October 18th, 2026
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October Reads Worth Falling For

Danger, desire, second chances, and unexpected romanceβ€”discover this month’s Fresh Fiction Featured Books.

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A poisoned cousin, a five-year-old's life, and a family with too many secrets.


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Supernatural sparks fly
between a bookseller
& her hard-boiled ghost.


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If Her Highness thinks I’ll let another man claim her and my child, she’s lost her royal mind. Sophaya’s mine.


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She found a body. Then she started asking the wrong questions.


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He ghosted her ten years ago. Now she’s stuck with him for Christmas.


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She’s the lady everyone overlooks. He’s the prince who can’t look away.

This Close to Okay by Leesa Cross-Smith

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Also by Leesa Cross-Smith:

As You Wish, July 2025
Paperback / e-Book
Goodbye Earl, July 2023
Hardcover / e-Book
Half-Blown Rose, April 2023
Paperback / e-Book
Half-Blown Rose, July 2022
Hardcover / e-Book
This Close to Okay, April 2022
Paperback / e-Book (reprint)
This Close to Okay, February 2021
Hardcover / e-Book
So We Can Glow, March 2020
Hardcover / e-Book

THIS CLOSE TO OKAY
By: Leesa Cross-Smith

Grand Central Publishing
February 2021
On Sale: February 2, 2021
320 pages
ISBN: 1538715376
EAN: 9781538715376
Kindle: B089SPDTP6
Hardcover / e-Book
Add to Wish List

Other Editions
Paperback (reprint - April 2022)

Suspense | Women's Fiction Contemporary | Women's Fiction Southern

From the award-winning writer Roxane Gay calls "a consummate storyteller" comes a cathartic novel about the life-changing weekend shared between two strangers.

On a rainy October night in Kentucky, recently divorced therapist Tallie Clark is on her way home when she spots a man precariously standing on the edge of a bridge. Without a second thought, Tallie pulls over and jumps out of the car into the pouring rain. She convinces the man to join her for a cup of coffee, and he eventually agrees to come back to her house, where he finally, reluctantly, shares his first name: Emmett.

Over the course of the emotionally-charged weekend that follows, Tallie makes it her mission to provide a safe and comfortable space for Emmett, although she doesn't confess that she works as a therapist. However, Emmett is not the only one who needs help -- and he has secrets of his own.

Alternating between Tallie and Emmett's perspectives as they inch closer to the truth of what brought Emmett to the bridge, This Close to Okay is an uplifting, powerful story of two strangers brought together by wild chance at the moment they need it the most.