I’ve been listening to nothing but Maisie Peters’ The Good Witch as of late, and I figured it’d be a perfect opportunity to pair songs from The Good Witch to book recs! It’s truly the album of the summer, and I couldn’t be more proud of Maisie for her sophomore album — especially for hitting number 1 on the charts! I also got the chance to see Maisie live in concert last night (and also at Lollapalooza, where I was earlier this month), and all I can say is: if you have the chance to go see her, please do! She’s incredible live, and her stage presence is unmatched.
The Good Witch — The Witch Haven by Sasha Peyton Smith
I feel like I had to pair these two together, and not just for the obvious “witch” element, but lines such as “Let’s call this the calm before the storm comes rushin’ through”, “When all I do is think about the past and haunt a house nobody lives in, you wanna hear about it all, where do I start?”, “I light another candle and I chant under my brеath that I will try forgiveness, but I will not forget”, and “Still argue like my mother and suppress stuff like my dad” remind me of Francis’ journey.
In 1911 New York City, seventeen-year-old Frances Hallowell spends her days as a seamstress, mourning the mysterious death of her brother months prior. Everything changes when she’s attacked and a man ends up dead at her feet—her scissors in his neck, and she can’t explain how they got there.
Before she can be condemned as a murderess, two cape-wearing nurses arrive to inform her she is deathly ill and ordered to report to Haxahaven Sanitarium. But Frances finds Haxahaven isn’t a sanitarium at all: it’s a school for witches. Within Haxahaven’s glittering walls, Frances finds the sisterhood she craves, but the headmistress warns Frances that magic is dangerous. Frances has no interest in the small, safe magic of her school, and is instead enchanted by Finn, a boy with magic himself who appears in her dreams and tells her he can teach her all she’s been craving to learn, lessons that may bring her closer to discovering what truly happened to her brother.
Frances’s newfound power attracts the attention of the leader of an ancient order who yearns for magical control of Manhattan. And who will stop at nothing to have Frances by his side. Frances must ultimately choose what matters more, justice for her murdered brother and her growing feelings for Finn, or the safety of her city and fellow witches. What price would she pay for power, and what if the truth is more terrible than she ever imagined?
Links for The Witch Haven: Goodreads | TheStorygraph | Bookshop
Coming of Age — Enter the Body by Joy McCullough
“You had the speaking parts but I guess I was the playwright”, as well as the bridge of Coming of Age (“I send my silence away / printing my blood on the page/ you stole my love and I paid / but you couldn’t keep what you couldn’t tame / I know I made you the big star/I let you butcher my big heart/but it’s my song and my stage/and it’s my coming of age”) made me think of Enter the Body by Joy McCullough, an incredibly clever retelling of Romeo and Juliet, King Lear, and Hamlet that focuses on the female characters in the stories.
In the room beneath a stage’s trapdoor, all of Shakespeare’s tragically dead teenage girls–Juliet, Ophelia, Cordelia, and others–compare their experiences and retell the stories of their lives in their own terms. Enter the Body gives voice to a cast of the young women who die in Shakespeare’s most iconic plays. Focusing on the stories of Juliet, Ophelia, and Cordelia, bestselling author of Blood Water Paint Joy McCullough brilliantly weaves retellings of Romeo & Juliet, Hamlet, and King Lear into a larger story about how young women can support each other in the aftermath of trauma.
Links for Enter the Body: Goodreads | TheStoryGraph | Bookshop
Watch — The Breakup Tour by Emily Wibberley & Austin Siegemund-Broka
I haven’t actually read The Breakup Tour yet, but it’s one of my most anticipated releases of 2024. When I read the lines “Telling the wide web that this is my era, then writing a lot of heartbroken music” and “Nobody actually happy and healthy has ever felt so desperate to prove it”, I immediately thought of what I’m sure will be Wibbroka’s next masterpiece, about a singer on tour, with her guitarist muse.
Riley Wynn went from a promising singer-songwriter to a superstar overnight, thanks to her breakup song concept album and its unforgettable lead single. When Riley’s ex-husband claims the hit song is about him, she does something she hasn’t in ten years and calls Max Harcourt, her college boyfriend and the real inspiration for the song of the summer.
Max hasn’t spoken to Riley since their relationship ended. He’s content with managing the retirement home his family owns, but it’s not the life he dreamed of filled with music. When Riley asks him to go public as her songwriting muse, he agrees on one he’ll join her in her band on tour.
