Fiction Five: Stirring relationship reads

Discover a batch of new character-driven novels that take a deep look at what it means to love another person. From the bonds we discover to those we lose, and the spaces between romance and grief, stories about our connections can truly resonate, reminding us of our personal journeys. You may want to keep a box of tissues nearby.

This Is a Love Story by Jessica Soffer

Jane is dying. In her final days Jane's husband, Abe, takes her to Central Park where they recount the 50 years they’ve been visiting this oasis in the city. From their beginning as starry-eyed young lovers, through their years as parents and into the years that followed Central Park played a vital role in their lives. The park has been their witness for half a century of love. Until now.

Told in various points of view, even in conversation with the park itself, these voices weave in and out to paint a complicated and essential portrait of love. This is a love story about Jane and Abe, but as Soffer weaves in historical facts, it’s also a love story about Central Park and New York City. Readers of lyrical and nostalgic fiction will be enthralled.

“Written with delicate and beautiful brush strokes, this is a love story of a long marriage, a love story of Central Park, a story of how hard life can be, and how the hard leaves its mark, but the love does too. Every once in a while I read a novel and think, What a gift. This is one of those books.” ―Ann Napolitano, New York Times bestselling author of Hello Beautiful

A Forty Year Kiss by Nickolas Butler

Charlie is a recent retiree and a three-time divorcee who finds his mind returning to thoughts of his only true love, his first wife. Vivian is a widow, busy with the care of her two young grandchildren and a history full of struggles. Forty years ago, these two were married to one another. Charlie and Vivian parted ways after just four years of marriage. There were too many problems and struggles, even though the love didn't quite die.

When Charlie returns to Wisconsin, he's not sure what he'll find. He is sure of one thing: he must try to reconnect with Vivian. But 40 years is a long time full of other relationships, building new lives, and holding onto regrets and mistakes. The years have changed them both. Are they ready to consider a second chance?

“Thank you, Nickolas Butler, for writing a love story that feels so powerfully real, a story that captures the hope, grace, and joy of new love – but also the mistakes, scar tissue, and regret of past love. It's a wonder to behold, a novel capable of such breadth. This is the kind of book that makes me a better human.” ―Nathan Hill, New York Times bestselling author of The Nix and Wellness

Dream State by Eric Puchner

Cece has arrived early at her in-laws’ beautiful lake house in Montana to finish planning her wedding to Charlie, a medical student with a brilliant future. Garrett, Charlie's best friend from college who he asked to officiate the wedding, also arrived early. Cece can’t imagine anyone less appropriate for the task of officiating. Garret doesn’t believe in love, much less marriage. 

As Cece spends time with Garrett, and his mask slips, her long-held expectations for her life with Charlie begin to crumble. When she finally decides to follow her instincts, ditching her groom for his best friend, their lives will be altered forever. The events of that July reverberate through marriage, parenthood and, in the end, across generations. 

Years later, Cece’s daughter and Charlie’s son meet and become fast friends. They find themselves faced with enacting the very same mistakes that dogged their parents.

“Eric Puchner's Dream State delivers everything I want in a novel: a love triangle, a moving friendship story, a delicious setting (including some of the best skiing scenes I've ever read in my life) and rumination about how we search for meaning in our lives...an absolute masterpiece.” ―Elin Hilderbrand, author of The Perfect Couple and Swan Song

Deep Cuts by Holly Brickley

It’s a Friday night in a campus bar in Berkeley, fall 2000, and Percy Marks is pontificating about music again. Hall and Oates is on the jukebox and Percy — who has no talent for music, just lots of opinions about it — can’t stop herself from over analyzing the song. She's indulging in what she knows to be her most annoying habit. Percy can talk for hours on the meaning behind a snippet of a song. But something is different tonight. The guy beside her at the bar, fellow student Joe Morrow, is a songwriter. He could listen to Percy talk all night.

Joe asks Percy for feedback on one of his songs. The results kick off a partnership that will span years, ignite new passions in them both, and crush their egos again and again. Is their collaboration worth its cost? Or is it holding Percy back from finding her own voice?

“This dazzling debut isn't so much a 'will they/won't they' story as it is a 'should they?' With an assured, conversational tone, appealing characters, and an emotionally resonant love story, this one is sure to win the hearts of many readers.” ―Booklist, starred review

Elegy, Southwest by Madeleine Watts

In November 2018 Eloise and Lewis rent a car in Las Vegas and take off on a two-week road trip across the American southwest. While wildfires rage, the married couple trace the course of the Colorado River, the aquatic artery the region depends on for survival. Lewis, an artist working for a prominent land art foundation, is grieving the recent death of his mother. Eloise is an academic researching the past and future of the Colorado River as it threatens to run dry.

Over the course of their trip, Eloise, beginning to suspect she might be pregnant, helplessly witnesses Lewis’s descent as he struggles to find a place for himself in the desert where he never quite felt at home.

“Full of grit and a vivid, tender affection for the environments of the American West, Watts' urgent novel weaves a lush landscape of grief and solace. I've rarely seen a writer capture the atmosphere of climate change and loss so vividly, or the frenzied urge to leap into some form of action--all in prose that kept me glued to its pages right to the bittersweet end.” ―Alexandra Kleeman, author of Something New Under the Sun