Yessiree, it’s summer time, when people are supposed to be vacationing and reading on the beach or the porch. For your reading enjoyment, today we’re sharing some of the books we’ve read and enjoyed. Try some. You might like them, too. (And admire us for restraining ourselves and not suggesting our own books. You should read them, too.)
Kate Flora: We have a little library outside our house, a gift from niece Sara Beth and her husband Russ. Mostly, it’s to share books we want to get out of the house that others might enjoy, and for the neighbors to do the same. Sometimes, though, I find books that sound like fun. One of these was a book called Lunch in Paris: A Love Story with recipes by Elizabeth Bard. Really fun read about a young American in Paris who falls in love, stays, and learns the culture. And yes, with recipes, many of which you might want to try. Then there’s The Comfort of Crows by Margaret Renkl. Many of you may be familiar with her columns in the New York Times. I frequently blog about the important of observation and noticing the world around us. She does this beautifully in this collection.
Kaitlyn Dunnett/Kathy Lynn Emerson: I have two recommendations this time around, one futuristic and one historical and both full of interesting characters and plot twists. The first is Jayne Castle’s Enter the Nightmare, a title that might sound off-putting but which combines mystery, adventure, a dollop of paranormal, a setting the the distant future on another planet, and . . . dust bunnies. They are a bit hard to describe, but let’s just say Castle goes above and beyond having a cat or a dog as a character’s companion. Second is the new Patricia Rice historical, The Killer’s Dastardly Intrigue. Set in England in the nineteenth century and just out today, it is the latest in a series set in a rural village that is all but deserted but comes back to life a little more with each book. It’s probably best to began with The Secrets of Wycliffe Manor but if you enjoy seeing characters develop and interact (and solve mysteries and hunt for treasure) through numerous volumes, you’ll soon be reading all of them.
Matt Cost: What are beach reads? As far as I can tell, all you need is a beach and a book. Here are some of my recommendations for doing just that.
Antihero by Gregg Hurwitz takes us from the East Coast to the West Coast, so I suppose that qualifies as beach reading. At the center of it is a brutal rape (beware) that makes it so much more satisfying as Evan Smoak, known as Orphan X and the Nowhere Man (he has more aliases than Max Creed), saves the woman and tries to exact justice while following her strict instructions on forgiveness. It is a pulse-pounding read that twists your insides and then unravels you piece by piece.
Those Who Choose Evil by Kate Flora is book 9 in the Joe Burgess series and follows a similar script of Joe finding an abused teenage girl, which sets him off to find the perpetrators and others potentially in grave danger. As always, the characters are rich, flawed, and multi-layered. The action is fast and dizzying, the relationships ebb and flow like the tide, and there is even a hero dog.
6 Days by Jule Selbo takes place up the coast of Maine, mostly, as it follows Dee Rommel as she investigates a maternity suit against a wealthy heiress that may or may not be bogus, but quickly traps the reader into turning the pages faster and faster to find out. The Maine setting is as rich as a double-chocolate cheesecake, the characters are as complex as DNA, and the plot weaves a tapestry of beauty and precision.
What Happened Next by Edwin Hill takes us to a lake in New Hampshire, where Charlie Kilgore bounces between the past and the present as he tries to solve the current mysterious happenings by understanding why, twenty-five years earlier, his father killed another man and left his mother badly wounded. Focused on creating a true crime podcast about that incident, he is reminded that many people don’t want the past dredged up.
John Clark: How about some mind candy in series. I discovered J.B. Turner’s books by accident and have read most of them since, while they’re a bit formulaic, there’s lots of action, they read fast, and the protagonist has a place in Rockland. There are three series in all, with the Hard books being predominant.
Rob Kelley: My favorite beach reads aren’t crime or thrillers usually. I read those fairly consistently throughout the year. What I turn to is the genre that was my childhood love: SF. Over one vacation a few years ago, I devoured the entire Lois McMaster Bujold Miles Vorkosigan series. It’s a well-written swashbuckling space opera and I absolutely burned through those books (and have reread them).
Another series in a similar vein is David Webber’s Honor Harrington series. They are, quite intentionally, a space opera rewrite of C.S. Forrester’s Napoleanic-era Horatio Hornblower books.
I deeply enjoyed the Expanse series by the duo writing under the pen name James S. A. Corey. It’s another wide-ranging space opera, though one far more focused on power and politics. (Set in much the same thematic direction as Ian Banks’ Culture novels.)
Finally I’ll give a hearty shout-out to one of the most innovative and hysterically funny writers working in SF today: John Scalzi. His Old Man’s War series not infrequently had me laughing out loud while reading. The books are great space adventure stories but with very personal and poignant portrayals of characters who have to face existential dangers. Can’t recommend his work highly enough if you read in this genre, or just need a good laugh.