As they perform across the country, Max and Riley start to realize that while they hit some wrong notes in the past, their future could hold incredible things. And their rekindled relationship will either last forever or go down in flames.
Links for The Breakup Tour: Goodreads | TheStorygraph | Bookshop.org
Body Better — The Summer I Turned Pretty Series by Jenny Han
One of my favorite lyrics on the album is “The worst way to love somebody is to watch them love somebody else and it work out”, and I think The Summer I Turned Pretty is a good example of it. Regardless of if you’re Team Belly/Conrad, or Team Belly/Jere, I think Body Better really suits how both brothers probably feel. I mean, “Loving you was easy, that’s why it hurts now”, “Do you love her, when you’re twisting up all her sheets, do you suffer?”, and “all the hows and the whens and whys, i thought it would be us for life”? It’s so The Summer I Turned Pretty coded. Personally, I think all of them should probably take a step back from dating, and work through their own stuff first but…
Belly has always lived for the summertime because it means all her favorite things: swimming, the beach and the Fisher boys, Conrad and Jeremiah. She has spent every summer with them at Cousins Beach for as long as she can remember. She has always been in love with Conrad and finally, one summer, it seems like he might have feelings for her too. But it turns out, so does Jeremiah.
As the summers go on, Belly has to choose between two brothers who love her as she comes to the realization that she will have to break one of their hearts.
Links for The Summer I Turned Pretty: Goodreads | TheStorygraph | Bookshop.org
Want You Back — You Deserve Each Other by Sarah Hogle
I really love the whole concept in You Deserve Each Other, with a second chance romance and a couple working through their issues, and mending their relationship. “I know that you did bad, but if one more person says it I might go mad“, and “I must go out with a stranger I must kiss him to get stronger so I don’t tell a soul that I’ll be yours again tomorrow if you wanted but you don’t wanna” in particular remind me of this one!
Naomi Westfield has the perfect fiancé: Nicholas Rose holds doors open for her, remembers her restaurant orders, and comes from the kind of upstanding society family any bride would love to be a part of. They never fight. They’re preparing for their lavish wedding that’s three months away. And she is miserably and utterly sick of him.
Naomi wants out, but there’s a catch: whoever ends the engagement will have to foot the nonrefundable wedding bill. When Naomi discovers that Nicholas, too, has been feigning contentment, the two of them go head-to-head in a battle of pranks, sabotage, and all-out emotional warfare.
But with the countdown looming to the wedding that may or may not come to pass, Naomi finds her resolve slipping. Because now that they have nothing to lose, they’re finally being themselves–and having fun with the last person they expect: each other.
Links for You Deserve Each Other: Goodreads | TheStorygraph | Bookshop.org
The Band and I — The Raven Cycle by Maggie Stiefvater
Normally, I’d associate The Band and I with an obvious band book, like Daisy Jones and the Six, but The Band and I reminds me so heavily of the Gangsey, with lyrics like: “If we’re livin’ the dream, I hope we never wake up”, and the found family aspect of it all.
All her life, Blue has been warned that she will cause her true love’s death. She doesn’t believe in true love and never thought this would be a problem, but as her life becomes caught up in the strange and sinister world of the Raven Boys, she’s not so sure any more.
Links for The Raven Cycle: Goodreads | TheStoryGraph | Bookshop
You’re Just A Boy (And I’m Kinda The Man) — Carrie Soto is Back by Taylor Jenkins Reid
By the time Carrie retires from tennis, she is the best player the world has ever seen. She has shattered every record and claimed twenty Slam titles. And if you ask her, she is entitled to every one. She sacrificed nearly everything to become the best, with her father as her coach.
But six years after her retirement, Carrie finds herself sitting in the stands of the 1994 US Open, watching her record be taken from her by a brutal, stunning, British player named Nicki Chan.
At thirty-seven years old, Carrie makes the monumental decision to come out of retirement and be coached by her father for one last year in an attempt to reclaim her record. Even if the sports media says that they never liked the ‘Battle-Axe’ anyway. Even if her body doesn’t move as fast as it did. And even if it means swallowing her pride to train with a man she once almost opened her heart to: Bowe Huntley. Like her, he has something to prove before he gives up the game forever.
Links for Carrie Soto is Back: Goodreads | TheStorygraph | Bookshop
Lost the Breakup — Astrid Parker Doesn’t Fail by Ashley Herring Blake
I really debated on what book to associate with Lost the Breakup, but ultimately settled on Astrid Parker Doesn’t Fail by Ashley Herring Blake. After breaking up with her fiancé, Astrid is on a mission to rebuild her life, and her entire character arc has major “Oh shit, I won the breakup” energy!
