Pages Filled With Love
By M. CLARE HAEFNER | Covers courtesy of the publishers
If books are your love language, consider these gems ahead of Valentine’s Day or for a Gallentine’s Day book club selection. From Regency to contemporary romance and a fantastical look at the history of glass beads in Italy, you’ll fall for these three sweet stories.
Whispers at Painswick Court by Julie Klassen (Bethany House Publishers, December 2025)
Determined to live a single life, Anne Loveday accepts a job as a nurse to escape her stepmother’s matchmaking schemes. As Anne settles into life at Painswick Court, the grand house in the village where she spent many childhood summers in her grandparents’ nearby home, she soon learns that all is not as it seems with Lady Celia Fitzjohn and her spinster daughter, Katherine. Anne begins to question whether someone — or more than one someone — may be trying to kill Lady Celia.
Julie Klassen’s newest novel is part Regency romance, for which she is well-known, and part murder mystery, taking a page from the well-loved Gothic romances of the time period in which Whispers at Painswick Court is set.
With a colorful cast of characters, including more than one potential love interest for Anne, Klassen delivers a fast-paced story that will delight fans of romance and mystery.
In Your Dreams by Sarah Adams (Delacorte Press, December 2025)
Sarah Adams hits another home run with the fourth book in her Rome, Kentucky, contemporary romance series.
In this misadventure, the fourth Walker sibling, Madison, returns to her hometown to help open a new restaurant after chasing success as a chef in New York City.
The farm-to-table concept seems like the perfect way to start fresh even when Madison learns the restaurant is owned by her brother’s best friend and neighbor, James Huxley.
James has been secretly in love with Madison for years, but their road to happily ever after won’t run as smoothly as he’d like.
While it’s clear Adams’ lead characters are headed for a happy ending, there’s enough comedy and fun along the way to make In Your Dreams a delightful read. The best part of this series is the meddlesome, small-town neighbors who always want to have their say.
The Glassmaker by Tracy Chevalier (Viking, June 2024)
One of 2024’s bestselling historical novels, I wish I’d picked up The Glassmaker sooner. Part romance, part historical fiction, part fantasy, Chevalier’s novel is a gem that instantly brought me back to the magical Italian city I first visited in 2000. It follows a family of glassmakers from Renaissance-era Italy to the present day, skipping through the centuries like a stone across the lagoon connecting Venice to Murano.
Orsola Rosso is the eldest daughter in a family of glassblowers on the famed Italian isle. She dreams of helping her family, but blowing glass is not an occupation for women. Following her father’s tragic death, Orsola tries her hand at lampwork, a process for creating glass beads and small figurines, and soon finds herself supplementing the family’s fortunes with her unique creations.
In The Glassmaker, Chevalier spins a magical tale that transports readers through history alongside the incredibly long lives of the Rosso family and their masterful women who help ensure their work and their legacy endures.
