Fans of Grey’s Anatomy will love Kimmery Martin’s debut novel, The Queen of Hearts (Berkley), a tale filled with love, lies and medical drama. Zadie, a cardiologist, and Emma, a trauma surgeon, have been best friends since meeting at a summer camp in high school. Fast-forward two decades: The women attended medical school together and now live with their families and practice medicine in Charlotte, N.C. Zadie and Emma are as thick as thieves, each other’s ultimate confidants, but when a man from their past takes a job at Emma’s hospital amid a professional crisis, tension arises between the three, and everything Zadie believes is turned upside down. Martin seamlessly weaves between the present and the past, revisiting the life-changing events that happened during the women’s third year of medical school, when a young and naive Zadie is swept off her feet by Dr. X, her superior (a la Meredith Grey and McDreamy), and Emma is engaged in a serious relationship with a fellow classmate. But when tragedy strikes, Emma retreats and Zadie has her heart broken; events both women have seemingly put behind them until Dr. X resurfaces, along with some deeply hidden secrets. This book has everything you’d expect from a medical drama, including some on-call room shenanigans.

Sophie Kinsella is back with her latest novel, Surprise Me (Penguin Random House), a humorous, honest take on a marriage gone stale. When Sylvie and Dan learn from the doctor that they’re both so healthy they could be together for another 68 years, the couple, celebrating their 10th anniversary, panics. Sylvie and Dan know each other inside and out and finish each other’s sentences, leaving her to wonder if they’ll bore each other for the next 68 years. To keep things exciting, Sylvie decides they should create surprises for each other. At first, the surprises are filled with humor (including a pet snake and boudoir photo shoot gone wrong), but when the surprises unearth some shocking secrets and truths, Sylvie begins to wonder if they knew each other at all. Suddenly, Sylvie is no longer worried about being bored with Dan, but rather is focused on making sure they’ll still be together in 68 years. Meanwhile, a secret cell phone and whispered conversations between Dan and Sylvie’s mom, of whom Dan has never been a fan, begin to push Sylvie to the brink, all while she must handle a work crisis. By trying to incorporate some mystery into their marriage, Sylvie gets nothing but stress, and in the end, she is the only one who ends up surprised. Though fictional, and a tad naive, Sylvie is a relatable character for real women in real marriages and relationships.

Story by Kimberly Dunbar