17 Best New Feel Good Books to Brighten Your Reading List

“Imagine, the letters one has sent out into the world, the letters received back in turn, are like the pieces of a magnificent puzzle. . . . Isn’t there something wonderful in that, to think that a story of one’s life is preserved in some way, that this very letter may one day mean something, even if it is a very small thing, to someone?”

Filled with knowledge that only comes from a life fully lived, The Correspondent is a gem of a novel about the power of finding solace in literature and connection with people we might never meet in person. It is about the hubris of youth and the wisdom of old age, and the mistakes and acts of kindness that occur during a lifetime.

Sybil Van Antwerp’s life of letters might be “a very small thing,” but she also might be one of the most memorable characters you will ever read.

This one also appears on my Ultimate Uplit Reading List, where I’m gathering all my favorite feel-good reads in one place.

What happens when your fancy New York dreams collapse and you destroy 100 years of your family’s legacy? If you’re not careful, you may just find yourself in Goodnight, Kansas.

When Sid Solvang’s attempts to modernize his family’s deli, a Brooklyn institution, end in disaster, he and his chef wife Scarlett and their daughter Harlem have no choice but to move to the little town Scarlett swore she’d never return to. Greeted with biscuits and gossip, they’re now living in her dead father’s old Victorian house, surrounded by alpacas, and desperately trying to get back to New York. Because this little town is most definitely not where they belong, right?

Filled with quirky characters who had me laughing out loud and told through astute observations, this story reminds us that sometimes the smallest joys can balance the biggest heartbreaks.

In weekly phone calls to his daughter in Australia, widower Hubert Bird paints a picture of the perfect retirement. But it’s a lie.

In reality, Hubert’s days are all the same, dragging on without him seeing a single soul.

Until he receives some good news — good news that in one way turns out to be the worst news ever, news that will force him out again, into a world he has long since turned his back on. The news that his daughter is coming for a visit.

Now Hubert faces a seemingly impossible task: to make his real life resemble his fake life before the truth comes out. Along the way Hubert stumbles across a second chance at love, renews a cherished friendship, and finds himself roped into an audacious community scheme that seeks to end loneliness once and for all . . .

Life is certainly beginning to happen to Hubert Bird. But with the origin of his earlier isolation always lurking in the shadows, will he ever get to live the life he’s pretended to have for so long?

A charming literary-themed novel about a young woman determined to save her great-aunt’s beloved bookshop from extinction by the shiny new competition.

The cute, seaside town of Portneath has been the home of Capelthorne’s Books for nearly a hundred years… and for Jules Capelthorne, her family’s bookstore, a world of literary treasures, is full of precious childhood memories.

The Montbeaus and Capelthornes have feuded for years, and but then Roman Montbeaus decides to make a point about Capelthorne’s being a relic of the past by opening a new bookshop directly opposite – a shiny, plate-glass-windowed emporium of books.

Jules may not be able to splash the cash on promotions and marketing like the Montbeaus, but she’s got some ideas of her own, plus she has a tenacity that may just win the hardest of hearts and the most hopeless of conflicts.

Let the battle of the bookshops commence.

A heartwarming reminder that true love lives in small, everyday moments.

Abe Winter and Ruth Warneke were never meant to be together. Yet their catastrophic blind date in college evolved into a seventy-year marriage. Through the years, the Winters have fallen in and out of lockstep, and from their haunting losses and guarded secrets, a dependable partnership has been forged. But when Ruth’s loose tooth turns out to be something much more malicious, the beautiful, reliable life they’ve created together comes to a crisis, and the couple has to reconfigure how to be there for each other.

This bighearted portrait of a marriage explores seventy years of big moments in subtle ways, elegantly braiding the Winters’ turbulent history with their present-day battles, showing us how the oddly paired college kids became parents, fell apart and back together, and grew into the Abe and Ruth of today.

She inherits the bookshop of her dreams . . . But she has to run it with the ex she vowed never to speak with again.

 Shelby Thatcher adores working in the charming small-town bookshop her grandmother opened years ago. Since high school she’s helped Gram turn the shop into a community hub for book lovers in the lakeside town of Grandville, NC. When her beloved grandma passes away, Shelby inherits the bookstore. But to her shock, Gram leaves half ownership to Gray Briggs, the man who broke Shelby’s heart years ago.

If you’re a trope-loving reader looking for an enemies-to-lovers, second-chance romance set in a cozy lakeside bookshop brimming with healing, heart, and Southern charm, The Second Story Bookshop could be your feel-good escape. There were a bit too many cliches sprinkled throughout, but it was a sweet book.

