sexuality. She’s a late bloomer; I want more late bloomers in romances as well! She’s also trying to figure out what her role in her friends’ lives are. She feels like she’s stuck doing the same things day in and day out, while all of her friends seem to be moving on. I felt so seen by this book, and if you’ve ever felt a similar way then know that this book is for you. I’ve been hearing great things about Alicia Thompson’s The Art of Catching Feelings . (I’m in my sports era now.) Late Bloomer by Mazey Eddings came out a few months ago and the cover is so charming I keep stopping to look at it as I walk by. I was a big fan of Alexandria Bellefleur’s The Fiancée Farce , which came out last year . Now she has a new one out called Truly, Madly, Deeply , and both characters are bi. She calls it her ‘horniest novel yet,’ so I immediately bought a copy. I know you only asked me about new books that I haven’t read yet, but I also want to tell people that they should read Only For the Week by Natasha Bishop if they want a sexy short romance to bring to the beach. It’s such a fun romp. And lastly, I consider any book that I bring to the beach a beach read, and I’ve recently gotten into Beverly Jenkins, so I’m bringing a copy of her 2016 book Forbidden with me because man, I am so excited to get to know her work. Her book, Wild Rain , changed something in my DNA. I think that it has made me appreciate it a lot more. It’s more than just talking about my favorite reads with customers in the aisle. It’s figuring out why some books sell better than others. It’s appreciating how much romance readers love stickers and merchandise that highlights their love for the genre. It’s figuring out how to make smaller authors in the field stand out. While my store, Grand Gesture Books, doesn’t have a physical storefront yet—we’re actually supposed to sign a lease sometime in the next week!—I’ve been doing pop-ups and the like for the past six months or so, and the romance community in Portland, Oregon is wonderful, loud, affectionate, and excited. We’ve been fundraising for the past couple of weeks and I’m really proud of how much money we’ve raised so far. They’re so very excited, which makes me excited. It’s also something that I have to romanticize a little bit—because, otherwise, thinking about doing business taxes and hiring people makes me anxious and I don’t love being anxious. It’s all good though. Being anxious makes me feel like I care. If you’d like to help Katherine in her efforts to open a Grand Gesture Books storefront in Portland, Oregon, you can find more information here ."