The Line Tender by Kate Allen is proof positive that it doesn't matter whether a book is written for children or adults--a great book is a great book. This is one of my favorite books I've read this year.

The Line Tender takes place over the course of one summer in Rockport, Massachusetts in the early 1990s. Five years after the loss of her mother--a marine biologist who studied great white sharks--twelve-year-old Lucy Everhart lives with her father and spends most of her days putting together a field guide to native species with her best friend Fred. 

Wintercake by Lynne Rae Perkins is a fine choice for the entire family this time of year.  Written for 4-8-year-old children this cozy picturebook has everything a good book needs. It is fun, has an exciting story in which something actually happens, and the writing is terrific. A missing basket of dried fruits returned by a stranger leads two friends to make a  Wintercake and embark on a journey to find the stranger and give him the cake.  The vocabulary is sophisticated, always a good sign.

Elizabeth Strout's latest novel Olive, Again, is a continuation of the previous novel Olive Kitteridge. Olive indeed is back in all her cranky, DownEast hard scrabble ways. Olive delivers a baby, gets married again after living alone as a widow, has a poem written about her and marches into old age as only Olive can do. 

The Saturday Night Ghost Club is the perfect rainy day read. It's just the right amount of heartwarming and bittersweet.

An irresistible and bittersweet coming-of-age story in the vein of Stranger Things and Stand by Me about a group of misfit kids who spend an unforgettable summer investigating local ghost stories and urban legends

"A celebration of the secret lives of children, both their wonders and their horrors . . . Immensely enjoyable, piercingly clever, and satisfyingly soulful." -Jason Heller, NPR

Not quite a British "cozy," this delightful mystery has enough suspense and threatening situations to be totally absorbing and yet the light touch in the writing makes it a fine if not too serious read.  It is London, England, 1934, and an unimportant and down on her luck "Royal," Lady Georgiana Rannoch, (Queen Victoria was her grandmother) finds herself swept up into the inner circle of the royal family and the preparations for the upcoming wedding of Prince George, when she's asked to be a companion to the foreign and beautiful bride-to-be, Princess Marina of Greece.