For Astrid Parker, failure is unacceptable. Ever since she broke up with her fiancé a year ago, she’s been focused on her career—her friends might say she’s obsessed, but she’s just driven. When Pru Everwood asks her to be the designer for the Everwood Inn’s renovation that will be broadcasted on a popular home improvement show, Innside America, Astrid knows this is the answer to everything that is wrong with her life. It’ll be the perfect distraction from her failed love life, and her perpetually displeased mother might finally give her nod of approval.
However, Astrid never planned on Jordan Everwood, Pru’s granddaughter and lead carpenter for the inn’s renovation, who despises every modern design decision Astrid makes. Jordan is determined to preserve the history of her family’s inn, particularly as the rest of her life is in shambles. When that determination turns into a little light sabotage, ruffling Astrid’s perfect little feathers, the showrunners ask them to play up the tension. But somewhere along the way, their dislike for each other turns into something quite different, and Astrid must decide what success truly means. Is she going to pursue the life that she’s expected to lead, or the one she wants?
Links for Astrid Parker Doesn’t Fail: Goodreads | TheStorygraph | Bookshop.org
Wendy — Lost in the Never Woods by Aiden Thomas
This one is partially a cop out, but I also just had to assign Wendy with Lost in the Never Woods, which is one of my favorite Peter Pan retellings. “Lost my page when you kissed me/now I remember the whole book”, and “And what about my wings? What about Wendy?”.
It’s been five years since Wendy and her two brothers went missing in the woods, but when the town’s children start to disappear, the questions surrounding her brothers’ mysterious circumstances are brought back into light. Attempting to flee her past, Wendy almost runs over an unconscious boy lying in the middle of the road, and gets pulled into the mystery haunting the town.
Peter, a boy she thought lived only in her stories, claims that if they don’t do something, the missing children will meet the same fate as her brothers. In order to find them and rescue the missing kids, Wendy must confront what’s waiting for her in the woods.
Links for Lost in the Never Woods: Goodreads | TheStorygraph | Bookshop.org
Run — Ghosts by Dolly Alderton
The minute I thought of this post idea, I knew I had to pair Dolly Alderton’s Ghosts with Run. It gives off such Run energy, and I just know that Nina would be blasting Run (well, all of The Good Witch, but Run in particular).
Nina Dean has arrived at her early thirties as a successful food writer with loving friends and family, plus a new home and neighbourhood. When she meets Max, a beguiling romantic hero who tells her on date one that he’s going to marry her, it feels like all is going to plan.
A new relationship couldn’t have come at a better time – her thirties have not been the liberating, uncomplicated experience she was sold. Everywhere she turns, she is reminded of time passing and opportunities dwindling. Friendships are fading, ex-boyfriends are moving on and, worse, everyone’s moving to the suburbs. There’s no solace to be found in her family, with a mum who’s caught in a baffling mid-life makeover and a beloved dad who is vanishing in slow-motion into dementia.
Links for Ghosts: Goodreads | TheStorygraph | Bookshop.org
BSC — House of Hunger by Alexis Henderson
I don’t read a lot of gothic horror, but one of my friends highly recommended House of Hunger a while ago, and I loved it. “I kept it in but it wrecked my organs”, “Broke me big time It’s funny and I’m laughing, baby”, “You think I’m alright but I’m actually bloody motherfucking batshit crazy” really just reminds me of House of Hunger.
Marion Shaw has been raised in the slums, where want and deprivation is all she knows. Despite longing to leave the city and its miseries, she has no real hope of escape until the day she spots a peculiar listing in the newspaper, seeking a bloodmaid.
Though she knows little about the far north–where wealthy nobles live in luxury and drink the blood of those in their service–Marion applies to the position. In a matter of days, she finds herself the newest bloodmaid at the notorious House of Hunger. There, Marion is swept into a world of dark debauchery–and at the center of it all is her.
Countess Lisavet, who presides over this hedonistic court, is loved and feared in equal measure. She takes a special interest in Marion. Lisavet is magnetic, and Marion is eager to please her new mistress. But when her fellow bloodmaids begin to go missing in the night, Marion is thrust into a vicious game of cat and mouse. She’ll need to learn the rules of her new home–and fast–or its halls will soon become her grave.
