Music
January
Gia Sena – Saske
Saske’s songs are always so romantic, showing that trap music can convey deep emotions like any other genre…
Sti Thalassa – Theodosia Tsatsou
Summer vibes and romantic moments with our significant other are what make life meaningful…
Kokkino Fili – Mple
With a grunge sound this deeply sensual and erotic song describes perfectly the relationship between two people madly in love with each other…
February
Gia panta kai ligo akoma – Marseaux & Solmeister
Inspired by the writing of Rene this romantic song is an ode to timeless love and soulmates who spend their entire lives together…
Guilty – Teddy Swims
Teddy Swims can never disappoint! Every song has meaning and a story that makes it relatable to our circumstances.
Let There Be Love – Nat King Cole
A classic Nat King Cole song that instantly puts you in a good mood…
Where Am I – Ray Noble & Al Bowlly
A 1930s big band song performed by the talented Al Bowlly that is full of romance and old-fashioned charm…
Say anything – girl in red
This is giving early 2010’s vibes and I am loving it! Let’s bring that aesthetic back because it was amazing…
Books
January
The Kamogawa Food Detectives by Hisashi Kashiwai
What’s the one dish you’d do anything to taste just one more time?
Down a quiet backstreet in Kyoto exists a very special restaurant. Run by Koishi Kamogawa and her father Nagare, the Kamogawa Diner serves up deliciously extravagant meals. But that’s not the main reason customers stop by . . .
The father-daughter duo are ‘food detectives’. Through ingenious investigations, they are able to recreate dishes from a person’s treasured memories – dishes that may well hold the keys to their forgotten past and future happiness. The restaurant of lost recipes provides a link to vanished moments, creating a present full of possibility.
A Touch of Darkness by Scarlett St. Clair
Persephone is the Goddess of Spring in title only. Since she was a little girl, flowers have only shriveled at her touch. After moving to New Athens, she hoped to lead an unassuming life disguised as a mortal journalist. All of that changes when she sits down in a forbidden nightclub to play a hand of cards with a hypnotic and mysterious stranger.
Hades, God of the Dead, has built a gambling empire in the mortal world and his favorite bets are rumored to be impossible. But nothing has ever intrigued him as much as the goddess offering him a bargain he can’t resist.
After her encounter with Hades, Persephone finds herself in a contract with the God of the Dead, and his terms are impossible: Persephone must create life in the Underworld or lose her freedom forever. The bet does more than expose Persephone’s failure as a goddess, however. As she struggles to sow the seeds of her freedom, love for the God of the Dead grows―a love that is both captivating and forbidden.
Secrets by Robin Jones Gunn
Jessica ran from her past…but can she hide from love?
Jessica Morgan wants desperately to forget the past and begin a new life. She chooses a small, peaceful town tucked away in Oregon’s Willamette Valley as the place to start over—Glenbrooke. Once there, Jessica conceals her identity from the intriguing personalities she meets—including the compassionate paramedic who desires to protect her and the jealous woman who wants nothing more than to destroy her.
Will Jessica’s deceit ruin all hope for the future? Or will she find a deeper peace that allows her to stop hiding the truth from those who love her most of all?
Days at the Morisaki Bookshop by Satoshi Yagisawa
Hidden in Jimbocho, Tokyo, is a booklover’s paradise. On a quiet corner in an old wooden building lies a shop filled with hundreds of second-hand books.
Twenty-five-year-old Takako has never liked reading, although the Morisaki bookshop has been in her family for three generations. It is the pride and joy of her uncle Satoru, who has devoted his life to the bookshop since his wife Momoko left him five years earlier.
When Takako’s boyfriend reveals he’s marrying someone else, she reluctantly accepts her eccentric uncle’s offer to live rent-free in the tiny room above the shop. Hoping to nurse her broken heart in peace, Takako is surprised to encounter new worlds within the stacks of books lining the Morisaki bookshop.
As summer fades to autumn, Satoru and Takako discover they have more in common than they first thought. The Morisaki bookshop has something to teach them both about life, love, and the healing power of books.
More Days at the Morisaki Bookshop by Satoshi Yagisawa
Set again in the beloved Japanese bookshop and nearby coffee shop in the Jimbocho neighborhood of Toyko, More Days at the Morisaki Bookshop deepens the relationship between Takako, her uncle Satoru , and the people in their lives. A new cast of heartwarming regulars have appeared in the shop, including an old man who wears the same ragged mouse-colored sweater and another who collects books solely for the official stamps with the author’s personal seal.
Whispers by Robin Jones Gunn
Teri leaves Glenbrooke thinking her visit to see her sister on Maui is going to be her chance to reconnect with the Marine biologist she met last summer.
She’s surprised to run into an old high school love interest from Escondido. And who is this clumsy, endearing guy from Australia who keeps showing up? Three men want her attention. What a vacation this is turning out to be!
Only one of them makes it clear that he’s got what it takes to win her heart. How does Teri know? The answer comes to her in whispers.
