Time To Refill Your Beach Reads

Reprinted from auburnpub.com:

Time to Refill Your Beach Reads

Summer is going by much too fast and it’s time again to refill your beach reads. I’ve got some wonderful suggestions for you to toss in your beach bag as you head out on vacation or just to your front porch.

Kate Quinn’s WWII historical novels are popular (The Alice Network,The Rose Code). Her new novel The Briar Club takes place during the Cold War. Set in a boarding house in Washington D.C. run by an unpleasant widow and her teenage son, the story begins with two dead bodies in the house. 

We flash back and forth in time as the story is told by the women who rent rooms in the house. Each of the women have secrets they don’t want known, and each of their stories are intriguing. Quinn does a remarkable job keeping each woman’s voice distinct as they band together through the dramatic climax. Quinn is in top form here.

Liz Moore’s new mystery novel The God of The Woods also tells a story from differing points of view. When thirteen year-old Barbara Van Laar goes missing from her Adirondack summer camp, people fear that it is a repeat of an incident from fourteen years ago- her nine year-old brother disappeared from the same area, never to be found. 

Like Kate Quinn’s book, the story shifts back and forth in times, and Moore does a masterful job keeping everything straight in the reader’s mind with chapter headings that indicate the timeline. The story is propulsive, and the reader feels dropped right into the Adirondack camp. Although this book is almost 500 pages, you’ll fly through it as you wait to discover what happened to Barbara- and her brother.

For something on the lighter side, take a trip to Italy in Steven Rowley’s The Guncle Abroad. Five years later we meet with our friends from the delightful The Guncle. Patrick’s resumed his acting career, and he is charged with accompanying his young niece and nephew to Italy where their widowed father is marrying a wealthy heiress.

The children want Patrick to convince their father not to get married, and Patrick is stuck in the middle- and unhappy that the children have taken a shine to their oh-so-cool future step-aunt. Once again the humor and love shine in this delightful story, and it had me laughing out loud at Patrick’s caustic comments. 

Kirsten Miller’s Lula Dean’s Little Library of Banned Books also has humor at its core, albeit a more satirical type. Lula Dean is determined to make a name for herself by starting a  campaign to rid her small Southern town of “inappropriate” books from the public library. (The fact that the town’s librarian Beverly is her archenemy has nothing to do with it.)

Lula opens a Little Library in her front yard and fills it with wholesome books from her own library for people to read. Unbeknownst to her, Beverly’s daughter has been swapping out Lula’s books for books on the “banned list”, but putting the covers from Lula’s books on the banned books. Now when people choose one of Lula’s books, they are getting something very different. 

Lula is thrilled with the popularity of her Little Library, and the people of the town are changed in profound and delightful ways as they read books that expand their minds and souls. This one is a funny and timely read.

For nonfiction fans, Sloane Crosley’s memoir Grief Is For People tells the story of two events that changed Sloane deeply. First, she returns to her New York City apartment to discover that someone has broken in and stolen her jewelry. Sloane becomes obsessed with trying to discover who stole her jewelry, going to extreme lengths to get answers. 

One month later, her former boss, mentor, and good friend goes into his barn and hangs himself. Sloane is devastated by this, and shares the story of her relationship with her friend over the years, looking for answers as to what happened to him.

Her writing is piercing and moving, and she makes us feel like we knew her friend almost as well as she did, sharing his idiosyncrasies in vivid style.

Fans of yacht rock music will enjoy Michael McDonald’s memoir What a Fool Believes, co-written with his friend, actor Paul Reiser. McDonald is best known for being an intregal member of the Doobie Brothers, but his journey through the music scene of the 70s and 80s is so much more, and a terrific and sometimes terrifying, ride to take with him. 

Enjoy the rest of summer, may it slow down.

The Backtrack by Erin La Rosa

The Backtrack by Erin LaRosa

Published by Canary Street Press ISBN 9781335009456

Trade paperback, $18.99, 304 pages

From the publisher:

ABOUT THE BOOK:

From the author of FOR BUTTER OR WORSE and PLOT TWIST comes a new speculative contemporary romance. One woman is sucked into the past—and shown glimpses of what her life could have been—as she listens to nostalgic hits on her old CD player. For fans of Rebecca Serle and Allison Winn Scotch.

When pilot Sam Leto jet-setted out of small town Georgia, she promised she’d never be back—even though it meant leaving behind her best friend, Damon Rocha. Now on a forced vacation home to pack up her childhood house (and help her injured grandmother), Sam is unexpectedly hit with nostalgia from her teens--especially her bedroom, perfectly preserved from the time she left all those years ago. Sam discovers an old CD player among her teenage possessions, and in listening to the burned disc inside, she receives flashbacks from her past life--senior prom, graduation, leaving home. But the memories aren't as she remembers them. They show an alternate past. What could have been. If she never left Georgia all those years ago, would she now have the life (and love) she always wanted for herself?

My Thoughts:

I liked that Sam has an unusual occupation- she's a pilot who flies international routes. We don't see that often in romance novels. Sam and her in-flight crew play the "What If" game with passengers. They seat people together that they believe will make a connection- friendship or romantic- and see if anything develops.

