The Guest Book

Ruthie Knox and Annie Mare, writing as Marvel (If I Told You, I’d Have to Kiss You), deliver a high-heat, high-velocity sapphic romance. Edie’s Wisconsin-based vegan creamery has failed and she’s licking her wounds on an affordable vacation at Gregory Place, a faded inn in a picturesque English village. California socialite Cosima could have afforded a trip anywhere she liked, but Gregory Place is where her famous actor mother, Phoebe, met her father, and it’s the best place to hide from the havoc Phoebe’s death has wreaked on Cosima’s life. At loose ends in the otherwise empty inn, Edie and Cosima are getting to know each other when the elderly innkeeper, Morag, presents them with a mystery to solve: 50 years ago, author Agatha Llewellyn left a coded entry in the inn’s guest book. It’s the first clue to a treasure hunt that will take Cosima and Edie all over Europe, a hunt they learn that Agatha set out for Minnie, the love of her life. Marvel rapidly propels the characters through several brochures’ worth of locations, and readers will need to pay close attention to keep up. Cosima and Eddie are fun and believably flawed with palpable chemistry, while Agatha and Minnie’s romance adds a sense of history and found family to the contemporary plot. This whirlwind of a love story is sure to please. (June)