Small Town Secrets. Katrina Jackson. 2018. 153 pages. [Source: Kindle Unlimited.] I’m a sucker for small-town series, and Katrina Jackson has me completely sucked into Sea Port. I was first introduced to this quaint southern town in From Scratch. I fell further in love through Inheritance, and Small Town Secrets is another in a series of eyebrow-raising looks at the citizenry. Small Town Secrets further introduces Sully, the owner of the town’s coffee shop. For the past year, she’s pined after Bria, who works in the town’s new bakery. Surprise, surprise – Bria has eyes for Sully, too. Much of the story follows them getting to know each other; they have a cute courtship, mostly devoid of drama. As Bria and Sully get to know each other, Sully is struggling with her closest friendship. She and Willie, the town mayor, have been drifting apart for nearly a year, inexplicably. The truth is that Sully has her own secret obsession with Bria, and is harboring a secret that’s getting harder to keep to herself. Small Town Secrets captures the complexity of the relationships and politics of small-town life that Jackson has highlighted in her other books. I enjoyed this one because…

From Scratch. Katrina Jackson. 2017. 160 pages. [Source: Kindle Unlimited.] What’s a frustrated academic to do when the tenure they’ve worked so tirelessly for is denied? Find a new recipe for success, obviously. In From Scratch, Mary Woods has landed herself in the middle of Sea Port. It’s small town living at its finest, and she’s the new baker in town. Aside from the pressure of launching a business, she’s also trying to find her place in a town where relationships and secrets run deep. Along the way, she meets the town’s new fire chief and police officer, Knox and Santos, respectively. Both are newcomers to town and are using the new setting as a reset on life just as much as she is. They’re also fine as hell, and clearly attracted to her. From Scratch is a mix of new and familiar to me. I love a good small-town, easy going romance. A little sexual angst and town drama is all it takes for me. But what is new for me was that the love triangle that one often reads about isn’t just with Mary at the center. She, Knox, and Santos are all enamored with each other, and…

Odd One Out. Nic Stone. 2018. Crown Books for Young Readers. 320 pages. [Source: Public library.] I intentionally started Nic Stone’s latest without reading about it. I didn’t read reviews, I didn’t even read the synopsis on the jacket. Like Angie Thomas, she is an author whose books I will read without a prior question. I am grateful I came into this book with no preconcieved notions, no expectations for content, no “clues” about the characters and the story ahead of them. It made reading Odd One Out that much more of an experience of openness that I relished. Odd One Out is, on its surface, a story of three teen friends. Courtney is a star basketball player who joined the cheerleading team in the off-season. His best-friend, Jupiter, is his self-assured next-door neighbor. Their friendship extends beyond themselves, and is a kinship shared by Courtney’s widowed mother and Jupiter’s gay fathers. Rae, a newcomer to their town and the daughter of his mom’s coworker, finds an immediate connection with Jupiter, much to Courtney’s chagrin. The story, however, is about much more than new and old friendships. Through the trio, Stone explores how youth grapple with understanding their sexual identities…