Continuing the 2025 Summer Reading Spectacular, Steve chats with Melanie Sweeney, author of Where You’re Planted, about her experiences with libraries through her life, the inspiration behind Where You’re Planted, her writing process, and how she incorporates intimate scenes with character arcs. And in The Circ Desk segment, Rebecca Vnuk from Library Reads and Yaika Sabat from NoveList offer reading recommendations related to Melanie’s book.

Read the transcript!

From the author of the “phenomenal achievement” (Kirkus) Take Me Home, a children’s librarian must temporarily move her public library into a shed in the county botanic gardens, where her archnemesis is the assistant director.

Single mom Tansy Perkins only has room in her life for her daughter and her library. And maybe the next book to add to her collection. But after a catastrophic hurricane severely damages her library, she’s forced to temporarily move her branch into the adjacent county botanic gardens, where Jack Reid—the world’s grouchiest gardener who rescued her and her daughter from the flood—happens to be the assistant director.

Jack has always preferred plants over people, having  built a strong track record of avoiding relationships ever since his divorce six years ago. So, Tansy and her quirky band of bookish colleagues’ encroachment into his carefully-kept territory is a little more than irksome, especially when it means sharing his already-scarce resources.

When Jack and Tansy are tasked with working together on the spring festival, they have no choice but to call a truce. And soon their newfound professional partnership gives way to a deep intimacy that they’ve both been silently craving. But Tansy has lost too much to risk her heart, and Jack has sworn off real love. When an opportunity arises for funding that both the library and gardens need, will their loyalties lie with the futures they’d always planned for, or the new spark they’ve found with each other?

Melanie Sweeney is the USA Today bestselling author of Take Me Home. She writes contemporary romance in which ordinary people find extraordinary love, and she lives near Houston, Texas, with her husband, three kids, and too many cats. When she’s not writing, she’s figure skating, embroidering, or playing her ukulele.

SHOW NOTES:
Where You’re Planted

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Library Reads

The Circ Desk recommends:
What You Wish For by Katherine Center
Battle of the Bookstores by Ali Brady
Pick-Up by Nora Dalia
A Dash of Salt and Pepper by Kosoko Jackson