Links for House of Hunger: Goodreads | TheStorygraph | Bookshop.org
Two Weeks Ago — Happy Place by Emily Henry
It wouldn’t be a Cossette Book Rec list without an Emily Henry recommendation, and Happy Place was the obvious choice. So much of Happy Place is focused on Harriet and Wyn’s relationship, and at any point, I’m confident that both characters would do anything to go back to before everything fell apart.
Harriet and Wyn have been the perfect couple since they met in college—they go together like salt and pepper, honey and tea, lobster and rolls. Except, now—for reasons they’re still not discussing—they don’t.
They broke up six months ago. And still haven’t told their best friends.
Which is how they find themselves sharing the largest bedroom at the Maine cottage that has been their friend group’s yearly getaway for the last decade. Their annual respite from the world, where for one vibrant, blue week they leave behind their daily lives; have copious amounts of cheese, wine, and seafood; and soak up the salty coastal air with the people who understand them most.
Only this year, Harriet and Wyn are lying through their teeth while trying not to notice how desperately they still want each other. Because the cottage is for sale and this is the last week they’ll all have together in this place. They can’t stand to break their friends’ hearts, and so they’ll play their parts. Harriet will be the driven surgical resident who never starts a fight, and Wyn will be the laid-back charmer who never lets the cracks show. It’s a flawless plan (if you look at it from a great distance and through a pair of sunscreen-smeared sunglasses). After years of being in love, how hard can it be to fake it for one week…in front of those who know you best?
Links for Happy Place: Goodreads | TheStorygraph | Bookshop.org
Therapy — The No Show by Beth O’Leary
Beth O’Leary’s The No Show is an interesting pick for this one, but if you read through the entire book, you’ll understand why I picked it! In all honesty, if anyone else had written The No Show, I probably would’ve DNFed, but I stuck through and I’m really glad I did because of that twist.
Siobhan is a quick-tempered life coach with way too much on her plate. Miranda is a tree surgeon used to being treated as just one of the guys on the job. Jane is a soft-spoken volunteer for the local charity shop with zero sense of self-worth.
These three women are strangers who have only one thing in common: They’ve all been stood up on the same day, the very worst day to be stood up–Valentine’s Day. And, unbeknownst to them, they’ve all been stood up by the same man.
Once they’ve each forgiven him for standing them up, they let him back into their lives and are in serious danger of falling in love with a man who seems to have not just one or two but three women on the go….
Is there more to him than meets the eye? And will they each untangle the truth before they all get their hearts broken?
Links for The No Show: Goodreads | TheStorygraph | Bookshop.org
There It Goes — Normal People by Sally Rooney
Another Cossette Book Rec list classic, but with lyrics such as: “I’m young but I am aging and I need you less than I did”, “I threw a party, He kissed me right in front of my friends”, and “I don’t need your light to be lit But oh, the way I loved you I will not be embarrassed of that Just should’ve known when to quit”, how could I possibly pair There it Goes with anything else but Marianne and Connell’s story?
At school Connell and Marianne pretend not to know each other. He’s popular and well-adjusted, star of the school soccer team while she is lonely, proud, and intensely private. But when Connell comes to pick his mother up from her housekeeping job at Marianne’s house, a strange and indelible connection grows between the two teenagers – one they are determined to conceal.
A year later, they’re both studying at Trinity College in Dublin. Marianne has found her feet in a new social world while Connell hangs at the sidelines, shy and uncertain. Throughout their years in college, Marianne and Connell circle one another, straying toward other people and possibilities but always magnetically, irresistibly drawn back together. Then, as she veers into self-destruction and he begins to search for meaning elsewhere, each must confront how far they are willing to go to save the other.
Links for Normal People: Goodreads | TheStoryGraph | Bookshop.org
History of Man — This is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone
This one was tricky, but I ultimately went with This is How You Lose the Time War. “I’ve seen it, in the poems, in the sands I’ve pleaded, with the powers and their plans I tried to rewrite it but I can’t” specifically remind me of Blue and Red’s story, and I think the way History of Man is written just reminds me of my favorite things in Time War.
Among the ashes of a dying world, an agent of the Commandant finds a letter. It reads: Burn before reading. Thus begins an unlikely correspondence between two rival agents hellbent on securing the best possible future for their warring factions. Now, what began as a taunt, a battlefield boast, grows into something more. Something epic. Something romantic. Something that could change the past and the future.
Except the discovery of their bond would mean death for each of them. There’s still a war going on, after all. And someone has to win that war.
Links for This is How You Lose the Time War: Goodreads | TheStorygraph | Bookshop | IndieBound
i LOVE your choices!!!! can’t wait to pick up some of these <3