“Love, Lists, and Fancy Ships is a delightful love story about setting and settling goals, about the journeys of the heart, and about how you have to let go of the past in order to move forward.  You’ll be rooting for Jo from the first page.”—Jodi Picoult, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Book of Two Ways
 
“This book is a love letter to letting yourself feel your feelings instead of pushing them away, or pushing away those who want to love you through it. Sweet, beachy, and emotional, you will want to read this one with a box of tissues.”—Sarah Hogle, author of Twice Shy
 
“Love, Lists, and Fancy Ships is funny, touching, swoony, and brimming with heart. Sarah Grunder Ruiz writes characters you'll cheer for and fall in love with, and leaves you wanting more.”—Trish Doller, author of *Float Plan

“I laughed, I cried, and I became super invested in Jo's delightfully slow burn romance with the single dad known as Hot Yacht Chef. This is the perfect beach read, as long as your beach bag contains a box of tissues.”*—Kerry Winfrey, author of Very Sincerely Yours***

“Charming and hopeful, with a tenderness that underscores every scene. I adored headstrong, secretly vulnerable Jo, her chaotic teenage nieces, and Hot Yacht Chef, all of them beautifully written, fully realized characters trying to make sense of their own heartbreak. This debut is utterly irresistible—the kind of book that's impossible not to hug to your chest after finishing.”—*Rachel Lynn Solomon, author of The Ex Talk
**
“Sarah Grunder Ruiz’s Love, Lists, and Fancy Ships is a book with enormous heart, and one that balances family grief with truly delightful witty banter. It made me laugh, it made me cry, and it made me swoon from all the delicious pining between Jo and Alex. It’s a wonderful debut, and I can’t wait to read more from her.”—Olivia Dade, author of *Spoiler Alert

• “Sometimes hilarious, sometimes devastating, and always heartwarming, Love, Lists, and Fancy Ships is an amazing debut about picking up the pieces after loss. With a complicated (but ultimately loving) family, fully realized friends, and a very handsome chef, this beautiful book shows how being generous with your heart can help mend it. I loved it!”—Farah Heron, author of Accidentally Engaged
  
  "Filled with charming characters and laugh-out-loud moments."—Woman's World

  "Ruiz captures the complexities of grief and guilt through many different lenses...and tackles them all with sensitivity and skill. Readers are sure to fall for this heartwarming and emotional novel."--**Kirkus (starred review)

  "Ruiz debuts with a touching, hilarious rom-com that finds Florida yacht steward Jo Walker striving to cross 30 items off her bucket list by her 30th birthday...The sunny setting; chaste, endearing romance; and heartwarming themes of familial devotion will leave readers hungry for more from Ruiz."--*Publishers Weekly (starred review)**

• Autorentext

  Sarah Grunder Ruiz

  Klappentext

  Sometimes a yacht, a bold bucket list, and a kiss with a handsome stranger are all a person needs to dive into the deep end of life.

  For the last year, yacht stewardess Jo Walker has been attempting to complete a bucket list of thirty things she wants to accomplish by her thirtieth birthday. Jo has almost everything she's ever wanted, including a condo on the beach (though she's the youngest resident by several decades) and an exciting job (albeit below deck) that lets her travel the world.

  Jo is on track until a family tragedy turns her life upside down, and the list falls by the wayside. But when her two nieces show up unannounced with plans to stay the summer, they discover her list and insist on helping Jo finish it. Though the remaining eight items (which include running a marathon, visiting ten countries, and sleeping in a castle) seem impossible to complete in twelve weeks, Jo takes on the challenge.

  When she summons the courage to complete item number five-kiss a stranger-and meets Alex Hayes, all bets are off. As her feelings for Alex intensify and Jo's inability to confront difficult emotions about her family complicates her relationships, she must learn to quit playing it safe with her heart before she loses what matters most.

  Leseprobe

One

 

The summer I turned thirty started to unravel as soon as it began. It was the last day of charter season, and I was ironing a billionaire's underwear in the laundry room of the Serendipity, the superyacht I'd worked on for the last five years, when Nina called for me over the radio.

 

I set down the iron and unclipped my walkie-talkie from my shorts, kicking aside a pile of dirty sheets from last night's toga party. I'd been on laundry duty all morning, but I didn't mind, seeing as it had gotten me out of earlies-the first shift of the day.

 

"Jo?" the radio called again. "This is Nina. Do you copy?"

 

I rolled my eyes, glad she couldn't see me. I knew Nina was worried, given everything that had happened, but she could at least give me a second to respond.

 

"Go for Jo," I sang into the walkie-talkie.

 

"We need you in the galley."

 

"Copy that."

 

I clipped my radio to my shorts and turned off the iron. Off the boat, Nina was my best friend, but on it she was chief stewardess, aka my boss, meaning she made my life alternately fun and miserable. But over the last three months, ever since the accident, she'd been softer on me, letting me out of earlies because mornings were hardest, not complaining as much as she normally would when I missed a water spot on the faucet in the master bathroom. I was appreciative, but the special treatment made me uncomfortable, and I didn't like how she kept checking up on me. She'd corner me in the crew mess or pass me a drink in a Bahamian bar and ask how I was holding up. Fine, I always said, taking a long pull of whatever tropical concoction she'd ordered for me. Was I fine? Nope. Not even close. But that didn't mean I wanted to talk about it, not even with Nina.

 

Other than the week I'd gone to my sister's house in North Carolina, the last four months of my life had been back-to-back charters in the Bahamas. Every week the cycle repeated: pick up the guests, cater to their whims-including ironing their ridiculously expensive underwear (we'd googled the brand; who seriously spends $165 on a pair of briefs?!)-drop the guests back at port, flip the boat, enjoy a well-deserved night off, pick up the next guests. It was chaotic, and exhausting, and exactly what I needed. Out here in the middle of the ocean, I could pretend my real life, the one where I drove a car and wore shoes and lived alone, was on hold. But even I had to admit the cabin fever was starting to get to me.

 

Before Nina could radio me again, I raced up to the main deck and pushed through the galley doors where, as always, chaos was waiting for me.

 

"There you are!" Nina called, a wrinkle of concern on her brow. She sat at a small table, her fingers nimbly folding a mound of cloth napkins into little sailboats. "We have a beach picnic, remember?"

 

Beside the pantry stood Britt, third stewardess and my painfully messy bunkmate. Her curly hair shook as she dug through a plastic bin of decor, piling dried starfish, delicate sand dollars, and seashells at her feet. Once I'd asked her how she could be a stewardess and such a slob at the same time. We were essentially maids on fancy boats, after all. Britt replied that she spent so much time cleaning up after other people, she had no energy to pick up after herself.

 

"Fecking beach picnic," Ollie, the Ser…