It's Summer! Time for the Beach Reads

by Donna Huber

Today is officially the first day of summer. You may be skipping the trip to the beach, pool, or lake this summer, but it doesn't mean you have to skip the beach reads. Find a cozy spot in your yard or on your porch and relax for a few hours with one of these books.

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Back in April, I mentioned 5 authors that have large backlists of beach reads. We have since reviewed a few of the new summer releases from those authors. You can check out my reviews of Girls of Summer by Nancy Thayer, The Summer Deal by Jill Shalvis, and The Girl from Widow Hills by Megan Miranda. Susan reviewed Hello, Summer by Mary Kay Andrews.

In addition to those authors, I have discovered a few more perfect beach reads that you don't want to miss this summer. And if you are a Kindle Unlimited subscriber, some of these ebooks will be free to read.

Burning Justice by Marti Green

This isn't what you would typically think of as a "beach read" but I loved reading it in the pool (at my parents' house). It reads really fast - I read all but 2 chapters in one day. The characters are great and the plot is an emotional rollercoaster. To me, these two elements are hallmarks of great beach reads. Read my full review.

Convicted of setting fire to her house and killing her three children, young Texas widow Becky Whitlaw is sentenced to death. Bechy maintains her innocence - even though a part of her worries she may have indeed committed arson during a drunken blackout.

Twenty years later, attorney Dani Trumball works with the Help Innocent Prisoners Project defending cases of the wrongfully convicted. Now living with her husband and two children in California, Dani takes Becky's case, even though the evidence paints a grim picture.

California has been besieged by wildfires, and the raging fires strike dangerously close to home. Dani fights to gather new information that might save Becky's life, while keeping her own family secure, but time is running out.

Getting justice in this case may test not only Dani's legal talents but also the limits of her own heart. (Goodreads)

Buy Burning Justice at Amazon

(The ebook is free for those with a Kindle Unlimited subscription)

Murder on a Mississippi Steamboat by Leighann Dobbs

You know I love cozy mysteries. They are just fun reads and Leighann Dobbs's newest cozy is definitely fun. It has a bonus of being set on a river cruise so if the reader can't take their own trips this summer, they will get to take a great trip in the pages of this book. Check out my full review.

Nora elbowed her way up to the railing and looked down. The paddle wheel was making its last turn, dredging up a mass of turquoise chiffon made almost transparent by the water. A hand, its red lacquered fingernails a contrast to the pale white skin, stuck up from a bejeweled cuff…

A relaxing cruise down the Mississippi on the Miss Delta Belle steamboat turns to tragedy when celebrity Delilah Dove falls from the deck and is swallowed by the river faster than you can say ‘man overboard!’

It’s touted as a tragic accident, but guests Miss Nora Marsh and her wily great-aunt Julia know a murder when they see one. Can they get justice for Delilah and crack the case without alerting the murderer to their suspicions?

As Nora and Julia hunt for clues it emerges that nearly everyone had a reason to want Delilah dead. And that’s bad news for the two sleuths—who want to solve the case pronto, before Mississippi police chief and Aunt Julia’s nemesis Artemis Leonard comes on board at the next port to launch the official investigation. She’s not letting him get the credit if she can help it.

With multiple suspects and a series of mysterious thefts onboard—not to mention the distractingly handsome Max Lawton turning Nora’s head—this is shaping up to be one tough case to crack. What started as a gentle river voyage is far from plain sailing. (Goodreads)

Buy Murder on a Mississippi Steamboat at Amazon

(The ebook is free for Kindle Unlimited subscribers)

The Banty House by Carolyn Brown

I just wanted to sit on my porch and sip lemonade while reading this book. It is another with the hallmarks fo a perfect beach read - characters you will fall in love with and a plot that will tug at the heartstrings. Read my full review.

In the fading town of Rooster, Texas, all that’s really left is a service station, a church…and the Banty House, a long-ago Depression-era brothel. For more than seventy-five years, Betsy, Connie, and Kate Carson have called their mama’s house a home. The three eccentric sisters get by just fine with their homemade jams and jellies, a little moonshine on the side, and big hearts al

ways open to strangers. Like Ginger Andrews.

An abandoned teen with a baby on the way and nowhere to go, she’s given a room to call her own for as long as she wants. The kind invitation is made all the sweeter when Ginger meets the sisters’ young handyman, Sloan Baker. But with a past as broken as Ginger’s, he’s vowed never to get close to anyone again. As a season of change unfolds, Ginger and Sloan might discover a warm haven to heal in the Banty House, a place to finally belong, where hope and dreams never fade. (Goodreads)

Buy The Banty House at Amazon

(The ebook is free for Kindle Unlimited subscribers)

Becoming Mrs. Lewis by Patty Callahan

This is my current pool read. It is interesting and I'm really enjoying getting to know Joy Davidman.

When poet and writer Joy Davidman began writing letters to C. S. Lewis—known as Jack—she was looking for spiritual answers, not love. Love, after all, wasn’t holding together her crumbling marriage. Everything about New Yorker Joy seemed ill-matched for an Oxford don and the beloved writer of Narnia, yet their minds bonded over their letters. Embarking on the adventure of her life, Joy traveled from America to England and back again, facing heartbreak and poverty, discovering friendship and faith, 

and against all odds, finding a love that even the threat of death couldn’t destroy. (Goodreads)

Buy Becoming Mrs. Lewis at Amazon

There are a couple fo beach reads that I keep seeing and I hope I will get to this summer. Are they on your radar too?

Beach Read by Emily Henry

A romance writer who no longer believes in love and a literary writer stuck in a rut engage in a summer-long challenge that may just upend everything they believe about happily ever afters.

Augustus Everett is an acclaimed author of literary fiction. January Andrews writes bestselling romance. When she pens a happily ever after, he kills off his entire cast.

They're polar opposites.

In fact, the only thing they have in common is that for the next three months, they're living in neighboring beach houses, broke, and bogged down with writer's block.

Until, one hazy evening, one thing leads to another and they strike a deal designed to force them out of their creative ruts: Augustus will spend the summer writing something happy, and January will pen the next Great American Novel. She'll take him on field trips worthy of any rom-com montage, and he'll take her to interview surviving members of a backwoods death cult (obviously). Everyone will finish a book and no one will fall in love. Really. (Goodreads)

Buy Beach Read at Amazon

 

28 Summers by Elin Hilderbrand

When Mallory Blessing's son, Link, receives deathbed instructions from his mother to call a number on a slip of paper in her desk drawer, he's not sure what to expect. But he certainly does not expect Jake McCloud to answer. It's the late spring of 2020 and Jake's wife, Ursula DeGournsey, is the frontrunner in the upcoming Presidential election.

There must be a mistake, Link thinks. How do Mallory and Jake know each other?

Flash back to the sweet summer of 1993: Mallory has just inherited a beachfront cottage on Nantucket from her aunt, and she agrees to host her brother's bachelor party. Cooper's friend from college, Jake McCloud, attends, and Jake and Mallory form a bond that will persevere -- through marriage, children, and Ursula's stratospheric political rise -- until Mallory learns she's dying.

Based on the classic film Same Time Next Year (which Mallory and Jake watch every summer), 28 Summers explores the agony and romance of a one-weekend-per-year affair and the dramatic ways this relationship complicates and enriches their lives, and the lives of the people they love. (Goodreads)

Buy 28 Summers at Amazon

What makes a book a perfect beach read for you? What beach reads are on your summer reading list?

Donna Huber is an avid reader and natural encourager. She is the founder of Girl Who Reads and the author of how-to marketing book Secrets to a Successful Blog Tour. 

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