This book is the very definition of uplit: complicated characters facing down hard things, learning to overcome and not only to live, but to find their happy place in a world where they never felt they truly belonged.

Lorna Lott’s intensity and drive haven’t earned her any friends, but at least she has a shot at the promotion to senior vice president — or at least she did — until she made that big mistake. Mandated to attend a thirty-day wellness program, Lorna starts coming to terms with her past. Mainly, how her older sister’s substance abuse ruined Lorna’s life, and her many regrets about the way she handled things. After forty-two years and with the help of her endearing eight-year-old neighbor and his equally charming father, Lorna Lott is ready to learn where she’s going with her life, even if it means revisiting all the places she wishes she hadn’t been. It’ll be fine. Probably. Maybe.

There are some hard topics in this one (substance abuse, mental health, death of loved ones), and it hit a little too close to home at times. The author did an admirable job portraying the many ways we deal with a troubled loved one – we leave, we accept, we try to change them – and the many ways these approaches can be both right and wrong. 

I’m calling this a feel-good book, but be ready to walk with Lorna over some tough ground – I think you’ll find it’s worth it!

He’s a top presidential candidate. She’s a widowed former CIA officer. And they just came face-to-face in their small hometown, where every resident watched him leave her at the altar when they were both 18. Well…that’s not awkward…

Decades ago, Wes left Addie at the altar – then he left town. Now he’s a beloved senator and presidential front-runner, she’s a disgraced CIA employee, and they’re suddenly face-to-face in their hometown. Surely this won’t end well…

As a high-ranking CIA analyst married to a gorgeous CIA operative, Addy’s life had exceeded her expectations…until she lost everything. Back in her father’s house in Adelaide Springs, Addy is putting her life back together when the one person she never wants to see again – Wes – shows up. They both have their own secrets they’ve been hiding, and also their own feelings for each other they’ve tried to bury. 

If you love a good enemies-to-lovers, second-chance romance set in an idyllic snow-covered mountain town, but with a splash of intrigue, this cozy read is the perfect fit. 

Sometimes you just need your good guys to be good, the bad guys to be bad, and the story to give you a metaphorical hand-on-your-heart moment.

Jane Jackson spent her adolescence as “Poor Janey Jakes,” the barbecue-sauce-in-her-braces punch line on America’s fifth-favorite sitcom. Now she’s trying to be taken seriously as a Hollywood studio executive by embracing a new mantra: Fake it till you make it.

Desperate to get her first project greenlit and riled up by pompous cinematographer and one-time crush Dan Finnegan, she claimed she could get popstar Jack Quinlan to write a song for the movie. Jack may have been her first kiss – and greatest source of shame – but she hasn’t spoken to him in twenty years.

Now Jane must turn to the last man she’d ever want to owe: Dan Finnegan. Because Jack is playing a festival in Dan’s hometown, and Dan has an in.

A week in close quarters with Dan as she faces down her past is the last thing Jane wants, but he just might surprise her.

This is a perfect book club pick – especially if you have a multi-generational group! – there is so much to talk about here.

The women of Concordia, a brand new planned community in Northern Virginia in the 1960s, are living the dream: beautiful new homes, successful husbands, children they adore. It’s not until four of them find themselves members of an impromptu book club that each woman realizes she’s not the only one with a nagging feeling that something is missing.

True confession time. From the description, I half expected this to be a man-bashing reading experience. It is NOT. The Feminine Mystique is the first book the ladies read, and all that follows stems from there. There are many painful actions, words, and attitudes toward women, often from their husbands. Female empowerment is certainly a theme in this book, but marriage and families are not made the enemy. These women find friendship, they find their footing and their purpose, they make their precarious way through the frenetic changes of the time, and they hold on to the good — and let go of the bad, when necessary — in themselves, their families, and each other.

a funny, uplifting story about the power of friendship and finding love in unexpected places.

Eddie Winston is 90 years old. He has lived and loved, but he has never been kissed. A true gentleman and incurable romantic, Eddie spends his days volunteering at a charity shop, where he sorts through the donations of the living and the dead, preserving letters and tokens of love.

It is here that he meets Bella, a troubled young woman who, at 24 years old, has just lost the love of her life. When Bella learns that Eddie is yet to have his first kiss, she resolves to help Eddie Winston finally find love.

This is a tale of friendship and kindness that reminds us that those we love are never forgotten and it is never too late to try again.