Before We Say Goodbye by Toshikazu Kawaguchi
The regulars at Café Funiculi Funicula are well acquainted with the whimsical ability it grants them to take a trip into the past—as well as the strict rules involved, including that each traveler must return to the present in the time it takes for their coffee to get cold. In Toshikazu Kawaguchi’s previous novels, patrons have been reunited with old flames, made amends with estranged family and visited loved ones. Now readers will once again be introduced to a new set of visitors.
The Husband with Something Important Left to Say
The Woman Who Couldn’t Bid Her Dog Farewell
The Woman Who Couldn’t Answer a Proposal
The Daughter Who Drove Her Father Away
February
All The Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
Marie-Laure lives in Paris near the Museum of Natural History, where her father works. When she is twelve, the Nazis occupy Paris and father and daughter flee to the walled citadel of Saint-Malo, where Marie-Laure’s reclusive great uncle lives in a tall house by the sea. With them they carry what might be the museum’s most valuable and dangerous jewel.
In a mining town in Germany, Werner Pfennig, an orphan, grows up with his younger sister, enchanted by a crude radio they find that brings them news and stories from places they have never seen or imagined. Werner becomes an expert at building and fixing these crucial new instruments and is enlisted to use his talent to track down the resistance. Deftly interweaving the lives of Marie-Laure and Werner, Doerr illuminates the ways, against all odds, people try to be good to one another.
The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller
Achilles, “the best of all the Greeks,” son of the cruel sea goddess Thetis and the legendary king Peleus, is strong, swift, and beautiful, irresistible to all who meet him. Patroclus is an awkward young prince, exiled from his homeland after an act of shocking violence. Brought together by chance, they forge an inseparable bond, despite risking the gods’ wrath.
They are trained by the centaur Chiron in the arts of war and medicine, but when word comes that Helen of Sparta has been kidnapped, all the heroes of Greece are called upon to lay siege to Troy in her name. Seduced by the promise of a glorious destiny, Achilles joins their cause, and torn between love and fear for his friend, Patroclus follows. Little do they know that the cruel Fates will test them both as never before and demand a terrible sacrifice.
Movies
January
A Glenbrooke Christmas {2020}
As Christmas nears, heiress Jessica Morgan seizes what seems like her last chance to experience a relaxed Christmas and heads off to the small town of Glenbrooke, where she meets a handsome fireman.
Christmas with the Singhs {2024}
For Asha Singh, Christmas is the most important time of the year. But when she’s stuck working at the hospital during the holidays, she wishes for some much-needed Christmas magic. Enter Jake, her former high school classmate, who unexpectedly reappears in her life. After a magical year together, Jake proposes.
But their first Christmas as an engaged couple isn’t exactly the fairytale they imagined. When they head home for the holidays, they quickly discover their picture-perfect romance is about to get a serious reality check: their families couldn’t be more different. Juggling various holiday traditions, big personalities, cultural differences and complicated family dynamics proves to be a challenge as Asha and Jake have to learn if they can bridge their two families and survive a Christmas with the Singhs.
You Were Never Lovelier {1946}
The Acunas, a rich Argentine family, have the tradition that the daughters have to get married in order, oldest first. When sister #1 gets married, sisters #3 and #4 put pressure on Maria, sister #2, because they have their husbands picked out already. But Maria hasn’t yet met a man she likes. Eduardo Acuna, believing that men aren’t romantic enough these days, sends his daughter flowers and anonymous love letters, creating a “mystery man” for her to fall in love with. He intends to pick out an appropriate beau for her later, to fill the role. But Robert Davis, an American dancer looking for work, stumbles into the picture. Maria falls for him, but the father does not approve.
What’s Love Got to Do with It? [2022}
In London, an award-winning film-maker documents her best friend’s journey into an assisted marriage in line with his family’s Pakistani heritage. In the process, she challenges her own attitude towards relationships.
Cover Girl {1944}
Rusty Parker wins a contest and becomes a celebrated cover girl; this endangers her romance with dancing mentor Danny.
You’ll Never Get Rich {1941}
In order to cover up his philandering ways, a married Broadway producer sets one of his dancers up on a date with a chorus girl for whom he had bought a gift, but the two dancers fall in love for real.
February
Gilded Newport Mysteries: Murder at the Breakers [2024}
It’s July 1895 and the New York elite have decamped to Newport, Rhode Island for a summer of balls, garden parties, and yacht races. Covering these events for the women’s pages of the Newport Observer is Emma Vanderbilt-Cross, a fearless twenty-one-year-old writer with family ties to the wealthy Vanderbilt family.
Shops
January
James Joyce Irish Pub
Astiggos 12, Athens, Greece
An Irish-inspired pub at the center of Athens with a welcoming atmosphere that makes patrons feel like a close-knit familt…
Paliatsos Bar
Vasileos Georgiou & Souvaliotou, Agia Triada Square, Penteli, Greece
With an Old Hollywood aesthetic and impeccable design this unique bar is a great getaway from a buzy day of work…
