Welcome to our Ten Book Challenge where our favorite authors share 10 of their most beloved and memorable reads—from the books with their favorite covers and best opening lines, to the reads they gift and the bookstores they frequent. This is a peek into your favorite authors’ perfect bowl of literary comfort food. We hope you discover something delicious! 

November Guest Editor Allison Winn Scotch is beloved in the contemporary fiction world, and many of the New York Times best-selling author’s books—think Time of My Life and Cleo McDougal Regrets Nothing—pepper many SheReads’ must-read lists. But her debut romance novel The Rewind, described as When Harry Met Sally meets The Hangover, is hitting the #TBR pile of just about everyone we know. Packed full of nineties nostalgia and pop culture references, this charming contemporary romance that takes place on New Years Eve hits all the right notes—just in time for our New Year’s Eve.

Ten years ago, college sweethearts Frankie and Ezra broke up right before graduation. Now, on the eve of Y2K, they’re see each other for the first time since for the wedding of a mutual friend on their former snowy New England campus. The next morning they wake up in bed together, hungover, no memory of the night before—and they’re wearing wedding rings. With no idea how they got there, Frankie and Ezra must trace back their steps and piece together the forgotten night, while the reader discovers the reasons behind the relationship’s messy first ending. But what if they got it wrong the first time? This second-chance, dual-perspective, scavenger hunt romance is a laugh-out-loud story of first loves and second chances.

The Book I…

I last bought/am currently reading: The Roughest Draft by Austin Siegemund-Broka and Emily Wibberley

I recommend to everyone: Recently, it’s been Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus

That was my favorite to read last year, and why: Oh boy, impossible. But two very different reads that come to mind are Hail Mary by Andy Weir and Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt, both for their imaginative plots and characters. I adored them both so much.

Whose author I would love to have lunch with: Since this is make-believe, can I say Agatha Christie? I was obsessed with her books in my youth.

That made me realize language had power: This would have to be early Stephen King for me. I inhaled them all around my middle school years, and the way that his voice would clang around me for days to come really taught me a lesson in story-telling and language.

I’d like to see adapted to the screen: Recursion by Blake Crouse. Absolutely brilliant.

That made me laugh out loud—or cry—while reading it: I recently read The Spanish Love Deception, and when I tell you that I was flat-out giggling in bed to myself, I speak the truth. The Ex-Talk by Rachel Lynn Solomon also had me doing the same.

That has the most gorgeous cover: The one that made me gasp most recently is Rebecca Makkai’s new one: I Have Some Questions for You. I immediately ran to NetGalley and requested a copy.

With the best opening line: The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett: “The morning one of the lost twins returned to Mallard, Lou LeBon ran to the diner to break the news, and even now, many years later, everyone remembers the shock of sweaty Lou pushing through the glass doors, chest heaving, neckline darkened with his own effort.” (Also a book I recommend to everyone.)

Bookstore that I frequent/is my favorite: Diesel Books in Los Angeles!

Don’t miss our exclusive interview with Allison Winn Scotch on  the importance of 1999 and which one of her books is finally hitting the big screen first.