There’s no place like home…and that’s exactly how real estate developer Samantha Leigh plans to keep it.

Samantha has made it in New York as a successful real estate developer. She’s crazy talented, but she refuses to admit to herself that she’s also a little crazy lonely. But what’s a little loneliness in exchange for escaping Rock Island – the home of bad memories, high school bullies, and one gorgeous ex-boyfriend. Then her boss assigns her a massive project and sends her to the one place she doesn’t want to go: back home.

This is a sweet story – a bit of romance, a bit of uplit. Sam’s childhood spiraled out of control when her dad died suddenly and her mom found solace in addiction. As soon as she was old enough, she left and hasn’t been back. She has found professional success on her terms, but her personal life is still a mess. When she is assigned the Rock Island project, a massive development plan to revitalize her struggling hometown island, she is forced to take a long, hard look at what she left behind. This is a book about boundaries, forgiveness, and deciding what we choose to value in life.

“It has been said that books find their own readers—but sometimes they need someone to show them the way.”

Small-town German bookseller Carl Kollhoff is a “book walker,” delivering his books to special customers in the evening hours after closing time at the City Gate Bookshop. He walks through the picturesque alleys of the city, delivering the book he specifically chose for each reader. These people are almost like friends to him, and he is their most important connection to the world. 

When the precocious and perceptive nine-year-old Schascha decides to join him on his deliveries, he is powerless against her persistence. As she befriends each of Carl’s customers, she begins to understand the real reasons they prefer to stay inside the safety of their own homes. 

This story is a love letter to books, but also to the power of community. Each person carries their own heavy burdens, but with the help of books, a nine-year-old girl, and each other, they discover friends can lighten their load.

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Ninetysomething Mama Laverne is determined to find all of her great-grandchildren their perfect match before going home to glory. So far, her success rate is 100 percent—and she intends to keep it that way.

After sustaining injuries in Iraq, Chancellor Madaris was told he’d never walk again. Chance credits his great-grandmother Mama Laverne with giving him the will to heal and prove the doctors wrong. He has a healthy respect for her meddling ways and knows he’ll eventually end up next on her matchmaking list.

When Zoey Pritchard was eight, she survived a car accident that took the lives of her mother and father, and was sent to live with her great-aunt who refused to speak about her parents. Zoey has no memory from before the crash, but she’s been having the same dream over and over…

Searching for answers, Zoey travels to Houston, where she uncovers a scandal involving her parents and the wealthy and powerful Madaris family. Her trail leads her straight to Chance’s door. The dislike and intense attraction are instant and simultaneous. But to help Zoey restore her memory, he grudgingly introduces her to his great-grandmother…

Was it chance, or Mama Laverne’s plan, that threw this pair together?

“Three Days in June is like reading a hug.” —Minneapolis Star Tribune

Gail Baines is having a bad day. She loses her job — or quits, depending on whom you ask. Tomorrow her daughter, Debbie, is getting married, and she hasn’t even been invited to the spa day organized by the mother of the groom. Then, Gail’s ex-husband, Max, arrives unannounced on her doorstep, carrying a cat, without a place to stay, and without even a suit.

But the true crisis lands when Debbie shares with her parents a secret she has just learned about her husband to be. It will not only throw the wedding into question but also stir up Gail and Max’s past.

Told with deep sensitivity and a tart sense of humor, this book is full of the joys and heartbreaks of love and marriage and family life.

“Author’s Note: This series is my love letter to every reader who said they wanted to move to a fictional town.”

Hazel Hart was a successful romance novelist until a breakup drives her straight into writer’s block. Desperate for inspiration, Hazel impulse-buys a historic home online and flees Manhattan to tiny Story Lake, PA. Upon her dramatic arrival – involving an incident with a bald eagle – she discovers the charm of her new home may have been slightly exaggerated. Also, since her raccoon-infested home came with a seat on the town council, our introverted heroine is stuck with a front row seat to all the small-town shenanigans.

But Hazel isn’t worried. Not since all six-feet-three inches of grouchy contractor Campbell Bishop slapped a bandage on her forehead and unintentionally inspired the heck out of her. There’s only one thing to do: Hire Cam and his equally gorgeous brothers to renovate her new spider museum…er…house.

Okay two things. A fake date for “research purposes” will really put her work-in-progress on track. Before Hazel knows it, she’s writing a romance novel and living one. At least until the drywall dust settles…because the town she’s falling in love with faces bankruptcy, and growly Cam remembers why he can’t live happily ever after.