I’ve read widely so far this year: some YA, a couple memoirs, even a holiday romance. But nothing that has blown me away—not in the sense that I held the book to my chest once I was finished, the way I have in the past.

When I finished reading Five Tuesdays in Winter by Lily King, a little disappointed compared to how I felt after fawning all over Writers & Lovers in 2020, I knew that what I read next needed to make me feel a specific way. I needed to read something I knew I would love. And s...