This post should go up the day after surgery. I don’t think I will be able to blog or be in the mood for it, frankly. I had planned another post, but it would put salt on the wound, or however you say it. I have also not been adding the books I read on Goodreads, but as you can see, I have been highlighting quite a bit.
A gust would shake loose a leaf that tumbled like a secret to the ground.
Goodreads Blurb:
When Samantha, a lively American student from Berkeley, meets her quiet and precise Japanese roommate, Natsuki, neither expects that a random dorm assignment will spark a life-changing bond. From late-night bento experiments and campus walks to shared laughter and unspoken confessions, their friendship grows into something more enduring than either imagined.
But when Samantha is invited to Kyoto, the story unfolds into a journey across borders, traditions, and hearts. Between temple visits, festivals beneath glowing lanterns, and awkwardly hilarious cultural mishaps (like mistaking wasabi for avocado in front of an unimpressed sushi chef), Samantha discovers more than just Japan—she discovers pieces of herself she never knew were missing.
At the center of it all is Ren, Natsuki’s reserved older brother, whose calm presence conceals feelings too deep to name. Against the backdrop of cherry blossoms, cicadas, and soft Kyoto rain, Samantha finds herself caught in a tender triangle of loyalty, affection, and unspoken desire.
From Berkeley dorms to Japanese shrines, from miso soup mornings to fireworks nights, Cherry Blossoms & Wasabi Hearts captures the magic of fleeting moments and the ache of goodbyes that may not be final. It’s a story of cross-cultural love, the comedy of being lost in translation, and the courage to ask for more when time runs out.
Some gardens lasted forever. Some loves did too.
Goodreads Blueb:
n post-war England, Lady Eleanor Ashworth returns to her crumbling estate, a hollow widow expected to remarry. But in the overgrown gardens, she discovers Edith Fairweather—the gardener’s daughter who makes Eleanor feel alive for the first time. As they work side by side, restoring beauty from ruins, an impossible love blooms. Choosing each other means losing family, security, respectability. Together, they flee to the Scottish Highlands to build a life on their own terms—hidden but real, precarious but precious. A sweeping historical romance about the courage to choose love over duty, and the gardens we grow from impossible seeds.
‘bodies marked by time, hearts marked by love’.
Goodreads Blurb:
After twenty years together, Alice and Elsie should be celebrating. Instead, they’re wondering if they’ve become strangers sharing a house. On the eve of their anniversary ceremony, a midnight conversation forces them to confront a terrifying are they still in love, or just too comfortable to leave?
Don’t let anyone invalidate you because of the things you haven’t done or don’t want to do. But neither let anyone tell you that you shouldn’t do them if you need to.
he simplest thing, in the right hands, was a weapon.
Goodewads Blurb:
Echo is the only trans crew member on a pirate spaceship and he’s not in a good place. When the crew goes after a prize, the tables get turned around on them and they’re now at the mercy of the very people they wanted to rob.
As Echo unravels the ship’s secrets, he finds an unlikely friend in the ship’s meddlesome sentient computer. He’s never felt this accepted by strangers. Too bad that it will all be over the moment his crew manages to leave.
Crade is the unwilling captain of an unusual spaceship. It was his best friend’s (the ship’s computer) idea to befriend the young pirate and try to recruit him to their own crew. Crade, however, might be developing different kinds of feelings altogether. Can he offer to tear Echo away from his world the same way Crade himself was once torn away from his?
“The distance is temporary. We are forever.”
Goodreads Blurb:
Five years ago, a miscommunication destroyed their summer romance. Now software developer Willow Bennett and landscape architect Mabel Ashford are forced to collaborate on a virtual reality project—three thousand miles and eight time zones apart. As video calls blur professional boundaries, they uncover the broken phones and wrong addresses stole their happy ending, not lack of love. Navigating career pressures, international complications, and the fear of falling again, they must decide if love is worth fighting for across an ocean. Because sometimes the greatest distance isn’t measured in miles—it’s measured in the courage to try again.
Alex