When Sam's old CD player from high school plays a disc her marching bandmate and best friend-wannabe-boyfriend Damon gave her, she sees snippets of an alternate life she could have led- the ultimate "What If" game. It begins with the night that changed everything: the night Damon asked to kiss Sam and she said no.

In Sam's alternate past, she says yes and each song on the disc plays out a different incident related to the song and her life. Sam writes down what happens in each incident and tries to piece together what it could possibly mean.

Now that Sam is back in the hometown she ran away from after high school, she has to face Damon as she cares for her sassy grandmother. (I love a good sassy grandmother!) Does Sam have romantic feelings for Damon and does he still feel the same for her? If so, what do they do about it?

The Backtrack brings the reader back to their own high school days, and I'm guessing many will relate to the outsider status that Sam and Damon shared. It creates a nostalgic feeling in the reader, and readers may reflect on their own "What If" moments from that time.

Anyone who came of age in the 2000's will truly enjoy all the music references, and there is a playlist at the end of the book.

I enjoyed the nostalgic aspects of the story, and the romance of the guy-she-got-away-from is well-done. While I don't usually look for magical aspects in a story, I found this one intriguing. I recommend The Backtrack.

Thanks to Harlequin for putting me on their Summer 2024 Blog Tour.

Beat the heat with two great reads

Reprinted from auburnpub.com:

Summer is in full swing and this month’s Book Report has two books to beat the heat.

We last heard from Jane L. Rosen with her wonderful novel On Fire Island, which made my list of the Most Compelling Books of 2023. In it, we met young widower Ben grieving the tragic loss of his wife. His older neighbor Shep, a widower himself, helps Ben navigate his new life, and Ben in turn takes a teen neighbor under his wing. (She is one of my all-time favorite characters.)

Rosen returns to the same Fire Island community with Seven Summer Weekends. Addison is poised to become the first female head of the art department at a prestigious Manhattan advertising agency when she accidentally sends a message to everyone in a Zoom that ends her career. 

When an aunt that Addison hasn’t seen in years passes away, she leaves Addison her Fire Island home. Addison goes to Fire Island to regroup, and plans to sell the house to tide her over until she can find a new job.

There’s one catch though- the guest house on the property is booked throughout the summer so Addison can’t sell the home until the fall. And the hot neighbor guy tells Addison that her aunt promised him that he could buy the house for a very reasonable price.

It turns out the neighbor is Ben, the young widower from On Fire Island. Ben and Addison have a push-pull relationship- one moment Addison is very attracted to him, the next he does something that makes her rethink her friendship with him.

Addison discovers that each of the weekly guests have a connection to her aunt, and through them she learns more about the aunt she never knew due to a family feud between her parents and her aunt. As the summer goes on, Addison becomes more involved in the Fire Island community and questions her future- should she stay or sell?

I loved Seven Summer Weekends just as much as On Fire Island, and that is a lot. The characters are interesting (Shep makes an appearance!), and Rosen’s writing is filled humor, heart, and even some steamy heat. I'd like to take the ferry to Fire Island and hang out with Addison, Ben, and the gang. I give it my highest recommendation. 

Francis S. Barry decided to buy a Winnebago during the pandemic and take off with his wife Laurel to follow the Lincoln Highway from New York City to San Francisco. He recounts their adventures in Back Roads and Better Angels- A Journey Into The Heart Of American Democracy. 

Barry, a writer for Bloomberg News, previously served in Michael Bloomberg’s administration as chief speechwriter when Bloomberg was mayor of New York City.  Dismayed by the rancor and political division he sees today in this country, he wanted to discover what people really thought about what was happening.

The fact that neither Barry nor his wife had ever driven a Winnebago didn’t damper their enthusiasm, and they had their fair share of mishaps (including a toilet pedal that continuously malfunctioned).

As they travel the country, they camp in KOAs and Walmart parking lots and meet up with people they know and those they don’t know. They stop at historic sites and find more places named Lincoln than you might think could possibly exist.

One learns a great deal about history that you’d never find in history books, particularly with regards to Native American people. Some of it is incredibly disturbing, and made me gasp at the callous inhumanity people inflicted on each other.

Barry ties the Lincoln Highway sites, as well as the state of the country today, to events and words spoken by Abraham Lincoln himself. He clearly studied our 16th President and gives him his due, showing Lincoln as the politician, man, and leader he truly was.

The one question Barry asks each person he meets is “What binds us together as Americans?”. The answers given are often profound, thought-provoking, and shine a light on where we are today as well as where we'd like to be.

Barry meets a politician in Nebraska who explains how the state legislature has the reputation as “one of the most civil and cooperative in the nation” because political parties are less relevant there. People work together in common cause to make government work better for all. Perhaps that is the most important export Nebraska has to share with the rest of the country.

Anyone who likes to read road trip stories and has an interest in history and Abraham Lincoln will get great pleasure and learn much from Back Roads and Better Angels. It is essential reading for all citizens, I give it my highest recommendation.

Seven Summer Weekends by Jane L. Rosen- A+

Published by Berkley

Trade paperback, $19, 302 pages

Back Roads and Better Angels by Francis S. Barry- A+

Published by SteerForth Press

Hardcover, $35, 552 pages